by Mary Wine
Sonya turned around from fluffing her hair in the entryway mirror to look at Kalin. The small chapel was filling up, but she was waiting for an unnamed escort who had claimed the right of taking her down to the altar.
“Do guns make you nervous?” Sonya asked, sifting through Kalin’s emotions.
“No, I was just noting that I seem to be underdressed without one of my own.”
“It wouldn’t go with the dress,” Sonya noted.
Kalin turned to look at herself. The vintage dress was made of the softest silk she’d ever seen. It fell to her feet in a graceful sweep and had a very thirties style to it.
“This was my grandmother’s. I’m afraid to sneeze because it’s so delicate. But it’s not like I had many options.”
“Devon gave you a whole day, that’s more than Grace’s husband did.”
“I think I understand that. You Operatives tend to slip away too easily.”
“They do indeed,” an older man remarked. He’d entered through one of the side entrances of the chapel and had white hair. Dressed head to toe in a dress uniform, he wore an impressive number of ribbons.
“General Slynn,” he introduced himself. “I hope you’ll allow me the honor of taking you down the aisle.” The general peeked through the doors at the interior of the chapel. “It’s not every day I get to see a man I buried get married.”
“My father’s been gone a long time. I think he’d enjoy knowing someone stepped up.”
The Rangers at the door snapped to attention before opening them for the general. The chapel was full of Devon’s fellow Operatives. Grace was there with her new baby held in a sling and her husband by her side. Their first son blinked as he rose on his toes to see over the back of the pew. But it was Devon Kalin was absorbed with. He watched her like a starving man, and she realized she had the same look on her face. She felt it, felt him.
So completely.
So very right.
It was love and it was right on time.
About the Author
You can find me at MaryWine.com. Dream Shadow was the first book I wrote and Grace is very special to me. Drop by my website, www.marywine.com, to find out when you can read more about the Campbells and psychics.
Look for these titles by Mary Wine
Now Available:
Evolution’s Embers
Full Disclosure
Let Me Love You
Still Mine
Prisoner of Desire
Dream
Dream Shadow
She doesn’t need backup…until love backs her into a corner.
Dream Shadow
© 2013 Mary Wine
Dream, Book 1
Sheriff Brice Campbell never met a psychic worth a dime. Until Grace. She’s the real deal, an Army psychic tracker with a flawless record for finding her target. And somewhere behind her bristling defenses is a woman he’s determined to coax out into the light of day.
Grace’s legendary ability to keep her emotions walled off from her gift is the key to her success. Unfocused equals unproductive. Only this time, her target is a child that’s gone missing. Worse, an unexpected attraction to Brice is messing with her concentration, big time.
Desire sends them both up in a firestorm of passion, which only makes it painfully clear that the Army’s secret weapon has one embarrassing flaw. In matters of the heart, she’s a rank amateur.
Brice is more than willing to help her navigate these unfamiliar waters, but bringing her heart out of the shadows exposes her to danger neither saw coming. And from which no army can save her.
Warning: Contains a small-town sheriff who isn’t going to let a few emotional walls get in his way, and a woman who can’t help but let him take hers down, brick by brick.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Dream Shadow:
So, they were here.
More exactly, she was here. Brice observed the three helicopters that currently sat on the asphalt in front of what served as the Benton County Airport. It was painfully easy to pick out the woman amidst the unit of Army Rangers. Even at his current distance, her slight build was obvious compared with those of her companions.
The men left on duty were armed to deadly precision, including night-vision sighters. They knew he was there, no doubt about it. But his cell phone hadn’t rung, so no one had their undies in a twist just yet.
It had taken him almost two days, along with every favor that a living soul owed him on this planet, to get this bunch into Benton County. Pissing them off wasn’t a good idea.
The instructions he had been given were painfully straightforward. The airfield was to be cleared.
It was, but there was no way that he was going to sit by waiting for this group to run him like a dog on a leash. This was his county. He just hoped he was making the right decision.
He turned the ignition over and pulled the jeep back on to the road. There was nothing right about this whole thing. Three years into his first term as sheriff, Brice had seen a lot of things cross his path. Child abduction just wasn’t something that he ever thought to see in front of him. A man could fail to solve a burglary, maybe even a murder, but how could you fail to find someone’s little girl?
Brice closed his eyes for a moment. He was really reaching this time. When it got out he was bringing in a psychic, it could very well cost him his re-election next year. Benton was a small community. Nothing stayed a secret for long. By the end of next week, rumors, if not the whole story, would be all over the county. If this unit failed to turn up Paige Heeley, Brice could more than likely kiss his office goodbye.
If this psychic bloodhound turned up the missing little girl, Brice didn’t give a damn about his office. Paige was just four years old, and Brice would gladly take the heat once the family was reunited.
The entire idea of a psychic being helpful still stuck in the back of his throat. Swallowing that concept was going to require some hard evidence.
