Reaper of Dreams (The Gods' Dream Trilogy)
Page 30
“Help me!”
Harvest of Dreams is available now Kindle.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks go to:
Louella Nelson, writing teacher extraordinaire.
My first critique group: Alexis Montgomery, Diane Dallape, Erika Burkhalter, Janis Thereault, and Judy Lewis.
Authors who read chapters or the whole book and gave feedback: Bob Sullivan, Susan Squires, and Cate Rowan.
My second agent, Kelly Mortimer.
My friend, Kim Beckley, who helped with edits.
Romance Writers of America, especially my local chapter, Orange County, and my online chapter, Futuristic, Fantasy, and Paranormal.
Lex Valentine, who designed the beautiful covers for the series.
Pam Payne, who edited the book for me, and Amy Atwell of Author E.M.S., who formatted the digital editions.
The Wet Noodle Posse for their ongoing friendship and support.
OTHER BOOKS BY DEBRA HOLLAND
THE GODS’ DREAM TRILOGY
In order:
Sower of Dreams
Reaper of Dreams
Harvest of Dreams
~ ~ ~
MONTANA SKY SERIES
By Date:
1883
Beneath Montana’s Sky: A Montana Sky Series Novella (June 2014)
1886
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Trudy
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Lina
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Darcy (August, 2014)
1890s
Wild Montana Sky
Starry Montana Sky
Stormy Montana Sky
Glorious Montana Sky (Fall, 2014)
Painted Montana Sky: A Montana Sky Series Novella
Montana Sky Christmas: A Sweetwater Springs Short Story Collection
Sweetwater Springs Christmas: A Montana Sky Short Story Collection
Look for future Montana Sky books, novellas, and short stories.
~ ~ ~
TWINBORNE TRILOGY
Lywin’s Quest
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today Bestselling author Debra Holland is a psychotherapist and corporate crisis/grief counselor, who lives in Southern California with her dog and two cats. The Gods’ Dream Trilogy was inspired by the books of Andre Norton, the Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Debra Holland is also known from her award winning Montana Sky Series. Book One, Wild Montana Sky, is a USA Today bestselling Book. Book Two, Starry Montana Sky, was an Amazon Top 50 Greatest Love Stories pick.
You can download her free ebooklet: 58 Tips For Getting What You Want From a Difficult Conversation on her website: http://drdebraholland.com.
You can contact Debra at:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/drdebraholland
My blog: http://drdebraholland.blogspot.com
From NY Time Best Seller Susan Squires comes an exciting new series, The Children of Merlin. Join the large and boisterous Tremaine family as each discoveres what lies buried in their genetic code. We begin with bad-boy brother Tris Tremaine, who doesn’t believe the family legend, on the run from his destiny, until he meets his unlikely match in Maggie O’Brian.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
Susan Squires
“Superb writing, vivid narrative combined with complex plotting, and intricate characterization make each novel by Ms. Squires an absolute winner.”
—Romantic Time BOOKreviews
CHAPTER ONE
Jason saw his reflection wavering in the pool of blood under the streetlight. Pale eyes, buzz cut, burly. He looked like what he was: a hard man. He glanced to the body lying across the curb, its throat carved into a grim smile. The executive type, soft. The knife snicked shut in Jason’s hand, its blade flashing for an instant in the light. Not even a challenge.
Beyond the stark channel of the security light, shadows moved. Jason closed his eyes and drew the power from deep in his belly. The world went red and he knew they couldn’t see him anymore. He was safe. No one would believe these homeless guys if they said they’d seen the murderer disappear into thin air. They probably wouldn’t even bother telling their story to the Vegas police when the body was finally found.
Jason walked toward the distant kaleidoscope of neon creating a glow on the night sky. He wouldn’t need to cloak his presence there. The crowds would do it for him.
Half an hour later, he made his way through the casino toward his hotel room. At three a.m. it looked tawdry, like a whore whose mascara was running. When he’d left the jangle of false excitement and ringing bells behind, he whipped out his cell phone. He liked reporting by phone. He’d caught a glimpse of the old woman once. He’d rather not chance that again.
“Hardwick, give her the phone,” he barked and sat on the bed in the darkened room. The windows looked out on the Strip. If sirens were racing to the abandoned factory, no one would hear them from up here. Damn, he was good. Nobody better. Except the old woman. But old as she was, she couldn’t live much longer. Someday soon he’d be leading the Clan.
“You were right,” he said when he heard her rasping breath on the line. “He’s in LA. He and wife got six kids. Goes by the name of Tremaine these days.”
