LATEST NEWS & UPDATE:

Howdy, y'all,

For those of you who don't know, I have a subscription platform (called Ream.)

On that platform, I have an EXCLUSIVE book called Surprise Protocol. It's book 1 in my Protocol Iowa series.

It's MMF, it's second chance, surprise/accidental pregnancy, and follows Madeline (Maddie), she's friends with Cora and Paige from Protocol Minnesota.

Fresh, new, and unedited chapters drop once a week. This story comes out of me the way it comes out of me, there's no plan, no plot, no rules. It's partly a choose your own adventure for my paid subscribers. I'll drop polls and ask for help figuring out which way things should unfold, or what a character looks like or does for a living.

My platform also has my current WIPs up there (at time of writing this, it's got an early draft of Artemis and Xavier,) it's got exclusive bonus scenes for my recent novels (one free bonus scene for my followers, and one paid bonus scene for my paid subscribers,) and it's got all my novellas on there - including a quickie crossover between Austin and Mackenzie and Artemis and Apollo (yes, the twins Eiffel Tower Mackenzie in front of Austin...) My paid subscribers get the occasional blog post, they get first looks at art and covers, and my top tier subs get their names in the acknowledgements of my books.

I might even bring in an opportunity to name a character in my book - wouldn't that be fun?

Anyways, here's the first chapter of Madeline, Theo, and Hayes's story:

Chapter 1

Madeline

“Ms. Harris.” The woman at the reception desk calls me to the front of the line. “Dr. Ramirez says we need to schedule you in for a hysteroscopy. Does next Tuesday at nine work for you?”

I check over my shoulder before leaning forward. “What’s the recovery like from a hysteroscopy?”

Despite my mom dying of cervical cancer in her early forties, when I was just a teenager, I’ve never needed anything but an annual Well-Woman and pap-smear since I hit adulthood. Part of me has always wondered if I’d die young like she did, so when I passed thirty, my anxiety cranked up just-a-smidge.

I try not to live like someone with a potentially shortened lifespan, but sometimes, like when your OBGYN tells you that you need a camera shoved in your lady garden, it’s hard to ignore.

Is this when I die?

I mean, not right that second lying on the table with a camera up my cooch, but like this year.

I didn’t think there was anything in the world worse than getting a pap smear, but as I stepped out of my OBGYN’s office post-internal ultrasound, the mention of a hysteroscopy makes my insides shrivel.

Today, Dr. Ramirez only stuck a wand—not unlike several of the toys I have in my bedside table—up my hoo-ha to take a look. But the idea of having a camera threaded into my body sounds even less fun.

“It’s uncomfortable for many women, period-type cramps, but some over the counter pain medication should help you through without any further need for intervention.”

It’s alright for the receptionist to say that it’s not her insides getting looked at in microscopic detail. Next, they’ll want to send a fucking drone up my vagina. And I bet they’ll still say some OTC pain meds will be fine for that as well.

I almost snort, instead, a sigh threads through my parted lips. It’s not her fault, or even Dr. Ramirez’s fault that my lady parts need a thorough going over with a fine-tooth comb. Hell, it’s not even Mom’s fault, nor her mom, Mimzy’s fault. But my periods are getting a little heavy for my liking, and that’s saying something.

Just before Mimzy died a couple of weeks ago, getting checked out by a doctor and not self-diagnosing my “female problems” with the use of Dr.

Internet, was one of the many things she commanded me to do from her death bed.

It wasn’t the biggest demand, but it was one I’d happily been putting off for months before she even told me she was sick.

Fat girls don’t get the same level of healthcare as skinny girls. We just don’t. I didn’t want to see another doctor and get told my problem was my weight and to go home and eat a salad to be fixed. So, I just... didn’t go to get checked out.

If I don’t know it’s there then it isn’t a problem, right? Right.

Story of my life, bury my head and hope it fucking disappears. At least I’m self-aware, a leopard can’t change its spots and all that.

“Ms. Harris?” The receptionist pulls me out of my own thoughts and back into the now.

“Oh, sorry. Yes, that’s fine. Nine AM is fine.”

She nods and clicks at her computer a few times before a notification of the appointment pings on my phone screen.

