Avenging Angels: Bad Medicine <— HOLY MOLY KRISTEN ASHLEY FANS!!! LOOK WHAT JUST WENT LIVE! The latest in her Rock Chick spinoff series…
Kristen Ashley says:
We’re getting close now!
Are you ready for Gabe, Willow, the Angels, the Hottie Squad and BAD MEDICINE?
She also gave us some great insight into our heroine:
What’s Willow Knightley all about?
Well, if you’ve been keeping track of the Avenging Angels, the cupcakes aren’t going to be a surprise! HA!
But our Willow, she’s in the sights of a Stark. And if you know the last Stark we spent time with…well, Willow, who’s been through it with the men in her life, has her hands full with Gabe.
Sound familiar? 😉
So what’s it about?
Willow Knightley has just been through it with her ex-mooch of a boyfriend. But sadly, he’s just the latest in a long string of men (starting at birth) who didn’t treat her right.
She decides her only recourse is to give up on men forever.
The problem is, her friend/acquaintance/one-time bodyguard, member of the Nightingale Investigations & Security team, Gabriel Stark, has targeted her as His One.
Gabe’s been through it at the hands of women too, so he knows exactly what he wants.
And he wants Willow.
Willow states her case against them being an us, but she doesn’t count on the fact that not only does Gabe love a challenge, he lives for them.
Up against an onslaught from a man who rinses his own whiskers out of the sink, Willow might not stand a chance.
But then, while the Angels are trying to figure out what’s got one of their informants very jittery, she gets a hint that there are demons in Gabe’s history, and she has to know.
The bets are on…
And luck favors a Stark.
Ready for the excerpt?
I hit the doorbell, and the door opened to a member of what I thought of (but being the good sister I was, I would not say it out loud, ever) as one of the Arcadia Squad.
Those being young women who had young children, rich husbands, cleaners and probably nannies. They wore Lululemon almost exclusively, unless they were going out with their men in the evening, or on a shopping and lunch date at Fashion Square Mall. And they always carried Chanel, Dior, Gucci or Louis Vuitton bags.
They had old-wave “perfect” bodies (that word in quotes because who really gave a shit about that anymore?…except the Arcadia Squad), even when their children were but months old in their strollers, because they had time to go to Pilates classes and work out in their state-of-the-art home gym.
Normally, I would not be judgy about this.
To each their own.
I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a rich husband, designer bags or a home gym either.
However, they were so aggressively snooty, dismissive and entitled, I got judgy about it.
And I knew the instant I clapped eyes on her she was precisely what I thought she was.
She then set out to prove it.
“Thanks so much,” she said, reaching for the cake. “I’ll catch you later to pay the remainder.” Catch me later?
I lived north of downtown. She lived twenty minutes away from me and five minutes away from Scottsdale.
We did not run in the same circles, attend the same cocktail parties, belong to the same gym or shop at the same grocery store.
If I handed over that cake, I’d never hear from her again.
So I twisted away, taking the cake with me.
I would not start by apologizing, I would not.
I did not.
“As explained when you ordered, and as is noted clearly on my website,” I said thinly, “the remainder of the payment is expected on delivery. I accept cash, Venmo, Zelle, and I have Zettle and can take credit cards right here. However, there’s a three percent extra fee for Zettle.” “I’ve got twenty kids showing up here in twenty minutes,” she shared with me.
Then it would have been good to have the cash on hand when you opened the door, woman, Logic said.
“Whatever your choice, it won’t take but a couple of minutes,” I said.
She reached for the cake again, and I took a step back.
“Really,” she said tightly, “with this display, are you suggesting I’m not good for it?”
“I communicate my policies clearly for a reason, and you signed off on them when you contracted for this cake.”
“I’m running behind,” she replied.
“I can imagine that’s stressful, but it isn’t helping matters to launch an argument you aren’t going to win,” I noted.
“This is unbelievable,” she whispered irately.
“I don’t understand how, since I explained the process and you signed off on it.”
“If you keep this up, I can promise you, you won’t get a good review on Yelp,” she threatened. “You know, I can reply to those. I also have pictures and videos of the cake”—I jerked my head toward the Jeep—“and a witness who will state it was delivered on time.”
But now she was looking beyond me, and I knew what she was seeing because her mouth had dropped open and her nipples were now poking at her tight, Lululemon track top.
I sighed.
“Problem here?” Gabe asked from behind me. “
No,” she said quickly. “
She’s not a fan of completing our agreement by paying the remainder on delivery,” I told him. Gabe stared into my eyes a millisecond before he looked to her.
“You’ll be doing that about now,” he told her.
“As I explained to Willow, I’m a little behind, so I’ll be happy to Venmo the rest to her after the party. Latest, tomorrow morning,” she said, now all smiles and flirtatious glances.
“That’s not the way this goes,” Gabe told her, like he’d memorized my policies and personally wrote my contract.
“Okay,”—she leaned her tall, svelte frame on the doorjamb of her three-million-dollar house, and the bitch actually batted her (semi-permanent fake) eyelashes at him—“you got me. My husband gave me a budget, and I exceeded it a little bit. I just have to—”
“Let’s go,” Gabe cut her off and rounded me, putting a hand in the small of my back as he did, so I had no choice but to turn and start moving toward the driveway seeing as he was pushing me that way. “
Wait! You can’t go!” she called, and I could tell she was following us. “What will Chrysanthemum do for a cake?”
“Go to Costco,” Gabe said toward the Jeep.
“Costco?” Her voice sounded horrified.
Gabe opened the passenger door then took the cake from me so I could get in.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she said, standing with us and unwedging her phone from where it was shoved in the skintight fabric at the thigh of her leggings. “I’ll Venmo now.”
“You need to add a ten percent hassle fee to your contract, babe,” Gabe remarked in my direction.
The Arcadia Squad member made a wounded pip at being called a hassle by a hot guy.
Bet she’d never experienced that before.
I pressed my lips together in an effort not to laugh.
My phone in my crossbody vibrated, I pulled it out and saw the Venmo notification.
“Thank you so much,” I told her.
Gabe handed her the cake.
It was ultra hilarious to see how bad she wanted to scorch me with a glare but couldn’t because I was standing next to one of the top ten hotties in Phoenix (and he worked with the other nine—or, actually, twelve).
ALSO SOME “BEHIND THE SCENES” INFO:
…when someone asked if Gabe was related to Luke, she said:
Yes…
Allow me to explain…
In the earlier AA books, I made Gabe Luke’s second cousin.
In Gabe and Willow’s books, I decided to take some artistic license (otherwise known as screwing up the continuity) and I made him Luke’s first cousin, and along the way, gave Luke, whose dad used to be an only child, now he has a miracle younger brother so Gabe can be Luke’s cousin! I got the powah! 😉
So, bear with the fact that I got an idea in my head, and I wanted to run with it, and messed up along the way. Hopefully, it won’t mess with your enjoyment of the story.
I also found this one her Facebook page too:
Chicklets!
…
Oh, and just to say…I may have taken artistic liberties with this book (this is otherwise known as “f*cked up”, that being messed up the Rock Chick/Avenging Angels continuity). Normally, this kind of thing keeps me up at night. You never want to leave a loyal reader thinking, “Wait, I thought Luke Stark’s dad was an only child. And Gabe was his second cousin.”But, you see, I got it in my head what I wanted to write, and wrote that, because I frigging loved it. So…SURPRISE! Luke’s dad had a brother! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Anyway, now that you’re forewarned of that…
WANT MORE? Check out chapter one on her website!
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