Anna DeStefano's Blog

Great dream getaway ideas yesterday, my friends. You make me long for sandy beaches and tons of hours to read for pleasure myself…

Now to get ready for day Five… Link on over to LivetimeTV.com’s “Let’s Talk Romance” at Romance B(u)y the Blog, for a sneak peak of the fun we’ll be having tomorrow with Michelle Buonfiglio’s lovely Bella’s:

http://www.lifetimetv.com/lifestyle/entertainment/romance-buy-the-book/blogs

In addition to the fun out here tomorrow, I’ll be hanging at “Let’s Talk Romance” at RBTB and inviting everyone there to hop over and join our Because of aBoy Release Party. With all that back and forth, we’re bound to have a blast. To register and leave a comment at RBTB, don’t forget not to leave spaces in your UserName (that’s what tripped me up, when I couldn’t get it to accept my info).

The topic of the day (well, tomorrow), is heroes and what makes up your ideal (both the larger than life hero, as well and the one who might be living right next door to you). Tell us what’s most important to you in the man you’d trust with your life!

For more insight into what I think, check out the link above–my guest blog on LifetimeTV.com’s “Let’s Talk Romance” begins tomorrow!!!

To keep things moving here, I’ve added a final excerpt below. If you’re a newcomer, link backwards through this week’s earlier posts for more of the great scenes coming your way in Because of a Boy!

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The two great totes I’m picturing are up for grabs–the red XOXO bag I’ll give to one lucky Thursday/Friday commenter.

The extra-special BCBG “shopping girls” tote will go to a lucky blog buddy who hangs out over the weekend and leaves a comment either Saturday or Sunday. And of course, I have a few more promo items left and a handful of books, all from Romantic Times ‘07, and one final Borders gift certificate, so keep leaving us your thoughts while we all get to know each other.

And don’t forget, leaving a comment between now and the end of December puts you in the running for the designer Isabella Fiore bag I’m giving away in my website contest. Check out my contest page for more details and a great picture of the purse someone will be taking home after the first of the year!!!

——–

Before I forget…

Wednesday’s winners–

Mina, the Nine West tote is yours!

Pat Cochran, you’ll receive a selection of books and RT ‘07 promotional items!

and Cheryl (cas2ajs) , a Border’s gift certificate is yours!

All winners, keep emailing me those pony express addresses…
——–

And One final excerpt:

This scene takes place after thier romantic black moment–when we’re certain their relationship won’t make it. But Kate’s just heard that Stephen might have been seriously injured trying to protect the little boy they’ve been fighting to save throughout the whole book. It’s a great set up for the resolution of both the romance and the battle these two heroes have been waging to protect Dillon and his father…

*****

Kate raced into the ER, not bothering with the reception desk. She slowed enough to pass through security and its scanners, then headed for the double doors that lead from admissions to the trauma area. It took three tries to get her card to swipe, then she was running inside, desperate, her heart breaking.

There was shooting outside the safe house, Martin had said when he’d phoned. The Digarros didn’t make it inside. Either someone was tracking your lawyer friend, or something got leaked at DEA. Sounds like APD shut everything down pretty quickly, but there were some injuries…

Her brother hadn’t been able to tell her anything more, other than that more than one ambulance had been called, arrests had been made and that everyone who needed patching up was on their way to the hospital. Stephen’s friend Curt had been the one to contact Martin, and both of them would meet her at the hospital as soon as they could. Robert had been listening to her end of the phone call, and he’d already grabbed his keys before she’d hung up. After breaking every speed limit on the way from his house, he was outside conquering the parking deck packed with weekend visitors, while she sprinted toward a reality she wasn’t sure she could bear.

Were Dillon and his father all right?

She hadn’t heard from Stephen. Was he okay? Was he–

“Kate!” Marsha called from the other end of the hall.

Trauma was in chaos, as usual. Less critical cases were fast-tracked to an entirely different area, leaving the specialist in the trauma unit to triage and focus on high risk patients.

