from Sky Daughter

Sky Daughter was the first paranormal I wrote. There are two sets of bad guys and the problem the hero and heroine must figure out is what is at the bottom of all that is happening.  It involves two spiritual traditions that go back many centuries as well as something even older.

    “I don’t know. What is today?”

    “Thursday, the fifteenth.”

    He whistled. “I’ve been here three days. I guess then it was three days there. I know you’re right about me leaving, but if nothing else, I need to know the possible charges. Think you can get one of those posters tomorrow?"

    "If they come out, the sheriff said he’d bring one by the station. You do know though you should leave tonight.”

    "I know you’ll think this is paranoid for sure, but I have a feeling they’d stop me.” He shook his head and she could see he was thinking something even worse.

   “What is it?”

   “Nothing. Forget it. Look, I will go because I don’t want you to be connected to this.”

   “Wearing the toga? Looks good but doesn’t seem it’d get you very far.”

    “I will wear Shorty’s, of course... falling apart though they are. I’ll hide during the day and walk at night.”

    She knew he had no intention of going, only of separating himself from her. She shook her head. The obstinacy of the male, especially certain males never ceased to amaze her. “That is the dumbest idea I’ve heard yet from you—and that’s going some.”

    He glowered at her. “I don’t like the idea of you being with me, maybe being caught with me. I didn’t want to drag someone innocent into this.”

    “Weren’t you innocent?” she asked thinking maybe he did know why he had been taken—if he had.

    He smiled and the smile was that heart melting one. “Nobody is innocent by my age, but I don’t think I brought this one on myself. I was just a fisherman up here and didn’t offend anybody unless it was fish—although since I do catch and release, maybe they spread the word.”

     She rose, paced across the room. “I’m grown up and decide what I want to get involved with all by myself. Now I’d also like to know what has been going on up here. It’s my home.”

    “I am not thinking clearly yet but I have a feeling you should get the hell out of Dodge, maybe even more than me.”

    “This is my home, and you are turning this around. You are the one who has to leave.”

    “If I could,” he muttered.

    “You sound paranoid, New York.”

    “Remember, it’s only paranoia if it isn’t based on anything,” he retorted. “Look, you helped me. I appreciate that but don’t want to drag you into something that could harm you. You have to think practically.”

    “You have some nerve. You try to rob my station, threaten to kidnap me, get yourself shot, take my help and then you imply again and again I’m the one unable to use good judgment.”

    He rose too, angrily wrapping the quilt more securely around himself. She saw the moment he realized that striking a pose of righteous indignation when wrapped in a quilt was going to be a difficult feat at best. She didn’t want to find this or him humorous, didn’t want to smile. She made herself frown. “You’re not taking this or me seriously.”

    “At the least I’m not taking myself seriously.” He chuckled.

    “This is nothing to laugh at.”

    He gestured to his quilt. “You sure?”

Diablo Canyon has three stories within the book. Three separate love stories but tied together by the canyon and its mysticism. It's contemporary, ranch romance with suspense and the supernatural.

><><

“I don’t want you to go after that predator,” she said. “Something about it frightens me.”

“It’s just an animal, baby. It can be killed like any other animal.”

She sat up. “How can you be so sure?”

“If it was a spirit being, I’d know. It’s not. It’s a clever hunter, and I don’t put down at all what its dangers are. It’s good at what it does. I am too though.”

She sighed and headed to the creek and again waded out, splashing water over her slender body. Nudity was as natural to her as life. He joined her and after washing as best he could went back to pull on clothes.

“What do the spirits tell you?” she asked as she put on her dress, this time adding a pair of panties she had tucked in a small sack along with the uneaten lunch.

“Nothing about this beyond it’s a bear. They can tell me what they know or sometimes what they are willing for me to know. There are higher beings out there, that know more, but I haven’t seen them around this ranch—yet.”

“You still think there is something here the Damons want. What about the spirits? Is there something here, that they want?”

Buttoning his shirt, he considered that. “Maybe. Nothing is usually ever as simple as it looks. You know, Myra, you have a gift too, don’t you?”

“What do you mean? I told you I quit seeing the spirits when I was a little girl. I don’t see them now. You aren’t really thinking I can suck life from a man, are you?” She laughed.

“No, although you have a gift there too.” He laughed there too. “No, what I mean is something else. You healed me last night. Did you know you were doing it?”

She stared at him. “I did? No… well maybe a little. I have with calves… I will feel the heat going through me but you? You think I healed you?”

“Baby, I know you did. I should have been stove up a week after what happened. I had at the least a cracked rib. Those don’t just go away, but after you holding me and your body against mine all night, the pain nearly disappeared.”

He could see her considering that. “Could I have healed Clay then if I’d gotten to him in time?”

“You want to blame yourself for something, don’t you?”

“I don’t… All right maybe I want to think I can fix whatever goes wrong.”

“There are some things meant to be. I don’t know why your son had to die when he did. I haven’t asked-- if even the guides around here would know. But does it matter now? I don’t believe you can bring the dead back to life… although.” Now he grinned. “You brought part of me back to life; so maybe.”

“Do you think I could see and talk to spirits too again?”

He nodded as he went to the horses to tighten their cinches. “I think you could do that and a lot more. It only takes wanting it. With your family heritage, it’s probably there, just untouched.”

She smiled then. “Like I was until the day you drove into the ranch yard.”

“Like we both were.”

excerpt from Her Dark Angel

Contemporary romantic suspense based in Nevada and Portland, Oregon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Uncle John rubbed his hand over his bald head. “When he regains consciousness, he’s not going to sign for any surgery; you know that too, don’t you?

     “I suppose it’ll be a problem.”
     “I’m worried, Katy girl."
     “I am too.” She thought of Dill’s mental attitude and instinctively knew if wanting to live was a part of his survival, he wouldn’t make it.         
     “I don’t know what we can do."
     “You know why I told them you were his fiancée?"
     “I guess to get in to see him.”
     “It’s so you can sign for him to have that surgery.”
     “A fiancée can’t sign for something like that.”
     “A wife could.”
     She stared blankly at him. “I’m not his wife.”
     “You could be.” Uncle John took a gulp of his coffee. "If you were his wife, things'd be different,. You could bring in any kind of specialist or in a few hours fly Dill in one of your daddy’s jets to whatever hospital it took to get him well. You could do whatever need be, him wanting it or not.
     "But I'm not his wife," she repeated.
     He stared at her, opened his mouth, shut it, and then smiled. "That could be changed real fast."  
     "What are you suggesting--that we lie about it? They would find out."  
     "I was thinking something simpler. Why don’t you marry him?"
     She felt her mouth drop open. "Dill is unconscious. How would that be simpler?” She managed a laugh. 
     "It doesn't have to be a real marriage, Katy girl. Just long enough to get him on his feet again. Then you annul it."  
     "If Dill isn’t able to sign for surgery right now, how could he agree to get married?" she asked, trying to stop her head from whirling.
     “People who have been in such situations have been married before. Nobody here knows he wasn’t planning it before this all happened. Surgeons are more persnickety about how alert someone is when they sign the paper than some I know who can do the marrying.”