Romantic Interludes Part 1

Romantic Interludes.

TWCS Authors.

Eros is the G.o.d of love, but he has never experienced the emotion himself-despite his inexplicable fascination with a beautiful young mortal woman, Psyche. When one of his golden arrows strikes Psyche instead of its intended target, he whisks her away to Olympus, to save her from the fate of falling in love with the next man she sees. Psyche is terrified when she wakes blindfolded, in a strange realm, in the company of an oddly compelling man who claims to be a Greek G.o.d. What happens when the blindfold finally comes off?

The flowers might be fresh but Becky's love-life isn't blooming. Spring has sprung and it's looking like another year on the shelf in The Little Flower Shop for Becky. Enter the tall dark stranger who comes calling every Monday, but how can she fall for a guy who likes mediocre Mop-heads over zany Zinnias? He might be cute, but he sure ain't no gentleman gardener. Harder to open than a Dalia in December-Becky and her buddy, Jilly, have to resort to every trick in the book to figure out the mystery behind the guy they call The Monday Man.

Emma Valentine is a matchmaker who doesn't believe in love. Well, at least not the hearts and flowers, see-your-soulmate-across-a-crowded-room-and-the-world-stands-still kind of love. No, Emma is a pragmatist and she's abandoned her family's tradition of matchmaking based on instinct and uncanny intuition for a more scientific approach to pairing people up. Emma believes love is more about compatibility and common interests than anything mystical.

But a run-of-the-mill job turns her world on end when swoony cake designer Sam Cavanaugh pops up as a potential match for her newest client. The attraction she feels for him throws a wrench in her plans, but she's not going to succ.u.mb without a fight.

After a less than stellar ending to her seemingly perfect relations.h.i.+p, Christine decided to spend Valentine's Day at the one place where her mind would stay good and occupied. The Emergency Room had a way making the day pa.s.s by quickly, yet when her former fling elects to change his schedule with another nurse, Christine finds herself in a situation she can't avoid. Can she finally set aside her fears and take a leap of faith? Or will her a.s.sumptions about Mitch prove her to be unlucky in love?

Ten years ago, April Peterson asked her long-time crush and pen pal Lance Corporal Justin Clark for a date. Just a day spent alone together. Though he cared for her more than he had ever let on, he was still in shock after his first military deployment to Afghanistan, and responded in perhaps the worst possible way: He ignored her.

When they meet again, April Peterson Sinclair is a widow with a young daughter and Gunnery Sergeant Justin Clark, USMC, is hopeful that he will get another chance, but can April trust him with her heart once again?

Jada Morgan hates Valentine's Day-which is ironic, considering she works as a writer for a greeting card company. She meets Nathan Reynolds, one of the new graphic artists, and they bond over their mutual hatred for all things Cupid while working on designs for this year's marketing campaign. As they grow closer, Jada learns that Nathan is a single father and she quickly becomes attached to him and his little girl. When it's time for the company's holiday party, Jada a.s.sumes they will attend together, not realizing Nathan already has a date for the event. Has Stupid Cupid broken her heart once again? A heartfelt story about love, family, and second chances.

After twelve years of friends.h.i.+p, Memphis and Kennedy Adams took a risk that changed their lives forever. Now, three years later, they're a happily married, suburban living couple whose only problem is a disobedient puppy. Things couldn't be going more smoothly for these two-until Valentine's Day turns out to be more than flowers, chocolates and candy hearts. Kennedy's been down this road before and it ended in heartache. Will she be able to overcome her fear of the past in order to see the good? Sometimes the best things in life are the unexpected surprises along the way.

HIS TARGET WAS NEARBY. He could feel it. Eros searched the mall's food court, unseen, unfelt by the people who bustled through the room to join lines or stake a claim on a table.

There. That was the one. A tall redhead swam though the crowd, a tray braced in her hands. He followed her, waiting for a clear shot. The redhead pulled a chair across the tile floor and plunked herself down before parceling out food for someone who would share her table. He lifted his bow and notched an arrow.

And then he saw her. He dropped the bow down to his side. Though it caused him pain, he moved closer, straining to hear her soft voice over the babble of the crowd. She wore a light cotton sundress and her dark brown hair was bound up off her neck, though tendrils always escaped no matter how hard she tried to contain them. She hated her hair and its uncontrollable curls. He thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

He wished he had the ability to walk up behind her and press a kiss to the soft curve of her neck. To trace the tiny b.u.t.terfly tattoo on the back of her shoulder, a whimsical tribute to her name. To Eros, she would always be Psyche. His b.u.t.terfly. And like a b.u.t.terfly, he could only admire her beauty from afar.

Others called her Alexis, as her mother had called her by her middle name since she'd divorced her Greek husband, and that was the name she carried to adulthood.

Eros could not explain why this one particular mortal fascinated him so. He could only say that she called to him in a way that no other creature, mortal or immortal, ever had in the thousands of years he'd walked the earth. Certainly she was pretty and kind-hearted, but so were many others he had known. He knew only that she was special. The sound of her soft laugh made his heart speed up, and he edged closer.

