Howdy y'all,

Big news this week! I'm back writing!!!! You can tell from the number of exclamation points that this isn't a little deal. New words haven't happened for me since June, right before I got hit by the dreaded plague. I'm working on a short story. It's a crossover between our beloved Snow Pirates, and my new series which will kick off in 2023, the Cedar Rapids Raccoons.

You guys... I can't even tell you how much I am enjoying writing this lil ditty. It's going to be around 15k words, and I am jonesing so hard to just keep writing. And while I'm not yet fully recovered, it's so nice to have my groove back after a really bumpy two months.

It's also almost time for back to school here - next week. As much as I love spending time with my kid, the summer has been so desperately hard and I am looking forward to getting him back among his friends for a while!

What do I have for you this week?

Welp. I'm having a pretty pitiful August to be honest, which is causing me to switch up my release schedule a bit for the rest of the year - don't panic though, you're getting more from me, not less. I'm hoping to bring Coach Swift's book up to early October instead of late, and I'll add my crossover piece into the calendar before the year ends.

So I was thinking about trying to tempt you into preordering Two for Charging by giving you the first chapter to sink your teeth into, what would you think about THAT? And over the next few newsletters I was thinking of dropping another chapter or two to see if I can't whet your appetite enough to one-click it.

I know, I'm such a tease - my alpha readers tell me I edge them with words. I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry!

First though - here's this week's teaser from my socials. I know some of you favor my college players/NA stuff, but trust me - Elliott and Clare have such a great story, I have faith that you're going to love it. Not only that, but my alphas and betas have already started demanding stories from the side characters - and who am I to say no? ;)

Alright cats and kids, it's time for your first chapter teaser - please keep in mind this is unedited and subject to change, but I wanted to give you all a taste for what's to come...

Chapter 1 - Clare

“Regular flow or heavy?” Clare pursed her lips and regarded the selection of care products in front of her. “What a total crock of shit.”

No matter how bright and attractive companies made the packaging, a period still felt like a sucker punch to the uterus.

By a bear.

With a fucking jackhammer.

There was no way to make that shit cute. Period products lied. No one was that chipper when Aunt Flo came to visit. And if they were, they were probably a serial killer... Because they had their fucking period.

If they offered a ‘swamp witch’ variety of Tampax, however, she’d hand them her pin number in a flash. A haggard woman shoveling a gallon of ice cream into her spotty face while crying over every teenie tiny little thing and shitting through the eye of a goddamn needle. Period poop was no fucking joke.

She swiped a packet from the shelf and waved it high above her head. “Cat? Regular or heavy?”

Silence. Her nineteen-year-old daughter was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d gone back out to the car. Or maybe she was hiding behind a display of Lindor chocolate balls, pretending she was no way related to the wild woman muttering to herself about periods and pads.

Fine. If her dearest darling daughter was embarrassed by her, she’d double down. She grabbed one of each, regular, heavy, and overnight pads, and snagged regular and heavy tampons for good measure.

Humming Sisters Are Doin’ it for Themselves by Eurythmics, she inched toward the end of the aisle.

The benefit of having the Leaning Tower of Period Products stacked high in her arms was that she couldn’t reach the shelf of Lindor balls. Or carry any chocolate at all for that matter. A fact her fast tightening jeans would thank her for.

She’d let herself go since the divorce. She wasn’t one of those women who’d caught her husband cheating on her and used it to drop twenty pounds and fuel some rage-filled magic makeover.

The only thing it had fueled was depression, self-loathing, and a need to buy bigger pants. And the only thing she’d dropped was her self-respect.

“Asshole.” She glared at the Lindt chocolate like it was the one who had banged their secretary on the family dining table and not her piece of shit ex.

Rounding the end of the aisle, she crashed into something, her body tensing as the collision knocked the air out of her. The pads and tampons flew from her arms like someone had pulled out a wooden Jenga block from her carefully crafted and precariously balanced tower.

“Oof! Sorry.” Her muttered apology was aimed at the sneakers of the person she’d bumped into as she bent over to pick up her fallen spoils with a weighty sigh.