“I’ll see you then.” She offers me a gentle smile, the kind of smile only people who work in healthcare can give to a complete stranger.

Rest assured I won’t have a smile like that on my face next week when I’m back up in the OBGYN’s stirrups ready to have my cooter investigated.

Stepping out of the office should lift a weight off my shoulders. Dr. Ramirez was lovely. She listened to my concerns, my family history, and didn’t once mention my weight to me as a magic cure. She treated me with kindness and compassion, she started the diagnostic process with an ultrasound, and she’s bringing me in next week for a hysteroscopy.

Things are moving forward.

I should feel some kind of relief. But all I feel is the claws of fear sinking themselves into my body even deeper.

I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman with no partner, no children, and a half-baked florist business plan.

It wasn’t even my business. It was my side hustle. I’d put my marketing career on hold to help Mimzy move premises. But she had the nerve to up and die, out of nowhere, in the middle of us moving her to a bigger space.

My stomach tightens as I walk toward the elevator. I’ll deal with the business issues tomorrow. I’ve been saying that for the past two weeks since she passed away. And every day I believe it a little bit less.

The thought of facing a renovation and relaunch of her business Petal Pushers without Mimzy by my side induces a bone-deep panic I’m not ready to deal with. But the thought of closing it completely hurts even more.

The hole in my heart she left when she died throbs, flexing inside my chest. People say grief gets easier with time but as the tears well in my eyes and my throat clogs with a soul wrenching agony, I’m not sure I believe them.

I rub at my sternum as the elevator approaches my floor. I just need to handle one thing at a time. Make sure all my tests are clear, sort out Mimzy’s florist business, and figure out a marketing strategy to shoot her legacy to the number one florist in Cedar Rapids. Hell, if I do a good enough job, I could get her to number one in the whole damn state of Iowa.

The ding of the elevator draws my attention from my feet to the sliding metal doors. There’s a single pair of legs in the small space, well-fitting boot-cut jeans, a shiny belt buckle, a tucked in navy shirt stretched over broad shoulders.

When my gaze lies on the face of the man standing staring at me in the elevator, a gasp catches in my throat. I know that cocky, crooked grin, those bright blue eyes, black hair and stoic face.

Theo Thompson, my ex-boyfriend, stands staring back at me. Is he still considered an ex if we only dated briefly while we were in our twenties? I want to say no, but the level of damage he did to me was unparalleled. My heart flutters at the memory of how he broke it.

Apparently, I wasn’t of good enough stock for Theo’s parents, and they encouraged him in another direction. More disappointingly, he was easily led by them. He never fought for me, for us, and we went our separate ways.

He always was a raging mama’s boy.

As the elevator doors threaten to close, his arm shoots out as his eyes hold mine. “Getting in, Madeline?”

A shiver slips down my spine at the low timber of his voice as he gives me my full name. Few people do these days, but he almost always did.

This man broke my heart in a matter of months.

The idea of sharing an elevator with him makes my chest constrict, but it would be very obviously rude to say no now and to take the stairs, so I simply nod and get inside.

I stand in front of him, my back facing his direction, but the searing heat of his stare peels through the fabric of my summer dress.

He clears his throat. “How have you been?”

My heart’s racing so fast it’s probably unhealthy. Keep it short, stay polite, swallow down the bubbling pain oozing into your chest from your tenuously patched together heart. It’ll be fine. 

Just keep it civil.

“Fine,” I breathe, not looking back at him.

“And Mimzy?”

I’m spared answering his question by a deafening noise, followed by a screech as the elevator grinds to a halt and the lights flicker.

My stomach drops to the ground floor, where the fucking elevator should be, delivering me safe and sound to terra firma so I can flee this place and go home.

This isn’t funny.

Another death-like-sound comes from the mechanical box holding me hostage.

I’m hoping some kind of backup generator kicks in. I suck in a slow breath through my nose as my legs start to tremble. It’ll be fine. I’m sure this happens all the time. It’ll just be a hot minute, and the elevator will start moving again as though nothing happened.

The lights flicker again, and my hand shoots out to steady me against the wall.

Then it goes dark.

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Happy reading!

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