The Meaning of Family
By Avery Flynn
More than seven million women in the United States have an impaired ability to have children.
Slightly more than two million married women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four are infertile.
Nearly twelve percent of women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four have received infertility services.
Many women are childless by choice and I say more power to them. However, there are millions of women out there who are unable to conceive despite it being their greatest wish and they report often feeling alone in their struggle. My heart breaks for them.
I have three rugrats of my own, but spent quite a bit of time researching infertility issues before writing A Dry Creek Bed, the second in my hot and steamy romantic suspense series. With A Dry Creek Bed, I really wanted to explore the idea of family and what the word parent really means.
Beth Martinez is the heroine of A Dry Creek Bed and she’s recently had a hysterectomy because of a fibroid tumor. This has rocked Beth’s world. Her parents died when she was eight, the grandparents who raised her have passed on and now she won’t be able to have children of her own.
To twist the knife even more, she’s been in love with Dry Creek County Sheriff Hank Layton for most of her life. Hank wants Beth, there’s no doubt about it, but he also wants to start a family and Beth’s emotions are so tangled ups she’s not sure if she ever wants to adopt. Not wanting to force Hank to give up his dreams of a family or make him feel obligated to stay with her, Beth keeps her infertility a secret and denies she has any interest in him.
Hank can’t stop thinking about Beth to the point where he’s afraid of becoming permanently bowlegged. And even though the sexual tension between them is thick enough to trip over, she runs every time he chases.
But when a mysterious developer forces her neighbors off their land, Beth becomes the one person standing between the scoundrel and millions of dollars. Only Hank can help her uncover the truth. Together they risk their lives exposing decades-old secrets and learn that everything is not as it seems in their rural Nebraska town.
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By Avery Flynn
Book 2
Blurb
"I do believe I can arrest you for looking at someone like that. You've got to be breaking some indecency laws."
Taking a deep breath, she recovered her bearings. Mostly. "You're out of your jurisdiction, sheriff."
Dry Creek County Sheriff Hank Layton is the stuff of dreams. Nasty, steamy, delicious fantasies that leave Beth Martinez weak-kneed and desperately wanting the man she can never have.
Hank can’t stop thinking about Beth to the point where he’s afraid of becoming permanently bowlegged. And even though the sexual tension between them is thick enough to trip over, she runs every time he chases.
But when a mysterious developer forces her neighbors off their land, Beth becomes the one person standing between the scoundrel and millions of dollars. Only Hank can help her uncover the truth. Together they risk their lives exposing decades-old secrets and learn that everything is not as it seems in their rural Nebraska town.
A Dry Creek Bed Excerpt - The Kiss
She stopped with her back to him. "One kiss?
“One little kiss.”
A fall breeze brushed the tips of her mahogany hair across her back and she straightened her shoulders. Spinning around, she made her way back to him with a fuck-you strut. Stopping just short of his feet, she dropped her gym bag. It hit the pavement with a thud, the whole world seeming to have gone silent around them.
"Let's get it over with."
Something primal inside of him howled its approval. He wanted to devour her full lips then and there.
Stick to the plan, dude.
He held firm. Barely. "OK, you can kiss me."
"Wait a minute -"
"You're the one who says there's nothing between us, so I figure you should set the tone of the kiss. It's up to you to disprove my theory."
"Of all the stupid things." She huffed out a breath. "Fine."
Hank held his breath, hoping all his bluster would pay off. God, this woman undid him.
She laid her soft hand against his chest. There was no way she could miss the hammering behind his ribs. Navy blue nails shone bright against the red of his cotton shirt. Her shoulders twitched with a shiver. A flicker of doubt shook him. Maybe she'd ignored him after the party for a reason.
Then her lips touched his. Chocolate and caramel coffee teased his taste buds as their tongues twisted around each other.
His hands roamed to the bottom of her soft, wool sweater, snuck underneath the hem and caressed the soft skin above the low waist of her jeans.
Her vanilla perfume surrounded him as he lowered his mouth to taste the sweetness of her neck. He lost himself to the hungry lust streaming through his veins and the moaning woman in his arms. There was no street, no gawking neighbors, no one else in the world.
"Hank, stop." Beth's breath brushed against his cheek.
More plea than demand, her words sliced through his euphoria. Unwilling to let her go yet, he lifted his head but kept his fingers tucked into her waistband. Still tasting her on his lips, he couldn't form any words.
A flush pinked her cheeks as she pursed her kiss-swollen lips. "So ... that's ... out of the way."
Her hand shook when she patted him on the chest, her fingers lingering for a few seconds over his pounding heart. With a sigh she pulled out of his embrace and trudged up to the house, never looking back.
She thought this was over? After a kiss like that? His balls couldn't be any bluer if they were made of blueberries. For a smart woman, she sure wasn't thinking straight.
Avery Flynn, the author of UP A DRY CREEK and A Dry Creek Bed, books one and two in the Dry Creek series set in Nebraska, grew up in a small town in the western part of that state, a far cry from her present day home just outside of Washington, D.C. It was no accident that she went back to her roots for the small town setting for her romantic suspense.
“When I graduated high school,” she says, “I couldn’t cross the state line fast enough. The older I got and the farther I moved away, the more I realized what a wonderful place Nebraska had been to live. I swore I’d set a novel there as a way to give people a look into the amazing folks that live in my home state.”
The name Avery Flynn is a pseudonym for the author who, at least for now, prefers to remain behind the scenes. She believes having Avery as her alter ego is a very good thing because, as she says, “Pen name Avery is way cooler than me. Her favorite color is hot pink. She drinks single malt scotch on the rocks. She loves the Argentinean tango and stays at Iceland’s Ice Hotel.”
Author Avery has been writing since she was a child and her father gave her a baby blue Brother typewriter. She couldn’t read but nonetheless wrote numerous stories about her stuffed animals in gibberish. She hasn’t stopped since, though she maintains that her spelling has gotten much better and she now prefers to write in English.
Today she’s enjoying her own happily ever after with her dashing husband, three crazy kids and two arthritic dogs. She dreams of one day having a floor-to-ceiling library à la Beauty and the Beast and is working to perfect the coffee IV drip.
Twitter: @averyflynn
1 comment:
Thanks so much for having me!
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