That’s what she got for trying to embarrass her daughter. Apparently Karma worked fast when it was against her. If only it would work as quickly on her ex – maybe give him a raging case of crabs, or remove all the labels from the cans of food in his pantry.

Ha! If only.

The body in front of her didn’t move, so she abandoned the period product recovery plan in favor of shooing off the person looming over her. She’d said sorry, what else could Mr. Bootcut Jeans want?

As she straightened, the back of her head connected with something hard and she winced. Pain rippled across her scalp. She hadn’t even planned on stopping at CVS on her way home, but Catriona was desperate and now it was a thing.

But based on how the pharmacy was going, dinner would be drive thru Panera. Relatively healthy and minimal people-ing. If the car found its way into the drive thru at Taco Bell, she wouldn’t be mad about it.

“Sorry. Here. Let me.” A gravelly voice that sent tingles all the way to her toes instantly cured her brewing concussion. A firm grip banded around her bicep, helping her straighten up. All the oxygen evaporated from her body.

“Elliott.” His name caught in her throat, croaking like it had been trapped there for decades. It kind of had.

The boy she’d once loved was all man now. Square jaw covered with a neat dark and salt and pepper beard that her fingers itched to reach out and stroke. Small crow’s feet crinkling the corners of his eyes. Brown, wavy hair, still styled with gel but with a dusting of grey at the temples.

He’d aged well. Too well.

She knew those hazel eyes. She’d stared into them when she’d pressed a sweater against his face after he’d taken a stray puck to the eyebrow in a game of street hockey when he was a kid. She’d stared at them over numerous games of cribbage in her backyard.

She’d pleaded with them when he’d told her he was going to be leaving and pursuing his dreams. Those hazel eyes were burned into her memory forever.

She’d heard he was the Coach for the local college hockey team. Sure, he had a little squish around his middle underneath his solid black t-shirt – probably from moving into coaching rather than still playing – but he was still every bit Elliott.

Her Elliott.

She swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth. He wasn’t hers anymore, perhaps he never had been.

He’d done good things with the team, great, in fact. If she wasn’t still pissed at him she’d be proud of him. Her heart twisted. She was always proud of him. She smoothed her hand over her not-been-washed-in-a-week hair, face aflame, and gave an awkward laugh. “Elliott.”

Why did her voice sound so… weird?

His eyebrows were arched high. His jaw hung open. The golden-brown circle around the pupil in his left eye caught the light as his gaze bore into hers, as though searching for something. Mute.

Silently urging him to speak, she slid her damp palms over the thighs of her yoga pants. Had she let herself go so much that he didn’t even recognize her?

Or was he simply stunned at the fact she was wearing yesterday’s ‘Feminist AF’ shirt?

Okay, so her toothpaste had splattered on it a bit, but it kind of looked like it was supposed to be that way, so she’d just gone with it. Another tuck of her hair behind her ear, another awkward giggle. “Okay. Well.” She gestured at the boxes and packets on the ground and crouched to pick them up, careful to avoid another collision against… well… any part of him.

As though her bending snapped him out of whatever daze he was in, he squatted in front of her, scrambling to pick up the boxes.

Definitely Karma. His thighs filled out his jeans like he’d been poured into the denim. Was it weird to want to bite someone’s thigh? She wasn’t sure she cared.

His eyes were still on her when they stood again. He offered her the heavy flow and overnight pads with a raised eyebrow. His lips twitched like he fought a smile.

Her face was on fire. No, she wasn’t lucky enough to be on fire. But the heat of her cheeks could most definitely have started one. “They’re for my daughter.”

Fan-fucking-tastic. Now he probably thought her daughter was having some kind of severe period emergency that required almost forty pads and the same amount of tampons.

Closing her eyes for a beat, she sucked in an audible breath through her nose. Maybe if she didn’t meet his confused, amused, and bottomless gaze she’d be able to jumpstart her brain with the heat radiating from the rest of her body.

If only wishing made it so.

