I thought it would be nice to talk with my latest heroine today. I’d like to introduce, Jayda Kynslan. She’s a veterinarian in Lonesome Fork, Montana.
Nina: So what brought you to Lonesome Fork, Jayda?
Jayda: Originally or now?
Nina: Originally.
Jayda: I hate to admit it, but I was running from a broken heart. I mean how cliche is that? I rented a cottage from a friend up on Coppertip Mountain and I was just looking for some hot, unencumbered sex to replace the foul flavor of infidelity. But it seemed I entered the wrong tavern when I walked into the Whip and Bull. Or the right tavern depending on your perspective. I stayed for completely different reasons.
Nina: We’ll get back to why you stayed, but what’s a Whip and Bull?
Jayda: That’s the tavern where the wolf shifters of Coppertip Mountain congregate. *laughs* Of course that night I didn’t know wolf shifters existed.
Nina: Well, now I’m confused. I mean, aren’t you a shifter?
Jayda: I am. But I didn’t know it. I was adopted by a human family. To this day they don’t know anything about my birth parents. Besides the nightmares I had as a girl there was nothing that gave me any indication I had that ability … well, until Cole.
Nina: Cole Takoda? The police chief in Lonesome Fork?
Jayda: *nods*
Nina: What did he have to do with you discovering your animal?
Jayda: He saw it the first time we made love. I guess fur and animal parts rolled over my skin when I … umm … you know … climaxed. But I don’t do that anymore. I’ve learned to control my animals.
Nina: Animals? As in plural?
Jayda: I’m what they call a polymorphic shifter. I have wolf, cougar and human all rolled up inside. Depending on which I call up I can be either when I shift. Cole thought I’d chosen wolf when I shifted at the Blue Moon last spring, but when I met Zane over the summer, well, my cougar surfaced as well.
Nina: So how did your relationship develop?
Jayda: Well that’s complicated to be sure. When I first met Cole his wolf recognized me as its mate. There was such a quick bonding between us I couldn’t deny that my heart recognized him as well. We were talking about a mating ceremony and then the cougar died and Marissa, my assistant …
Nina: That’s all right, you don’t need to talk about Marissa. What happened?
Jayda: Zane was there. Zane’s the new leader of the cougar council. He was the one that first brought forth my cougar. *blushing* That’s when I knew.
Nina: Knew what?
Jayda: That Cole might not be enough. I mean ours is a very complicated relationship. But it’s what we all need. Our story is still unfolding, but for now, it’s working. We still haven’t celebrated our commitment ceremony, but it’s in the planning stages. It’s just that the three of us are working to unite the shifter councils of Coppertip Mountain together. I’m not sure why it’s important, but with every fiber of my being I know something is brewing and both the cougars and the wolves will need to be united to fight whatever is coming.
Nina: That sounds ominous. And though I’d love to find out more about it, I’m afraid our time has run out for today.
Jayda: No problem. I’ve got to get back to the veterinarian clinic anyway. It’s been fun chatting with you. And don’t forget to tell your readers that they can read the beginning of my love story with Cole in Blue Moon Rising in the Furry, Fluffy & Wild anthology from Liquid Silver and the rest of the love story with Zane in Bonded by Need through Ellora’s Cave. Thanks for having me.
Furry, Fluffy & Wild is a wolf shifter anthology available through Liquid Silver Books and includes my novella Blue Moon Rising which actually kicks off the “Shifting Bonds” series. This is the story where I first fell in love with Jayda Kynslan, a veterinarian who hasn’t yet met the shifter within…
Please enjoy this excerpt:
Chapter One
Jayda Kynslan sauntered into the Whip and Bull Tavern wanting only two things: a cold beer and a hot c**k. The first she hoped would ease the heavy ache in her chest. The second would be attached to a good-looking man who would replace the images of the jackass who’d broken her heart. This whole road trip to the high mountains of Montana had been a knee-jerk reaction to the asshole’s selfishness. Jayda shook her head, clearing away thoughts of the friggin’ pig of a manwhore. She didn’t want to go there tonight. This night was about getting a little buzz and a lot of sex.
Her first objective was only as far away as the bar on the other side of the room. But weaving her way through the handful of empty tables, her red cowboy boots crunching on the peanut shells strewn on the marred floor, Jayda realized finding someone to fulfill the second thing on her wish list wasn’t going to be as easy. She’d picked a bad night to go cruising for male flesh in a nearly empty bar that seemed to cater to the college crowd.
Plunking her voluptuous ass on one of the padded barstools, Jayda lifted her hand to the bartender. Some might consider Jayda fat, but she liked to think of her size-sixteen frame as curving in all the right places. Why men would go for the little waifs with nothing to hold on to, like the petite blonde behind the bar, was beyond her understanding.
