by Meg Napier
Love Gone Viral
Meredith Bond
Meg Napier
Randi Goldleif
M. Spencer
Pru Warren
All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to World Central Kitchen and Feeding America.
Copyright Meredith Bond, Meg Napier, Randi Goldeif, M. Spencert, Pru Warren 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-7351024-0-5
Formatting by Anessa Books
Cover Design by Jennifer Bock
Cover Art by Anjali Banerji
Table of Contents
Introduction
Falling Through Air, Meredith Bond
Susie Freyn might have inadvertently used her magic to save Michael Werloga’s life, but can she find the confidence to save them both when they’re thrown back in time?
Second Drop, Meg Napier
If a tree drops during a storm in the midst of a pandemic, can two lonely souls find love?
Bending Love, Randi Goldleif
Rosalind will do anything to prevent her wife from dying of COVID-19 – even if that means altering the past.
Joan’s Journal, Pru Warren
Joan’s Journal: She came to the pretty B&B on Virginia’s eastern shore to help her parents survive the Covid quarantine – is handsome guest Darren her Corona-Prince-Charming?
Lease on Love, M. Spencer
Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, campaign veteran Meg guides Alice, a young brewery manager, through the basics of community organizing. They were looking for rent relief and found love along the way.
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The pandemic hit, and the world shut down. Yet everywhere we looked there was evidence of people reaching out: working at food distribution centers, making masks, or adopting shelter animals. And then the world’s attention rightly shifted to racial injustice, and people took to the streets. But some of us were flummoxed. Personal or family health concerns kept us sealed inside our walls. Sewing? Not a clue. Animals? Either prohibited or just not possible. The feeling of helplessness was constant.
What could I do? After years working in various fields, I’ve recently returned to my first love: writing. Stories have a way of lifting the heart and making a bad day more bearable. And so I reached out to fellow writers and asked them to join me. Four brave and talented authors did so, and we set ourselves an ambitious timeline.
Despair and hate are strong, but love is stronger. People found love in the rubble of the World Trade Center and in the damage left by Hurricane Katrina. Widows and widowers find love in support groups, and addicts find love in recovery programs. Activists find love in protest marches. Deep scars will remain, but love will emerge from this year of tribulation as well.
We hope these five stories of love will bring a smile to your face and a lightening of the burdens you may be carrying. All proceeds from the sale of Love Gone Viral will be donated to World Central Kitchen and Feeding America. We are neither affiliated nor endorsed by these charities; we simply want to help. Thank you for joining us.
Meg Napier, July 2020
Falling Through Air
Meredith Bond
Chapter One
Susie Freyn was ready for a break. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly one, and she’d missed lunch—again. She’d been working steadily for the past four hours doing nothing but checking patients into City Memorial Hospital.
Name, age, symptoms, insurance; name, age, symptoms, insurance—over and over and over again.
Reassuring people that they would be seen just as soon as possible, but yes, there was a wait. She didn’t mention that the wait was currently going on three hours.
These poor people, she thought, looking out from behind her plexiglass window. The ER was full of people exhibiting all the various symptoms of the horrid Coronavirus that was plaguing the city—no, make that the entire world!
The line in front of her had gone down to only three people. Maybe she could take a quick five minutes before they were inundated again. She gave an apologetic look to the next person in line who was watching her anxiously. “Five minutes,” she said from behind her cloth mask. “Sorry!”
She’d just stood up when a man stumbled into the building. He’d just barely cleared the sliding glass doors when he bent over, putting his hands on his knees. His back was heaving, and Susie wondered if he was going to be sick all over the floor. But, no, he wasn’t clutching at his stomach. He just looked like he was having a hard time…
The man collapsed.
Breathing.
He couldn’t breathe! Susie could feel it. She only knew that the man wasn’t breathing. She called for help as she went running out of the office.
He was lying face down on the floor, his lips blue from lack of oxygen. Susie put her hands on his back to feel if he was breathing at all. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Breathe. Breathe. Please, breathe.
With a sudden intake of breath, his back lifted. Just as his long black-lashed eyes fluttered open, Jamal, a nurse, and Anne, the EMT on duty, appeared at the man’s side.
“Breathing?” Jamal asked.
“Just restarted,” Susie told him. To the man, she gave a reassuring smile and a nod.
“Wow, that’s lucky! Okay, let’s get him into a bed and get him some oxygen,” Jamal directed.
Anne hopped up, and between the two of them, they turned him over and lifted him onto the gurney Anne had brought with her.
Susie ran alongside the man as they wheeled him into a room. He had grabbed her hand—and he wasn’t letting go.
It’s okay, she thought, too embarrassed to say her words of comfort out loud. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be breathing again normally in no time at all. You’ve come to the best ER in the city. You’re going to be just fine.
