May 2011

May! Can you believe it?

Doesn't it feel like just yesterday we were popping corks on champagne, celebrating the new year?

Time certainly does fly, but...I have to admit...I'm sort of thrilled that it's May. I love this month's release in the Baby in the Boardroom series, SECOND CHANCE BABY.

Nick and Maggie were a joy to write! Not only is Nick a cool southern gentleman with a great beach house, but Maggie is a fun, funny, hardworking woman just trying to get her life back together, who returned to Ocean Palms, North Carolina to be with her dad.

She's pregant with her ex-husband'd child, which annoys Nick since he was her first husband -- they'd married as teens when she'd gotten pregnant and they were incredibly happy -- but enter Stephone Andreas. Nick's missing father. At the worst possible time, he offers Nick a five million dollar trust fund. The only catch is he has to be single. Stephone blames his womanizing ways on being married when he became rich. He wasn't able to overcome the temptations thrown at him just because he had money and he cheated on Darius's mom with Nick's mom and Cade's mom and created two other Andreas heirs. So he's offering each of his sons five million dollars BEFORE they settled down to get all that out of their systems. So if Nick wants his five mill, he's gotta be single.

Of course, Maggie overhears the lawyer and of course she doesn't want him to give up his chance at success for her...Oh, wait! The whole scene for this is on my website! It's in the What Came Before section. If you want to read the heart-tugging scene where Maggie pretends she doesn't love Nick and leaves, it's online! You can read it now at susanmeier.com. Click What Came Before.

I loved Nick and Maggie's book and I think you will too!

This month is also my husband's birthday. Can't wait to see how we celebrate that. And I'll be speaking on a panel with Nancy Martin and Jonathan Maberry at the Published Authors Luncheon at the annual Pennwriters conference in Pittsburghon May 13.

This month in the eZine, we also have Lesson 3 of THE POWER OF QUESTIONS. And I'll give you my standard reminder that there are three free workshops on the site, GOAL SETTING, 10-MINUTE SOLUTION and HOW TO ANALYZE THE BOOKS YOU READ.

I'm also posting a time-management lesson (a very short lesson) on my blog every Monday. So watch for that!

Also Coming Attractions lists the schedule of my online workshops for the rest of the year, with the reminder that I'm only giving each workshop once. So if you miss it, you miss it until next year!

There's a cat tail!

And, of course, an excerpt from SECOND CHANCE BABY.

New recipes go up periodically in the HOME COOKING section of susanmeier.com.

And there are some short stories up too. This month in the HAPPILY EVER AFTER blog, Baby Gino's story is up! If you read THE BABY PROJECT, read the happily ever after that shows Darius and Whitney interfering (ever so slightly) in Gino's romance 30 years after the book.

So visit susanmeier.com and enjoy the freebies!

Happy reading!

susan

For the Writers Among us!

Lesson 3 Your Individual Story Question or Reader Question

Right now you’re thinking that the modified core story question we did in Lesson 2 is your INDIVIDUAL STORY QUESTION. Sorry. It’s the core or heart of your story, but it’s not the question that’s going to drag readers through the book. (So for simplification purposes we’re going to call this the reader question.)

Okay. So what do I mean by a question dragging readers through the book?

Simply put, your story question/reader question is the question the reader should consistently be asking as they are reading your book.

For instance, a few years ago I wrote a book SNOWBOUND BABY, about a hero and heroine who are stuck in the cabin in the woods. The hero is a trucker, estranged from his wealthy brothers, who happened upon the stranded heroine on an icy mountain road and gets stranded himself.

He has a secret. He's got a certified check for hundreds of thousands of dollars in his backpack because he's on his way to Arkansas to pay off his brothers, who bought the mortgage on his ranch, he believes, only to show him that they are always in control. His brothers have only ever wanted to control him. He trusts no one.

The heroine is a single mom. Her ex walked out when she got pregnant because he didn't "do" daddy. But her parents had also left when she was 18. As if 18 was some sort of magic number. They'd been unhappily married almost since the day she was born, but to assure she had a good upbringing they stayed together. But the minute she graduated from high school, they split! Happily. And both sort of forgot she existed. Oh, they send birthday cards, but they behave as if they've been left out of prison, for the first time able to have the lives they want. She feels very unwanted and unloved.

So…he can't commit. He thinks family sucks.

She needs a commitment from someone. She desperately wants a family. A real family.

They are doomed. The worst kind of mismatched.

The reader question isn't what has to happen to get these two together.

