Orangeberry Book of the Day - Fermanagh Gems by Dianne Ascroft

Among its many appealing features County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland has pleasing landscapes, a rich history and talented local artisans. Six gems have been selected to feature in this collection of articles: a natural wonder, enduring or innovative institutions and a gifted craftsman. Some are well-known, others might be called hidden gems; each deserves to be allowed to shine.

Each article is a snapshot of a Fermanagh place, institution or person at a significant moment in its existence. We will visit Marble Arch Caves on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of its show cave, Belleek Pottery on its 150th anniversary, the Graan monastery during its centenary year, Headhunters Railway Museum at the end of its first decade and Frankie McPhillips, a craftsman who has carried on the Irish fly-tying tradition for the past thirty-five years.

Each of these articles was originally published individually in Ireland’s Own magazine.

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Genre –  NonFiction Travel

Rating – G

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - Shadow Cay by Leona Bodie

Part One: A SWING OF TIDES

Chapter 1

THE NEXT DAY: February 13, 1991

Neumans Cay, Southern Exumas, Bahamas

RICO SALAZAR CHECKED HIS WATCH, then scanned the horizon. Nothing. Quarter to ten and still not even a glimpse of the long-awaited powerboat. His crew had to arrive soon. They should have called an hour ago. Discretion had always been crucial, now even more so, especially if they were followed.

With only the warmth of the sun and the whispering sea for company, he scrutinized the quiet lagoon and the mile-long stretch of beach. He didn’t see a single soul. Only he and several crabs moved in the stillness.

Standing on a knoll, flanked by palm trees, Rico gazed at Exuma Bank’s clear waters. The squeal of an osprey, plunge-diving feet first into the surf, startled him. He marveled at the raptor’s fluid motion, as it skewered a bluefish then flapped its wings and resumed flight, soaring over him. Rico squinted at the fish that dangled midair, face forward, still squirming.

An instant later, a single drop—the bright color of blood—dripped from the sky. He told himself the splatter on his shirt was a bad omen and Rico remembered his crew hadn’t called. He glanced down at the blood. Maybe, they couldn’t.

His island, Neumans Cay, was a part of the Exuma Cays, a chain of three hundred sixty islands in the Central Bahamas. The virgin beachfront suggested the cay was a blank canvas, bound for obscurity. He knew otherwise. Just two miles inland lay the epicenter of his island-based import/export company, miles from any traveler's radar. He meant to keep it that way.

RICO had literally stumbled upon the island. Like an over-ripe mango ready for plucking, the islet offered golden opportunities. Oozing out like nectar from rotten fruit, the temptations began here too.

He thought back to his discovery of eleven years ago. Searching for investment property, he'd cruised into a mild thunderstorm, along the western border of the Great Bahama Bank. Within minutes, a seventy-knot squall howled, as staccato bolts of lightning split the sky.

Visibility became a problem and he was disoriented. Flashes of light, shadows of trees and foaming seas jumped around him, flickering like a flawed movie, making the picture oddly disturbing. Chaotic seas stirred giant waves, coming at him from all directions. He edged to the stern, struggling to stand upright, as the boat rocked.

Naldo, his right hand man, shouted for Rico's attention. “The storm's fouled the communication system!” The dying wind finally swept past them.

“My God, look at this place,” Rico bellowed. “We're in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we?”

“According to my calculations, we’re about a hundred and twenty miles off course,” Naldo responded.

As Rico studied his surroundings, he could barely conceal his enthusiasm. He spied the southern anchorage and his gut told him this was it. He could easily move through these waters.

“What a place for my operation. It's a hell of a find,” he said to Naldo. He pointed to its two entrances and natural deep water. “Ocean access.”

RICO had bought one hundred and eighty acres on Neumans Cay, which included a handsome house, a small marina that accommodated large ships and a resort, to house business associates and guests. He constructed warehouses, barracks and a dock, with wide slips. Inside his concrete “Berlin Wall,” he built an airstrip and erected a mast-type radio, high on the island's southwest tip.

To assure his privacy, he fired a barrage of bullets into the cottages on the northern shoreline. Fifteen owners slammed their windows shut, locked their doors and dove to the floor. The natives, traumatized by their trigger-happy neighbor, hunkered down in their bungalows, like shell-shocked soldiers. From that point on, they stayed out of his way. None of them realized he'd built a 4500-foot runway, protected by radar, bodyguards and Doberman attack dogs.

