Deadly Shades (Shades Series)

by Thomson, H. D.

  “You’re too quiet,” Luke commented, his gaze veering off the road to her for a moment, a deep crease burrowing between his brows. “And it isn’t just because of last week. You get like this at times. You go off to this dark place where I can’t reach you. Damn it.” He twisted a hand around the steering wheel. “Sorry. I promised I wouldn’t dig into your past, and my word means a lot to me.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m the one that needs to.” She shook her head. It was time she let go. If she wanted to have any meaning in her life, she had to. “I’m blessed to have you still in my life after all I’ve put you through. I really marvel at your patience. Any other man would have left long ago.”

  “I’m not any man.” His hand visibly relaxed on the wheel. “You don’t realize, even with all your secrets and a past you’re unwilling to talk about, I can’t replace you. Not with how I feel. There’s a lot of things I’ve never compromised on, but when it comes to you, I’m finding out I’ll pretty much do anything.”

  At his words, her insides melted. How could they not? And how could she have ever thought that she could walk away from a man like Luke?

  Kennedy grimaced. “I don’t deserve you but I’m not fool enough to think I should let you go.” She sank into the passenger seat and stared up at the roof. She pulled a strand of hair tickling her cheek from the open window and slipped it behind an ear. “I was in a car accident four years ago.”

  She sensed his interest, almost physical in intensity, yet he remained silent. She really did appreciate his patience. “It started out as a simple Saturday afternoon. I was driving, just getting out of town for the day. There was a stop sign I didn’t see. I wasn’t paying attention. I was arguing with Mathew, someone I’d been dating for a little over six months. It was getting pretty serious. We were arguing over something so stupid. A reality television show of all things and one of the actors.” She hugged her arms against her chest. “Well, I went through the intersection without stopping. There was another car. I’m sure they never thought I’d run it. We were t-boned. The passenger door buckled under the force. Mathew didn’t stand a chance.” She swallowed, trying to find the right words, the right phrases.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She glanced over at Luke. She saw exactly what she didn’t want to see. Pity. Yet there was more. Sincerity and love in his blue-eyed gaze. “In the other car there was a little girl. Just three. She had curly brown hair. She didn’t have her seatbelt on. She was ejected from the car. She was dead before the ambulance arrived.”

  “Jesus. Kennedy, I…”

  “You can’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. Don’t even try because it was. I took full responsibility. The family was surprisingly forgiving and invited me to the funeral service. I showed up, but God, it broke my heart. All that pain because of me. And then there was Mathew’s family.”

  “Kennedy, I understand now. I feel like such an ass.”

  “How could you know? I wasn’t exactly forthcoming. I’d fly at you if you so much asked me a question about anything in my life.”

  “What about your parents? Your family?”

  “They tried to understand. But really? It’s pretty hard to empathize.”

  “So you dealt with it on your own…”

  “As best as I could, which wasn’t very well.”

  “But you’re getting there.”

  “Yes. Slowly, surely. These last couple of weeks have been a catalyst. First with you. You’ve been the reason why I want to change, to believe that I’m deserving of love. But in order for that to happen, I know I need to forgive myself. Then the night when I was almost killed led me further forward in healing.”

  Luke exhaled in a loud rush. “I wish I’d known. I wish I’d been there to help you.”

  “I didn’t give you that chance.” She reached over and brushed her knuckles against his jaw. He pressed his check against her hand and briefly closed his eyes. “Now, though, if you’re willing…”

  “God yeah.” He glanced her way. The intensity in his gaze matched his words. “You’d don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear words like that from you.”

  She reached into her purse resting by her feet on the car floor and pulled out the sunglasses the woman at the mall had given her. She slipped them on her nose and looked over at Luke.

  The glasses flickered, a white slash of light sprang across both lenses. Then Luke’s face came into focus. Green and blue with a hint of white radiated from his being. She remembered searching the Internet on the different aura colors. Green and blue. Creativity and love. Beautiful colors just like the man.

  “Pull over and try them on.” She slipped the glasses off and offered them across the car’s console. “I want to know what you see.”

  Luke’s lips firmed. “This sounds far too familiar. How about this time though, we don’t go there, hmm? Wouldn’t it be better to leave it alone?” Luke urged. His hand visibly tightened around the wheel again. “What if it’s the same gray? What then? You might wonder if death is still coming even after your near brush with it with that killer. You’ll be a wreck if that’s the case.”

  “Please,” she whispered. “I need to know. I’m pretty sure the colors aren’t about death. I thought that at the beginning, but I think there’s more to it.”

  Sighing, he pulled the car over to the side of the road. After taking them from her hand, he slipped them on. She waited tensely as he turned and regarded her. She saw her reflection in the lenses, but the image didn’t reveal the tension, the fear tightening her chest.

  “Well?”

  His lips twisted. Then he yanked the glasses off and tossed them her way. She caught them in mid-air. “Green.”

  “Green?”

  “Yes. A beautiful emerald green with a hint of yellow.”

