NEW RELEASE!*
When hearts meet, magic happens.
Blurb -
Single father and
firefighter, Steve Rankin has every reason to distrust flighty people, given
the way his former girlfriend dropped their infant daughter on his doorstep six
years ago then left to ‘find herself.’ When the fortune-teller at the
Renaissance fair tells him there’s a woman who needs him, he rejects the
prediction as so much idiocy from a fraud who couldn’t even predict a fire in
time to save her booth from burning to the ground.
Shannon Perry isn’t
looking for love, despite her friend Nadya’s prediction that a man with broad
shoulders is in her future. It’s been years since Shannon has felt anything
except numb, so when desire stirs in her body for the sexy firefighter with the
adorable sprite of a daughter, stepping closer to the flames is too tempting to
resist. From the sparks of desire, the fire burns hot and fast for both of
them, but lessons learned the hard way could stand between them and a future
together.
Excerpt:
He located the fortune teller’s booth
easily enough. Pending a determination of the cause of the fire, the charred
remains were untouched. As he stood there assessing the damage, the older woman
he recognized from the day before approached.
“Such a tragedy.” Her thick accent sounded
as fake as her fortune-telling skills. “I’ve lost everything.” She shook her
head in dismay, her springy black hair swinging from side to side like a cloud
of smoke.
“Not everything,” he said, pointing to
the one object still recognizable in the rubble. “Looks like your crystal ball
survived.”
“Oh! I see it!”
Steve grabbed her arm, stopping her from
wading into the ashes. “Wait! You can’t go in there dressed like that.” He
waved a hand at her velvet slippers embroidered with gold thread.
“But I must have my crystal ball,” she
cried.
He’d read the report this morning. There
would be no more inquiry into the cause. The old woman admitted to leaving an
illegal candle burning inside the tent while she went to a nearby bank of
portable toilets. The official cause was negligence, which in his mind proved
the booth owner a fraud. If she could tell fortunes, wouldn’t she have foreseen
the tragedy and done something, like extinguish the candle, to prevent the
fire?
“Stay here,” he admonished. “I’ll get it
for you.”
The glass orb was covered in soot, but
otherwise appeared untouched by the flames. Using a rag from his backpack, he
cleaned the object as best he could before handing it to the owner.
“Thank you, sir.” She held the heavy
piece of glass in the palm of one hand while rubbing it reverently with the
other. “You are the young man who came to help yesterday.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I couldn’t do
more.”
“You tried, and for that, I am extremely
grateful. It could have been much worse.”
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have had a
real candle burning, and you really shouldn’t have gone off and left it
unattended. The whole faire could have burned to the ground.”
She had the good sense to appear
contrite. “I know, but those flameless candles don’t provide the same atmosphere
as real ones. It’s hard enough getting people to believe. Providing the right
ambience makes people more receptive.”
“I just bet it does,” he muttered. What
little tolerance he had for the charlatan wore thinner by the minute. He
turned, intending to escape before he said something that might get him in
trouble if it got back to the department.
“Wait!” A wrinkled hand on his arm
stopped him. “Don’t go. Let me read your fortune—as a way to thank you for what
you did yesterday. You weren’t able to save my booth, but you kept the fire
from spreading. I owe you a great debt.”
Silently praying for patience, he faced
her again, hoping he would find some polite words to replace the ones running
through his head. The pleading expression on the woman’s face made him feel
like a jerk for thinking bad thoughts about her. Hell, she was probably
someone’s grandmother, looking for a way to supplement her Social Security
check. He could afford a few extra minutes to humor her.
“Okay. You tell me what your crystal
ball says about my future, and we’ll call it even.”
He followed her to a sprawling oak tree
behind the row of vendor booths where she’d spread a rug that looked to have
been around longer than the century-old tree shading it. She sat, motioning him
to join her. When he did, sitting cross-legged in front of her, she placed the
glass orb between them.
“Concentrate. Focus on the center of the
crystal ball.” She demonstrated, bending over to peer directly at the heavy
object.
“Don’t you need to know my name or
something?”
“No. You’ve touched the ball. It knows
all there is to know about you.”
“Too bad it didn’t know your tent was
going to burn down.”
“Perhaps it did, sir. Everything happens
for a reason.”
