by JJ Aughe
Jessie
Listen To Your Heart
Ancient Destinies Series: Book One.
Copyright 2014 by: JJ Aughe
Published by JJ Aughe at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition
Cover design by Melody Simmons
Smashwords Edition License Agreement Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All copyright rights reserved. This ebook may not be re-sold, printed or given away to other people without the written consent of the author. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This eBook is a work of fiction and, except as may be noted elsewhere in the front or at the end of this work, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters in this work are productions of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 2: Dreams
Chapter 3: An Eagle’s Flight
Chapter 4: A Proposal
Chapter 5: Curious Events
Part Two: Melissa
Chapter 6: A Safe House? Carol
Chapter 8: Haunting Sins
Chapter 9: A Betrayal
Chapter 10: Eddie
Chapter 11: Amazing Finds
Chapter 12: Impressions In Snow
Chapter 13: Peter
Part Three: A Package For Jessie
Chapter 15: A Mercedes
Chapter 16: Monica
Chapter 17: Alone Time
Chapter 18: Similar Encounters
Chapter 19: A Summons
Chapter 20: Melissa’s Agenda
Chapter 21: Captured!
Chapter 22: A Bridge To Safety?
Chapter 23: Five-Finger Lake
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books By Author JJ Aughe
Connect with Author JJ Aughe
Sneak Peek of Book Two; A Journey To Destiny
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my family and friends for their support and enormous patience in putting up with my being almost a recluse while working on my manuscripts. Here also, a grateful Thank You to Melody Simmons who designed the cover of this ebook. I believe her book cover designs are masterpieces. Over a hundred other individuals and private enterprises have contributed to the completion of this manuscript and the furtherance of the other books in this series. It would be great to acknowledge every single one individually, but the list would fill pages. That being the case, and knowing those individuals know who they are and what they have contributed, I will say a hearty Thank You to all who have contributed.
Thank you for choosing my novel. I hope you enjoy reading “Jessie, Listen to Your Heart” as much as I enjoyed writing it for ‘You’.
Prologue
Charles Logan, once a respected archeology professor, now, hungry and homeless, reduced to wearing clothes given to him at the rescue mission or other charities and searching trash bins for recyclables to survive, shuffled along the sidewalk, his sad blue eyes downcast. He had learned the hard way that, because of his past, even though he had been exonerated, no one cared. That hurt. He had tried to rebound from the stigma of a wrongful conviction and prison sentence. Nothing he did could convince people that he was a good person, not a philanderer who preyed on young women. It seemed there was no way to change people’s minds.
Well, he resignedly mused. It is what it is. I just have to live with it.
His busy eyes searching for anything of value along the sidewalk fell on what he thought was a folded one-dollar bill lying in the grass. Visions of something from a dollar menu had him immediately stooping to pick it up. He was surprised when he unfolded the bill to find it was actually a twenty-dollar bill. As if he had found a hundred dollar bill, Charles Logan clutched the bill in his left hand and hastened toward a fast food restaurant two blocks down the street.
An ancient Native American woman stood hidden from view in the shrubbery forty or so yards further on down the sidewalk. Her wrinkled lips turned up in a toothless smile when the homeless man picked up the money she had left for him alone to find. When he was near she stepped onto the sidewalk, pointed a gnarled finger at him. In a raspy voice she croaked, “You are chosen.”
Logan stopped, asked, “What did you say?”
Reaching inside her black doeskin cloak the old woman brought out an object wrapped in thin, white leather. Holding it out to him, she continued. “You will use the money you just found to deliver this to the one to whom it rightfully belongs. Take it, but do not open it. It is written in the stars that you are the one to do this deed. You must do as I have said. After the deed is done you will know you have done the right thing.”
Charles wanted to ignore the woman's words and started to brush past her. However, when he happened to gaze into her ancient eyes he was sure he saw the image of a young native American woman with waist-length, ebony hair smiling back at him. A chill went up and down his spine and he knew he had to do as the old woman bade him and accepted the leather bound object.
He started to ask how he would know who the owner was but the old woman anticipated his question. “The name of the one who rightfully owns what I have entrusted to you will come to you when the need is there. There are ways for you to find out where she lives and you will know how to get it to her. I promise you that you will have done an honorable thing.”
Charles glanced down at the object in his hand for a second. When he looked up again the old woman was gone! He quickly looked around, his eyes scanning the shrubbery from which she had stepped. She was nowhere to be found. She had vanished!
Part One
Chapter One
Jessie
Monday, 9:45 pm.
At a table for two next to a ceiling to floor plate-glass wall overlooking the waters of Lake Washington, the explicit suggestions of her fiancé sent Jessica Melano’s building ire flaring. Her usually soft, calm, articulated voice revealed her shock as it rose above the murmur of conversation at the surrounding tables.
“What?” Realizing she had shouted the word, she quickly lowered her voice, continuing in almost an agitated whisper, “You can’t possibly be serious, Gerald?”
At a nearby table her shocked voice brought the guarded conversation of two mid-eastern gentlemen to a sudden halt as, interested but acting as if they had heard nothing out of the ordinary, each strained to hear more. Though surprised, but pretending not to notice Jessica’s uncharacteristic outburst, the other patrons quickly resumed their conversations.
