Muse

by M. Lynne Cunning

  MUSE

  M. Lynne Cunning

  Copyright © 2016 M. Lynne Cunning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Please do not partake in or encourage piracy of copyrighted works in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting this author’s hard work.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales, events, or actual persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 1541237161

  ISBN-13: 978-1541237162

  DEDICATION

  This one is for anyone who has ever written a story purely for the sake of telling it, regardless of whether others understand it, like it, or read it.

  That’s what it’s all about.

  An unrelenting yearning to die,

  Yet unchosen damnation to remain eternally.

  Far worse than to be spared

  And be permitted to lay frigid in the ground.

  Refused life, refused death,

  But nonetheless allowed the indignant necessity

  Of reckless robbing of the breath and passion of others.

  The beating heart and boiling blood

  Halted by creation, a monster,

  Incapable of preventing the inevitable demise of the innocent.

  A fate resulting in being victimized,

  They are stalked with the instinctive precision

  And unquenchable thirst of a cunning and ruthless predator.

  The longing to stake and burn my inner demons overcomes me,

  Yet the unbearable hunger for release overpowers all else.

  With want of nothing more than the cease of my mere existence,

  I await the moment that the hunter becomes the hunted;

  The moment my passionate quest to ease the unconquerable hunger within me

  Is abruptly and irrevocably ended.

  In that defining moment,

  When the insufferable pain that wills me to destroy has subsided,

  And the last breathless heave of my chest has escaped my body…

  In that moment, I will know life.

  M. Lynne Cunning

  CHAPTER 1

  “It’s just dinner, Michael.”

  “I said I can’t do it, Lauren,” he barked back, his brow furrowed in frustration as he turned away to concentrate on the magazine he was skimming through. After a few moments, he peered at her over the edge of the magazine.

  “We’ll go out next week or something, okay?” he said.

  Lauren glared at him from across the room. “You’ll be working the same number of hours next week, Mike, if not more. Besides, our friends are inviting us out tonight, not next week. We’ve declined the last two times everyone got together. Pretty soon, everyone will just stop calling to ask us out.”

  Michael tossed the magazine down on the coffee table in front of him, leaning ahead to sit up straight and stare at her squarely. “I work, Lauren, and when I get home in the evenings, the last thing I want to do is dress up in uncomfortable clothes and go hang out with a few other couples who I don’t necessarily care to spend time with on a regular basis.”

  She’d been drying a dish. Now she set it on the counter with a harsh clang, her eyes widening with disbelief and anger. “Michael, there was a time when Maryanne and Todd were people you considered good friends as well. Or did you forget that?”

  He pushed himself out of the tattered armchair he used to spend so many evening hours in. He looked at Lauren, his arms at his sides, and she could tell he was trying to determine the simplest way to get out of this argument without having to give in and go out to dinner.

  “You are more than welcome to go out with our friends tonight,” he stated, emphasizing the word our. He walked quietly across the living room to the kitchen counter, where he leaned against it, his stance betraying his exhaustion. Lauren threw the tea towel into the sink and stomped across the room, refusing to meet his gaze.

  “You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Nadine and let her know that, once again, we’ll be staying home. I wonder what excuse I can use this time. Sickness? Maybe Piper has to go to the vet. Or maybe, just maybe, we can tell her the truth, that you have decided no one is worthy of your time anymore? That you’d rather only go out with your brother on the weekends, not with your old friends or your wife?” Lauren grabbed the cordless phone from the base on the counter and hastily strode into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  She could hear Michael approach the bedroom door warily and could almost visualize the look on his face as he held his clenched fist up to the door, preparing to knock, and then thought better of it. His footsteps retreated back into the living room, and Lauren knew very well he’d gone back to sitting in his chair, reclined with his magazine, content in his confidence that she would get over her frustration and pretend like nothing had happened. She sighed loudly, trying to calm herself down. She dialed Nadine’s number and felt a rush of relief when her husband, Aaron, answered. Lauren broke the bad news that they wouldn’t be going out tonight, but knew Aaron was not one to press for details. He hung up, promising to pass on the news to Nadine, and said he hoped to see them soon.

  She sprawled herself across the neatly made bed, her chestnut hair strewn over the pillows around her, the phone still gripped tightly in her hand. After a few minutes, knowing nothing was going to resolve itself by hiding and staring bleakly at the ceiling tiles, Lauren cautiously opened the bedroom door, the soft click of the handle being the only sound to announce her reappearance, and made her way down the short hallway to return the telephone to its base. Michael’s gaze didn’t leave the page he was intently pretending to read.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” she said. He looked up.

  He’d cracked open a Budweiser and had it sitting beside the coaster on the coffee table. She cringed, wondered idly if he had placed it there on purpose, but then quickly decided to pick her battles and let it go this time.

