MY SEXY SATURDAY #98! - DEE ANN PALMER - MIDNIGHT RIDER

Can you believe this? The authors in this blog hop have been doing this for 98 weeks. We plan a big celebration when we hit #100, so stay with us.

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The story behind Midnight Rider —

Several years ago, I was on an epublishing panel at Left Coast Crime in Monterey, CA. Afterward, I overheard a woman on the panel who was in my Romance Writers of America chapter in Orange County, CA, mention to an aspiring writer that Amber Quill Press was holding a contest for erotic short stories. Mind you, my friend didn't tell me about it. Apparently she didn't think I was the type.

I was multi-published in fiction and non-fiction, but had only had a first romance novel out. I'd had some success with contests, and I wondered if I could write erotic. Well, if you don't try, you'll never know, will you? Dark Stranger was a winner. I've now reduced the erotic parts to sensual, lenthened it, gotten a new cover and retitled it.

From Midnight Rider...

The scene: Jenny has sneaked out to leave the rancho permanently. She's riding in the dark on Conquistador, a sturdy gelding.


Jenny glanced again at the figure behind her. It wasn't Soltero. Soltero was shorter and broader than the man behind her. This rider was tall. Clothed in black, the stranger wore a black mask and a hat with a flat crown and a wide brim pulled low on his forehead. A dark cloak flared out behind him.

He rode like Satan himself. 

A bandido. A bandit who would rob, ravish, and kill her or sell her into slavery...

http://deeannpalmer.com 

Watch for it soon on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords
http://www.amazon.com/Dee-Ann-Palmer/e/B00BLWLV6I
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/dee-ann-palmer?keyword=dee+ann+palmer&store=ebook
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Have a great week!

From Curly Girl Design —

"If we are very lucky, we will have spent some of our life being owned by a cat." 





 

MY SEXY SATURDAY - DEE ANN PALMER

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This is a re-do of my first erotic male-female romance. I've toned down the eroticism to sensual, and I expect to release this short story this summer, probably before A Night to Remember comes out. (I really do write contemporary stories, too!)

Copyright © 2015 Dee Ann Palmer

Cover Design © 2015 by Carey Abbott

http://www.amazon.com/Dee-Ann-Palmer/e/B00BLWLV6I/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1433577015&sr=1-2-ent

The Setting: California, 1834. Jenny, a foreigner hired as companion to his aunt, has rescued Rafael from a violent storm, and they're in a small house where the vaqueros caught in similar storms can shelter. She has removed his clothes and dried him.

    

     Rubbing her hands together, she realized she was cold, too. It was important to get out of her wet clothes before cold turned to chill. She'd brought clothing for Rafael but nothing for herself. Dust triggered a sneeze as she lifted the lid of the trunk, but rummaging through it she found a worn coverlet for the bed and an old dress that must have belonged to either Lucita or a servant. Removing her damp clothing, she slipped into the dress. It was warmer than her wet clothes and unrestricting. Her feet she left bare.

     Returning to Rafael, alarm surged through her because his blanket shook. He shivered uncontrollably, teeth chattering. Jenny pulled the coverlet from the trunk, and rolling him toward her and onto his side, she reached over his back to spread the cover over that half of the straw. Then, before settling on him on his back, she rolled him away from her and onto his other side while she tugged the remaining half of the cover underneath and free of him. Now he was protected from the rough, cold straw.

     Still he shivered. Hesitating over what she knew would help, a moan from him made up her mind. Sliding under the blanket with him, she pulled his cold body close and held him tight. After some minutes, the shaking had not stopped, so she rolled him onto his back and climbed on top of him. Stretching her body the full length of his, she settled on him. . .

 
WATCH FOR IT SOON

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Original, erotic version was one of eleven winners, and I've been writing for them ever since.

MY SEXY SATURDAY - COVER REVEAL - DEE ANN PALMER

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A friend helped me find this fantastic image for my short story, A Night to Remember. I sent it to Carey Abbott, and she transformed it into this lovely cover. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't allow a larger size. It's more effective full size on my website http://deeannpalmer.com

I love the feelings it conveys--the loneliness of driving in a snowstorm, the anxiety of not making it home safely and clutching the steering wheel as night closes in. Right now, the once 2,000 word story—which first appeared in the 2014 A Holiday Anthology Volume 2—is now approaching 3,000K as I lengthen it to expanded novella or novel length.

                                                   

 Copyright 2014 by Dee Ann Palmer

 Cover design by Carey Abbott

CHAPTER ONE 

It was the worst Christmas Eve Marlee had ever lived through. Providing she did live through it, she thought. People who longed for a white Christmas obviously didn’t expect it to come with a power outage and a blizzard like she was creeping along in in her old Nissan. 
  
