Timeless Vows: Five Tales of Love (Timeless Tales Book 4) Page 13

  Can Alex and Nicholas find a way to bridge the gap of time and circumstance? Can they overcome their fears to realize that true love transcends time? Or will a dark secret from Alex’s past rear up to separate them forever?

  * * *

  Echoes of the Past

  In 1692, Isabeau Munier cast a spell to flee Lobster Cove and escape burning at the stake for witchcraft. Instead, she’s trapped by a curse that tosses her through time whenever she attempts to leave the small town. With her curiosity shop and Great Dane familiar, Isabeau has finally found her place in time. When her landlord’s sexy nephew moves in, she thinks she may have found Mr. Right as well.

  Grayson Wright’s intrigued by the beautiful Isabeau, but a friend’s accusations make him worry Isabeau took advantage of his beloved uncle. Gray’s determined to learn the truth, even at the risk of losing his heart.

  Can Isabeau prove she’s not the gold-digger Gray fears and that her love for him is true? Can Gray learn to trust his heart, which tells him Isabeau’s the perfect woman for him? Or will Isabeau’s curse take the chance away from them both?

  * * *

  For You

  It's Valentine's Day, and candy heart sayings mock Drew Engledown's lonely state. He wants more in his life than work, but hasn't met anyone he can imagine spending his life with. When he puts his own life at risk to save a friend, he's sent back in time to Regency London and mistaken for a murdered earl. Has he been given a chance at love with the earl's beautiful widow, or will he suffer the same fate as the previous lord?

  When her husband's heir lays claim to all she once owned, Lady Engledown is left nearly destitute. So she doesn't know whether to be relieved or angry when the earl returns but claims he's not her husband. Could he be telling the truth, or is he toying with her? She doesn't know what to think of this man who is so different from the husband she never loved. Can they find happiness together, or will this man she comes to love leave her worse off than before?

  Part IV

  From This Day Forward

  Nicole S. Patrick

  * * *

  Grammy Award winner Tara Graham’s career had hit a high note—until a compromising situation puts her reputation in a bad light. An invitation to a college friend’s wedding weekend in the backwoods of Maine is the perfect place to lay low until the bad publicity dies down and her career gets back on track. When a college crush sends her senses into overdrive, will she realize that what she’s striving for may not be what she wants, after all?

  Former Marine Todd Mitchell’s trust in women is jaded. He’s grieving the death of his twin brother killed in combat, and trying to rebuild his life in Maine at The Loon Lake Inn. When a beautiful college acquaintance comes to town, he’s faced with either opening his mind and heart, or shutting out someone who might be what he needs to learn to trust again.

  * * *

  Dedicated to ~

  My partners, my friends, and my extended family – The Scribes.

  Joe, Patrick, and Sean, always.

  Mom and Dad, the real-life inspiration behind Agnes and Albert. Your love for each other is truly timeless.

  Copyright © 2015 Nicole S. Patrick

  From This Day Forward

  by Nicole S. Patrick

  Tara Graham cracked one eye at the sound of her ringtone. She glanced at the digital clock—7:00 a.m.?

  She reached toward the nightstand, grabbed the phone off the top, and touched the screen. “Did someone die?”

  “How drunk were you last night?”

  Ron was a terrific agent, but sometimes his timing stunk. “You do realize I was asleep,” she croaked. Swallowing proved painful.

  “Mmm-hmm…that’s what I thought.” He huffed. “Gossip Central put a story and pictures of you and Ben Pratt on their shitty website. He’s holding you against him. Very. Closely. Against him.” Ron emphasized the words for dramatic effect, but it only caused throbbing behind her eyeballs. “Oh, darling, that isn’t the worst part. There’s one of you falling into his limo with your skirt hiked up. Ahem…thank God you had the sense to wear panties. Go look.”

  Oh no. She wanted to die. When had those paparazzi followed them?

  “Reading, brain function—not possible.” That champagne and those three—or was it four?—sweet shots hadn’t been her wisest choice. Celebrating her Grammy Award with mega movie star Ben—one of her best friends from their grad school days at Juilliard—had seemed like a fun idea last night.