  Kennedy searched his face, looking for signs of lying. Luke didn’t lie. At least she’d never seen or caught him in one. She melted against the buckle seat of the car.

  “Satisfied?” Luke asked, a half-smile playing across his lips.

  “Oh, yeah.” Between her thumb and index finger, she twirled the arm of the glasses. “You know, I have a good idea the gray wasn’t about death. Not in the literal since. It was about not living, about existing and little else. The green just told me what I suspected. I have color now because I want to experience everything life has to give me. I have faith. Something I thought I’d never regain.”

  Luke guided the car back onto the road. With a flick of the wrist, she tossed the sunglasses out the window. She stared at the side mirror of the car and saw the frames bounce across the tarmac and land on the side of the road. They disappeared from view.

  It felt right letting them go…along with her past.

  ###

  The Shrouded Series

  SHROUDED IN DARKNESS – NOW AVAILABLE

  Winner of the Ready-Set-Go Peninsula RWA Contest

  Finalist in the Suzannah North Louisiana RWA Contest

  1st place in Peninsula RWA Chapter’s contest.

  Jake Preston is on borrowed time. If he doesn’t stumble upon a miracle and soon, he’ll end up dead. And even if he does, he still might end up dead with a clever killer hounding his heels. He believes that the one miracle and antidote to save him is in Margot Davenport’s house, across the country and miles away from Boston. Somewhere locked in her home is the key to reversing an experiment that is killing him.

  Margot doesn’t particularly care if she ends up dead. She’s lost everything she’s ever cared for. A divorce and the loss of her job as a corporate lawyer has left her with little faith in herself or in anyone else. Most importantly, she’s lost the one person on this earth she’s looked up to and cherished–her brother, Johnny. His death in a car accident has devastated her, and she can’t find the willpower to pull herself from the chasm she’s fallen into. Her only solace is at the bottom of a wineglass. Having moved back to the small town in northern Arizona where she was raised, she’s made a point of isolating herself bo
th mentally and physically from everyone other than a few chosen friends. Little does she know that her life is going to explode into chaos and the person behind Johnny's death is coming after her.

  SHROUDED IN MYSTERY – COMING SOON

  1st place in Beacon Contest under the Paranormal Category.

  1st place in the Emily West Houston Chapter RWA Contest – Paranormal Category

  Honorable Mention from On the Far Side Contest from the Fantasy Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of RWA

  Finalist in First Coast Romance Writers Unpublished Beacon Contest – 2006

  John Davenport wakes from a car accident with a dead man beside him and a duffle bag in the back seat with over one hundred thousand dollars in cash and a loaded gun. He has no memory of his past or how he got there. His only clues are a photo with the address of a shelter and a driver’s license with the name of Clark Kent. They lead him to Boston, but once there, he’s left with more questions and a sense of eminent danger.

  But nothing prepares him for the phenomena he finds within himself. His hearing’s more acute than any animal, his strength beyond anything human. Stranger still, he shares the same alias as the renowned Superman.

  Katherine Spalding knows she’s one of the lucky ones. Born with money and looks, raised and educated among Boston’s elite, she has the respect and admiration of friends and the community. But her luck’s about to turn to chaos when a tall, gorgeous man with the most incredible gray eyes stumbles into her life. Katherine doesn’t know what to make of him. He claims he’s Clark Kent. But is he saint or sinner, hero or villain or...just plain crazy? Is she willing to find out, even at the risk of her life?

  SHROUDED IN ILLUSION – COMING 2013

  1st place in the CTRW Connections Contest

  Someone wants Skye Hunter’s son, Tyler, and they’re willing to kill to get him. On the run for her life, Skye turns to the only person she believes can help her—a complete stranger with a shared past.

  David Bishop thinks Skye is crazy. But when he realizes she has the same strange phenomenon inside her body that he does—the ability to move objects with her mind, David is forced to question his life, his childhood and his father’s motives. Can these two lost souls uncover the mystery of their telekinetic powers and save Tyler and themselves in the process?

  EXCERPT OF SHROUDED IN DARKNESS

  Fear of self is the greatest of all terrors, the deepest of all dread, the commonest of all mistakes. From it grows failure. Because of it, life is a mockery. Out of it comes despair. — David Seabury

  CHAPTER 1

  Margot Davenport should never have opened the front door. She should have just kept on getting slowly and thoroughly drunk that night. But the pounding on the door went on and on, reverberating throughout the house and inside her skull. Stumbling from the couch in the living room, Margot knocked over her glass and an empty wine bottle, and grabbed onto her throbbing head with a hand.

  “Damn it!”

  In the hall, she tripped over her calico cat, Marmaduke, who streaked past her and up the stairs. She swore again. The banging continued. The crazy fool outside had given up on the doorbell long ago.

  “John! Come on. Open up! It’s me, Jake!”

  At the mention of Johnny’s name, Margot’s stomach twisted and rolled with sudden nausea. “Okay! Okay! Give me a second.”

  She groped for the light switch to the hall. Nothing happened.

