But would he still be that sweet guy when I revealed the truth about who I was? Could I really take that chance? My parents, the ones who were supposed to love me no matter who or what I was, hadn’t been able to do it.
As I kicked off my shoes and removed my jeans I realized that at that moment all my worries about Beck’s reaction to my magic didn’t matter. It was Christmas, and I had a wonderful guy warming up my bed for me. All the other stuff, all the trouble that would inevitably come could wait for another day. For now, I had the best gift a girl like me could ever want. And I wasn’t about to fritter it away by giving my uncertainties any more real estate in my heart.
Beck’s hand reached out and skimmed along the skin of my inner thigh, caressing me with clear suggestion. I licked my lips and grinned down at him.
“Merry Christmas, Beck Hale,” I murmured as I slipped my legs under the blankets, wrapping my arms around him and claiming his lips with mine.
Want More Lynlee Lincoln? Get Tangled Up in Trouble next...
BY THE TIME I ARRIVED at the scene, the red Pinto was dangling over the side of a bridge. Momentum tipped it forward then back a few times, but it wasn’t until someone moved inside that the vehicle pitched down then toppled off the edge. My heart palpitated in my chest, but I had no time to think. I ran to the rail and dove off. As my body free-fell, I shook my left hand to conjure my wand. I used it to inflate a bubble of air from the tip.
The freezing water felt like thousands of needles hitting my skin. I needed to suck in a breath but didn’t want to waste an ounce of the air within that bubble just in case I had to dive deep to rescue the car’s occupants. When my body surfaced, I discovered I wouldn’t have need for the air bubble I’d created because the poor car was taking its time sinking into the river.
The sun was setting behind me, and I knew it would get dark soon, so I waved my wand to get rid of the bubble of air and instead magicked a flashlight. Pointing the yellow beam ahead of me, I swam hard and saw that Helene was already making her way out of the sinking car.
Welcome to the life of a Neutralizer. It’s my job to get MAUCs (Magical And Undead Creatures) out of trouble. I’d orbed to Helene’s location lickety-split when I got her call. My clients hire me, Lynlee Lincoln, because they can bet on my quick response when they really get into a bind.
“Are you okay?” I called out, panting from the exertion.
She ignored me, instead sticking her head back through the window, tugging on something. Dog-paddling to the car, I looked closer and saw that it was a blond woman. She appeared to be unconscious, and Helene was having trouble getting her loose from her stubborn seatbelt. I pointed my wand at the belt, and as soon as it shredded apart, Helene pulled hard and the woman’s body slid through the open window.
She managed to get her companion to shore without any further help from me, even taking her friend up in her arms and carrying her to a dry spot under an oak tree. Helene’s kind were extraordinarily strong. The woman looked like she was beginning to stir, and that was when I noticed Helene’s lower body. Her legs looked a lot like a goat’s.
I followed her onto the shore and watched her pat the blonde affectionately on the face. Just about the time the woman opened her eyes, I managed to get a spell on Helene to hide her legs.
“Helene?” the poor girl murmured. “What happened? I could have sworn your legs...” She glanced down at Helene’s now perfectly normal legs. “I think I feel woozy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I advised her, waving my wand above her head. “You do feel woozy, don’t you? In fact, I think you feel like you want to sleep.”
When she closed her eyes, I narrowed mine at Helene. Her lower lip trembled and she dropped her gaze, looking contrite.
“C’mon, Helene... What gives? You haven’t been taking your potion, have you?”
It was a silly question. There was only one reason her hooved legs would reappear. Another few hours, and her horns would begin to show as well. It took a very strong potion to keep a satyress’ true identity hidden. I was pretty annoyed that she would take this sort of chance.
“Helene?”
“I hate keeping secrets from Letty. I mean, if they’re my friends, won’t they like me for who I am? Can’t anyone understand that?”
“Helene, seriously? You stopped taking your potion so your friends would learn to like the ‘real you’? Do you really think this little twit won’t mind that you have the ass of a goat and horns in your head?”
When Helene covered her face and began to wail, I started to think my comments were a little uncalled for. Okay, so it was a lot uncalled for. I was being more catty than usual because she had interrupted my date with Beck. We’d been having trouble getting time to ourselves and I was almost desperate to have him alone for a little while. I loved the kids and all, but Justin and Jilly weren’t really conducive to reigniting a romance.
I rubbed my palm across my face and shook my head. This wasn’t working out like I’d hoped. I glanced at my watch and hissed a breath of air from between my lips.
“Helene, don’t you see what happens when you try to invite humans into our world? Your poor friend Letty freaked out and nearly got both of you killed. Is that what you want?”
Helene shook her head wildly, hiccupping with tears still streaming down her face.
“Listen, I’ll tell you what. The EMS are coming down here now. Let’s get your girlfriend fixed up, give her a bit of time to recover from this accident, then you and I will tell her about you together. If she can’t accept it, I’ll wipe her memory and you can choose what you want to do about your friendship. Okay?”