HE smiled at the memory. He’d moved onto the island and now owned and controlled half of the island's six square miles. Bribes to the Bahamian Prime Minister assured large cargo planes, shuttling product from Colombia to the island base, and small planes, ferrying contraband into the U.S., operated with no interference. A few other well-placed bribes meant business boomed and officials did nothing to stop his irregular and profitable activities. His business continued to grow, as did his fortune.

Hundreds of cocaine deliveries were shipped into Neumans Cay from the Exuma Sound's northeastern cut, his own channel to the Atlantic. While other dealers relied on human mules on commercial flights, the Salazar Cartel used submarines, go-fast boats and small aircraft. He revolutionized the trade, by transporting drugs to the U.S. in the keels of tankers. For the past ten years, Neumans Cay had flourished as a multinational smuggling and refueling hub.

Rico scratched the scar on his chin, studying the varied shades of azure between water and sky. He had lived too hard, worked too hard and come too far to lose everything. He'd paid his dues.

Despite the pale aquas and deeper teals of the banks, and the midnight blue of the ocean floor, his mind suddenly sank back into the mire of his childhood. No matter how hard he tried to forget, the nights and the stench slithered back anyway. His mind went back to Cali, Colombia, when he was nine. He doubted the memory would ever fade.

THE steamy night smelled like cooked garbage and raw sewage. In the dark alley, sweat from ninety-two degree heat rolled down his face as he groped inside a rusty icebox, until his fingers landed on two hunks, which he slowly withdrew.

He glanced at the green mold on the cheese and the black spores on the bread then shoved the morsels into his mouth. Nothing he had eaten in a week tasted so good. If he’d had found these bits of food earlier, he wouldn’t have eaten the cockroaches.

Rico had never known who his father was. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute, who made no attempt to hide her profession from her son. Rico hated her. Hated seeing men on top of her. Hated the fact she spent any money she earned on booze. Hated rummaging through garbage cans for food. Hating the beatings he endured, when he came home empty-handed from his forays for food. He'd felt no grief, when she failed to return to their filthy shanty one night and he learned she'd been killed by a vicious customer. He wasn’t surprised. A crow had crashed into his bedroom window the previous morning. That always meant bad news coming.

Rico had learned the trade early on. He sold his body to the young and old alike, male or female. He was a survivor. He darted from filthy streets to cavernous spaces, near dismal underpasses, where the homeless huddled in abandoned, overgrown parking lots and homesteaded soiled cardboard boxes. The streets were the only home he had. While he was good looking, he got by primarily on his charm.

That changed, when a rich old woman, with rheumy eyes and yellow craters for cheekbones, took pity and welcomed him into her home. She became his abuela, his foster grandmother, and spoiled him shamelessly. Despite his own manipulation, he never completely understood why the seventy-six year old woman took him in, but he loved her, because she taught him how to live.

Gradually, the sheen wore off his image of the old woman. It was nothing she did, nothing she said. Still, he sensed things were changing in some way.

Things shifted, the afternoon a crow hit the window in the living room, with a loud thud. He remembered the other crow at the window, the morning before his mother died. Dead birds meant death.

That evening, his abuela hobbled across the room to kiss him goodnight. She flashed a hideous grin, showing teeth that looked like cracked nutshells. When her silhouette crossed his bed and her hand touched his shoulder, the hair on his neck bristled.

A curious shadow lowered over his bed. Her misshapen limbs blotted out the lights from the antiquated homes outside his window. For an instant, he saw his mother's features superimposed on abuela's face. His foster grandmother became a dead ringer for his mother.

From that point on, he hated loving her. Depending on a woman was a nightmare. The obsession consumed his days and nights. He felt like a monster, hiding behind a perfect mask. Whenever he saw her crooked grin, the rotten teeth, the webs of wrinkles, the parchment skin draped over her sparse frame in loose folds, his blood chilled. Rico thought such frailty meant death was near.

He was wrong. The old woman didn't die.

He endured the situation for eight long years. One afternoon, he knew he could stand it no longer. She 'd looked at him with her brown-toothed smirk, drool dribbling from the corner of her mouth, and the decision was made. He followed her across the room, his rubber soles making no sound on the hardwood floor. With almost no effort, his strong hands heaved her toward the ledge.

Her eyes flickered to his, filled with confusion. She started to shriek.

Afraid of losing his resolve, he quickly shoved her again and listened to her scream, as she tumbled off the ledge, plunging four stories to the ground. He took several deep, calming breaths, then smiled, imagining his mother falling to her death.

