My latest release, SEX, LIES AND MISTLETOE is on the shelves now!! And to celebrate, I thought I’d share a little snippet of what’s happening in Black Oak, where this story takes place…

The small town of Black Oak is nestled in the foothills of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains and filled with colorful characters.  Neighbors for over thirty years, Hazel and Hortense enjoyed a fierce rivalry.  Competing over everything from blue ribbon jam to who’s kids married first to who had the lowest cholesterol count, the ladies loved nothing more than beating the other out.  But their hands down favorite competition, and the one that made them a formidable force in the town of Black Oak, was gossip.  Every morning, at promptly 8:15, they met for tea and their daily attempt outdo each other for the perfect scone, coffeecake or cookie… and the juiciest gossip. 

Hazel settled comfortably into her favorite chair, smug pleasure adding extra sweetness to her morning tea.  She waited for Hortense to take a bite of the coffeecake, sure it was her best recipe yet.  The look of dismay in her dear friend’s eyes told her she was right.  She chalked up another win in her mental scorebook, then leaned forward to make it two for two, best coffeecake and best gossip.

“I hear you got stopped on the highway again,” she said, sipping her tea and giving her friend an arch look.  “What does that make now, Hortense?  Three speeding tickets this year?”

“Well I was in a hurry, wasn’t I?  I’d gone Christmas shopping in Santa Cruz and had to get back to watch the grandkids.  But I didn’t get a ticket,” Hortense denied with a sniff.  “That lovely Sheriff Kendall just wanted to give me a talking to.  He dated my Clarice back in high school, if you recall, and has a soft spot for me.  He even mentioned how much he loved my peanut butter and jelly cookies.”

In other words, she’d bribed him with the promise of sweets to get out of the ticket.  Some women had no pride, Hazel thought, conveniently ignoring the bribe of fried chicken she’d used to get out of her last parking ticket.

“Could be he let you go because of those happy memories,” not likely since Hortense had beat him around the head with her broom when she’d found him swapping spit with her daughter on the back porch, “Or could be he was in a hurry.”

She drew that last word out with a nice lilt at the end.  Just enough to make it clear she knew more than she was saying, but not enough to sound like a nosy old woman.  Gossiping was an art, and Hazel considered herself a master.  Hortense, though, was no slouch.  She didn’t jump at the bait like most would.  Instead she sipped, she nibbled and she calculated.  Probably trying to figure out what local news might involve that cute young sheriff.

Finally…

“I don’t think he was in much of a hurry, since he had plenty of time to reminisce,” she dismissed.

“Maybe he was using his chat with you as an excuse to watch the road into town.”

“Why would he do that?”

Gotcha.  Hazel hid her smile in her teacup.

“Because I hear trouble is back in town. “

“We haven’t had trouble in Black Oak in years.  Tobias Black won’t stand for it.  My youngest son handles the books for Tobias’ motorcycle shop now, you know.  He’s always saying how on the ball and aware Tobias is of everything.” Hortense claimed, as usual tossing out her tenuous connection with the town’s powerhouse.

“Not everything.  There’s been a few things that slipped through Tobias’ fingers over the years,” Hazel pointed out, thrilled at the opening Hortense unwittingly offered.

“Nothing’s ever gotten past Tobias.”

“Not even his children?”

“His children leaving was the only thing I’ve ever seen that slowed Tobias down.”  Hortense nibbled at her cake, too distracted by the topic to pretend it wasn’t delicious.  “First Caleb stormed off, then Gabriel just a week or so afterward.  It was like someone kicked his legs out from under him. When Maya left a year or so after that, you’d have thought she took his heart, too.  I haven’t seen him so upset since his wife died years back.”

Testing to see if Hortense was sufficiently hooked, Hazel offered another slice of coffeecake.  Still focused on the many woes of Tobias Black, the other woman took it with a murmured thanks.

“Bet it’d make his holiday if his kids came home.  One or all, he’d be overjoyed.”

Hortense snorted so hard, cake crumbs sprayed across her lap.

“Not likely.  Don’t you remember Caleb yelling from the town square that he’d never return?  Who knows what he did after he roared out of here on that big, scary motorcycle of his.  He was trouble, I’m telling you.  Never respected authority, always had to do things his way.”  Hortense took a sip of the before offering a saccharine smile.  “Didn’t one of your daughters chase after him for awhile?”

Leave it to Hortense to remember the one detail she’d been hoping to gloss over.

“That’s neither here nor there. What’s important today is the fact that Caleb Black has returned.”

“He hasn’t,” Hortense breathed, setting her tea on the table so she wouldn’t drop it.  “He’s come back to reconcile with his father?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  I heard from Carl Minsky, whose wife was shopping in that new agey store of Cassiopeia Easton’s that Caleb walked in there yesterday afternoon, bold as brass.”  She waited for the satisfying gasp, then continued.  “He was flirting up a storm with Cassiopeia’s daughter. The girl who’s trying to sex up everyone’s food?  Next thing you know, he turned around and came face to face with Tobias.”

“Then what happened?” Hortense asked breathlessly.

“Then… nothing.  At least, nothing that anyone but the Easton girl knows.  She scooted them into the back room for some privacy.”  Hazel said that like it was a dirty word.  And to her, it was.  “Can you believe the nerve of that girl?”

“You think they came to blows?  Did anyone hear yelling? Oh, this has to be juicy. ”

And that, right there, gave Hazel the big gold star win for the best gossip of the year.  Satisfied, she picked up her cake plate, prepared to revel in her success.

“I guarantee you,” Hazel stated, leaning forward to gesture with her forkful of coffeecake in emphasis, “With Caleb Black back in town, this is going to be one interesting Christmas season.”

Oh yeah… I think things are going to be very, very interesting in Black Oak this December.  What do you think? And if you’ve read the book already, do you think Caleb’s homecoming added a bit of excitement to the Christmas season?  Share your thoughts and I’ll draw one random name from the comments to win a copy of SEX, LIES AND MIDNIGHT to get a jump start on some New Year’s Eve fun.

And don’t forget to check out my Holiday Survival Tour as I celebrate the Undercover Operatives series with contests, giveaways and lots of good times. 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Tawny Weber. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.