by Annie Dean
Marie smiled, nodded and commented at all the right places in the conversation, but when she and Linda went to the restroom, her friend smacked her in the arm and said, “What’s up with you? You look like somebody ran over your dog.”
“I’ve just been a little … depressed lately.”
“Well, get a prescription and snap out of it. You’re scaring me a little.”
“I’m trying. Give me a break.” Marie faced the mirror and applied fresh lipstick so she wouldn’t have to look at Linda.
But her friend was like a hound on a scent. “There’s something going on here. I know the usual brand of melancholy Marie and this isn’t it. What happened?”
Marie shrugged. She was a horrible liar and knew it. Better to keep her mouth closed.
Linda’s eyes widened. “A guy! You met somebody and didn’t tell me? Where? When? What happened? Did he break your heart?”
It was an impossible story. Marie distilled it down to the essence. “It was a one-night stand. I hoped it could be more but … it couldn’t.”
“Wow, he must have been really good to get you so worked up. In all the years I’ve known you I’ve never seen you really crush on a guy. Why didn’t it work out?”
Marie shook her head and checked her eyeliner.
“Did he turn out to be a real prick?” Linda leaned back against the sink, arms folded, watching Marie. “Why couldn’t something come of that one-nighter?”
“No, he wasn’t a prick. He was wonderful, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“‘Meant to be?’ Fuck that. It’s such a cliché. If, at long last, you’ve finally found someone you want, you have to do something about it. That’s always been your problem, Marie. You sit around and wait for things to happen to you. Stop living in limbo. For God’s sake, make something happen for a change!”
“How?” Marie couldn’t explain the impossibility of her situation.
“There’s always a way. Now that’s one cliché I believe in. That and ‘a bird in the hand…’ You’ve got to prove that lightning does strike twice. Contact the guy. Make it happen again. Carpe diem and all that.”
“For someone who doesn’t believe in clichés, you sure like to spout them.” Marie snapped her purse closed.
“Look, we’ll cut this evening short,” Linda said, pushing off from the sink. “I can tell you’re having a miserable time. We’ll get you home and on the phone to this guy, pronto. Okay? Make it happen!”
Marie smiled, overwhelmed by her friend’s enthusiasm. “Okay.”
At the very least, she was getting early parole from an unwanted blind date.
* * * *
Marie thanked Marcus for the nice evening, apologized for bailing early and got out of the car. She stood on her front porch watching until the red taillights disappeared. She repeated Linda’s advice aloud. “Make it happen.”
She went into the house, tossed her purse on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. Make it happen. She’d tried to convince herself for over a month that the whole experience had been a dream. It was ridiculous. The imprint of Sam’s body on hers was too fresh, too real. It had happened and she’d be damned if she let such bliss slip away without protest.
She relived every moment of that magical night and for the thousandth time tried to figure out how Sam had been brought to life. What entity or elemental force had given her that gift? How and why had it happened? More importantly, how could she make it happen again?
“What do you need, huh? What do I have to do to win him back? Make a blood sacrifice?” she said aloud.
Seized with the thought of a sacrifice, she went to her computer. She searched online for All Hallows Eve and read everything she could about the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain when the souls of the dead mingled with the living.
On that day all manner of beings are abroad: ghosts, fairies, and demons—all part of the dark and dread.
She learned about the harvest spirits, also known as fairies, which had extra power on that night. There was folklore concerning witches transmogrifying people into animals and stories about deals with the devil but nowhere did she find anything that told how one could force a transformation. But she knew the druids were big on blood sacrifice and it seemed a likely offering.
Marie wasn’t about to sacrifice an animal, let alone a human being, but she figured her own blood was hers to do with as she wished. She read up on druidic rituals, found an American Indian prayer to the spirits of earth for good measure then took a sharp paring knife from the kitchen and some dish towels to staunch the wounds afterward and went out to the field.