  “I don’t want to fight with you either, Lauren,” he said. “Mostly because you always win.”

  She saw the flicker of amusement cross his face, her irritation subsiding slightly. He tossed the magazine beside his beer and got up, walking over and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pulling her to his chest. He kissed the top of her head. The tension eased in her posture and she was returning his embrace before she even realized it.

  “We’ll go out next week, okay? If Maryanne and Todd or Nadine and Aaron can’t come, then we’ll just go out alone.” He pulled back and lifted Lauren’s chin to meet his gaze. “Just the two of us. I promise.” He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. Suddenly, she realized she was hoping that neither Maryanne nor Nadine could make it next week.

  The corner of her mouth twitched in humor. “We haven’t gone out just the two of us in a long time, Mike. You might not remember how to go on a date with me.”

  Michael’s eyes glinted as he stared at her, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “It has been a while, but if my memory serves me correctly, I should probably take you out to that little restaurant on Elita West. Gloriana’s, isn’t it?”

  Lauren watched, amused, as he furrowed his eyebrows and pretended to be thinking really hard to remember the intricate details trapped deep within his long buried memories. The truth was, it was the only nice sit-down restaurant in close proximity of their rural home.

  “Ah, yes, Gloriana’s,” he continued. “You’ll order a glass of cabernet sauvign
on, and I’ll order one of those beers from some microbrewery I’ve never heard of. We will talk, laugh, and forget that we ever had this little argument. And,” he paused to stare at her knowingly, kissing her again, “if I’m really lucky and on my best behavior, you will have a second glass of wine, not care that I’ve been a jerk over the past few weeks, let go of your inhibitions, and I can bring you home, where you will succumb to my charm and charisma, and I will have you out of that little black dress you love to wear by the time we get the front door closed.”

  Lauren’s eyes widened as she bit back laughter. “Is that so? Well, I’m so glad you’ve thought this whole thing through.” She could feel Michael’s hands pressing into her back as he pulled her against him, obviously aware he was winning her over. She made a mental note to try to rehearse her fighting arguments next time before letting him get his hands on her.

  He kissed her again, smiling unabashedly now. “Are you kidding? I’ve played the scene over in my mind at least three times since I thought of it.” He laughed, running his hands along her back. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed his touch until this moment.

  “It sounds like a wonderful evening, Michael,” Lauren said, her voice lowered. “Just remember, you promised. No backing out of it now.” She paused, arching an eyebrow. “How else is that little black dress going to make it to the floor without Gloriana’s, cabernet sauvignon, and your charm and charisma?”

  In one quick moment, Michael lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck to hold herself there. With one hand holding her firmly, he went to the coffee table and plucked his opened beer from the surface. Then, he made his way to the refrigerator, setting his beer on the counter, removed a half full bottle of pinot noir from the bottom shelf of the door, and handed it to her, shutting the refrigerator door with his foot. She took the bottle, looking at him with a quizzical yet delighted expression on her face.

  “I know this isn’t Gloriana’s, and that’s not the wine you’d order there,” he motioned toward the bottle in her hand, “but I figure we should skip the dinner and give this whole date night thing a trial run.”

  Lauren laughed, throwing her head back in amusement. “You’re not heading to the ranch to work late again?”

  Michael’s eyes were intense. “I have a better idea.” The mischievous glint in his eyes reappeared.

  “I don’t even get a wine glass?” Lauren quipped, holding up the bottle. He reached over and twisted the cap off the bottle, tossing it on the counter.

  “I told you, this isn’t Gloriana’s.”

  Michael leaned her against the fridge and kissed her hungrily, smiling against her lips. He pulled his face away to look into her hazel eyes, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

  “Good thing this isn’t Gloriana’s,” Lauren said breathlessly, her pulse quickening as she turned her head to the side to take a sip from the wine bottle.

  Michael grabbed his beer from the counter and, stopping off momentarily to lock the front door and turn off the lights, carried her toward the bedroom.

  “Good thing.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Lauren sat at her desk staring aimlessly at the faint shadows cast in lengthy shapes across the walls of her dimly lit office. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly an office, more of an extra room in their two-bedroom house. It had been haphazardly converted into a makeshift place where she could sit in front of the computer and ruminate about the lack of words being typed across the glowing screen.

  She was unable to understand why this story she was hell-bent on writing was eluding her so greatly. The idea was there. The main points in the plot were even planned out in intricate detail in the depths of her mind. However, somehow, and she wasn’t sure of exactly how, but somehow the story was stuck. She couldn’t seem to break through the dense fog that prevented her from pressing her fingers madly against the keyboard and taking it to the next level. Many people called it writer’s block. Lauren called it absolute hell. It wasn’t fair to have a story take up so much space in her mind when it completely refused to be told.

