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Changing Times by Jacqueline Rhoades
Hidden Mountain Series Book Two

Return to Hidden Mountain…

Hard living Lorelei Stewart has always accepted her role as the town tramp's daughter and has earned her fast and loose reputation, but times change. Pregnant and overburdened with responsibility, Lorelei's given up men and hopes to provide her baby with what she lacked as a girl; a decent home and a loving mother. The old bootlegger, Rollie Roper, needs a caretaker and has room for Lorelei and her coming child; a fair exchange.

Everything's almost perfect until Rollie's long lost nephew, Cob Thornton, turns up with money and plans of his own and those plans don't include the woman living in his house, yet something about Lorelei fascinates him. He begins to see past the cold armor she wears and discovers a vulnerable and loving woman within. Now all he has to do is convince the pessimistic Lorelei that sometimes, changing times can be a blessing in disguise.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Content/Theme(s): Small town life
Release Date: February 1, 2014
Publisher: Indie

Excerpts, Book 1 & More

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Changing Times Excerpt:
Lorelei looked over her shoulder to where Hardy Curran was bouncing baby Mikey on his good knee, seemingly paying no attention to the two women.

She leaned over the counter and whispered, “And there he is this morning, sitting out on the porch in his underwear with a hard-on the size of a flagpole.”

“Oooo, is he cute?” Suze giggled. “Just how tall was this flagpole and what was he doing with it and why on the front porch? Enquiring minds want to know.” She wiggled her brows.

“It wasn’t like that. He slept out there with a couch pillow and a ratty old blanket.”

Suze looked confused. “Why’d he do that?”

“Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

“Well, some, but you are talking a little fast.”

Lorelei huffed. “Suze, I don’t even know if the guy is who he says he is.”

“Dark curly hair, gray eyes, tall and skinny. Got a scar right here,” Hardy pointed to a spot where his shoulder met his chest, "where one of the Tolliver boys shot him with an arrow. I forget which one." He grinned when the ladies blushed. “Don’t know about the flagpole, but that pretty much covers the rest of him. Course, times change.”

Lorelei sputtered. “He’s got dark hair, but it’s clipped so short you can’t tell if it’s curly or not. His eyes are gray and he is tall, but he’s not skinny. He’s got shoulders out to here.” She spread her arms. “Do you remember if he had a dimple in his left cheek? He has a tattoo, but I didn’t see any scar.”

“Too busy looking at his flagpole, I reckon,” Hardy snickered.

“He had his shirt on!”

“Whose flagpole had a shirt on?” Meg Hanson walked in followed by JT. She looked at Suze. “And why are you here? I thought I was showing the new girl how it’s done?”

“Mikey was up and raring to go, so we came in with Jerry.”

“Morning, Jerry,” Meg called out.

“Hmph. Tell her to go home and take a nap.”

“Like she’d listen to me,” Meg laughed.

It was a running battle. The taciturn Jerry, who adored his wife, wanted Suze to work less and spend more time at home. Suze, on the other hand, insisted the work of the family business should be done equally by the members of their family, their family numbering two. Well, three if you counted baby Michael, whose job at three and a half months old was to make the customers coo and laugh while they waited for their burgers.

“Now, whose flagpole is wearing a shirt?” Meg asked again. All the best gossip came from the Downtown Café or from June Carter, the Post Mistress across the street.

“He was wearing a shirt, not his flagpole. That was just…” Lorelei turned a deep red and she rounded on the older man and pointed her finger. “If you weren’t holding that baby, Hardy Curran…”

Hardy chuckled. “Seems Cob Thornton showed up at Rollie’s last night. Lorelei was just giving us a description of the feller. Seems he’s endowed well enough to make the weaker men among us jealous.”

“Lorelei! You didn’t! I thought you’d given up…”

“I didn’t and I have. It was an accident.”

“Yeah, because that kind of accident happens all the time.” Jerry sounded like the voice of God, booming from the kitchen.

