MELJEAN: So. We’re back. *kicks toe in dirt*
MISSY: Yeah, and all that time in the closet helped me figure it out. You’re just a soft-hearted weenie!
MELJEAN: I am not!
MISSY: Yes, you are. There we are, reading IRISH THOROUGHBRED, and you’re all, “I hate this perfect heroine! She’s too goody-goody and magical and fey!” and then Dee’s like, “Oh, it’s a hard life I’ve been living!” and you’re all, “Sob sob sob I love her!” You big fat weenie!
MELJEAN: … I still think she’s all perfect and it makes me *headdesk* every time.
MISSY: Well, I want to be her! And I think YOU want to be her, too. You just won’t admit it.
MELJEAN: Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s read the freaking book. Just in case anyone missed the first post, this is what we’re reading, complete with shameless product placement and hopefully soaking up NR vibes:

MELJEAN: This is a better picture of it because I just realized I can use my camera.
MISSY: But … ew.
MELJEAN: I know. I’ve had the book a long, long time, and the years (and you) have not been kind. I used to have one with a white cover, too, as well as the purple. I can’t remember why Silhouette did that, though.
MISSY: Who cares? Let’s read it. We’d just left off with you wussing out.
MELJEAN: You already said that.
MISSY: It needed to be said again.

ADELIA goes out to sing Gaelic lurve songs to the plants, and they are sad songs, to make her cry, lurve songs often dooooooo….

MISSY: Now you’re just being mean! You’re hiding something!
MELJEAN: Shut up! I am not.

TRAVIS: That’s a sad song you’re singing. Do you think love has to be sad?
ADELIA: Uh…we’re talking about music, right? Here, feel this dirt.
TRAVIS: Okay.
ADELIA: It wants to grow and give! Soon you’ll be having peas and roses and the smell will drift in…
TRAVIS: Are you homesick?
ADELIA: (sad sigh)

MISSY: …
MELJEAN: What?
MISSY: I want to grow peas and roses.
MELJEAN: Uh.
MISSY: No, I mean I really do. I want to see what that smells like.
MELJEAN: Er.
MISSY: *dreamy* and maybe I’ll be just like Dee!
MELJEAN: …it doesn’t work.
MISSY: What?
MELJEAN: ………..
MISSY: What?
MELJEAN: You try to grow peas and roses, all right? All right? Now shut up.
MISSY: What?
MELJEAN: Because of this stupid scene you have these little peas that you try to grow and they’re all viney and curly and retarded and the roses never really grow right and they all die and you try to buy a cut rose and still figure out what peas and roses smell like but it doesn’t work that way apparently and why am I talking about this? You have a black thumb! A gangrene thumb! Your artificial plants are dying in your house right now! YOU WILL NEVER MAKE THINGS GROW!!!
MISSY: *sob* I hate you!

ADELIA: We worked hard, but at least it was mine…

MISSY: Wait, wait! When did you try to–
MELJEAN: I don’t want to talk about it! This is a great scene that you’re interrupting! Well, crap, it’s over now. On to the next.

TRISH: Hey, look, Dee! Someone sent you flowers!
ADELIA: Oooh, no one’s sent me flowers before! They’re red roses from Travis, for helping him with the horse. “Dee, to thank you for your help with the new foal.”
TRISH: He’s a real fricking poet.
TRAVIS and PADDY give ADELIA a check for her wages.
ADELIA: Holy crap! What would I be doing with money like this? Here, Uncle Paddy!

MELJEAN: Oh my god! Oh my god! Can’t you be even a LITTLE greedy? Just a little?
MISSY: She doesn’t have to be greedy, because she can talk to horses and make roses grow– *gah!*
MELJEAN: (strangles Missy)

TRAVIS: Why don’t you buy a dress and show me some leg so I know you’re a girl?
ADELIA: You’re the only one stupid enough ever to mistake me for that.
TRISH: Well, hell, let’s go shopping!

MELJEAN: I want Trish to be my friend.
MISSY: I want to be Dee!

ADELIA: (tries on a beautiful dress) But what will I do with something like this?
TRISH: Shut. Up! You’re way hawt! Wear this when you feel like strutting your womanly stuff!

MELJEAN: Oh my god! Trish is Stacy London!

