Hi guys, we have Sean Michael popping in today to show off the cover to his upcoming re-release Inheritance, we have a short guest post from Sean about the stunning cover and a great excerpt, so check out the post and enjoy! <3 ~Pixie~
Inheritance
Sean Michael
Cash McCord’s life is pretty much perfect. He owns the family ranch, loves his work, and invites the occasional cowboy into his bed. But everything is turned upside down when his brother Jack and Jack’s wife Val are killed in a car crash, leaving behind six kids.
Cash is made guardian of the children, along with Val’s brother, Brad Rafferty—a man who couldn’t be more different from Cash if he tried. A Yankee, Brad is a video-game developer who works twelve-to-fourteen-hour days at his desk. They lock horns as soon as they set eyes on each other. Neither man is happy to have the other around, but neither is willing to give up custody of his nieces and nephews.
It’s up to these two polar opposites to keep the kids together and give them a family again. But first they’ll have to keep from killing each other.
First Edition published as Inheritance in Family Matters by Torquere Press, 2008.
Second Edition published by Torquere Press, 2013.
Sean Michael
The thing I love the best about the cover for Inheritance is that Bree captured my request for a feeling of melancholy in the cover. I didn’t want all dismal and sad, because the story isn’t that at all – there is a happily ever after ending and most of the story is not at all sad. But it does start out with the death of two parents, and I really feel that the little teddy bear at the bottom of the book reflects that.
And then there’s a pair of sexy guys because Cash and Brad definitely are, so that needed to be included in the cover, too!
I’m so glad the book found a new home with Dreamspinner Press and that it was given such an awesome cover!
Sean Michael
smut fixes everything
Excerpt
FOR BRAD Rafferty, the last five days had been a fucking blur.
The call from the cops, identifying Val and Jack’s bodies. Telling the kids.
As long as he lived, Brad didn’t think he’d ever do anything as hard as telling those six children their mother and father had been killed in a car accident and weren’t coming back.
The wake, the funeral, people coming and going and leaving a metric fuckton of food behind. Funny how quiet the house seemed now that most of them were gone.
“Bradford!”
He winced at his mother’s voice. “In the drawing room, Mother.”
“Mr. Radcliffe is here. He wants to see you and Cash McCord in the kitchen. I’m going to help the babysitter put the kids to bed, and then I’m going home.” She put her hands on his cheeks and tugged him down, kissed his forehead. “Call me on my cell when you’ve finished with the lawyer.”
“Yes, Mother.” Fuck, he wanted a shot of whiskey.
In the kitchen, he found Radcliffe and McCord already at the table.
He nodded to the lawyer, then to the cowboy. McCord, Jack’s brother, was a good-looking man. Better than Brad remembered from the wedding. Of course, he’d been a little wasted at the time. McCord was sucking back coffee at a fierce rate, weathered face looking all the better for being haggard.
Brad poured out a cup of his own, promising himself something stronger when this was over. He sat across from McCord and gave Radcliffe a sharp look. “This about my sister’s will?”
“Either that or it’s about my brother’s,” McCord said. Was that wit or sarcasm? You never knew with Southerners.
Either way, Radcliffe didn’t react to it in the least, his face not cracking the smallest smile. “Jack and Val McCord had a joint will in the event their deaths coincided. You are both named in the will, which is why I asked to meet with you together.”
“Just us?” Brad asked.
“Yes. As well as the children, but under your guardianship.”
McCord shook his head. “I don’t want nothing of Jackie’s, man. Nothing. Anything he left me, give to them babies.”
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. McCord. You and Mr. Rafferty have been named as the children’s guardians.”
Brad leaned in, elbows on the table. “What?”
“Excuse me?” The brim of McCord’s cowboy hat went back, the cowboy’s blue eyes going wide. “You can’t be serious.”
“Jack and Valerie named you two as joint custodians of the children. The house, the money, everything is in your hands. Once Branson is twenty-one, the children will have access to generous trust funds, and you will split whatever is left of the rest, including the proceeds of the sale of the house. Providing, of course, that you’ve raised the children together.”
Brad knew his mouth was open, but he couldn’t make any sounds come out.
Cash stood, whirled around, and slammed the coffee cup into the sink. The mug shattered. “I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t. I—shit. I just lost the last of my fucking family.”
“Can’t deal? Can’t deal?” Brad shook his head. “You think those kids upstairs can deal?”
Brad got a look, and then he got the finger. Selfish son of a bitch.
He stood up himself, chair going flying behind him. “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
“Fine. I’ll go. You have somebody pack the kids enough for a few weeks, and I’ll get them out of this godforsaken place.”
“I don’t think so—this is their home. And I’m not letting any backwater hick take them out of it.”
“Jesus, you know I loved Val to death, but Jack was fucking crazy for letting her convince him to move up here.”
Radcliffe cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. Please. I know this is a trying time for everyone, but trading insults isn’t going to solve anything. Jack and Valerie made it very clear that they wanted the children to be kept together. They also made it very clear that they wanted the two of you to look after them together. That it would keep the children in touch with both sides of their heritage.”
Brad sat back down, the enormity of it hitting him again. Val and Jack were dead, leaving six kids behind.
The cowboy hat dipped as McCord stared into the sink. “What the hell were they thinking?”
Right, like either of them were really thinking about dying. Honestly dying and making orphans of their kids. Brad decided he needed that whiskey pretty damned badly now, and he was done waiting. “Was there anything else?” he asked the lawyer.
“There are papers to be drawn up and signed, and it will likely take several weeks before you have access to any money, but no, there isn’t anything else.”
“Money’s not a problem.” He wasn’t loaded like Jack and Val had been, but he could certainly cover living costs for a while.
It was the being guardian—excuse him, coguardian—to six of the thirteen-and-under set that had him worried.
McCord turned on his heel, headed out into the chilly night, and slammed the door behind him.
“I’ll see myself out, shall I?” Radcliffe said.
Brad nodded at Radcliffe and said, “Thank you,” not even watching the lawyer go as he started looking through cabinets. There had to be booze in here somewhere.
He was going to find it and get drunk off his ass.
About Sean
Best-selling author Sean Michael is a maple leaf–loving Canadian who spends hours hiding out in used book stores. With far more ideas than time, Sean keeps several documents open at all times. From romance to fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi, Sean is limited only by the need for sleep—and the periodic Beaver Tail.
Sean fantasizes about one day retiring on a secluded island populated entirely by horseshoe crabs after inventing a brain-to-computer dictation system. Until then, Sean will continue to write the old-fashioned way.
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