Lone Star Magic
By Karen Whiddon
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Karen Whiddon
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
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Chapter One
FIREBALL! AN instant after he’d transported himself to her back yard, Alrick of Rune spotted both the magical menace and the woman he’d been sent to protect – the fireball shooting angry sparks in the sky and the woman kneeling in a ragged garden near a ramshackle, old barn. Oblivious to the danger hovering above her, she hummed to herself as she yanked out weeds. A black and white dog nearby noticed both the fireball and Alrick at the same time and began barking furiously.
Was he too late? Had his enemy so quickly bested him? He saw no sign of the Warlord who’d created the menace. Alrick ran. The woman looked up, spotted him, and made a sound of surprise. She stood, a quick and graceless movement.
The fireball began spinning faster. Alrick knew he’d run out of time. Any moment now the thing would dive down and consume the woman with magical flames, flames that were ten times hotter than any mortal fire. She’d be nothing but charred ash by the time he reached her. Only magic had a chance of stopping the thing.
Stopping, Alrick raised his hand and concentrated. Fight fire with fire, or so he’d heard. He sent out a jag of magical energy towards the thing. Like a lightening bolt of power, his energy zinged towards the threat, even as the fireball dipped, causing him to miss.
The woman, staring open-mouthed at Alrick, followed the flash of power and finally took notice of the menace spinning in the sky above her. This time, she screamed. The sound was loud and clear and full of terror.
The fireball honed on the scream. The buzzing noise it made increased until it sounded like a thousand angry bees, about to sting in a large, venomous cloud.
Alrick had one last chance. The future of his race depended on him. Drawing all his power into himself, he leapt into the air. He’d shield the woman from the threat and take on the fireball with his own, magically shielded body.
Contact! Gritting his teeth against the awful scent of burnt skin, knowing it was only an illusion, Alrick wrapped himself around the thing and squeezed. Hard. He felt the burn, smelled the awful smell of singed flesh, then with a blinding flash, the fireball vanished. Poof. One second beneath him, the next, he was left wrapped around empty air.
Instantly, he crashed to the ground. The dog ran to him, still barking, and stopped long enough to sniff his face, then his burned chest and arms.
At least his enemy the Warlord wasn’t there to finish him off. If Alrick died, Carly Roberts would have no one to protect her. And, because he hadn’t spoken to her yet, she had no idea she was even in danger. He tried to sit up and everything went black.
Too much sun. Carly wiped her hand across her sweat soaked forehead. Maybe she had heat exhaustion, though until she’d looked up and saw that thing she hadn’t felt ill. But she must be – that had to be the reason why she was suddenly suffering from hallucinations. Really odd hallucinations. And one of them had fallen to the ground right by her tornado shelter. Where he lay unmoving and still with Kayo, her border collie, standing guard.
Muttering under her breath, she forced herself to march on over and confront the illusion head on. A strange man, a gorgeous man, leaping through the air like Conan the Barbarian. Here. In her backyard. Unconscious.
She knelt down, scrunching up her courage. When she reached out, expecting her hand to go right through to the ground, and touched skin instead, she snatched her hand back and cursed. Kayo licked her arm.
“This can’t be real.” She looked back up at the cloudless sky. No fireball. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Still nothing. Okaay. She blinked, but the crumpled body on the ground remained. The skin on his massive forearms was beginning to blister. The fireball had burned him.
Damn. She needed to get him help.
Pushing herself to her feet, she took a step back. Then another. If she left him, he might die. But if she didn’t call for an ambulance, he surely would. Finally, she ran for the house and the phone. Thank goodness they’d recently activated 911 service in her area. The paramedics would know what to do. They were better equipped to deal with him and his injuries. They’d take the unconscious man away to a hospital.
And she could go back to being alone, exactly as she liked to be.
She punched in 911 and told the operator what had happened, omitting the fireball, and hung up while the woman was telling her to stay on the line. Then, once the call had been made, Carly locked the front and back doors and closed all the windows. Then, and she couldn’t say why, she went back and secured the deadbolts. Between the fireball and the strange things she’d seen the man do, she felt as though she was under attack. Unsettling, to say the least.
In the ten minutes it took for the emergency vehicles to show, she checked out the window at least seven times, fighting the urge to go check on the stranger. The man – or whatever he was – lay where she’d left him. Unmoving. Hopefully alive. Kayo still stood over him, guarding him silently.
Lights flashing, siren blaring, an ambulance raced down the dirt road to her place. Kicking up a huge cloud of dust, next came a fire truck and two Hill City police cars. Carly ran out the front door to greet them as they skidded to a halt in her gravel driveway. Kayo tore around the corner of the barn, abandoning the man for a much newer and more exciting target.
“He’s around back.” She pointed, her finger wavering unsteadily. Wagging his fluffy plume of a tail, Kayo barked his agreement, taking off to lead the way.
One of the policeman squinted at her through his wrap-around sunglasses. “Stay here, ma`am. We’ll take care of this.”
