By Amanda
McIntyre
I grew up in a small town, much like
Cat, chomping at the bit, waiting for the day I could escape the tedious
existence of my dreary, unexciting life. I got that chance after graduation and
moved to various places before I married my high school sweetheart and he took
a job back in our hometown.
There I was again, only this time, with
a new perspective—one we had children and wanted to be closer to family as well
as a good place to raise our kids, and two, I’d experienced city life—exciting
and diverse as it is, I discovered there is much to be said for small town
life. Certainly, it’s not as mundane as I once thought. Age, if nothing else,
offers a new perspective that I did not possess in my youth.
When writing my current contemporary
romances, Undercover Temptation and Rugged Hearts, Book I in the Kinnison
Legacy, I openly embraced the fact that deep down I’m a small town country
girl. Not only that, but I realized how rich and colorful small town life can
be—we celebrate tradition, community pride, generations of family farms,
teachers that retire after lifetime of teaching in the same school, neighbors
stepping in to lend a hand, and the Saturday morning Farmers Market. It’s as
though a lightbulb went on over my head and I began to understand the old
phrase, “write what you know.”
There’s as much mystery, secrets,
angst, romance, history and scandal in a small town as anywhere else and its
opened a whole new ‘chapter’ (as it were) in my life.
Cat Madsen left her hometown ten years
ago, escaping to Vegas with hopes of becoming a famous showgirl, but those
dreams evaporate when she finds out that the owner of the club she pole-dances
at also dabbles in drug trafficking. Now, using her ailing father as an excuse
to return home to the town that rejected her, Cat is back with a renewed
determination to prove her worth. But her tarnished reputation may prevent her
from building a future among small-town attitudes.
When an undercover assignment lands
Detective Reese Jamieson in the tiny town of Sweetwater, he is skeptical it’s a
hotspot for anything. Then he gets his first glimpse of the ex-Vegas showgirl
who runs the new pole-dancing workout studio. Reported to be a hometown gal
with a checkered past, she is considered the prime suspect to front a drug
ring, but he begins to wonder once someone threatens the beautiful woman’s life
and business. Reese struggles to keep things professional. When things become
personal, Reese must risk everything, including Cat’s trust, to protect her
from the past.
Excerpt Set-up: Going undercover as a
land developer, Detective Reese Jamison is supposed to join Cat’s aerobics class
and investigate the possibility she is trafficking for her former boss in Las
Vegas. Here he arrives and gets his first glimpse at his potential suspect…
He arrived a few minutes early, noting
the lone baby-blue F-150 in the gravel lot. The sun sat like a red fireball on
the horizon, casting long shadows across the parking lot. He got out of his car
and dropped his bag in the trunk, squeezing the automatic lock on his keys. He
took his time walking to the front door, taking in the solitary light pole at
the driveway entrance, the sagging overhang of the front porch, and the
sputtering welcome sign missing its last vowel. As he got closer, he heard the
thump-thump of sensual bass coming from an exceptional sound system. The wicked
beat caused goose bumps to rise on his flesh and thoughts he shouldn’t be
toying with to filter into his brain.
Yeah, she’s wild, our little Cat. The
words of the man at the bar slithered with a slow hiss into his brain, and he
swallowed hard to fight off the images it brought with it. The daily grind and
pressure of his job left little time for dating. Besides, he was getting too
old for the bar scene and though they’d tried, the younger guys on the force
had only managed once or twice to drag him to a dance club. He paused at the
front door, observing the weathered barn-board exterior. In its day, it was
probably a busy place—maybe even a place he might have frequented. The door
stuck, and he shoved his shoulder against it, forcing it open.
The main room was empty, dark except
for the tables and chairs stacked to one side. Farther back beyond the bar was
an area that appeared to be a dance floor. It didn’t take long as he moved
toward the dim light to realize it was no ordinary dance floor. He stepped from
the shadows and halted in his tracks at the sight before him. It resembled a
silvery forest with at least nine—to his quick count—steel poles positioned at
spaced intervals across the room. Above, bare light bulbs stuck out from
sockets strung across the beams of the ceiling, providing light to each of the
stations. He wasn’t sure what he should have expected, but this wasn’t it. The
music grew a bit louder, drawing his astonished gaze to a tenth pole set up in
the middle of the small stage at one side of the room. Above it, a single bulb
housed in a metal, industrial shade spotlighted the pole.
From the heavy black drapes hiding the
backstage area emerged a woman the likes of which Reese had never seen. Her
long legs were encased in skintight black Spandex that rode miles, it seemed,
before disappearing beneath a faded, cherry-red zipped hoodie. She gripped the
pole with one hand, letting it slide effortlessly as she dropped her body to a
squat position and let her body sway to the provocative beat. She dropped her
head back, her dark brown hair done up in a ponytail swished back and forth.
Her eyes were closed. Performing silently, she obviously thought she was alone.
Lord
have mercy.
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Bio:
Growing up the daughter of a father who was a distributor for a New York magazine publishing firm, Amanda usually had her nose stuck in the latest issue
of Vampirella or a Hitchcock Mystery book. An artist first, her penchant for
creating started at an early age with crayons and colored pencils and much of
what she learned made her a ‘visual’ writer. Her passion is to take ordinary
people and place them in extraordinary situations, delving into the realm of
potential and possibility, and watch as they become the heroes and heroines of
their own stories. She counts herself fortunate to be able to do what she loves,
aspires to stay fresh and unique to her voice and listen to her readers. A
member of RWA, and a multi-genre hybrid author, her work is published
internationally, in audio, in e-book and in print. She currently writes
sizzling contemporary and erotic historical romance.
