Gaëlle smiled as she withdrew her fingers and replaced them with her lips. They lost themselves in each other for a long time. Finally, Gaëlle lowered her head to Lee’s shoulder and slid her arms around the lean body. Lee’s hands, which had been leisurely exploring Gaëlle’s back, stilled, and she simply held her.
Lee felt no urgency to explore the burgeoning desire between them. She felt no need to talk, either. There was absolutely nothing she could say that would be more evocative than the way their bodies slid together—scarred, imperfect, aging—yet as if each had been created for the other and for this moment.
Lee knew there would be time to make amends and time to make love. There would be time to heal the self-inflicted wounds. There would be time for so many things she thought had died with Dana.
Would she and Gaëlle have all the time in the world? Lee didn’t know. She couldn’t know. But it no longer mattered.
She would take whatever time was given them and be grateful for every second.
Lee floated in that ephemeral space between conscious and unconscious and reflected on love...specifically, the abundance of love in her life. She felt infinitely blessed in the journey she’d been on with Dana, Eli, and all her friends. Their steadfast love had saved her.
Gaëlle.
Gaëlle had only just begun to teach Lee about the magnitude and dimensions of Love. Lee knew she had much to learn.
Her mind drifted to the land they’d walked and the labyrinth they’d built. In this place, she could learn; she would learn. There would be thorns, but there would also be roses.
Lee felt no impatience. She had all the time she needed.
Letting the water and the woman heal wounds and provide balm to her soul, she settled deeper into the soothing bath, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds of Gaëlle’s breathing so close to her ear as she contemplated the last few months.
The Universe was fragile and enduring, mystical and miraculous. It could spin from joy to despair, from desolation to delight in the blink of an eye.
Lee had forgotten its magic for a while; she wouldn’t forget it again. Having Gaëlle in her life, having a love she thought could never be hers again, would remind her of life’s potential every day.
Lee didn’t know what the future held, but uncertainty did not matter. All that mattered now was the woman who rested so peacefully in her arms. All else she would take on faith.
###
About Lois Cloarec Hart
Born and raised in British Columbia, Canada, Lois Cloarec Hart grew up as an avid reader but didn’t begin writing until much later in life. Several years after joining the Canadian Armed Forces, she received a degree in Honours History from Royal Military College and on graduation switched occupations from air traffic control to military intelligence. Having married a CAF fighter pilot while in college, Lois went on to spend another five years as an Intelligence Officer before leaving the military to care for her husband, who was ill with chronic progressive Multiple Sclerosis and passed away in 2001. She began writing while caring for her husband in his final years and had her first book, Coming Home, published in 2001. It was through that initial publishing process that Lois met the woman she would marry in April 2007. She now commutes annually between her northern home in Calgary and her wife’s southern home in Atlanta.
Lois is the author of three novels, Coming Home, Broken Faith, Kicker’s Journey, and a collection of short stories, Assorted Flavours. Her most recent novel, Kicker’s Journey, won the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards “IPPY” bronze medal, 2010 Golden Crown Literary Awards best historical winner, 2010 Rainbow Romance Writer’s Award for Excellence - first place win in the historical category, and 2009 Lesbian Fiction Readers Choice Award for historical fiction.
Visit her website: www.loiscloarechart.com
E-mail Lois at [email protected]
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
http://www.ylva-publishing.com
Something in the Wine
Jae
ISBN: 978-3-95533-006-4 (epub)
978-3-95533-007-1 (mobi)
All her life, Annie Prideaux has suffered through her brother’s constant practical jokes only he thinks are funny. But Jake’s last joke is one too many, she decides when he sets her up on a blind date with his friend Drew Corbin—neglecting to tell his straight sister one tiny detail: her date is not a man, but a lesbian.
Annie and Drew decide it’s time to turn the tables on Jake by pretending to fall in love with each other.
At first glance, they have nothing in common. Disillusioned with love, Annie focuses on books, her cat, and her work as an accountant while Drew, more confident and outgoing, owns a dog and spends most of her time working in her beloved vineyard.
Only their common goal to take revenge on Jake unites them. But what starts as a table-turning game soon turns Annie’s and Drew’s lives upside down as the lines between pretending and reality begin to blur.
Something in the Wine is a story about love, friendship, and coming to terms with what it means to be yourself.
L.A. Metro
Second Edition
RJ Nolan
ISBN: 978-3-95533-038-5 (epub)
978-3-95533-039-2 (mobi)
Dr. Kimberly Donovan’s life is in shambles. After her medical ethics are questioned, first her family, then her closeted lover, the Chief of the ER, betray her. Determined to make a fresh start, she flees to California and L.A. Metropolitan Hospital.
Dr. Jess McKenna, L.A. Metro’s Chief of the ER, gives new meaning to the phrase emotionally guarded, but she has her reasons.
When Kim and Jess meet, the attraction is immediate. Emotions Jess has tried to repress for years surface. But her interest in Kim also stirs dark memories. They settle for friendship, determined not to repeat past mistakes, but secretly they both wish things could be different.
Will the demons from the past destroy their future before it can even get started? Or will L.A. Metro be a place to not only heal the sick, but to mend wounded hearts?
Backwards to Oregon
Revised and Expanded Edition
Jae
ISBN: 978-3-95533-028-6 (mobi)
978-3-95533-027-9 (epub)
“Luke” Hamilton has always been sure that she’d never marry. She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man.
After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life.
But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.
Hot Line
Alison Grey
ISBN: 978-3-95533-015-6 (epub)
978-3-95533-016-3 (mobi)
Two women from different worlds. Linda, a successful psychologist, uses her work to distance herself from her own loneliness.
Christina works for a sex hotline to make ends meet.
Their worlds collide when Linda calls Christina’s sex line. Christina quickly realizes Linda is not her usual customer. Instead of wanting phone sex, Linda makes an unexpected proposition. Does Christina dare accept the offer that will change both their lives?
Coming from Ylva Publishing in Summer and Fall 2013
http://www.ylva-publishing.com
Second Nature
Revised Edition
Jae
ISBN: 978-3-95533-032-3 (mobi)
978-3-95533-031-6 (epub)
Novelist Jorie Price doesn’t believe in the existence of shape-shifting creatures or true love. She leads a solitary life, and the paranormal romances she writes are pure fiction for her.
Griffin Westmore knows better—at least about one of these two things. She doesn’t believe in love either, but she’s one of the not-so-fictional shape-shifters. She’s also a Saru, an elite soldier with the mission to protect the shape-shifters’ s
ecret existence at any cost.
When Jorie gets too close to the truth in her latest shape-shifter romance, Griffin is sent to investigate—and if necessary to destroy the manuscript before it’s published and to kill the writer.
Crossing Bridges
Emma Weimann
ISBN: 978-3-95533-019-4 (mobi)
978-3-95533-018-7 (epub)
As a Guardian, Tallulah has devoted her life to protecting her hometown, Edinburgh, and its inhabitants, both living and dead, against ill-natured and dangerous supernatural beings.
When Erin, a human tourist, visits Edinburgh, she makes Tallulah more nervous than the poltergeist on Greyfriars Kirkyard—and not only because Erin seems to be the sidekick of a dark witch who has her own agenda.
While Tallulah works to thwart the dark witch’s sinister plan for Edinburgh, she can’t help wondering about the mysterious Erin. Is she friend or foe?
Walking the Labyrinth Page 22
