Paranormal Love Wednesdays blog hop

Greetings, all! I've decided to jump in on the Paranormal Love Wednesdays blog hop since I'm trying to figure out what character to write about next in the Lycanthropy Files series. I've got a survey going and thought I'd share excerpts from two of the females in the running, Kyra Ellison and Reine la Fey (Reine ended up being a write-in, so I thought I'd mention her here).

First up, Kyra. She was sort of a villain in The Mountain's Shadow, but I felt she would have an interesting story of her own. Here's her short excerpt, told from the POV of the main character Joanie:


He scurried back into the office, and I turned to see a woman in a long white dress gliding through the cars. My first thought was that it was the angry ghost of one of the vehicles’ former owners, but then Lonna narrowed her eyes.

“Isn’t that the chick who was with Leo in the restaurant on Tuesday? What’s her name, Kyra? The third—”

“Yep, that’s Kyra Ellison.” I interrupted her before she could blurt out the word.

She came closer, and I saw she wore a white sundress. So much for the ghost. But she did look pissed.

“You!” Her shout was almost a shriek. “You’re the one.”

“One what?” I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or Lonna.

“Man-stealer!” She reached into the pocket of her dress, and Lonna grabbed my arm.

“Run!”

Then there's Reine, the mischievous fairy in Blood's Shadow. Her excerpt is told from the point of view of Gabriel, who looks really hot on this cover, don't you think?


“So you’re older than you look,”

“As are you. And we both have our secrets. You just don’t know as many of yours. Now leave me. I will seal the blood so that it won’t hurt poor Maximilian again, and I’ll do the same upstairs.”

“Could you wait until our detective finishes what he needs to do?”

“No, it is necessary now. Sealing the blood will allow it to rest, which will allow the spirits attached to it to be at peace if nothing else stands in their way. Plus, I need to remove the contamination from Max’s wards around the building and land—his using blood magic, even in small amounts, damaged the spells and allowed the intruders to get in. Nothing I do will interfere with the detective’s work.”

“I trust you,” I said, realizing I did.

“Oh, do you?” She flashed me a wicked grin, and before I realized her intention, she pulled my head to hers and kissed me on the lips. She tasted of honeysuckle and sweet wine, and the passion she ignited flowed through me in golden waves. The static came back, and I pulled her to me to quell the tingling that became a burning need.

I barely heard Selene’s “Gabriel, oh!” before Reine pushed me away with a mischievous laugh.

“That’ll teach you,” she said. “Remember, my kind is never to be trusted. Nor are most others.” With a chuckle that lingered in the air, she disappeared, and I turned to face Selene.


So who deserves their own novella set in Salem at Halloween? Vote here! To vote for Reine, put her name in the "You forgot..." space and click Vote. For a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card, vote, then come back and tell me who you voted for in the comments, and be sure to include your email address with your comment text so I know how to get in touch with you.

Don't forget to stop by the other posts on the blog hop! Click here for the main post with links.

Long Shadows Excerpt

Here's an excerpt from Long Shadows, the second Lycanthropy Files book. It's available in all ebook formats from the Samhain Publishing store. You can also buy it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else ebooks are sold.

Spoiler alert:  if you haven't read The Mountain's Shadow, the content below contains spoilers.

Chapter One:

People say I’m beautiful, but they don’t see the monster inside.

It was like a fairy tale: a big, beautiful house, a plucky heroine, an evil wizard… But the best friend never fares well, and I didn’t. The heroine got cursed too, but she found true love in the end. I got a lifestyle change that wasn’t a choice and came with no warning. The worst part? I couldn’t even remember the specifics of my first change— only that it was traumatic, so my mind had even less to make sense of.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m a werewolf. Please hold your applause. It will only make me cry. Big girls don’t cry, and when you’re a predator, you don’t show signs of weakness.

My part of the story started one rainy February morning. I’d just gotten into the office, a satellite site for the Arkansas Department of Family and Child Services, and snarled at the pile of cases on my desk when the phone rang.

”Marconi!” my boss Paul barked. “Get in here!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Literally. I had a wicked aconite hangover. No, I didn’t use it recreationally. I used it to “spirit-walk,” or create a spiritual doppelganger so I could roam as a spirit-wolf rather than a physical one. I almost kicked my spirit out of my body again when Paul startled me, but I took a few deep breaths to get everything settled in, like spreading batter into the corners of a pan.

Evil cake, that’s me.

It’s hardest for me to control my temper mornings after hunting, and I struggled not to bare my teeth at Paul when I walked into his cluttered office. The piles of files, papers, and dirty Styrofoam cups made me want to gag into the wastebasket. My nose picked up the scent of dried-out, rancid turkey sandwich somewhere under his desk, and I noticed he wore yesterday’s shirt. With his pointy noise, prominent thin ears, and wisps of gray hair clinging to his head, he looked like a sick rodent, and I pushed away the image of shaking him until his neck broke. I had done that to a rat the night before. It had been lurking about, tearing into the garbage bags my neighbors left outside their door, which unleashed an awful mélange of scents into the breezeway and my apartment. I’d complained, but the management hadn’t done anything about either the neighbors or the rat. It was generally frowned upon to hunt down and kill one’s neighbors, so the rat had to go. Paul was my management, and he paid me, so I squashed my impulses.

”Have a seat,” he said.

”Where?” Every surface was covered with paper.

