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Black Velvet Seductions Publishing Company
www.blackvelvetseductions.com
Copyright ©2007 by Susan Gabriel
First published in 2007, 2007
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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Susan Gabriel
The Stir of Echo
ISBN 978-0-9802246-0-3
Copyright 2007 Susan Gabriel Cover Art Copyright 2007 by Richard Savage www.swage.net
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
All characters in this book are completely fictional. They exist only in the imagination of the author. Any similarity to any actual person or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Published 2007 Printed by Black Velvet Seductions Publishing Company in the United States of America
Visit us at: www.blackvelvetseductions.com
Dedication
To Sally Who always believed, even when I didn't. In gratitude and honor of our shared Irish heritage, I dedicate this book to you. May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door.
Acknowledgments
Much appreciation to Doug Amtower and Elizabeth Siwek for not disowning me because of what I write; and to Laurie Sanders and Richard Savage for doing what they do so well.
www.blackvelvetseductions.com
The Homecoming
"Sign and date here, and again, right there. These papers will transfer the title of the house into your name.” The attorney offered her a gleaming gold pen. Taking the instrument in her hand, she carefully signed her name on the highlighted areas. The counsel gathered the paperwork, confirming that her signature was affixed to all of the appropriate lines on the document.
"Echo,” he peered over his tortoiseshell glasses, the corners of his mouth turning up in a half-smile. “That's quite an unusual name. I was wondering if there was a story behind it."
There was that same stupid question again. Echo twirled her carroty locks around her index finger wishing she had a more interesting answer. The truth was Echo didn't have a clue why she had been saddled with the strange moniker.
"No story really,” Echo replied. “I suppose I should make one up and have it ready for every time someone asks me that very same question."
Echo loved to watch people's expression when she said that. The attorney's confused visage told her that he wasn't certain if he had been insulted or not.
"The truth is, my parents are old hippies, very ‘into’ planetary alignments, and such. I consider myself lucky that they didn't name me something like Spring Rain, or Karma."
The attorney tilted his head to one side, glancing over his spectacles as if she were a piece of prime rib he was sizing up for dinner. “Well, it suits you, somehow."
If you only knew the half of it buddy, Echo thought.
As long as she could recall, Echo had “heard” things; snippets of conversations, ramblings, rants, and whispers. They were echoes from another world, bouncing off of the fabric of time into her ears.
When Echo was a little girl, her Grandmother, a darling but exceedingly superstitious woman from the old country, urged her not to worry. Gran would tuck her in at night whispering stories of mythological Celtic gods and the gifts they bestowed on mankind. But Echo knew that it was just a grandmotherly fairy tale designed to quell her fears.
Conventional medicine had provided no answers to her questions. Physically, she was sound as a dollar. In desperation, Echo had visited The Chicago Center for Paranormal Research. There it was confirmed. She was a Clairaudient.
The researcher explained that a clairaudient was a sensitive, gifted with the keen ability to perceive sounds or words from outside sources, such as spirits or other entities. A gift? It felt more like a damned curse.
The messages she received never seemed meant for her, and Echo didn't know how she was supposed to act on them. They were an annoying form of psychic eavesdropping, like conversations overheard in a restaurant—interesting perhaps in a voyeuristic way, but soon forgotten.
The purpose of this so-called gift, if there was a purpose, eluded Echo. The researcher advised her, that with diligent training, she would be able to control the communication. Echo had no desire to control anything. She hated making decisions and right now she hated her life. If she was honest with herself, she would have to admit that she hoped one day the condition would just disappear.
When her parents insisted she take their house in the suburbs, Echo reasoned that she was doing her parents a favor by taking the property off of their hands while they raised their consciousness in far-flung corners of the earth. In fact, she was sure she was subconsciously trying to hide, hoping the voices wouldn't follow her here.
The attor ney dropped the keys to her parent's old Victorian into her upturned palm. His fingertips brushed the inside of her wrist. A shiver vibrated through Echo like tiny ripples on a still lake.
"You're dreamin’ girl and you don't even know that you're asleep."
"Excuse me,” Echo stammered, “Did you say something?"
"Congratulations, I said congratulations on the house.” The attorney leaned over his desktop towards Echo. “Are you alright? You just went a little pale."
The damned voices again, actually, this particular damn voice. It had been haunting her for months.
The attorney stretched his hand across the desk, bringing it to rest on Echo's forearm. “Would you like a drink? I think I have some bourbon stashed around here."
Echo peered through his conservative spectacles into his grey eyes. The attorney's gesture was friendly, almost fatherly. Echo's intuition sensed that it held the promise of more. A vein in her neck pulsed against her throat.
It had been more than a year, sixteen months to be exact, since she had felt the touch of a man. It was not for lack of suitors for there were many who pursued her. Her celibacy was self-induced.
