Tame a Wild Bride, a Western Romance (25 page)

“Come on in Cassie before Catherine has a fit,” said Duncan.

The lady in question ran down the steps as quickly as her bulk would take her.
 
Catherine McKenzie was due to give birth to their fourth child at any time.
 
Cassie loved her friend but was envious of her.
 
Though Michael seemed happy with the one child they’d had she’d always wanted more children.
 
She was pregnant with Sarah when he’d died almost three years ago and would love to hold a sweet babe in her arms again.
 
If Michael hadn’t died she might have had another baby.
 
She guessed she’d have to settle for holding Catherine’s right now.

“Cassie!
 
I’m so glad you’re here.
 
I swear I’m going to have this child tonight, I hope you brought extra work clothes,” said Catherine hurrying her friend up the steps and into the house.
 

Cassie had always liked the house that Cat and Duncan built.
 
It was two story as most were in those days.
 
All the bedrooms were up stairs.
 
Downstairs they had done differently.
 
There was what they called a great room.
 
It was the kitchen, dining room and parlor all in one huge room.
 
There was also another bedroom and an office down stairs.
  
The great room was to the left of the stairs to the upper level.
 
The office and fifth bedroom were to the right of the stairs.

“You know I always pack extra, when I come.
 
The kids never stay clean and I want them in their play clothes until we all head to town.”
 
Cassie looked at her friend.
 
“It looks like we may miss church this week.
 
Are you all right?
 
I think you should go put your feet up.
 
Come with me.”

Cassie put her arm around Catherine’s waist and guided her to the sofa.
 
“Now, you sit there and let me go make you some nice chamomile tea.”
 
Cassie turned to Duncan.
 
“Sit here with your wife and don’t let her get up.
 
Why didn’t you send someone for me sooner.
 
The babe has dropped and I think we may have a little one soon, maybe tonight.”

Duncan’s face paled.
 
He was always nervous when Catherine was about to give birth.
 
You’d think that after three, the fourth would be no problem, but it was always the same.
 
And at that point, he forgot
 
he was responsible for putting the babe there in the first place.

“Duncan, pull yourself together and get that footstool over here for her feet.
 
Goodness Cat,” Cassie admonished.
 
“Haven’t you been keeping your feet up like I told you to?
 
Your ankles look swollen twice the size of normal.”

Cassie rushed to the kitchen to start the kettle to boil.
 
She had just starting to pump the water into the kettle when she heard a deep, baritone voice coming from the back door.

“Would you like some help with that?” he said.

Cassie dropped the kettle into the sink.
 
“Don’t sneak up on a person like that.”

He didn’t wear a hat and had obviously been washing up for dinner on the back porch.
 
His damp brandy brown hair glistened in the kitchen light.
 
When he got closer, she looked up, way up, into amazing emerald green eyes.

“Sam Colter, ma’am.
 
Sorry to have startled you.”
 
He held his hand out to her.

“Cassie O’Malley.”
 
His large warm hand enveloped hers.
 
She got a shock of awareness from his touch.
 
Something she hadn’t felt in years, passed between them.
 
Something she hadn’t felt since Michael had died.

“I’ve been hearing your praises, Mrs. O’Malley.
 
Since I arrived yesterday, Catherine has been doing nothing but talking about
 
you.”

Cassie felt the heat creep up her neck.
 
“I’m sorry I can’t say the same, Mr. Colter.”

“No problem.
 
I wasn’t expected, or I’m sure Cat would have been singing my praises to you.”
 
He leaned over conspiratorially and whispered.
 
“I think Catherine fancies herself a matchmaker.”

Cassie laughed.
 
“That she does.
 
You’re not the first man she has thrown at me.
 
Sorry about that.”

SNEAK PEEK

RED NIGHT

By

MICHELE CALLAHAN

Chapter One

Timewalker Taken:
Alexa, Seventeenth Daughter of Aryssa

Mission:
Present Day, Earth - Destroy the Red Death

Talent:
Invisibility

Despite years of warnings, Alexa was not prepared for the freezing shock of her journey to Earth. She wanted to scream in agony, but she had no air to breathe in this in-between dimension. Her mother had explained the frigid reality of the time strands, how her naked flesh would feel as if it were being systematically stripped to her bones by endless shards of splintering ice. This one-way trip to the past would last less than a minute. One minute in her own personal Purgatory, and her sins had been many. So, she gritted her teeth and waited. Waited for the agony to subside. Waited for the nirvana of soft green grass brushing at her skin like a thousand tickling fingertips.