Readers won't read for that. That's an author question. We ask ourselves questions like this so that we can ascertain plot points and journey steps and know what to write next.

Your reader question is designed for READERS. It's what keeps them reading. Which means you also need to know it to make sure it stays in the forefront and pulls readers through your story.

So…what were my core story question and reader story question for SNOWBOUND BABY?

Core story: How will the hero and heroine get together when he doesn’t believe in love and she desperately needs to be loved?

Reader story question: Will she have enough time to realize his real problem is that he believes he's unworthy of love and then prove to him that he is?

The book was a sort of race against the clock. Though my heroine didn't realize she was trying to show the hero the power of love, readers knew only she could. But she didn't have a lot of time. As soon as the snow plow went through after the blizzard that stranded them, he would be on the road again.

Worse, he truly didn't believe. His parents had died when he was in his teens. His older brother – barely out of high school himself – raised him. All of his examples of love were examples of either being deserted or being controlled. (Because his poor older brother didn’t know better!)

And the heroine truly was a dreamer. She believed in love like no character I’d ever written. She was actually very fun to write!

Anyway, they were attracted, but had totally opposite beliefs. So there was a tension in there. The fact that they wouldn’t be in that cabin forever came smack dab up against her desperate need to be loved and his desperate need for someone to love him and prove to him that love existed.

And that's what kept readers turning those pages. Will they have enough time together or will he leave before she can prove to him that love exists?

Even better in SNOWBOUND BABY, in the black moment, it looked as if time had run out and she'd failed.

THAT's what keeps readers reading. The very real feeling that the heroine wasn’t going to satisfactorily answer the reader question because the answer was no!

In the black moment, it truly appeared as if all was lost and there absolutely was no way they’d ever see each other again. Because though she cared enough to find out details about him (like his last name), he wouldn’t tell her his address and he never asked for hers. Because they were travelers on a road, neither one of them could assume the other’s city or town of residence.

So the bottom line to all of this is:

The reader story question is something for readers. It's what keeps them reading.

YOU need to know it to make sure that it's always on the readers' minds.

Not necessarily as an actual question that pops up in the story (though sometimes you can have the heroine think or say: Will I have enough time with this guy to show him that love can be real?) but in most cases it actually manifests as something more like a reader reaction.

For example, at the end of one chapter of SNOWBOUND BABY when the hero sees how pretty the heroine is and knows it's been too long since he's been alone with a woman -- and that he doesn't want to hurt her because she's been hurt enough -- he ducks away from trouble by going to bed early …

And I could almost hear readers collectively groaning…Oh, God! He went to bed early. They only have a weekend together! She'll never have enough time to convince him.

That's one way to keep the reader question in the forefront. Consistently make it appear that the protagonist has failed, or is failing.

I realized this during the big romantic suspense craze. The reader story question usually is: "Will the female protagonist figure out who the killer is before he kills her?"

Reading those books, my lightning-fast mind realized that the authors always had to have the READERS afraid the protagonist wasn't quite going to succeed. Either she didn't know the depth of the threat or didn't have enough of the puzzle pieces to put it all together, or had decided to follow a wrong path.

In THE TERMINATOR (one of my favorite movies and a movie, by the way, that I think is just about perfect craftwise…) the “wrong path” technique is used. But it's used very cleverly. All the Sarah Connors in town are being murdered. But the heroine doesn’t know this. When two Sarah Connors are murdered, newscasters speculate that the killer at first got the wrong woman, discovered his mistake and murdered the right one. So, thinking the threat is over, our Sarah goes to a bar. And viewers begin to get nervous. We understand that she's been led down a wrong path…but we haven't been led down the wrong path! We know Arnold has killed others! Those victims simply weren't discovered yet. We want our Sarah Connor home…no better yet, we want our Sarah at the police station where she will be safe! And sure enough, who comes into the bar? Arnold, carrying a gun. The threat we perceived as viewers was very real and but our Sarah had wrong information.

What was the reader/viewer question?

What the hell is going on here that Arnold wants all the Sarah Connors dead and will our Sarah survive?

It takes a lot of the movie to answer the first part of that question for viewers. Mostly because it’s an action movie. The whole explanation can’t be spit out at one time because they’re always running. Second, the whole explanation can’t be spit out because it’s implausible. The man from the future needs to earn some reader/viewer trust before he can fully explain.

But that question…Why the heck does the Terminator want all the Sarah Connors dead and will our Sarah escape? . . . really keeps us on the edges of our seats!