“I came down as soon as I heard.” Marsha zigzagged through the maze of staff and patients, gurneys and other equipment, to get to Kate. “What happened–”

“Where is he?” Kate didn’t stop for the answer. Ducking into each alcove, she stopped only long enough to see the face of the patient being treated.

“Who?” Marsha hustled behind her. “Dillon? He’s upstairs. They’re admitting him to pediatrics, and there’s a slew of APD on the floor making everyone nervous. What happened?”

Kate pulled her friend aside as EMTs rushed in from the Ambulance Bay, pushing a gurney and calling out the patient’s stats for the doctor hustling alongside.

“Dillon’s okay?” Kate asked through the weight of the fear still pressing down on her. “Then he wasn’t shot?”

“Shot!” Marsha grabbed her to keep Kate from rushing off. “He’s perfectly fine, just weak. But he’s terrified and he won’t talk to anyone. Kate what happened? Where you with him when–”

“No.” Because Stephen hadn’t wanted her there. He hadn’t trusted her not to be the kind of distraction he couldn’t afford, while he faced down federal authorities who held his client’s future in their hands. And now… “I have to find him…”

She wrenched away from her friend. Checked the next examination area, knowing as she went that she was getting closer to the rooms reserved for only the most critical patients.

“Dillon’s upstairs,” Marsha insisted, still close behind.

“Not Dillon.” Kate turned the corner, her heart and her feet stopping at exactly the same moment, at the sight of the man being treated on a gurney in the crowded, over-filled hallway outside the largest trauma suite. “Stephen!”

He was looking away from her, into the trauma room, while an intern set stitches in his shoulder.
The sleeve of his shirt had been cut away to expose the wound. What was left of the expensive knit was covered in blood. Too much blood to have come from such a small injury.

Kate’s gaze rose from cataloguing his condition. The intensity of his gaze locked with hers. Relief at seeing her warred with something else in his eyes. Something that looked too much like giving up to belong in Stephen Creighton.

Seeing, feeling, his pain was what finally got her moving again.

“Are you okay?” She rushed to his side. The intern who’d been working on him melted away–either finished with his task, or uneasy with the tears Kate couldn’t keep from falling as she wound her arms around Stephen. “Martin said there was shooting…that there were injuries.”

When Stephen didn’t hold her in return, she eased away. He held himself rigidly erect. Rage was the only thing alive in his eyes now…

October 10th…Come chat with me on Noveltalk.com at 9:00 PM Eastern time.

How does everyone feel about all the chatting and guest blogging these days??? I do more of it than the average author. It’s a way for me to keep in touch. To understand what’s important to you and share the world I see. It’s a lovely break from the introspection that feeds the work writers do–a bridge between our minds and the minds of those who read us.

But does it help you decide whether to buy a book or not? Have you found new writers and stories that way, or do you have to love a writer’s work before you seek out their chat or blog or go to a signing just to hear from them? Inquiring writing minds want to know ;o)

I’m at yet another coference–the New Jersey Put Your Heart in A Book conference. Lots of buzz about Because of A Boy and my new Atlanta Heroes. Cool!

Next scene–Let’s catch up with Lissa from The Perfect Daughter. Remember this is a bridge book from the “Daughter” series and the new Atlanta Heroes. Kate from BOAB hooks up with Lissa first. We get a glimpse of Martin again not too far down the road, so don’t give up on him.

Hope you keep enjoying–and that you buy the book ;o) It’s available on Amazon and eHarlequin.com:

***********

“Martin stopped smiling a year and a half ago,” said the tired voice on the other end of Kate’s cell phone. “Nothing I tried here in Oakwood made a difference. Now that he’s in Atlanta, I just thought maybe you..”

Sitting in the pediatric floor break room, Kate pulled the phone away from her ear.

What Lissa Carter thought was no mystery. Nor were the regrets and pointless guilt that flooded Kate every time the other woman called. The same queasy emotions that kept her on the phone, refusing to let her bail on her last connection to her baby brother–even if it was through an ex-girlfriend he didn’t want to deal with any more than he did Kate.

