And another snippet on a Sunday

So you can see what I’m revising, here’s a snippet from Two Knights in Camelot (magic, reincarnation, hackers, and the Russian mob in Vegas). Final edits will happen after I get all the additions and tweaks done and smoothed out, so this is not final form, here.

Two Knights in Camelot
copyright 2009 Charlene Teglia
Ellora’s Cave Publishing all rights reserved

“You’ll come with me.” The voice wasn’t Gwen’s. Lance hadn’t really expected it to be hers. Gwen had done a lot of surprising things tonight, but she hadn’t stuck a gun into his side. This voice was feminine, but had a Russian accent that made him think of her as Natasha. Was there a Boris nearby? Time would tell.

“I make it a policy not to disappoint beautiful women,” Lance said. “But you put me in a difficult position. If I stay, I disappoint you. If I go with you before my dinner partner comes back, I disappoint her.”

“She will get used to disappointment,” Natasha replied. “Come.”

Lance stood, hoping Gwen was getting away. The text message she’d received had to have been her next set of instructions. “Are you responsible for the fascinating video sample I got this evening?”

“You found it fascinating?”

“Yes.” Lance thought it over. “The image quality was very good. The angle captured a lot of the action.”

“There was a lot of action to capture.”

“There was,” Lance agreed. Art might be a genius with computers, but he was clearly no slacker when it came to women. Gwen hadn’t cheated on him because he couldn’t satisfy her in bed.

“She’s a whore,” Natasha stated. “She slept with him before she slept with you. In the same bed.”

“She’s engaged to him,” Lance pointed out in the spirit of fairness. “If I can’t persuade her to leave him for me, maybe I don’t deserve to win the best penis contest.”

“You take her side?”

“I take my own side.”

Natasha made what might have been an approving noise. But he noticed that she left the gun in his ribs. He didn’t try to disarm her. He needed information. Unless he’d seriously misread the situation, his best chance to get it meant cooperating.

He didn’t anticipate the chloroform she slapped over his face as soon as the elevator door closed on the two of them.

Here, have a snippet

It’s the weekend! Still working on my to do list. Plus we’re still trying to nail down which actual day we can stop living in a hotel and move into a house again. And there is something called Rust and Dust days which we must investigate.

So to entertain the interwebz, behold, a snippet of the special ops thingie.

Shoot to Thrill

Gabe was used to the truism that no plan survives contact with the enemy. But no plan surviving contact with a hostage, that was new.

“Houston, we have a problem,” he transmitted. He uploaded the digital photo he’d snapped of the slender dark-eyed, light-haired woman who wasn’t supposed to be there and waited for identification.

It didn’t take long for the satellite uplink to give him what he needed. Name, Dr. Miranda Gray. Missing from an international volunteer relief organization for two months. The doctor specialized in nasty viruses. If she’d been grabbed for her expertise that would explain her presence at his target, a suspected bioterrorism site held by a radical terrorist group deep in Central America.

He didn’t have to wonder if she’d cooperated. The way she’d rendered her guard unconscious said it all. Dr. Gray had an interesting bedside manner. The guard outweighed her by probably eighty pounds and had the advantage of both reach and height on her. Her knowledge of anatomy more than compensated.

“You’re not supposed to take on the bad guys,” Gabe muttered, more to himself than to the woman he had under surveillance. “That’s my job.” More specifically, his current job was to destroy the target. The doctor’s presence threw a very large monkey wrench into the works. He’d have to extract her first, get them both a safe distance away before triggering detonation, and do it all without alerting unfriendlies to his presence.

Gabe was running through possible approaches when the doctor’s actions demanded his full attention. What was she doing? Moving at high speed, almost frantic but with hands that stayed rock steady, measuring out and mixing something that appeared to be charcoal and…

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.” Was she insane? If that was black powder, stirring it wrong could blow her sky high. He hoped to God she wouldn’t sneeze.

Conclusion; Dr. Gray knew exactly what her captors had in mind, and was hell-bent on stopping them. Getting out alive didn’t appear to be part of her plan, either. Then again, the very careful way she mixed the ingredients told him she wasn’t suicidal. Just desperate and determined.

Gabe abandoned planning and went into motion.

TGIF and the state of the to do list

Ah, Friday. The weekend is nearly here. Everybody’s feeling better, and the to do list is progressing.

1. Two Knights in Camelot; surprisingly tricky to add the stuff that wasn’t there, but soon I can cross this off.

2. Redline Lover; final edits done which involved things like should there be hyphens and is this word too strong for that scene. Nothing further to do on this until it releases, yay! Well, except get it on the books page, so I can add that to my website to do list.

3. Shoot to Thrill; see, I told you I’d come up with something better than Eye of the Noodle. Plot is plotted, research is researched, blurb is written, opening scene is written. Debating changing an element from one kind of kaboom to another since materials for kaboom A might not be as readily available, but that’s the kind of decision I can make when revising.

4. Djinn and Sin; 50% done, has been on hold while I worked on things that need to be done sooner.

5. Undercover Lover; 50% done. This is a free read I’ve been working on to compliment Redline Lover. It ties up a romantic subplot from Redline Lover, with more romance and suspense and a chance to revisit the characters from Redline. It has turned out to have kind of a lot of plot for a short story, but I will put as many words into it as it takes to be well told.

6. Other proposals are out there proposaling and thus not being worked on currently, and this includes Red Queen. If I don’t place Red Queen soon, I may finish and release it as a Kindle book. That could be an interesting experiment anyway. In any case I’m committed to getting this out to the readers who want it within a year of Animal Attraction’s release.

creature comforts

Kids have colds. I’m telling myself my symptoms are allergies. Yep. Allergies. And weeks like this make us turn to creature comforts.

1. Purring, snuggling cat
2. Good books
3. Or good stories on Reading Rainbow if you cough too much to read out loud
4. Throat Coat tea, possibly the most soothing beverage ever invented
5. Blankies
6. Especially blankies that are quilts made by family members
7. warm socks; Fleece Feet are my favorites
8. soup
9. beautiful sunrises
10. the soothing sound of rain falling

10 happy things

10 things that make me happy.

1. fresh local peaches. So juicy, so delicious!
2. fresh local early apples. Crunch!
3. Tully’s Italian roast coffee. I love it.
4. laundry dropps (premeasured dye/scent free eco-friendly laundry detergent; drop ’em in the load)
5. purring cat
6. trees beginning to show hints of autumn mixed with the deep summer green
7. sunny days and cool nights
8. new books to read
9. Patricia Briggs has a new Alpha/Omega book, yay
10. walking on the grass

Your turn!