2012-08-31

Sneak Peek: Finders, Keepers

Finders, Keepers is a sexy new sci-fi menage story (couple of firsts there!) and I'm thrilled to announce that Loose-Id will be releasing it this December, just in time for the holidays. Here's the blurb and a very unedited excerpt. Enjoy!

Blurb:


Sometimes finding what you want is the easy part.

Caleb is a bionic soldier with little-to-no memory of his past. He’s traded pieces of himself for some very highly classified, high-tech hardware, but he’s not always sure how he feels about that bargain. Could be he’s lost far more than he’s gained. He’s not even sure the choice had been his to make. He’s seeking the truth. About himself. About his past. About those missing memories.

Aldo’s an undercover cop who just might have the answers to Caleb’s questions. But Aldo’s already lost one love too many. The same truth that could set Caleb free could also send him running—as far from Aldo as he can get. That’s an unacceptable risk. Because if it turns out Caleb’s the man Aldo thinks he is, how can he even think about letting him get away from him a second time?

Then there’s Sally, she’s an ER physician who used to be married to Aldo’s late partner, Davis. Although she does her best to hide it, Sally’s not really coping very well with widowhood. She’s used to compartmentalizing her emotions, staying calm in an emergency, burying herself in her work, but it’s getting harder every day to find a good enough reason to keep getting up. She cares deeply about both Caleb and Aldo, and she knows they both care about her—one as a lover, the other as a friend—but she needs something more. If the truth about the men’s shared past comes to light, she could lose them both. Along with her last, best reason to continue living.

This holiday season, chance will bring these three together and give them an opportunity to help one another find what they each want most. But every gift comes with a price. And keeping what they’ve found once they’ve found it? Yeah, that’s gonna be the hard part all right.   


Excerpt:

 “Are you fucking kidding me?” Aldo’s arm tightened instinctively around her. He was startled by the blast of anger, by the raspy growl that emerged from his throat. “Are you saying some sonofabitch got ticked off and walked out on you because you wouldn’t sleep with him? Who is he? Tell me where to find him and I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Aldo.” Sally turned her head to glint up at him. “Would you stop it? You would not.”
The words were matter of fact, but Aldo wasn’t certain if that was confidence he heard in her voice, or a hint of challenge, either way, it pissed him off. He arched one brow. “Oh, no?”
“No. I know you. And I wouldn’t want you to anyway.  That’s not what happened, okay? It just… It didn’t work out, that’s all. No harm, no foul.”
“You don’t even know what that means, do you?” He hated that plaintive tone in her voice. She sounded like a lost little girl when she used it. And she clearly didn’t know  him anywhere near as well as she thought she did. He wasn’t always the nice guy she imagined him to be. Davis hadn’t been either, for that matter. He doubted anyone was. She was still too naïve, too innocent. And he’d be damned if he was going to be the one to change that. She was the only good thing in his life. And their friendship was still the only relationship he had yet to fuck up. It was damn sure gonna stay that way, if he had anything to say about it. Still, it made him mad. “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?” he groused. “He couldn’t cut you some slack, give you a little time? Doesn’t he realize how much you’ve been through lately?”
Sally sighed. “Of course he doesn’t. How would he know?”
“You didn’t tell him? How come? I thought you said you’d known him for a while?”
“A few weeks—yeah. And, of course I didn’t tell him? How would that go? What was I gonna say? ‘I know you think you want me but what you don’t understand is I’m a pathetic little widow who can’t figure out what she wants’?”
“Stop that. You’re not pathetic.”
“Oh, babe.” She shook her head. “I am, you know. I’m not blind. My life is running away without me and I can’t seem to stop it and…half the time, I don’t even care. I’m tired of fighting it, tired of feeling lost. If that’s not pathetic…”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Aldo pointed out, a little desperately. “You have to give yourself time. Maybe you’re the one who needs to cut yourself some slack?”
Sally chuckled weakly. “So says the man who, just last week, told me—yet again—that it was time for me to move on.”
“Yeah, well…” he broke off, sighing. “Sometimes I don’t always think things through before I speak. You know that.”
“Or before you act.”
“Yeah. That too.” Davis had made the point frequently, had given Aldo hell on a regular basis for his hot-headed, impulsive ways. He’d always claimed Aldo would get himself killed one day, if he didn’t change. And yet, it was Davis who was gone too soon.
“I miss him.”
Aldo nodded. Eyes closing for a moment as a wave of pain crashed over him. “I know, honey. I do too.”

No comments: