Poor Cosmo...

That night I opened the Drambuie we’d brought back from Scotland a million years ago.

I told myself I was trying out recipes for Andi’s line of cocktail cupcakes, but truthfully, I just wanted to get plastered. And get plastered I did.

Also sick.

Very.

Drambuie is a proprietary liqueur the Scots have been making for about two hundred years. It’s a blend of pot-still scotch and heather-flavored honey, and the taste is a bit dry, a bit aromatic. It’s not really the kind of thing most people would choose to get drunk on—it would not ordinarily be my first choice, but the bottle reminded me of John. Reminded me of Scotland and our honeymoon. Reminded me that that last time I’d tasted Drambuie it, was on John’s lips.

The classic Drambuie cocktails are the Rusty Nail and the Highland Margarita, but I was trying for something a bit sweeter and more delicate, so I opted for—in order of appearance—Autumn Leaves, the Kingston Club, and the Screaming Viking. I’m not sure why I thought a Screaming Viking would be sweet or delicate. Anyway, the two Kingston Clubs are what did me in, although the Screaming Viking didn’t help.

The bed was spinning—and not in a magical way--when I finally collapsed. 

I Buried a Witch (Bednobs and Broomsticks 2)
Coming November 30th

THE KINGSTON CLUB COCKTAIL

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces Drambuie
1 1/2 ounces pineapple juice
a squirt of freshly squeezed lime juice
a squirt of fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon Fernet Branca (I previously had no knowledge of this herbal liqueur)
3 dashes Angostura bitters
orange peel, for garnish

Instructions


Add the Drambuie, pineapple juice, lime juice, Fernet, and Angostura bitters to an ice-filled shaker. Shake until cold. Strain into an ice-filled tall cocktail glass and top with soda water. Garnish with a twist of orange peel. Serve immediately.

Sneak Peek - MURDER TAKES THE HIGH ROAD

You will be amazed to hear I've had to do a bit of reshuffling my schedule once again. It's just that kind of year. We've got family visiting, I've got the usual big summer music gig at the end of the month, and a looming deadline for Carina Press. So I've jumped from Blind Side to Murder Takes the High Road in order to hit that deadline.

Blind Side is still going to happen, never fear. It's just being postponed a few more weeks. In the meantime, I'm enjoying reliving memories of my trip to Scotland a couple of years back. I'm using our tour itinerary, though changing names of hotels and so forth so as to not get sued by people with no sense of humor about murder occurring under their roof.

The unofficial blurb:

Vacationing librarian Carter Matheson must solve the murder of fellow tourists when someone begins picking off members of a mystery-themed bus tour traveling through the scenic highlands and islands of Scotland.

It's pretty much a classic cozy mystery with a generous dollop of romance and sex.

Here's an unedited excerpt:

 A gust of windy rain hit the small window in the corner. It sounded—and felt—like someone had thrown ice tacks at the glass. I opened my suitcase and dug around for the least wrinkled shirt I could find, and ended up selecting a black soft-wash long sleeve crew T-shirt. I remembered enough from my country dance days to know a ceilidh was not a formal event.

The door rattled noisily in its frame as someone banged on it.

“At this point the handyman's just going to be in the way,” I grumbled.

John leaned out of the bathroom and opened the door.

Trevor stood on the landing wearing a ferocious scowl and the blue cashmere sweater I’d bought him for his thirty-ninth birthday.

 “It’s for you,” John told me.

I gave him the look that speaks volumes, as we say in the librarian biz.

Trevor, too, was giving him a look. “Do you mind?” he said.

“Yep. I do,” John replied. “I’ve got thirteen minutes left to get ready for dinner and you’re about to take up way too many of them.” He withdrew into the bathroom once more, though the door remained open.

“Fine. Whatever.” Trevor swung back to me and realigned his glare. “How dare you go around telling everybody that Vance tried to shove you in front of a car?”

There wasn’t time to stop and argue. I hastily kicked out of the blue jeans I’d been wearing all day and pulled on a clean pair of black jeans. “I never said that.”

“Bullshit, Carter. Everyone on the bus was whispering about it.”

“I can’t help what people saw.” Okay, yes, I probably could have phrased that more tactfully. Trevor’s face got redder. I said quickly, “What they think they saw.”

“You sure didn’t try to correct them.”

I pawed through my suitcase for a clean pair of socks. It wasn’t that I didn’t have plenty of clean clothes, but from the state of my suitcase, you’d think Hamish had thrown our suitcases down a cliffside before stowing them in the bus’s luggage compartment. I threw a harassed look over my shoulder. “How do you know what I did or didn’t do?”

“I know you, Carter. I know how you operate. You’re doing everything you can to ruin this trip for me.”

That got my attention. I stopped digging through my suitcase, and straightened up so fast I’m surprised I didn’t throw my back out. “Explain how I’m ruining this trip for you?”

“Every time I turn around, there you are again with that accusing stare.”

“Really?” John said from the bathroom. I think both Trevor and I had forgotten he was still in there.  I certainly hadn’t thought he could hear us over the sound of running water. We both stared at him, framed in the bathroom doorway, slowly, deliberately drawing the razor across his square jaw. He scraped away another snowy drift of shaving cream and said to Trevor, “Because you’re the one who keeps showing up at our door.”

