Your First Glimpse of The Husband Games
So The Husband Games and I are having some issues, but we’ve agreed to seek counseling to get it all worked out. I want to give you guys the best book I’m capable of producing, and I think we’re finally on the right track.
That means I have some deleted and modified-almost-beyond-recognition scenes lurking on my hard drive.
Anybody want to see? Yes?
Then scroll on down for your first glimpse!
(And then stop by my new monthly contest page and enter to win a signed copy of Southern Fried Blues!)
From The Husband Games:
CJ left the men to their gossiping and delivered a basket of jalapeño poppers to a little clique that looked like a sorority reunion at one end of the bar, then slid over to Georgie, the remarkable organist and choir director for St. Valentine’s. CJ had had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday morning after going to investigate the sounds of cats being murdered in the church.
Despite her unique talent on the organ, Georgie was a decent sort. She was slender but broad-shouldered, with glasses that she spent more time wiping than wearing. “Hungry, or just thirsty?” he asked her.
“Still deciding.”
A clean-faced girl with a white glob stuck in her curly dishwater hair slid onto the next stool. She looked sort of familiar, though he couldn’t quite place her. Georgie gave her a wincing kind of smile. “Uh, Kimmie…” Georgie fluffed her own tangled brown hair.
It took Kimmie another hint or two before her hair flew to her head. “Oh, pumplegunker.”
Eleven sisters, and he’d never heard that one before. He slid her a napkin. “What can I get you?”
A pink stain spread unevenly up her cheeks, looking almost like a sideways map of Africa on her face. While her fingers worked the goo, she cast a covert glance at the door, then flashed an awkward smile back at him. “I had a dream about you last night,” she said. “You were a llama, but I still knew it was you. You had your name on your trunk.”
And another something none of his sisters had ever said to him.
Pretty sure that was something no human had ever said before. Been a while since anyone had rendered him this kind of speechless.
Georgie slid her glasses back up her nose. “Like a luggage trunk, or an elephant’s trunk?”
“Elephant’s trunk.” Kimmie’s pulled a blob out of her hair and smeared it across the napkin.
CJ scratched his jaw. “Huh.”
“Not that I think you have a big nose,” she said quickly. “Or that anyone would mind if you did. I mean, a person’s more than the size of their nose, right?”
Both women peered over the bar at his crotch, Georgie with more contemplation than he expected of a Catholic organist.
“Size of a person’s heart counts for more,” Jeremy said. He strolled past CJ and grabbed the soda gun.
“Big hearts are important,” CJ agreed. “You ladies know what you want to drink yet?”
“I’ve heard the size of a person’s thumb is a good indicator of their intelligence,” Georgie said.
“I thought it was the size of a person’s chin.”
“No, that’s how you can tell if they’re cheaters or not.”
This, at least, was somewhat familiar. A bunch of women, not making any sense, not answering the question they’d been asked.
But now they were staring at his chin.
Time to go move onto other customers. Really was. “Beer? Soda?” CJ said. “Fried cheese sticks?”
Georgie shot another look at his crotch. “Depends on the size of the cheese stick.”
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(FYI – Kimmie’s getting her own book, The Wedding Games. So now you’ll know who I’m talking about when I say Kimmie’s story is giving me fits. And poor Georgie has been cut from The Husband Games entirely, but she’s still alive and well in Bliss. Don’t be surprised if she shows up again at some point.)