Kneeling in front of the scarecrow on the muddy earth and feeling like a complete asshole, she closed her eyes and fabricated a prayer. “Great Spirit, Faerie Queen, Pan, Earth Mother, whoever the hell granted my wish, I beseech thee. Please.” She took the knife and made a careful cut across her palm. It hurt like hell and blood welled along the slice. She held her trembling hand toward the navy pants and smeared them with her blood. “Please, whatever higher power or elemental magic brought this being to life—do so again. Fix this!” She transferred the knife to her injured hand. It slipped in her blood-slicked palm. She grasped the handle tightly and cut into the flesh of her right palm, repeating the anointing of the scarecrow.
“I offer this blood sacrifice to earn my, uh … boon. Please grant me this request. We only had one night. It wasn’t enough. Please, please, please, give him back to me. I want a new life. I want to change.”
She wrapped her stinging hands around the dummy’s squishy legs, letting the blood seep into the fabric of its trousers, and continued to pray, plead and cry. She pressed her forehead against the scarecrow, squeezed her eyes tight shut and concentrated on believing in what she was asking for, believing anything was possible.
Whistling wind filled her ears. At first she didn’t know if it was real or blood rushing from her head as she started to lose consciousness. “I believe. Come to me. I believe. Come to me,” she repeated the phrases over and over like a mantra. There was a crash of thunder and a lightning flash that glimmered even through her closed eyelids.
Marie opened her eyes, lifted her head and looked up at the bedraggled clothes hanging on the wooden frame. They moved and shifted in the unnatural wind, but underneath her gripping hands, the pants were still only stuffed with moldy straw.
“Please!” she yelled, her cry rising to the midnight sky. She called it aloud and then mentally repeated that single word until she passed into an exhausted trance.
Eventually she slipped into unconsciousness at the inanimate feet of the scarecrow and crumpled in a heap on the muddy ground.
* * * *
When the first rays of the sun touched her stiff, cold body, she shifted and woke. Please was her first waking thought and she realized she’d never stopped repeating it even in sleep. Please, I don’t want to search for a companion, a partner, my other half. I’ve already found him. Please.
A muffled groan made her sit bolt upright and snap her head around. Lying on the ground near her was a man’s naked body. She did a mental inventory; long and lean, tan skin, dark hair. He lay on his side with his back turned toward her in the same fetal position from which she had just uncurled.
Marie scrambled on all fours to him. She put a hand on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back in the dirt, leaving a bloody handprint on his arm. “Sam?”
He groaned and his eyelids flickered once before opening. He stared up at her blankly, blinking, struggling to focus.
“It’s me. Marie. Something happened. You’re alive! See!” She lifted his hand and brought it to his chest so he could feel the thumping of his heart.
His dark gaze wandered from her face to the rose and lavender sky arcing overhead. The sun breached the horizon and gold limned every frosted blade of grass around them. It was going to be a crisp, clear autumn day.
“I’m here,” he rasped. He looked at the post. The old clothes still hung there but with no straw s
tuffing inside them.
“You’re real again.” She clung to his hands as though he might slip away. “Do you remember what happened?”
“No. I don’t remember much of anything.” His gaze traveled back to her and a warm smile curled his mouth. “Except last night in your bed. I remember every minute of that.”
She didn’t bother to correct his assumption that no time had passed. She scanned his naked body, drinking in the long, lean muscles from shoulders to feet, then returning to the exotic yet familiar features of his handsome face. “You must be freezing. Come on. I’ll help you up. We need to get you inside.”
She tugged on his hands, helping him to sit. When she winced slightly at the pain in her hands, his attention focused on them. He turned one of her hands palm upward and touched the crust of congealed blood along the cut.
Marie realized she’d never wrapped it as she’d intended.
“What happened?”
“I gave blood,” she joked. “But I didn’t get juice and a cookie. Instead I got you.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him to her.
He buried his face in her neck, kissing it.
