Laura stared at it, her heart working. “Stars and dust…” she said. “It was you. That first time. You put the soil on my doorstep.”
Micah looked down at the bag, then smiled. “I expected you to come and scream at me about that, long ago.”
“Everyone else started doing it, so I was looking at all my friends instead,” she said slowly.
“Where did you think I got the idea for a viral currency?” he asked. “I watched how it took off, everyone getting involved just because they wanted to. This way,” he added, heading for the hub.
They got a taxi-boat, even though the farm was at the bottom of the stairs. Micah’s leg wouldn’t withstand the effort of climbing down that far.
When the taxi-boat headed out along the anti-grave spine of the torus, heading toward the big public park in the center, Laura gripped the rails and looked at Micah. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
She stared ahead, trying to guess. It had been so long since she had visited anything but the park and the farm in the Palatine. She used to play in the fields and among the little copses. She had floated leaf boats down the streams. One day she had wandered into the farm and found a big man called Erron who showed her how to milk a cow, before sending her home again.
That had been ten years before her first seizure, when her life had completely changed. Since it had changed for the first time.
She glanced at Micah. He was staring ahead, just as she had been.
The taxi-boat landed in front of one of the little houses on the other side of the park. This one backed up against the big trees of the park itself. It was a two story house, with windows at the top and a little balcony under the center one.
Micah helped her down to the ground, for Laura was too busy studying the house.
There were flower boxes under the lower windows. For dozens of feet around the house, there were bushes and small trees and hundreds of flowers and plants and vines, trellises and more. It was overgrown and badly in need of tending. The more rampant vines were choking off the timid plants. Flowers, a luxury she had never been able to spare the soil for, were nodding in the sunlight, which was directly overhead.
She could hear crickets and birds.
Micah led her toward the house, her hand in his.
“Whose place it this?” she asked, her heart working hard.
“Ours, if you want it.” He stopped at the gate. It was a gate and a fence out of the history books, white and low, dividing the garden from the rest of the wild bushes and grasses beyond the house.
Laura caught her breath. She stopped and looked at him. “Ours?”
“There’s room for both of us,” he said evenly. “And a garden I don’t have to blow out my knee climbing up to every night. There’s a big bed and there is peace and quiet, the sort we both like.” He looked around and up, taking in the wide open space around them.
Laura tried to breathe again. It was difficult.
Micah lifted her chin. His gaze was steady. “I love you, Laura. I have almost from the beginning, I think. You knocked my feet out from under me in a way the blasted tankball wall never managed. I think you saved my life, while you were at it, too.”
He delved into the green bag he was carrying and lifted a box out of it and held it out to her. It was the hand-carved box from his old office in the coders’ suite. “You can look if you want. I don’t mind. I put everything back in the box that used to be in it. Your scarf is somewhere else, now.”
Laura took the box, but didn’t open the lid. “What do I do with it?” she asked.
“Anything you want,” Micah told her. “I don’t care. However, there is a little workshop furnace in the cellar of the house, that would burn something like that up into cinders very nicely, so….”
Laura looked back at the house. “Did you buy it?” she asked.
“I did.” He smiled, the expression making his eyes dance. “Kelly wants to buy your house back. With credits, this time.”
Laura put her arms around him, the box still in one hand. “This is your house, the one you traded for the suite in the Aventine.”
His arms came around her and she could feel the strength in them and trembled at his touch.
“Do you think you could spend the rest of your life with a scarred and busted-up, cranky man like me, Laura? Because that’s all I seem to be able to think about these days. My life, with you in it.”
“We’re both busted-up,” she breathed. “Remember?”
“Ah…about that.” He took her hand and opened the gate. It squeaked, a delightful sound.
Micah led her to the front door and pointed to the little blue flowers growing around the step.
“What are they?” she asked.
“Forget-me-nots.” He met her gaze, his black eyes steady.
Laura kissed him. “I will never forget you. Even if everything else is lost to me, you will remain.” She tried the door handle and the door opened for them.
“Promise?” Micah asked as she drew him inside.
“Promise.”
The next book in
The Endurance series
Xenogenesis – Book 4, The Endurance Series.
Rex has never been worthy of Belen’s love. Can he change that?