He shrugged and sat. “As you can see, we’re overworked and understaffed, but we can’t afford to keep on dead weight.”

I folded my hands in front of me and pressed my nails into my knuckles. “I’m pulling my weight, Paul.”

”Right, but where were you last night? I got a call this morning that someone saw you at a club ‘shaking your booty’ and ‘getting shitfaced drunk.’” His air quotes almost made it comical.

”Not that what I do on my own time is any of your business, but I can assure you it wasn’t me.”

”Can someone give you an alibi?” he asked and leaned forward, a look of concern on his rodent face. “I don’t want to cut you from my staff, but the higher ups are after me to get rid of whoever I can. You know we have a code of conduct here and strict policies when it comes to dual relationships with clients.”

I nodded. “I’m aware of them. I was at home watching television, and I turned in early.” Into a spirit-werewolf, I added in my head to make it not technically a lie.

”They said they talked to you, and you recognized them.”

My eyebrows shot up my forehead.

”Come on, Marconi,” he said and gestured to my face. “You say you turned in early, but you’ve got dark circles under your eyes, and you keep stifling yawns.”

”I haven’t been feeling well. Look, Paul, I swear to you I wasn’t at any club last night.”

”That will do for now,” he said and wrote my statement of innocence on a piece of paper. “You didn’t happen to talk to anyone on the phone or anything like that while you were at home, did you?”

”Nope. I’m just a boring girl, Paul. Did the mysterious caller say I had mentioned their case or even who they were?”

”No. Fine. Get back to work.” He frowned at me once more. “But be aware I’m watching you.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and looked down at the open file on his desk. I took advantage of the moment he looked away to bare my teeth, then turn before he could see me. No man dismisses me.

I frowned all the way back to my office and sat to review cases, but my mind wouldn’t focus. Who was the woman at the club? Who looked that much like me? And who called Paul? Probably an unhappy parent. That part didn’t concern me as much—when you work for the Department of Family and Child Services, you make enemies, especially if you take kids out of abusive homes. That a parent was at a club didn’t shock me. That someone pretended to be me did.

But who hates me enough to try to get me fired? I wanted to know who she was and how she knew who I worked with.

I kept my Private Investigator license current to pick up some extra work on the side. Sometimes it came in handy for the job, so they didn’t say anything. It looked like I was going to be doing some extra work on my own time.

Oh, I had my suspicions. Apparently the events of the previous summer hadn’t resolved yet, and there was only one person I could think of who resembled me enough to impersonate me. I needed to know why Kyra Ellison, former alpha female of the Crystal Pines pack and fellow tall brunette, had come out of the mountains and into Little Rock, and even more, why she was posing as me. I also wondered if it was even her. We shared certain characteristics, but no one thought we were similar once they’d interacted with us.

“You two don’t look anything alike,” Joanie, former best friend of a certain social worker werewolf, had told me. “One glance is all you need to see how she’s mean and spiteful, and you’re not.”

Yet my spite had ended our friendship.

At the end of the day, Paul caught up to me in the parking deck.

“Going out tonight?” he asked and curled his thin lips into a shape between a sneer and a leer. “I can’t imagine a girl like you spends too many nights in.”

“No,” I told him. “At least not to a club. Again, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Budget cuts,” he said in an ominous tone and tapped his nose. He walked to his ancient hatchback, which had rust spots starting to show through the beige paint. I chose to ignore the pheromones he exuded and the insinuation he was doing me a favor. Men had that response to me now that I had a true animal side, and I hoped he wouldn’t cross the line into sexual harassment. Yes, the thought of his attentions repulsed me, but I also liked him as a supervisor because he mostly left me alone, and I would hate for him to get fired over it.
Or for me to. His warning about our department’s financial situation played back in my mind.

I shook my head, not blaming him for nibbling at the drama like a rat gnawing on chicken bones for a pitiful bit of marrow. It was amazing how these government jobs, especially the ones where we supposedly take care of others, sucked the life and soul out of people. On his desk, Paul kept a picture taken during fishing trip he’d been on just after starting here. It showed he had been straight-shouldered and with a full head of wavy brown hair. Now he was stooped and graying, and the rest of his life seemed to have stopped on that day. Even more reason for him to want to create a little drama with the social worker who seemed to be falling down on her job. And who doesn’t seem to be withering in it. It’s not my fault my family ages well.

I drove my similarly ancient but in much better shape green Jeep Cherokee back to my apartment off Chenal Parkway, but when I got home, I sensed something was not right. At first glance, the building looked the same—a two-story, four-unit brick building with lit stairwell between the units on each floor. Dusk was falling, and the lights had just started flickering on, but there was something wrong with the shadows. I squinted and flared my nostrils. An unfamiliar tropical scent rode the top of the breeze. It threaded through the layers of stale cigarette and the bruise-like decay of takeout containers in the bag of trash by my neighbors’ door. Lazy asses. The new scent, if it had a color, would be fuchsia over the grays and browns of ordinary life, and a shiver tiptoed down my spine. Whether it was of fear or excitement, I didn’t know.

One by one, the lights in the stairwells buzzed, popped, and flickered out. That could only mean one thing—a wizard—and my previous encounter with one had left me with this little werewolf problem.

Okay, fear it is. Whatever you do, don’t show it. Just get into the apartment.

