A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  “Angela!” he shouted her name and received no answer. Nothing. Silence. Elysse was not at the reception station; no one was there.

  By that time, constables were running in. Conar burst in along with the others. Before he could even ask Conar what was going on, Gilly came running out of the center of the museum.

  “Conar—he’s dead. In a pile of blood. Lord Almighty! His head is all but off his shoulders. It’s—it’s…its Malone. Brendan Malone.”

  “Tear the place apart—brick by brick if you have to. Angela was here,” Jackson said. “She came to find Elysse.”

  He started to rush in himself but then something—maybe the way the light poured through the broken door—drew his attention to the outside.

  From the door, he could see the high tor with the May Pole rising in the distance.

  He lowered his head, praying for a special gift to come to the fore and help him. None did.

  But Angela had been drawn there. She was a descendent of the man who had ridden there to save a woman who had died….

  Through the hands of an ancestor of a man living today, one who had power in the village, one who had killed already and would kill again.

  He tore out of the museum. He saw men wearing kilts and battle accoutrements on the green.

  He didn’t think. He tore across to the green and to the first horse he saw.

  “Sir! Hey, now!” the owner began to protest in a burr of growl.

  Jackson ignored him. He leapt on the horse.

  And he tore down the street and to the base of the tor.

  And he rode as hard as he could.

  ***

  Someone had littered the base of the May Pole with coals and branches.

  Angela could smell gasoline; when the fire was lit, it would burn insanely.

  She blinked; her jaw and her head throbbed with pain. She could taste blood.

  And she realized that she could so easily see the coals and fodder for the fire because she was tied to the stake.

  And there he was; the killer. Standing in front of her. Smiling.

  “This was not the way it should have gone, Angela. The girls, they were to die. They were retribution for the evil done that day. I chose them. They were pure and good—they would appease the spirit of my ancestor. He had come to me all my life, in my dreams. He talks to me, in my mind, when I am trying to talk to others. You ruined it; therefore, you die.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say; somehow, she had to play for time.

  Time? What could possibly help her now? No one could reach her….

  She saw the sky grow dark again; she smelled smoke and burning flesh as if she—as if she were afire already.

  She heard sobbing on the air.

  But they were alone. It was just her—her and Joseph McGregor, a man who had cured the ailments of the murdered girls, the man responsible for their welfare.

  “Killing me will not stop the voices in your head,” she told him. “You’re a doctor; you know that you need help.”

  “Help. Whatever that might be. I care not after this; he told me what to do. Justin Stuart. He came into my mind. When Malone built that wretched museum and set up the genealogy charts and I saw…then I heard the voices. I knew what I had to do to make them stop. But you ruined it; therefore, you die.”

  Out of the darkness, Angela saw a shape emerge. It was the woman who had once died upon the tor—Mary MacIntosh.

  She walked toward the May Pole, sad and dignified. She walked straight to Dr. Joseph McGregor.

  “She’s beside you,” Angela said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t you feel her? She’s by you,” Angela said.

  “No. No. There’s no one here!” he told her.

  “But she is! She will push you to the cliff—she’ll toss you over,” Angela said.

  He jostled, as if he did feel her.

  “Stop!” he roared.

  He pulled a lighter from his pocket.

  Angela felt a thunder in the earth. She turned. Riders were coming. Kilted, armed riders, were coming, thundering up to the tor.

  She blinked.

  They were a vision from the past.

  But they weren’t; they were coming. And Jackson was on the lead horse.

  McGregor saw them; he threw the lighter and the flame upon the faggots.

  The fire lit.

  Angela braced for the pain. But the fire hadn’t caught firmly; it didn’t explode. The outer branches began to burn and she knew that any second, they would explode.

  But….

  The horses bore down upon them. And Jackson, atop a white steed, burst through the faggots to the May Pole. He jumped from the horse, cut her free from her bounds, and swept her up, leaping from the rise at the base of the pole.

  The fire exploded and burned high into the night.

  She heard a scream and looked up.

  There was nothing there…just a shadow.

  But there he was, Joseph McGregor, fighting an invisible demon.

  And falling backwards, backwards, backwards….

  Into the flame.

  Epilogue

  That year, the May Day festivities were modified in the Village of Ravenscroft. While celebrations went on in private homes and Elysse--who miraculously survived Joseph McGregor’s attack upon her in the offices of the wax museum—was named Ravenscroft’s heroic Queen of the May in the middle of her hospital room. McGregor had been certain that he’d killed her with the crack of a Viking shield to the head.

  McGregor had been mistaken. She’d received a severe concussion and would be in the hospital for at least a week.

  Needless to say, she was anxious to be out. She had acquired a distrust for doctors.

  Conar had a great deal to handle in the village—where the Mayor was reeling and those who had visited the doctor with trust and belief were in shock and discord.