ADELIA: Um, can we buy a lotion, too? Your brother said I’ve got hands like a ditchdigger’s.
TRISH: He said that? He’s such an ass!
A FEMININE VOICE: Trish, hello!

MELJEAN: Here she is! Here she is! The cool, sophisticated other woman!

LAURA: No, I’m really nice, if a little dumb. I’m just here to relate that Margot, who *is* the sophisticated cool other woman, and she apparently gave Travis an ultimatum and then whisked off to Europe! Tee hee! Maybe I’ll try to give him a ring!

MELJEAN: Damn.
MISSY: I thought you’ve read this a million times?
MELJEAN: I have. I just can’t remember the last time I did. It’s been many years — and actually, except for these beginning scenes and a few ending scenes, I don’t remember it exactly, because those were the scenes I most re-read, and the rest was a skim. So, Laura was kind of a nice surprise. I want a bubbly friend.
MISSY: *gape*
MELJEAN: I did not say that! Shut up.

ADELIA tells the twins about leprechauns until TRAVIS sneaks up behind her and sets her heart aflutter.
TRAVIS tells the boys to go away.
ADELIA: Uh oh. I guess I’m to be fired, then.
TRAVIS: No, you’re horse empathy is super cool, so I’m keeping you on. I just don’t want you to work so hard.
ADELIA: Oh, but–
TRAVIS: You split your time between arguing and working. But I’ve got something better for you to do.
TRAVIS kisses her passionately again.
TRAVIS: Yep, I sure do like me some Irish temper.
TRAVIS walks away.

MELJEAN: … uh.
MISSY: What? What? He’s HOT!
MELJEAN: Maybe I’d like him more if I felt like I knew anything about him. But he just kind of walks around smiling a lot, sneaking up and kissing her and then saying how much he loves her temper. And, yeah, they had the magical birth moment, but aside from him being handsome —
MISSY: –he’s a lot nicer than those Harlequin Presents guys! At least he’s not calling her a slut.
MELJEAN: Well, Dee’s also a lot better than most Harlequin Presents heroines. More complicated and more interesting, I mean. This story is obviously about her, which is great — but she’s falling for a guy that I just … yeah, don’t know enough about him, except that he’s knocked her socks off with two kisses, and represents a hell of a lot of change in her life.
MISSY: Okay, you’re boring me now, and I really like him. Can we read again?

ADELIA walks to the stables in the middle of the night.
GEORGE, A DRUNKEN STABLEHAND stumbles into her path.
ADELIA: You smell like a poteen factory.

MISSY: A poteen factory?
MELJEAN: It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the phrase will stick in your mind for the next twenty-eight years, and every time you smell alcohol, you’ll think “poteen factory”.
MISSY: Hee.

GEORGE gets amorous, and ADELIA fights him off, but is losing.
TRAVIS shows up and beats the everfricking hell out of GEORGE, until ADELIA pulls him off!

MISSY: See! See! I told you he was awesome!!

ADELIA faints.
ADELIA wakes up in the main house, and TRAVIS is all tender with her and shit.
ADELIA: How can I repay you?
TRAVIS: (all intense and sexy like as he runs his finger over her cheek) Maybe one day I’ll call in the debt.

MISSY: I love him! I love him!
MELJEAN: Okay, that’s kind of sweet. He’s obviously over the moon for her.
MISSY: “Over the moon?” You’re such a sap.
MELJEAN: Shut up.

ADELIA falls asleep in her house, and wakes up with TRAVIS there, who give her back the locket she lost when GEORGE, THE WALKING POTEEN FACTORY tried to rape her, and he gives her a little goodnight kiss.

Then EVERYONE gets on a plane to go to Kentucky.

MISSY: Hooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeee Racing!
MELJEAN: Hee. Here’s a little story Dee tells about fairies being the angels who abstained in the battle between Lucifer and Heaven.
MISSY: So?
MELJEAN: Well, in the Guardian universe, that’s the nosferatu. And when I was developing the worldbuilding, I pulled in a lot of stuff from different things that I’ve read over the years, a lot of it just general trivia that I’ve accumulated, and mixing around in my head, and not all of it had a source that I can remember. The origin of the nosferatu was one of those things … I was just considering it, trying to figure out how they might have been cursed and why they were different than demons, and I thought of them abstaining in The First Battle. So I come across this now, and I can’t help but wonder if it maybe left that little seed in the back of my mind, and that’s partially where the idea came from.
MISSY: Well, it seems you can grow stuff then. Bloodsucking stuff.
MELJEAN: Yeah. I’m totally like Dee.
MISSY: Can we talk about the horses again? They’re at Churchill Downs! I want to go there!!
MELJEAN: You do in ten years.
MISSY: Oh my god I love you!