“No! Oh, crap.” Lorelei sighed and looked at her watch. “Have a seat. This is going to take a while,” she said and began her story all over again.
~~~~~~
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Preston’s Mill
by Jacqueline Rhoades
Hidden Mountain Series Book One
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Content/Theme(s): Small town life, Mystery
Re-released 1/15/14 with some revisions
and a new cover

Discover Hidden Mountain…

When her humiliating marriage ends, Meg Hanson retreats to Preston's Mill, to lick her wounds.

Coming from wealth and privilege, Meg isn’t sure what to make of small town living, but it doesn’t take long to become attached to the people, with their blunt honesty and strange speech or to reluctantly fall for the boy who kissed her under the apple tree when she was only ten. He’s grown into an intriguing man with problems of his own.

Artist JT Preston is burdened with family sins that prevent him from seeking the life he’s always envied and longed for.

When a coal company comes to town, the two find themselves embroiled in a battle between neighbors. Greed rears its head, people are hurt and lives are endangered, Meg’s most of all.

Preston's Mill Purchase links: Amazon Smashwords Kobo B&N
Preston's Mill Excerpt:
“That’s no car for a lady.” She laughed aloud as she grabbed the keys from the hook and headed out into the yard.

It certainly wasn’t. Her moment of rebellion had bought her a bone-rattling, kidney-jostling, butt-bumping Jeep with a hard top for winter and a soft top for spring and four wheel drive which Dewey assured her would be a blessing once the winter snows began. Sooner or later, she would probably curse her impulsiveness, but for now, this thing was fun to drive.

Having fun was something else she’d forgotten how to do. She’d trained her mouth to produce no more than polite smiles and discreet chuckles and the first time she let out a high pitched cackle of belly clutching mirth, she was so shocked by the sound, she cried.

She and Annie were having a quiet supper in the kitchen when out of the blue Annie leaped to her feet and shouted in outrage. Her chair fell over behind her with a crash, but she didn’t seem to notice. Meg was so startled by this display that she jumped up, too.

“What? What is it? Annie?”

“Mouse!” Annie shouted and ran to the mudroom.

Mouse? Meg looked behind her and there he was, a little gray mouse sitting on his haunches nibbling on a crumb. “Annie! It’s only a little mouse.”

Annie emerged from the mudroom brandishing a broom. She gripped the handle with two hands and held the straw bristles over her head.

“Come into my house, will you?” she shouted. Armed and dangerous, she swung the broom with frightening force onto the mouse, or at least the spot where the mouse once stood. Annie screamed a battle cry that shook the windows and walloped the floor again as the little creature scurried past, the old woman screaming epithets all the while.

Annie fell to her knees. Nose to the floor, rear end in the air, she stabbed with her weapon beneath the Hoosier cabinet where she rolled her dough. Meg thought the mouse would run out the side, but no, the tiny thing ran from beneath the cupboard and straight for Annie’s nose. It might have been a lion the way Annie screeched. She threw herself up and onto her back and scrambled away, upside down, on all fours.

Seeing the staid and stalwart Annie brought to such humiliation by a tiny little mouse, Meg started to giggle. And when her aunt slid up the walls, straightened her shoulders and snarled, ready to renew her battle, Meg started to laugh.

“It’s a mouse, Annie. It’s only a mouse!” she gasped. “We’ll buy some traps tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Annie began to search the room, her head snapping back and forth like the chickens in her barnyard. “Tomorrow it’ll have eaten us out of house and home. It and all its kin!” Her bun had slid to the side of her head, her shirt was half pulled from her jeans and her cheek was smudged with dust. “This is war!” she shouted and Meg couldn’t help but think the mouse was winning.

Annie’s opponent was in the corner, sitting up and cleaning its whiskers as if it, too, was getting ready for another round. And then Annie called that poor mouse a word Meg never thought her aunt would know, never mind say aloud.

Meg started to howl. She wrapped her hands around her stomach and laughed until the tears poured down her cheeks. She shrieked with laughter and the sound of it was so foreign to her ears, she abruptly stopped.

But the tears continued. What had she become if she had forgotten the sound of her own laughter?

Annie won the Battle of the Mouse and pretended Meg’s tears were for the demise of the tiny creature, but she knew it wasn’t the death of the mouse. The girl’s laughter had released something tied up inside and Annie was happy to see it.
~~~~~~
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Other titles by Jacqueline Rhoades: