Just Right is in print!

Just Right, the first book in the Bradfords series, is out in print!! (And I got my print copies delivered on my birthday!)
All three books in this series came out in 2010 and I’ve had such a good time with them. Now having them coming out in print in 2011 will prolong the fun!

For today, I thought I’d share the usual blurb and an excerpt (and a giveaway!) but also thought maybe I could include some trivial tidbits that you wouldn’t otherwise know about this book.

• It’s first title was Letting Loose
• Originally Jessica (who is an ER nurse) was a police officer
• It got me my first 1st place contest win (in a synopsis contest of all things!)
• I have five deleted scenes between Mario and Sophie—two of the teens featured in the story. The scenes show their romantic relationship develop too. (The book was over 100,000 words long with those scenes )
• Derek Jeter, of the New York Yankees, was the inspiration (physically) for Ben
• When I wrote Just Right I had no idea it was the start of a series.
• I wrote a huge amount of Just Right on an Alphasmart when I was between computers
• In the book, there are quotes painted on the walls at the youth center where Jessica volunteers. One is from Mark Twain (Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest) and another is from Ralph Waldo Emerson (… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.)—I had both of these quotes hanging in my locker in high school.

I really want to give a copy away today so how about this—everyone who posts a favorite quote in the comment section will get entered into a drawing for a copy! (I'll draw a winner on Wednesday! Don't forget to include your e-mail addy!)

And without further ado, the blurb and an excerpt (one of my favorite scenes) from Just Right. Thanks for reading everybody! Erin

Just Right, available now from Samhain

To save one good man, she’ll have to let her inner bad girl out to play…

ER nurse Jessica Bradford is a good girl. Okay, a reformed bad girl, but she’s done her late father proud. Now she’s one step away from landing Dr. Perfect, aka handsome, sexy, heroic Ben Torres—the hot fudge and cherry on top of her hard work scooping out a respectable life.

Ben learned the art of sacrifice from his missionary parents, but when a drunk driver he saved kills three people, he quits. To be precise, the fist he plants in the man’s face gets him suspended. And the first dish he wants on his newly empty plate is Jessica—preferably naked.

Jessica can’t believe the Ben she’s found drowning his sorrows in a bar is her knight in shining scrubs. And he won’t be pried loose until she bets 48 hours of her time in a game of pool. She loses. And the next morning she stands to lose much more.

The Chief of Staff’s recommendation for the promotion she’s been after rides on her ability to keep Ben out of trouble until things blow over.

Except “trouble” is all Ben wants. And despite herself, Jessica finds that she’s more than willing to go down with him…

Warning: Contains hot love in a store dressing room and in the front seat of a car—at the expense of a very nice strawberry patch, unfortunately—oh, and hooker boots. Can’t forget the hooker boots.

Excerpt

“I’m in.”

Ben turned to see Jessica standing next to Hank, shoes off, holding a pool cue.

“Do you know how?” Ben asked, smiling at the picture she presented. This wasn’t the type of place he’d ever pictured her in, but she seemed to be adjusting… almost getting comfortable. Interesting. Very interesting.

“As bad as you suck, I’m not sure it matters if I know how,” she said. “But yeah, I’ve played.”

“Well, by all means,” Ben said, gesturing at the table. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“I think we need to establish what the stakes are.” Jessica rubbed the little blue square of chalk over the end of her stick as she watched him.

He shrugged. “I’ve only got about fifty bucks left.”

Jessica moved into position to break. She leaned over the end of the table, her skirt riding up on the backs of her thighs, positioned the cue between her first two right-handed fingers and lined up her shot.

And he just might let her win if it kept her standing like that.

“If I win, you let me take you home, finally.” She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled knowingly when she caught him studying her posterior assets.

“Okay.” This pool game suddenly seemed like the best idea he’d had in a long time.

Jessica looked smug as she turned back to line up her shot again.

