Hero Material by Adrienne Giordano

One of my favorite questions readers ask me is where I get my ideas from. Typically, the story behind a book is actually quite boring. It usually comes from something on the news or in the newspaper that sparked an idea.

That trend was broken about a month ago when I tagged along with my sister and niece on a college campus tour. Our tour guide was a barely-legal-to-drink young man who was chatting up my niece and asked her if her companions were her sisters. Now, for the record, let me say my niece is eighteen, I’m forty-six and my sister is fifty-five. So, if we were her sisters, there would be one heck of a great story behind that.

After hearing Charm Boy lay the “sisters” line on my niece, my first thought was that I loved him. Loved him! I informed him of this sudden attack of undying affection, which, yes, made him laugh.

My second thought was that this slick young buck had just scored the coveted spot as a hero in one of my books. Yep. That fast, Charm Boy became the top dog.

He needed some tweaking though. First, he was too young. I added nine years and made him twenty-nine. After all, it would be nice if our hero could legally order a glass of wine at dinner. I also made him a little taller. J And he’d have a slick smile to go with that Charm Boy attitude.

Then I needed my guy not to be a film student. We’re talking romantic suspense here so I thought maybe a detective or a DEA agent. Something in law enforcement. Definitely. He also had to be in a situation where he’d meet the heroine and her mother and aunt and lay that “sisters” line on them. Not a problem. Let’s do some kind of benevolent ball where they all meet and where someone may or may not be murdered. We need a little mayhem thrown in with our love story. Within five minutes, I had a new hero, a heroine, her aunt, her mother and where their initial introduction would happen.

In case you’re wondering, I was thinking of all this as Charm Boy continued talking about the benefits of the campus we were visiting. Just don’t tell my niece I wasn’t paying attention. That might upset her. J

So, there you have it, one of the ways I come up with story ideas. I observe and take notes. Of course, this is something my friends and family have learned (the hard way) about me. They know anything they say or do is considered fodder. Some have even gone “off the record” so I’m not compelled to use their mishaps. Now you know why I have a plaque on my desk (given to me by a close friend) that reads “Careful…or you’ll end up in my novel.”

Readers, what experiences have you had that you think should go in a book?

Bio: Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and mystery.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog and Lady Jane’s Salon-Naperville, a reading series dedicated to romantic fiction. For more information on Adrienne’s books please visit www.AdrienneGiordano.com. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano. For information on Adrienne’s street team, Dangerous Darlings, go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/dangerousdarlings.

Opposing Forces

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Excerpt from Opposing Forces

Prologue

Greg Leeds knew if he opened his balcony door, there’d be no turning back. His heart banged—buhbum-buhbum-buhbum—had to be five hundred beats a minute. He closed his eyes. Anything to block the surge of emotions smothering him, sucking away what was left of his life.

Relax. Stop thinking.

After a moment, he opened his eyes. One lone lamp on the side table lit the room and the sofa they’d bought last year, a white one, showed the abuse of their four-year-old. What the hell had they been thinking buying a white sofa? He and Marianne had laughed over that gaffe and chalked it up to a lack of parenting experience. He wanted to hope there would be more of those parental missteps. Wanted to.

Walk away.

If he had any sense, he would catch up with Marianne and sweet little Evan, who were on their way to the evening showing of Disney’s latest 3-D flick. The pall of quiet over the house pushed Greg one step closer to the balcony and his heart tripped five hundred again.

For weeks he’d been at this routine. Teetering on this fucking precipice of despair while eyeballing that fucking door with that fucking lock. Each time he’d backed away. Convinced himself he could make things right.

Until this morning.

This morning it was made clear—there would be no redemption. Wanting only to provide for his growing family, he’d played the game and lost. His dream had been simple: get out of the tiny apartment and into a place with a yard where Evan could play with his friends. Somehow, Greg had slipped off track. Or maybe he’d jumped.

At first, it was one small thing. A second of miscalculation. A minor error. Then it became a moment and the moments turned into hours and the hours turned into days and before he knew it, he’d fucked up good.

No turning back.

His scalp tingled and he absently rubbed the spot. Outside, darkness continued to descend on Chicago’s streets.

He took one more step to the door, close enough to touch the handle. To unlock it. To open it. And then the burst of frigid early March air—thirty-six degrees’ worth—blasted him. Somehow, the cold settled his nerves.

She won’t want you now. Why would she?

Little by little, moment by moment, hour by hour, he’d betrayed Marianne and Evan.

From eighteen stories below, a truck horn, that long, piercing blare, sounded. Rush hour. Pedestrians. He should check.

No. Didn’t need to. He’d lived in this building five years. He knew the traffic patterns. He stepped onto the balcony and dragged the iron bistro chair next to the rail.

Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, he’d thrown his life away. He was the only one who knew. They’d know now. Marianne, his family, his friends. Evan.

They’d know now.

He closed his eyes, breathed in that frigid air and began to shiver. Fear or cold? Not sure, but his dress shirt offered little protection from the lake wind.

Stepping to the rail had been the farthest he’d made it in weeks. It must be the right thing if he’d come this far.

Across the street, half the units in the building were dark. Directly across from him, right in his sight line, one was lit. A bright light in a sea of darkness. There was his answer. The light.