The old woman had no children or grandchildren. She'd had no one to love, but Rico. He inherited the house and all her money. How grateful he'd been. Her wealth transformed him into a wealthy college student.

IN addition to his education in business and finance, Rico quickly learned what products did well in the market place and those that would always be in demand. After graduation, he instinctively cultivated the same plant his Andean Indian ancestors had, before the Spanish occupation. He'd carved a special niche for himself and, in ten years, had jockeyed his way into the major leagues. He was proud of his global connections and the financial empire he'd built, with production facilities in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Boliva.

He sometimes wondered what would have happened, if he'd taken another road, if he and Jeanette had made a life together. He'd probably be living in the States, bored stiff. Instead, now that his island had become a major transfer point, his world had more curves and excitement than a roller coaster. He'd found the gateway to an oasis, comprising more than seven hundred uninhabited islands and cays. And he'd be damned if anyone was going to interfere with it. He'd do whatever he had to do to protect his empire.

RICO’S thoughts were pulled back to the present by the sound of quick footsteps on the sand behind him.

“Oye, Rico.”

Finally. Naldo Perez, his second in command, tugged on his shoulder. Relief lasted a fleeting second. Rico shifted his sights back to the waterfront, his breathing labored. Think, don’t panic. He couldn’t run. He’d find a way. Only cowards gave up, and he’d never been a coward.

“Boss, what’s a matter?”

“Got things on my mind, that’s all. Don’t keep me guessing. How’d the new recruit do last night?”

“He doesn’t have the guts for our kinda work.”

“You know what to do.”

“Seguro que sì. Done.”

Rico shrugged at his lieutenant's comment. His concerns were far more important than one individual who couldn't work with the team he'd assembled. His entire business was threatened. His instincts warned him he had to be extremely careful. While he might not be able to stop progress, he intended to do everything possible to redirect it and save his empire.

“Something wrong, Boss?"

Rico turned and studied Naldo, from his cowboy boots up to his worried face. “Yeah.” He again scanned the water, then turned back to Naldo. “You know the new hydrofoil that's supposed to link the islands?”

“Sure. What's that got to do with us?”

“Their Exuma trip touches a bit of the ocean, overnights in Georgetown and returns the next day.”

“Yeah? So?”

“They'll make unscheduled stops near our remote outposts.”

“Caramba!” Naldo immediately grasped the dangers. "What should we do?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out. Not a word to anyone, Naldo. I'll find a solution. Okay?”

Naldo nodded and turned back to the compound.

Rico continued to stare across the water. If passengers were shuttled to the Southern Exumas, throngs might descend. Who wouldn't want a day beyond the reach of cars, a day without the clang and clatter of civilization? Who wouldn't want a piece of paradise?

No, a route through the Exumas was way too close. Rico wouldn’t accept such a threat to his world. He couldn't do that. He'd find a way to protect himself and all he'd built up over the past eleven years.

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Genre – Thriller / Suspense

Rating – R

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Kat H. Clayton – Writing is Cheaper than Therapy

Writing is Cheaper than Therapy

by Kat H. Clayton

Writing serves several purposes in our lives. Writing is a way for us to communicate our thoughts and ideas to others. Writing can preserve factual information and pass it on to the next generation. Usually when we think of writing, we think in terms of how writing benefits the reader and forget that it can also have a profound effect on the person who produces the writing. I think the act of typing or writing out a story of any kind has just as much or maybe even more of an effect on the writer as it does the reader.

For me, writing isn’t just a way for me to share my thoughts and stories with others. It’s a personal form of therapy that’s better than any session with a therapist could ever provide.

When I sit down and spend some time writing, no matter what mood I may start the process in, I always come out with a better attitude and a sense of relief of some tension. I think most people associate this kind of cathartic feeling with journaling or keeping a diary, but I can write fiction and get the same effect.

Several times I can remember having a particularly bad day and sitting down to write some chapters, almost having to force myself to face the computer. I almost have to drag my fingers across the key board, but after those first few sentences the words fly onto the page and my bad mood is lifted with each key stroke. I become immersed in my fictional world and my characters drama and somehow that always alleviates and drama of my own.

Even on the good days when I feel like I’m on top of the world, writing only seems to bring me higher, unless of course I get a bit of writer’s block. But even then, just focusing my brain on getting the next scene down on the page creates some sort of chemical reaction that releases those happy endorphins in my brain.