“Bud Lite,” she said to the female bartender, who looked only slightly less bored than she felt at the moment. Except for football season, which had already passed, Jayda figured Monday nights, even in a cowboy town like Lonesome Fork, weren’t really big tavern nights for most people.
The woman’s ponytail swayed as she set down the bottle, offered a glass, which Jayda refused, and slid over the bowl of peanuts. Jayda hadn’t eaten since lunch–just before leaving the clinic. Anticipation had kept her driving through the mountains, but now her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t bothered to fix herself dinner before leaving the cabin, either. Grabbing a handful of nuts, she scanned the reflections of the patrons in the mirror behind the bar, searching for possible targets.
Tonight, she decided, would be her last go-around with the opposite sex–unadulterated, uncomplicated coitus with a complete stranger. A nice memory to hold onto in the quiet of the night when she was alone in her bed. She didn’t want to need a man. She was a successful vet in a big practice–it should be enough.
After tonight, she’d spend the week in solitude at her friend’s mountain cabin, mending her shredded heart, and planting her feet solidly on the path to celibacy. Obviously, two weeks drowning her sorrows with tears hadn’t helped. Men, she’d come to believe, were nothing but scumbags of trouble on the garbage heap of misery. The sooner she cleared them from her mind, the happier she’d be.
Jayda had chosen this evening’s outfit to accent her best features. Her ass was swaddled in her favorite pair of soft Levi’s, and her cleavage was displayed quite nicely in the white cashmere sweater. Her clothes definitely announced, “I’m yours for the taking.”
She hadn’t wanted to mess with the corkscrew curls of her hair while traveling the ninety minutes from her condo in Blackfish Springs to the cabin in Lonesome Fork, so she’d pulled the whole mess into a long French braid. The thick tail of black curled over her shoulder and draped invitingly over her breast.
Unable to make out faces in the murky light of the tavern, Jayda gave up on her sly inspection of the clientele and kicked the stool a half turn. Leaning one elbow on the padded edge of the bar, she casually sipped her beer, assessing her chances of getting laid.
From my novella Blue Moon Rising in the Furry, Fluffy & Wild anthology. Since I recently signed a new contract for a new shifter menage novel I thought I’d give you a taste of my first shifter story.
“You all right?” Cole bent to scratch behind the dog’s ears before untying his hiking boots and toeing out of them.
Jayda lifted a shoulder and fought to control the tears burning to be set free. “I’ve never seen a dead person, let alone one…” She didn’t want to remember how the man had died so violently.
“I hate to have you go through it all, but I need you to tell me everything that happened from the time you left the tavern last night…” He sat in the chair next to the couch. Too far to be of any comfort. “Until you found the body this morning.”
She wanted to have Cole hold her and tell her it would be all right, but the kind face that had made her swoon last night had become a hard mask of professionalism. Jayda sank onto the couch and told him everything.
“That’s it?” Cole asked.
Jayda looked at him. “What else would there be?”
“You don’t remember seeing the kid at the Bull?”
“I already told you I didn’t.” After thirty minutes of repeating her story, Jayda watched Cole tuck away his notepad. When he turned back to her, his features softened.
“I believe you, Jayda.” He reached for her hand, still gripping the coffee mug like a life preserver. “You got more of that?”
“In the kitchen.” On autopilot, Jayda stepped around the couch and through the dining area to the kitchen nook. Only the ticking of Lady’s nails on the wood floor followed her. She hoped Cole was also there.
The smell of burned coffee assaulted her nose. “It’s old. Let me make some more.” With shaky hands, she reached for the pot, the decanter bumping several times against the machine.
“Don’t.” Cole came up behind Jayda, his hand covering hers, and he guided the coffeepot back into place and snapped it off. The solid planes of his body were warm against her back. Jayda leaned against him, wanting nothing more than to fall under his spell again.
He turned her to face him, and she looked up into the compassion filling his eyes.
She touched the bruise on his cheek.
“Gift from the kids’ brawling last night. I forgot to duck.” Cole took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.
“Is it? Is a person ever the same after finding a human being slaughtered?” The tears she’d held at bay trailed rivulets down her cheeks.
Cole sandwiched her face in his hands and wiped the tears with his thumbs. When he bent close, she closed her eyes, anticipating the softness of his lips on hers. He didn’t disappoint. The heat of his mouth seared through her, and she opened to him, inviting his tongue to delve in to taste and explore. He tasted of fresh mountain air and something uniquely his. And it was there again–flowing over her with the power of a tidal wave–the feeling of being swaddled by the quintessence of Cole. It wasn’t just the heat of his arms around her, or the solid wall of him pressing against her from breastbone to knee, but the complete meshing of her life force with his. The thought was insane. Lust did not bond you to another.