Sure they had seen me, I played nonchalant and grabbed my purse off the passenger seat. I left the files I’d been planning to work on once Giancarlo passed out after his second bottle of wine. He was due over in half an hour and I needed to make sure he wasn’t in danger. Sure, he was an alcoholic, but he was a cute one, and his problems worked for me on a practical level, although my constantly wondering if I was enabling him didn’t work for me on an ethical one. I was going to get help for him eventually, but he didn’t want it at the moment, so there was no point. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

The internal twisting and folding inward sensations told me the aconite hadn’t quite worked out of my system from the night before, although the swill that passed for office coffee had kept my frontal lobes jazzed enough during the day to fight the effects.

“No, we’re not going to change now.” Sometimes sternly addressing my animal side worked, like I had to constantly reinforce I was the alpha of my own mind, especially with the aconite hangover. That was a different kind of fear—it seemed the aconite was taking longer and longer to wear off each time. The animal part of my brain scrabbled in my skull, wanting me to change and hunt down whatever the threat was.

“Down,” I told it. “Maybe the rat I killed last night has a vengeful family?”

“No, whatever it is, it’s bigger than a rat and is watching you.”

I shivered and cursed under my breath. “Thanks, really. No showing weakness, remember?”

“So change.”

Sometimes these conversations I had with myself were useful. Most often, not, and I was left wondering whether I was insane, and maybe all the werewolf stuff was a wicked psychosis.

I held my keys in my right hand and my pepper spray in my left. My inner wolf scoffed at my puny defenses, inferior to fangs and claws. Each light I walked under flickered back to life, and a warm breeze followed me. Again, the scent of fuchsia, both the color and the flower, came to me.

Someone’s toying with me. They know I’m aware of them. Why don’t they show themselves?

I reached my apartment and looked around before I stuck my key in my lock. Again, nothing visible, but something was out there watching me. I ducked into the apartment and closed the door behind me, breathing a sigh of relief when my lights switched on without flickering or flashing. I put my purse on the counter next to the postcard reminding me that it was time for my physical and I was scheduled for blood work the next morning. My phone buzzed with a voicemail. The call hadn’t rung, although it should have. I touched the little icon and listened to Giancarlo’s lilting tones. His cheerful voice sounded odd in the context of my strange experiences.

“Lonna, Bellissima, I am so sorry, but something’s come up at the restaurant, and I cannot make it. Know you will be in my heart tonight.”

“Along with your Chianti.” I simultaneously exhaled with relief and disappointment at Giancarlo’s cancellation. I certainly didn’t want to put him in any danger, but I also needed to blow off some steam. The day after the full moon was the worst for wanting to explore other animal impulses once the desire to hunt was satisfied.

Yet another thing they didn’t tell me.

I went to bed after an uneventful evening with no more electrical strangeness. By the time I ventured out to the Jeep to get the files I needed to catch up on, the odd odor had disappeared. That night I dreamed of a tropical beach with a turquoise ocean at my feet and large-leafed flora all around. Huge fuchsia plants dripped the scent of their purple and pink flowers on the breeze. I leaned back in my beach chair, cold drink in hand, and soaked up the sun, happy I wouldn’t have to renew my membership to the tanning salon. Yes, I knew it was bad for me, but it was my one indulgence. Never mind that I had on the skimpiest bikini I’d ever worn and had to keep sipping my drink so I wouldn’t open my mouth and spill all my secrets to the strange man who sat beside me, but whose face I couldn’t quite make out.

Wait a second, whose dream is this?

A buzz startled me awake, and the radio hissed on. I fiddled with the knob. It settled into its regular morning show alarm just as the DJ announced the rain and current temperature with unwarranted perkiness. Something about it reminded me of the flickering lights the night before and how my phone hadn’t rung when Giancarlo called. I shivered again, but I attributed it to the damp and current temperature near forty.

My inner wolf laughed at my dismay. “Those conditions would be nothing for fur… or spirit fur. Change! We’re being stalked.”

“Tonight. I can’t take the aconite too much. It’s poison in a normal human body.”

A snort, then, “Change for real.”

“Can’t. Too hard to manage doors, and I can’t escape tight situations in an instant by returning to my body.”

No response, but I sensed her sulking. I knew “she” or “spirit wolf-Lonna” was a manifestation of the animal part of my brain, or maybe even some sort of spiritual part of me, but sometimes she seemed oddly separate, like when we had these conversations. Whatever she was, it put me in a bad mood for my blood work that morning. I would have canceled, but if I did, I’d have to move my physical, which had been scheduled for a year, and I needed to make sure my new weird lifestyle wasn’t having any strange effects on my body. Somehow I suspected being an apex predator wouldn’t grant me an exception for having to wait forever for a new doctor’s appointment.

I arrived at the doctor’s office and took a seat just before my appointment time. It was crowded with people with the ends of that winter’s illnesses, and although they had been given masks to cover up their coughs and sneezes, I touched as few surfaces as possible. It had been a rough year, and I groaned inwardly—stressful job plus powerful viruses equaled lots of people out at the office, which meant more work for me. That was another mixed side benefit of my lycanthropy: a heightened immune system.

A nurse brought me back to the phlebotomy station, and I caught a glimpse of a new doctor. He ran his hand through wavy reddish-gold hair as he talked to a young mother holding a baby, and his green-blue eyes the color of the ocean in my dream sparkled. He had a tan, too dark to have been hanging around Little Rock recently, and in his words, I heard hints of the islands. The faint smell of fuchsia made my heartbeat accelerate.

