Update: The winner of my random drawing is Lois M. Please contact me through my website with your mailing info and I’ll send off your copy of Improper Gentlemen. For everyone else, the IMPROPER BLOG TOUR is still rolling! Please check my itinerary and join me at the next stop. You can also enter the contest on my website! See you along the way.

Last weekend, I enjoyed a visit from old friends. No, I didn’t have houseguests. I had “head guests.” My manuscript for Touch of a Rogue (Book 2 in the Touch of Seduction series) came back from my editor with some light revisions. Since I haven’t looked at this story since January, it was like renewing an old friendship after a long separation. I’ve written another full manuscript, a novella and a partial since then, so plenty of new characters have taken up residence in my head in the interim. Plus I’ve had two new releases since January–Touch of a Thief and Improper Gentlemen, so there has been plenty of other casts of characters to occupy my imagination. But all weekend long, I renewed my acquaintance with Jacob Preston and Lady Julianne. I’d forgotten little details, little quirks in Jacob and Julianne’s personalities and the kinks in their relationship that needed unraveling. My hero and heroine were a delightful surprise to me. I’m happy to say I loved our reunion!

Readers often ask me if I have a favorite book and I always say that’s like admitting to having a favorite child. I love them all… for different reasons. Invariably, I say my current WIP is my favorite, but that’s a lie. In fact, I usually think my current story is total crap. My characters often won’t cooperate with my well-laid plans. Sometimes they refuse to even take coherent shape. The plot takes some unexpected turns and I can’t see the end to save my soul.

In some respects, a manuscript in progress is a little like looking at a Monet canvas. If you stand too close, all you see is splotches of paint on canvas.  A little distance is required to be able to judge it fairly… or even to tell what the heck it is! So now that Touch of a Rogue is all but in the can, I understand it far better now.

Of course, I could only spend the weekend with Jacob and Julianne. Today, and the rest of the week, my focus has to be on Aidan and Rosalinde, my hero and heroine from my novella in IMPROPER GENTLEMEN. Here’s a little taste of their off-again-on-again romance.

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“Leave your window open.” Rosalinde could almost hear Aidan’s voice in her mind.

As if she was fool enough to do that again. What sort of round-heeled ninny did he take her for?

She wandered to the window, still stroking her hair absently. The Season was nearly over and many families were preparing to leave the growing heat of London for the coolness of their country homes. Her bed chamber was certainly warm enough to justify opening the window a crack in hope of a breath of breeze. By day, London was becoming a sweltering miasma of unhealthy smells. When the stars came out, they seemed to chase away the worst of the stale fug.

“Just for a bit of cool night,” she murmured as she unlocked the casement and pushed up the sash. Besides, it was a good thirty feet to the garden below. No harm in opening the window a bit.

She leaned out and surveyed the neatly trimmed hedges and immaculate flowerbeds, awash in shades of gray. The patter of the garden fountain floated up to her. Rosalinde made out the cobbled footpath snaking through the small space, the vine covered arbor and the settee near the roses. From this angle, no one could hide from her gaze.

Aidan was nowhere to be seen.

“What did you expect?” she grumbled to herself as she straightened and paced away from the window.

He had no intention of coming to her. Aidan might have shinnied up the commissioner’s house, but her aunt’s smooth-walled townhome offered no finger and toe holes to a midnight climber.

Was it a test of some sort? Was he watching from the deeper shadows somewhere simply to see if she’d open the window at his bidding?

She reached to close it, but as she did, a rope dropped from above and dangled before her. As she watched open-mouthed, Aidan climbed down the rope, hand over hand, one leg hitched around the cord, until he was level with her sill. He cocked his head and shot her a wicked grin.

“Well, lass,” he whispered. “Ye’ll have step back a bit if ye intend to invite me in.”

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Leave a comment or question for Mia and you’ll be entered in a random drawing for a signed copy of IMPROPER GENTLEMEN! Here’s a question to get the ball rolling: Have you ever completed a project and had a few months pass before you revisited it? Did your perspective on it change?