The writers of the Terminator were always aware of their reader/viewer story question. Because in every scene Arnold was after her and she just barely escaped.

So let’s run over one more example of how to do this in a romance.

In my first release for Harlequin Romance HER PREGNANCY SURPRISE the reader story question was:

Will the heroine discover the hero didn't leave her to have their baby alone because he's bad, but because he blames himself for a tragedy in his life and he doesn't trust himself, and if she does will she be able to help him get beyond his grief so he can love her?

One of the things that I have discovered about a story question for a romance is that it sometimes needs to be two-tiered. The first part of the story question pertains to the external conflict. The second part to the internal conflict.

In HER PREGNANCY SURPRISE, the hero and heroine spend a weekend together, he leaves town on business and when he comes back he forgets how "wonderful" she is. (And she is. Truly.) They had a magical weekend, but he’s such a skeptical (hurt by love) guy that he convinced himself that the weekend (and heroine) weren’t that great.

Anyway, he is her boss, so when he returns to the office and she just happens to "visit" him at about 10:00, eager to see him…he breaks up with her. Readers know he's got a problem with blame. Something happened in his past that caused him to mistrust…especially himself and his own instincts.

But the heroine, who doesn’t know his past, believes he just used her because he’s a rich guy who feels he should be allowed to do things like sleep with his employees. So she sucks it up, and leaves his office with her dignity.

But two weeks later discovers she's pregnant. Being as mired in grief and guilt as he is, when she tells him, he thinks it's a trick to get him to take her back and he really doesn’t want anything to do with her then! He FIRES her and she has the baby alone.

So after the baby is born, she doesn’t trust him. Duh. No kidding. He behaved badly. But readers know he's not bad. They know he's suffering and struggling. But she doesn't know.

So the first part of the reader story question . . .

Will the heroine discover the hero didn't leave her to have their baby alone because he's bad, but because he blames himself for a tragedy in his life and he doesn't trust himself . . .

. . .pertains to her getting beyond the "thing" that is obvious and "out there" -- External. He hurt her. She doesn't trust him. There's more to his story than meets the eye, but she’s got to get past his hurting her before she can get to the real heart of the matter.

But isn't that true of all of life? Once you get beyond superficialities when you meet someone, you learn the truth and then you make a second choice. A more informed choice. Maybe even your real choice.

If you’re writing a romance, your book's reader question should work very much the same way. Once you get past the initial layer of a character's personality, the real conflict comes into play.

Back to HER PREGNANCY SURPRISE. . .

By the time she realizes he feels responsible for a tragedy, she's had a week of living with him to get to know him and she quickly realizes that if he could have prevented the accident he would have. Finding out his internal struggle, actually frees her to love him.

But…Will it do her any good?

Not unless she can get him to forgive himself.

Thus the second half of the reader story question is born…and it is based on internal conflicts. “…and if she does [realize he’s not “bad” but tormented by something in his past] will she be able to help him get beyond his grief so he can love her?”


So in a romance, the first half of the reader story question that draws readers through the story pertains to the external struggle; the second half to the internal struggle.

To recap…

The reader story question is a question you set up at the beginning of the book. It's something readers "voice" not by saying, Gee, I wonder if she'll be able to get him to trust himself so he can love her?

But rather, they voice it as reaction…They turn the page and keep reading as they’re thinking…Oh, Gosh, his life has been terrible to this point and the heroine doesn't know! He feels so darned bad that even if he tells her, and she understands and forgives him about the pregnancy, he's never going to let go of the blame enough to love her…

A reader question is born!

If you don't know your reader story question at the beginning of your book, your book will be unfocused. That's okay for the first chapter, maybe even the second, but by chapter three readers will tire of feeling like a candle in the wind.

Not because they want to be led by the nose, but because they want to be entertained. The best way for YOU to entertain them is to know the question they are asking themselves as they read. So that you can torture them…I mean entertain them.

For your homework, I’d like for you to go to your current WIP and define the question you believe readers will be asking as they read through your book. Then I want you to decide if that’s a good question. LOL

If it isn’t, or if there is no reader question, I’d like for you to write a reader question. A good one!

susan meier
SECOND CHANCE BABY, part of the BABY IN THE BOARDROOM mini-series from Harlequin Romance


Coming Attractions


August

Journey Steps. NEORWA
http://www.neorwa.com/index.php/Workshops/Workshops

Journey Steps, Taking the Train to Somewhere Ever wonder what you’re supposed to “put” in between those four or five turning points of your story? Susan Meier’s Journey Steps, Taking the Train to Somewhere provides quick, easy solutions for any author who has ever wondered “now what?” Topics include the “magic formula” for plotting, the list of five, explanation of plot threads versus subplot and tricks for writing an “edge-of-the-seat” read. Learn to tell your story in one straight-forward paragraph that can be used for pitches! Beginners, intermediate and experienced authors will benefit from this workshop.

