FREE through 11/15/14, POINTS ON A CURVE.
GENRE: Romantic comedy, sports, suspense and good eats
Rob van Horn is a hotshot sports journalist with an instinct for a headline.
Taylor O’Brien is a basketball player with a checkered past and regrets.
She’s not his type. He’s her best friend’s younger brother. When they clash over a bloody beef tenderloin, there’s more at stake than splitting the appetizer.
When they go one-on-one on the basketball court Rob makes it clear to everyone that his tastes have changed—at least in women.
There’s one little problem, an ex-husband who’s not what he seems, and a story that turns Rob into a bloodhound, with all clues circling back to Taylor.
The more he digs, the more Rob finds that sometimes fate takes dinner and romance to a whole nother level…
KINDLE AUDIOBOOK
EXCERPT:
Robb’s at the local watering hole, meeting up with Paddy, an old friend. He’s curious about Taylor O’Brien. The journalist senses there’s a story there. But it’s not just his nose for news setting off his alarm bells…
Palming a handful of salted peanuts, I allowed an observation, “It’s never easy, is it?”
“No, boyo, ye got that in one.”
The salt and oils and crunch assaulted my mouth, coating the tongue and reminding me of the odd combination of flavors: caffeine laced with garlic and lemon and the imagined pulse of sweet honey across my lips. I’d barely touched her though every follicle had stood at attention at the bizarre headiness of her surrender and retreat.
Angry with myself, I brushed at the mop of hair hanging in my eyes and had an epiphany.
I know you. I’m sure of it. But not as Cordie’s best friend.
As something … something else.
Sitting up, I chugged the rest of the ale and asked Paddy, “Do you remember a basketball player, last name O’Brien?” I hastened to add, “WNBA, ten, maybe fifteen years ago?”
He was a walking encyclopedia, just so long as you gave him enough to work with. From his creased brow, it looked like what I had wasn’t going to do it. Paddy wasn’t into the women’s sports as much as me but if there’d been anything newsworthy, he’d have known about it.
“Sorry, laddie, not ringing a bell,” he said with regret, but the expression on his face told me he wasn’t letting it go. Without meaning to, I had triggered some alerts. He sat up and folded his hands, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
Since there was no reason not to, I told him about my evening, how the O’Brien woman had moved, how she’d kick-started my nose for a story. I left out the finger fuck and how she’d come into my arms and how she’d tasted when I’d kissed her like she would break if I didn’t take care.
Sally interrupted but I already had enough of a buzz on so I passed on another. I still needed to find my way to the Garden and put in my time. My boys were in a smackdown with the Heat and I didn’t hold out much hope for a high scoring game. It had boring written all over it, not a good way to go into my evening. Ergo, me tying one on early.
The cell buzzed but I let it go to voicemail. It was Cordie, probably asking me to join her and the Fink for a quick dinner, but I was working on contrary and disappointed.
And feeling the fool for not getting Miz O’Brien’s number so I could call her and… And what? Chat?
Yeah, right, like that worked out so well last night.
She was my sister’s friend, her oldest best friend.
We had nothing in common other than a passion for bloody raw beef and garlic sticks slathered in butter.
Gawd, I remembered how she’d deep-throated that bread, sucking off the garlicky butter, making her lips shine up and glisten, leaving me hard as a rock and thinking things I had no right to.
There was something there, I felt it in my bones. I told myself it was a story and didn’t bother to debate how that might just be a lie.
“She went to VaTech with my sister, graduated around ninety-seven, maybe ninety-eight.” I wasn’t actually sure of the date but it was close enough.
Paddy asked, “You sure she played here?”
Here being in the good old USofA. No, I wasn’t sure, but I did mention she spoke Italian, to which my friend did a ‘uh-huh’ and scribbled notes with a chewed up pencil.
“She got a first name?”
“Um, yeah, Tay. Taylor.” A few more facts filtered in. “She’s from near Blacksburg, dad farmed if I remember correctly. And she had a scholarship.”
And she haunted my every waking minute… But Paddy didn’t need to know that. It was bad enough it was happening to me. Like the air I breathed was quicksand, leaving me light-headed and giddy with anticipation.
I wanted to see her again. I knew where she lived. But I wasn’t asking my sister for her number. I’d shoot myself in the foot before I’d stoop to that.