I have to admit some of my best work comes from the bad days, because I’m trying to focus so hard on making those terrible feelings go away. I try to channel my anger, hurt or disappointment into an intense scene and by doing so it helps me relate to what my characters are going through. I’m angry or aggravated right along with them and as I work to solve their problems, I solve my own (or at the very least feel better about it).

My husband has a t-shirt from one of our favorite weekend getaway destination that says, “Beer is cheaper than therapy.” I would have to say writing a couple of chapters is cheaper than therapy and way more satisfying in the end.

The first book in The Kings of Charleston Series.

Casper Whitley is forced to move to Charleston, South Carolina where she’ll be the new kid her senior year of high school. Casper’s upset about the move until she meets the Roman family’s gorgeous son, Cal, but there’s a problem. A mystery surrounds him which can be summed up in one word…Kythera. Never heard of it? Neither has Casper until she finds the word tattooed on cars, paintings and all her new friends.

After Casper’s life is threatened, someone is forced to tell the truth about her parents, the Romans and Kythera’s motives for her being in Charleston. Once the truth is revealed, she must decide whether to protect her family and Kythera’s secrets or walk away from everything she has ever known.

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Genre – YA / Mystery / Suspense

Rating – PG13 (No sex scenes, some violence)

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Website http://kathclayton.com/

Author Interview – Lisa Regan

What genre are you most comfortable writing? Crime fiction.

What inspired you to write your first book? The Jacob Wetterling case in Minnesota.  Jacob was the same age as me when he was abducted by a masked gunman.  I remember the news coverage of his disappearance and the feeling like wow, that could be me.  It was very scary.  I never stopped wondering what happened to him.

Who or what influenced your writing once you began? My very early influences were Dean Koontz, Tami Hoag and Lisa Jackson. Other crime authors that I aspire to be like in some way are Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, Gregg Hurwitz, Greg Iles, John Hart, Dennis Lehane.

Who or what influenced your writing over the years? In terms of my actual writing it would be reading other works by amazing writers in my genre.  They made me want to get better.  I always read as both a reader and a writer.  Read for enjoyment while keeping an eye out for exactly what the writer is doing and how they’re doing it.  I will read books by Karin Slaughter, John Hart, Gillian Flynn and John Hart over and over again to learn from them.

What made you want to be a writer? Writing was just always how I made sense of my world.  When I was confused about things, I would write about them in some way whether it was a journal or through a story of some kind.  It always helped me figure things out.  It was also a great escape.  When life was kind of sucky, I would write and it would take me away for hours and hours.  It was always a good release for me.

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general? Definitely the second draft!  The draft where you’re going through to make sure that things make sense, that everything is consistent, filling in things that need filling and fleshing out things that need to be fleshed out.  I love writing the first draft because it’s so easy; and once the actual book is complete, it’s easy to work with, but that in-between stage where you’re still tweaking a lot of things is very frustrating and painfully slow for me.

“Readers should drop what they’re reading and pick up a copy of Finding Claire Fletcher.”  -Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author

“A powerful, emotionally-charged story by a debut author you’ll want to keep an eye on!” -J.C. Martin, author of Oracle

Newly divorced and with his career in jeopardy, Detective Connor Parks takes solace in the arms of a beautiful woman he meets at a bar. The next morning, Claire Fletcher is gone, leaving nothing behind but an address and a decade-old mystery. The address leads to the Fletcher family home where Claire’s siblings inform Connor that their fifteen-year-old sister was abducted from a city street ten years ago and is presumed dead.

During those ten years, Claire endured the cruel torture and depravity of the man who abducted her. Paralyzed by fear and too ashamed to return to her family, Claire is resigned to her life as Lynn, the identity her abductor forced upon her. Every time she attempts escape or betrays him in the smallest way, someone dies. Even now, her clandestine run-in with Connor Parks may have put his life at risk, as well as the lives of her family.

Connor is convinced that not only is Claire Fletcher alive, but that she is also the woman he met at the bar. Driven to see her again, he begins his own investigation, off the clock and without the police department’s consent. He is determined to find her and unravel the mystery of her abduction and odd reemergence. But finding Claire Fletcher proves more dangerous than he anticipates. In fact, it may be deadly.

