Falling in Love by Diane Burton

Forty-two years ago, I fell in love. Many of you know that I met my love on a blind date. The first time he called, we talked for over an hour. That was how easy and comfortable he felt. It turned out we lived in the same apartment complex, his building kitty-corner from mine. If not for our well-meaning friends, we never would have met. He worked odd hours at a steel mill while I was a teacher with regular hours. We met in June, got engaged in August, and married on Thanksgiving Day. Yep, the actual day. Just like my mother and her mother. And my daughter. She and I made a pact that my granddaughter would NOT follow that tradition.

I didn’t think I would ever love anyone as strongly as I loved my Hubs. I was wrong. Two years later, along came our daughter and I fell in love with her. A year after that, our son arrived. Another love fest. Okay, that was it. I was blessed three times over.

Seven years ago, another little girl stole my heart. From the first time my granddaughter snuggled in, I was lost. Three years after that, a little boy made me fall in love again. How could I not? Those two precious children love me unconditionally. There’s a saying that if I knew how much fun grandchildren could be, I’d have had them first. How true that is.

The grandkiddies are here this morning. They stayed overnight so their parents could have “date night.” Hubs and I moved closer to them just for this. Our daughter tries so hard not to take advantage of us that we almost have to beg so the kiddies can come over. In turn, the kiddies frequently plead with their parents to let them stay overnight here. I love it!

I thought things couldn’t be any better. Then our son and daughter-in-law gave us more good news. In May, another little girl will arrive and I just know I’m going to fall in love again.

The heart is amazing. It just keeps expanding, allowing us to love more than we thought possible. While it’s usually just Hubs and me, we’ve fallen into the routine of two people who have been together for a long time. Our mornings usually start with “How did you sleep?” and end with “I hope you get a good night’s sleep.” Real romantic, huh? Yet in between we still find things to talk about.

Falling in love is exciting and wondrous. Staying in love is even better. As I usually say in the acknowledgements at the end of my books, I’m so glad our friends fixed us up on that blind date.

Lasting love is why I write romance. I want my characters to find that happy-ever-after, even though some of them go into relationships with a happy-for-now attitude. They don’t think they’ll ever find everlasting love. That’s the situation in THE CASE OF THE BYGONE BROTHER. Alex O’Hara is so busy she doesn’t have time to fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. Since this is a mystery, not a romance, that’s okay. Of course, she’s had a mad crush on Nick Palzetti ever since high school. Nick didn’t show interest in her then and he doesn’t now. Bummer.

Blurb:

PI Alex O’Hara finally gets a case that will give her bottom line a much needed boost. She might even be able to change her diet from ramen noodles to prime rib. All she has to do is track down a man who’s been missing for over ten years. Piece of cake . . . until an old flame arrives and a mugger roughs her up with orders to back off.

Excerpt:

“Hello, gorgeous.”

I whacked my head on the display shelf.

Well, what would you do if you were lying across the top of a four-drawer lateral file cabinet, and your arm—yardstick attached—was wedged between the wall and the cabinet, trying to retrieve the license renewal application that if you mangled, crushed or couldn’t get would mean the end of your business, and the ex-love-of-your-life stood in the doorway looking at your butt?

The shelf shook on its braces from contact with my head. Never mind that the encounter didn’t do much for the aforementioned body part. The Fair Haven Chamber of Commerce awards rattled, and signed Detroit Tigers baseballs pelted my head, shoulders, and the back of my thigh. I dropped the yardstick and swore.

“I thought you promised your mother you wouldn’t swear anymore.” He would remind me of that vow.

“Relapse,” I muttered as I looked over my shoulder.

In that loose-limbed, cocky manner I once thought scary, sexy, and so cool, Nick Palzetti stood in the doorway to the spare office. He even dressed the same in a black leather jacket, black knit shirt, and jeans that molded his hips. Lordy, he could still make my mouth go dry.

As I wiggled back and sideways across the long cabinet, I felt my skirt ride up. Of all days to wear a skirt. With my foot, I searched for the desk chair I’d climbed to get on top of the cabinet. I’d kicked off my high heels before standing on the chair, probably the only smart thing I’d done so far.

“Red panties, you naughty girl.”

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00P1GPR0Q

Falling in Love by Betsy Ashton

When I saw the topics for "fall," my initial response was to think about tripping. I'll write about my feet in my next post. This time, I want to write about falling in love with my husband. Nothing about our meeting or courtship should have worked.

First, I was on a business trip with a colleague. After a terrible week, she dragged me to a club on a Friday

night in the party center, Shinjuku. Did I say I was in Tokyo? I was. I was dead on my feet but went anyway. After all, I was familiar with the city and spoke the language. She was  new to Japan and had no idea where she was going. We tucked into a dance club/restaurant called Henry Afrika's on the sixth floor of a narrow building on an even narrower alley. I'd been there before and wondered if it still existed. It did.

We were the only foreign women in the club which was full of people our age or a little younger. The beer was cold, the food decent, the music loud, and the dance floor crowded. I was getting ready to bail when four tall men walked in and went to the other side of the club, Things were looking up. I excused myself an hour later to head for the line outside of the women's toilet. One of the men walked out of the men's room. His first words were the most unusual pick up line I'd ever heard.

"When you get done in there, do you want to dance?"

I thought he was really cute, but his accent screamed Australian. No long term interest but maybe some decent conversation beyond, "Are you American and can I practice my English?"

Turned out he was from New York state there on business. I took him on a tour of the city Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. We hit it off and began figuring out how to see each other when we got back to the States.

Minor logistical problem. He lived and worked for IBM in New York state. I worked for an offshoot of Rand Corporation in California. We looked at our travel schedules and agreed to meet in Houston in a month. Easy hop for me; business trip for him. At the end of that second weekend, we knew we wanted to be together.

It took a year for me to find a new job in New York and move. We met several more times in Houston. He came to California a couple of times; we took our first motorcycle trip together.

So many places where we could have missed each other but didn't. Next year we celebrate our 30th anniversary. What was meant to be has become the greatest time of my life. I tell everyone about his pick up line. He reminds me I was the only guy I met in a bar and kept. We're both right.


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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max Unintended Consequences available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The second book in the series, Uncharted Territory, will be released in June 2015. She lives for words and writing.