He had never experienced anything like it, a single dream that had crossed seven-and-a-half months of time. All of it about a woman he had never met. Hell, she probably didn’t even exist, outside of those memories, even now lingering in his thoughts. Hesitating before its door, he steeled himself. “Come on, Derrick. Just do this already.” He grabbed the doorknob, pulling it quickly open as he stepped inside.
The shop was full. There to his left, only one empty table. Both its chairs abandoned in the midst of the crowd. No man spilling coffee down his front. No blonde sitting at the table with the only empty chair. Sighing, Derrick shook his head. “Thought so. Just a dream.” Grabbing the doorknob, he stepped from the shop.
Stretching with all her might beneath the coffee shop table, Annie caught the corner of the bookmark with the tip of her finger. Slowly drawing it toward her she then grabbed hold of it, sitting back up. Tucking it back within the pages of her book, she took a sip of her coffee. Setting the cup aside, she returned to her reading.
Derrick pulled the coffee shop door shut behind him. Walking to his limousine, he paused at its door, staring at it as he tried to push the memories from his mind. The memories of him and Annie.
“It was just so real.” He shook his head, and opening the door he climbed in, pulling it closed behind him. “Anywhere, Lawrence, please.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Sloane.” He pulled into traffic, a blue sedan swerving to miss a cyclist heading straight for him, and he veered sharply left, the sedan then jumping the curb as it smashed into the coffee shop window.
Derrick jumped from his car, running back to the coffee shop. The man from the sedan staggering past him, as the reek of booze wafted around him. Pushing chairs and tables aside, Derrick reached into the mangled mess, grabbing the hand of someone there under the debris. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said.
Pulling her free, he stared down into her eyes. “Annie…”
About the Author
Lauren Hunter is a writer of Regency and paranormal romance novels, with plans to write in a variety of other genres, including time travel, angel, ghost, and contemporary romance, as well as more Regency and paranormal. Besides novels, she also writes poetry and short stories, with her poems appearing in anthologies from England, Holland, and the US. Appearing in a number of The International Library of Poetry’s anthologies, she has received the Editor’s Choice Award and was published in The International Who’s Who of Poetry 2004.
http://www.wix.com/lhunter1/romance
Table of Contents
Cover
title page
Copyright Information
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About the Author
The Coffee Shop Page 27