The muscles in Jessie’s right arm tensed at the almost overwhelming urge to reach across the thick smoked-glass table to slap her fiancé’s face. Remembering they were dining in a restaurant full of people who knew both her and her fiancé she clasped her hands together, forcefully holding them in her lap as she leaned toward her date. Lowering her voice to just above a whisper, she carefully chose her words. “You can’t be serious, Gerald! How could you ask me something so outrageous when you know I am not now, nor have I ever been, promiscuous?”
“Yes, Jessie. I am well aware of that fact.” Gerald G. Hamlin IV, heir to the vast fortune of Hamlin Industries, smugly answered. Then, employing the radiant, beguiling smile that had attracted her to him in the first place, he lowered his own voice, “I love you. I have since the day we met. By the emphatic ‘Yes!’ you gave me when I asked you to marry me, you must love me too. When
I placed my grandmother’s engagement ring on your finger that night you claimed you loved me so much you would do anything for me. That statement alone should make it perfectly acceptable for me to ask you to go to bed with me!”
Gerald reached out as if to take her hand to try to reason with her, decided it might be better to just go ahead, say what he wanted, and let his hand drop to the table. “Besides, Jessie, We have been dating for almost four months now and I have never pushed you. I have been patient with you because I knew that you had never been with a man in that way. But, damn, Jessie, like any man my age I also have needs.”
“That said,” he smilingly proclaimed, as he leaned toward her. “I think it is only right that you let me make love to you before we get married. That way I will know whether we are compatible in that area of our relationship.”
“Hell, Jessie!” he exclaimed when he saw the shock return to her face. “Like I said, I believe I have the right to know whether you are exciting in bed or not.”
His egotistical, so important attitude, that last infuriating remark and the way his eyes bore accusingly into hers as if she were the one being unrealistic, was just too much. Convinced that he had been conning her from the very beginning of their relationship she pushed her chair back, stood. Angrily glaring down at the man she had come to admire and love for his chivalry, his drive to succeed and his care for the comfort and well-being of those around him, she shook her head. She could not believe how mistaken she had been! Everything he had said and done from the first day she had met him had been a sham. A con! Like every other guy she had ever dated, all Gerald really wanted was to get her into bed, maybe get her pregnant so she would be compelled to marry him. Everything had been just to gain free access to her fortune!
Well, she silently raged, that is not going to happen! Not now! Not ever! She covertly glanced around the quieted dining room debating on whether she should tell him exactly what she thought of him now or, just walk out.
The restaurant is full of people I associate with on a daily basis. These people know me. I know they are all surreptitiously listening and secretly watching to see what I will do. They will expect me to act the epitome of dignity and not make a larger scene of this than it already is. I have to remember that. So maybe the right thing to do then is to walk out.
The overwhelming shock, anger and revulsion at the atrociousness of what Gerald was suggesting she should do for him again took over, negating her sense of propriety. I have my pride and my honor at stake here and I don’t really care if I make a scene. The people here will just have to understand that if Gerald feels he has the right to say something outrageous like that to me, I have the right to voice my opinion too!
How should I handle this, though? Should I sit down and calmly tell him what I think of his suggestions, tell him to go to hell then get up and calmly walk out? Convention tells me it would be better to just leave without giving him a piece of my mind. She lowered her head as she thought and her glance fell to the chair she had just vacated and made her decision. Seating herself, she silently glared at him.
The corners of Gerald’s lips lifted in a satisfied grin she knew meant he was certain he was winning his way. She again had the urge to smack that grin right off his face but, continuing to stare angrily at him, she controlled herself.
Gerald didn’t say anything for a moment and she wondered if he was trying to come up with the right words that would coerce her into his bed. She wasn’t prepared for his next outrageous statement. Words that would send her temper flaring and prod her beyond the realm of reason.
“Well, Jessie,” Gerald smiled confidently before continuing. “What’s it going to be? Do you get in bed with me tonight, do all the things I want you to do? Or do I have to go see Miranda again?”
Outrage immediately filled Jessie’s being as her eyes shot daggers at him. Her nostrils flared in anger as she yanked his ring from her finger and roughly shoved her chair back again and stood, the motion sending her waist length, red hair whipping from shoulder to shoulder. Beyond caring they were in the crowded dining room of one the best restaurants in Bellevue, Washington, she fisted her hands, placed them at the waist of the slinky black dress Gerald liked to see her in and screamed, “Again? You snake you! What do you mean, ‘again’? How many times have you visited Miranda after we have been out on a date?” Her voice breaking right along with her heart, she screamed through trembling lips, “H-How could you do something so, so rotten, Gerald?” Trying unsuccessfully to choke back emotional sobs Jessie’s voice broke again as she screamed, “A-And w-with, of all people, my friend, Miranda Bagnold?”