He could feel her anger, though her voice was even. “Any sign of power in their get?”
“The guy I , uh, questioned was real close to the family. He didn’t see any.”
A faint sigh of relief wheezed from the phone. “Trevellyan doesn’t know that the Talismans are the way to true power either, or he’d be searching for them just as we are.” The old woman wanted the one thing she couldn’t have. Jason hoped she never found it. “So their spawn are vulnerable,” the voice like wind through dry leaves continued. “Where are they?”
“I’m not a Finder.”
“Find them, or you know what will happen.” The voice was flat now.
Jason’s mind skittered over the last time she’d been angry at him. When he hadn’t wanted to give up Selah. He couldn’t go through that again. “You got it.” He kept his voice as flat as hers and pushed the cascading images away. She wanted Tremaines, he’d find her Tremaines.
~ ~ ~
It was a hundred miles into Fallon. She’d been so anxious to get away, she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Since she was flush, at least for a minute, she decided to stoke up on some of Jake’s steak and eggs. Maggie O’Brian’s rig clattered into the dirt parking lot next to the diner. The four-horse trailer was one of those old iron slat jobs where the horses were tied in at an angle. It made a God-awful racket when it was empty. Truck wasn’t exactly new either. Ford F250, vintage 1970. But the big 390 diesel did the job. You couldn’t see much of the faded red paint under all the dust anyway, so the dings and dents didn’t matter.
She climbed out of the cab. A kick-ass black Harley with minimum chrome and scarred leather saddlebags leaned on its stand in front of the diner windows, no doubt so the owner could keep an eye on it. Covered with road grit and sporting a couple of dings itself, it wasn’t a Sunday afternoon ride for some rich Hell’s Angel wannabe. That bike had seen action. Maggie pulled open the ancient screen door.
The only people in the diner at this hour were usually locals. It was too early for tourists in the “living ghost town,” of Austin, Nevada. The counter was filled with single old guys, leaving only one empty seat next to a really broad-shouldered man. He was the youngest guy in the diner by probably forty years. She didn’t recognize him. He must be the owner of the cycle. His black leather jacket was slung over the low back of the barstool, leaving a faded blue work shirt, longish black hair, and some three-day stubble the only things she could see.
Maggie felt something go down her spine.
She shook herself and squeezed onto the stool between the big guy and one of the geezers. The young guy seemed even bigger up close with that shoulder looming over her. He exuded testosterone and, well, some sort of danger. Bet he did well in bar fights. He had that “I don’
t care what happens” attitude. And wow, close up, he was really doing something to her. What was that all about? Pheromones?
Get hold of yourself, girl.
He sipped his coffee. What a profile. Classic good looks.
She did so not care about that. She saw him glance at her out of the corner of his eye. A healing cut slanting over his eyebrow and pink, shiny skin on his cheek indicated that he’d been in a scrape. To another woman, he would have been intimidating. Another woman would have taken a booth. But she was in no danger. He wouldn’t even notice someone like her. Plain, tough as nails, no makeup, dusty jeans. That was Maggie O’Brian. Take it or leave it.
Mainly they left it. Just the way she wanted it.
“Hey, Jake,” she called to the guy in the white apron and the paper hat through the window to the kitchen.
“Maggie!” Jake glanced up from his griddle, grinning. He had jowls and squinting, kind eyes. “You look like shit, darlin’. You okay?”
“Boy, you make a girl feel like a million bucks. Just drove in from Cheyenne.”
“All night?”
“Grabbed a couple hours sleep at Elroy’s. Gotta get over to Fallon.”
“You win?” Ethel, the waitress, must be seventy-five if she was a day in spite of her bright orange hair. Her face was folded in a thousand wrinkles.
“You bet your ass.” Tough as nails, that’s me. She made a point of telling herself that a lot—a fact that wasn’t lost on her. She wasn’t stupid. Fake it ‘til you make it.
Jake whistled approval. Ethel put down the plates she carried in front of the old coot three seats down and gave Maggie a whoop and a high five. “I’ll get you the usual, honey.”
The guy next to her shifted on his stool to look directly at her. “What’d you win?” he asked in the deepest baritone she could remember hearing. She was a sucker for deep voices. She glanced over and couldn’t help a double take. Damn, but that was one good-looking man. Green, green eyes, eyelashes a mile long, cleft chin, fair skin. Had some old scars as well as the recent scabs. He’d knocked around some, like his cycle. The dark hair curling over his collar and his three-day stubble made him seem even tougher. Only his lips looked soft. He belonged on movie posters, but he might be playing either the hero or the villain.