Lissa’s first call from Kate’s south-Georgia home town had come on the heels of the one informing Kate that Martin had been wounded in the line of duty. Her estranged brother naturally hadn’t wanted Kate to hurry to his side, but Lissa had begged her to come home.

The emotional chasm between Kate and her brother had been years beyond fixing. Dealing with things together wasn’t their strong suit, and her visit hadn’t changed that. Now, Martin was in a physical and emotional free-fall. Had been for over a year–ever since his surgery to remove a bullet lodged near his spine, which had left him with only partial feeling below the waist on his right side.

She pulled the now-silent phone back to her ear.

“He won’t see me, Lissa. We hadn’t talked for years before the shooting. Now, me being a nurse just adds to the drama. He came to Atlanta for his own reasons. Reasons I that can assure you have nothing to do with me.”

“He’s giving up on everything and anyone that used to matter to him. He was pushing too hard in rehab while he was still here. Lord knows what he’s doing up there alone. How can you sit by and watch him hurt himself?”

Kate resisted the urge to toss the phone across the room.

Lissa hadn’t left Martin’s bedside for more than a few hours the entire time Kate had been in Oakwood. She hadn’t given up on his recovery, even after he’d refused to see her or any other visitors–first at the hospital, then at the rehab center he’d gone to next. She’d just kept pushing, her determination refusing to falter.

A year and half later, Martin had moved two hundred miles away, and Lissa was still hanging strong. How was Kate supposed to cast away loyalty that rare, that unconditional?

“I’ve tried calling him a dozen times since he transferred to the Police Academy up here,” she explained.

Her brother had ended each call sooner. The last couple of times, he hadn’t picked up at all.

“Then stop calling and get your butt over there!” Lissa demanded. “He–”

“He’s a grown man, and he has every right to make his own decisions, even if they’re the wrong ones.”

How many times had Kate fought with Robert during their marriage, insisting on the same consideration?

If I want help, I’ll ask for it.

I’m not your problem to fix.

“As long as Martin can take care of himself in that dive of an apartment he’s rented–” An apartment Kate had made it a point to locate as soon as she’d learned his new address. “–as long as he can live independently, I have no right to try and influence his decisions.”

“But if you could just get him to let you in.” Lissa’s voice quivered. “If you could just get him to talk about–”

“He doesn’t want to talk about it!” When it came to facing reality, Martin always took a pass.

“He hasn’t wanted to hear anything I have to say since our parents died.”

When she’d insisted on dealing with the truth about their parents’ marriage, and Martin had cut her from his life. He’d accused her of twisting things, as if she’d set out to warp every childhood memory they shared.

“Kate–”

“Lissa, I know you love my brother.” The other woman’s pain was as difficult to listen to as it had been to watch in Oakwood. “And I know you have Martin’s best interest at heart. But sometimes we can take love so far, it starts to hurt the people we care about.”

Silence hung between them.

Kate checked the cell’s display to make sure the call was still connected.

“What are you saying?” Tears turned Lissa’s question watery.

“If Martin’s certain you’re not what he needs to get better–” Kate layered compassion over each difficult word, the same as she would if she were discussing a risky treatment option with a child’s family. “–then maybe it’s time for you to let go.”

“The same way he let you go ten years ago?” Lissa demanded. “You left Oakwood behind and never looked back. No one knew why, including Martin. Now your brother’s running, too, and you think I should just let go!”

“I did what I needed to, and Martin knows exactly why I left.” Kate blinked back useless tears, nodding to herself, as if she needed convincing more than the near-stranger on the other end of the phone.

She’d made the right choice. She’d made the only choice she could, and she refused to interfere with Martin’s right to do the same thing now.

“My brother and I were going to end up hating each other, if one of us didn’t leave. And I was the one who couldn’t live there and ignore the truth any longer. If Martin’s feeling the same way now, and you love him as much as you say you do, then you’re going to have to let him go, before the two of you end up hating each other.”