Her mother had been Taken, and her mother before her, and so on, since the Archivers had begun recording the Chronicles Of Time. Death or Service.
 
That had been her ancestor’s choice nearly four hundred years ago, and the eldest daughter in each generation now owed the Archiver a life.
 
The family gift -- invisibility -- had been handed down from mother to daughter for seventeen generations. Her heritage swelled her head and chest with pride. But the unrelenting grip of her ancestry also squeezed her with arduous pressure, demanding she not fail. She did not want to be the first of her line to bring her name dishonor. However, a far heavier burden threatened to pull her into the suffocating quicksand of fear. Billions of lives were at stake. Billions.

She would not fail. She was ready. Her mother had ensured that, taught her how to use her gift to cloak her presence, prepared her for the call of the Archiver and the freezing strands. The Taken were never called upon to ride the strands of time unless the assignment was of catastrophic importance. There was no such thing as an easy task. She had also warned her daughter not to fall victim to the pounding of the blood, the passion of her Gift, until it was safe to do so. The distraction would endanger the strand of time she must now, and forever after, walk upon.

Forever. In a strange world.

Alone.

Panic rose in a crescendo to choke her. Then, as quickly as her roller coaster ride through this icy hell began, it was over. Precious air flooded her starving lungs with heat. She lay semi-conscious on the soft ground and tried to get her bearings as a torrent of warm rain crashed down upon her. A single tear escaped and mingled with the rain on her face. Reality squeezed her heart so tightly she feared it would stop beating. She had arrived, unscathed. There was no going back.

Earth, Midnight, May 6, 2013. Unless the Archiver had erred.

Heaven help her then. Heaven help the world.

****

Never once, in all the years of her rebellious youth, had she ever been a thief. How ironic that now, when the fate of this world hung in the balance, everything she had was contraband. She leaned back into the taxi’s sticky plastic seat and hoped the crisp white cotton Capri pants and shirt wouldn’t be ruined by the filth. A twenty-dollar bill burned in her pocket to pay the cabbie. Alexa sunk her teeth into a huge red apple and hoped the fruit would provide enough energy to keep her going for a few hours. Doom Central was calling her name.

Alexa laughed out loud at her own joke and ignored the cab driver’s questioning glance. The overworked cabbie should be used to seeing all sorts of odd things in a city the size of San Antonio. But even here, she knew she was unique. Her waist-length hair was braided and so pale it gleamed silver. Her eyes flashed a vivid blue in a heart-shaped face. Father had always said she was sixty-two inches of trouble wrapped up in a deceptively innocent looking package. The thought made her want to laugh. And cry.

Too soon the cab driver dropped her off at her destination, one of a handful of Biosafety Level 4 laboratories in the country. The lucky place which, in three days time, would be the epicenter of the end of the world. Earth 8 had died a slow and painful death. It took just under five years from the first diagnosed case of “Red Death” for ninety-five percent of the world’s population to be wiped out. And it all started here. No-Where-Ville, Texas.
 
A party like any other…a night colored red with blood.

Yes. She had three more days to track down the two men in charge, erase every piece of data related to the virus, and break into that lab and kill every single cell of “Mutation-6 of Ebola” in existence. M-6 they called it, until it escaped. Then it became the “Red Death”, named for the hemorrhagic nature of the victim’s death. They should have called it, “stupid-what-the-hell-were-we-thinking?”

SNEAK PEAK

KILLING SECRETS

By

KAREN DOCTER

Join Karen Docter on the dark side of danger and romance with Killing Secrets, the first in her Thorne’s Thorns romantic suspense series. Coming soon!

Excerpt

Killing Secrets

By Karen Docter

Four weeks….

Two days….

Sixteen hours….

…‘Til death.

The first time he laid eyes on her, he stood on the threshold of a doorway he dare not cross.
 
He fell into her fathomless dark gaze, unable, unwilling to shake his soul free and, in that one moment, he knew.
 

She was meant for him to love.

Untouched by the sordid life that flourished around her, she was sunlight in a gray existence.
 
A smile in a dingy room.
 
A joy such as he’d never known.
 
She was a gift from a cold, unforgiving God.
 
Forever innocent.

Why God would give him such a precious angel, he didn’t know.
 
But he suddenly knew what he was willing to die for.
 
What he’d kill for.

In that instant of clarity the monster that lurked in the dark recesses of his mind was freed.
 
A creature designed to kill.
 
To live and die.
 
Over and over again.
 
Until his angel ascended once more to her place in Heaven at God’s feet where he couldn’t reach her.