Maybe it was his stay-put-girl-all-women-are-dumb voice or the way he tried to look down her blouse, but Carly ignored him. She led the way around her house to the back of the barn, where she’d been peacefully weeding her pitiful garden barely a half hour ago.
The man was gone. Burns and all. Except for a broken tomato plant or two, there was nothing to show he’d ever been. Kayo sniffed the ground, looking up at her with what she could have sworn was a perplexed expression.
“Me too, boy,” Carly muttered. She drew a shaking hand across her mouth and turned to the EMT’s, policemen, and firefighters to explain. “He was here, I swear. My dog was standing guard on him.”
They all looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was. Or maybe the man hadn’t been too badly injured after all and, once he’d regained consciousness, he’d simply wandered off into one of her fields.
“Maybe he went in the barn.” Her voice sounded weak, even to herself. Dutifully, the two policemen nodded. They looked at each other and one of them disappeared inside the barn. A moment later he emerged, shrugging.
“Nothing. Er, Miss…”
“Mrs.” Her sharp tone had him narrowing his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. He was here the last time I checked. He seemed pretty out of it, so I don’t understand how he could have disappeared.”
“I see.” He nodded like he understood, though his expression said differently. “Could we talk to your husband?”
That was absolutely the final straw. Carly felt heat rise in her face as anger tightened her throat. “My husband, Officer,” she peered at his nametag, “Holt, is dead. I run this ranch and any talking you need to do, you can do with me.”
&
nbsp; She saw in his face what he thought of that. Lonely Widow. Again his gaze traveled to the v of her shirt. She had to force herself not to cross her arms as she glared back at him. Sensing her mood, Kayo gave a loud growl.
It went even further downhill after that. The last thing Office Holt said before he left made Carly shiver, though she managed to keep that hidden from him.
“If you get a reputation for calling in false reports, Miz Roberts, when something really does happen you won’t find the police so eager to respond.”
She bit her lip and watched them walk back to their patrol car. The Ambulance and fire truck had already left in clouds of dust. Weeding was out – the sun had risen too high in the sky, increasing the temperature and humidity along with it. Spring in central Texas was a bitch. If it wasn’t pouring rain, the weather was hot and steamy. If she wanted to do much outside she had to do it early in the morning.
There was still housework. Carly grimaced. Her least favorite weekly chore. Wiping her hands off on the front of her shorts, she went inside to get started. Kayo went back to the shade by the barn and lay down.
Two hours later and she had nearly finished. She’d just started to mop the kitchen floor when someone pounded on her door. Bam, Bam, Bam. Hard enough to crack the weather-beaten wood.
Scowling at the front door, Carly stuck the mop back in the plastic bucket. “Okay, okay. I’m coming. Just because my doorbell’s broken doesn’t mean you have to beat on the wood like you’re trying to break it.”
Irritation fueling her, she marched over and yanked the door open without even looking through the peephole.
He stood in front of her. Her hallucination. The man who’d disappeared that morning. Apparently unhurt, unabashed, and looking like some sort of movie star. Odd how she hadn’t noticed his stunning good looks before. Dark, thick hair cascaded to his broad shoulders, and his aristocratic features were perfectly chiseled. Muscular arms, a trim waist, and lean hips completed the picture. He had to be a concoction of Hollywood. In Carly’s experience, real men didn’t look like him. Not even close.
“You…!” She tried to shut the door in his face.
He stuck his foot in the way and smiled at her. “Carly Roberts?”
“Look,” She narrowed her eyes. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it. Got that? Go away.”
Instead of doing as she’d asked – well, okay, ordered, his smile widened. “Is this your horse?”
“My… what?” When she forced her gaze past him, she realized he held a length of rope, wrapped loosely around the sturdy neck of TM, the sole remaining horse she owned. He must have escaped from the round pen. Again. Dammit.
“Yes. He’s mine.” But when she reached to take the rope from the man, TM snorted, showed the whites of his eyes, and curled his lip. She snatched her hand back, watching in disbelief when Mr. Too-Perfect-Hallucination spoke a few soothing words and TM instantly quieted.
She cocked her head and squinted at him, suspiciously. “How did you do that? And while you’re at it, explain about this morning too.” Pointing at his arms, she scowled. “You were burned. Now I don’t even see red.”
“I heal fast.” He turned violet eyes towards her, making her blink. “And I have a way with animals.”
Great. Next he’d be telling her he was a horse whisperer or something. The latent sensuality in his voice nearly made her forget he’d ignored the second part of her request. He had a strange accent too, like he wasn’t from around here. No Texas twang.
“What happened here this morning?” Hands on her hips, she didn’t take her eyes off him. No telling what he might do.
“Later.” His expression promised more. “We need to talk.”
Carly didn’t want there to be a later. She sure as hell didn’t want to talk to this man, nor matter how gorgeous he was. But, she still had to get TM into the barn. Though he hated the padded stallion stall, it was the safest place for him. Especially with the spring storms cropping up. Catching TM and coaxing him inside was normally a two-hour ordeal minimum, so she owed this stranger more than a simple thank you.