Guess what! I’ll be blogging on LifetimeTV.com on the 19th!!! A very cool opportunity compliments of my friend Michelle Buonfiglio–thanks for the chance to hang with the Bellas at Romance B(u)y The Blog!!!

Check out the J.R. Ward blog going on this week ;o) That’ll be me soon…sigh…

http://www.lifetimetv.com/lifestyle/entertainment/romance-buy-the-book/blogs

To those whom I owe goodies, they’re going out in the mail tomorrow (when I ship out the last of the stuff I’ll need at the NJ conference this weekend). So sorry for the delay. But did I mention that Remember Me is amazing???? Oh, and my editor called to say she LOVED the revisions to Baby Steps (my Mother’s Day novella). So all’s well.

To those who want more of Because of a Boy–you’re going to fall in love with my little Dillon ;o)

***********
Dillon Digarro kept his eyes squeezed shut.

The grown ups were arguing in the hall now. He could still hear how angry they were. The shaking had come back–the shaking that didn’t happen when it was just him and his papa.

Papa never got angry when it was just the two of them.

That nice nurse, Kate, was mad at Papa. Just like she was mad at the man who’d brought Dillon the car. And some other voice had been arguing with them, too.

Dillon just wanted to go home.

Not to another shelter, or another city. He wanted to go back home. Back to Colombia with Papa, except there were angry, scary people there, too.

Kate had been so nice at the shelter. She’d taken care of him when she’d found him hurt. She’d been with him almost all the time at hospital. He wished she’d come back. He liked it when she sat with him, even if she was mad at Papa.

She didn’t understand why Papa hadn’t come in the ambulance. She didn’t like Dillon being hurt and scared, and she thought it was Papa’s fault. She was wrong, but she was worried, and that felt good. There was no one else to worry but Papa.

He searched under the blanket with his good arm, until his fingers brushed the car he’d hidden there. Kate didn’t know it was the first toy Dillon had had since leaving Colombia. She didn’t know how worried his papa must be to have sent it.

We have to be able to move at a moment’s notice. We can’t risk taking anything that someone’s seen us with. That’s all they’d need to track us.

They never stopped moving. Atlanta was the longest they’d been anywhere in a year. They wore other people’s clothes. Dillon’s only toys where whatever the shelters had. Everything had to be left when they moved. Everything but the clothes they were wearing, and they got new second-hand stuff as soon as they stopped someplace new. He was tired of broken toys, clothes no one else wanted, and all the faces of people he wasn’t supposed to talk to. Kids who couldn’t be friends. All of it left behind, as soon as something spooked Papa and it was time to move again.

Except now he had his car.

Did that mean they could finally stop running?

Papa couldn’t come to the hospital himself because Kate was mad at him. But if Dillon could get her and everyone else to understand, maybe they could stay in Atlanta.

Except he wasn’t supposed to talk about anything with anyone.

Wait there for me. Try to get better. I’ll come get you when it’s time, Papa had said as the ambulance men took Dillon away.

When it was time…

Time to run again.

Dillon squeezed the car to his sore ribs, missing his papa, missing home–even though home was where they’d run from first. Home was what Papa was protecting Dillon from the most.

Except Dillon hurt and he was scared, and he wanted his own clothes and his room full of toys, and the friends he knew he’d never see again.

Papa was worried about him. The doctors and nurses here were worried. Everyone was worried about everything but what really mattered.

When were the men after his papa going to stop hunting them?

When would it finally be safe to stay somewhere? Be someone real? Have real friends and real toys like his new car, without waiting for it all to disappear?

Yep, they’re starting to trickle in. Reviews, that is–I have a couple to share for the first Atlanta Heroes book, Because of a Boy, and just in time. I’m slaving (back of hand to forehead, heavy, southern belle sigh) over finishing book two this week and next, tentatively titled Remember Me, and inspiration in all forms is always welcome.

