Excerpt & A Little Something Extra

Dear Reader,

This week I planned to post an excerpt so that I could continue writing Double Dare, but somehow I found myself writing a Chronicle on my phone while my children and I were waiting for our lunch to arrive. 

This idea came to me after a few FB friends kept tagging me for a picture of an Uncle wearing a dress to make his niece feel braver about wearing her own princess dress to the movies. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if the Bradford boys stepped up for their sister and decided that I’d see where it took me today. 

I will be continuing with the Buffet story, but I needed some extra time for Double Dare. I am going to try and beat the April 30th release date. 

Once again, I’d like to thank everyone for their patience and support 🙂

-R.L.

The content in this Chronicle and on this website is intended for adults, 18 years old and older.

A Bradford Princess

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, frowning while he glanced at his baby sister as she continued to sit on his bed, absently rolling the baseball that he was hoping to get signed today, in her hands.

“Nothing,” she said with a shrug.

“Do you want to come with us instead?” Jonathan asked as he walked past Jessica and gave one of her long braids a playful tug.

“No,” she sighed softly.

“It’s going to be fun,” Sebastian said with an encouraging smile as he tossed his baseball glove to his twin and sat down on the bed next to her.

“I know.”

“But you want to go see the movie,” he guessed.

“I guess,” she said with a shrug that he wasn’t buying.

“You guess?” Jonathan teased with a chuckle as he sat down on the bed on her other side. “You haven’t stopped talking about going for the last month and you made us go to ten different stores looking for the perfect dress.”

Sebastian thought it was closer to twenty stores, but he didn’t say anything. He was too busy watching his sister and trying to figure what had changed since yesterday morning when she was driving them all crazy by talking about this thing and yesterday afternoon when they’d walked her home from school, wondering why she looked so sad.

“Im not going to wear the dress,” she said, shrugging as she reached over and took the baseball glove from Jonathan so that she could toy with the leather strips binding the glove together.

“Why not?” he asked, putting his arm around her small shoulders. “You looked so pretty in it.”

“I’m too old to play dress up,” she said, sounding all too serious for a little girl going to a special showing of Frozen.

“You’re seven,” he gently reminded her with a soft squeeze of her shoulders. “Since when is that too old to wear a princess dress to the movies?”

“Since Kelly Sanders told everyone that only babies played dress up,” Jessica said with another one of those shrugs that he was beginning to hate.

“Why do you care what she says?” Jonathan asked, taking her small hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “You love that dress, Jessie, and you’ve been looking forward to this for the past month.”

“Besides,” Sebastian said, jumping in, “everyone knows she’s a brat. Go put on the dress and have fun. Don’t worry what that little brat says.”

She risked a glance up at him. “Do you think it will make me a baby if I wear it?”

He chuckled as he reached up and gave one of her braids a gentle tug. “No, I don’t think it will make you a baby. I think you’ll have a better time at the movie and party if you wear that pretty dress mom bought you.”

“But what if Kelly calls me a baby?”

“Do you really care what she says?” he asked with a teasing smile.

Her lips pulled up into a shy smile. “No, not really.”

“Then I suggest you go get ready for your party,” Jonathan said, giving a gentle shove that had her jumping off the bed and rushing towards the door, smiling for the first time all day.

“Have fun at your game,” she yelled with a smile as she raced out the door, leaving them sitting there, mulling things over.

“You know they’re going to pick on her, don’t you?” he asked his brother.

Jonathan looked over at him and smiled. “I know they’re gonna try.”

Sebastian nodded, sighing heavily as he got to his feet. “Then I guess we don’t have a choice.”

“No,” Jonathan said with an exaggerated wince as he stood up, “we don’t.”

*-*-*-*

“What are you, like five?” Kelly asked with a sneer as she gestured towards the pretty princess dress that she loved.

“No,” Jessica said, reaching up to fix her tiara, “I’m seven.”

“Then why are you wearing that?” Jennifer, the chubby little girl that followed Kelly everywhere, asked, copying Kelly’s tone and sneer.

“Because I like it,” she said with a shrug. “Why do you care?”

“We don’t,” Kelly snapped. “We’re just wondering why you’re dressed like a baby.”

“I’m not dressed like a baby. I’m dressed like Anna,” she said, sounding firm when all she wanted to do was find her mother and go home. As much as she loved her new dress, she was starting to regret wearing it, not because she was embarrassed, but because Kelly and her annoying friends hadn’t left her alone since she’d walked in the door ten minutes ago.

“Yeah, like the rest of the babies,” Kelly said, gesturing around them to all the little girls who had dressed up as Anna and Elsa.