When she opened her eyes, he was still there, head canted, smile teasing at the corners of his lips. She pinned her stare to the center of his chest, but couldn’t make her feet move away from him.

He was still voiceless, and she was stuck. Two decades ago they’d have dissolved into a fit of laughter over the whole thing. But now? Their history stretched out between them like taffy in summer heat in the heavy silence.

Too much history. Too much time.

Swallowing down the lump forming in her throat, she turned toward the counter and strode away with purpose. Every fiber of her being wanted to abandon Operation Shark Week and flee the state, but Catriona needed provisions. Plus, if she ran, he’d totally know she was rattled.

Hell, he probably already knew. He always had known her better than she even knew herself. But she wasn’t going to let him see it. Forcing a smile for the cashier, she paid for her items and waved off the receipt. Who needed to take proof of the dreaded pink tax home with them?

Who needed to carry around a record of such an inordinate spend on something that cost mere pennies to make? Especially for shit that damn near every woman of a certain age needed.

Was she deflecting the fact Elliott’s burning gaze still pierced her back at the checkout with ire at Proctor and Gamble? Maybe.

Did she pick up a packet of gum, two Snickers, and a bag of Sour Patch Kids for a second transaction to buy time so she could pull her shit together before turning to face him again? Damn straight she did.

Maybe if she took long enough at the checkout, when she turned around, he’d magically be gone. A hallucination. A figment of her imagination conjured to remind her that despite being screwed over by her asshole ex, she was still a woman, she still had needs. She was divorced for crying out loud, not dead.

He cleared his throat as she declined the second receipt. No such luck.

She shoved the candy into her mom-bag. Either she’d find them again in a month or two in a moment of dire snack-emergency, or Catriona would find them and remove the temptation when she next borrowed twenty bucks.

She thanked the cashier with a tight-lipped smile. The young woman, whose name tag was hidden by her jacket, leaned forward, jerking her chin at Elliott and lowered her voice. “Ma’am, is that guy bothering you?”

She snorted, almost choking on her own tongue, but shook her head. “No, we’re old friends. Thanks for looking out for me though.”

The young woman didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded. “We get some weirdos around here sometimes.”

Was she calling Elliott the weirdo, or her? Either way, she wasn’t wrong.

“Clare?”

She spun to face him. “Elliott.” Yup. She’d said nothing but his name to him, three times and counting. While she might have enjoyed how her tongue felt around it, he probably already knew his own name.

An uncertain smile spread across his face as he opened his arms. Was he going to hug her? Cheese and crackers, hell no. If he did that, she’d be forced to feel him all around her, and she might do something even more embarrassing than covering him in boxes of Tampax… like… sniff him. Did he still smell of soap?

She held up her two bags as though they were enough of an explanation as to why she couldn’t return his hug.

“Long time.”

Understatement of the century, but she nodded.

“How are you? You look good.”

And still a lying liar who lied. He told her he wouldn’t leave to play hockey. And when he did, he told her he’d come back. He never came back.

A zebra never changed its stripes. Or whatever the hell the thing about people never changing was. Clearly his presence still fucked up her ability to think straight.

“You too.”

He tucked his hands into his back pockets and rocked back on his heels like an ‘aw shucks’ teenager asking a girl out for the first time.

She almost laughed. “Well, I better get going.” She lifted her bags again. Another reminder of the Big Red Emergency. Peachy.

All she needed to do to complete her mortification, was to trip over thin air and land on her face as she left.

“Clare?”

She was almost at the door before that voice crashed into her again, stopping her in her tracks and warming her all over.

That was her name, don’t wear it out. Pausing, she turned her chin over her shoulder, but he didn’t say anything else. She turned a little more, enough to see his brows knit into a frown and a huge sigh escape him.

He tossed her a half-shrug. “It was good to see you.”

Liar. A pap smear would have been more enjoyable, and he didn’t even have a fucking cervix. Rolling her lips between her teeth in a bid to stop a salty response from breaking free, she nodded. “You too.”

Tossing the bag into the back seat over her shoulder, she sank into the driver’s seat of her car. She slammed the door. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t look at the door to CVS because he’d undoubtedly be standing there, watching her hot mess self having a nervous breakdown at seeing him.

