Coming up in August of 2015 is All Wound Up, the next book in the Play-By-Play series, which features Tucker Cassidy, one of Grant’s brothers. Tucker’s got his hands full with Aubry Ross, daughter of Clyde Ross, the St. Louis Rivers baseball team owner. You met Aubry briefly in Changing the Game. She’s been in medical school, and she’s busy enough with her residency and doesn’t have time to play games with a hotshot pitcher. The sparks fly between these two, though, and I hope you enjoy the excerpt from All Wound Up included here.
Also coming up next in my Hope contemporary romance series is Love After All, releasing in April 2015. Love After All is Chelsea and Bash’s story. Chelsea’s looking for the perfect man, and to land him, she’s compiled a top-ten list of the things she’s looking for in a man. Bash doesn’t fit the criteria, but the chemistry between them is explosive. Can a man who doesn’t match her list be the perfect man for her after all? I hope you enjoy a peek into Chelsea and Bash’s story with the Love After All excerpt included here.
Happy reading,
Jaci
CHELSEA GARDNER SAT AT THE NO HOPE AT ALL BAR, waiting for her friends.
While she waited, she got out her notebook and doodled.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t doodling. She was on a mission.
The ten-point list made perfect sense to her. She’d fine-tuned it, but really, she’d had this list in her head for a while now, and decided it was time to memorialize it, get it down on paper. Maybe even laminate it.
Chelsea was thirty-two years old, and the one thing she knew and knew well was men. She had years of dating history, and she could weed out a decent man from a loser in the first fifteen minutes of a date.
She should write a book about it. She’d probably make millions.
Okay, in reality, maybe not. But she had a lot of experience in dating. She could offer up some valuable advice. At least advice on how to date the wrong man.
Hence the list.
Her list would ensure she found the right man—finally. She was tired of going out on useless dates. From now on, she was going to ask the correct questions, so she wouldn’t waste any more time on the wrong man. If a prospective date didn’t possess each and every one of the listed qualities, then he wasn’t the perfect man for her.
Her list wasn’t going to focus on personality traits. She already knew in her head the type of guy she wanted—warm, caring, compassionate, with a sense of humor. If he didn’t possess those basics, he’d be out of the running before they even got started. And those she could suss out right away without a list. Nor did she have a preference for looks. No, this list was compatibility based. That’s where she’d run into roadblocks in the past and where she was going to focus her efforts in the future.
She scanned her list, nodding as she ticked off the attributes in her head.
Never married.
Has to be a suit-and-tie kind of guy, because it means he cares about his appearance.
Has to work a 9-to-5 job, so he’ll be available for her.
No crazy ex-girlfriends.
Likes fine dining and good wine.
Hates sports. Everything about sports.
Must want at least two kids.
Must love animals—preferably big dogs, not those yippy little dogs.
Doesn’t spend all his time at the bar with his friends.
Idea of a perfect weekend getaway is somewhere warm and tropical. With room service.
She studied the list, tapping the pencil on the bar top.
“You look deep in thought.”
Her head shot up as Sebastian “Bash” Palmer, the owner of the bar, stood in front of her.
Talk about the wrong guy.
“I’m … working on something.”
He cocked a dark brow. “Yeah? I noticed you busy writing. Grocery list?”
“Funny. And no.”
He leaned over, trying to sneak a peek. “The perfect—”
She shut the notebook. “None of your business.”
He laid the rag on the bar. “Hmm. The perfect something. The perfect steak. That was it, wasn’t it? You’ve got some secret recipe for the perfect steak. That’s the way to a man’s heart, you know.”
“You think I’d be trying to capture a man by cooking. Well, you’re wrong.”
He laid his palms on the edge of the bar. “So, it does have something to do with a guy, doesn’t it?”
She refused to take the bait. “I didn’t say that.”
A couple guys came into the bar and took a seat.
“We’re not done talking about this,” he said, his stormy gray eyes making contact with hers before he walked away.
Oh, they were so done talking about it.
Typical Bash, always up in her business.
And he was definitely the wrong type of man for her.
While Bash attended to his customers, she opened the notebook and checked her list.
Yes, Bash was the perfect example of the wrong type of guy. She mentally ticked off all the items on her list that he didn’t fit.
He was divorced. And he was a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of guy. And while he might look super hot in said jeans and T-shirt, it still counted against him.