October Preparing for Nano for Pennwriters. (See Pennwriters.org)


Cat Tails

Our poor sweet Fluffy cat is getting up in years and what's interesting is that as he gets older he seems to associate more to my husband -- the other old man in the house -- than to my daughter. There are times when he sits on the sofa with my DH that they look like two old men sitting on rockers outside the general store! LOL

Now that's a vivid image!



Excerpt SECOND CHANCE BABY

Chapter 1

“Your ex-wife applied for the job as your assistant.”

Nick Andreas glanced up at his current assistant, soon-to-be-retired Julie Farnsworth. He’d just flown back to North Carolina after six weeks in New York City. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to his beach house, get out of his monkey suit and take a nap on his hammock. He’d only popped into the office because he had a huge bid due to renew the government contract that was the bread and butter of his manufacturing plant. He had to get an assistant in now.

He just wasn’t sure hiring Maggie Forsythe as Julie’s replacement was the best way to go. When he had a bid due, his assistant worked with him – directly with him, at his side – ten hours a day, six days a week. No man wanted to spend that much time with his ex-wife. Not even an ex-wife he hadn’t seen in fifteen years. An ex-wife he barely remembered.

He tossed his pen to his desk. “You wouldn’t be telling me this if she wasn’t qualified.”

“She’s qualified. Over qualified in some respects.”

“And she actually applied?”

“Well, we certainly didn’t drag her in off the street.”

He laughed and leaned back in his chair. So Maggie wanted to work for him? He smiled skeptically as weird feelings assaulted him. He hadn’t thought about Maggie Forsythe in over a decade. Now, suddenly, he could vividly recall how the sun would catch her red hair and make it sparkle, her wide, happy smile, the sound of her laughter.

“Sorry if I’m finding all this a little hard to believe, but we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. Andreas Manufacturing should be the last place she wants to work.”

His sixty-five-year-old assistant caught his gaze with serious dark eyes. “She needs the money.”

She was broke? The way he’d been when they’d met?

Memories of his childhood and teen years cascaded through his brain like water spilling from a waterfall. Maggie at six, toothless in first grade, dividing her morning snack with him before they went into the building so no one in their class would see he hadn’t brought one. Maggie at twelve, fishing with him so he and his mom could have something for supper. Maggie at fifteen, hanging out in the souvenir shop where he worked, entertaining him on long, boring afternoons before the tourist season picked up. Maggie at eighteen, swollen with his child.

A long-forgotten ache filled his chest and made him scowl. The woman he was remembering with such fondness had dropped him like a hot potato when she’d lost their baby. She hadn’t loved him. She’d only married him because he’d gotten her pregnant one reckless night. Twenty minutes after they returned from the hospital after her miscarriage, she was out the door of his mom’s house. Out of his life.

“She should have as many reservations about working with me as I have about working with her.”

“Her stepmom died while you were in New York. Rumor has it that she came home for the funeral and decided her dad needed her. She quit her job and moved back permanently but in three weeks of looking she couldn’t find work – unless she wants to commute to the city.” Julie peered at him over the rim of her glasses. “Aside from tourism, you’re the only real employer in Ocean Palms.”

He picked up his pen again. “Hire her.”

Julie gasped softly. “Really?”

“Sure. We were married as kids. Fifteen years have gone by.” He wasn’t such a selfish, self-centered oaf that he’d let someone suffer because she had the misfortune of having a history with him. He knew what it was like to have no options. He’d spent his entire childhood living hand-to-mouth. He wouldn’t ignore the person who, as a child, had shared with him, helped him, even rescued him a time or two.

Plus, if Julie said Maggie was the person for the job then she was.

Julie rose. “Okay. She’s in my office. She said she can begin today. I’ll bring her in and we can get started.”

Nick sat up in his seat. Today? He didn’t even have ten minutes to mentally prepare?

Julie walked to his office door and opened it. “Come in, Maggie.”