  “Damn, stupid thing!” That’s what she got for not replacing the house’s ancient wiring.

  “John, I’m freezing my ass off!”

  “What do you expect,” Margot muttered, wondering if this guy was playing some sick joke at her expense.

  Margot hit the outside light switch and peered through the glass panel beside the door. A man stood on the front porch. She didn’t recognize him, but then again, the sheet of snow and the light’s glare against the night backdrop didn’t help matters.

  A gun or pepper spray for protection sounded pretty nice right now, but Margot hated guns and had never expected the need, living on the outskirts of Greyson, Arizona. It wasn’t like this town up in the White Mountains was loaded with crime. The worst incident had been a case of disorderly conduct last winter, and that had been from a drunken tourist.

  “Who is it?”

  A pause on the other side followed—almost as if she’d surprised him.

  “Margot? Is that you? It’s Jake Preston.”

  Though muffled, his words were clear enough to make out. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t recall what Johnny had said about him.

  Margot frowned and winced as pain cut across her temple, brow and the base of her skull. She should have stopped at one glass of wine. “How do you know Johnny?”

  “I worked with him at Miltronics for several years on the outskirts of Boston.”

  Margot debated about turning this Jake away as she watched him stamp his feet against the porch. He must be freezing—what with the wind and snow.

  “I know it’s late, but I need to talk to John. Please. If you could just get him, you’ll see I’m harmless.”

  The urgency in his voice made her decide. He obviously didn’t know about her brother. She sighed heavily. What she had to tell him wasn’t going to be easy.

  Margot unlatched the lock and opened the door.

  An angry gust of wind burst into the house, tearing the knob from her grasp. The door flew wide and crashed against the wall. Gasping, she reeled back as snow flew in, stabbing her face with icy spikes.

  “Here, let me.” He stepped inside and shoved the door closed with his shoulder. He turned his back against the light from the kitchen, casting his face in shadow. His baseball cap further shielded his features—along with sunglasses of all things.

  How very odd. Sudden apprehension curled up her spine as Margot stepped away from Jake and the doorway. Topping a good six-feet, he appeared far larger than when he’d stood behind a locked door.

  “What are the sunglasses for?” she asked.

  “The light.”

  “What?”

  “My eyes. They’re sensitive to light. I injured both corneas as a child.”

  “Oh.” She must have been staring at him like an idiot, but something about him made her uneasy. And it wasn’t just the glasses and pale complexion.

  He must have sensed her disquiet, because he explained further, “It’s called traumatic iritis. It’s something I’ve had to live with for as long as I can remember.” He shrugged a large canvas backpack from his shoulder and placed it on the floor. “Can you get John for me?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Margot never intended the words to come out so abrupt and final, but...it hurt. Balling her hands into fists, she fought against the sudden tears that burned the back of her eyes. Please no. Not now. She couldn’t fall apart in front of this stranger.

  “He can’t be. That’s impossible.”

  EXCERPT OF SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

  True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. – Arthur Ashe

  CHAPTER 1

  He came to with a jolt. Wind rushed through the broken windshield and slashed vicious tentacles against his face, while shattered glass and snow lay scattered across the dashboard and his lap. Pain cut into his skull and the back of his neck. With a tentative hand, he touched his brow and came away with damp fingers.

  Blood.

  He blinked several times, unable to understand why he sat behind the wheel of a car.

  Some type of car accident? He couldn’t remember.

  The vehicle rested at an odd angle, its nose dipped downward, and the driver’s side tilted toward the pine tops. Waning light turned a cloudless sky to a dirty gray. Dawn or dusk? He didn’t know. He couldn’t think. How had he gotten here?

  Lifting his hands, he peered at them. They were large, long fingered, and free of calluses. Fine brown hairs dusted their b
acks. Stranger’s hands. His hands.

  He wrestled for answers—a memory, an image, a clue to his identity—anything.

  Nothing but a black, empty slate.

  Panic welled in his throat and cut off the air to his lungs. He couldn’t remember anything about himself. He didn’t have a name, a past, a family. He didn’t exist.

  Finally, he managed to drag in a lungful of air, but its frigid sting rushed passed his throat and into his lungs too fast. Oxygen flooded his head and white sparks danced across his peripheral vision.

  No. He needed to stop. Now. And focus. Think.

  He forced himself to relax, to calm the wild thump of his heart. After a moment he managed to breathe in a slow, steady rhythm, and the panic eased. He turned and noticed the passenger to his right. A man sat slumped, silent, his body thrown forward and held in place by his seatbelt.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  No answer.

  He nudged the man’s shoulder with a hand. “Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He unbuckled his seatbelt and slapped a palm against the dashboard to stop from pitching forward. Awkwardly, he twisted in his seat, eased forward and ducked to get a better look at the person’s face. That’s when he noticed the hole above the passenger’s open and unblinking eye. For several long, heart-rending seconds, he stared at how the blood pooled from the wound, and then dripped, again and again, slowly but steadily onto the person’s jean clad leg.