5-Stars! “. . .heart wrenching, suspense ridden, and eye opening.”  -Amy Castellano, Chic Book Chick

5-Stars! “Her characters are strong and believable and they will fill you with emotions that will rock you.” -My Cozie Corner Book Reviews

5- Stars! “. . .This was a fantastic novel and I am looking forward to many, many more in the future.”  -Alex J. Clatch, Amazon Reviewer

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Genre – Psychological Thriller / Crime Fiction

Rating – R

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Website http://www.lisaregan.com/

Review: The Kings of Charleston (The Kings of Charleston #1) by Kat H. Clayton

The Kings of Charleston by Kat H. Clayton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What was the most exciting part of the book. All the different places the name Kythera was found on. Who would have thought?

How did you feel about the main character? She was courageous. Casper was a strong independent young woman.

What did you like about it? This story seemed real. It could very well be a true story and I liked the main character's personal strength.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the author.

View all my reviews

Orangeberry Free Alert - Video Game by Jessica Arnold

Video Game - Jessica Arnold

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre - Children’s

Rating - G

New Release

Free until 3 July 2013

Max loves games. When he hears about the Play Box, he convinces his father to buy it. The latest in video game systems, the Play Box is everything Max dreams of when it comes to gaming. Little does Max know that the Play Box does more than just play games!
Written and illustrated by Jessica Arnold, Video Game has fifteen color illustrations. Jessica is the author of children's fiction books "Nobody Can Take My Happy Away" and "I am Good at Lots of Things."
Find out if the Play Box is worthy of its $250 price tag!

Orangeberry Book of the Day - The Morph (Gate-Shifters) by JC Andrijeski

Chapter One: A Scream in an Alley

I, meaning me, Dakota Mayumi Reyes, was running, full-out, for my life. 

It hadn’t happened very often in my twenty-six-odd years, so yeah, I wasn’t loving it. I ran down the fog-wet street, controlling my breaths the way my boxing coach, Becks, taught me. I knew it might be helping me a little, but I also knew I was distracting myself from the fact that I was pretty much out of time.

Bastard was faster than I'd planned for. 

That meant he was faster than Irene told me he'd be, too.

In fact, even as I tore down the alleyway in my super-grip boots, I found myself thinking I’d  have to have a few words with that girl, as soon as I got back to the office...assuming I got back to the office at all, and didn't get stabbed or shot when this guy caught up with me, which was seeming pretty close to inevitable at this point. That stunt I'd pulled back in his car had been carefully designed to enrage him, of course. I mean, I needed him to go there, right? Otherwise, how would I get him to show his true colors? So we worked it all out, me and Irene and with input from the client, of course...coming up with a routine guaranteed to push all of his little, sociopathic buttons.

Unfortunately, I’d gotten a little too good at that part of my job.

So yeah, it worked. I further compounded the problem by hitting the guy in the chest when he tried to pull his trademark ‘date-rape after multiple threats’ maneuver... not a real hit, of course, but a regular-old, 'hands off me, buddy, or I’ll scream' hit, like any normal girl might do. The client specifically warned me, more than once, that this douche really didn't like it when we chicas fought back.

So, yeah, I made a point of breaking that little rule, too.

And then, when he don’t look quite pissed off enough, and kept trying with the bully me into sex bit, I made a point of breaking it again, that time hitting him a little harder, and in the face.

He really didn’t like that...but yeah, that was kind of the point.

Anyway, I was on the clock by then, since the whole bar thing took longer than I’d wanted already, and it seemed like the easiest way to provoke the guy at the time.

That part worked like a charm, really...better than I'd expected, even after scoping this dude for a solid three weeks, long enough to have his basic M.O. down pat. Thinking back on it, I probably should have used the car itself as the hot zone...but I knew the cops could be unreliable with any situation that might be construed as some date gone wrong, or worse, a girl tease who changed her mind at the last minute. Frankly, I hadn’t wanted to take that chance. Most of the cops I’d worked with in this town were pretty cool, and some even respected what I did for a living, and had bought me drinks after a few of my ‘cases’ had good outcomes. But yeah, there was a range of sensitivity with the men in blue, too, after all. Some of them liked to give their girlfriends or wives a good smack now and then, too, so thought I was one of those feminazi dykes for even giving those women an alternative.

And yeah, some thought what I did bordered on illegal. Some maybe thought it was illegal, in the spirit sense of things, but I was pretty careful to toe the line on that stuff, too. After all, I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t colluding with the cops, either. So while what I did could be construed as a kind of entrapment...more or less...it wasn’t actually entrapment, in terms of the kind that could get a case thrown out of court.

But yeah, some of those cops knew me. Some of the judges in this town knew me, too. Some liked me fine, sure, but another group would gladly look the way if they saw me running down a blind alley, no matter what kind of psycho panted his way after me.

