A boxed set of my three novels -- The Old Mermaid's Tale, Each Angel Burns, and Depraved Heart -- is now available from Amazon for $8.99 which is a 30% savings over buying them individually. This makes a nice gift! You can find it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
The following excerpt is from Depraved Heart. Ever since she came to Hathor, Tempest has been drawn to Syd, the NFL superstar who has recently been paroled from prison. On the evening of the 4th of July he invites her to walk out to the cliffs overlooking the harbor to watch the fireworks:
Syd
opened the wooden door at the back of the garden
and held it for her. His hand rested lightly, briefly on her back as
she stepped through and she looked back both at him and at the
meticulous, formal beauty of the walled garden before stepping out
into the wild tangle on the other side. Though she had passed through
this door before, she had never been so struck by the difference in
the two spaces. The walled garden, under his conscientious attention,
had become a tapestry of old English roses climbing the brick walls,
carefully sculpted yew borders, and cypress trees lining the pool. He
had cleared away the weeds and replaced the missing bricks in the
walkways that wove between the beds of lantana, liatras and
Canterbury bells he planted because he said they attracted
butterflies. Wisteria dripped down from the tops of the walls and
covered the trellis over the terraces. But on the other side of the
door was another world entirely.
They
crossed into the shelter of a lichen-coated pergola overgrown with
more wisteria, here tangled with wild grape vines. The columns were
wound round with Virginia creeper and clematis. Everything that was
precise and controlled inside the garden was wild and voluptuous
outside.
“It’s
too bad that the lilacs go by so fast,” he said as he walked beside
her. “Some of these can grow to be fifteen feet tall. In May and
early June you can smell them all the way in the house.”
She
looked up at him and nodded. “I remember.”
“Watch
your head.” He lifted aside a swag of hydrangea and she bent under
it letting his hand on her waist guide her. The night air was soft
and soothing, rich with the fragrance of the night-blooming jasmine
that wound its way between the silver birch and aspen trees
concealing the fairy retreats that Lisette had planted so long ago.
“Anjelica
tells me that there is a grotto somewhere around here where all the
flowers are white and they only bloom at night. She said there are
moonflowers there. Have you ever seen a moonflower?”
“No,”
she said, “what are they?”
“A
lot of courtyards in the Quarter had them when I was a kid. Anjelica
says she can’t remember where it is. Maybe we should go searching
for it some night.”
“I’d
love that,” she said.
“Yes,”
he said, “so would I. Over here.”
The
trees turned to windswept pines sprouting out of the granite rocks
along the cliffs. Banks of beach roses bordered a meadow filled with
buttercups, daisies and wild asters.
“It
should be almost time for the fireworks.” And as he said it the
boom-boom-boom that marked the beginning of the display echoed across
the water and they could see the sparkling explosions of gold and
blue light filling the sky above Gloucester harbor.
“This
might be a good place.” He led her to a patch of feathery grass
where tufts of ferns grew between the rocks and spread the blanket
he’d brought from the house. She sat down, folding her skirt under
her and he made himself comfortable beside her, not quite touching
but close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body through
the fine cotton of her clothes.
“Look.”
She pointed. The moon was coming up over the horizon just below
Eastern Point Lighthouse’s golden flash. As it rose a sparkling
silvery path swept across the water. The air around them glittered
with fireflies.
“When
I was a boy, I spent much of the summer in Galveston with my father.
Sometimes when we were out on his boat late at night the moon would
shine on the water and dolphins swam beside the boat, leaping up, and
keeping pace with us.”
“Dolphins?
Really?” She turned to look at him, and he thought that in the
moonlight she looked as enchanting as any mermaid that had ever
emerged from the depths.
“Yes.
There’s a channel between the tip of Galveston Island and Boliver
Point on the mainland and every time we crossed it there were
dolphins everywhere. There’s a ferry that goes back and forth
between the island and the mainland all the time, and people feed the
dolphins. They get used to humans. They would come right up to the
boat hoping for a treat. I’d feed them shrimp and little fish when
my father wasn’t looking.”
“That
sounds beautiful,” she said.
He
moved closer, caressed her jaw with his fingertips and said, “I
want to kiss you.”
“I
want you to kiss me,” she said and leaned forward letting her body
rest against his as their mouths met. He slid his hands up her back
and into her hair.
“You’re
all I’ve thought about since Sunday,” he whispered nuzzling her
neck, kissing her shoulders and caressing the soft skin along her
spine.
She
slipped her hands up over his arms to his shoulders and kissed him
deeper, moving closer.
In
the distance they could hear the explosions of fireworks and the
cheers and honking of boat horns, but from their vantage point the
path of moonlight sweeping over the sea seemed to direct the full
beauty of its scintillating light on them and on them alone. They
wound around each other in caresses that felt more intense than the
thundering of the waves below and more gentle than the breeze filled
with the fragrance of sea salt and beach roses and jasmine.
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