“Your blood pressure’s up, Miss Marconi,” the young nurse said with concern in her tone.

“Rough morning,” I said. “It’s what happens when I don’t get my coffee.”

She smiled, her teeth bright white against her dark skin. “I understand that. We’ll get this done quickly so you can get you some.” She tied the rubber strap around my arm and poked around for a vein. I looked away so I’d only feel what she was doing, not see it.

“Thank you. New doctor?”

She followed my gaze. “That’s Doctor Fortuna,” she said with a dreamy little sigh. “He’s filling in for Doctor Kasdon while she’s on temporary bed rest. They went to school together.”

“Where is he from?”

“Somewhere in the Caribbean.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know he’s told me, but I can’t remember exactly where. He did his schooling here in the States, though, so don’t worry, when you see him next week, he’ll know what he’s doing. Now,” she said, and gave me a stern look, “your chart says you haven’t had the flu shot. It’s still going around, so it’s not too late.”

“I’ll pass,” I told her, a little shot of adrenaline making my heart skip. Although the current vaccines wouldn’t be contaminated, I’d never trust them again. Not that they could do anything to me that hadn’t already been done by other means, but it was an instinctive response.

“Are you sure?” She put a cotton ball over the hole in my arm and taped it in place. “Keep that there for a little while.”

“Positive. I’ll talk to Doctor Fortuna about it next week.”

That dreamy expression returned. “He’s a good doctor,” she said and packed up her kit.

Her spacey confidence didn’t make me feel any better, and my inner wolf wanted to run around him and sniff him and figure him out. I was relieved to get back to my car and then to my windowless office, where the files I had taken home to catch up on had been replaced by a whole new set. I looked through them and was listing phone calls I’d have to make when Paul walked by and gave me a wave, a grin on his rat face. When he had just passed my door, he turned around and poked his head in.

“Are you free for lunch today?”

I arched an eyebrow. “I believe the correct greeting in our culture is ‘good morning.’”

“Good morning, then.” He stood, hands in his pockets. “Now aren’t you supposed to reply?”

“Touché, and good morning. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

He shrugged. “There’s just something in the air these days. Haven’t you felt it? Spring is my favorite season.”

He had something between his teeth, but I elected not to point it out to him. Honestly, his cheerfulness freaked me out. “It’s not spring yet. And no, I’m not free for lunch.” I gestured to the pile of files and list of phone calls I needed to make.

“I hope you’re not saying that because of our conversation yesterday.” His false concern made me want to strangle him.

“No, I always put my work first, whether you believe it or not. Guess what I was doing last night?”

The look on his face made me immediately regret the question. “Clubbing?” Dear gods, he sounded hopeful.

“No, my boyfriend canceled out on me, so I stayed home and caught up on some reports.”

He sniffed. “Keeping everything secure, I hope?”

“Yes, Paul.” Mostly. “Unless they changed the rules on us again.”

He laughed, and it came out with a wheeze. “You never know, do you?” He continued chuckling as he walked around the corner. “You really never know.”

“Okay…” I shook my head. Maybe he finally lost it.

A file that should have gone somewhere else caught my attention, and I jumped up to catch up with Paul. He had disappeared, so I went to his office. I paused just outside the door, hearing his voice. His words chilled me.

“Are you sure?” He spoke with the phone cradled to his ear. “She seems so normal. No, I couldn’t get her to come out for lunch. Yes, she leaves at around five o’clock, and she’s always parked near me. Uh huh, a green Jeep Cherokee, license plate…”

So, what would your ideal birthday present be?

Excerpt: The Mountain's Shadow, Lycanthropy Files Book One

Some mistakes can literally come back to bite you.
The Lycanthropy Files, Book 1

First it was ADD. Then pediatric bipolar. Now the hot behavioral disorder in children is CLS, or Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome. Public health researcher Joanie Fisher was closing in on the cause in hopes of finding a treatment until a lab fire and an affair with her boss left her without a job.

When her grandfather leaves her his multimillion-dollar estate in the Ozarks, though, she figures her luck is turning around. Except her inheritance comes with complications: town children who disappear during full moons, an irresistible butler, and a pack of werewolves who can’t seem to decide whether to frighten her or flirt with her.

Joanie’s research is the key to unraveling the mysteries of Wolfsbane Manor.  However, resuming her work means facing painful truths about her childhood, which could result in the loss of love, friendship, and the only true family she has left.

Warning: Some sexy scenes, although nothing explicit, and adult language. Also alcohol consumption and food descriptions that may wreck your diet.

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Chapter One:

The two letters arrived the same day.

I expected the first: my official termination letter from Cabal Industries. Having it in my hands, smoothing the creases, and looking at the stark black print—Bookman Old Style font—on twenty-five pound cotton-bond paper, Robert’s favorite for official business, made my heart thud. The company had been sold, and my lab—with all my data and backups—had been immolated in a fire. The conflagration and the expense of rebuilding my research program during a difficult merger was the ostensible reason for my being fired, and no, I wouldn’t forgive the pun. The company’s symbol, the black silhouette of a wolf howling against a full yellow moon, cried out for me. “Unfair! Unfair!”