Helene sniffed, wiping her runny nose and brushing her brown hair out of her eyes. “But what if she can accept it? Can I stay as my true self?”
I bit my lip. That would be almost impossible. She couldn’t go on living as a satyress. She’d either get stoned to death by the neighborhood kids or someone would shoot her and mount her on their wall. “I don’t know how we can work it, Helene. You know it isn’t possible. Perhaps we can design a potion that allows you to be yourself when you’re with her, but the rest of the world can’t know.”
“What about Hideaway Land?”
Crap, I thought. How the heck did she know about Hideaway Land?
The paramedics arrived and began treating Helene’s unconscious friend so I didn’t have to worry about answering that question ... yet.
~oOo~
I had to orb back to my home before I could go from there to Beck’s place. My power didn’t allow me to just jump from one place to another—just from my home base to a designated location. It wasn’t very late, so if I was lucky, Beck and I could still spend some time together alone. I ran into my house and grabbed a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio.
I was out of breath by the time I returned to the stone grotto that was hidden inside my rickety old storage shed. With my free hand, I used my wand to draw a glowing rectangle into the air.
Placing the wand between my teeth, I grabbed the amulet I kept around my neck and swung it in front of the glowing rectangle, concentrating on Beck as I did. Each of my charges had a stone cut from the same rock as my own amulet. Beck’s daughter Jilly was a nymph in my care, so she had one too. When the little girl’s father and I started dating, I decided he should have one as well.
As the stone danced back and forth, a map appeared, showing his location with a star in the center. He was home, and I grinned, all manner of wickedness playing in my mind as I imagined us sans children for a while. I touched the stone to the star before plugging it into a slot in the grotto. The blood in my veins cooled then left tingling trails just under the surface of my skin, and within a few seconds I appeared in the yard beside Beck Hale’s little, rural family home.
I found Beck inside making a grilled cheese sandwich. I smiled and approached him, ready to slither behind and wrap an arm around his waist. I stopped short, my hand about midway to his hips and almost groaned in frustration. There wer
e three plates on the counter, two of them with half a sandwich and a few potato chips.
Rolling my lower lip between my teeth a few times, I forced a smile and brought my hand down to grip the bottle of wine in front of me. “Hey there.”
“Hey, darlin’,” he grinned over his shoulder and turned back to the griddle. “You’re just in time for dinner.”
I sighed, struggling to suck up my utter disappointment. “Sounds delish.”
The deep rumble of his laughter did something to me. A warmth bubbled up in my stomach and I chuckled along with him as I plopped the Pinot on the counter with a thud.
He chuckled and tossed me a hot look as he flipped the finished sandwich on the third plate. “Just because Jilly’s here doesn’t mean we can’t open that, you know?”
Nodding, I took a seat at the bar and tapped my fingernails on the Formica. “Just Jilly? Three plates here. Did you know I was gonna show up?”
“Jilly’s friend Celia’s here too.”
“Justin?” I asked, watching him pop a chip into his mouth.
He winked as he chewed and leaned across the counter. After he’d swallowed, he puckered his lips out to me and I put mine out to him for a chaste kiss. “Justin’s still over at a friend’s house.”
“His friend Bobby?” I could have bitten my tongue when I said it. Beck didn’t notice my look of alarm as he went back to the stove and buttered two more slices of bread.
“Yeah, how’d you know?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just continued on. “I guess Justin probably mentioned him. I’m sorta surprised, actually. I didn’t think they were friends anymore. I mean, before we left they were always together, but when we got back, things were different.”
Beck and the kids had lived on the road for a few years because little Jilly was having terrors here at their home. That was how Beck and I had gotten back together. He came to me for aid when he couldn’t figure out how to help his little girl.
I was pretty unhappy that Beck would come to me and unearth all of the old feelings I had for him. We’d been an item years before until Beck decided he didn’t want to be with a witch—but then that’s another story...
He motioned to the napkin holder beside me and I grabbed a handful and passed them to him. When he took them, his fingers brushed mine, the simple touch reaching me deep down inside.
So, it turned out Jilly was a nymph, just like her deceased mother. Wasn’t that the irony of life? Beck didn’t want to fall in love with a “magical” person, and unbeknownst to him he’d married a nymph. Go figure.
After I’d helped Jilly by banishing the troll invading her home territory, Beck asked for another chance at “us.” So I was back to dating my former sweetheart, and Beck and his kids were back living in their home again.
“Well, sometimes it takes kids a bit of time to warm up again,” I offered, referring to Justin’s friend Bobby.
“I guess,” Beck shrugged. “It was just surprising. The way Justin told it, I thought they hated each other.”
“Hmmm...” I muttered, glancing down at the sandwiches. I knew the story behind the troubles between Beck’s son and his friend Bobby. It all came to a head a week ago when Bobby shoved Justin and Justin in turn punched his former friend in the jaw. I’d just happened to be here at the house when the call came in from the school.
Beck started chatting on about Jilly and her little friend, and I tried to concentrate, but guilt was gnawing at me. I hadn’t told Beck about the incident because the only way I could get Justin to tell me what happened was to promise to keep it a secret. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Justin was unsure of my relationship with Beck so the incident became a way to build some trust with the boy.