ADELIA takes care of Majesty, and TRAVIS shows up again.
ADELIA: Travis, you’re a powerful man, but you’re just a softy, sometimes.
TRAVIS: I love you.

MISSY: He doesn’t say that!! What are you doing?
MELJEAN: Well, he’s thinking it.
MISSY: But the cover copy said she won’t surrender until he says those words! You’re going to make her surrender early!
MELJEAN: Okay, okay.

TRAVIS gazes at her all hotly and speculatively and shit.

The next sections are filled with lots of horse-related stuff, with TRAVIS and ADELIA getting along well, and MAJESTY, THE HORSE ADELIA WHISPERS TO A LOT, winning a race.

MISSY: Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Squeeeeeeeeeee!

A GROOM flirts with ADELIA
TRAVIS gets all possessive and kisses her passionately again.

MISSY: I want to be grabbed and kissed!
MELJEAN: … no. You know, even though I think his actions show that he’s jealous and madly in love with her and possessive, this is why I want into the hero’s head, and why I’m so glad that in the last two decades it’s become the norm. Because it’s too … grabby for me. I like it on one level, because we get to see how she affects him … but I think that the lack of the male POV *forces* the hero into those super-alpha advances, because it’s the only way we really get to see how he feels. And it forces Dee into a position where she just … takes it. And sure she’s been kissed senseless, and he’s throwing her emotions out of whack, but she doesn’t strike me as that submissive.
MISSY: I’d take it if I was her! And I can’t wait for the hero’s POV! I want to get all of his internal angst, too!
MELJEAN: How do you even know a word like ‘angst’? That’s an anachronism! You didn’t learn that word until you were like, thirteen!
MISSY: What the hell is an anachronism??

MAJESTY wins The Kentucky Derby, and ADELIA drinks a mint julep. Later that night, TRAVIS and ADELIA go out for dinner (and ADELIA wears her Shut. Up! dress) with other people to celebrate, and she’s introduced to that society, but then she’s back on the farm the next week, until they go to Belmont–

MISSY: Hoooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssssssseeeeeeeeeees! It’s the second leg of the Triple Crown!
MELJEAN: Do you know something sad? I still know the Dewey Decimal Classification number for nonfiction books about horses: 636.1. Even though I haven’t been in a library that uses the Dewey Decimal system in a long, long time.
MISSY: Your books would be classified under 666, hahahahahah!
MELJEAN: You are such a tard.

MAJESTY wins the Belmont Stakes, and ADELIA knows her love for TRAVIS is making her weak, so she’s going to endeavor to stay away from him.
TRAVIS and ADELIA go to dinner. Alone.
ADELIA is all shivery when he kisses her.
ADELIA wonders what she’s going to do now, since she’s all in love with him and shit.

UNCLE PADDY: Ow! It’s my heart that’s hurting! *clutches chest*
ADELIA and TRAVIS rush him to the hospital.
UNCLE PADDY: Travis, take care of her for me!
TRAVIS: I’m going to marry her!
ADELIA: What?
TRAVIS: You’ll do it for Paddy! And then we’ll get a divorce.
ADELIA: I’m Catholic!
TRAVIS: Okay, an annulment then.
ADELIA: (horrified)
TRAVIS: Goddammit, Dee, is it so bad to marry me to save Paddy’s life?!!!

ADELIA and TRAVIS get married, and decide to live together until Paddy gets back on his feet, just to keep up appearances for him.
UNCLE PADDY doesn’t die.
TRAVIS is horrified by ADELIA’s wardrobe, and tells her she’s a society lady now and has to act the part.
ADELIA and TRISH go on a shopping spree, although ADELIA isn’t happy with the way things are going.
ADELIA is knocked down by a huge dog that she names FINNEGAN.
TRAVIS lets her keep FINNEGAN, as long as he (the dog) takes a bath.