The second letter held more promise. This one came on plain computer paper with a name on top in block letters: Lawrence Galbraith, Attorney-At-Law. Two hours later, I stood in front of a two-story yellow brick building off Markham Street, just west of downtown Little Rock. A sign in the second-floor window read, “For Rent: Commercial Space ”. Mr. Galbraith didn’t have a secretary, but a bell rang when I opened the door. After five minutes, I wasn’t so sure he’d heard me and began the internal argument of whether I should knock on the heavy oak door that separated the sparse waiting room from what I imagined to be the plush inner sanctum. I made up my mind and walked to the door, but when I raised my fist, I heard a male voice from inside.

“That’s bullshit, Galbraith!”

“Mr. Bowman, please keep your voice down.” This second one I recognized from the telephone. I had spoken with him earlier. “Doctor Fisher is in the waiting room.”

“I don’t give a damn about Doctor Fisher.” He sneered my name. “Look, that land is ours by right, and I don’t care if the old man never changed his will. And to bring that overgrown—”

“How Mr. Landover felt about you during his life is irrelevant if it is not on paper.” Galbraith spoke over him. 

“I’m sorry, Leonard. You and the others may have to find other grounds for your sport.”

Leonard’s next statement came out as a cross between a hiss and a whine. “It’s not sport, Lawrence, and you know it. You’re the only one who can help us.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

I jumped back from the door just before this Leonard person burst through it like a ball of energy—dark energy. With his olive skin, dark wavy hair, and brooding black eyes, he would earn a second look from most women. I barely got a first one as he snarled at me and stalked out of the office. The bell on the door jangled with the force of his exit.

“Doctor Fisher, I hope Mr. Bowman didn’t disturb you.” Lawrence Galbraith looked down his aquiline nose at me and pursed his thin lips. With his mane of gray hair and simple black suit with a long jacket over a white shirt, no tie, he could have stepped out of a mid-twentieth-century movie about an undertaker.

“He certainly seemed upset about something.” I wanted him to say more about what this brooding young man wanted with my grandfather’s estate, but he evaded the implied question.

“Most of my clients are, Doctor Fisher. If they’re not disturbed about something, they’re dead. Otherwise they wouldn’t need a lawyer.” He held out a chair and scooted it under me as I sat.

“I understand. Now about my grandfather’s estate?”

I expected him to do the lawyer thing and pull out a file bursting with paper and tell me to look through it and see if I had any questions. Instead, he sat back and steepled his fingers.

“I knew your grandfather quite well, Doctor Fisher. He was very proud of Wolfsbane Manor.” He studied me through narrowed eyes. “You visited there quite often as a child, yes?”

“I spent my summers there.”

“And your twin brother?”

“It was after my brother died. Andrew never knew my grandfather. It wasn’t until my parents started fighting that my mother had the guts to visit him again. Apparently he and my father didn’t get along.”

“He spoke to me about the rift, how it broke his heart to lose his only daughter. He told me you were a lot like your mother.”

When I thought about my mother, I remembered the gentle hands that so quickly turned hard when she slapped me. I hadn’t spoken to her since I had gotten my first assistantship in graduate school and no longer needed her financial support.

“I don’t think so.”

“How much do you know about your grandfather’s estate?”

“I know it’s up in the mountains and used to be really far away from everything. It took forever to drive there on winding mountain roads. There’s a stream that bubbles up from underground near the top of the hill where the house is, and it goes to a river.”

“Anything else?”

I thought back and tried to untangle murky threads of childhood memory. “The house is huge, old-fashioned, with a ballroom and a mural on the ceiling. I don’t know what my grandfather did to earn his money, but he seemed to have a lot of it and was careful spending it.”

“He was immensely careful. Consequently, his estate, with house and property and all, is worth five hundred million dollars.” He ignored my astonishment and continued, “I told him he had plenty to share between you and your mother, but he insisted the bulk of it go to you. Something about your research.”

“He didn’t even know what I did.”

“Ah, but he followed your career quite closely.”

“He did? He always seemed so remote, especially after I stopped going up there when I was in high school.”

“Yes, he did. He was a researcher in his own right.”

“Is there anything in there for Mother?” Guilt welled up. It’s amazing how childhood training kicks in, like it was my fault he left everything to me.

“A small annuity to keep her comfortable until she passes on.” He waved my concern away with one hand. 

“It won’t dent your fortune at all.”

“What am I supposed to do with all that money?”

“Whatever you want. I think you will find enough up there in the hills to keep you busy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever heard of the Landover curse?”

“The what?” This was new. I remembered whispers about something wrong with Mother’s side of the family from early childhood—worried conversations outside the room where my brother and I slept in twin beds.

“If it pops up, you’ll know. It supposedly skips a generation.”

“What is ‘it’?”

“You probably have nothing to worry about, Doctor Fisher. I recommend you go and claim your property as soon as you can. I can help you with arrangements to break your lease and move your things from Memphis.”

“Okay. No, wait, what? I can’t just move.” My head was in a fog, still worried about the curse. What was the curse? Insanity? Some weird genetic disease? And underneath all his assurances, Galbraith seemed worried. A little line had appeared between his brows.

“…will arrange to have movers pack and ship your apartment’s contents to the Manor,” he was saying as he picked up the telephone.

“Whoa, wait a second here.” I held up my hands. “This is too much right now. I can’t just break my lease, pick up, and go.”

“I understand.” He reached across the table and patted my hand. “You need a little while to absorb all of this. But I assure you, it is imperative you move up there and take possession of the property.”

My eyes blurred with tears. “I don’t even know how my grandfather died.”

Galbraith rubbed his temples. “I was afraid you would ask.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know, either.”