A whisper danced through his mind. You have a job to do. He looked up and saw the man his red-headed target was destined to love winding through the crowd, a soda cup and sandwich borne on a plastic tray.

Eros notched his arrow, drew back, and took aim at the redhead. Just before he let go, Psyche gasped as she spilled her drink on herself, distracting him. He watched with horror as the arrow flew across the room and hit Psyche in the chest, bursting on contact into a golden powder.

Panic. He darted across the room, not bothering to avoid the people in his path. They s.h.i.+vered and glanced around as they felt him pa.s.s through, a cool chill that raised goose b.u.mps in his wake.

Psyche was still dabbing at her dress with a paper napkin, employing her foulest language. "Darn it!"

She began to tilt up her head, and his gut went icy with despair. She would fall in love with the first man she saw after being struck by the arrow. Unless he could . . .

He reached her just in time and whispered a word of magic. Psyche swayed, her face drained of color and she toppled out of her chair. He caught her just before she hit the floor, and they vanished.

Dark. Everything was dark. She was lying on something soft. A bed? She sat up and her hands flew to her face. A cloth blindfold covered her eyes. She gripped its edge to pull it away.

"Don't," said a male voice and she jumped. "Leave it in place, Psyche."

"Who are you? How do you know my name? My real name, I mean."

He didn't answer.

"Please," she whispered. "Please don't hurt me, okay? I'll do whatever you say. Just let me go."

His voice was so low she could barely hear it, though she strained to listen. "I could never hurt you, Psyche. But I cannot let you go, either."

A whimper escaped her, though she tried to hold it back. She had to be brave. She had to think calmly and coolly, wait for her chance to escape. But trying to remain calm was almost as impossible as ordering her racing heartbeat to slow. She took a long, deep breath. "Who are you, and why am I here?"

"I'm . . ." She could hear the hesitation in his voice. "I'm a friend. I swear you'll come to no harm. I'll release you when I've learned how to fix the mistake I made."

"You don't have to fix anything. Just let me go and I swear I'll never tell anyone."

"It's not that. If I release you now, you would be in . . . danger."

"Of what?"

His voice dropped to that barely perceptible level again. "I cannot tell you."

She heard a creak and the rustle of cloth. Soft footsteps on a hardwood floor. The bed dipped as he sat on the edge beside her. She couldn't help it, she scrambled back with a soft cry. She wished desperately that she had gone to that self-defense cla.s.s with Tara.

He sighed. "I mean you no harm."

"No offense, but I don't exactly have any reason to trust you. I don't even know your name."

"Eros."

"Eros? Like the Greek G.o.d of love?"

"Yes." There a trace of amus.e.m.e.nt in his tone.

She took a deep breath again. "How did you know my name?"

"I know much about you."

"Were . . . Were you watching me?"

"Not like you're thinking," he said. "I never intended for us to meet, but there was . . . an accident. Something happened that shouldn't have happened, and now I must make it right."

She felt a light touch on her cheek and sucked in a breath, trying hard not to recoil, trying hard not to tremble. He sighed again, and the bed s.h.i.+fted as he rose to his feet.

"You may take off the blindfold after I leave, but you must promise to always wear it when I am around. I know you are honorable and will keep your word if you give it. Will you promise me?"

To be able to take this blindfold off, she would have promised far more. "I do."

"Make yourself comfortable and try to relax. I will have food sent to you." He paused. "Please, do not be alarmed if you do not see anyone. This place is very . . . different from the world from which you come, but nothing here will harm you."

"Where are we?" she whispered.

"Olympus." And with that, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Olympus? What in the world did that mean?

Psyche pulled off the blindfold and studied the room around her. She lay in a huge bed with posts that supported a gauzy canopy. The room was huge. Two divans faced one another over a low table next to a fireplace. Each of the walls had a large, rectangular opening. Light curtains twisted and floated in the breeze.

Psyche slid out of the bed and padded barefoot across the floor to one of the windows. She gasped. It was the kind of view she'd thought only existed in fantasy movies. White-capped mountains rose in the distance. The house was on the very edge of a horrifyingly steep canyon. A silver ribbon of a river wound through the bottom, thousands of feet below. She followed the winding course of the river to the end and saw a waterfall that could surely exist only in imagination. She had seen pictures of Angel Falls, and it was nothing compared to what she saw before her. She half-expected to see a unicorn fly over the canyon, chased by a dragon or some other fantastical vision.

Psyche was a logical girl. In that respect, she took after her Greek father, intensely practical and reasoned. He believed there was a reason for everything, even if it could not be immediately determined. Psyche gripped the edge of the window and told herself firmly that it had to be some sort of optical illusion based on atmospheric conditions. It sounded weak, but it was all she could come up with. She walked across the room and peered out the window on the opposite wall, only to find a similar view of an impossibly deep canyon. Was the house built on some sort of peninsula or an island in the center of the river? There had to be a way to reach the land on the other rim of the canyon.

