Featured Excerpt
Jan 2016 - $.99!
Featured Excerpt
Jan 2016 - $.99!
“But it's no use going back to yesterday,
because I was a different person then.”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland
Prologue
London,
England
Mid-late
1980s
A soft spring breeze tugged a long
curl from Randi Jean Dailey’s carefully styled up-do. She paid the cabbie his
quid, stepped from the car with the help of the hotel doorman, and gave him a
smile. The cabbie let out a satisfactory wolf-whistle before zipping back into
London traffic.
Jean’s heart pounded with
excitement. Instead of climbing on the plane to go home after her semester
abroad, she’d primped and polished and put on her perfect little black dress
accented with proper pearls and sexy stilettos. The ones Court had bought for
her two weeks prior. The ones that made her short legs look a mile long, he
said. The black shoes she’d worn to seduce him last night. The ones that had
driven him so mad with lust he’d made love to her all night long.
With a long bittersweet kiss, they’d parted at noon. His promise to follow her to California as soon as he possibly could were the last words spoken between them.
She adjusted the lace shawl around
her shoulders and headed into the hotel where the Lynford International
Importers new hire reception was being held. As an only-just-hired summer intern,
she’d received her job acceptance and invitation to the reception shortly after
Court had left her studio flat. The afternoon had been spent madly running
around making arrangements to stay in England another three months. To start.
Soft string ensemble music drifted
across the room. The event was exactly as Court had predicted. Proper
Englishmen and their ladies talking quietly, mingling, as much to see as to be
seen. For a week, he’d bemoaned the fact that instead of seeing her off at the
airport, he had to attend this stuffy reception put on by his father’s company.
Not interested in the décor, she searched the sea of bodies in semi-formal wear,
looking for one particular blond head. The men wore sharp suits of worsted wool
with silk ties, the women cocktail gowns in various levels of fashion and
expense. The student interns and freshly graduated new hires were easy to pick
out, by not only their youth, but by the less expensive clothing and the
nervous smiles on their faces. Because Court’s family owned the company, she
looked beyond the students and concentrated on the older attendees. The people
Court had known since the day he’d been born.
One bright head stood out. Danielle
Richards, the hiring contact. If not for Danielle’s call hours before, Jean
would have been boarding a plane just then. Jean headed for Danielle, who
certainly knew Court and could help Jean find him. She merely had to work her
way through to the other side of the large ballroom.
Descending the steps into the
crowd, she plowed ahead, exchanging nervous smiles with the three or four
people she recognized from classes.
Among the glittering bodies,
various scents perfumed the air and queasiness assaulted Jean for a moment.
Something that had never bothered her before the past week. She and Court
figured she had a mild touch of flu, or possibly food poisoning like she’d had
right after arriving in January. The call from the student clinic this
afternoon had negated that theory.
A glint of Danielle’s bright copper
hair through the crowd assured Jean she was still on the right path. A few more
steps and her gaze briefly met Danielle’s. Someone stepped in and cut off the
line of sight before Jean could take a second look at what appeared to be mild
alarm on the other woman’s face. Jean glanced behind her to see what might be
happening that would cause the hiring director’s reaction. No, nothing unusual
there. Jean pressed forward once again.
Like the sun prying back a thick
layer of dark clouds, she saw his golden blond hair through a parting of
bodies. His back to her, he stood near Danielle, part of a circle of
immaculately groomed men and women, a mix of older and younger.
Finally, she eased past a knot of
distinguished men and stood directly behind Court. On a deep breath, she
assessed the situation. The group he stood with contained two older couples,
important looking men and their society wives, all perfectly dressed and
bejeweled. A younger woman with a sleek blond bob stood at Court’s left. Too
close, but he came from people who knew people and had friends he’d been raised
with. This could be one such. Across the small circle, Danielle was the only other
person Jean recognized. A person who’d been friendly. Although the expression
on Danielle’s face wasn’t exactly comforting.
Court began to speak, and Jean was
able to hear him clearly, see clearly as his left arm came up to encircle the
waist of the blond woman at his side, the action surprising her. If his
shoulders looked a bit stiff, the movement a tad forced, she seemed to be the
only one who noticed.
“Danielle, I’d like you to be among
the first to know, Bea and I will be married next weekend. There isn’t time for
formal invitations,”—his chuckle was forced—“we’re expecting, however, we’d
love you to attend.”