They clung together for several moments and she breathed in his scent, hot male with a hint of straw.
“I remember now,” he mumbled against her skin. “You were calling for me over and over. I heard you … and then I woke up.”
“Yes.”
He pulled away from her and took her hand, once more tracing the line in her palm. “You gave part of yourself for me. A sacrifice.”
“It wasn’t much, only a little blood.”
“But it binds us forever,” he said quietly. “Like a vow.”
Forever. She liked the sound of that.
He leaned in and kissed her. His mouth was soft and warm compared to his chilled skin.
Her eyes closed and she reveled in a kiss that seemed to go on forever. She clung to him and smoothed her aching hand up and down his back. She wanted to feel all of him, all at once, to touch him everywhere and verify his reality. She wanted to get him into her bed and warm his cold body with her own.
Marie broke free of the embrace, stood and helped Sam to his feet.
He seemed stiff and uncertain on his legs, and shifted from foot to foot, looking down at them as though unable to believe they were his.
She put an arm around his waist, resting a hand against his naked hip and together they staggered toward the house. Pausing on the front porch, she asked, “Are you ready for this? For life?”
“Definitely.” He glanced sideways at her and grinned. He entered the doorway of her house.
Marie took one last look at the empty clothes hanging on the pole out in the dead pumpkin patch and at the brown, stubble field just beyond it. The land looked desolate now, but it would be green again in spring.
Things changed. Her life stretched out before her brimming with possibility—her land, her home, her man. Through her willpower, she had changed the pattern of her life and anything could happen next.
The End
About the Author:
Whether you're a fan of contemporary, paranormal or historical romance, you will find something to enjoy among my books. My style is down to earth and my characters feel like well-known friends by the time you've finished reading. If you're used to a strong alpha male in romances, don't expect it here. While my heroes are manly, they're not aggressively male. I'm interested in flawed, often damaged people who find the fulfillment they seek in one another. I live a quiet life with my family completely the opposite of my characters’ adventurous lives. For more information go to http://bonniedee.com. You can contact me at [email protected]
Waking Kitty
Dionne Galace
Chapter One
“A sunken ship just appeared in the middle of a bar on 4th and B. Go!”
Jack Ridley hung up on his boss and crawled out from under the mountain of blankets and dirty clothes piled on top of him. Scratching his bare chest and yawning wide enough to crack his jaw, he slid down to the carpet. There was a crunching sound beneath him as he sat down and he pulled out the partially crushed beer can that was digging into his ass. He looked down at the cell phone on his hand and the display told him it was eight o'clock in the evening. He ran a hand down his face.
“Good going, Ridley. You slept right through Wednesday.” He braced a hand on the corner of his bedside table and pulled himself up, groaning as his bones creaked and popped with the exertion.
He stumbled into the bathroom, tripping on the empty pizza box and the hard plastic controller of his videogame console on the way. Ignoring the throbbing in his toe, he fumbled for the light switch on the bathroom wall and blinked at his reflection in the mirror above the sink as his eyes adjusted to the harsh glow of the fluorescent light. His red-rimmed, deep-seated eyes stared back blearily at him. There was a yellowing bruise under his left eye courtesy of a psycho who thought Jack had stared a little too long at his skank girlfriend. A beer bottle to the back of the head had disabused the fucker of the notion. Jack got his ass hauled to the drunk tank overnight for it, but damn, it had been worth it.
His face, his grandmother told him, was that of an angel. An ex-girlfriend who was an Art History major in college told him he possessed features Michelangelo would have killed to sculpt. He laughed bitterly at the memory. It was the reason he'd learned how to fight at an early age. The bump on the bridge of his nose, the pencil-thin scar on his upper lip, and the ragged two-inch slash on his left temple all had stories of their own.