Average men were bores. Few she met knew how to talk to a woman, much less seduce one. She found them to be unskilled and selfish in the bedroom; laying their full weight on top of her while they pumped away with a predictable rhythm. Sweaty hands roughly kneaded her breasts; sloppy, smothering kisses crushed her tender mouth. Some whimpered like wounded puppies when they climaxed. It wasn't pretty.
Echo wished that one of them, just one, would read a book on the subject or at least aspire to some form of sexual higher education, but they appeared entirely content, even boastful, of their present skill level. Echo sure as hell wasn't; she wanted more.
Willful and lusty, she had not yet met the man who could handle her. She was born the only child of over-indulgent parents. Some might say that she was spoiled—rotten.
Her expectations were high. Finding no man that could live up to them, Echo decided to bench her booty until the right man came along. No sex was better than disappointing sex, she concluded. Besides, she was no stranger to taking care of herself in that department. It wasn't exactly the same, but it helped to keep the horny wolf from her door until she found a suitable mate.
Echo considered the attorney's offer. He was handsome in a suburban sort of way. Neatly trimmed hair, cut into an acceptably short style. A paunch around his middle spoke of hurried meals fro
m fast-food sacks.
Echo scanned the paper-strewn office. Stacks of legal briefs teetered precariously like paper monuments. Framed diplomas and licenses crookedly lined the walls. Her eyes came to rest on top of a bookcase where plastic sci-fi action figures were arranged in battle.
Oh shit, I'm throwing this one back in the water, she concluded.
Echo withdrew her arm from her counsel's touch, uncrossed her long, lean legs and rose from the chair. A single bead of perspiration crept from beneath her thick curls, slipped down her neck, and then disappeared like a phantom between her breasts.
"Jaysus lass, you are such a dreadful girl!"
That voice again, it seemed to be taunting her, pointing out her faults. In her gut, Echo knew that this voice was not a remnant of an overheard conversation, leaking through the veil of the otherworld; this particular voice was distinctly closer, and it was speaking directly to her.
"I really should be going now. I'd like to get over to the house before dark and get settled in. Thank you for all of your help on this matter.” Echo shook hands with the attorney before walking out into the unseasonably warm autumn evening.
The daylight hours were fading. Echo turned her face towards the last rays of the sinking sun and inhaled the dewy air deeply into her lungs. It bore the sweet smell of a new beginning.
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Echo stood in front of her newly acquired Victorian painted lady. Her parents had purchased it only two years before. A stab of guilt cut through her belly. She had never found the time in her schedule to visit her parents here. Now they were off in some foreign land, doing wonderful, altruistic things for mankind, and she was still stuck trying to figure out her place in the world.
Echo was amused by the sweet serenity of the idyllic neighborhood. Leaves glowing with the blush of late September cruised to the pavement like fairy ships on a sea of air and lay scattered along the tree-lined street. Stately, well-kept Victorian homes soared three stories high into the darkening sky, their windows aglow in the twilight.
"Well, this is just like a sappy Thomas Kincade painting,” Echo mused aloud.
A gust of wind whistled through the treetops, raining yet more dying leaves onto the bricks.
"It's the perfect place to go unnoticed"
Damn that voice! Would she ever be alone? No matter what she did or where she went, she never had the luxury of privacy.
Okay who ever you are, please give it a rest. W.E.C.H.O. is signing off for the day! She warned.
The illumination of the street lamp shimmered over the intricate stained glass window on the front door. As Echo turned the lock, a voice with a vague familiarity declared, “Let me be the first to welcome you to the neighborhood."
The voice was not in her ear as it usually was, but came from directly behind her. It had the same distinctive softened vowels and haunting musical lilt as the voice that had attached itself to her in recent days.
Echo whirled around in the direction of the sound. In the shadowy light of the rising crescent moon, she discerned the figure of a man with inky-black hair strolling up the walkway towards her. He was perhaps six foot two in height with broad shoulders that tapered down in a “V” to a pair of slender hips.
Advancing towards her, he extended his right hand in a cordial gesture. Echo rummaged in her purse for pepper spray.
"Please forgive me, I must have startled you.” He stepped into the porch light. “My name is Flynn."
His voice was uncannily similar to the one haunting her. But that was impossible; unless this was a dead man standing on her porch, and he most decidedly did not appear to be a corpse. He was practically the most beautiful specimen of the male species Echo had ever seen.
Indigo eyes peered out from behind thick lashes that were black as a witch's cauldron. A lock of raven hair dangled with careless abandon above his knitted brow. Echo restrained the compulsion to reach out and smooth it back into place with her fingers.
His smile, which tilted to one side, was warm and inviting. It caused Echo to think of rainy afternoons and the things that happen under the covers on those afternoons. A tingling, heavy feeling crept into her pelvis.
"Come on” he said, “I don't bite.” He thrust his hand nearer, beseeching her to grasp it.
"Well, girl, are you going to let your neighbor stand here all night with his arm out like he's tryin’ to hail a taxi or are you going to give it a polite shake?"