Life aboard the Endurance is disintegrating—unemployment, inflation, crime and destitution, all ignored by the super-rich, including Rex Julyan, the wildly successful and most hedonistic man on the ship. When Rex meets an old Artificial Intelligence called Emma, she tells him there may be a way to save the ship, but does he care enough to try? For the woman he once loved, Belen Tirrell, is now the partner of the ship’s Captain, Antonio Tyler. She left Rex to be with him, long ago. Nothing would win her back now…would it?
Xenogenesis is the fourth book in the science fiction romance series readers are calling gripping, superb and fantastic. Written by award-winning SFR author Tracy Cooper-Posey, it is set aboard the closed-system marathon-class vessel Endurance, a generation ship a thousand years from its destination. If you like the smart, romantic SF of authors like Linnea Sinclair and Anna Hackett, you will love the Endurance series.
Dive into this thought-provoking new romance series today!
__
This book is part of The Endurance SFR series:
Book 0.5 5,001
Book 1.0 Greyson’s Doom
Book 2.0 Yesterday’s Legacy
Book 3.0 Promissory Note
Book 4.0 Xenogenesis
…and more to come!
A Science Fiction Romance Novel.
__
Praise for The Endurance series:
I am so glad that this author finally got around to writing SF cause she's great at it.
To all SF fans out there, I highly recommend this be on your reading list. To the author, PLEASE keep giving us these amazing stories.
I cannot wait to read more in this series and learn more about the people that live on the Endurance as it travels through space.
Wow, what a fantastic read!!!
Another superb series.
I highly recommend this new wonderful series.
It is not just a journey through space, but through the beautiful landscape of human emotions with all its wonderful spectrums.
Click here to buy Xenogenesis right now: http://tracycooperposey.com/xenogenesis/
About the Author
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal, urban fantasy, futuristic and science fiction romances. She has published over 65 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. Faring Soul won a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught roma
nce writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
For reviews, excerpts, and more about each title, visit Tracy’s site and click on the cover you are interested in: http://tracycooperposey.com/books-by-thumbnail/
* = Free!
Blood Knot Series
(Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)
Blood Knot*
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive
Blood Revealed
Blood Ascendant
Beloved Bloody Time Series
(Paranormal Futuristic Time Travel)
Bannockburn Binding*
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Viennese Agreement
Romani Armada
Spartan Resistance
Kiss Across Time Series
(Paranormal Time Travel)
Kiss Across Time*
Kiss Across Swords
Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Kingdoms
The Kine Prophecies
(Epic Norse Fantasy Romance)
The Branded Rose Prophecy
The Stonebrood Saga
(Gargoyle Paranormal Series)
Carson’s Night*
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Unbearable
Sabrina’s Clan
Destiny’s Trinities
(Urban Fantasy Romance Series)
Beth’s Acceptance*
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
The First Trinity (Anth.)
Cora’s Secret
Zoe’s Blockade
Octavia’s War
The Second Trinity (Anth.)
Terra’s Victory
Interspace Origins
(Science Fiction Romance Series)
Faring Soul
Varkan Rise
Cat and Company
Short Paranormals
Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance
The Vistaria Affair
(Romantic Suspense)
Red Leopard*
Black Heart
Blue Knight
White Dawn
Go-get-‘em Women
(Short Romantic Suspense Series)
The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights
Jewells of Tomorrow
(Historical Romantic Suspense)
Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance
Scandalous Sirens
(Historical Romance Series)
Forbidden*
Dangerous Beauty
Perilous Princess
Romantic Thrillers Series
Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair
The Endurance
(Science Fiction Romance Series)
5,001
Greyson’s Doom
Yesterday’s Legacy
Promissory Note
Xenogenesis
Contemporary Romances
Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover
The Sherlock Holmes Series
(Romantic Suspense/Mystery)
Chronicles of the Lost Years
The Case of the Reluctant Agent
Copyright Information
This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cover by Dar Albert
Wicked Smart Designs
http://WickedSmartDesigns.com
Edited by Helen Woodall
http://HelenWoodallFreelanceEditing.blogspot.com/
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
FIRST EDITION: August 2016
Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Promissory Note/Tracy Cooper-Posey—1st Ed.
Romance—Fiction
Science Fiction – Fiction
Promissory Note Page 14