  Angela and Jackson were heroes of the village, which made them both quite uncomfortable. Neither wanted to explain that such strange occurrences were really what they handled in life—it was what they did, it was who they were.

  They stayed through May Day and celebrated it with Conar. They meant to have a quiet evening, but while they sat at the pub for dinner, the re-enactors rode before the windows and honored Jackson as their leader and he was named honorary Laird of Ravenscroft.

  “You were amazing,” Angela told him, when they had returned to their suite and were alone together at last.

  “I was desperate—not amazing. You are my life, you know.”

  “And you are mine. Bold, wonderful, courageous,” she added.

  “I wouldn’t have made it—without you and Mary MacIntosh,” he said.

  “You saw her?”

  He nodded. “And then you know what I think I saw?”

  “What?”

  “Brian Montfort. I think I saw him in the midst and the smoke, walking to her. I think they may have found one another.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” Angela said.

  Jackson smiled and told her, “Mary said not to let it happen again—we didn’t let it happen. Maybe that’s what she was waiting for—maybe it was what she needed. And maybe—just maybe—he’s been waiting for her.”

  “That’s lovely,” Angela said.

  “I know that they helped us; I know they want us to have what they didn’t—a long life of happiness and love, together.”

  Angela stroked his hair. “Your lines are getting much, much better, you know.”

  He smiled and pulled her into his arms. “So, now you know you’re the descendent of a heroic Scot. Shall we be coming back next vacation?”

  “Oh, I’ll want to come back,” she assured him. “But for our next vacation…a sun-drenched beach, I think.”

  “Ah, and what will we do there?” he asked.

  She smiled and turned away and headed for the bedroom.

  “Come with me,” she told him, “my dear honorary laird. I’ll tell you all about the wond
erful things we can do…in fact, I’ll do some showing as well.”

  Needing no other persuasion, he followed her.

  It didn’t really matter where they were.

  They were who they were; what they were.

  And none of it mattered, as long as he could be with her.

  About Heather Graham

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Graham was born somewhere in Europe and kidnapped by gypsies when she was a small child. She went on to join the Romanian circus as a trapeze artist and lion tamer. When the circus came to South Florida, she stayed, discovering that she preferred to be a shark and gator trainer.

  Not really.

  Heather is the child of Scottish and Irish immigrants who met and married in Chicago, and moved to South Florida, where she has spent her life. (She has, at least, been to the Russian circus in Moscow, where she wished she was one of the incredibly talented and coordinated trapeze artists.) She majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over one hundred and fifty novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, horror, and Christmas family fare.

  She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty-five languages, and has had over seventy-five million books in print. She has been honored with awards from Walden Books, B. Dalton, Georgia Romance Writers, Affaire de Coeur, Romantic Times, the Lifetime Achievement Award from RWA and more. Heather has also become the proud recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers. Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.

  Heather loves travel and anything that has to do with the water, and is a certified scuba diver. She also loves ballroom dancing. Each year she hosts the Vampire Ball and Dinner theater at the RT convention raising money for the Pediatric Aids Society and in 2006 she hosted the first Writers for New Orleans Workshop to benefit the stricken Gulf region. She is also the founder of "The Slush Pile Players", presenting something that's almost like entertainment for various conferences and benefits. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.

  Shopping for a Billionaire

  Julia Kent

  When mystery shopper Shannon Jacoby meets billionaire Declan McCormick with her hand down a toilet in the men’s room of one of his stores, it’s love at first flush in this hilarious new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Julia Kent.

  Shopping for a Billionaire

  Copyright 2014 by Julia Kent

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Sign up for my New Releases and Sales email list at my blog to get the latest scoop on new eBooks, freebies and more:

  http://jkentauthor.blogspot.com/p/sign-up-for-my-new-releases-email-list.html

  Chapter One

  I am eating my ninth cinnamon raisin bagel with maple horseradish cream cheese and hazelnut chocolate spread.

  Don’t judge me.

  It’s my job to eat this.

  It’s a Monday morning, 9:13 a.m. on the dot, and the counter person, Mark J., takes exactly seventeen seconds to acknowledge my presence. He then offers to upsell my small mocha latte, which I decline nicely, and within seventy-three seconds my cinnamon raisin bagel with maple horseradish cream cheese and hazelnut chocolate spread is in my hands, toasted and warm.

  I pay my $10.22 with a $20 bill and he counts back my change properly, hands me a receipt and points out the survey I can complete for a chance to win a $100 gift card to this chain restaurant.

  Survey? Buddy, I’m surveying you right now.

  No, I don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder, though it helps in my line of work. I am not a private detective, and I don’t have an unhealthy stalker thing for Mark J., who loses points for ringing up a customer, touching cash, and not washing his hands before touching the next person’s bagel.

