A Date With The Other Side

I'm in deadline dementia here, so I'm going to do a lazy blog and post an excerpt for my January re-release, A Date With The Other Side. If you missed this story the first time around in trade size, it just hit the shelves this week in mass market paperback size. In May the connecting book, Heiress For Hire, will be out in mass market too. Have a great Friday!

From Ohio's most haunted town...
Excerpt from A DATE WITH THE OTHER SIDE
by Erin McCarthy
The man gave a whole new meaning to the words rise and shine.
Shelby stood with her hand still on the doorknob to the blue bedroom, the one where the ghost of Nanny Baskins resided, and took a long lingering look at the sleeping male form on top of the white eyelet spread.
The naked man, mouth dropped open on a soft snore, his black hair sticking up, had one hand on his bare broad chest. The other was slung carelessly on the pillow. He didn’t look familiar, not a single bare inch of him.
Gran had forgotten to tell her that she’d let the room again.
Yet Shelby couldn’t help but be a tiny bit intrigued by this tenant. It wasn’t quite nine am yet, and he may have been sleeping, but his thing-a-ma-bob was ready to start the day with a bang.
“Hey, Shel, you gonna let me in or not?” came Brady’s undulating teenage voice. “Bad enough you made us do this at the crack of dawn, but now you won’t let us in?”
Shelby started to back up, bumping Brady and his girlfriend Joelle, as she retreated, still keeping one eye on that bed. Or an eye on what was on that bed, anyway.
It had been so long since she’d seen a man naked, she’d almost forgotten what they looked like. Besides, her ex-husband had never looked like that sleeping. She might not have left him if he had.
“Sorry, Brady, we’ll have to move on to the next stop on the tour.” She tried to keep her voice down so she wouldn’t disturb Naked Wonder.
Brady didn’t take the hint. Tossing back his blue hair, he rolled his tongue stud around. “Huh?”
Shelby wondered if kids were still dying their hair Easter egg colors or if Brady was sadly dated. Fashion came late to Cuttersville, Ohio. Sort of like getting a flyer in the mail and the sale is over. Cuttersville was always late for the sale.
So even if Brady was way out of style elsewhere, in this town he was a rebel. He was also her cousin, which was why she was letting him take the Haunted Cuttersville Tour at nine in the morning free of charge.
“Shh,” she ordered, flapping her arms in her white tank top, giving herself a whiff of her deodorant. “I’ll explain in a minute, back up.”
With a little luck, she could get the door closed before…
“Who the hell are you?”
Too late.
Shelby shot Brady and Joelle, who were straining to see around her, warning looks. Then she closed the door in their faces, leaving her alone in the room. With him.
Turning around, she said with a smile, “I’m Shelby Tucker. It’s nice to meet you.”
The man was sitting up, and he’d pulled the eyelet spread over his lap, but he hadn’t taken into account that eyelet spreads by nature are full of many holes. Small and large, affording her interesting glimpses of golden skin and dark hair. Not the comforter of choice for preserving modesty.
He was still hard. As a rock. That was the only reason for the spread to be sticking up like that, unless it was his knee she was looking at. The spread hooked him through one of the large holes when he shifted. Nope, that was no kneecap, no siree.