“What’s the reason for a fire that could
have caused massive damage and loss of life?”
“Ahh, but the only damage occurred to my
tent,” she reasoned. “Perhaps the fire was necessary to bring you to me. You
wouldn’t have come otherwise, would you?”
And expose Megan to a transient liar
and cheat? Hell, no. “No, I wouldn’t have stopped at your tent.”
“There’s your answer. The message the
crystal ball holds for you must be very important.” She took a deep breath
before placing her hands on the ball. “Focus on the crystal, sir. Open your
mind to possibilities.”
Steve glared at the fortune-teller. Her
eyes were closed while she made woo-woo sounds and waved her hands around. He
barely contained his laughter. Absolutely ridiculous, but entertaining. He
could see why people paid for a reading. The spectacle was worth a few bucks.
“You aren’t concentrating.”
“I am,” he lied. Tearing his gaze from
the show, he leaned down and stared into the ball.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her hands stilled
in midair. “Do you see it?”
“See what?”
“Your future.” Suddenly, she bent over,
cradled the ball in her hands, and stared at it as if it were the most
interesting snow globe ever. “There’s a woman—”
“Oh, no, there’s not.” He had a few
female friends he thought of as fuck buddies, but there was no woman, and there
never would be. Been there, done that, have the daughter to prove it.
The charlatan continued as if he hadn’t
spoken. “She needs you. She’s been wandering for a long time, but she wants to
come home. She desires you, but she isn’t sure she can settle. The freedom of
the road comforts her.”
Theresa.
“You must convince her to stay, to put
down roots again, to trust, to love.”
No way in hell.
“You need someone to love you, to make a
home with you and your daughter. You desire this woman. Open your heart to her,
and you will see she is everything you want and need.”
“Wait.” Steve snapped out of whatever
spell she’d woven over him. “How did you know about my daughter?” He had
buddies on the police force. If this crazy woman had been anywhere near his
family, he would have her locked up for good.
“The crystal showed her to me.”
“Like it showed you my ex?” He stood,
not caring who witnessed his angry outburst. “Stay away from me, and stay away
from my daughter!”
The old woman struggled to her feet.
“The woman…she is not your former girlfriend. I know nothing about this person
you speak of. This woman is in your future. She is very important in your life.
You must not let her get away.”
“Lady, I don’t know what you’re trying
to pull, but the last thing I need or want in my life is a woman.” He towered
over her, his patience and goodwill dissipating like summer rain on hot
concrete. “Did Theresa put you up to this? Is she here?”
As the idea occurred to him, he looked
around, expecting to see Megan’s mother stroll out from behind a tree.
“I do not know this Theresa you speak
of.”
“You described her—flighty, wanderer,
can’t settle. That’s Theresa.”
“This Theresa…she needs you?”
“Hell, no. Theresa never needed anyone
but herself.” Not even her daughter.
“Then she is not the woman the crystal
showed me. The woman in your future needs you. She has traveled many
miles, searching for love. You must find her before she is lost to you.”
Steve rubbed a hand over his face. She’s
nuttier than a fruitcake. And you’re crazy to be listening to her.
He swung his backpack off his shoulder, digging until he found the paper he
wanted.
“Here.” He handed her the citation for
violating city code by having an open flame in her booth. “Pay the fine at City
Hall before you leave town.”
“I will, but you must listen—”
“Save your show for someone who cares,”
he said, walking away.
Reaching the interior of the faire once
again, Steve paused with his hands on his hips. Since the event wouldn’t open
until later in the afternoon on this weekday, only a few people milled about.
At the far end of the mock medieval village, a man dressed in jeans and a
cowboy hat groomed one of several horses tethered to a makeshift hitching rail.
A few craftspeople arranged their stock while food vendors opened their carts
in preparation for the tourists expected later.
He nodded at a guy pushing a cart loaded
with boxes of frozen french fries—anything to avoid looking toward the one
place he didn’t want to see.
He sensed her presence, and it was
darned annoying the way he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Volunteering to
deliver the citation had been a convenient justification for doing what he
really wanted to do. See Shannon Perry again.
* Hearts on Fire first appeared in the multi-author anthology, Seduction - One Fortune at a Time (Cupid Publishing, Sept., 2014)
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