A true southern gentleman, Nick rose from the tall-back chair behind his huge mahogany desk. Ridiculously, he couldn’t squelch the pride that surged up in him as he took in the expensive Persian rugs that sat on the hardwood floors of his office, the lamps from China, the heavy leather sofa and chair in the conversation area, the art from the broker in New York City. He was rich, successful, and his office showed it. He’d fulfilled the promise of his youth. He had brains and skill and he’d parlayed those into wealth beyond anyone’s expectations. One look at his office would tell Maggie he wasn’t the eighteen-year-old boy she’d deserted anymore.

The click of high heels on the hardwood announced her arrival two seconds before she appeared in his doorway. Her gorgeous red hair flowed around her, but it was shaped and curled in a way that framed her face, not straight as she had worn it when they were married. Her once sparkly green eyes now held soul-searching intensity. Her full red lips rose slightly in a reluctant smile.

Just as he wasn’t the eighteen-year-old she’d left behind anymore, she didn’t look a thing like his Maggie.

He relaxed as his gaze involuntarily fell from her face to her dress. A simple red tank dress that showed off a newly acquired suntan, but also couldn’t hide her only slightly protruding stomach.

She was pregnant?

He gave her tummy a more thorough scrutiny.

She was pregnant.

And suddenly he was that eighteen-year-old boy again. Seeing his woman, the love of his life, swollen with his child. More memories washed over him. The dreams he’d had for the kind of father he would be rose up as if he’d been lost in them only yesterday. Love for her, the woman bearing his child, burst in his chest.

But this wasn’t his child. She’d lost their child.

And she didn’t love him.

Hell, he no longer loved her.

“Come in,” he said. His voice was tight with a bit of a squeak but he ignored that, motioning to the chair in front of his desk.

Maggie took a few hesitant steps inside. Now trim instead of lanky, she wore her pregnancy the same way another woman would wear a designer dress.

That was when he realized she was probably married. Happily married. Not scared and hesitant, but with no other options because her stepmom had kicked her out of the house. But happy. Having a child with the man she loved.

He swallowed the knot that formed in his throat, reminding himself that these emotions churning through him were ridiculous. He was over her. Plus, they hadn’t even seen each other in fifteen years. The feelings weren’t really feelings. They were residue. Like cobwebs that had clung to the walls of his brain and would disappear once he got to know the adult Maggie.

“Julie wants to hire you but I have a few reservations.”

He didn’t even try to stop the words that flowed from his mouth. Though he’d already told Julie to hire her, now that he saw that she was pregnant, he had some concerns. Not about the “feelings” seeing her pregnant aroused, but her ability to do the job.

She gracefully sat on the chair in front of his desk, smiled softly. “You mean because we were once married?”

He snorted a laugh, but Julie’s hand flew to her throat. “You know, I think I’ll just go get us some coffee.”

Nick said, “She can’t drink coffee,” at the same time that Maggie said, “I don’t drink coffee.”

Julie said, “Then I’ll get some coffee for myself.” She fled the room, closing the door behind her.

Nick sat back in his chair, reaching deep inside himself for the calm that was his trademark. He had to treat her as any other employee and speak accordingly.

“For the next four weeks I need to work ten-hour days.”

“Six days a week. I get that. Julie told me.”

“Can you keep up?”

“Of course, I can keep up. I’m pregnant not sick.”

The room plunged into eerie silence. Memories of the day she’d lost their baby haunted him like menacing ghosts.

As if recognizing where his thoughts had gone, Maggie sighed. “Nick, I’m fine. Really. And I need this job. If you don’t hire me I’ll have to get work in the city and commute an hour each way.”

“An hour commute might be better for a pregnant woman than racing around the plant looking for documents I need, assembling information from different departments--”

He paused to catch her gaze and when he saw green eyes sparking with fire, everything he intended to say fell out of his head. He remembered that look very well, remembered how many times it had taken them straight to bed.

“I already told you I can keep up.”

He took in a quiet breath, reminding himself that Maggie was a married woman who wanted to work for him. The last thing he needed to be thinking about was how her fiery need for independence had played out between the sheets.

“Yeah, well, maybe I want some kind of proof.”

She smiled sweetly, calmly. “In a couple of months, I’m not going to be pregnant anymore. Then you’re going to be sorry you lost the chance to hire me.”

A laugh escaped. Dear God. This really was his Maggie. Fiery one minute, serene the next. And the common sense, logical Maggie could be every bit as sexy as the impassioned one.

But she was married.

And he was a runaround now.

Having a father who’d abandoned him had made him want commitments, but Maggie leaving him had set him straight on that score. And he’d changed. He wasn’t simple Nick Roebuck anymore. The guy who hadn’t taken his father’s name. The guy who wanted commitments. A wife. Family. Nope. Nick Roebuck was gone. He was now Nick Andreas, playboy.