When I arrived at Bistro, a little French place in West Little Rock, my head was still spinning. The key to Wolfsbane Manor was nestled in my purse between my cell phone and my wallet on a keychain that read in bright pink letters, “So NOT a morning person”. I had handed over the apartment keys to Galbraith, who assured me he would take care of everything and I could expect my belongings in a few days’ time. I’d tried to argue the hastiness of the move, but I may as well have been talking to the stone lions outside the manor’s door.

Lonna, my best friend, had arrived before me and sat in a booth along the wall. When she saw me, she waved with one of her long, tanned arms, which looked particularly dark in the white sleeveless top she wore.

“Somebody’s been to the tanning booth,” I teased as we hugged. I only came up to her shoulder, but I smelled the orange and coconut conditioner she used in her long, dark hair.

“It’s my guilty indulgence. I figure, with this job, it’ll be a miracle if skin cancer kills me first.” Even though she meant it as a joke, there was something serious in her topaz-colored eyes. A private-investigator-turned-social worker with the Department of Family and Child Services, she didn’t have an easy job to begin with.

I slid into the booth across from her and picked up a menu. “What’s going on over there?”

“Just the typical bureaucratic bullshit. Not all that interesting, so you go first. You said earlier you had big news.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but she interrupted me.

“Oh, and how’s Robert? You guys haven’t come over in a while.”

“We’re not together anymore.” It hurt to remember our little road trips from Memphis to recruit research participants from the Little Rock pediatricians’ offices.

“Did his wife find out?”

“Worse. I got fired, so no more excuses to see each other.”

“Ouch! When?”

“I got the letter today. I kept hoping there would be some sort of appeal or something, but no dice. I didn’t want to tell you until it became official.” The fact Robert hadn’t even stood up for me hurt the most.

“I wish I could understand you, Joanie. How could you not tell me?”

“You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to understand.”

She didn’t fall for the guilt trip. “So was that the big news?”

“No, I also found out today I inherited my grandfather’s estate, so I’ve got the dinner check.”

“Congratulations, but not so fast there, Fisher.” She gave me a stern look over the menu. “Let’s tackle one thing at a time. You got fired. Tell me more.”

“It was after the lab caught fire. They still don’t know what started it.” For a second I thought I could feel the heat and smell the smoke from the blaze. Sweat jumped to my forehead, and I had to take a sip of water. This was why I hadn’t spoken to her about it in detail before—the memory made me panic.

“I’m sorry, Joanie.” She reached across the table and put a hand on my arm. “You don’t really have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I smiled at her implied question. “But details are important? You’re such a private detective.”

She grinned. “How else are you going to figure out what, exactly happened?”

“Good point, although it’s not like it matters much now.” I took a deep breath. “One night about a month ago, I was compiling data, pediatric charts, in our statistical spreadsheet…” Just talking about it brought me back there. “I had been sitting on a stool checking to make sure the information in the files had converted into the correct columns in the spreadsheet when I heard my car alarm go off. I jumped down, really annoyed because I was on the cusp of running the first analysis, and my lab coat caught on the stool. Really caught. Like the corner of it had somehow gotten stuck in the middle joint where you adjust the height and then twisted in there. I turned to free it and was just giving it a last tug when the smoke alarm went off. When I opened the lab door, the hallway was in flames. I panicked. I shut the door and tried to go out the back way, but the door wouldn’t open. It was getting hotter and hotter, and I started coughing from the smoke. Finally I took the damn stool and threw it through a window, I don’t know how.”

“You’re a tough little thing.” Lonna rested her chin on her hands. “Even if you don’t look it.”

Caught in the story, I had to keep going. “So I jumped through and got scraped up a little.” I rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt and showed her my left shoulder, which had a long, thin, barely healed cut. “That one was the deepest. Fifteen stitches.”

She traced it with a cool finger. “Wow,” she murmured. “So you got out?”

“I thought that was it. I started heading to my car to shut off the damn alarm and get to a hospital, but then I heard something behind me.”

The waiter approached, and I jumped. “Oui, mademoiselles?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lonna didn’t even look at him, just gave the order for our appetizer and wine. “Brie en croute, s’il vous plait, et deux Chardonnay.”

“D’accord.”

“Go on,” she told me.

We were getting into the realm of nightmares. “Honestly, I’m not sure whether to believe it myself.” I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “I would rather not say here.”

“Oh? It’s not fair to keep me hanging, Joanie.”

“I’ll tell you later, at your place, I promise.”

The waiter brought our wine in tulip-shaped glasses—hers blue, mine red— with green stems.

“So anyway,” I said after taking a sip. “Hmm, a good Oaky California. You can tell every time. You’d think they’d have French here.”

“So?” she prompted.

“No lab equals no work. No work equals no job. And that’s it.”

“How can that be it? You were top in your field.”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone found out about me and Robert. Or maybe they blamed me for the fire, but I suspect it’s more about money. They just got bought, and mergers mean layoffs. But enough about that. What’s going on with your work?”

Lonna sighed. “There’s been this string of kids disappearing in this little community in the Ozarks north of Mountain View. I’ve got to go up there tomorrow and talk with the local social worker. As hard as I’ve tried to get out of the private-eye business, you’d think they’d leave me alone.”

“Oh, gads, that’s rough.” Hearing about stuff like that made my stomach twist. It reminded me too much of Andrew.

“Sorry, I know you don’t like to hear about the kids.”