BTW, you can now purchase an early copy of Because of a Boy at a 20% discount on eharlequin.com:

http://eharlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=15756&cid=229

Note: To read the award-winning Daughter series that feeds into it (especially The Runaway Daughter and The Perfect Daughter) Amazon.com is your best bet. Just search by my name, and you’ll get the whole backlist.

Okay, some reviews (and there will be prizes later in the post, so stick around):

5 Stars from Cataromance.com: “With cameo appearances from Anna DeStefano’s previous Daughter series and the introduction of fabulous new characters, her Atlanta Heroes series has a winning start with Because of a Boy. I loved the connection of the two series, which allows the revisiting of old friends and the intertwining of storylines. Today’s hot topic, illegal immigration, is perfect for Ms. DeStefano’s trademark voice as she handles it with compassion and wisdom. Her heroes have that added depth, treating their careers as life work not just a job. In Because of a Boy, readers meet nurses, doctors, lawyers, fire fighters and police, all taking their professions one step further to help others…Because of a Boy is a stand alone book and the Atlanta Heroes series does not need the lead in of the Daughter series but why deprive yourself of the pleasure? Talented Anna DeStefano delivers a highly entertaining, rewarding read with every book she writes. “

http://www.cataromance.com/index.php?p=228

4 Stars from Romantic Times: “…Remarkably realistic characters and a fast-paced story make Anna Destefano’s Because of a Boy hard to put down.”

http://romantictimes.com/books_review.php?book=33439

Sigh… I guess I should make sure Remember Me isn’t a disappointing follow up!

I’ll do more excerpts later in the week. The ones I’ve shared so far are probably familiar to some, but I wanted to catch everyone up before plowing forward. I’ll be posting new scenes you haven’t seen any day now–tease, tease ;o)

For now, here’s a preview of Because of a Boy’s “Dear Reader” letter–

Dear Reader,

For those of you who’ve followed my award-winning “Daughter” novels, I’m happy to announce that my southern-set stories has a new home. Because of a Boy is the launch of my Atlanta Heroes series–where strong, southern men and women fight for love, as fiercely as they battle for everything else in their lives.

Pediatric nurse Kate Rhodes and legal advocate Stephen Creighton are unlikely heroes. Sure they work hard to help the people their jobs place in their paths. But as they fight tirelessly to solve others’ problems, they also avoid dealing with the pasts they don’t want to face.

Throw together an injured but determined little boy, an illegal immigrant family on the run from a drug king pin, hot pursuit from both the INS and drug enforcement officials, and a life-or-death medical condition, and Kate and Stephen are at a crossroads. Can they dig deep and work together for the sake of a troubled family, even when the attachment growing between them is more terrifying than the danger closing in? Heroes, after all, might flinch when faced with their deepest fears. But they don’t back down–not even from true love.

And for those of you who read The Perfect Daughter and asked to see more of Lissa Carter and sheriff’s deputy Martin Rhodes’ relationship, did you really think I’d leave you hanging? Lissa and Martin’s romance continues in Because of a Boy, as Martin moves to Atlanta to rehabilitate from injuries received in the line of duty (and to be closer to the estranged sister he supposedly doesn’t want to see, any more than he does Lissa). Something tells me neither Kate nor Lissa is giving up on Martin without a fight…

And a few more winners of our RT 2007 goodies!!!

To receive one of the RT Conference bags from the 19th post:

Susan F, who commented at 10:45 am on the July 25th post

To receive a selection of promotional items and a book from the 19th post:

Jenna, who posted at 7:45 pm on the July 25th post

Winners, please email me your pony express address.

Everyone else, keep leaving comments, and I’ll keep drawing names. We’ll work our way through each post and all the goodies eventually ;o) And of course, we have our October release party to look forward to (more teasing…what has gotten into me?).

More excerpts and a new book review of my own (for Agnes and the Hitman) to come!

Now back to rewriting Remenber Me…