So yeah, I knew if I skirted too close to that line, they might not play ball at all, and refuse to take the guy in. As a result, I was careful to only do things any regular girl might do, in order to get the guy to show his true colors. I’d never been a cop myself, so I figured I didn’t have to follow every single one of their little rules, especially since I didn’t wear a gun, so was pretty much risking my ass every time I took on one of these nutjob cases.

On the other hand, I couldn’t risk making the cops look like jerks, either.

Bottom line, I wanted to create a situation where a) the guy reacted to what could have been any real girl in b) an environment where he’d be caught with his pants down so that c) the cops would have zero doubt about the guy’s psycho creds and that d) they’d know I'd done everything I could to escape him. To me, those four things pretty much trumped whatever I might have done to ‘provoke’ him beforehand. 

Anyway, everything seemed to be going according to plan at first. Nothing like a good foot chase through dark streets to evoke that whole 'serial killer' motif, especially when the guy is built like a linebacker and already had a few wrist slaps for aggravated assault, all of them filed by women. Then the guy turns out to be some kind of amateur track enthusiast, even after four shots of tequila, and I find myself in fear of losing my actual life. Truthfully, I’d expected my biggest problem would be to keep him interested enough to chase me the full nine or ten blocks. I'd all but called him a homo and insinuated he couldn't get it up just to keep him running on the hotter end of pissed off, but, at the time, I’d still worried it might not be enough.

Turns out, I needn't have worried.

On the plus side, the street cameras Irene and I scoped along the route that morning should be getting pretty authentic shots of terror on my face as I ran.

All of my sequencing was off now, too, even if I managed to stay ahead of him. 

At this rate, we’d both arrive early, and worse, I might have to improvise to keep from getting beat up for real...or, better yet, maybe strangled or raped for my trouble. I’d estimated a good five or six minutes of chase time, maybe longer if I managed to work a few breathers into the mix before we hit the target area. Instead, only about two minutes had ticked by according to my mental clock, and I only had three blocks to go. Really, I'd be lucky to get him there at all before he dragged me to the pavement like a wolf on a lame deer.

So yeah, Plan B was seeming pretty likely at this point. It might make me look significantly less like a victim, especially if I got too creative, but I wasn't about to take one for the team, either, no matter how much this chick was paying me.

I heard the mark’s breathing growing louder behind me. His footfalls seemed to drum in my head, too, making a sharper, higher noise in the dampness of the concrete. My super-tread boots generally treated me right in these close-quarter gigs, but I hadn't banked on him running like he wore track shoes, even in his thousand dollar loafers. I’d expected a lot of things to slow him down that hadn’t, though, not only his taste in the douche-y range of footwear, one pair of which probably cost more than most people’s monthly paychecks and got shined every Thursday by some golf cabana boy...if not this guy's train-wreck of a wife.

Grabbing the edge of the brick wall to fling myself faster around the corner, I let out a short gasp when the guy grabbed at my jacket and almost caught me for real. 

Unsurprisingly, I guess, I wore a mini-skirt and tights, and while the material was super stretchy, it might be slowing me down more than I'd really let myself think about when I shimmied into it earlier that evening. But hey, I had to look the part, and this guy didn't like women in pants, figuratively or literally. As it was, he'd given a good hard stare at my boots when I first hopped off that barstool, as if he thought those were a bit too dyke-y even with the pancake makeup and coiffed hair over my sheer and uncomfortably low-cut blouse.

Digging my toes into the concrete at the bottom of the narrow street, I forced out an extra burst of speed to put some distance between us, but it only seemed to buy me a few feet of margin, not nearly enough for me to feel secure in my lead.

Lungs burning in my chest, I fought to pump my arms and legs harder, pounding my way down the street and still counting blocks in my head, even though I'd walked the whole route just that morning and knew exactly how far I had yet to go. Feeling him right behind me again, I realized he'd closed the gap a second time and sprinted faster, feeling the first edges of honest to God panic as he paced my increase in speed.

Hell, he was going to catch me.

I could see the hot zone by then...but it almost didn't matter.