Disconcerted, she stepped back and looked around the rest of the room. There was a door to her left. She opened it to a ma.s.sive closet, larger than her bedroom in her apartment. Dresses, slacks on hangers, blouses, skirts, a built-in cabinet full of lingerie, all in her favorite colors, all of it in her size, and the garments still bore their tags. Thoroughly creeped-out by this evidence of premeditation, she backed out of the closet.

The next door contained a bathroom unlike anything she'd ever seen. A waterfall poured from the wall into a shallow basin next to a tub large enough to swim in. The toilet wasn't just plain white porcelain. It was as pretty as a Sevres vase, decorated with pink, yellow, and green flowers and vines. But there were no mirrors. How odd.

When she returned to the bedroom, she saw the low table between the divans had been loaded with food. A fresh, hot loaf of bread and a bowl of creamy, spreadable cheese sat next to a large platter of fruit. A silver pitcher stood next to it containing wine, better than any she'd ever tasted. It was light and sweet, slightly effervescent, with a fruity tang.

She wondered briefly if she should trust the wine and food, but then went ahead and dug in. If he wanted to drug her, there wasn't any way she could stop him, and she needed to keep up her strength if she was going to find a way to escape. She wondered if that was how he had kidnapped her. She remembered fainting . . . Had the food court meal being doped?

After Psyche finished eating, she lay on the bed, staring up at the canopy. There wasn't anything else to do. No books, no television, not even a radio. Maybe he didn't want her to hear stories about her kidnapping. It had to be all over the news. The daughter of a wealthy s.h.i.+pping magnate couldn't simply disappear from a shopping mall and not attract notice. Tara must be frantic, she thought. Psyche wondered if Tara had gotten a good look at her captor. She hoped so.

She got up to use the bathroom and froze half way across the room. The dishes from her lunch had been removed. How was that possible? She would have seen anyone who entered the room. Her knees wobbled and she had to sit down on the divan to avoid falling. She recalled what Eros had said. "Please, do not be alarmed if you do not see anyone. This place is very . . . different from the world from which you come."

Psyche pulled her knees up to her chest and tried not to cry.

"Put on your blindfold."

Psyche jerked awake and looked around in confusion. It sounded as though Eros stood right beside her, but there was no one else in the room.

"Put on your blindfold, Psyche," he repeated patiently.

She stood and retrieved the piece of cloth from the bedside table. She tied it on lightly, intending to leave a gap through which she could see her captor, but simply laying it across her eyes blocked all sight. Even light didn't penetrate the fine cloth.

"It's on." Psyche hated the way her voice trembled.

The door opened and footsteps came closer. "I brought you some books," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you a television or radio. Those things don't work here."

She was startled. How had he known . . . ? Could he read her mind? Impossible.

"It's very possible, actually."

"Then what am I thinking now?" she asked.

"Blue, twenty-one."

Psyche stopped breathing. "But it's . . . that's not possible." Her voice was faint, lacking conviction.

"You know by now that this is no ordinary place, and I am not ordinary, either."

She didn't want to hear any more. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if to block out the world.

His hand touched hers and she jerked in surprise. "Please, don't be afraid."

"How can I not?" she demanded. "I don't know what's going on, why I'm here. If it's money you want-"

"No, I have no need for money."

"Then why?" she cried. "I don't understand. Is this, like, a stalker thing?" Her voice cracked on the last two words.

"No. As I said before, I never intended for us to meet."

She thought she heard a soft, wistful note in his voice and was surprised by the sympathy she felt for him. "Why were you . . . watching me, then?"

"I'm not sure." He sounded puzzled, and she believed him. "You fascinated me as no other mortal has ever done."

"M-mortal?"

He didn't reply.

"You said, 'mortal.' "

His steps faded as he walked away, possibly to the window. Her heart thudded and her breath came short. Was he crazy?

"I'm not crazy," Eros murmured. "But I think you know that already."

"I've seen some things I can't explain," Psyche said carefully. "I don't know what to think anymore. Would you . . . Would you please explain it to me? I hate being confused and fearful of what's going to happen, and maybe if you told me . . ." She knew she was babbling, but she couldn't contain the spill of words that flowed from her like floodwaters over a dam. "I'm just really scared right now."

It was a long moment before he answered, so long she thought he wasn't going to reply. "What I have told you is the truth," he said finally. "I am Eros, and you are on Mount Olympus."

"But that's only a myth!" Psyche protested.

"Apparently not." Eros sounded amused.

"Go on. Tell me the rest of it, why I'm here."

"Your friend was fated to fall in love with a man she met at the mall. But when I fired my arrow at her, I missed and hit you instead."

Psyche blinked. "Does that happen often?"

"No. It's the first time I've ever missed," he said, frustration sharpening the puzzled note in his voice.

"What does that have to do with why I'm here?"

"Because you were hit by the arrow, you would fall in love with the next man you saw, no matter who he was."

So, that explains the blindfold, she thought.