Jessie was tempted to snatch up the long stemmed glass filled with expensive vintage wine and throw it into Gerald’s handsome face. A childish act like that just wasn’t whom she was, nor was it what she wanted to be seen as. So, rejecting the impulse, she instead leveled a hateful glare at him as, her voice carrying to the far reaches of the restaurant, she tossed his engagement ring on the table, finishing with, “Y- You’re just like every other guy I’ve ever dated, Gerald G. Hamlin the Fifth! You don’t love me! You never have! All you care about is getting your hands on my money and using my body to satisfy your deviated and vulgar lust!”
She violently shook her head again sending her hair whipping back and forth. “Well, Mr. ‘so sure of yourself.’ You will never get either my money or m-my body! You can go straight to hell! Yes, I know I am shouting. I hope everyone in this restaurant hears what I say, too. Maybe then they will all know what a cad you really are and will have nothing more to do with you!” Jessie started to turn away, but checked herself as she finished with, “Furthermore, Gerald, I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again!” Tears streaming from her eyes, she turned to flee the restaurant as applause and not just a few knowing, ‘Hear! Hears!’ and ‘Atta girls’ exploded from the patrons.
Hearing the supportive response from the people around her bolstered Jessie’s self-respect and courage. Willing her tears to stop, she swiped them from her cheeks with both hands, slowed her pace, stiffened her spine and regally lifted her chin. Seeing encouraging nods from the people at the tables near her, she strode purposefully from the restaurant.
Once outside she paused beside one of the faux marble support columns to retrieve her keys from her purse. The concerted support from those in the dining room not-with-standing, her composure suddenly crumbled. No longer able to keep her emotions at bay, a sob of anguish escaped her quivering lips, tears again streaming, unchecked, down her lovely high boned cheeks and, feeling weak, she leaned a shoulder against the column. She suddenly had the thought that Gerald might follow her outside and, not wanting to have anything to do with him again, she sprinted across the parking lot to her car in her two inch, Gucci heels.
Nearly blinded by tears, she tried several times before she was able to unlock the car door. Once the door was open, she slid under the steering wheel, slammed the door shut, jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine. Shaking the tears from her eyes, she revved the engine as she crammed the gearshift into reverse. Her legs suddenly began to tremble causing her foot to slip from the clutch pedal. The car shot backwards out of the parking space, nearly hitting Gerald who, indeed, had followed her.
Jessie heard Gerald scream her name as he jumped out of the way. Intent on getting away as fast as possible, she ignored him. Without braking, she ground the transmission into first gear and let out the clutch, causing the rear tires to scream their complaint all the way to the street.
Bailey Gilmore, a tall, dark haired man in his late thirties, had left the restaurant minutes before in his latest of many unsuccessful attempts to secure financing for the most important project of his life. The was sole owner/operator of C&G Aerial Adventure Charters stared dejectedly at the keys in his hand, pressed the button on the remote unlocking the door of his rental car. Hearing a woman’s loud, anguished sob Bailey glanced toward the entrance of the restaurant from which it had come.
The strikingly beautiful woman he had noticed earlier as she and her date entered the restaurant now stood with a shoulder against one of the columns supporting the portico. His heart went out to her as she burst into anguished tears and ran across the parking lot to a vintage Corvette.
What a shame, he sympathized as he opened his car door. I wonder if her date had anything to do with her distress. If he is responsible, he should be ashamed of himself. I know I would be. I would hope I would be ashamed anyway.
As Gilmore stood with his hand resting on the frame of the open door his mind turned to his own problems. He was deep in thought, deliberating on whom he could contact next to get the financing he so desperately needed when he heard tires squalling on pavement and a man’s pleading voice shouting a woman’s name.
Curious, Gilmore glanced behind him to see what was happening just as the Corvette the woman he had seen running across the parking lot to, sped away, its back tires smoking, leaving a man helplessly glaring after it. Sadly shaking his head, Gilmore murmured, “Brother, I think you have ticked that beauty off, and, if I were a betting man, from the way she tore out of here, I would bet that she never wants to see you again.”
His train of thought broken, Gilmore slid behind the wheel, pulled the door closed and sat for a minute getting his thoughts together. He noticed a light rain begin to speckle the windshield as he silently shook his head. “My last hope, I guess,” he muttered as he started the engine and backed out of the parking space, “is to go back to the bank tomorrow. Devlin did say he would consider giving me the loan if the paperwork I gave him checked out.”
Distressed, Gilmore thought over the situation he was in on the drive back to his condo on the west side of Lake Sammamish. “Why can’t I seem to convince anyone to finance this project?
The loan rejections I have been getting, especially this last one, do not make sense. For twenty years I have worked, fought beside and even stood up for Dave Jenkins at his wedding! Yet, even though he easily could, he refused to finance the project. Why? I have never been arrested and, as far as I know, my credit rating is excellent. I own a thriving business that has been in the black since just over a year after I started it. Except for being forced off the road last week, I have never had an accident in a car or even been issued a traffic ticket. Therefore, I have a perfect driving record. Yet, Dave said he couldn’t do anything for me. I just don’t understand it. I gave Dave all the paperwork to prove that what I want to do is not a scam or anything. He even agreed the project was fascinating. He told me he was sorry, but because of all the other investments he had and the sluggish stock market right now, circumstances beyond his control dictated he decline.