Saturday, November 12, 2011

What if you had a do-over with the “one that got away”?

Kiss Me Slowly

Haven't we all had that fantasy?  What would you do if you had that chance?  I had just such an experience and it didn't work out as both of us had hoped at the time, but in the end, it worked out the way it was supposed to and I got to meet my Muse and soul mate.  


Today I am very happy to welcome author Amber Easton to Not Enough Time in the Day as she shares her own experience with getting the do over, and her latest release Kiss Me Slowly.



           There are moments when I find myself sitting quietly with a secret smile thinking about a boy who loved me with the reckless abandonment of youth.  We met at the movie theatre when I was sixteen, he tore tickets and I sold popcorn.  We fell in love when we were seventeen, I sold the tickets that he tore.  We had it all then--the feeling of immortality that all teenagers have, the romantic ideal of “us against the world”.  Making out in back seats, sneaking in through windows, walking for hours just to spend time together...ah, those were the days.
           Then I went to college and thought I needed “no strings”. I guess I had grand illusions of the kind of player I was gonna be.  (Didn’t happen--I’d seen too many movies! Stupid, naive me.)
           A few years ago, after going on with my life, getting married, having kids, and burying my husband, I met that first love again via Facebook.  Surprisingly, our lives had moved parallel to one another--at one point, we had lived in the same neighborhood in Denver without ever meeting.  His wife had also passed away.  So we talked...we flirted...we even had an argument about “the break up” that happened over twenty years ago.
           He still had that “take-me-to-bed-and-strip-me-naked” smile, that generous heart that I’d fallen for back in the day, but our grief for our spouses stood in our way of anything developing in the here and now. 
           Do you have that “first love” that sometimes creeps into your thoughts and makes you smile?  Even if you’re blissfully happy now, are there moments when you’re sitting at a stoplight and an image of that “one who got away” drifts into focus and you think...what if? 
           In my romantic suspense novel, Grace Dupont is reunited with her first love thirteen years after their break up, but he’s in trouble and needs her genius brain to save him.  Set up to take a fall for embezzling millions of dollars from the family company and with diamond smugglers aching to see him go down, they don’t have time for a leisurely trip down memory lane.  Trapped in a whirlwind of conspiracy and murder, they find themselves on the run together, with time working against them and love rekindling beneath Florida Key sunshine.  

An excerpt of Kiss Me Slowly:
She didn’t know if she was angry or frightened, but aiming a gun at his head felt pretty damn good. “What are you staring at? Get out of there.”
She motioned for him to exit the guest room and enter the main cabin. He looked like hell. Scratches ripped up his chest, blood darkened the once white bandage on his shoulder, soggy pajama pants were stained and ripped at the knees and his feet, and it looked as if he had walked for miles barefoot. He limped to the curving white leather sofa and fell against the cushions.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.
“Would you please put the gun down? You’re terrifying.” He slurred his words as he dropped his arms against the table as if they weighed a thousand pounds.
“Terrifying is my current goal. Tell me what happened.” She scrambled to lock the hatch overhead before sinking on the edge of the sofa a few feet away from him. She kept a firm hold on the gun. “Talk to me, Jon.”
His hands shook as he held them to his forehead. He looked like a shadow of the man she had encountered forty-eight hours ago. That man had owned the world and knew it. This one looked like the world was against him and knew it.
“How did you get here?” She bit her lip. She needed to get away from here.
“Someone took me from the house, dropped me on the street. I walked. Jumped the sea wall. No one is following me.” His gaze pierced into hers. “How did you know I was here?”
“I notice details, and you did a lousy job smearing your tracks.” She noticed the bulge in his waistband and realized he had a gun of his own. “What the hell is that? Take it out.”
His hands shook so violently when he laid the gun on the table that she worried he might shoot a hole in the hull.
“For God’s sake, just leave it alone,” she ordered. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you found that.”
“It’s not mine.” His eyes glazed over as he stared at the gun on the table. “It’s not mine,” he repeated.
“David said Ashley was murdered. The news thinks you may have been kidnapped. David brought it up because he thought my Jon Ryan resembled the infamous Jonathan Alexander. I swear, it’s one thing after another with you. Murder? What’s next? What can be worse than murder? Is that the house you’re talking about? Someone took you from Ashley’s?” Her own hands shook as she moved his gun further away from his trembling hands. “What happened? What have you done?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and stared at the gun. Defeat swirled around him like a swarm of mosquitoes.

Kiss Me Slowly, a romantic suspense novel by Amber Lea Easton, now available at http://www.bookstrand.com/kiss-me-slowly


4 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing Amber! Now I have yet one more book on my "to read" list. I better get cracking!

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  2. Thanks for hosting me, Tammy! It's been a pleasure. Can't wait to have you over in my little corner of the blog world soon!

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  3. The one that got away... hmmm Thanks for sharing your story and the snippet of Kiss Me Slowly. Hugs and Blessings ~ Angela

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