This one might be different. Whatever his own feelings about the paranormal aside, he was left with one hard fact—the United States Army didn’t tend to waste its time.
For some reason, this woman was part of a Ranger unit. Brice was about to wager a great deal on her being half as good as the rumors he’d heard about her.
Now if they just managed to turn something up. Brice had every able-bodied man out searching, and they hadn’t turned up so much as a hair ribbon. After two weeks, any hope of recovering the child alive was almost gone. The forests surrounding them were one-hundred-percent unforgiving.
Well, Brice wasn’t ready to give her up to the mountains. Paige Heeley was out there and maybe, just maybe, he had found the means to finding her.
Maybe it was simple frustration that drove Grace to seek out the vision again. Maybe it was pure distaste for the stale confines of her motel room. Whatever the cause, Grace slid from the bed just half an hour after lights out and sat poised on her knees while she tried to assemble the bits of feeling she held into a recognizable picture. It needled her, refusing to be completely shut out by the walls surrounding her. Like a song that you could almost hear, the melody was familiar but the lyrics were muffled.
Major Jacobs could get his six hours of sleep. She knew better than to care about a mission, but she’d already committed the sin of curiosity. Letting that small scrap of emotion get into her head was going to keep any type of sleep well and truly separated from her tonight. Part of her just didn’t care about the consequences.
There was too much emotional bleed-out from the community. Anger, fear, hope and half a dozen other feelings were floating through the night. Grace couldn’t just feel it—she was almost drowning in it. She inched closer to the window and the night air blew in. Chilly and full of the scent of the forest, it filled her senses and turned the volume of the music up to full blast.
Grace forced her mind into sharp control. She needed to focus to keep it all from blurring. This time, the connection with her mind was clear. The vision blossomed into full color commanding her complete attention. It was like a bubble and she happily stepped into it.
She could see every single hair on her target’s head. The emotion of curiosity crumbled away and left Grace with the unmistakable feeling of need. Her vision wasn’t a target any longer. It became a child, and Grace could see her as clear as day. The night was literally singing. Grace was impatient to become a part of the harmony.
Holding the vision at bay, she stood and moved toward the room’s door. Her feet faltered as she sensed one of the Rangers. There was always a perimeter sentry posted at night. The spinning, music-filled bubble floated away from her, dropping her harshly into reality.
It was like being kicked in the gut. She wanted to get back inside the vision, needed it with the same force of an addict’s addiction.
Slipping alongside the window, she pulled the curtain away a bare inch to catch sight of the man. It wasn’t that she held any true dislike for Clark, but the man thought she was a witch. He wasn’t alone in that. Half the men that made up Jacobs’s unit thought she was some sort of devil’s handmaiden.
Tonight, the ugly label stirred her temper. She didn’t want to share the pure innocence of her vision with men that wanted to condemn her as a heathen. She wanted to connect with this child, immerse herself in the uncomplicated bliss of early childhood.
The unit could be damned. Grace wasn’t in the mood to be judged and she wasn’t going to wait for daybreak. Reality stung while the vision promised bliss. She concentrated on escaping. It wasn’t about right or wrong, reconnecting had become a need.
One she intended to feed.
The feel of the truck was as suffocating as the motel room had been, but Grace needed the machine and the speed it could give her. She forced herself to maintain enough of her rational mind to control the vehicle.
It wasn’t what she wanted.
This vision was almost painfully clear. For some reason, she was drawn to it with absolute dedication. She really didn’t care what repercussion might result from following her instincts.
Reality was too harsh. She didn’t want to ignore the opportunity to indulge herself in something else.
The sweet blue eyes were so clear. Innocence radiated from her in thick waves, that cheerful bliss that children alone seemed to have rights to.
Something Grace didn’t have any memories of anymore. Details of missions and more missions crowded inside her head until there was no room for anything else.
She was sick unto death of it.
Reaching the end of the road, Grace abandoned the truck. She preferred to walk anyway. The smell of the forest was rich with life, intensifying the clarity of her link with Paige. She took only a moment to grab the most basic of survival gear and shrug the backpack on.
Now she could follow her yearnings. Let them take her away from the dull ding of reality.
The slight sound of the night creatures kept her company as she moved through the darkness. Time melted away as Grace gave her attention completely to her link. It had been so long since Grace’s tracking skills had led her to anyone that she’d wanted to find.
Grace’s fascination with her vision made her pace swift. There was still an hour remaining until dawn when she stopped in front of her target. While her vision of Paige was overwhelming in its sweetness, the wall that surrounded it reeked of something different. Just exactly what intruded eluded her grasp, but it was enough to cause a wave of wariness to cross her mind. Casting her eyes over the cabin that sat some two hundred feet away, Grace drew back from Paige for a moment.
She might not like reality, but it had its uses when it came to not walking into a trap. Her muscles ached but Grace ignored her fatigue. Something else was here.
And it stank of hatred.