  “Here’s the quote.” Ron cleared his throat like he was ready to recite Hamlet’s death scene. Tara flopped onto her back and held her aching head. “‘Is gorgeous Grammy-winner Tara Graham making moves on Hollywood’s most happily married man, Ben Pratt?’ Ben’s comment to Gossip Central’s Mary Healy quotes ‘Tara and I are collaborating.’”

  She groaned out loud. “What was he thinking?” That gossip magazine queen had a talent for twisting the truth.

  “What did you do last night, Miss Tara?” Ron asked in a schoolmarm voice.

  “Nothing worth that rag, that’s for sure.” She grimaced, silently berating herself for one, getting drunk, and two, throwing caution to the wind to let loose for the first time in months.

  It’d been a long tour.

  “We’ll have to do damage control for your night of debauchery,” Mother Ron admonished. “You know how precarious show business is.”

  Tara slowly sat up against her headboard and moved her beloved kitty Fat Lorenzo off her lap. “Debauchery? Who uses that word, anyway? Relax. I’m not exactly front-page material.” Ron was such a worrywart. So what—a few gratuitous underwear pics put on the net. It would be old news by tomorrow…she hoped.

  “Yes, my dear, but Ben Pratt is. And you don’t want bad publicity before your first movie shoot. I’ll call Lana. I know you and Ben go way back, but if the rags move on this any more, it’ll be a hot mess.”

  Tara rubbed the bridge of her nose. Ron was right. Lana Ashford, publicist extraordinaire, could make it go away.

  “I’ve got another call.” Ron put her on hold before Tara could respond. She pushed aside the covers and slowly swung her feet off the bed.

  “Eww…” She looked down at her dress from last night. “Oh God.” She gagged at her own stench, a combination of tacos and ashtray.

  The last things Tara remembered were crawling into Ben’s limo and then into bed.

  Alone.

  Tara had no romantic designs on Ben.

  Never had, never would.

  She wasn’t the Graham involved with Ben Pratt. Nope. That Graham was her sister, Janey. Yes, her baby sis, Jane Graham, bookworm, scientist, MIT grad, had landed herself a leading man.

  Also crystal clear from last night: Ben confessing Jane was his “soul mate”…over much whiskey. Tara was tempted to roll her eyes at the memory, but it hurt too much. Really? That stuff only existed in song lyrics.

  Of course, Ben had sworn her to secrecy about his and Janey’s affair.

  What a mess.

  But she owed Ben. Without his pull in Hollywood, she’d never have been given a second glance. Jazz pianists weren’t exactly up there on the popular meter nowadays. And his new movie about a down-and-out singer/musician was right up her alley. That’s what the collaboration was…nothing more. “Ben, you’re so dead.” Making any other kind of innuendo about them in the press had been a bad idea.

  “Wonderful,” Ron griped when he returned to the line. “Amanda Cleary’s publicist is on the line. And she’s just as much a witch as her client. Get some coffee and I’ll keep you posted.”

  Tara stripped, threw on a robe, and padded down the hallway to the kitchen to fire up the coffee pot.

  Ben’s cell went right to voice mail. Better not leave a message. Amanda sometimes checked them, according to Ben. And the last thing she needed was Amanda calling her.

  This situation was getting ridiculous. Jane and Ben were wrong. No matter how much of a witch Amanda was, sneaking around behind Amanda’s back had
to stop.

  Ben and Jane might be in love, but Ben needed to deal with his marital status.

  And sweet Janey was not going to be ready for the shit storm of show business gossip when he did.

  Running clothes on, Tara grabbed her MP3 player and phone. A Sunday-morning run along the West Side Highway would shake this hangover. She’d deal with the tons of neglected mail later. She grabbed her keys off the foyer table next to the pile, but a large, light purple envelope stuck out, catching her eye. She set down her gear and ripped it open.

  Wow. Viv and Gabe were getting married. It’d been so long since she’d contacted any of the old college crew, especially with the workload at Juilliard that had followed.

