This week’s snippets will take you to exotic locales. Sit back and enjoy a visit to paradise. Just remember…sometimes paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Excerpt from Mad about Meg:
“What do you mean you don’t have my rental car anymore? I called weeks ago to reserve it,” Meg Williams asked. Her flight to Eden Isle had taken three times longer than it was supposed to due to an oncoming storm and an unexpected layover in Houston because of some faulty gauge on her first connecting flight.
“Yes ma’am, I’m sure you did, but as I said before, when you didn’t arrive by five o’clock we rented it to someone else. This policy was stated in the rental agreement you signed,” the clerk answered.
The airport was packed even though it was midnight on Thursday. Every Valentine’s Day weekend, the small tropical island hosted its own romance fest called Cupid’s Carnival. Meg had watched a program about it on the Travel Channel over Thanksgiving break. At the time, she’d thought the romantic escape was the salve she and her fiancé needed to spice up their waning relationship. She’d immediately begun saving her money and booked the nonrefundable escape to Eden Isle as a surprise. The nonrefundable part didn’t bother her until she’d caught her two-timing boyfriend unwrapping another woman under the tree on Christmas Eve. Unwilling to lose such a tremendous amount of money, she’d decided to forge ahead with her long, romantic weekend, sans the romantic part. If nothing else, the trip to the island was a welcome break from work and winter weather and she could use the long weekend to figure out where in the hell she had gone so wrong with her life.
Unfortunately, her real-life experience wasn’t turning out to be the sun, fun, and fiesta the program promised. She’d already missed her first whole day of vacation, spending it on overcrowded planes and waiting in interminable airport lines rather than lounging by the pool at her resort hotel. Then to add insult to injury, she’d spent the last two hours waiting for her luggage which apparently was, at this very moment, on a slow boat to China. An extremely annoying airline agent was now in possession of her name and hotel information with plans to send her luggage on “just as soon as we find it.”
Yeah right.
“Do you have any cars left?” Meg specifically rented a convertible sports car, looking forward to four days of cruising around the island with the top down.
“I have one vehicle left.” The clerk was clearly relieved she wasn’t going to kick up more of a fuss. Quite frankly, she was too tired to complain. “It’s a very roomy mini-van.”
“Terrific,” Meg answered, “just what I need, seating for seven when there’s only little old me and no luggage.”
Signing all the appropriate forms, Meg waited inside the door of the airport while an employee of the rental agency fetched her mini-van. She killed the time trying to recall exactly what she’d put in her carry-on bag as she waited. No more clothes, she thought, glancing down at the comfortable travel outfit she’d worn. Having spent the last twenty-two hours in it, she quite frankly would have preferred to burn it rather than have to wear it again tomorrow. She had all her money—thank goodness, her camera, her passport and hotel information, aspirin—hallelujah, and her now useless cell phone. She’d dropped and broken it while waiting for her connecting flight in Florida.
Yep. I’m now officially in Hell.
Finally, the employee pulled up with what the rental agent had referred to as a fine car. Clearly, her definition of ‘fine’ varied somewhat from the agent’s. If she had any strength left in her body, she would go back and beat the guy over the head with her busted cell phone. Looking down at the directions to her hotel, she silently said a prayer that the heap of junk in front of her would make it the ten miles she needed to drive.
“Here you go, miss.” The young valet offered her a smile she felt the incredible urge to run her fist through. “Welcome to Eden Isle.”
As if on cue, the sky opened up and rain began to come down in a deluge that had her soaked in less than ten seconds. Dripping wet and cold, she climbed into the monstrous van, prayed the windshield wipers worked, and made her way out of the airport parking lot with her head pounding and her teeth chattering.
Mad about Meg is available only at All Romance eBooks. All proceeds on sale of the book go to the American Heart Association.
Why not take a trip to some more hot locales with these authors?
This is a really good story and I loved the characters….need a sequel!
July 24th, 2010 at 1:24 pm