  This is going to make me crazy.

  The problem was simple. The story, a mainstream romance that allowed her main character named Sarah to find and fall in love with her one true love after many trials and tribulations, was exactly what any reader would expect when it came to reading a romance novel. All the key aspects were there: the love triangle, the lust, the love, the conflict. Every ingredient was available to concoct the perfect heart-wrenching romance novel that any reader and lover of the genre would swoon over. But the key element was missing. And what was that?

  The man. There is always a male character readers seem to dislike from the beginning but reluctantly want to know more, even though they shouldn’t want to know more. The brooding, dark, ruggedly handsome man who seems to be capable of saying only a few words, and those few words are exactly what make female readers melt from the inside out.

  He exudes heat in his voice, his tone, his manner, and his touch. No matter how certain a woman is that she shouldn’t get involved with someone like that, she realizes all too late that she’s already involved.

  The reader has wanted that man since the moment he showed up on the page. He’s what keeps the pages turning. He’s what a romantic novel requires in order to be, well, a story of romance.

  He is what Lauren couldn’t quite seem to extract from her brain. No matter how hard she tried, how much she struggled to focus on what he might look like, how he might act, who he might be, she just could not seem to get him to reveal his identity. She couldn’t get him to reveal anything about himself. He wasn’t just lost, he was completely shut out from her mind. She had no access to this character, and it drove her insane. Day after day, evening after evening, Lauren sat in that chair and stared at that computer monitor without typing so much as another sentence.

  She lowered her head into her hands and shook her head sadly from side to side. It had been almost three weeks since she’d been able to hit the keyboard keys and make that cursor move steadily across the screen. Three weeks of nothing. She’d never had this kind of trouble with a work in progress before. Heck, the first novel she’d written had taken a total of eight months to write, edit, rewrite a few sections, and then send off to a few small publishing houses, only to have the novel picked up by one of them within five weeks.

  The book had been moderately successful. She had a few signings under her belt and some great reviews. She wanted nothing more than to feel almost invincible again, as the words came easily and flowed onto the screen without even consciously typing them.

  That first story was aching to be told. Lauren had thought the same about the second novel, too, at least until the river ran dry three weeks ago. A story that had seemed so destined to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps had now come to a crashing halt.

  And, if she paired that sad truth with the frustrating state of her and Michael’s marriage, Lauren just didn’t know how much more she could handle. It was almost impossible to imagine it all going on this way for much longer.

  Last night was a prime example of how things were going, if only a milder example. They’d argued, yes, but it ended the same way their more heated arguments always did. In bed. Michael knew that promises of things getting better and a little wining and dining could always smooth things over with her.

  The part she didn’t understand was why it always took an argument or a full-out yelling match for him to make the effort to be that man, the one who said sweet things and spent time with her. The sexy smiles and late night rendezvous as they drank wine from the bottle didn’t hurt either. The Michael she’d married only four years earlier had done things like that. It wasn’t something she could say he did often, but at least then it hadn’t taken a heated argument to coax a little affection from him.

  She knew he worked hard, and the hours he worked were long, but it seemed like each day the hours he spent at work were stretching further and
further into the evening. She shouldn’t complain because, in theory, the solitude allowed her more freedom to spend time writing. That said, there were some nights where he didn’t get home until well after Lauren had climbed into bed and turned off the lights. She was aware that running the ranch with Ellis, his brother, was difficult, perhaps even more difficult than the two brothers had expected it to be after their father passed away two years ago. She understood the importance of taking over the family business and that the value of the ranch wasn’t just sentimental. The property and business were Michael and Ellis’s inheritance, and to own a business of that magnitude outright, well, Lauren understood the brothers’ desire to follow in their father’s footsteps and make use of his final gift to them. She didn’t want to be upset that Michael was always gone.

  She didn’t want to portray the picture of neediness when she asked him on countless occasions when he thought he would be home. She didn’t want to despise the way things had turned out for them after taking over the ranch here in Texas. She didn’t want to feel like things were only going to get worse as time went on, and she sure didn’t want to feel like she wasn’t truly living by being stuck in a world that resembled such unhappiness.

  Unfortunately, she did.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lauren woke up groggy, streaks of sunlight breaking through the unevenly drawn curtains. A groan escaped her throat as she rolled over and peered through a half opened eye at the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock. Seven in the morning. It was the weekend. Why in the bloody hell was she awake at such an ungodly hour on a day she was able to sleep in? Then she heard the noises from beyond the bedroom door. She listened closely and realized Michael was home and shuffling about in the kitchen. Lauren instantly hoped he was in the process of making coffee, but then another thought crossed her mind. Had he come home last night, or just now, this morning?