  Those two lovebirds had been together forever. A pang of something she couldn’t identify hit the pit of Tara’s stomach.

  Career first, family later had always been her motto.

  And love? Wasn’t that the big fat question mark in her life?

  The wedding was this weekend in Maine. Damn, the RSVP date was last month. No way could she attend. Between the movie shooting next week and salvaging what gigs she didn’t have to cancel because of it, she was booked solid.

  Tara locked up and pondered a gift to send.

  In the lobby she nodded to Marty the doorman and plucked the sunglasses off the usual place on her head, settling them onto her nose as she stepped through the threshold and onto the street.

  A mob of people blocked her path. A guy with a zoom-lens camera practically wacked her in the nose. How rude.

  “Tara, is it true? Are you and Ben Pratt doing the nasty?”

  Huh? Frantic clicking penetrated her brain. The sea of people crowded her, pushing against each other and vying for a place in her face. The mixture of heavy perfume and bad breath made her dizzy. It was suffocating.

  “Must’ve been a good night, eh, Tara?” the zoom-lens guy said in a sleazy voice.

  “How does it feel to break up Hollywood’s first couple?” another voice piped in.

  Tara tried backing away, but something—or someone—pressed against her. Did these people have no concept of personal space? “Please move,” she said to no one in particular with surprising calm in her voice, although her pulse raced.

  “Come on, Tara. No comment this morning?” someone shouted.

  She spun at the hand gripping her upper arm, ready to strike out at whoever dared touch her.

  “Miss Graham, come with me.” Marty planted his other hand firmly in the small of her back, shielding her body with his, and steered her back inside the lobby.

  “Damned vultures.” His kind eyes were filled with concern. “Are you hurt?”

  Her hands were shaking, more from anger than nerves. “No, no. I’m fine.”

  The enormity of the situation sunk in as the “vultures” pointed their cameras against the lobby windows. What was going on? No one in the media had ever cared about her before.

  Jazz musicians led boring lives—or at least she did.

  “Maybe you’d better go back upstairs until I can get the garbage cleared out.” He glared at the door and straightened his pristine white gloves.

  “Yeah, I…thanks,” she whispered and headed to the elevator in a daze.

  Once inside her apartment, Tara locked the door and attached the chain—which she never did—just as her cell vibrated in her shorts.

  “Tara, are you sitting down?” Ron sounded anxious.

  “Should I be? Ron, what’s going on? The paparazzi are camped outside my building.”

  “I was afraid of this,” he muttered gravely. “Honey, the movie studio called. They’re going to replace you.”

  Tara gripped her keys and sunk to the floor as a wave of nausea rose up to her throat. “I don’t understand.”

  “Amanda Cleary is out for blood. She threatened to pull out of her next blockbuster if you and Ben appear in the movie together.”

  Her mind raced. “Can she actually do that?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” he told her. “She thinks she’s more famous than Meryl Streep. I’ve called an attorney. The studio may be in breach of your contract.”

  Holy shit. “Ben needs to come clean,” she blurted and gripped her stomach.

  “Oh, honey, are you in love with him?” Ron’s tone was sympathetic.

  She scoffed. “Of course not. But I am going to kill him.” She couldn’t tell anyone about Ben and Jane. The last thing she wanted was for her baby sister to be in the line of fire.

  “We’ll get this straightened out, I promise.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best.” She couldn’t ask for a better agent than Ron. She slowly rose from the floor.

  “But good luck getting Mr. Pretty Boy to do anything,” Ron said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently, he’s trailed after Queen Amanda to Costa Rica or someplace, according to her publicist. They flew out this morning on her private jet.”

  Her mind reeled. Did Jane know? Ben was going to be double dead when she got in touch with him, the coward.

  “Maybe you should lay low for a few days…you know, until this dies down and we can get your contract sorted out. Take a vacation somewhere remote?”

  Her eyes drifted to the invitation on the foyer table. “Good idea.” Maine was secluded enough.

  * * *

  Thwack! The hammer slipped, landing smack on his thumb.