Way out of her league. Like she had a league.
“Women’s bull riding.” She pulled up the coffee cup Ethel had plunked down in front of her. “Cheyenne Rodeo Days.”
“You look kind of, uh, small to be riding bulls.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Always surprises the crowd when I win. Promoters like that.”
“She wins a lot,” Ethel sniffed. Ethel was okay.
“Much money in it?” the old man on the far side of the looker asked.
Maggie shrugged. “Not for women. Enough to make the next entry fee, stay on the road.” Sometimes pay the mortgage.
“You like staying on the road.” This from the looker.
“If that’s your bike, you do too,” she snapped.
His brows arched in surprise, but his lips didn’t smile. “Got me there. What drives you to it?” Just as she was about to lie to him he said, “And don’t tell me it’s wanderlust or some bullshit like that. There’s always a real reason.”
She snapped her mouth closed. She owed this guy jack. But she found herself answering anyway. “Family.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, turning away. She couldn’t see the look in his eyes. “I get that one.”
She sipped her coffee. Had he just admitted something personal? She could feel his big body next to her. The heat, sure, but something more too. She couldn’t say just what.
“So … Fallon. What’s there?” His words came out reluctantly. He was having steak and eggs too. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbows. He had dark, straight hair on his forearms. She couldn’t help watching the muscles work as he cut the steak. “Rodeo?”
She sucked in a breath. “Uh, no. Mustang sale at Indian River Ranch.”
“How many you gonna take this time?” Ethel asked.
“I figure eight.” They wanted more, but her trailer only held four. It would be two long trips just to get eight down to LA.
“What’ll you do with eight wild horses?” The guy seemed amused.
That annoyed her. “Take them to a camp for disabled kids that can’t afford to buy the kind of horses rich kids get from their parents.”
A brief flash of something that looked like guilt flashed over his face and was gone. Then he frowned. “You got it in for disabled kids?”
Maggie had an urge to smack him. Or pull him down by his hair and kiss him. Whoa, girl. Disaster for someone like you. Before she could act on either impulse, Ethel intervened.
“She’s got a waiting list of camps, mister. Must work out okay.”
He sat back in his chair, still frowning. “Maybe the old, broken-down ones….”
“Steak and eggs, up,” Jake yelled, though Ethel was only six feet away. Ethel turned to the window and slid the plate over to Maggie, followed by a side of sourdough toast.
“Nope,” Maggie said, her mouth tight as she stabbed the steak and sawed the knife across it. “The old ones go out to contract retirement places. Big pastures, good care. They’re fine. The young ones get sold to private buyers, resellers, or the job program that teaches prisoners horse training.” Maggie’s gut began to churn. “Which leaves the incorrigibles. No reputable trainer will buy them. They scare individual buyers. Won’t halter. Won’t trailer, so they don’t make it to pasture. They end up meat, no matter how hard BLM tries to stop it. Or they get put down.”
The guy frowned. “So, those are the ones you take?”
Maggie sighed. When she started talking about the mustangs, she always got carried away. Why did she even feel like she had to explain to this guy? She stabbed a piece of steak. “Yup.”
“Oh, that makes me feel better for the disabled kids.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” That should shut him up. She didn’t want to hear that baritone anymore. It was doing funny things to her in places that had forgotten how to do those things a long time ago.
“I might surprise you.”
His statement itself surprised her. Why did he insist? It wasn’t like he cared. Time to get tough. “I doubt it. I know your kind.” Rude, but she needed to control this situation.
He blinked twice. For an instant, she saw hurt and maybe confusion flash across his expression. Then he turned to his plate like he was slamming a door. “Yeah. You probably do.” She had an inexplicable urge to apologize, to say she hadn’t meant what she said. That was crazy. How was this guy getting to her like that? She knew better than to let her guard down.
So she bantered with Jake and Ethel just to show she didn’t care. She teased the old guy two stools over who’d eaten at Jake’s every day for twenty years, since his wife died. But she was hyper-aware of the man next to her. She felt every shift in his weight on the stool, every clench of the muscles in his jaw as he ate. What the hell was wrong with her? He dawdled over his hash browns and asked for a refill on coffee even after Ethel had taken his plate away. But he seemed nervous. Kept adjusting himself on the barstool. Couldn’t he just leave?
When Maggie slapped down fifteen dollars and left the diner, he was still sitting there.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Glossary
Excerpt of Harvest of Dreams
Acknowledgments
Other Books by Debra Holland
About the Author
Excerpt—Do You Believe in Magic? by Susan Squires