New Release: All Mine (Tales of the Highwaymen 3)

All Mine, the final volume in my Tales of the Highwaymen trilogy, is here! I'm very excited to give Theodore a happy ending, as he's been through quite a lot in the first two books.

Blurb:

Theodore has already been disappointed in love twice, and he isn’t looking for any more heartache. So when the handsome Nicholas, who happens to be suffering under a curse placed by Theodore’s mischievous godmother, informs Theodore that his love is the only cure, Theodore refuses to believe it. But Nicholas knows from their very first kiss that Theodore is the man for him. He isn’t going to give up until he convinces Theodore their love is what they’ve both spent years longing for.

Excerpt:

Theodore ignored Gerard and Jacob as he ran out of the house. He’d explain everything to them once he knew what was going on himself.

“I have to do what?” he yelled at Nicholas as he caught up with him.

Nicholas turned a flirtatious smile his way. “Fall in love with me.” He shrugged. “I’m not worried, given the way you responded to that kiss.” He winked and raked his dark hair off his forehead.

“Having a physical reaction to a kiss and falling in love with someone are not in the same league at all.” Theodore struggled to catch his breath. “You’re being far too flippant about this. I can’t believe that’s the only way.”

“Go ask your godmother, if you can get her to stay in one place long enough.” Nicholas stopped and took several deep breaths. “It’s wonderful to be outside again. Do I need to explain it all one more time?”

Theodore glared at him.

“My, that’s a serious look. All right, here it is. I rejected your dear godmother Maeva because I don’t like women. At all, in case that kiss didn’t drive the point home. She got angry, and I told her to stop haunting me. That only made things worse, so she turned me into a ghost, as she put it, though really she simply took away my body and bound me to the house. Pretty sure you do have to die to be a ghost, but arguing the point probably would have resulted in my real death, so I let it go.” He paused, stretching his arms over his head, and then linked his hands on the back of his neck. “With me?”

Theodore nodded curtly.

“So, she bound me to the lovely family estate.” He unlinked his fingers and gestured to the manor behind them. “My family fled in terror.” He laughed. “And she’s right. I should thank her because we did hate each other. Most of the time, anyway. I was alone, just sort of floating around, until Gerard moved in. Then, the waiting began. But that’s over now.”

“You think so?”

“She told me I would regain my life when the right man came along. Touching him long enough would restore my body, which is why I held on so tight. Couldn’t have you getting away until you could at least see me. His kiss would free me from my prison here.” He took two steps closer, lowering his voice. “And his love will restore my life completely.” He held up his wrist, revealing a tattoo of a black heart.

“What’s that?”

“The mark of her curse. I’ll know it’s lifted when this mark disappears.”

“You’re free from the house now, but you said inside you were bound to me as a result.”

He nodded with a grin. “Indeed. Have to keep touching you to stay solid and warm, and if you roam too far I’ll find you eventually. So you’re stuck with me.”

“Like hell I am!”

Nicholas put his hand on Theodore’s shoulder. “You don’t get it, do you? I am literally bound to you. You can’t get away from me. You could be miles away, but I’d be able to come to you with a thought. We’re connected now.”

Theodore swatted his hand away. “And what gave you the right to drag me into this?”

Nicholas looked annoyed for a moment, but he soon smiled again. “You aren’t flattered? I only get one chance at this. If you don’t love me, I’ll be in this limbo until you die, and then I’ll die, too.”

“No, I’m not flattered. Not in the slightest.” Theodore actually was flattered the handsome, sexy man who kissed like a devil and an angel in the same breath wanted him, but his anger at being dragged into his godmother’s curse made that easy to ignore, at least for the moment. He didn’t know how long his resolve could truly last against the silver-tongued charmer and his dark, flashing eyes.

“You have the most beautiful blue eyes,” Nicholas said.

Theodore jerked to attention and realized he’d been staring for quite some time. His face flamed as he turned away.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve been watching you ever since that day I saw you staring at my portrait and recognized you. I think we met at the palace a couple of times. I like your hair shorter.” He reached out and toyed with a blond strand. “You seem different now.”

Theodore stepped out of his reach, waving his hand away but not looking at him. “I’ve been through a lot.” Why did the man have to keep touching him? He groaned inwardly when he realized the circumstances of the curse were only going to make Nicholas’s flirtatious and clingy behavior worse.