A neighbor, ah ha, he was a neighbor. Living in the city had made her jumpy. She felt a flush of embarrassment spread across her freckled cheeks. She was grateful for the darkness that concealed the blossoming redness of her fair skin.
Echo grasped his outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, Flynn. I'm Echo Sullivan."
A sense of being protected and secure washed over her as his hand enclosed hers. A fleeting image of his hands exploring her body passed through her brain. Somebody's horny, she thought.
"Echo? Isn't that a fine name, and aren't you a lovely lass!” he exclaimed. Pointing towards an expansive, turreted dwelling to his left he explained, “I live in the house four doors down and I was taking a stroll on this glorious evening when I spied you, and thought, now that is a lovely lass! So tell me, what is a lovely girl named Echo Sullivan doing in my neighborhood?"
She hadn't been called lass since her grandmother passed away. Was he for real? She just had to ask, “Are you Irish, by any chance?"
"Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. Was it my accent that gave me away or am I smelling of Guinness again?"
He definitely did not smell of Guinness. He smelled like beefcake in a wrapper.
Echo laughed, “No, it was your accent.” A bit flustered, she had forgotten the original question. “I'm sorry, what was your first question?"
Echo examined his left hand—no wedding ring. Hmmm, single man, Hollywood good looks, lives in a Victorian ... probably gay.
"The neighborhood ... you ... here,” Flynn reminded her.
"Oh, well, my parents own ... er, I mean owned ... this house. They moved out of the country and needed me to take over the mortgage. I needed a change of scenery, and well, here I am, living in post-card U.S.A."
Flynn surveyed the neighborhood. “Yeah, you're right. I guess I never thought of it. It is quite picturesque. I haven't been here that long myself, I just moved in a few months ago."
He had the gift of gab; she had to give him that. Oddly enough, his rambling wasn't bothering her at all. She liked the sound of his voice, in fact, she liked it very much. He was easy on the eyes too, so that made it even more tolerable.
"I had hoped that someone would be movin’ in soon. An empty house is not good for property values.” He leaned forward whispering. “Drives ‘em down, you know. People think the neighborhood might be filled with undesirables when they see a house standing empty for months. You're not one of those undesirable characters, are you?"
Was that a mischievous twinkle glittering in his sapphire blue pools of lust? The glint in his eye made Echo want to look away. It was as if he knew her secrets—as if she had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar, or in this case, the nookie jar.
"You appear completely desirable to me,” he concluded.
The boldness of his compliment sent up a flirt alert for Echo. Okay, maybe he wasn't gay. She was pretty certain he was coming onto her, and she didn't mind.
"Yes, I mean, no ... I guess it all depends on how you look at it. Anyway, I'm just a loner, freelance journalist looking for some peace and quiet. I sort of need to refocus my life, you know; figure out what works and what doesn't work anymore."
She glanced up at the imposing house. “I thought this might be the place to start."
"Well, you've come to the right place. This neighborhood is mostly populated with double income families. They leave for work at the dawn of day and don't return home till sunset. Then it's off to soccer practice, or band practice, or the PTA. All very boring, and full of scheduled activities for the family-minded. I
assure you, if it's privacy that you're lookin’ for, then this is your destiny. It's the perfect place to go unnoticed."
The perfect place to go unnoticed? She had heard those words spoken just minutes before! Suddenly, feeling ver y uncomfortable, Echo realized that Flynn still held her hand in his. Awkwardly withdrawing from his grasp she excused herself. “I should be getting inside and settled in."
"Of course, of course. Nice meeting you, Echo Sullivan. I hope you find your first night in your new home an enjoyable one.” Flynn winked at her as if signaling that he knew something she didn't. He waved a casual goodbye over his shoulder as he departed.
Echo assessed him as he walked down the sidewalk, her critical gaze summing up his physique. He was a physically powerful man, perhaps in his late thirties. His dark hair, which he wore slicked back from his forehead, ended in small twists of curls that lightly skimmed the top of his starched, folded collar. He had an exceptionally nice caboose.
His confident stride oozed sensuality. It was almost feline. Echo would not have been surprised to see him spring lithely over a wall, or slink beneath a fence.
Tango dancers in Argentina carried themselves the same way. She recalled gliding across the floor of a Buenos Aires milonga, the Tango beat pounding out the rhythm, in the arms of an Argentine dancer—strong, sure and demanding—leading the dance, asking a question with his body, and she answering him with hers.
Echo's skin prickled with lust.
"If that was the Welcome Wagon, I'm ready to hop on board,” she muttered. She kept watch until her fascinating new neighbor was enveloped by the lurking shadows.
Bound and Determined
Echo stepped into the foyer. Her eyes followed the wide oak staircase that wound its way to the second story as she maneuvered her way around the few boxes that held her personal items, stubbing her toe on the corner of one of the boxes.
"Uggg,” Echo grunted, feeling the exhaustion of the day creep into her muscles. “I'll deal with unpacking tomorrow."
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