It certainly isn’t going to help win any trust with Beck, though, my subconscious reminded me.
“Dinner, kids,” Beck shouted down the hall.
Two little girls, one topped with red hair and the other with blonde came rushing out of Jilly’s room. They were both dressed in mismatched adult clothes and high-heels. I figured they were Jilly’s mother’s clothes. I’d met the ghost of Beck’s deceased wife at the same time I got rid of the troll. These clothes looked like something Cheri would have worn.
“Say hello to Lynlee, Jilly,” Beck instructed his daughter as he placed both girls at the table with their sandwiches and glasses of milk.
“Hello, Lynlee. My friend, Celia, is here.”
“You are two very pretty young ladies,” I said, my heart swelling with affection for the lovely little girl. I sighed and turned to Beck, fighting the urge to go all gooey with the kids.
He pointed to the bottle of wine as he picked up our plates. I opened a drawer and rustled around until I found the bottle opener. Then I grabbed the Pinot and some glasses. I was almost through the doorway to the living area when I heard Jilly call my name.
I looked over my shoulder. “Yes, ma’am?”
She picked at her sandwich then looked up at me through her lashes with an impish grin. “Daddy says you might help us do makeup for our dress-up party.”
The part of me that wanted to get tipsy and make-out with my boyfriend shrank back into some recess of my heart. I lifted an eyebrow and nodded.
“I bet we could do a little something.”
I looked down at the bottle in my hand and mentally shook my head. It seemed I would be limiting myself to just one glass of wine tonight.
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Tangled Up In Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Series – 2)
Trivia from Olivia
THE MAFIA HOUSE EXISTS. The hubby and I looked at it several years ago when we were house hunting. It needed lots of love, but I absolutely adored all the weird aspects of it. I mean, how cool would it be to have a bathroom with a hidden door to a crawl area with a floor safe, peep-through windows between rooms plus a huge bedroom-sized cedar closet? It was much bigger than we needed and already had a contract on it, so it wasn’t meant to be. Still, that crazy house remained in my mind until I had the dream that led to this story.
As a Catholic, I was raised to know that the day after Halloween was All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation and a day to venerate the saints. The day following was All Souls Day, which was to remember our departed loved ones and to pray for their passage into heaven. Later, I studied Spanish and also Aztec history, and I was fascinated by Día de los Muertos: the day of the dead. Today Mexico still celebrates this day by decorating graves and even leaving food for the departed to feast upon when they cross over into the realm of the living.
In this story, I took a little dramatic license because in Mexico the Day of the Dead is celebrated on October 30th. For story flow, I chose to apply some of the beliefs about that day to All Souls Day.
The second part of this Trivia by Olivia is actually brought to you mostly by the hubby. First, let’s talk about PMS. I was already dating the hubby when I decided to audit one of the history classes he taught at the local university. I will never forget the day he lectured about PMS; the common aspect of many Native American tribes to be Polytheistic, Matrilineal and to have Sex-linked traits. I explained the basics of what that means here in the story itself, but I just wanted you guys to know that I didn’t make it up. The college professor who swept me off my feet about sixteen years ago used that in all of his United States History courses.
So the other trivia I want to mention is Lynlee’s comment about the football score 222-0. Originally I wrote 100-0 in my first draft, but when I mentioned it to hubby, he proceeded to tell me about the Cumberland vs Georgia Tech game that ended with a score of 222-0. He thought he recalled the year of that game to be 1915, but in actuality, it was 1916–still, pretty impressive that his brain can hold such “useless” information.
According to the information I was able to find, it appears that Cumberland College discontinued its football program, but that they weren’t allowed to cancel this particular game against Georgia Tech. The internet
provides lots of myths about the game, some of which have been debunked. But I have to say the quote from the Atlanta Journal pretty much sums up what the game must have been like:
“As a general rule, the only thing necessary for a touchdown was to give a Tech back the ball and holler, ‘Here he comes’ and ‘There he goes.’”
Oh, and one more fun fact. The coach for Georgia Tech that year? None other than John Heisman.
About the Author
WHEN OLIVIA HARDIN began having strange movie-like dreams in her teens, she had no choice but to begin putting them to paper. Before long the writing bug had her and she knew she wanted to be a published author. Several rejections plus a little bit of life later, and she was temporarily “cured” of the urge to write. That is until she met a group of talented and fabulous writers who gave her the direction and encouragement she needed to get lost in the words again.
Olivia’s attended three different universities over the years and toyed with majors in Computer Technology, English, History and Geology. Then one day she heard the term road scholar and she knew that was what she wanted to be. Now she “studies” anything and everything just for the joy of learning. She's also an insatiable crafter who only completes about 1 out of 5 projects, a jogger who hates to run, and she’s sometimes accused of being artistic.
A native Texas girl, Olivia lives in the beautiful Lone Star state with her husband, Danny and their puppy, Bonnie.
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Trolling for Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Series Book 1) Page 11