Squinting to see, she switched the heat to the front and rear windshields. If she didn’t reach her house soon, the wipers wouldn’t be able to cut through the ice forming there. In just the last thirty minutes, the snow had thickened and the temperature had dropped. 
 

“You had to have a tree. Going out in a blizzard to get that puny thing in the backseat masquerading as a Christmas tree was stupid,” she scolded herself.


The tree remained silent. 

  

Watch for it this summer, when a cool winter romance can ease the heat of a sizzling day. For Kindle, Nook, on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and All Romance eBooks                        

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REMEMBERING ELLA 2003 - 2015

She would follow me around some mornings, and I knew she wanted to curl up with someone for her morning nap. I'd lie down on our bed to put my eye drops in, and she would curl up on the bolster above my head. If I'd been writing into the wee hours of the day, I often fell asleep. When I wakened she'd be mirroring me, stretched out as you see her here.

Who says house cats are not pack animals? I was obviously an Alpha in this household. 

REMEMBERING ELLA, THE BEAUTIFUL

Periodically, I'm going to remember this sweet and spicy cat with a photo and a comment. It helps to move through the grief process, I think. To say a long goodbye.

Ella was seven months old in this picture, and we were taking care of her in our home for a few days while her owners were out of state visiting our daughter-in-law's family. Our first contact with Ella, however, had been in their home. Ella had jumped from  a high window onto the top of the screen door and was clawing her way down the screen. 

This was a rental house, and I knew about cat's claws in screens...they left holes. So I reached to free her and lift her down.

She hissed at me! I jumped back. Between our home and the one I'd grown up in, I'd lived around at least eight cats - no more than two at once - and none of them had ever hissed at me.This was my introduction to the spicy side of the nature of dark tortoiseshell cats. They're loving, loyal and purring, but they know what they want and beware if you thwart them. 

 ~ ~ ~ ~

 Have a great week! I may be here this weekend with a cover reveal for My Sexy Saturday.

Dee Ann

MY SEXY SATURDAY #80 - DEE ANN PALMER

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This short story's original erotic version - Dark Stranger - was a 2004 Amber Heat Wave Contest winner. With a new title and the sex toned down from erotic to sensual, here is the soon-to-be-released Midnight Rider.

Setting: A small casita on a rancho when Mexico owned California. Jenny has been hired to care for ranch owner Don Rafael Navarro's frail aunt. She's rescued unconscious Rafael in a dangerous storm.

...If Rafael wakened, he at least had the privacy of that blanket. If he wanted it. Would he guess Jenny had seen his entire, beautiful body naked? Probably. And would he like the idea? No doubt. He was a a man - a man's man - who also enjoyed women. She smiled. She’d certainly enjoyed seeing him in all his masculine glory.

She sighed. The sight would have to last a long, long time.

 Look for it soon on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords

 Dee Ann Palmer
http://deeannpalmer.com
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Remembering - our beautiful Ella 2003-2015

 

Ella.. a Memorial on Pets We Love

Ella.. a Memorial  

This is a lovely free service to those who have lost a pet. It helps as you struggle to work through  grief. http://petloss.com holds an online candlelight service with prayers every Monday evening.

Our precious Ella passed away in a pet ER at 11:45 p.m. on April 7th. She would have been twelve in May. This past year she had developed numerous health problems and when--as a retired registered nurse trained in emergency medicine--I realized her breathing was agonal, I called the ER and was told to bring her in. An Xray showed the lining of her little lungs was filled with fluid, making breathing difficult and putting pressure on her heart. Even withdrawing the fluid from her lungs didn't relieve her struggle to breathe. Her weight had dropped from 13 pounds last September to 9 3/4 that night. She had developed arthritis, blindness in one eye, pancreatitis and carcinoma cancer in her bowel, and we learned how few medications are available to help sick cats.

The last few days she hadn't been herself, had lost energy. We thought the long cone collar she wore because she had scratched her blind eye was weighing her down. Instead, it was the fluid buildup in her lungs and pressure on her heart.

When the vet said they probably couldn't save her but did we wish CPR, we burst into tears and shook our heads. "Let her go."

We needed her, but Ella needed to be relieved of her suffering. Her precious life was over. I scratched her head and neck as I had done so often because the collar irritated her and she couldn't scratch or groom herself. Then I kissed her coat and touched her one final time. My husband said his goodbyes, and we left the room.

I think only animal lovers can understand the depth of grief humans feel at the loss of a pet.

Our grief is easing. The times when it feels unbearable--and nothing seems to remove the image of her small, vulnerable body stretched out on that treatment table--are fewer. Last night my husband dreamed of her. This morning I looked at the window where she often sat to watch the birds, and said, "Hi, beautiful kitty. We will always remember the bright joy you gave us. We will be okay."