Ain't Too Proud to Beg - Sneak Peek #1

My new work in progress is a romance that features Vaughn Breland, one of the characters from Hot Fun in the Summertime and Hollywood Swinging. I'll be sharing unedited excerpts here for the next few weeks.

 

Vaughn is an actor who is known more for his love life than he is for his skill before the cameras. His days are spent working, and his nights are filled with club hopping and parties. In celebration of a recent film success, he bought himself a new Lamborghini, his dream car.

This is how the story opens ...

Chapter One

I opened my eyes and had to blink several times to clear my blurred vision. Where the hell am I? Daylight seeped through the woven curtains into the room, but it didn’t do much to help me identify my surroundings. I turned my head to get a better view, and a thundering pain, like someone had bowled a spare inside my skull, warned me not to move again. The shriek that echoed in the room came from my own mouth after I raised my right arm and rubbed my eye. It felt as if I had jammed a hot poker into it, and I jerked it away.

A bandage?

This time I used a feather light touch to examine the other side of my face. It was completely covered. My hands trembled at the possibilities. What had happened?

Maybe things hadn’t gone the way I’d planned with Reese last night. She wanted to join me on this weekend trip, but I had to beg off. Now I couldn’t even remember what I’d told her. What I did recall, and probably would for weeks to come, was the send-off she’d given me. Surely, telling her she couldn’t accompany me on the trip hadn’t angered her enough to go for my face. The past twenty-four hours was a muddled mess.

Wasn’t I supposed to be in…Colorado? Right, a meeting in Telluride. My brilliant mind finally deduced that this definitely wasn’t Hollywood producer Craig Weinstein’s vacation house.

But where? And why?

Without moving the pounding boulder attached to my neck, I stretched my gaze as far as possible to the right and saw a chalkboard on the otherwise bare beige wall with the date and three names written on it. Some beeping machines stood beside the bed.

Hospital. I’m in a hospital. The antiseptic smell should’ve been a dead giveaway. 

Everything went into a spin when I raised the boulder a few inches off the pillow and saw a contraption suspending my left leg in mid-air, but I had no feeling in it. Ice spread through my stomach. “God! Oh, God! No!” This couldn’t be happening to me. White-hot bolts of pain shot directly to my brain. I grabbed my head in what felt like slow motion and squeezed my hands together to keep my brains from falling out in spite of the tubes that tugged at my right arm. Where the hell was the call button? My hands tore at the sheets in a frantic effort to find it. Finally, my fingers found the heavy rubber-coated wire close to my left side. I ran them down the cord until I found the controls and held the button down.

“Where is everybody? What am I doing here?”

“We’re on the way, Mr. Breland,” A woman’s voice spoke from somewhere above my head.

“Please calm down.”

Within seconds two nurses rushed in.

“Where am I?” My words sounded slurred.

“Try not to move, Mr. Breland. You don’t want to pull out the IV,” the blonde nurse said in a calm tone. She moved to my side and placed her hands on my shoulders. For some reason, her touch calmed me, and I slumped back against the pillow.

“It’s okay. Just lay back and let us check you.” Her eyes judiciously scanned the monitors next to the bed while she continued speaking in a reassuring voice. “You’re in Telluride Medical Center. You had a serious car accident. Both of your legs were broken and your hip was dislocated. The doctor performed surgery last night, and your left leg is stabilized. You are very lucky to be alive, Mr. Breland.”

All I could do after hearing that rundown was groan. What the hell could be lucky about being that damaged?  “What about…my face?” Even under the influence of whatever they had given me, I hated the way my voice trembled.

 

Read the next excerpt here: http://sisterscribbler.blogspot.com/2012/08/last-saturday-i-posted-firstinsert-link.html