“I just don’t know how you do what you do, that’s all. What’s this little place called?”

“Crystal Pines.”

I set my glass down a little too hard, and the wine spilled.

“What’s with you?” Lonna arched an eyebrow.

“Wolfsbane Manor, my grandfather’s estate, is up there. Crystal Pines—it used to be called Piney Mountain—is at the base of the hill, the manor at the top.”

“That’s really odd.” She swirled the wine around in her glass. “From the files I’ve gotten from the case worker who lives up near there, the locals—y’know, the ones who were there first before the yuppies moved in—are associating the ‘old gentleman’s house’ with the kids going missing.”

A shiver climbed up my spine. “How?”

“That’s the weird part. No human footprints or anything. The kids just…disappear. When they call the forensics guys out, it’s usually too late to get anything because they always disappear outside.”

“No ‘human’ footprints? What about animals?”

“There aren’t any big enough to take a child, so I don’t think they’re looking.”

“Wolves? Coyotes? Bears? My parents always warned me to watch out for them.”

“The only wolves in Arkansas are red wolves, which are too small to snatch preadolescents. And if it was something like that, they would at least find…” She cocked her head trying to find a nice way to put it. “Remains.”

“Point taken. It must be a boring summer for them. No hiking, fishing, swimming…”

“It is for the locals’ kids. They’re the only ones being abducted. If your dad drives a Beamer, Mercedes, Lexus or Volvo…”

“You’re safe?” I found that hard to believe. “So it can’t be wild animals then. They’re not that discriminating. What do you have to do tomorrow?”

“The case worker, a guy named Matt, wanted me to come and check things out for myself. He’s worried the board isn’t going to believe him and wanted an outside opinion.”

“Is he single?” Lonna, like myself, had the most rotten luck in love.

“No such luck. Happily married for thirty-four years.”

“Too bad.”

The waiter arrived again, so we ordered our main courses, Coq au Vin for me and Moules et Frites for her. I didn’t realize until the waiter set the food down and the aroma of red wine, spices, and hot, crusty French bread rose to my nostrils how hungry I was. The food also gave me the opportunity to ignore Lonna’s question, so she had to repeat it.

“Earth to Joanie,” she called and poked me in the arm with a mussel shell. “What happened with Robert?”

“You would ask.”

“Of course. Things seemed to be going so well.”

“Right. As well as they could be with a married man.”

“I thought he was separated?”

“He was.”

“Is he still?”

“No.” I tore off a little piece of bread and stirred it in the thick maroon sauce. “I think when Cabal got bought, he decided he’d better make nice with the wife in case he lost his job and needed her to support him.”

“How did he tell you?”

“Gads, you’re merciless tonight, woman.”

“It’s my job.” She winked. “That’s what my boyfriends like to tell me.”

“Well, he called me into his office.” Images flashed into my mind of the long walk down the sterile white hallways. “My shoulder was still in a sling so I wouldn’t move it and open the wound. That arm was hidden under my spare lab coat. He didn’t see it at first. When he did, he didn’t react like he normally would have. You know, by jumping up and coming over to take care of me. A look crossed his face… How to describe it? Pain? Regret for having to kick me while I was down? I don’t know.”

“This was after you’d heard your job was no longer there?”

“You can say fired.” I took a sip of my wine. “It’s the reality of it. I was packing up my office when he called.”

“Did you know what was coming?”

“I could hear it in his voice. He asked me to sit down, and he got up and closed the door. I noticed he was limping a little.”

“Serves him right.”

“No kidding. So then he told me since we didn’t have any excuse to see each other on a daily basis, he didn’t know if he could deal with that level of deception.” I felt the all-too-familiar pressure of tears and my vision blurred. “He said he respected me too much to start using cheap motels and made-up business trips.”

Lonna rolled her eyes. “Yet he didn’t mind the chair in his office.”

I smiled a little, and a tear rolled down my cheek into the corner of my mouth. Its warm track turned cold after a second. “So no more boyfriend. That’s what I get for seeing a married man.”

“You just had, what is it called? Where the mentee falls for the mentor.”

“Maybe.”

We both took a sip of our wine, and I wiped my eyes with the napkin.

“Garcon.” Lonna signaled our waiter. “This woman needs chocolate mousse.”

I looked down at my half-eaten Coq au Vin. “But what about this?”

“Take it with you.” Lonna swirled the little bit of wine left in her glass. “You can put it in the fridge and have it for lunch.”

That’s one of the things I liked about Lonna. She made up any excuse for dessert. It’s amazing she kept her model-like figure.

The chocolate mousse came, and we talked about other things over coffee and dessert. Before we knew it, it was nine o’clock, and Lonna raced back to her apartment with me in tow so we could get up early to drive to Crystal Pines in time for her ten o’clock meeting with Matt.

It bothered me a little I hadn’t told her the rest of my story. Later, it bothered me a lot. I don’t know if it might have saved her—and our friendship—but maybe she would have been more careful. Or maybe I would have.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. For an excerpt from further in the book showing Joanie and Leo's next encounter and more decadent food and wine, check out my publisher's The Mountain's Shadow page.

Friday Flash Fiction: First Date

I read a novel excerpt as short story recently on the Narrative Magazine site that impressed me so much I thought I'd try something similar. This is from my completed (revision in progress) novel A Perfect Man. I'll add some more commentary to the end. If you're interested in more flash fiction, search the #fridayflash hashtag on Twitter.

