To date, I've written six paranormals-- kind of. Three are novella length and ended up in one book. The third is Storm in the Canyon. Since I put these three novellas into one book, Diablo Canyon, I've found it hard to say how many books I've written. The stories are the same with one difference-- the novellas are closed doors on any sexual scenes.
In Storm in the Canyon, the heroine of Part Two and the heroine of Part Three have a discussion about love and what is worth risking.
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Eventless
days had passed, but Racine
still felt her nerves on edge with a mixture of desire for Dirk, combined with
fear over what waited in Diablo
Canyon. Her fear wasn’t
so much for herself but for these humans, for whom she had come to care. How
would she hold up her end when the time came?
Helping
Myra prepare a
meal eased frayed nerves. She hadn’t anticipated that her personality, as a
spirit guide, strong but also weak, would come with her in a human body. She
had always been a worrier, and it appeared that hadn’t disappeared.
Pace
and Dirk were out on horseback, moving one of the herds to a new section, which
left her time with Myra
who was humming as she worked. Racine
found the melody soothing. She had always liked her human charge but being a
human alongside her had enhanced that fondness. She enjoyed being able to ask
about simple things like what spices enhanced which flavors.
“You
really haven’t cooked before?” Myra
said as she added a pinch of rosemary to the marinara sauce.
Considering
she only recently had begun to eat, she quickly realized she needed a better
reason than having only been born a week earlier. “My mother was lost when I
was young… and my father remarried a woman who didn’t want me anywhere near the
kitchen or… her for that matter.” She gave a little laugh. That wasn’t a total
lie. All right, it was.
“I
would be happy to teach you what I know.”
“I’d
like it if you taught me something else also.”
Myra looked over at her. “If I know it.”
“You
know it. I have seen it in you… for this week that is. Despite what happened
out there with the bear, I saw fear in you then as you faced the danger but
after it was over, I don’t see you worrying. How do you avoid that?”
“You
are in a serious mood. Let’s have a cup of tea, and I’ll tell you what I know.
I hope though it won’t disappoint you as it’s nothing mystical.” She smiled as
she put on the tea pot and looked through her herbal teas for the right choice.
“How about chamomile?”
“I’ve
never had it; but, yes, if you think it’s good.”
The
older woman smiled, and when the tea pot whistled, she poured the water on the
tealeaves. She took it over to the table where she sat on one side and Racine
the other. “It’s strange,” Myra
said, “but even though we just met last week, I feel I know you.”
“I
hope that is good.”
“Yes,
it is. I like you, Racine. As to the answer to your question, I do have fears.
Through losses, I have learned to temper them. Losses came very early in my
life with a grandfather dying in an accident, then a father who was never there
for my mother or me; a mother who became ill and died also too soon; then a
grandmother who became my mother; but then she also died.”
“I
can’t imagine such losses.”
“They
didn’t end. I married a good man. We put our ranches together; then he was
killed in an accident. I could have given up then. I didn’t. When my son was
killed, for awhile, I quit feeling anything. I didn’t worry, but I also didn’t
feel. Then along came Pace. If I had let myself think about what has been in my
past, I’d have run from him. I almost did, but then I’d have missed what is in
my today. Does that make sense?”
“Some.”
“Worrying
would not keep him safe. It wouldn’t keep Cole, Jessica and their child safe
either. Worrying would do nothing; so I force myself not think about what has
happened, not to connect it to today, to live in the now. Unless someone asks
me.” She smiled softly.
“I
am sorry. I brought back bad memories to you.”
“No,
good memories. I lost them, but I also had them. What if I had worried such
that I had not let myself ever have them?”