When my oldest son was three, he
and I had a challenging day, during which I explained to him that I am the
boss. Getting ready for bed that night,
he asked my husband, “How can Mommy be the boss? She’s a girl.”
I kid you, not.
This same child has accused me of
being lost while I’m driving enumerable times, despite my assurances to the
contrary. He has lamented, “I wish Dad
was home so he could glue this back together,” and “Daddy really ought to
change that light bulb.”
I gave birth to the second coming
of Archie Bunker.
My father taught me to change a
flat tire and the oil on a car. I can
drive a stick shift and wire an electrical outlet and work a compound miter
saw. But my son thinks I belong in some
1950s kitchen, hemming and hawing over whether to make turnips or parsnips with
the roast and béchamel sauce. (Keep in
mind, it’s not the cooking that offends me, but the hemming and hawing. I’m all over French sauces, but that’s
another post.)
In my novel, Meant for Her, Julie Trueblood is a strong, independent woman. If anything, she needs to learn how to accept
someone else’s strength in her own life—how to be loved and how to love in
return. Abandoned by her military father
when he was accused of decoding secrets for the enemy, she’s spent the better
part of a decade trying to distance herself from those events and find her
place in this world.
When Navy officer Hank Jared is
assigned to investigate a fiery homicide, a coded message and a clue lead him
to Julie. She is pulled back into the
past, the knowledge of cryptography that her father gave her slowly coming back
to her working memory.
Hank is drawn to this woman, but
suspects she is hiding something. The cipher
holds the key to unlock the truth, but it will take time—time they don’t have—to
learn its secrets. When someone is after
Julie, she begrudgingly turns to Hank for help.
He finds the perfect place to hide her, right by his side, pretending to
be his girlfriend at his sister’s wedding weekend.
Julie will need to decide who can
be trusted as she works to decipher the message and right the wrongs of the
past. She is drawn to this man, but he
represents everything she has run from.
Can she see past the illusions and open her heart to the man she was
meant to love?
The following is an excerpt from Meant for Her. Hank and Julie are alone in a bedroom at his
mother’s house, where they’re staying for his sister’s wedding.
“Whoa, hold on a minute. I
was just putting on a show for your new brother-in-law,” said Julie, standing
taller and squaring her shoulders.
“He’s not my brother-in-law
until tomorrow,” Hank corrected her, staring at her full breasts, then back to
her lips.
“I’m going to take a
shower,” she said, sidestepping to get past his wide shoulders. Walking to the
dresser, she began digging in her overnight bag for her pajamas, flustered when
she couldn’t find what she wanted. Feeling like an idiot, she picked up the
whole bag, went in the bathroom, and locked the door.
She sank down onto the
toilet seat, clutching her bag, and breathed deeply as she closed her eyes.
Sadness and fatigue surrounded her in a drenching wave. She was enjoying the
sexual banter with Hank, then suddenly she saw herself as he must see her—a
grieving, messed up woman with nowhere to go and just a handful of people who
loved her.
Hank wasn’t interested in
her awesome personality. He was a Navy officer who just happened to be sharing
her bedroom tonight, and figured he may as well get lucky. Kill two birds with
one stone. She knew his type well and had little respect for them. The familiar
uniform just added insult to injury, pointing out what she should never have
forgotten.
Hank Jared was not someone
she could trust.
Julie stood and turned the
hot water on full force as she began to undress. She resented the fact that she
was stuck here, pretending to be someone she wasn’t just to stay one step ahead
of a nameless, faceless enemy. As the water sluiced over her skin, she shivered
in spite of the heat. Her mind was full of images—a burned out hotel room, the
window seat at Gwen’s house, a rusty red generator and footprints in the snow.
She thought of the message
from the safe deposit box as she let the water run down her bent head and
shoulders. Her quick cryptanalysis in the car had begun to awaken memories of processes
long since forgotten. She knew and understood every class of cipher ever
popularized, from simple substitution and Masonics to the latest in computer
generated random keys and transport layer security. Her mind played the options
like notes on a score, trying different combinations and looking for patterns
that would confirm or deny their collusion.
