COUGAR TALES: Something for those Summer Vacations, or Staycations!
MY NEWEST RELEASE!
Cougar Tales by Laura Castoro, Sandra Kitt, and Evelyn Palfrey
Contemporary romantic anthology!
Available now in Kindle download.
Coming soon in paperback!
I have to admit right off the bat: I hate the title of the anthology. That said, the concept is selling well — on TV, in the movies, and in bookstores. Cougars are said to older women who date younger men– sometimes as little as 3-4 years younger. This predatory approach seems misogynistic. As if the guys need to be careful or they”ll be devoured by all that mature female passion!
Personally, I have to wonder about any man over 25 who can’t hold his own with a grown woman of any age. I mean, as in maturity level. American males, stand up for yourselves! This approach makes them sound dumb as the so-called empty-headed bimbo class of certain younger women. So what does that equal: boy-bos, guybos, jimbos? Pleeeez!
However, everyone who likes a good romance will enjoy our stories. PROMISE
Well, if you’ve read me before you know I can’t just do a straight take on anything. I have to add my twist. My heroine is 40 and about to become an grandmother. The psychological divide of that rite of passage is broader than the 5-8 years that separate her from my hero (He never admits to their age difference because it doesn’t matter to him.)
Let me say now that if you read any reviews or blurbs at Amazon — so far — you should know that there in NOT a 30-something year difference between my characters!!! I’ve written everyone to complain but, so far, no changes.
I’m happy to add that my companion authors also took the approach of who would want to write about a man who didn’t know what he was doing in dating a woman who happens to have a birthday older than his? Our leading men know a thing or two about life and how to live it, regardless of that anyone else thinks. Love is love, and it’s precious enough to hold on to when you find it.
So, rather than just give you a review, I’m going to do a Chapter Excerpt!
STORMY WEATHER by Laura Castoro
Chapter One
The moment her car left the blacktop, all Beverly Freeman could think about was that she was going to miss the birth of her first grandchild.
“Ma’am? Ma’am!”
Beverly opened her eyes. At least she thought her eyes were open. She couldn’t see a thing. What was going on? Where was she? She felt strangely suspended, floating. Was this a dream? No! Something had happened! Something she would begin to remember in a moment.
“Are you hurt, ma’am?” It was a man’s voice, carrying the command that she answer.
“I—I don’t…” The darkness about her exploded in light and then thunderous sound that vibrated her world. Adrenalin shot through her system. She whipped her head in the direction of the stranger’s shout. “Where are you? I can’t see!”
“Okay, hold on.”
She heard some scuffling, as if someone was scraping shoes over gravel, and then another bright flash of lightning lit the space around her. That’s when she realized something was covering her face. For the first time, panic edged into her thoughts. “Help! I’m stuck!”
“It’s okay, ma’am. I’m right here.” His voice was much closer. “I’m going to touch you. Okay?”
Confused, Beverly drew back instinctively from the idea of a strange man touching her. “Why do you need to touch me?”
She heard his quick grunt of amusement. “I need to move the air bag away from your face. Okay?”
Air bag? Why would there be an air bag over her face?
As he tugged the fabric away a bright halo of lightning stabbed her eyes. It took a second for her vision to adjust before she noticed the face of her rescuer. It was a very nice face, brown like hers, but something about him was very wrong.
She squinted at him. “Why are you upside down?”
His smile was as gentle as his touch had been. “It’s not me who’s upside down, ma’am.”
“What?”
His smile should have reassured her but it didn’t. It made no more sense than her situation, which wouldn’t come right in her mind.
“Can you remember what happened?”
“I was… flying.” The words surprised her even as she said them.
He nodded a little. “You’ve been in a car accident.”
“Accident!” It all came back to her in a flood of detailed memories.
Cliff, her son-in-law, had called at the crack of dawn to say that Angelique’s labor had begun. Angelique was terrified of pain, had been since a child. Not even having her husband by her side was going to keep her calm for long.
Prepared for the ‘baby’s coming’ call Beverly had grabbed her already-packed travel bag and not even bothered to check the weather until she was on the road. She wasn’t particularly concerned when her iPhone pinged an alert concerning a major storm system moving in from the Gulf. Thunderstorms were a regular part of spring weather in Arkansas and Louisiana. A little rain wasn’t going to keep her from the birth of her first grandchild.
The only portion of trip she was the least bit concerned about was the stretch where she had to leave the Interstate highway. The state roadway she took as a shortcut through southern Arkansas narrowed to a two-lane blacktop without shoulders as it snaked through piney woods. But with a little luck she would reach the next Interstate before the rain struck.
Beverly sipped Chai tea from her thermos and willed herself to relax. She had plenty of time to get there. Birthing took time for women in her family. Angelique, her only child, had been a nineteen-hour long labor. She had made this four-hour trip from Little Rock to Shreveport often since Angelique and Cliff relocated there six months ago. Bless her, Angelique needed help selecting everything from an apartment to curtains, and leaving her to unpack a household in her pregnant state just wouldn’t do.
“She should have stayed in Little Rock until after the baby was born,” Beverly murmured under her breath, and not for the first time. That’s what everyone said. But who could really argue with a first-time mother who wanted to be with her husband, even if his relocation had come at a bad time for the young couple?
Everybody’s mama! That’s what Denise, Beverly’s business partner in their medical billing service Med-Cap, called her. Denise like to rag on her about the fact that anytime family members or friends were feeling needy or neglected or wanted kindhearted yet practical advice, they turned to Beverly.