I had to be a good four minutes ahead of the planned drop, so improvisation was now definitely in the playbook. I didn't hold back any reserves that time when I pumped my arms, trying to get just that little extra distance ahead so I could get there a second or two before him. I'd played this card before, sure, but it had been a few months, and this guy had a good eighty pounds and six inches of height on the tattoo-covered Mexican kid on crystal meth who'd last forced me off the regular game-plan and into the uncharted. In that case, I had the whole racism thing playing on my side, for once...and while I didn’t feel good about it, it definitely sped things along. The cops saw the doped up gang-looking kid picking on a hot chick in a leather skirt and they immediately descended with sirens blaring. So yeah, I might not be fully white bread, with my half-Japanese mom and half-Cuban dad, but I was pretty enough and dressed conservatively enough that they rushed to my defense anyway.

This time, the guy was full-on white bread, wearing a suit, and handsome in that boring, Ken doll on steroids kind of way. He looked the part of a young stock broker, so I'd have to make the victim thing more convincing.

Even so, when I got him in the alley, I didn't hesitate to skid sideways once I'd gone past the circle of orange light from the streetlamp. The mark, who'd been so intent on chasing me it hadn't occurred to him that I might stop running, couldn't compensate. He nearly fell over as he darted sideways to follow me, grasping at my arm and back with long arms and thick fingers. He lost his balance just enough to buy me time...smashing sideways into a row of garbage cans near a squat, green dumpster. I heard the smack of his shoulder and chest against the dumpster, but barely registered either as I repositioned myself on his other side.

I didn't give him the time to recover. 

Frankly, I didn't intend to wait and see if he might have some crazy, kick-ass ninja skills that Irene also somehow 'missed' in her background check before we went live.

Shifting my weight on the laced up boots, I reached his side before he could recover, my weight balanced into a low fighting stance. When he whirled to face me, I aimed two sharp, fast kicks, using every ounce of weight and momentum I could muster in my five-foot-three frame...both of them at the joint of his right knee. Without letting that foot drop to the pavement, I swiveled my hip and round-housed the same knee from the side, that time pivoting my whole body. I felt the crack. Hell, I almost heard it. 

He went down. Hard.

I always thought it was pretty funny how in the movies these skinny chicks in lycra were always going for head kicks and upper body kicks with big 'hi-yas!' in some close quarter fight with a mondo-buff dude who was a foot taller than them.

Way stupid. 

High kicks left you all kinds of exposed...and while getting kicked in the face wasn't exactly fun, unless you managed to dislocate the guy's jaw, it wouldn't necessarily drop them. Knees, on the other hand...knees were reliable. No matter how big you were, if something goes wrong in the knees, down you go. Getting a kneecap kicked out of joint by a steel-toes boot hurt like hell. Kind of felt like getting your joint pulled apart with pliers.

This guy was no exception. 

He dropped to the same knee I'd just bent in three different directions, all of that two-hundred-plus weight landing on a pretty small point of contact. I didn't hear a crunch that time, or anything remotely so dramatic, but when he hit that pavement, boy, he let out a scream. He screamed so loud I flinched back in reflex, balling my hands into fists. That was the other thing about knees. If you got them out of whack with the joint, the pain just went on and on without really getting much better.

That's when I kicked him in the face.

Way more effective at that point, in my personal experience.

Still, this guy didn't go all the way down. He grunted, and fell sideways into the garbage cans with a lot of clanging and bother, but he knocked away my foot with one arm when I went to kick him again. He gripped the wall as soon as I gave him space, and then he seemed to be trying to get up, using his one good knee to lurch that muscular body upright.

I could almost feel the fury emanating off him by then. 

It scrunched his face into a dark red, mottled shape, almost unrecognizable from the handsome, smooth-talker who first approached me in that crappy, chrome-covered, eighties-themed club. The monster under that dimpled, blond-headed mask reared its head, and, looking at it, I felt my nerves twanging a few octaves higher, in spite of myself. This guy really did live in Bundy country, and I didn’t want to get dragged into an extended tour of his particular version of crazy.

Really, my instincts told me to knock him out and get the hell out of there. But if I did that, that would be the end of this gig.

No payday.

Worse, I was thinking at that point, this psycho would go free.

So, after a bare second of hesitation, I merely stepped back, watching him stagger to his feet. Reminding myself I just needed to stall him, that I only needed a few minutes and this show would be over, I fought to keep my cool, and my head on straight. If I freaked out, or got too scared or felt forced into a position of fighting for my life, things could turn on me real quick. Already the guy would probably be screaming for his lawyer when the cops finally showed up. If he managed to convince them that I was the one who went bezerk on him, I could very well be waving bye-bye to the sympathetic police and hello to aggravated assault charges. Worse, I'd lose my lucrative fee and this dickhead would be back on the Seattle city streets, getting his kicks off beating up drunk ex-sorority chicks outside of clubs and raping them with kitchen appliances when they refused to service him to his satisfaction.

