I'm soooo late to this party, I don't even know if anyone's going to see me or not, but in interests of better late than never, those of you who read this excerpt from The Fixer Upper and comment in the section below will be entered to win some cool shit---swag, paperbacks, and ebooks. Also, don't forget about the Rafflecopter, and be sure to hit up the other blogs on the list below. :)
Due out this week, so keep checking the blog for updates!
James is a has-been restaurateur from the UK, trying
desperately to get himself out of the hole he’s dug for himself, while trying
to figure out how to suddenly be a Dad for his brand-new tween-ager. He thinks he’s fixing things, or at least
he’s making a mortgage payment, when he takes a job on a dating show as the
Fixer Upper.
Margaret’s life is perfect.
At least, that’s what she keeps telling herself. A recent divorcee, she can’t believe she’s
turned into a cliché. When she makes a
deal with her ever-helpful mother who will stop fixing her up with men, if
Margaret will go on a dating show, she thinks she’s solved one of her
problems.
What happens when the womanizing TV host meets the classy
lady with OCD tendencies? Can they find
what they need in each other?
Excerpt:
“You must be Ms. Margaret Dumas.” Stunned, Margaret stood there as the man’s
words fell off his tongue, whirled through the air, and brushed across her
skin, tickling it. He was British, from
the UK somewhere, that much was evident.
Accents could make up for a host of various faults, in Margaret’s
mind. A dimple on his chin called to
her. She wanted to rake her hands
through his auburn hair, artfully tousled and a little long for her
liking. He was built nicely, but it was
hard to say exactly how well built he was, covered in his designer
clothes. He wore jeans, slung low on
slim hips and a t-shirt under a black leather jacket. Tough looking. Was that an earring? Why was she looking so hard? She wouldn’t be set up with him. He wasn’t her type anyway. Much too casual. Too carefree.
Too hot.
She was staring.
“Yes. Sorry.
Come in.” Embarrassed, she backed
up, allowing him to follow her into the house, gesturing to the snacks on the
table. “Help yourself.” Suddenly nervous, she smoothed her hands
down
her skirt again, pressing out invisible wrinkles in an effort to press her
frazzled nerves.
“Call me James, and may I call
you Maggie?” His voice was a decadent
mix of husky and smooth, floating in the air around her, embracing her in an
erotic coccoon. She could feel goose bumps
raise between her shoulders and rolled them to ease the sensation. This guy in her house was doing weird things
to her, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“Um, Margaret, please. James.”
She tested his name in her mouth, and it sounded… nice.
“Margaret.” Her name sounded positively sinful dropping
from his lips in that accent. She had to
give herself a mental shake as he casually strode to her couch, his movements
easy, graceful. He wasn’t big, just
solid, and the way he moved was purposeful, like he knew exactly what he wanted
from this situation. He sat on the sofa
and smiled at her, surely an attempt to put her at ease, but it didn’t work at
all. The cameraman hovered in the corner
of the room, his lens pointed at the two of them.
She perched on the edge of the
chair and poured him some juice into her best crystal glasses, unable to look
at him. Men didn’t make her
nervous. What the hell was happening to
her?
“So, tell me about yourself.” James took a sip of the juice and managed to
barely suppress his grimace. Okay, so it’s not fresh squeezed, get over
it. Pushing her aloofness back in
the forefront of her mind, she was better able to control her reactions to him
and focus on the situation at hand.
“I’m thirty-eight, divorced, an
accountant. I live here with my dog,
Puppet, he’s out in the backyard, or else he’d be in your lap, messing up your,
uh… jeans.” Looking at his jeans while
she’d said that screwed her up again, so she looked around the room. “Not much to tell…”
“Okay, why did you sign up for
the show?”
“Oh, that’s easy. My mother did it. I’m doing this to make her happy. Not really interested in a relationship. Divorce just finalized last month, and I don’t
really see the point in a relationship at this moment. But she’s brutal in her doggedness.” She flashed him a smile and his faltered,
much to her satisfaction. “She’s signed
me up for online dating, tried introducing me to sons of her friends, you name
it. I’m trying to get her off my back.”
He ran his finger over his bottom
lip. “So let me get this straight. You have no desire to date, yet you’re on the
show to find out how to date? To be
fixed up?” He leaned back, his arms
stretched over the sofa back. “How
utterly lazy of you.”
“Sounds like it to me.” He crossed an ankle over his knee in an
infuriating gesture. “You don’t want to
date, yet you call us in to do all the work for you.”
Her nerves dissolved as indignation
materialized. She was suddenly angry at
this man who came into her house with cameras to make her look like a complete
loser. “That’s not it. I go out!”
James leaned forward, blue eyes
sparkling with interest. “Now we’re
getting there. Who do you go out with?”
“N-no one. I go out to a bar by my office. Alone.”
Margaret tried to steel her voice, but heard her resolve crumble in the
hopelessness that her life had become.
She didn’t need this man to make her sound like a loser, she was one.
“Do you pick up men?” he asked eagerly, and Margaret stiffened her
backbone as he managed to make her habitual routine sound salacious.
“No! How trashy!
I don’t do one-night stands.” Loser.