Grabbing a bar of
sweet-smelling soap, she began to wash away the experience of the day while her
mind raced through secret codes and memories. Something was bothering her about
the message, interfering with her thoughts like a car parked in the middle of a
freeway. There was a familiarity about the cipher that eluded her, ringing the
faintest of bells in her jangled memory.
Frustrated with herself, she
tried to stop focusing on it, hoping it would gather itself together in her
subconscious and emerge as a coherent whole if she left it alone.
Julie turned off the water
and opened the shower curtain, gazing through the steam at the bathroom door
with annoyance. It was going to be a long night with Hank sleeping on the floor
just feet from her bed. The thought of him in such close proximity made her
pulse pick up, and she cursed her own attraction to the man.
She dried her hair with the
towel before wrapping it around her torso. The pajamas she’d frantically been
searching for earlier were now clearly visible at the top of her duffle bag.
That figures.
An old favorite, they were
knit of soft green cotton, with a boxy tee and wide pants that were about as alluring
as a potato sack.
“Thank God for ugly
pajamas,” she said to herself.
The bedroom was dark when
she emerged, with just a small nightlight in the bathroom behind her to light
the way. Maybe he was already asleep. She stood still, waiting for her eyes to
adjust to the inky blackness.
“I’m on the floor, between
the bathroom and the bed. Don’t step on me.”
She could just make out the
bed posts and began walking toward them in the darkness. Three steps in, she
kicked something solid.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry!”
“Seriously? Because I didn’t
tell you exactly where I was?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“Well then, I guess it
didn’t hurt.”
“Oh please, you’re fine.”
“You just kicked me.”
“What are you, a baby?
Because you’re carrying on like one.”
She heard him stand up in
front of her. “You’re calling me names, now?”
“If the shoe fits…” she was
startled when he pulled her against him.
“Shut up, Julie,” he said,
kissing her roughly. She pushed against him half-heartedly, even as her mouth
responded to his and kissed him back passionately. His hand slipped beneath her
top to caress the bare skin of her back.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.
She had been playing games
with him, flirting and retreating, and Hank didn’t like games. While she was in
the bathroom, he made the decision to keep their relationship professional. He
had no intention of jeopardizing his career for Julie Trueblood.
That was, until she opened
the bathroom door and he saw her body silhouetted in the light of the doorway,
the thin fabric of her pajamas teasing him like the sexiest lingerie.
His body’s response had been
instantaneous.
This woman made him feel
like he was in high school, all hormones and raging lust. He might die if he
couldn’t get close to her, couldn’t rub her smooth skin and feel her body
pressed against him.
Her breasts pushed at his
bare chest, separated from him only by the light material, and his hand reach
up in an intimate caress, making her moan.
Her head fell back and he grabbed the hem of her shirt, lifting it upward.
Julie jumped back, recoiling
from his hands. “I don’t want to do this.”
Hank’s stare bored into her
own in the dark room. “Liar,” he said thickly. “You want to as much as I do.”
Her chin lifted in denial
and she opened her mouth to speak.
He didn’t want to hear it.
He was tired, he was aggravated, and he was bordering on crazy. He sank down on
his makeshift bed before she could pretend she wasn’t on fire, just like he
was. “Goodnight, Julie.”
She stood shock still for a
moment before finishing her walk to the high poster bed, and scurried under the
covers. “Goodnight.”
The carpeted floor was rigid
beneath Hank’s frustrated form, and he punched the pillow in an attempt to get
comfortable. He imagined resting his head on Julie’s soft breasts instead, and
knew that sleep would be hard to come by this evening.
“Just so you know,
tomorrow’s a big deal to me and my family. I’d appreciate it if you try to be a
convincing girlfriend.”
“What does that mean,
exactly?”
“Pretend you like me, Julie.
Don’t cross your arms over your chest or walk away when I speak to you. Smile
at me once in a while. Dance with me at the reception and hold my hand if you
can stand the thought.”
He was about to ask if she’d
heard him, when she finally replied, “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll pretend to like you.”
“Great. Thank you. I hope
the experience isn’t too painful for you.”
“Goodnight, Hank.”
“Goodnight, Julie.”
Meant for Her is available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B008YYLYLS
Amy's novella Meghan's Christmas Wish is also available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B009QFC756
Learn more about Amy at her website: http://www.amygamet.com/
