I’ve gotten a lot of lovely compliments on the interplay between my hero and heroine, which thrills me because their interactions were such a joy to write! I think a lot of things factor into why Carly and Gideon sparked off of one another so well, but I definitely feel that their very different backgrounds helped set off the fireworks right away. 

Gideon is a fairly taciturn loner, on the quiet side though possessed of a dry sense of humor.  He’s been groomed his entire life to lead his people, and he takes the responsibility seriously.  It isn’t his style to indulge himself much, which is one of the reasons he’s made this last little getaway to America: he thinks he should try to have a little fun before he’s stuck on his pack’s remote estate for good.  Gideon is also completely, charmingly hopeless at communicating with the opposite sex, partly because he’s spent a lot of his life fairly isolated and partly because, well, that’s just Gideon!  It’s one of the few downsides of extreme alpha-ness.

Carly, on the other hand, is totally verbal.  She’s a self-made businesswoman with her romance bookshop, Bodice Rippers and Baubles, and she has a well-honed sense of sarcasm from years spent dealing with her big, tightly-knit, boisterous family.  Gideon’s silence just compels her to poke at him, which, after all, she feels she has a right to do considering she saved his life.  Unwittingly, since he looked a lot like a dog at the time, but still.  So a lot of their attraction manifests itself early on in these little verbal fencing matches.  Beyond that, though, Carly has a sweetness and an innocence to her that both draws and worries Gideon.  But as both he and the readers find out, she’s tougher than she looks!