Sunday Snippet: Tell Me More

Happy Father's Day to anyone celebrating. For those not for whatever reason, I hope your day is filled with peace and calm and you find your joy.

It's been a really rough week. I definitely didn't make it through the worst the week prior. I had a lot more yuck to get through. Thankfully, I'm now down to some nagging congestion, but I can breathe again and I'm not coughing every five minutes, which makes me happy because we're due for some awful heat this week.

Managed to stay mostly on top of my work projects. I'm not as far along as I'd like to be, but I'm within my window to meet my deadlines. Not being 100 percent isn't fun but at least I can work around being less than my best. If I had a job with set hours, I'd still probably be fighting through the slog of upper respiratory yuck.

Had a very slow week of viewing. I didn't have the brain power to get involved in much of anything but comfort shows like Perry Mason and Midsomer Murders.

I did catch another Best in Paradise and thoroughly enjoyed the introduction from Don Warrington. It's fun to hear him speak without the Caribbean accent.

I also watched another Death in Paradise and it's one I only saw bits and pieces of when it first aired. Nice to see if from start to finish.

That's pretty much it for the life update this week. Hopefully I'll be back to somewhat normal for next week's entry.

Tonight's post is from Tell Me More, a novella that explores how a couple comes together after being at cross purposes.

Here's the miniblurb:

Shannon Tewes and Webber Dillon work for a premiere event planner and don't always see eye to eye. Shannon has a knack for putting Webber on the hot seat whenever their boss is around, and Webber has several ideas of how he'd retaliate if he ever got Shannon in a compromising position.

And a snippety peek…

"Fuck my life with a blow torch." Webber kicked the structure, praying it stayed together.

Miracle of miracles, it did. Thank whatever ruled the universe.

Hot, sticky, hungry, and irritated because the first three frames didn't want to cooperate, he finally found the method to the madness of constructing the tunnel so it could be erected and torn down quickly, but also safe for guests to walk through. And he only lost two hours of his life on that part. Now, he had to gear up to lose the next seven days to this cluster-fuck project.

Dragging a hand through his hair, he growled. "Damn Shannon and her stupid-ass ideas." Especially when she put him on the hot seat.

If he refused and said he wouldn't do the work, Marjorie could always find someone else. They wouldn't have the same high standard, but Marjorie didn't always care about the quality. She did care about sticking him between a rock and an immovable force … namely her.

He sighed. "Why do I do this to myself?"

Right. Not a hard answer. He loved the steady work she provided. And he'd grudgingly admit the tunnel idea would rock the wedding reception. But no way did Shannon have any concept of how much time went into figuring out how to make shit sturdy yet keep it light enough to haul back and forth to a location. Someday, he'd sit her down and explain—in excruciating detail—how difficult her brilliant ideas made his life.

Dragging another arch over, he started the process of getting it connected. How many times had he pulled off a last-minute miracle? Marjorie never wanted to hear what couldn't be done, so he inevitably made Shannon's vision happen.

He snorted. "I seriously wonder if Shannon spends her days visualizing ways to wreck my life?" He hadn't gone out on a date in months.

Who had time? Fantastic Fetes kept growing. Its reputation as the event planner to use, built on a lot of his sweat, made the phones ring and online contact forms flow in at a steady pace. As long as he got paid and didn't have to cave in to Marjorie's twisted bargain, he'd deal.

Shannon probably had lots of dates. He had several notions of what he'd like to do with her, if he ever got her in a compromising position. Because annoyance aside, he actually liked her. Super hot, she never used her looks to take advantage of situations. At least not with him. And he wanted to admire her serious creativity but tended to get stuck in pissed-off mode because her genius usually meant hard labor for him.

Because of Marjorie and her insane desire to blur the lines between personal and professional. Shannon had no clue about their boss's sexist bargaining. And he'd like to keep her in the dark. No one else needed to know how low he'd gone to get the job.

Lost in thought and work, he didn't hear the pounding on his door…

I'm having so much fun writing this one. Webber is ready to lose his mind but Shannon might have just the thing to keep him together.

 

That's it for this week. Happy reading!

Skylin