She studied her unwanted visitor again, narrowing her eyes. He wore a weird, antique-looking, tunic-like shirt the same color as his eyes, held together at the neck by ties. His legs were encased in black leggings, which showed off his muscles but made him look like he was either on his way to a Renaissance Fair or a Star Wars convention. Besides being strange, his clothes looked odd, handmade, and homespun. Like he might be poorer than even she.
Maybe she could scrape together some sort of reward. She had some money put aside in the cookie jar. Okay, if he could get TM into the stallion stall, she’d pay him. Then he could leave. Without talking about anything. Maybe she just didn’t need to know, or want to know. She didn’t really care anyway.
“Um, would you mind leading him into the barn for me?”
“Of course not.” He stepped aside so she could move past him. Which she did. Suddenly nervous, she tried to remember the self-defense moves she’d learned in that fitness class back in college, but couldn’t. So she settled for reassuring herself a man as gorgeous as this one would have no interest in a woman like her.
Still, that didn’t explain what he’d been doing earlier, with the strange and scary fireball. Or the way he’d seemed to fly through the air. Or heal what had looked like severe burns in a matter of hours.
Resisting the urge to rub her eyes, she marched off, letting him follow. They made it to the barn without incident, TM trailing docilely after as though he were gelded. Kayo, traitorous beast, ran up to them without even barking, wagging his tail furious as though the stranger was his long last friend.
The man noticed her frown and smiled, making his amazing brown eyes twinkle. “I told you, I have a way with animals.”
Kayo, gazing up at him with adoration and panting happily, seemed to agree.
“Whatever. TM goes in there.” Pointing toward the reinforced stallion stall, she shrugged. “I think he’d hurt himself if it weren’t for the padding.”
The stranger looked intrigued. “An ingenious idea.” He led TM over to the stall, turned the latch on the door and motioned for the horse to go in. As Carly watched in amazement, TM lifted his head, sniffed the air expectantly, and did exactly that. Without a bit of trouble. No snorting or whinnying, no attempt to bite or kick or rear.
That in itself was a fandangled dang miracle.
“How did—.” She had to bite the side of her cheek. The guy would think she was an idiot if he found out she couldn’t handle her own horse. “Never mind. Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” His rich voice made her shiver. Then, while she stared, he held out his hand. “I’m Alrick.”
Still dazed, she took it. His large fingers engulfed her smaller ones, and he could have hurt her if he gripped too hard, but he only squeezed once, then raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it. She snatched her hand away before he could release it. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Kayo looked on. Carly could have sworn the dog was grinning.
“No.” He shook his head, sending his dark hair swirling. “I’m not.”
“I see.” Now she supposed she needed to broach the subject of a reward. She didn’t have much to spare, but he didn’t know that. What would be a good number? Ten dollars? Twenty?
“You have a beautiful horse.” Alrick’s deep voice reflected his pleasure.
“Thank you.”
“What breed is he?”
“TM’s pureblooded Arabian. He’s a three year old. My husband bred him.” She spoke without thinking, with unconscious pride. “He is – was – Liam’s favorite.”
“Liam?”
“My husband. He died in an accident a year ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” For the first time in forever, her throat didn’t close up when she said it. “I’m sorry too.” Damn, she shouldn’t have told him that. Now he knew she was alone. He’d probably r
eact just like the obnoxious cop had that morning.
“Do you ride him?”
Startled, she blinked. “What?”
“The horse. Do you ride him often? Such a high spirited animal should have a lot of exercise.”
Good God. Even if she knew how to ride, TM wouldn’t let her anywhere near him, never mind with a saddle. “He’s not broke.”
“Broke?”
“Trained. He’s not trained. I, er, haven’t had the time.”
Alrick cocked his shaggy head, as though he knew she was lying. “He’s never carried a man – or woman – upon his back?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It is.” Time for him to move on. “Now, how much?” she blurted, hating feeling so awkward.
“How much what?”
“I want to give you something. Money. A reward.”
“A reward?” He looked at her as if she’d said something strange.
“Cash. Something. For bringing TM home. But don’t expect too much. I’m pretty broke.”
“Coin? I have no use for your money. I need work.” He glanced around the padlock and beyond, to her untended and overgrown fields. “You have a lot here for me to do.”
Carly frowned. “I don’t need help.” Lie number one. She hesitated, then decided to go for the gusto with lie number two. “I have a crew that comes by every afternoon. Several high school boys. They’re all the help I need.”
He looked around again and smiled politely. “I can train your stallion. Make him more manageable.”
“No.” She crossed her arms. “And since we’re talking – against my better judgment – I still want to know what happened earlier today with the fire thingee.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.” He smiled again, that dazzling display of white teeth and dimples.
Carly noted with amazement how even his brown eyes sparkled. It was like some kind of toothpaste commercial, for Pete’s sake. “Try me.”
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