“Besides, my father needs me.”

Shifting in his chair, Nick blew his breath out in a gusty sigh. Who he was didn’t matter. Who she was didn’t matter. She was off limits. “I’m sorry about your stepmom.”

“Thanks.”

“I was out of town or I would have paid my respects.”

Her gaze dipped. “I know.”

“Was everything – you know – okay?” He nearly bit his tongue for his clumsiness. But what could he say? How could he ask if she and Vicki had mended fences? If they’d ever gotten beyond the fact that Vicki had favored Charlie Junior over her? If Vicki had ever forgiven Maggie for getting pregnant? If Maggie had ever forgiven Vicki for kicking her out of the house?

“It was fine.” She shrugged. “Losing someone is always hard.”

Which told him nothing. Not that it was any of his business. He scrambled for something safe to say, but the only thing he could think of was, “Yeah. My father died last January. I know how hard these things can be.”

She smiled and her eyes brightened. “Oh, so you met your father? You had a relationship?”

“Yes and no.” He tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk, tamping down the sudden, unexpected urge to tell her everything. They weren’t friends anymore. She might act like the girl he’d known and loved, but she wasn’t. And he wasn’t the love-sick boy she’d married.

Still, he couldn’t ignore her question. “I met my father but we didn’t really have a relationship. Unless you call having dinner every other year a relationship.”

“That’s too bad.” Genuine regret colored her voice. “So how’s your mom?”

He chuckled. “She’s just like a little general at the daycare. Loves the kids, but keeps them in line.”

Maggie’s laugh was quick and easy. “God I missed her.”

“We missed you.” The words slipped out and he knew why. He was getting comfortable with her. And that was wrong. If they were going to work together, he had to draw lines. Be professional.

She looked away. “No point in staying once I’d lost the baby.”

Hearing her say that now hurt almost as much as it had the day she left. “Right.”

“Before I got pregnant, we both had plans.”

“Is that what you were thinking about while I was talking to my father’s attorney?”

For years he’d wondered. What kind of coincidence could it have been that the dad who’d ignored him his entire life suddenly wanted to give him a trust fund? Had it been a gift from fate to Maggie, or a curse of fate for him?

She caught his gaze. “Yes.”

When his heart squeezed, he swore at himself inwardly for asking the stupid question. He’d already reasoned all this out in his head. Gotten beyond it. There was no point going over it again. Certainly no point rehashing it with her. Fifteen years had passed and he loved the life he’d built without her.

If they were going to work together, the past would have to be forgotten. His only goal should be to make sure she really did have the education and experience to do the job.

“So you’ve have a business degree?”

“Yes.” She shifted on the chair. Her shoulders went back. Her expression became businesslike. “But I’m not looking down on this job. I think there are a lot of ways I can help you.”

“What did you do at your last job?”

“I was an analyst for a firm that put venture capitalist groups together with struggling businesses looking for investors or a buyer.”

“Do you know much about manufacturing?”

She laughed. “Most of the businesses looking for investors or buyout are manufacturing companies.”

He tapped his pen on the desk. He needed somebody and, as Julie said, Maggie was qualified. Now he and his ex-wife would be spending ten hours a day, six days a week together.

He looked over at her just as she looked at him and the years between them melted away. Her eyes weren’t as wary as they had been when she walked in the door. Her smile was genuine.

Doubt rumbled through his soul. In the sea of women that he’d dated since he’d hit puberty, she was the only one he’d loved. It had taken almost five years to really get beyond her leaving; years before he stopped hoping every ring of the phone was her calling; years before he stopped looking for her in crowds. One five-minute conversation had already brought an avalanche of memories. This was not going to be easy.

Don't forget! The prologue for SECOND CHANCE BABY is up on susanmeier.com!

And SECOND CHANCE BABY is out now!

The BABIES IN THE BOARDROOM series completes next month with A BABY ON THE RANCH. And, believe me, it was worth the wait. :)

OH! Almost forgot! COMMENT FOR A CHANCE TO WIN a copy of SECOND CHANCE BABY. Then check back on my DearReader blog on Monday May 30 to see if you're the winner. Winner must provide me with his/her snail mail addy within 10 days of the announcement.

So comment! And get a chance to win SECOND CHANCE BABY.

And don't forget the FREE story on the HAPPILY EVER AFTER section. If you're reading the series, you'll love Gino's story!