 “Our?” Trevor looked even more taken aback. “How does this involve you?”

“It’s my room. Half my room.”

I think it genuinely threw Trevor. In any event it was a second or two before he turned back to me. “Do you really want to do this here?” he asked in a tone I knew only too well.

“I don’t want to do it at all. Look, I’m not accusing Vance of anything. I don’t think he deliberately pushed me into the road. If you’d shut up about it, people would lose interest in the subject.”

“He’s right,” John said.

“Nobody asked you,” Trevor snapped.

“If you’re going to have this conversation in my room, then I have a right to express my opinion.”

It probably wasn’t funny, but somehow at that moment, it seemed funny.

Trevor opened his mouth but I cut him off.  “Okay, time out. In fact, game over. Trevor, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not leaving the tour. And if that’s going to ruin it for you, sorry. I have every much right to be here as you do.”

“This is just more of your passive-aggressive—”

“Uh, no,” John said, rinsing off his razor. “That’s aggressive-aggressive.”

“Will you keep out of it?” Trevor shouted. “This isn’t any of your business.”

The lights flickered and went out. 

Advent Calendar Day 21 - EXCERPT

Today's final excerpt is from The Hell You Say, which is not necessarily what one thinks of as a Christmas romance. :-)  I mean...devil worshippers, for one thing. But still, the holidays are central to this story.

BLURB:
Adrien English isn't really a detective, he's a bookseller and
mystery writer who has a knack for attracting real life mischief and
mayhem -- much to the displeasure of his sexy, sometimes-boyfriend,
closeted homicide detective Jake Riordan.
When bookstore assistant Angus falls afoul of a Satanic cult, Adrien
falls afoul of Jake -- but despite the fact that his amateur
sleuthing is playing hell with his love life, Adrien can't help but
delving into this case of kooks, cults, devil worship, and human
sacrifice.

EXCERPT:
Bam! Bam! Bam!

I nearly dropped the can of salmon I was opening for my supper.

The shop was locked for the evening. That meant my visitor was probably one of two people -- and that didn’t sound like Velvet’s knock.

I set the can on the counter, wiped the fish oil off my hands. I opened the door. Sure enough, Jake stood there. Clearly this wasn’t a social call.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” he said, brushing past me.

I was pretty sure he was not referring to the missing food groups in my evening repast. “Oh, come on,” I said. “Guy was just helping me --”

“Yeah, I know what that faggot Snowden is helping you with. What part of stay the fuck out of it don’t you understand?”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your investigation,” I said angrily. Which was not true, although as far as I knew, Peter Verlane had not materialized on the cops’ radar so far, so technically I was not trespassing on Jake’s turf.

That’s what I told myself, but it didn’t fly as well with Jake.

“You’re not that stupid,” he said. “Then again, maybe you are. I go to the trouble of lying -- of falsifying police reports -- to keep you out of this shit, and you turn right around and walk back into it.”

My heart slipped into heavy, slow punches against my rib cage. “Give me a break,” I said. “You didn’t lie to protect me. You lied to protect yourself. You never asked me what I wanted. And I sure as hell never made you any promises about what I would or wouldn’t do.”

His finger jabbed the air, punctuating his words. “Stay. Out. Of. It. Or this time, bad heart or not, I will throw your ass in jail.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to risk anyone discovering the connection between us.”

His face changed, grew ugly, dangerous. “Are you threatening me?”

I hadn’t been, but like an ember in dry grass, a self-destructive impulse flicked to life in my mind.

“My existence threatens you.”

He shoved me back, hard. I crashed into the hall table, knocking it over, smashing the jar of old marbles I had collected. Glass balls skipped and bounced along the corridor. I landed on my back, my head banging down on the hardwood floor.

I lay there for a second, blinking up at the lighting fixture, taking in the years of dust and dead moths gathered in the etched-glass globe. The silence that followed was more startling than the collision of me and the table and the floor. I heard Jake’s harsh breathing and a marble rolling away down the hall -- which seemed pretty damned appropriate, since I’d apparently lost all of mine.

He bent over me. Probably safer to stay submissively on my back, but I got up fast, knocking his hands away. It was a protective instinct and maybe not a wise one. I hadn’t had time to inventory what, if any real damage, I’d sustained.

Weirdly, neither of us spoke. There was plenty to say, but no words.

Jake stared at me. In his eyes, I read the urge to knock me down again, to punch, to kick, to silence, to destroy. His hands were clenched by his side. I felt light-headed with anger and outrage -- and yeah, maybe a little fear. He could probably kill me by accident. My heart was tripping in my throat.

I was afraid if I tried to speak I would cry. From rage.

He swallowed once, dryly. He looked sick.

“I won’t tell you again. Stay out of it.”

He went, shutting the door quietly behind him

 

 

 

****

Ah...those holiday memories! Jake and Adrien have a Christmas coda right here.

Today's giveaway is the full set of Adrien English audio books to one lucky listener/commenter. You can also gift this set to someone else.