“I didn’t say you did, pigeon,
but do you speak to potential dates in this bar?” His eyes roamed her legs, and Margaret
crossed them self-consciously, to no avail.
The motion seemed to draw his attention further, and his tongue snaked
out, resting on the corner of his lip.
“Um, not exactly.” Would
you please put that tongue away? It’s
highly distracting. “I mean, I speak
to them, to say I’m not interested.”
His gaze snapped back up to her
eyes, and thankfully, his tongue went back to its typical place. “So, you’re completely uninterested in
dating?”
She shrugged. “Not uninterested, per se, I just haven’t met
anyone who meets my standards, yet.”
He steepled his fingers under his
chin, as if deep in thought, and Margaret wondered if the affectation was for
the camera. “What, exactly, are your standards, Ms. Dumas?”
She leaned back and relaxed a
little. This was an easy question. And it got the focus off her, at least. “Well, he needs to be taller than me, fit
physique, have ambition, be neat, attractive, work a good job, enjoy his mother,
no children, be close to my age, and have a hobby.” Margaret ticked each item off on her fingers
like a shopping list.
“Well, that’s not too much to
ask, is it?” She couldn’t tell if he was
being sarcastic or not, as she watched him make some notes on a notepad he
retrieved from the case he’d brought in.
“How tall are you?”
“Five foot, nine inches.”
“How fit is fit?” He stared at her, an unreadable expression on
his face.
“Excuse me?”
“Do you want a muscle bound god,
or are you content with a small spare tire, befitting a man of a certain age?” His accent distracted her mercilessly, and
she had to concentrate on his words instead of his voice.
“I’m not into steroid-users. They don’t have to be that fit, but spare
tires? Um, I don’t think so.”
“Vague.” He stood, and to her mortification, reached
behind his neck and pulled his t-shirt over his head to reveal the perfectly
sculpted torso. Lean muscle, not too
bulky, the smallest trail of reddish-brown hair leading to the snap of his
jeans alluding to something impressive down there. “Do you consider this fit?”
Her eyes were glued to the v
formation on his abdomen. Why did that
part of a man’s physique always make her mouth completely fill with
saliva? Her eyes trailed back up over
his defined chest—dips and valleys punctuated by a smattering of hair—to admire
his wide shoulders. She noticed his
Adam’s apple on her way up to his kissable lips, smirking at her. Was that a gleam in his eyes?
Shit. He’d asked her a
question, and she had no idea what it was.
Hoping an absent nod would be sufficient, she provided one of those
before dragging her eyes away.
“Please put your shirt back on,
that’s really not appropriate, um… I don’t think.”
She managed to release the breath
she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when he put his shirt back on, covering
the smooth tanned skin and muscles.
Plopping back on the sofa, he resumed his note-taking.
“Now I know what fit means, thank
you. I think the word ambition speaks
for itself, but attractive has all sorts of connotations. Can you elaborate on what you find
attractive?”
His eyes were back on her, his
gaze seeking answers, flicking back and forth between her eyes.
“Um, I like dark hair, but blond
hair, as long as it’s neat is okay, too.
I’ve always been attracted to light eyes and smooth skin, but a certain
ruggedness is okay as well.” She bit her
lip in thought, refusing to meet his eyes, instead focusing on the quiches
perfectly arranged on the platter in front of her. “I suppose a straight nose is in there somewhere,
as well as nice lips… ” Her voice trailed off as her eyes rose, with a will of
their own, to see him staring at her, that damned smirk on his mouth
again. Nice lips. Plump, but not too much. Definitely kissable. She cleared her throat.
“He needs to have good manners,
too. No chewing with his mouth open,
holds doors for ladies, things like that,” she added for good measure, noting
to herself how squeaky her voice sounded.
He put his pen behind his ear and
slipped his notepad into his case. “So,
let me make sure I’m clear. You’re
looking for a financially stable man in his late thirties, early forties, with
hobbies, smooth skin, rugged appeal, dark hair, who works out regularly, has no
children, good relationship with his mum, who holds doors for others, doesn’t
smack when he chews, and aspirations for even more?” He clapped his hands on his thighs as if he
was about to stand. “You, my dear, have
impossibly high standards.”
One of her eyebrows arched in
incredulity. “Excuse me?”
“If there’s a man out there like
that, I’m sure every woman on the planet would like an introduction, but we’ll
do our best. In the meanwhile, you need
some work yourself. If you’re going to
hold others to such a high standard, you’ll need to go through some changes.” He stood, towering over her, his eyes roaming
her body, expression unreadable.
Other participating blogs:
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We Love Kink
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Lucy Felthouse
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Victoria Blisse
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Romance Readers Book Blog
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book bangs
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deal sharing aunt
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Bitten By Love
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Love Bites and Silk
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Author Amanda Bretz
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a Rafflecopter giveaway
ThAnks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeletencprincess96 at yahoo dot com
Better late than never :D I am following along the blog a bit late as well, so thank you for a chance to win some romantic swag (just to let you know that I am international, not US based) :) slholland22 {at} hotmail {dot} com
ReplyDeleteI am always late getting to all the hops!! Fantastic excerpt, really looks and sounds like a great read. Thanks so much!!!
ReplyDeleteJudy
magnolias_1(at)msn(dot)com