MELJEAN: Okay, they’re getting along great! Dee is still uncertain, but it’s all smooth and fun. And you know, now that they’re married, I think that means they can–
MISSY: Oh my god, DO IT, DEE! DO IT! DO IT!
MELJEAN: But you forgot something, Missy.
MISSY: You don’t mean…?
MELJEAN: I do.

MARGOT WINTERS, THE COOL SOPHISTICATED WOMAN: Travis, your wife is adorable! But she’s barely out of the schoolroom.

MELJEAN: Even her name is cool and sophisticated! And that line was pretty much taken straight from the book, because I can’t write it more patronizing that it was.
MISSY: I hate her.

ADELIA hates her on sight (but also feels small and unsophisticated and fiery in comparison.)

MELJEAN: Okay, and I would just copy the next few passages, but I’ll just say what TRAVIS said before: ADELIA’s pretty fricking fantastic when she’s in a temper. It’s all fun.

TRISH gets ADELIA out of there before ADELIA’s tongue rips MARGOT to shreds.
TRISH: lolololol! I’d have loved to see that, but it just wasn’t the right time.
ADELIA: Who is she?
TRISH: A big fat snob. She wanted Travis to hie off to Europe and just play his money away, but Travis wants to work. Anyway, she gave him an ultimatum and flew off, thinking he’d come after her. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s married to you now.
ADELIA: Yeah (but really worried inside.)

MARGOT comes to see ADELIA and have some tea.
MARGOT: I can’t believe you think he’s going to stay with you, you ragamuffin.
ADELIA: See this ring? It’s saying a big “fuck you!” He’s mine.

MISSY: … she didn’t say that.
MELJEAN: No, but she wanted to. And she said pretty much the same thing.

ADELIA acts like a shrew with TRAVIS.
ADELIA feels bad about it.
TRAVIS gives her a horse.
ADELIA kisses him; TRAVIS pushes her away.
ADELIA cries into FINNEGAN’s fur, certain she’s not appealing enough for him.

A STORM moves in that night.
TRAVIS comes in to make sure ADELIA isn’t afraid, but she is standing at the window, loving it.
ADELIA: Oooh, but I love a storm that blows free!
TRAVIS and ADELIA have way hawt monkey sex.

MISSY: Yes! Yes! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot!
MELJEAN: Yeah. A paragraph long, nothing explicit, and all about the emotion. And a long time coming.

ADELIA: Wooot! I’m going to tell him how much I love him!
ADELIA runs downstairs, but stops when she hears MARGOT’s voice.
MARGOT: Stop being silly, Travis. She’s ridiculous.
TRAVIS: (being all reasonable and shit) What should I do, Margot? Should I just get a divorce?
ADELIA’S HEART: (breaks)
ADELIA decides to go back to Ireland.

MISSY: No! No! It must be a misunderstanding, Dee! Just a big misunderstanding! He loves you! He must love you, because YOU HAD SEX, and you can’t have sex without LOVE!

At the airport ADELIA looks up to see a really pissed TRAVIS.
TRAVIS: I thought last night meant something!
ADELIA: Sure, and then a second later you were making plans to divorce me to be with your lady love!
TRAVIS: You’re so stupid! If you’d listened a second longer, you’d have heard me say to her how much I love you.
ADELIA: Oooooooh! I love you too!

MISSY: Yay! Yay! I love this book. I love this author! I hope she writes more!
MELJEAN: Okay, I still love this, too. And she does, Missy. And you will read them. And so will your sisters. For example, you haven’t had to buy a NR book in years, because the sister who lives with you has shelves like this:

MISSY: Oh. My. God. I love you.
MELJEAN: And that’s just some of them. We aren’t exactly organized around here, and I was too lazy to track down all of them from the other bookcases, and piled on the tables, and in boxes from when we moved last year. I haven’t read all of these, though. A little over half of the Nora Roberts, all of the JD Robb.
MISSY: Who’s JD Robb?
MELJEAN: You will learn, my little padawan. You will learn. And then you will sob at night wishing you could be half as prolific and consistently good. And sob some more, because you don’t have a horse.
MISSY: *sob*
MELJEAN: Aw, there there. They’re too much work, anyway.
MISSY: I hate you, you lazy stupid fathead.
MELJEAN: Yeah, well…back in the closet for you.
MISSY: *sobs*