Do the Texas Two Step with Cynthia D'Alba

Good Monday Morning! It's COLD in Georgia and I am grateful for the fireplace. You will not believe who came by to visit.

This post is proudly a stop on the TEXAS TWO STEP Blog Tour. For a complete listing of all stops on this tour, please visit here. All contests are for U.S. residents only unless otherwise noted. Comments left on this blog will be counted toward the Texas Two Step Faithful Follower Gift Certificate. To see a complete listing of Blog Tour Prizes, click here. Be sure to check out the freebies. Yours for the asking as long as they last.

Hey, there Cyndi! Come closer and get warm and give me a hug. The ladies will be here to warm up eventually. I am so proud of your sales. What have you brought with you? Oh, my goodness. Who needs a fireplace with him around?

A big ole PINK FUZZY THANK YOU to the ladies of the Pink Fuzzy Slippers Blog for hosting me today on this stop of my blog tour. At one time I used to blog with these gals and got to know them quite well. A more totally rad group of ladies never existed. I’m thrilled to be back and even more thrilled that I’m kicking off something very special with today’s post --a 10-day Prequel to Texas Two Step.

Texas Two Step doesn’t open with my hero (Mitch Landry) and heroine (Olivia Montgomery) meeting for the first time. They’d met and fallen in love ten years prior. So I thought it might be fun to visit some of the early days of their relationship, when the love is fresh and new…before fate steps in and slaps them upside the head.

They meet at The Bourbon Cowboy, a local bar known to be “the” hangout for SMU (Southern Methodist University) law students. But that’s not why Olivia takes her best friend there to have a drink. Olivia and her best friend, Emily, have both just turned twenty-one. The Montgomery family tradition is a shot of bourbon at The Bourbon Cowboy as the first legal drink. Since her older brothers did it, Olivia has to do it, too. The evening didn’t turn out exactly as she’d planned. If you’d like to read The Meeting-Part One, click HERE.

Let’s talk about our first “legal” drinks. Notice the “legal” is in quotes. I suspect some of us might have just tasted alcohol before we turned twenty-one. I’ll tell you my story and you tell me yours.

When I turned twenty-one, I was dating the guy who would become my first husband (and my first and only ex-husband.) We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas staying at my parents’ house. Most of you know nothing about Hot Springs, but back then, there were quite a few topless bars. I was dying to see the inside of one, so of course Hubby #1 took me there. We went on a double date with his roommate and one of my “not-quite twenty-one-year-old” friends. I remember some of that evening, but it’s been a long time ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be. (It’s my memory that’s the problem, not the amount of booze I drank that night. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) I remember the waitresses dancing on the bar when certain songs came on. That was fine but when one of these scantily-clad women jumped on top of the cigarette machine to shake her bootie, I almost fell out of my chair laughing, as did my friend. (Side note: Most of these gals should NOT have been in skimpy clothing…if you get my drift.) Our dates were trying to get us to shut-up as the bartender and burly guy at the door didn’t seem to find as much humor in the scene as we did.

We made it to a few other places that night, but again, this old-age memory can’t recall names and places. But I do remember that Hubby #1 got totally soused. We stayed at my parents’ house that night. The next morning my mother served scrambled eggs for breakfast. Hubby #1 had to make a mad dash for the bathroom. Through the wall, we could all hear him “relaunching” those eggs into the toilet. When he came back out, everyone tried to pretend nothing had happened.

Now that I think about it, my parents weren’t all that upset when we divorced. Maybe it was the eggs.

So the floor is open…Tell us about the day you turned twenty-one. Was it memorable or just another day? Did you have your first drink or your first “legal” drink? What was your first legal drink? Did you have scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day?

Today’s TTS Blog Tour Prize

Many guest bloggers can offer a copy of a backlist book to be given away as a potential prize for a blog commenter. As a debut author, I don’t have a backlist. But I do have some awesome author friends who have stepped forward and offered one of their books as a prize.

Today’s TTS Blog Tour Author Sponsor is Turquoise Morning Press author Margaret Ethridge. Margaret will send her January 2012 release, Commitment, to one lucky person who leaves a comment. To find out more about today’s Blog Tour Sponsor, you can visit her website, Twitter or Facebook.

To learn more about me check out the links below:

To learn more about me check out these links:

Website , Facebook. Twitter, Group Blog , and Personal Blog

And if those aren’t enough, sign up for inside scoops and special contests by receiving the newsletter I share with my blog buddies.

Remember! Leave a comment for a chance to win Margaret’s book!

Texas Two Step is available for preordering at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble and I will be forever in your debt if you would buy it!

Tomorrow’s Tour Stop is at Delilah Devlin’s Blog and episode Two of The Meeting. Hope to see you there!