“Don’t you want to know what I want if I win?” Ben asked, blatantly taking in the view.

“Sure. What do you want?”

“The next forty-eight hours with you.”

She stared at him over her shoulder, then straightened and faced him. “What?”

“If I win, you spend the next forty-eight hours with me.”

“Just like that?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. You drive me home and then you stay.”

“I’ve… um. I’ve got… stuff… to do.”

“Call in sick.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I’m not sick.”

Ben shook his head. “And you won’t lie about something like that, right? It would be irresponsible.”

Jessica raised her eyebrows. “Of course it would be.”

Ben sighed. It was typical that the first woman he wanted to sleep with in far too long to remember was a good girl.

Ben rested a hip against the pool table and regarded Jessica. “So, what happens when you really want to spend the whole day in bed?”

~ ~ ~

That annoying little flippy-thing happened in Jessica’s stomach again. It had been a long time since she’d wanted to stay in bed for the reasons Ben was implying. But, yeah, he had a point. If that happened, what would she do?

She cleared her throat. “I could put the stuff off until later, I guess.”

“I want you to spend the whole day with me, Jess,” Ben said seriously. “Two days, actually. Forty-eight hours.” Then he shrugged. “I can probably find someone else that would be interested though. Since you’re too busy.”

Jessica frowned. Come to think of it, she did feel ill when she thought of Ben with any other woman.

“Fine. My stuff can wait.”

Ben straightened and looked at her for a moment before he asked, “But you won’t lie about being sick, right?”

“I’m not sick,” she repeated. “But I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m sure you will,” he said, almost to himself. But before she could ask him what he meant he said, “So, it’s an enthusiastic yes?”

“It’s a reluctant ‘fine’.”

He grinned. “Good enough.”

Jessica broke the triangle of balls apart with a resounding clack… and went on to sink five of her seven balls before even pausing to survey the table.

Ben was staring at the pocket into which yet another striped ball had just fallen when she turned to smile at him smugly. It was worth all the irritation to see that look on his face.

She walked around the edge of the table to position her next shot. As she pulled her cue back she was confident that she would only need one more shot after this. But as she started her forward motion, Ben leaned over.

“Look at this picture,” he said softly. “A long stick, hard balls, you bent over the table…”

She missed.

Jessica stared at the ball that had bounced off the edge of the table and rolled back toward her. Damn. That should have been an easy shot.

Ben laughed and came around the corner of the table. He nudged her aside with his hip against hers.

“Okay, big shot. Let’s see if you can win without me letting you.” She slid over only enough to let

him line up his shot and crossed her arms.

Ben lined up the shot and Jessica watched and heard the balls smack together, then the dull thud of them falling into the pockets: two balls in the same shot, in the two corner pockets on the opposite end of the table. It was a brilliant shot. The shot of someone who had played a lot. Not the shot of someone who had been losing money at the game. Not the shot of someone who had been drinking heavily.

He continued shooting until no solid balls were left on the green surface.

“Game over,” Ben announced as the eight ball was still rolling down the shoot. He tossed his pool cue onto the table and lifted the beer mug, finishing off the last half.

She was still staring at the table.

“Let’s go.” Ben took her hand and started toward the door without a word to any of the people he’d spent the better part of his night, and wallet, on.

“You could have done that all along, couldn’t you?” she asked, grabbing her purse off the sticky tabletop as they passed and then tripping along behind him.

He glanced back at the table. “Yeah, probably.”

“Why didn’t you? With those guys? Why drop all that money?” she asked as he pulled her out the door and into the parking lot.

He shrugged. “No motivation to win.”

Jessica suddenly realized that she might just have her hands full with Ben Torres. Still stunned over how he’d finished the pool game just as she’d been completely convinced he could barely walk a straight line, Jessica stopped at her car door and inserted the key to unlock it. She might have her hands too full with Ben Torres she amended. And not in a good way.

Buy here!