Welcome to the World’s First Leap Year Blog Hop (oh there are so many word play possibilities I can’t begin to count…). To the commenter who can name the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day I am giving away a pdf copy of your choice of my four romantic suspense novels. Please make sure you leave your email address in your comment so I can contact the lucky winner. And now for the main attraction:
Leap Year Blues
There is a tradition in England that if a woman wears a red slip on Leap Year Day the man she proposes to will accept her, love and cherish her for the rest of her life. I’m not from the UK, but I am an anthropologist and therefore willing to play by Roman rules where it suits me. 
You know where this is leading. Yes, Leap Year. And this little Wile E. Coyote light bulb went off in my head. Ooh, ooh. I’ll propose to him. He won’t be able to deny me—after all, it’s Leap year (this is known in psychiatric circles as Denial). But, how to do it? In the words of another equally successful romantic figure, the wicked witch of the west, “These things must be done delicately.” So, I Googled. And discovered the above tradition about red slips. I hauled myself to Victoria’s Secret. No dice. Red lingerie is sold only at Christmas and Valentine’s day. Today we have your black, your teal, your hot pink… No? Off to Nordstroms. “My dear, scarlet niceties? I don’t think so.”
And so it went.
Around about twilight on Leap Year Eve I sauntered…well crawled…into Sears.
I love Sears. After all, Sears gave me my very first credit card, with which I bought my very first TV (a little black and white number with snazzy push buttons and a real antenna). I renewed my vows when I found the one and only red slip in the entire Washington metropolitan area. Lacy, carmine, slinky and it fit. Sold, to the desperate little lady in bunny slippers.
I wended my way back home and booted up the laptop. Since the love of my life only communicated via email (he did not insist on my actual presence at our R-rated exchanges—a clue perhaps?) I wrote him. “I have the requisite red slip.”
He wrote back, “Huh?”
Me: “Now it’s okay for me to propose.”
Him: “Huh?” (I said he was gorgeous, not quick).
Me: “So?”
Pause. “Wait a minute, are you proposing?”
I refrained from the non-articulate and possibly insulting “Duh,” and answered with simple clarity: “Yes.”
Wait for it.
A little longer.
Okay, one looooong minute.
“Aren’t you sweet.”
“…”
For a more cheerful romance, try my latest, Triptych, in which legend, history and romance intertwine in a triptych of suspense. Click on the cover to your left for more information.