She wanted him only because he was there and familiar and obviously willing to partake in another interlude if that’s what she wanted. Whatever Cole felt for her didn’t matter. All she wanted at the moment was to feel alive, and since men just didn’t turn down sex, she’d enjoy whatever Cole offered.
“This is wrong, to want you so badly, but I can’t help myself. Tell me to stop now, and I will.” His teeth nipped at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “I’ll die a slow, agonizing death, but I’ll stop,” Cole whispered.
I’m having one of those weeks when the stars seemed to have aligned to conspire against me. I’m behind in everything. This week I’m listing 13 reasons why I’m late with the blog and why there are no pictures to go with it!
1. Some stooopid virus seems to have infected my computer and it freezes every 5 minutes.
2. I travelled last weekend (and someone used my computer … which probably explains #1) and that always puts me behind.
3. January is when I pull together all the tax stuff for my personal account and business stuff AND all three of my children. This means cleaning out the old folders and making new and … well, trust me when I say it’s a job that keeps going.
4. Ditto the above for the medical bills.
5. I’m making a couple of book trailers for some authors. It should be wham bam quick and easy … but refer to #1 and you’ll understand why I’m pulling my hair out.
6. Furry, Fluffy, and Wild won the Love Romance Cafe award for best anthology for 2008. I’m stoked! But that means I spent time surfing around shouting the good news. (You can see the winners button over the book cover.)
7. Beautiful Girl leaves for Italy in 4 days. I’m trying to help her get things organized. (Like making sure her tax forms are signed.)
8. I’m working on edits for Divine Deception and learning how to use tracking for the first time. (It’s not hard, it’s just new to me.)
9. There’s still laundry to do and dinners to cook. (And Little Boy Blue is doing swim team for the first time which creates more of the first and requires larger quantities of the second.)
10. Our router isn’t working so two children don’t have internet access. Which means I’m sharing computer time with them. Oh, and did I happen to mention the flipping thing ISN’T WORKING RIGHT!
11. I’m going through my calendar and trying to catch up on interviews and guest blogs for people coming here and me go other places and it’s just not working. On top of that, I’m supposed to be writing another novella. That one’s been taking a back seat … which is baaaad.
12. I’m doing a presentation for my writer’s group on writing novellas in February and I’m a little freaked out about it because I’m really not sure how I do it. (And it’s bigger than that … not the teaching part … well, let’s just say it’s freaking me out.)
13. I’m finally getting a chance to read Twilight and it’s keeping me up late at night and DH is complaining that the bedside light is on too late and I should have been writing or doing my blog instead of that.
So lately I have had lots of guest authors visiting my blog and then I share with you some silly list of thirteen, but sometimes I forget to tell you exactly what I’m up to. Well, let me just ramble my way through an update.
I finished a novella for a new publisher at the beginning of the month. I crossed my fingers, did a chant over the email, pressed the “send” button and off it went through cyberspace. Submitted.
Now I wait.
I hate waiting. But I’m working to be patient. I’d really like this new publisher to fall in love with my writing. It means a lot to me. Not that I don’t absolutely loooove LSB, but a gal’s got to branch out or she’ll never grow.
Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned, but my “big” book … a full romantic suspense novel involving the FBI, a stalker, and a married couple viewing their relationship from opposite ends of the spectrum has been turned down by two publishers and now an agent. Every single one of them told me the writing was solid, but it just didn’t “grab” them. It’s okay, really. I think I’ve figured out what’s wrong with my heroine … basically she’s a b#@*! and no one really cares if the stalker kills her. It was my second book … cut me some slack! LOL! Anyway, I know it can be saved, it’s just going to take some real work.
Then I decided to start a novel I intend to submit to yet another publisher. I’m still going to write it. It will be a great story. It involves cowboys and firefighters and since it’s a Nina Pierce title … hawt sex. I’ve got the first chapter and a loose plot (which is how I work), but then Cole and Jayda started screaming at me.
Yep, Jayda from Blue Moon Rising (in the Furry, Fluffy, and Wild anthology) decided her story wasn’t finished. How could I ignore her when she was stamping her feet and insisting I find answers about her past and offer her more hawt manlove? Okay Jayda … I hear you. I think this is definitely the most naughty story to date. But I’m loving it!
So how’s your fall going? Whether you’re a writer or a mommy or a working person, let me know what’s going on in your life.
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