“It’s a Frozen party,” she pointed out, moving to step around the annoying girls when Kelly stepped in front of her, cutting her off.

“You look really stupid in that dress,” Jennifer said, earning a mean smile from Kelly.

“Really stupid,” Kelly added loudly, drawing the attention of everyone around them as she crossed her arms over her chest with a smug smirk that had Jessica wondering if she’d made a mistake.

“Who comes to see Frozen in jeans?” a familiar voice asked with a snort of disgust as a large tan arm was thrown over her shoulders.

“Obviously someone that doesn’t really want to go to the after party,” Jonathan said as he joined him right around the time that she realized that her brothers were both wearing crystal blue princess dresses.

“Obviously,” Sebastian said, reaching up to adjust his tiara as he gave her shoulders a gentle tug that had her moving with him toward the snack counter where it appeared her father, Uncle Jason, Uncle Jared and about twenty other Bradfords stood in line, wearing various Frozen princess dresses and looking like they had no where else in the world they’d rather be.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she allowed him to lead her past Kelly and her stunned friends.

“Taking our sister to see Frozen,” Sebastian said with a slight wince as he reached up and shifted his dress.

“What about the game?” she asked with a wobbly smile as Mathew, wearing a dress similar to hers, joined them.

“There will be other games,” Jonathan said with a shrug as they joined their father and Uncles in line.

“Besides,” Sebastian said, still adjusting his dress, “everyone that wears a Frozen princess dress gets free admission to the party.”

“And first dibs on the dessert table,” Jonathan added with a wink as she decided then and there that Bradfords made the best brothers.

© Rerum Industries, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved.

 A Sneak peek at Double Dare, A Neighbor from Hell Novel:

God, would this night never end? she wondered as she glanced over her shoulder to find the manipulative bastard following her up the stairs.

            “What are you doing?” she couldn’t help but ask, especially after that little declaration that he’d just delivered.

            “Going to bed,” he said, looking adorably confused.

            “I see,” she murmured as she pointed to the right, “then you must be lost, because your apartment is over there.”

            “I sleep better with you,” he said with a shrug and a yawn that had her turning right back around and walking the rest of the way upstairs, wondering why she hadn’t killed him yet.

            “That’s really too bad, because I believe that you just decided that you’d be sleeping alone for the time being,” she said, taking some perverse satisfaction that she would get the last word on the subject tonight.

            “I don’t remember saying that,” he said, sounding thoughtful as he followed her into her bedroom and started pulling off his clothes and tossing them aside.

            “Then what was that little declaration downstairs?” she asked, yanking her top-drawer open and grabbed a pair of pale yellow lacy panties before slamming the door shut.

            “You mean my marriage proposal?” he asked, making her right eye twitch.

            “That wasn’t a proposal,” she bit out, storming off towards the bathroom, only pausing long enough to reach down and snatch up his discarded shirt.

            “Then what would you call it?” he asked, pulling back the covers and climbed in her bed with a satisfied sigh that had her hands twitching with the need to strangle the cocky bastard.

            “Typical Bradford bullshit,” she snapped, shaking her head in disgust as she headed into the bathroom and slammed the door shut simply because it felt good to do it.

            “Because I want to marry you?” he asked, sounding amused.

            “Shut up!” she snapped, hating him more with every passing second.

            “Aw, is little Marybeth mad that she can’t have her dirty little way with me?” he asked in the most condescending tone that she’d ever heard and that was saying a lot since she’d grown up around Bradfords.

            “Bastard,” she muttered, grabbing her toothbrush and squeezed an insane amount of toothpaste on the bristles before she shoved her toothbrush in her mouth and took her frustration out on her teeth.

            “Admit that you’re in love with me and I might consider letting you have your dirty little way with me,” he said, sounding way too pleased with himself, she decided.

            She should just accept that things were over between them and move on. It was the right thing to do and she’d probably never get a better opportunity than this, but she just couldn’t do it. It went against everything that she believed in to let the manipulative bastard get away with this.

            Jaw clenched, she decided that if he wanted to play games with her that was fine, because she was more than capable of taking this to the next level, something that he should have considered when he’d come up with this asinine plan. Ten minutes later she was showered, her hair was brushed, her makeup touched up and she was wearing his shirt sans panties.

            Biting back a smile, she opened the bathroom door and bit back a smile when she saw Darrin, lying back on her bed wearing a cocky smile that told her everything that she was about to do to him was completely justified.

© Rerum Industries, Inc. 2015 All Rights Reserved.