His hand gave hers a little squeeze as if he’d heard her thoughts. That was ridiculous. First of all, he couldn’t have heard her. Second of all, his eyes were closed, and she didn’t even know if he was conscious or not. At least he was breathing!
Michael blinked his eyes open. Where the hell… oh, right, the hospital. He was in the hospital.
He vaguely remembered deciding to shove aside all his fears of going to the hospital. He was sick. He probably had the damned virus. No, he was certain he did. He’d been coughing for days. He didn’t have much of a fever, but that might have been thanks to the herbs he’d been dosing himself with.
As a researcher studying the effects of natural remedies, he had stores of herbs in his lab and his home. He’d tried everything from willow bark to elderflower to basic lemon, ginger, and honey to treat his aches, pains, and cough. He knew he was nuts but when you’re alone and not feeling well you’ll try anything.
In the morning, he’d begun to have respiratory problems. The shortness of breath had started insignificant enough that he thought if he just stayed in bed it would go away. But then he’d started reading all the articles in the news that, for the most part, he’d avoided. People were dying suddenly in their sleep, unable to breathe, unable to get enough oxygen. He didn’t want that to happen to him. God only knew when someone might find his lifeless body.
He’d waited. Hoping, even praying, that his breathing would ease. It hadn’t.
It had only gotten worse until, finally, he decided he’d rather take his chances at the hospital. So, he’d dragged himself up and walked the fifteen minutes from his apartment in the posh Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, to the hospital.
Well, fifteen minutes was how long it would have taken if he’d been healthy. As sick as he was, it took him closer to half an hour with a number of stops along the way just so he could catch his breath.
He’d finally made it. He’d finally found the emergency room and then… and then the next thing he knew an angel was speaking to him in his mind telling him that it would be all right.
He looked over at that angel now as she watched worriedly as the nurses stuck needles in his arm, clips onto his fingers, and did all the things they do. All he could see was her soft blonde hair pulled back into a thick braid and her gorgeous, expressive green eyes. Wow, was she beautiful even with half her face hidden by her mask—black and white outlines of cat faces going every which way. It was cute, but he’d rather see her smile.
“How are you feeling?” she asked softly.
He had an oxygen mask on over his mouth and nose, so he didn’t know if he could actually speak. He just nodded.
“Good. You’re in fantastic hands. Jamal is the most amazing nurse, and Anne is pretty brilliant at what she does too. You just relax, and they’ll get you all taken care of, okay?”
He nodded again. His eyelids felt so heavy. He could barely keep them open. He wanted to keep looking at his angel. He wanted to speak with her, but his eyes kept closing.
Susie stayed with the new patient for the entirety of her fifteen-minute break—ten more than she’d intended to take. When she’d sat down next to the patient’s bed, it hit her just how tired she was. Goodness, she should really take breaks more often!
She was about to leave to return to her desk when Jamal asked, “Has he been checked in?”
“No!” Susie said, surprised she hadn’t even thought of it. She’d been so pre-occupied with watching Jamal and Anne work, getting the man hooked up to oxygen, putting in an IV, taking his vitals, and swabbing for the COVID-19 test. And, she had to admit, she had a hard time not staring at him.
He was so incredibly cute!
Finely chiseled cheekbones, a strong jaw-line, incredible dark brown eyes, curly black hair—she couldn’t find a thing about the man not to like. When Jamal opened his shirt to take an ECG, revealing strong pecs and a flat stomach, Susie could feel herself getting warm. This was a patient, she told herself sternly!
She forced herself to turn away from the man and pulled forward the computer sitting on the cart in the corner of the room, quickly logging in. She leaned forward a little toward the patient and wondered if he was asleep, unconscious, or... His eyelids fluttered open. Oh, good. He was awake. She stared into his deep brown eyes for a moment, completely forgetting what she’d been about to do.
Oh, right. Your job, idiot!
The man’s lips twitched as if he were holding back a little smile.
“Could you tell me your name?” Susie asked as professionally as she could.
He blinked for a moment as if he were trying to remember it. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be some confusion in someone who’d had a severe loss of oxygen, so she waited patiently. “Michael. Michael Werloga,” he said from behind the oxygen mask. His voice was deep and rough, probably from a sore throat due to the virus. He spelled out his last name for her.
She smiled, trying to set him at ease since he still seemed a bit anxious—but who wouldn’t be hooked up to so many machines and what-not? “That’s an unusual name.”
“Michael? I think it’s pretty common actually,” he said, quirking up one-half of his lips, which had returned to a normal color already.
Susie laughed. “I meant your last name, actually.”
“Oh, right. It means warlock,” he said quietly. His eyes seemed to bore into hers. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, a deep, warm voice said in her head.
Susie gasped. Had he said that? In her head? Holy cow… he was Vallen!
He winked at her.
Jamal pulled Michael’s attention back to him as he looked over the computer read-out of the ECG. “You’re one lucky dude! Your heart looks good.”