The timbre was Court’s, but the
tone and the words couldn’t be his. Dizziness surged in Jean’s head. She took a
step back and clamped both hands over her now roiling stomach. The air had
evaporated from the room and darkness framed the edges of her vision.
“Court…” Danielle said, doing her
best to keep her face clear of emotion. Jean could see it, could hear the
strain, as the other woman’s electric blue gaze locked on her.
Jean swallowed against rising
nausea and took another step back, bumping into someone’s chilled glass of
something. The shock of cold liquid dribbling down her back froze her in place.
In an almost dreamlike parody of
slow motion, Court’s arm dropped from the woman, and he slowly turned. Jean’s
gaze flew to his face as it came into view. His skin took on an ashen cast, as
his eyes widened above his slackening jaw. For a long moment, it was all she
could see.
“Courtland?” The sharply spoken word
from the blonde woman broke the spell. “What is it, darling?”
Jean’s breath rushed back into her
starved lungs, and her heart jolted into triple time, rushing adrenalin into
her system. It was the spark she needed to turn on her heel and push through the
crowd.
“Jean!”
She heard him call after her. Heard
Danielle call after her, but didn’t stop. Escape was the one thought in her
head. Later she’d think about Court’s announcement. But now there was room for
only one instinct pounding through her veins. Run.
Snippets of his history came to her
as she forced her way past people now expressing their shock at her rudeness.
The girl he’d practically been engaged to since they’d been in nappies. The
horrible break up days before Jean had tripped him in the library. The stories
of his family and how he was expected to take over the business one day, like
generations of Lynfords and Robinsons before.
Above all, the vision she couldn’t
reconcile with the words he’d just said, Court’s face smiling down at her. His voice
saying, “I love you. I’ll come for you. We’ll have a wonderful life.”
As she broke through the edge of
the crowd and rushed into the lobby, she thought she heard Court call out her
name one more time, but from a distance. She didn’t look back. Couldn’t look
back. Adrenalin pounding through her veins powered her forward. A doorman
opened the heavy outer door.
“Miss?”
His enquiry went unacknowledged as
she rushed by, headed for the cab parked at the curb.
“Taxi!” she called out.
Surprised, the doorman who’d
recently helped her from a cab, leaped to open the door for her.
“Miss? Everything all right?”
She shook her head and climbed into
the cab.
“Where to, miss?”
“Home.” It was all she could think
of. She could be at Heathrow in a few hours where she’d wait until a seat opened
on a plane headed for New York. From New York she’d get a plane to San
Francisco. There, she’d figure it all out.
“Where’s home, miss?”
“Away from here.” Tears blurring
her vision, she met the cabbie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Just drive.” No
one had followed her out the door. Especially not Court. His words echoing in
her head tore her heart to shreds. The cabbie turned around and slowly eased
into traffic.
Unable to stand it, she gave into
temptation and looked back through the tears welling in her eyes and spilling
down her cheeks. The sidewalk remained empty of anyone she recognized. Only the
doorman looked after her.
The image of Court’s face rose in
her mind. Merry blue eyes, laughing at her driven need to experience everything
Anglo, jokes about her attempts to learn the Brit accent, the little presents
of Earl Grey tea, crumpets and flowers he brought her. The rose petals he’d
scattered on her bed last night where they made love pretending to be in an
English garden. The flower pressed between the pages of her favorite novel, a
sweetly scented bookmark and reminder of his promise they’d be together.
From the dark and dreary February
day when she’d accidentally tripped him in the library, her world had been
filled with sunshine and laughter. He took her places, both physical and
emotional, she’d never have discovered without him. Small shops, hidden parks,
intimate pubs, classic tea houses, historical sites, and the places known only
to locals. To heaven, where he wrapped her in soft clouds of love, like the
weekend in the country where they hiked green fields and pretended to be Robin
Hood and Maid Marian. A better friend, guide, and lover she couldn’t have asked
for.
“I need an address, miss. Or an
intersection at the very least.”
Of course the man needed a
direction. Jean wiped tears from her cheeks and wrapped her arms around her
middle. “Houghton Street,” she said. She needed a direction, too, knew where
she was headed in the next twenty-four hours, but had to take baby steps to get
there. “Houghton Street and then Heathrow.” One step at a time.
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Shea McMaster
Traditional Romance for Modern Women
Copyright Shea McMaster June 2015
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