He stepped onto the chair and his breath disappeared into another gust of wind. Somehow he’d started to sweat, and his mind looped. Do it. Don’t do it. Do it.

Too late to think now. Should have done that earlier. When he could have stopped it. Tears streamed down his face. Crying was for sissies and screw-ups. Wasn’t that what his father had always said?

Another car horn sounded and Greg stared at that lone light across the street. A shriek built in his chest, worked its way up his aching throat and bullied its way out.

Into the descending darkness, with the car horn blasting and his mind roaring, Greg hoisted himself over the rail and plunged to the street below.

Chapter One

Jillian decided she might be the biggest idiot in the city of Chicago. Eleven o’clock on a Friday night and she should be doing things that didn’t include schlepping to her office in a distribution warehouse on the South Side of Chicago. Just driving down the street on the South Side could get a girl slaughtered.

And yet, here she was, retrieving her beloved two-thousand-dollar camera. The one she’d forgotten in her desk drawer, thereby making her the biggest idiot in Chicago. One thing she knew for sure, this would never happen again. All she could hope was that someone hadn’t made off with it.

This camera was more than just valuable. It represented two years of what she could achieve when she set her mind to it. Pinching pennies, giving up lattes—whatever it took to accomplish her goal of owning a camera every amateur photographer would carve out an eye for. And that was saying something. Considering photographers needed their eyes.

She reached into the drawer and her fingers brushed the soft leather of the camera case. Still there. To be sure, she unzipped the bag and found her precious baby, its lovely lens cover nearly smiling back at her. She snatched it out of the case, set it on her lap and gently ran her hand over the smooth surface. A grown woman shouldn’t be so attached to an object.

Eh, why not?

Cameras didn’t disappoint her.

Either way, mission accomplished. She sat back in her chair, ran a finger over her forehead. “You got lucky this time.” She glanced down at the camera. “Let’s get outta here.”

She stowed the camera, slung the bag over her shoulder and kicked the bottom drawer closed. A sudden grinding of one of the loading dock doors shattered the eerie quiet outside her office.

A drug delivery at eleven o’clock on a Friday night?

It could happen, but being the assistant distribution manager for Stennar Pharm, she’d have known about it and she didn’t remember seeing it on the day’s manifest. Unfortunately, in the week since her immediate supervisor had thrown himself off his eighteenth-floor balcony not everything had gone smoothly. Since Greg’s death, the VP of distribution, Ned Dillard, had been keeping abreast of the daily goings-on in the department. Even if she didn’t know what this delivery was, Ned probably did.

Nothing got by him.

She moved to the doorway. At the loading dock, the growl of the truck engine calmed to an idle. A door slammed.

“Twenty minutes to unload and we’re outta here,” Cliff Henderson yelled.

Cliff, one of the distribution team members, had obviously been expecting the delivery. The ride down here and the flat-out creepiness of being alone in a huge warehouse must have zapped her senses.

She stepped out of the office, closed the door behind her and made her way to the loading dock.

“Hi, Cliff.”

He spun toward her, his face stretched in that holy-crap look people get when surprised.

“Jillian. Wow.” He half laughed. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot my camera and had to come back for it.”

He glanced at the case. “You don’t want to leave that here.”

She gestured to the truck. “What’s this?”

“Delivery that was supposed to happen this morning. Truck broke down. Pain in the ass on a Friday night.”

A delivery that hadn’t arrived? She should have been made aware of that. Jillian glanced at the boxes neatly stacked inside the truck. “You’re going to unload this yourself?”

“Not the whole thing. I’ll be done fast.”

“Can I help you?”

He waved the suggestion away. “Get on with your weekend.”

“You’re sure?”

“I got this. No problem.”

She glanced back at the truck. “If you say so. Just leave the paperwork on my desk and I’ll take care of it on Monday.”

“Sure thing. Things have been nuts around here since Greg…”

Jillian stared straight ahead. “The poor man. I can’t imagine being in such pain that he thought jumping off a building would fix it. I feel horrible for his wife and son.”

Her own father would never win any parenting awards, but he’d never allowed his pain to drive him to suicide.

Cliff let out a long, streaming breath. “Let me walk you to your car.”

For a week, the employees had been avoiding the subject. Everyone walking around sort of dazed, knowing their coworkers were thinking about Greg, but refusing to talk about it. The unspoken sorrow lay heavy on all of them, but, like the others, Jillian supposed it was better to not think too hard about Greg and his demons. “I’d appreciate that.”

Cliff led her to the door and pushed it open. “Good thing the cleaning people don’t come in until Saturday. Depending on the crew, you might have lost that camera.”

“That’s what I was worried about. And I need the camera for a class I’m taking tomorrow.”

Another thing she’d pinched her pennies for—a one-day intensive with a world-renowned photographer. The class was only offered once per year and she’d been on the waiting list for four years.

“That sounds fun.”

“I’m hoping so.” They reached her car and Jillian set the camera bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat. She turned to Cliff. “Thanks for walking me out.”

“You bet. Be careful heading home.”

“I’ll lock my doors. Thanks.”

Even self-sufficient women couldn’t be too careful when it came to being alone at night.