What’s Romantic to You???

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Whether it’s a trip to Paris or hubby taking out the trash, romance is a concept as varied and diverse as the people who experience it, crave it, dream of it and read all about it.
   

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Hallie’s Hero

Harlequin Historical

January 2003

ISBN# 0-373-29160-4

From the day she looked in her mirror and saw more cowboy than girl reflected back, Hallie Ryan gave up any dream of love and committed herself to her family and ranch.

From the first time Jack Dakota slid his fingers through a deck of cards, he gave up any desire for commitment and abandoned himself to the excitement of chance.

Then fortune made them unlikely partners.

What Makes a Family?

Silhouette Special Edition

Broken by betrayal and loss, Laurel Tanner can’t imagine ever again trusting a man enough to let him close.

Cort Morente, trying to rebuild his life from the remains left him, can’t imagine getting involved with a woman when he can’t even figure out what to do with himself.

But when their shared concern for a troubled boy brings them together, their mutual loneliness and struggles to start over forge a bond between them that overcomes their determination to stay just friends and leads to new beginnings and eventually to love.

What Makes a Family? by Nicole Foster

Excerpt

“Maybe I don’t owe you an explanation but I don’t want you thinking what you’re obviously thinking.  I’m not your ex.  I’m not going to lie to you.”

Laurel wouldn’t look at him.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.”  Very gently, Cort slid his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his. “I know you think this is the wrong way for me to go and maybe it is.  But I’m trying to pull things together because of you.  You threatened to go back home when we were fighting.  I plan on helping you forget that threat.”

“No, you can’t – “

“Yes, I can.  What I can’t do is pretend any more that this is about being friends.”  He reached over and slid the confining band from her hair, letting the heavy mass slip over his fingers in a sensual caress.  “I don’t think you can either.”

Panic flashed in her eyes and Cort cut off the denial he saw coming by pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

At first, her palms pressed flat against his chest, she didn’t respond.  Cursing himself for pushing her too far, too fast, Cort started to pull back.  At the same moment Laurel yielded, leaning into him and kissing him back.

And then he stopped thinking.

She was still unsure of him, unsure of herself, but Laurel wanted this, wanted Cort, like a craving she couldn’t satisfy, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer.  Cort took full advantage of her response, pulling her closer still, parting her lips under his, the intimate caress heating her blood, heightening her senses and crumbling to dust any rational thoughts.

He wanted this too, she knew from his low needy groan that found its echo in her, the hot urgency of his mouth on hers.  Some tiny part of her brain protested her surrender when only moments before she’d been ready to walk away from him.  But it didn’t stand a chance against the sinful dark pleasure that Cort created with his hands and mouth.  She’d never been daring when it came to lovemaking but being with him emboldened her, pushed her to forget all the reasons why she shouldn’t be doing this.

At the same time, she didn’t know how to deal with it.  All her experience had been with Scott and his lovemaking had been unimaginative and undemanding, never overwhelming.  Nothing had prepared her for Cort.

Despite all her doubts about him, against his sensual attraction, she was weak.  He made her feel like a woman she didn’t recognize, needy and demanding, her senses sharpened, her skin sensitized so that every touch made sparks.

    Moonlight

        Whispers

                       by Nicole Foster

           The wild Southwest called to her restless spirit….

Desperate to escape an arranged marriage, orphaned Serena Lark fled into the wild Arizona territory to seek refuge at an old Mormon fort she once called home.  But the safe haven she remembered from her childhood was now a deserted ranch, rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a settler who’d lost his wife and children in a brutal massacre…and who vowed eternal vengeance.

                                     His heart and soul were dead…was he?

He’d thought he was saving the ones he cared most for, but instead he’d let them die.  He could never forget–but he could get even.  Gage Tanner gave everything, including his very existence, to try to right the wrongs he’d allowed to happen.  He never anticipated a woman, alive, demanding, irresistible, would interrupt his plans for vengeance.  Now he had a reason to choose: life or death?

NOW ON AMAZON KINDLE

Nicole Foster

She comes from the sun-kissed Southwest, where she grew up in a sprawling, gracious hacienda. The conversation and the lifestyle were genteel, an intellectual reflection of her educator parents.

She also comes from the gritty Midwest, from a constantly-changing hometown and household where dinner guests were likely to be murderers, drug offenders and parolees. Those guests provided a panorama of real-life characters that jump-started the imagination of a budding author.

She is Nicole Foster and she does not have a split personality. Then again, perhaps she does. Nicole Foster is the pen name of romance writing partners Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier.

Danette and Annette met over twenty years ago when both were toiling as journalists for a St. Louis newspaper group. Their backgrounds were so different that a friendship seemed far-fetched, much less a partnership.

Annette grew up in Albuquerque with her horses and interests in European travel, skiing, Southwestern architecture and art. Both her parents were teachers, so it was hardly shocking when Annette enrolled in the University of New Mexico to study English.

When a career move brought her to St. Louis, the outdoors-loving Annette found herself and her two small children imprisoned by the unrelenting Midwestern winters.

She began free-lancing stories for the local newspaper, which was edited by her future partner, Danette Fertig-Thompson. Danette, ironically, was a native of the West also, but moved to Missouri at age 3 when her parole officer father was transferred.

For the next 12 years, her family moved from one small Missouri town to another. The only thing that remained the same was her father’s work and the Runyonesque cast of societal castoffs he often invited into their home.

At 17, Danette began working for the newspaper. After she earned a degree in journalism, her eye and ear for a flamboyant character or line were honed further by years of feature writing.

Hometown profiles were good training for a writer learning her craft, but it hardly compared to the colorful, character-filled, gypsy-like life she had led as a child.

Danette longed to create those complex characters and relocate them to exotic locales, such as those visited by her new correspondent, Annette.

Annette’s world travels and varied life experiences provided the perfect backdrop for Danette’s plethora of characters.

Danette and Annette, once reluctant colleagues, grew to be friends, writing partners, novelists and soul sisters. As they are to this day.