  I cringe at mine.

  I’m a secret shopper. Mystery shopper. Or as the clerks and managers in the stores where I pretend to be a regular shopper call me: Evil Personified.

  That’s Ms. Evil Personified to you, buddy.

  It really is my job to sit here on a sunny Monday morning, in my ninth chain store, buying the same exact meal over and over again, sipping each mocha latte and sliding a thermometer in the hot liquid to make certain the temperature is between 170 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

  You try doing that without making people think you are that one weird customer, the one who talks to aliens through the metal shake cans, or who brings her teacup chihuahua in to share a grilled cheese and lets the dog lick the plate clean.

  I’m just as weird, except I’m getting paid to do it.

  My best friend and coworker, Amanda, created a little thermometer that looks just like a coffee stirrer. I slip it in through the lid and in sixty seconds—voila!

  One hundred seventy-four degrees. I reach for my phone and pretend to send a text. I’m really opening my shopper’s evaluation app, to type in all the answers to the 128 questions that must be properly answered.

  I enter my name (Shannon Jacoby), today’s date, the store location, whether the front trashcan was clean (it was), whether the front mats were clean (they were), the name of the clerk who waited on me (Mark J.), and pretty much every question you could imagine short of my favorite sexual position (none of your business) and the first date of my last period (who cares? It’s not like I could possibly be pregnant. Maybe the cobwebs are in the way…).

  Did I mention this is my ninth store of the day? I started at 5:30 a.m. I’m very, very questioned and cinnamoned out. One hundred twenty-eight questions times nine stores equals a big old identity crisis and a mouth that can’t tell the difference between horseradish and mocha.

  This is not my fault. I am in management for a secret shopper company. That means my job is to find people to do what I’m doing. A year ago, when I was a fresh-faced marketing major with my newly minted degree from UMass and $50,000 in student loans at the ripe old age of twenty-three, the job seemed like a dream.

  You know those ads you see online to “Get Paid to Shop!”?

  Yep. They’re real. You really can sign on as a mystery shopper with various marketing companies, and once you pass some basic tests, you apply for jobs. What I’m doing right now pays your $10.22 expense, gives you the free breakfast sandwich and latte, and you earn a whopping $8 in payment about a month after submitting your mystery shopper report to our office.

  And people are lining up to do this.

  Except…sometimes, supervisors can’t find anyone to fill a last-minute no-show. I’m a full-time, salaried employee (which means I get to keep the sandwich, but not the $8 for each of these nine shops this fine, beautiful, bloated morning).

  One of our flakier shoppers, Meghan, texted me at 4:12 a.m. to tell me the purple and green unicorn in her flying sparkly Hummer told her not to eat bagels anymore, and she and couldn’t make her nine—NINE!—breakfast shops on religious grounds.

  Okay, then. Someone was eating something other than cinnamon raisin bagels last night, and I susp
ect it involved mushrooms of some sort.

  That gave me one hour and eighteen minutes to find a replacement, which meant—yep—here I was. In a rush, I’d jumped out of bed, printed out all of Meghan’s shops, made a driving plan and a map, and steadied myself for the biggest mystery-shopping blitz I’d done since—

  Since being dumped by my ex-boyfriend last year. Steven Michael Raleigh decided that finishing his MBA meant he needed a trophy wife who could schmooze with all the hoity-toities on the Back Bay in Boston.

  Me? A Mendon girl with only a BA who works as a “glorified fast food snitch” just didn’t cut it, so he cut me loose.

  So here I sit in this little coffee shop in West Newton, counting down the minutes until I can break into the men’s room. That’s right – the men’s room. Did I mention I’m a DD cup? So not a covert Men’s Room Ninja.

  My ninth men’s room of the morning. Every part of the store has to be evaluated, including the toilets. You’ve seen one urinal, you’ve seen them all…except that’s not how it works when you’re evaluating a store for a mystery shop.

  Nineteen questions about cleanliness and customer service are waiting for my answers. Neatly waiting inside my smartphone’s app.

  And if I didn’t break in to the men’s room?

  The eval would be a “failed job.” I shudder. A failed job is worse than eating nine cinnamon raisin maple horseradish bagels, because when you work in my field, a failed job is like a failed date with a billionaire.

  Whatever went wrong, it’s always, always your fault.

  Speaking of billionaires, hellllooooo, Christian Grey. In walks a man wearing a suit that must cost more than my rickety old Saturn sedan. Fine grayish-blue with fibers that look like he snaps his fingers and they conform to his body because he’s that dominant. Trim body with a flat, tapered torso, and oh! His jacket is unbuttoned. The bright white shirt underneath is so bespoke that it fits like a glove.