She was pulling out of the parking lot when movement in the rearview mirror caught her attention. Catriona stood at the entrance to the drugstore, waving both her hands like she was stranded at sea and flagging down a rescue.

She slammed on the brakes. She’d forgotten her fucking daughter. Though the way she stood swinging her hands over her head was testament to the fact she had indeed been hiding inside the building and ignoring Clare’s hollering outright.

Jerking the door to the passenger seat open, Catriona erupted into a fit of giggles. “I can’t believe you were going to drive off without me, Mom.”

“And I can’t believe you hid in the drugstore and pretended I wasn’t asking you questions about your period products.”

The mother of all eye rolls preceded a tut. “I can’t believe you were asking me questions about my period products in a voice that was not what anyone would have considered a suitable indoor voice.”

It was her turn to eye roll. There was no mistaking where her kid got her sassitude from.

“Know what else I can’t believe, Mom?”

Clare quirked her brow as she pulled out of the parking lot for the second time.

“I can’t believe you’re just driving home as though we’re going to ignore the fact you were just talking to a hottie in the drugstore. Well.” She held up a palm before another fit of giggles hit. “I don’t think we could really call that talking, can we?”

She groaned. They were not having that conversation. “I need to concentrate on the road.”

“Right. That would be a first.” An indignant snort rang from her kid as the light at the intersection changed to red.

“Shit.”

“Nice try. You don’t need to concentrate on the road when we’re sitting still, do you, Mom? Spill. Tell me everything about the hunky silver fox makin’ eyes at you over tampons at the store.”

Silver fox? They weren’t that old, were they? Dear Jesus in the manger please tell her they weren’t at ‘silver fox’ age quite yet.

“He’s just someone I used to know.” Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel as her glare bored into the red light hanging in front of her.

“How?” Catriona tore open a box of Whoppers and dropped a couple into her mouth.

“School.” The traitorous light was still red, and a sidelong glance at Cat told her the conversation was far from over.

“Which one?” Another Whopper down the hatch. Cat seemed to have inherited her father’s metabolism. She could eat cosmic crap tons of whatever the hell she wanted and she didn’t gain an ounce. Bitch. “High school?”

She shook her head. Still red.

“College?”

Another head shake. If a kangaroo could hop across the intersection to change the topic of conversation from Elliott fucking Swift that would be great. Perhaps answering the question and giving her something, anything to mull over, would shut up the inquisition.

“Kindergarten.” There. She’d given her something to chew on. It wasn’t exactly a salacious detail, but it was something.

Cat coughed, choking on a piece of candy, and thumped her chest a few times. “You’ve known him since you were little and you still acted like…” She waved her hand as though that was enough of an explanation of her behavior. She wasn’t wrong.

Mercifully, the light changed to green, she pulled off from the line, and a silence descended over the car. “Yeah.”

After a few minutes Cat leaned forward and turned the radio on. “Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s his name?”

“Elliott.”

“I gave him your number.”

Preorder now!

Until next time,

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Bookish. Bold. Beautiful. And entirely out of his league.

On paper, all-American boy next door, Lincoln Scott, has it all. But behind his slap shots, straight-A report card, and easy going charm, Linc hides a secret only his best friend knows.

When he attempts to return a misplaced bra, a wrong number gets him way more than the hook-up he bargained for. No one has ever looked beyond the star hockey player, until the mysterious woman he can’t stop texting sees him for who he really is.

Does Linc have the skills off the ice to keep up with her? Will he follow in his father’s footsteps? Or will he step out from the shadows and chase his dreams?

If you’re pucking obsessed with Helena Hunting, Pippa Grant, and Elle Kennedy, you’ll love this hilarious, hot-as-puck, secret identity, opposites attract, curvy girl sports romance. Two for Interference is a full length standalone with no cheating, cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Welcome to the Minnesota Snow Pirates, where skilled and sexy mother puckers’ lives get turned upside down by strong and badass heroines. Curl up with your next book boyfriend today.