Susie refocused herself. “Your date of birth, please, Mr. Werloga?” she asked.
“September 21st, 1988, and please, call me Michael,” he said.
She smiled and nodded, trying her best to stay professional. Inside her mind, though, she was doing a little happy dance. He was just two years older than her! A moment later, she shut it down abruptly as she remembered that he was Vallen and probably able to “hear” her thoughts. She had no idea how that worked, but clearly, he’d heard her reassuring chatter earlier and had been able to project his thoughts into her mind.
Damn! She wished she knew more about magic and how it worked! Why, oh, why had her parents never taught her and her siblings any of this? Her youngest sister had had to learn all about it—and fast—when she’d become the Seventh a few years ago. Susie was still trying to figure out what that meant, aside from the fact that Erin now had incredible powers and could bring out the powers in others.
She’d offered to renew Susie’s powers, to make her stronger magically, but Susie had resisted. She needed to discover what abilities she had before allowing Erin to make them stronger. Goodness only knew what could happen if Susie wasn’t able to control her magic. And to be honest, she was happy with the way she was now. She didn’t need a lot of magic complicating her life.
Keep your mind on your job, Susanna, she told herself firmly. She turned back to Michael, who was lying there watching Jamal—thank God. “Michael, do you have any insurance?” Susie asked, pulling his attention back to her.
“Uh, yeah. Aetna. The card’s in my wallet.” He carefully moved his arm with the IV in it and lifted one hip. He fished in his back pocket and came out with a battered black leather wallet. He handed Susie the card. “Here you go, Susanna,” he said, his eyes crinkling with a smile.
Susie took the card as she closed her eyes in embarrassment. She opened them to see him giving a little chuckle, but that sent him into a coughing fit. When he was able to breathe properly again, she said, “I go by Susie.”
Only “Susanna” when you’re chastising yourself? he asked silently.
“Yes, but you shouldn’t have heard that,” she whispered, hoping that Jamal wouldn’t hear.
He gave another laugh, which made him cough again.
Jamal turned toward her, and she quickly redirected her attention to the computer and started inputting Michael’s insurance information.
“As soon as you’re done, we’ll move him up to a room,” Jamal told her.
She nodded. “Just one more minute.”
“Miss Freyn,” a sharp voice said quietly from just outside.
Susie looked up. Ugh! It was the head nurse, Mrs. Hill. That woman did not like her… well, she hardly seemed to like anyone who worked in the department. “Yes, ma’am?”
“A word, if you please,” the woman said, lowering her head and staring at Susie.
“Yes, ma’am.” Susie quickly finished putting in Michael’s information and then handed him his card.
He looked from the woman still standing in the entrance to the room to Susie. She gave him a little smile. Yeah, I’m in trouble, she thought at him but gave him her best smile anyway before going out to speak with the nurse.
The moment she stepped out of the door, Mrs. Hill turned and led the way back to the office where Susie was supposed to be working. They’d hardly stepped through the door when she turned on her.
“Just what do you think you were doing rushing to that patient? Who do you think you are? You have no medical training! You are not a nurse or an EMT. Did you think you could do anything for that man that a trained professional could not?” The woman paused for a breath.
“No, ma’am. I happened to be stepping out for a fiv
e-minute break when he collapsed. I just stayed with him until Anne and Jamal could…”
“You were stepping out? You were stepping out? When I saw you, you were in here, and then you were by his side in a blink…”
“Yes, ma’am. I was about to step outside, is what I meant to say,” Susie corrected herself. Goodness! Why was this woman so nasty? Susie took a deep breath. Mrs. Hall was probably just tired, she told herself. She was probably stressed like everyone else. Be patient with her and with yourself.
“Well, the next time you decide to step outside, you do so. You do not stop to help a patient, do you understand?” the woman said sharply. “This is not the first time I’ve had to speak with you about this, Miss Freyn.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You are not trained—”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hill, but can I get you a cup of tea or something?” Susie couldn’t believe she’d just interrupted this woman. It did make the nurse stop, however.
“A cup… what?” The woman blinked, completely confused.
“I don’t know, you just seem like you could use a cup of tea,” Susie said gently, wishing beyond anything that the woman didn’t bite her head off again.
The woman sputtered for a moment, opening and closing her mouth, but she finally sighed and rubbed a hand across her forehead above the protective visor she wore. “I… I suppose I could use a cup of tea. Thank you.”
Susie gave her a little smile and a nod. “I’ll be right back with that. Perhaps you could take just a moment to sit down and get off your feet. They must be aching.”
“Yes! How did… of course, I’m sure everyone here has aching feet. We’re on them for ten hours or more.”
“Longer,” Susie said before ducking out of the room and running to the cafeteria down the hall to get the poor nurse her tea. She was just exhausted, poor thing!