“Damn! Even strangers come to you for help,” Denise had said just the day before after Beverly had given directions to a motorist. “
Maybe so. But somebody had to be in charge. In business Denise deferred to her. So today, she was doing what she had always gone, making it happen for her baby girl.
Beverly glanced at the large diamond ring on her right ring finger. That stone, in a different setting of her own design, was the only reminder of a marriage she had left two decades ago, at age twenty. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater went the old saying. So she’d kept the good things, Angelique and the diamond. That’s what she’d always done in her life. If being a single working parent meant she had been too busy to take seriously a relationship with a man, that’s how it was.
After Angelique and Cliff and the new baby were settled then she’d think about her personal life again. Though, Lord Jesus! How Angelique was going to cope alone with a brand-new baby didn’t bear thinking about. The girl was book smart and good-hearted, but she didn’t seem to have a common sense bone in her body. She would need lots of help with a new baby. So, Beverly would get a life as soon as she found the time.
When she reached that dicey stretch of back road, the first jittery flashes of lightning brightened the edges of thick purple clouds swallowing the once bright sky. Even so, she made a quick call, to reassure her daughter that she was on the way,
“Now you just have to pace yourself, Angelique. Remember your birthing class instructions. Babies come in their own time. You have to have patience and take each pain as it comes.”
All at once, straight-line winds began shoving her car like a linebacker trying to break through. She had thought she had time. Time had just run out.
“I got to go now. You and Cliff just concentrate on having that baby. Love you. Bye!”
Not wanting to worry Angelique, she didn’t mention the wind, or the approaching storm. Gripping the wheel, she cast an eye upwards. It didn’t look encouraging. A thick wedge of a wall cloud had swooped low, catching its raggedy edges in the treetops. By the time her gaze dropped back to the road a solid sheet of rain had drowned out the ribbon of blacktop ahead.
A frighteningly close burst of chrome-white lightning lit up the gloom a split second before an earsplitting crack of thunder lifted her in her seatbelt. One moment it was daylight, the next her car was enveloped in a downpour that came so thick and fast the windshield wipers couldn’t clear her view of the road.
Instinct urged her to pull over. But she was an experienced driver who knew that it was more dangerous to pull off into God-only-knew what kind of ditch or risk being rear-ended by a rain-blinded driver. Slowing to a near crawl, she clutched the wheel until her knuckles hurt, and began to pray
She thought she was alone on the road. Then the enormous cab of an eighteen-wheeler in the opposite lane came roaring over the top of a slight rise, its high beans piercing the curtain of rain.
Gritting her teeth in horror, Beverly watched as the cab veneered off the blacktop on the opposite side, its tires churning up great clods of mud and water. Despite the pounding rain she heard the hydraulic roar as the driver slammed on his brakes. Resisting those brakes, the heavy trailer it hauled jackknifed behind the cab, swung across the highway and into Beverly’s lane. The momentum of the entire truck sent it skidding straight at her.
She didn’t have time to do anything but brake and jerk her wheel to the right.
The moment her car’s tires lost traction, she knew she was in serious trouble. She felt the car leave the slick road, rising for an instant toward the angry gray sky, and finally she was tumbling and jerking and–.
“Dear Lord!”
“Ma’am!” Someone was shaking her shoulder, and not gently. “Ma’am, stay with me!”
Surprised again by the sound of a man’s voice so close to her, Beverly swung her head toward him. This time she could see clearly the face only inches from her own. It was wet with rain and marred by streaks of red mud, and still upside down. No! She was upside down. “My car!”
He nodded. “You’ve been in an accident.”
“Yes.” She swallowed. She remembered that. Now.
The hair lifted on her arms, a second before lightning forked down around the car. “Oh, my lord!” escaped her in a whisper.
“Take it easy.” The man reached out and touched her arm more gently this time. “You’re doing fine.”
No, she wasn’t! She was stuck inside her overturned vehicle, the one she had just made the last payment on. This car was supposed to last her another four years if she took good care of it. Now it was lying in a ditch like an overturned turtle. But that wasn’t her fault.
With sudden suspicion, she turned her head back toward the stranger. “You ran me off the road!”
“No, ma’am. The eighteen-wheeler that did is piled up about a quarter of a mile down the road.” She watched his expression dim for an instant, as if he was remembering something terrible, but the dark emotion was quickly gone. “I didn’t know e another car was involved until I saw your headlights off in the —.”
A deafening clap thunder cut him off.
Beverly felt the car tremble in response. She could have died, just like that! Through no fault of her own!
A rush of anger poured through her, willing away any concern for her own safety. She had other more important things to think about. More important than her car or herself. She needed to get to Shreveport. Angelique would be worried if she were late.
She tried to free herself from her seatbelt but couldn’t. Her left arm was still trapped by her side. Anger warred with a returning fright as she began twisting frantically in her seat. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?”
The man scooted closer by crawling on his elbows. “Now take it easy, ma–. What’s your name?”
She took a deep breath, trying to will away a helplessness she’d seldom known. “Beverly Freeman.”
“Can you look at me, Beverly?”
Slowly she turned at looked at him, really looked. He was sprawled on his belly, his legs stretched out behind him through her broken passenger side window. He was young, and looked big and solid. Just the kind of man one would want around in an emergency. Even his eyes, a golden amber in a darker face, seemed to glow with confidence.
When he took her free hand, she felt proof of reliability in his touch. “My name’s Will, Beverly. I’m going to get you out of here safely. Promise. But you’ve got to help me, too. Can you do that, Beverly?”…
Hope you’re hooked!
But my Liz is something else. Tantric sex, anyone?