So yeah, against my better judgment, I held my ground.

I needed my Bundy up and fighting when the men in blue showed up...which should be happening sometime in the next, oh, three or four minutes.

About as long as your average round in a ring fight, I happened to know. So yeah, long enough for him to do some serious damage, maybe, assuming the guy could fight at all. 

I really hoped like hell he couldn't fight.

By now, maybe Irene managed to find something in the way of physical evidence in his car or his apartment that could lend credence to my story to the cops. The security cams we'd marked as part of my running route from the bar parking lot to this alley would have caught enough of the chase to give my version of things some plausibility, too. Of course, if they showed up in this dingy and somewhat clichéd alley after the angry troglodyte pummeled me into the asphalt, that would make it easier to convict the guy, too. I was really hoping that wouldn’t end up being my Plan B, though...or my Plan C, D, E or F.

Stockbroker guy stood over me now, his tie askew under his collar, his lip bleeding from the kick to the face. His knee already stretched his pants where the joint swelled under the material. He still looked pissed as hell, but the creep actually smiled at me as he glared into my eyes with that death-like stare, his fists balled up in a reasonable approximation of a fighting stance.

Yeah. Shit. He looked like he knew how to fight. Box, anyway. Hopefully, he just went to a few lame, dancy, kickboxing classes at his nationally franchised and overpriced McGym.

"You like it rough, huh, bitch?" he said, hunching his shoulders. "Well, come on then. Give it your best shot..."

I fought back a surprised chuckle, deciding it probably wouldn’t be wise. 

Forcing my expression still, I measured his face instead, trying to decide if I should risk getting near him. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to pull off the frightened bar girl bit at this point, not convincingly anyway. I opted to say nothing, instead, thinking that enflaming him further might not be all that smart, either. Still, I had to fight a bit to keep the roll out of my eyes. Seriously. Didn't these guys ever learn any new lines? Why was it always bitch this, and whore that? And what was up with the lame clichés? ‘Give it your best shot?’ Seriously? I mean, who actually talks like that?

"What's wrong?" he sneered. "You seemed like you had a lot to say to me before, cunt. Worried your little jazzercize class might not get you out of the mess your mouth got you into? Well, you should be worried, bitch..."

He lunged right after he spoke, moving faster than I would have credited him, especially given what I'd just done to his knee. When I moved back and sideways, trying to get out of his way, he caught me in a roundhouse punch to the temple that I only just managed to duck. I still caught the tail end of it, but most of the force of the blow missed. Still, the contact alone was enough to jar me, which was enough for him to get in a second punch to my sternum.

That one hurt.

It hurt enough that my instincts kicked in, maybe outside of my better judgment. I kicked out without thought, aiming for his knee again, but that time he moved faster, blocking my kick with his forearm, the same one attached to the fist that just sort of got me in the temple.

Yeah. Shit. This guy could fight.

Maybe not Oscar De La Hoya fight, but definitely a good cut above most of the jerkoffs I got stuck sparring with down at that ratty boxing gym I lived in on most of my spare afternoons and weekends. My head had already started falling into that more serious, fight-for-your-life kind of place, even as it occurred to me again that I might be in for a real smack-down type situation. 

But before I could make a decision about what to do next, something else happened.

Something pretty weird.

 

 

An unusual shifter romance in the new adult category, the Gate-Shifter series centers on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Morph and Earth humans were never meant to cross paths, until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes while surveying Earth for his human masters from another dimension, and ends up pulling her into his dimension with him. Part urban fantasy, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate-Shifter series explores alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.

Summary of Book One:
Dakota Reyes, a twenty-something private eye who specializes in what she calls ‘hard-to-prosecute’ cases, finds herself in a dark alley one night, about to end up dead at the hands of a young Ted Bundy in training…that is, until a lost, shape-shifting alien named Nihkil rescues her, and inadvertently takes her home with him. The problem is, his home is in a different dimension, and Dakota has no clue how to get back to Seattle, or Earth, or even her own time period. She finds herself bound to her rescuer, Nihkil, through his ‘lock,’ a quasi-biological structure that controls whether he can shape-shift, among other things, which he needs to be able to do in order to get her back home. Only Dakota has no idea how to open Nik’s lock, and the longer she spends in his world, the more forces begin to align against them, trying to prevent her from getting home.

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Genre – SciFi / Fantasy / Romance

Rating – PG13

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