Buy Links:

Evernight Publishing
Amazon
Bookstrand
All Romance eBooks
Rainbow eBooks

New Release: Your Money or Your Life (Tales of the Highwaymen, 2)

The second story in my Tales of the Highwaymen series is here!

Here's the blurb and a little snippet. Buy links are below if it captures your interest. All Mine, the trilogy's conclusion, will be out January 30.

When Jacob fell moving a portrait in the museum where he worked, he was worried about damaging it. He never imagined he would fall into it and wake up in another dimension. Though his day does start to improve when a sexy masked man rides to his rescue…

Gerard thought his friends Adam and Eloise would be the enchanted portrait’s only victims, but when he finds a gorgeous but bewildered young man wandering in the woods, he realizes how wrong he was. Now he has to enlist the help of a man he can’t stand to put a stop to the magic, even though he’d much rather be spending that time in the arms of the sexy man now sharing his home.

Excerpt:

Jacob sat alone outside the manor house that, it seemed, served as Gerard’s headquarters and hideaway. Adam and Eloise walked along the path by the little pond in front of it, trying to be casual but failing. They both kept sneaking glances at him, as if to make sure he hadn’t had a nervous breakdown or tried to run away. Jacob looked to the road again, wondering when Gerard would come back. No one had passed by since they’d come outside. He felt drawn to Gerard in a way he’d never experienced before. The attraction had seemed mutual, though most of his day had been a bit of a blur. He might have imagined it.

One moment, he’d been in the museum helping to move a painting of an unknown eighteenth-century gentleman so that some water damage in the wall could be repaired. The next moment, he’d tripped and hit his head on the marble banister, and he and the painting had gone tumbling down the stairs. Instead of landing at the bottom, he’d landed in a pile of hay and hit his head a second time. Then, there had been nothing but darkness.

He’d woken up alone in a barn with a pounding headache. Gerard found him hours later, though he had no idea how many. He’d only known one thing in that moment: his life as he knew it had been turned upside down, twice. First, he awoke in a strange place with no knowledge of where he was or how he got there, and then a devastatingly gorgeous masked man in a flowing black cloak had come riding up to him on a horse. And what had he done when this dashing man had come to his rescue, swinging down off his horse gallantly and offering his strong hand? Jacob had rambled like an idiot and almost fainted from hyperventilation and, they later discovered, loss of blood.

Gerard had tried to calm and soothe him, but it had all been so confusing. What Gerard, Adam, and Eloise had told him started to make sense when he began asking for details about the museum. Were they really Eloise the grant writer who had disappeared and Adam the art historian the police believed had kidnapped and possibly murdered her before disappearing himself? Maybe they were. He’d never met them, as he’d only been at the museum for two weeks, but it was too perfect a match to be a coincidence. He briefly wondered what might be happening back at the museum. If what he’d been told today were true, that portrait was unbelievably dangerous. He’d been rather stunned to see its twin leaning against the wall of the barn, looking neglected and completely out of place. It had only confused him more.

The sound of hooves raised his attention. Gerard came charging up on his beautiful brown horse. His dark cloak flowed behind him, and his white shirt and military-style jacket were partially open, revealing a smooth and well-muscled chest. The leather pants hugged his thighs, and Jacob really liked the high riding boots he wore. He watched him rubbing his horse’s neck as he led it to a pasture. His long, powerful strides had Jacob thinking all sorts of wicked thoughts. The clothes in this world were sending him into very Jane Austenesque fantasies. He pictured Gerard coming up out of a lake, soaking wet, like Mr. Darcy, and licked his lips.

Gerard’s chuckle made him realize not only that had he been staring but also that he had been noticed. The man put one foot on the step beside Jacob and leaned on his knee. He smelled like leather and musk, and Jacob found himself unable to budge.

“So, are you happy to see me, or just hungry?” Gerard whispered.

Embarrassed as he was, Jacob was glad to see that he hadn’t imagined the attraction between him and Gerard. The candid looks of appreciation Gerard had cast Adam’s way, contrasted with the casual appraisal he’d given the very beautiful Eloise, had confirmed that Gerard probably preferred men, but this blatant flirting gave Jacob far more confidence.

“Both, I think,” he answered quietly. The heated look Gerard gave him made him feel like he was losing blood again, and he soon realized it was all heading south.

Buy Links:

Evernight Publishing
Bookstrand
All Romance eBooks
Rainbow Ebooks
Amazon