Combined with the two-day-old beard, the faded dragon tattoo that wrapped around one bicep, and the hatchet job he performed on his hair twice a month with a rusty pair of scissors, he looked like a junkie who'd kill his own mother for a fix. He ran a hand over the inch-long black spikes on top of his head. It was getting a little long. He'd have to do something about it soon.
He turned on the faucet, cupped his hands underneath, and splashed his face a couple of times before applying soap to it. He rubbed vigorously for a minute, then rinsed thoroughly, slicking back his hair with the water in his hands as he straightened up.
While he swished a mouthful of Listerine, he flung open the medicine cabinet and reached for the bottle of Vicodin. The label told him it belonged to Mary Ann Smith. He frowned when he didn't recognize the name. A moment later, a smirk twisted his upper lip. The long-legged blonde with the mouth like a DirtDevil and a bathroom that looked like a pharmacy. While she’d slept, he’d swiped some Prozac, some Percocet, and his drug of choice, Vicodin, before sneaking out of her apartment.
He spat out the Listerine and tossed back three Vicodin tabs, crunching them between his teeth and washing them down with a handful of sink water. A quick sniff told him he should probably take a shower soon, but he had no time for that now. He scrubbed under his arms with a wet face towel, then gave them each two swipes of deodorant to cover up the funk. He slipped on the first pair of jeans he found on the floor of his room and a blue T-shirt from the pile on his bed that looked passably clean. There was a tiny spot of blood on the chest from the little bar scuffle he'd gotten into the other night, but the shirt was dark enough that it was hardly noticeable. Besides, that was what a jacket was for.
On his way out, the phone in the pocket of his jeans began to vibrate. Probably his boss again, wondering where the hell he was. But as the pleasant hazy feeling from the Vicodin began to sweep over him, he decided to ignore it.
* * * *
Jack parked his motorcycle a few blocks from the Red Dragon Bar because he couldn't find a spot any closer. He'd been to the bar a few times, but it had never been packed on a weeknight. The college kids, punks, slumming yuppies, and hoodrats looking for hook-ups were nowhere to be seen tonight. Instead, the place was swarming with cops, their police mobiles parked in the middle of the street like they couldn't give a rat's ass about blocking traffic. There was also an ambulance, a fire truck, and a couple of news vans. Gary Stevens, a correspondent h
e used to work with, spotted him and gave him a nod of acknowledgment.
Bemused, Jack found himself nodding back. What the hell was NBC doing here? Shit, maybe he shouldn't have hung up so quickly on Harry. He tried to remember what it was that his boss had barked in his ear and the words that echoed back to him were “sunken” and “ship.” At the time he'd been a little fuzzy with sleep—not to mention hung over—so he didn't really think to ask Harry to clarify. Harry was always sending him on bullshit jobs. That was what he and his team specifically covered: bullshit. Each week, they produced a segment featuring crackpots and charlatans living in the Chicago area for a local news station and gleefully busted each and every one of them on live TV. Last week, it was a psychic dog. The week before that, it was a woman who could read your future from the cellulite on your butt.
It was gutter-work for a guy who sported a Peabody award on his mantel, but shit, it paid the rent. And the booze.
“Yo, Jack!”
His head automatically pivoted toward the direction of the voice calling him and he found his cameraman and production assistant across the street, standing to the side of the bar and distinctly out of the way. Kenny Hardaway lowered his camera from his shoulder and waved him over. Jack sighed. Reaching into the inside pocket of his bomber jacket, he pulled his pack of cigarettes, stuck one between his lips, and crossed the street, squeezing his lean body between the gridlocked cars.
“What the hell's going on, man?”
“'Bout time you got here, bossman.” Kenny produced a lighter out of his pocket and touched the flame to the end of Jack's cigarette. “Fucking pandemonium breaking loose all over the place.” He jerked his head toward the bar. “Crowded as hell in there. A goddamn mouse wouldn't be able to squeeze in. Good thing the talent's stuck in traffic or she'd be whining about not being able to get in.”