First Date:

"Chardonnay and Brie. Chicks'll be impressed every time!"

Albie's words echoed through Seth's head while he shopped, and since Julie wouldn't arrive for another half hour, he stopped by the wine and cheese shop next to the grocery store. If Albie had been married twice, he must have some knowledge of women, right?

Seth gasped at the array of Chardonnay – American, French, Australian, and even Macedonian – priced from eight to eighty dollars. Finally he grabbed one of the cheaper ones from the chilled case and went to the cheese cooler, where the brie selection overwhelmed him with double and triple cream, wine or whiskey flavoring, or chewy bits like dried fruit or herbs. He bought the only one he could afford, a basic double cream. He made it back to his place at 5:45 and found Julie waiting in front of his door.

"I got done early, so I figured I'd come over. Do you need help with your groceries?" she asked.

"Um, sure." He tried to cover the logo on the plastic wine and cheese bag by hugging it to his chest and felt the soft squish underneath his bicep – the Brie! Shit! The Chardonnay seemed to have been chilled to near-frozen, at least to his left nipple.

She grabbed the other grocery bags and shut the trunk for him. He followed her up the stairs, noting how her rear end swayed beneath the grey fabric of her skirt. The black heels showed off her legs nicely. He imagined her kicking the heels off and freeing her hair from its ponytail.

Julie put the bags in the kitchen and sat at his dining room table. She looked out the window at the small houses on the bluff across the street. "This isn't bad. It'll be pretty when the leaves change."

"I think so, too." Seth mentally kicked himself for not saying something more intelligent.

Julie unfastened the ankle straps on her shoes, stretched her legs, and wiggled her toes. "Man, I'm tired! Those heels are killer."

"I don't know how you women stand those," Seth said. "I bet I know what would help."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"I'll be right back."

He debated offering her a foot massage, but instead went into the kitchen to retrieve the Brie and wine. Let her loosen up first. He didn't have a fancy wooden board or cheese knives, so he put the Brie on a blue plastic cutting board with a paring knife. At least he had wine glasses, although he preferred beer.

"Can I help with anything?" Julie asked. Before he could respond, he saw her looking at him from where she leaned against the door frame. She had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, and he could see the full curves of her breasts through the gap in her shirt. Her hair hung like a gold silk scarf over her head and shoulders.

"Brie?" he asked. His voice cracked. "I've got wine, too. A Chardonnay. It's, ummm…" He grabbed the bottle and looked. "A California. Napa Valley. I hear they're good."

"Great, I'm starving!" She put one hand on her flat stomach. "I didn't eat lunch today."

"Please, help yourself. I'll pour the wine."

"Do you have any bread or crackers to go with it?" she asked. "If not, that's okay."

Shit! Crackers! He looked through the pantry shelves and found some Saltines he'd brought with him from Atlanta. One of the sleeves was unopened, and he hoped they weren't stale. He put a few on the plastic cutting board with the slightly flattened cheese and turned to open the wine.

The counter seemed too small, the glasses too big. He imagined the wine bottle slipping and knocking the glasses into the sink or on the floor. The little pull-tab on the cork foil broke off when he got a good grip on it with his shaking hands.

He heard her chewing, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Was she watching him make a fool of himself? He set the butterfly corkscrew on top of the bottle, allowing the end to puncture the foil covering on the cork. He twisted the key and removed the cork through the foil, which flared out in jagged edges that he tore off. Triumph! He poured two glasses and turned to give one to Julie with a bow.

"Wine, milady?"

A drop of blood spattered on the white linoleum.

"Seth, omigod!" Julie pulled Seth's right arm so that he bled into the sink from the deep gash on his right thumb. He held the counter's edge with his left hand and bit the inside of his cheeks so he wouldn't throw up or pass out. Pain and humiliation warred in his chest while Julie ran water over it, but he got control and cleaned it as best he could with some antibacterial soap. She folded a dry paper towel to act as a temporary bandage.

"That looks pretty deep," she said. "Maybe you should get stitches."

"I…" The thought of a needle piercing his skin made Seth's stomach flip again. "I'm not sure I need stitches. Let me just sit for a second."

"Whoa, I've got you." Julie guided him to the couch. She took his shoes off and helped him lie down with his knees higher than his heart. The rushing sound in his ears subsided, and he wondered if she'd been a Girl Scout. Did they have naughty badges?

"Do you need anything else?" she asked.

He tried to say no, but his tongue felt like a piece of heavy, raw meat in his mouth. He looked at his injured thumb and saw that the blood had seeped through the bandage in a straight line. Damn! It throbbed with the heartbeat he could feel in the middle of his head.

"I think you're right," he said. "I think I need stitches." With that decided, he stood, and everything went black.

Author's note:

Before anyone asks, yes, I've cut myself on wine foil, although not to the point I needed stitches.

Here's the beginnings of the query blurb for the novel:

MFA student Karen is seeking the perfect man, both for herself and to star as the male lead in her novella project for Romance Class. Her classmate Seth can't seem to please the women in his life, and even his muse has deserted him. After he dreams he's in Karen's project and writes it from the male POV, the professor makes them work together. This horrifies Karen, who wants to win the best novella competition prize: dinner with her favorite author. Together they find that art may imitate life, but life can be infinitely stranger.

The genre is Romance. Yeah, I got 40,000 words into it, and nothing strange had happened yet! Comments on excerpt and query blurb are welcome.