  “Son of a…” Todd Mitchell bit back a rather colorful curse at the “Tsk” from below. He hooked the tool into his belt and examined his throbbing digit.

  “Are you hurt, my dear boy? Come down and let me take a look.”

  Dear boy? Since she’d arrived at The Loon Lake Inn, Agnes had appointed herself his unofficial grandmother. His own curmudgeon granny never gave him this much attention. Agnes’s latching onto him made him twitchy, but he felt obligated to be nice since she was a guest.

  She rose from her chair and hobbled onto the platform of the gazebo where she’d been “supervising” the repairs since six this morning. That back order of lighting from Bangor had better get there for the gazebo to be ready in time for the wedding ceremony.

  As for Agnes—for a small lady, she sure was bossy.

  At least the garden area had shaped up nicely. The owners, Nikki and Nate, could use the business and suggesting the venue to his old college pals Viv and Gabe for their wedding had been easy. Plus, this job at the inn helped supplement his income while he built up his own survival school business and seemed to be working out great, at least for the time being. He didn’t mind the manual labor, and Nikki and Nate treated him well.

  Todd grinned despite the pain. Agnes was a trip. He had to admit he hadn’t felt like smiling in a long time. However, her “help” consisted of constant chatter about the guests arriving for her great-nephew Gabe’s wedding. Whom she liked, which women dressed like hookers—he’d like to see that—and all kinds of comments.

  Todd’s plan had been to get in a few hours of peace and quiet, but it wasn’t to be—not with Agnes hovering.

  Summer mornings in Maine were the perfect atmosphere to clear his head. Just him, a raft of loons splashing in the lake, and the buzz of the swarms that made this state their home. He liked Maine but the mosquitoes could give the sand fleas in Afghanistan competition and he had the welts all over his forearms and neck to prove it.

  Anyplace but on deployment overseas worked fine for him.

  He jumped down from the last rung of the ladder as his watch beeped. The bunch of city guys staying at the inn while the barracks-like structure for his school was built should be out of their racks by now—if they weren’t nursing hangovers. Wonder how long they’d last in the woods. In the past few months operating TOSS It, Todd’s Outdoor Survival School, a few students had impressed him by getting down and dirty learning how to survive in the wild. Yet others expected the “nature guy” to do all the work.

  Not going to happen.

  His brochure clearly stated the surviv
al training was no walk in the park. He’d modeled the tactics after his training as a Recon Marine. Being a Marine had taught him many things, and the ability to face adversity and pull shit together was most important of all. The guys who’d signed up for the regimen would soon learn the skill, too.

  “Poor thing.” Agnes clucked like a mother hen, staring at his still-throbbing thumb. “Did you know I served in the Army Nurse Corps back in fifty-three, at the tail end of the Korean War? I was just a baby back then.”

  He’d bet a week’s worth of rations Agnes had to be pushing ninety if she were a day. For some odd reason it didn’t bother him to listen to her nostalgia. Her recollections were a whole lot more interesting than when his grandfather forced him to sit and listen to war stories. “Yes, you mentioned it,” he told her.

  Agnes pulled a tissue from her pocket to dab the minuscule amount of blood pooling on his thumb. “That’s where I met my Albert. He was quite dashing in his Army uniform—not so much anymore.”

  She stopped and examined him like a piece of meat, then flattened her lips. Not many people could make him squirm like Agnes. “You’re a devil dog, I hear.”

  Todd smirked at the nickname for the Marines. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Agnes rolled her eyes and patted his arm. “In my heyday, the Marines were crazy fellas. Always getting into bar fights—not that I ever went into a bar.” She winked and turned to step off the platform. Todd helped her down with a hand under her elbow. “I had a girlfriend who married a Marine, a rather large and intimidating man—like you, dear. I suppose she found that exciting.”

  She had a point, although he didn’t set out to be intimidating, but at six-three, two-twenty it couldn’t be helped.

  Agnes was a force of nature, and her husband, Albert, mostly let her boss him around, after they bickered incessantly. They were funny to watch.