Heart's Magic

by Gail Dayton

  But so what? What was the big deal about romance anyway? It was a teenager's dream, something for girls who had never faced the world head on.

  Romance was not reality, and almost-thirty-year-old never-married medical lab technicians had to deal with reality. Spencer Hargood was reality. That knight in shining armor she used to dream about did not exist, and she might as well get used to the fact. It was time to quit hoping.

  Shayna kicked viciously at a columbine that dared nod its head at her. "Stupid flower!"

  Then a resounding crash echoed through the woods. The aspens quivered in answer and Shayna quaked right along with them. She whirled in a full circle, trying to see which tree had fallen. She turned again, more slowly, and saw the bushes rustling in the direction of her car. Shayna clutched the slender white trunk of a sapling in sudden alarm. Bears? Or some of those North Idaho neo-Nazis moved south?

  Shayna's jaw hit her chest as a man staggered out of the underbrush. Not just a man. A knight. In armor. But the armor didn't shine. The helmet hiding his face and the linked-chain tunic were black. Blood stained the metal of the tunic and the black quilted shirt he wore beneath it.

  Tall, broad and ominous, the knight terrified Shayna. Especially when she spotted the sword.

  Long and impossibly sharp, the sword was held in a hand marked with runnels of scarlet. More red droplets slid their way down the brilliant steel of the blade. Bright red, like fresh-- No. She didn't want that word anywhere in her head.

  The knight advanced on her. Shayna scrambled backwards, too scared to outright turn and run. The only thought that floated through her brain was that this was not the kind of knight she had in mind.