No Longer Mine… Just a few weeks away

I’m going to be doing a contest for the release of this book…kind of a big one, especially for an ebook.  Even if you’ve already bought it, you might wanna think about buying it again-buying it gets you multiple entries, and this is a nice prize… The contest will be open across the globe and it won’t matter to me if you buy it through Samhain’s store, Amazon, the Nook store, Sony…as long as it’s a legit etailer and you follow the contest rules.  And did I mention…it’s a nice prize.

No Longer Mine has been revised-a lot.  Re-edited.  A lot.  I think it’s a better, cleaner read this time around.  And pretty, pretty new cover… *G*

And to help count down the days, I’ll be posting some excerpts between now and release day, 4/27/10

No Longer Mine

As she went to turn the cart around she promptly ran into somebody else’s.

“Damn it,” she muttered, but her voice was lost under the sound of baskets crashing together and groceries tumbling to the floor.

A sheepish smile crossed her face and she said, “Sorry about that.” She would hit somebody whose cart was beyond full. Kneeling, she picked up a carton of cookies and Donald Duck orange juice. She placed them in the basket before stepping away.

The guy had knelt in front of a dark child of four or five, his face hidden as he scooped up items from the floor.

“No problem,” he said, although his voice belied his words. He sounded a tad—okay, he sounded a lot irritated.

Nikki was about to make a quick getaway, but then he stood up. And revealed his face.

A very familiar face, one that haunted her dreams on a regular basis. His hair was shorter, cut at his nape, and his face had thinned out just a bit, the dimples at the corners of his mouth now slashes in his lean cheeks. But the eyes were the same, deep bottomless pools of brown velvet

“Wade,” she whispered. Her eyes, stricken, then landed on the child’s face. A little girl, a little mirror of her father.

And of Nikki’s son. She wore a red T-shirt decorated on the front with a sketch of a bright-eyed puppy. A baseball cap in that same candy-apple red sat on top of thick black hair that fell razor-straight to her tiny shoulders. She held a stuffed cocker spaniel, a mirror image of the way Jason had carried his precious Mouse.

A knife slowly imbedded itself in Nikki’s heart, started to twist.

For a moment his face was blank, and then his eyes narrowed. She was unable to move as he slowly reached up and tugged her sunglasses off.

“Nikki,” he breathed, his eyes lighting as though from within.

He took a step closer, and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.

That gentle touch shattered her like glass.
~*~

For those who aren’t aware… No Longer Mine was previously reissued.  The publisher went out of business and the rights reverted back to me some time after.  It’s been out of print for a while now.  It’s actually the first romance I’d ever written.