Considering her target, she probed further into it. Emotion was twisted around the cabin in front of her like a squid’s tentacles. Maybe Grace found the target desirable, but that didn’t mean she was going to walk into a kidnapper’s hideout.
Besides, the emotions and the facts weren’t making sense. Why would someone abduct a child if they hated her? Murder was the obvious result of such a blaze of emotion.
Grace ran an eye over the surrounding forest. The cabin was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Paige wasn’t going anywhere. The clouds were beginning to lower again with the promise of rain.
Perfect. A good downpour would cover Grace’s tracks very efficiently. Time was something she needed. Time to watch and listen.
If you go casting love spells, be careful what you wish for.
A Touch of Magick
© 2010 N.J. Walters
Spells, Secrets and Seductions, Book 1
Rhiannon Sparks admits she’s not a very good witch—she can’t even light a candle without a match—but she keeps trying. At least her talent for business has made her magick shop a huge success. Now if only there was even the faintest flicker in her nonexistent love life.
During a night of eating and drinking, she and her girlfriends cast a candle-magick spell for hot sex. All in good fun, of course. Except Rhiannon accidentally mixes up the words. Instead of a lover, she asks for true love.
Deputy Ryland Stone’s past keeps him firmly rooted in reality. Then he meets Rhiannon and sparks literally fly. One date leads to another, and then they’re practically setting the bedroom on fire…until she reveals the deal breaker.
Though love and magick have found Rhiannon at last, getting a handle on her newly unleashed power is the least of her problems. Unless Ryland accepts that magick exists, he will never accept her for who and what she is.
Warning: This book contains a simple candle-magick spell, which you use at your own risk, a disastrous date, phone sex, and enough sizzle to practically set the sheets on fire.
Enjoy the following excerpt for A Touch of Magick:
Rhiannon whirled at the sound of the male voice. The bucket tipped precariously and water slopped over the side. She jumped back, just missing getting her shoes wet. Swearing under her breath, she laid the pail down and swiped at the water trickling down the front of her wool skirt.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She looked up. Way, way up. Not that the man was overly tall. He was probably about six feet tall, give or take an inch or two, but when you were only five-foot-two most people were taller than you. The high heels helped, but not much. “Well, you did.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up in a half smile. Rhiannon immediately noticed his full, very kissable lips. She shook herself. What the heck was wrong with her?
“You going to clean up this mess?”
“That was my plan.” Her voice was sharper than usual. Something about this man set her on edge, yet she wasn’t afraid of him. Not in the least.
“Shouldn’t you wait until the police examine the scene?” It was then she noticed the uniform.
Sighing, she wondered if she should have just stayed in bed this morning. “I didn’t call the police.”
“I didn’t think so.” He held out his hand. “Ryland Stone, Deputy Ryland Stone.”
Seeing no way out, she reached out and took his hand. An electrical shock surged through her body, going straight to her breasts and arrowing down between her thighs. She yanked her hand back with a yelp, cradling it against her chest. Her entire body tingled with awareness.
Ryland was shaking his hand too, his pale blue eyes never leaving her face. “Sorry about that. Must be static electricity.”
Of course it was. What the heck had she been thinking? For the briefest of moments, she’d thought the spark had been one born of magick. Instead it was something as mundane as static electricity.
Obviously
last night’s spell and the conversation with her sister this morning had muddled her good sense. She had sex and magick on the brain. Ignoring the tingling in her breasts and the way her nipples were pushing against the cups of her bra, she focused on the problem at hand.
The deputy was standing there just staring at her and she realized she hadn’t said anything. “I’m sorry. Rhiannon Sparks.”
He blinked and suddenly broke into a full grin. She was immediately struck by his masculine good looks. His blond hair was cut short, but the style suited him. His jaw was square, and stubborn if she was any judge of character. There was a scar bisecting his left eyebrow that kept him from looking too pretty. His shoulders were wide, his body lean and fit. All in all, a very nice package.
“Sparks, huh. Figures.” He shook his hand again and then motioned toward the wall.
They’d certainly struck sparks off one another, but she assured herself that meant nothing. “I didn’t think there was much point in calling the police about this.”
He shook his head. “This is vandalism, pure and simple.” His eyes went to the words “witch” and “devil” before returning to her. “Plus, it’s just plain nasty.”
Rhiannon rubbed her hands over her arms, suddenly feeling the chill through her sweater. He noticed immediately and in a couple of strides was by her side. “Why don’t you go on inside while I call this in. We’ll take some pictures, have a look around and then I’ll come and talk to you.”
“I don’t see what good it will do.”
He shrugged. “The vandal might strike again.” He pointed to a small blob in the far corner. “These graffiti artists always sign their work. He might have targeted other businesses last night. Even if he didn’t, if he’s ever caught we can tie him to this scene and a few others.”
She could see the sense in that. “Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call the police immediately.” And she should have and would have if she hadn’t been so muddled. Certainly, she might not be the only business affected by this vandal. There were most likely others.