If you were to ask me which character is at the heart of the Oberon series, I couldn’t give you an answer. Or rather, I could answer it any number of ways because I don’t think there is ONE definitive answer. It depends on a lot of factors—what book I’ve been reading most recently (okay, let’s be honest: re-reading!) how I’m feeling on any given day, the mood I’m in.
Today, I’m thinking it might be Nick.
Nick Greco started out life as a hot-headed troublemaker whose motivation for joining the police force could best be summed up by the saying, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The license to carry a gun and break the speed limit whenever he felt like doing so, were also perks.
Nick might not be the most morally gray character in the Oberon pantheon, but then again, given how many rules he bends, laws he breaks and lines he crosses…there’s a good chance that he is.
He’s also one of the most dialed in characters in the entire series. His relationship with Scout twenty years ago had unintended consequences for a lot of people. His relationship with her now, will impact even more. He has (or has had) close personal relationships (familial and otherwise) with Lucy, Darcy, Paige, Sinead, Siobhan and his ex-wife Lauren. He has friendships, working relationships and rivalries with Dan, Ryan, Liam, Adam and Sam. And while he’s technically the hero only of book one, the stakes are exceptionally high for him in books two, three, four, seven, and eight as well. Especially eight.
So who is he, really?
Nick is Italian American and proud of his heritage—although he does get impatient when Lucy suggests that Lupercus is any part of their family heritage. He’s an only child but was partially raised by his aunt and uncle and regards his (double-first) cousins Lucy and Joey practically as siblings. He loves his family and will stop at nothing to protect them in any way he can. He has an ongoing issue with money (or the relative lack thereof) that takes several books to resolve. He loves cooking and cars and is usually fond of camping…although not so much in book one.
A life-long resident of Oberon, he’s not particularly fond of any of the mystical aspects of his hometown. At best, he thinks they’re a distracting pain in the ass. At worst…well, let’s just say it’s not a good day when he discovers that Scout might be turning psychic.
He keeps trying to quit smoking, with little success. His “open door policy” at work is constantly being abused by his friends and loved ones. I kind of love that for him, but I’m mean that way.
He’s as loyal as Lucy, as stubborn as Dan and as doggedly determined to do his job (no matter what) as Ryan. He’s not quite an Alpha Hole, not quite an Alpha Roll; and he couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about him, other than Scout.
In short, as was said about Byron, he’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know. He’s definitely one of my favorites. But, then again, I say that about a lot of characters!
Here's one of my favorite Nick scenes from Scent of the Roses.(Oh, and spoiler alert? He does in fact go there again!)
It’s not working. Nick slammed his coffee mug down on the table. His usual Sunday morning routine of newspapers and coffee on the deck outside his apartment, was doing nothing to alleviate the angry confusion of emotions that had been building inside him since yesterday afternoon.
She’s back. After all this time, she’s finally come back.
He couldn’t believe the way he felt. He couldn’t even put a name to what he felt – angry, bitter, nostalgic, more than a little crazy. Plus, some other, inexpressible combination of hopeful sensations, part daydream, part memory, that he thought he’d buried long ago. Back when he’d finally made himself accept the painful truth, that she was never coming back to him.
It's been so long since I’ve seen her. Hell, it had been a long time since he’d even thought about her. Really thought about her, anyway. Thought about her in the kinds of ways that made sleep impossible and sent him speeding angrily up and down the coast for hours at a time. Thought about her in ways that made him drink too much or smoke too much. Not that he wouldn’t mind a cigarette right now, he thought, in the instant before he remembered that his daughter had made him quit. Again. Six months ago. Shit.
What was she doing here, anyway? And why now? Not that it mattered, of course. Now. Next week. Next year. He didn’t have the faintest clue, anymore, what he’d say to her if he saw her.
What am I thinking? I wouldn’t say anything to her. Why should I?
She was the one who’d left him, after all. So what if she’d been a minor at the time, with no say in the matter? She had gone away and, apparently, forgotten all about him. And he’d be damned if he’d give her the time of day, now.
He probably wouldn’t even recognize her, anyway, come to think of it. Although she seemingly hadn’t changed so much that Lucy hadn’t known her.
Oh, hell. Does Lucy know about this? Is this what had her on edge the other night?
Well, shit. Of course, it was. And wasn’t it just like his cousin to try and hide something like this from him? To jump to the conclusion that he needed protection.
Like I even care anymore. So, she’s back. Big deal.
What the hell kind of idiot did his cousin take him for?
Okay, so it had taken him a while to get over her. Years in fact. But he had done it, hadn’t he? Nobody could say that he hadn’t. He had moved on with his life. Hell, he’d even gotten married! Not like that had been an incredible improvement, relationship-wise.
You sure know how to pick ’em, don’t you?
Yeah, Lucy’d got that right. That pretty much summed up his whole fucking love life, didn’t it? But no more. No way. Seeing her now was the last thing on his mind. The absolute. Very last. Thing.
She’s probably not even up there anymore, he thought, a few minutes later, as he stared out at the mountains.
Well, hell. No wonder he couldn’t stop thinking about her—not while he was sitting here with a perfect view of Mt. Totawka and the foothills where the festival was going on. He needed to get off this deck. He needed to find something else to do, something else to focus on.
Which shouldn’t be a problem. There were always plenty of things he could be doing on a day like this. He could always go in to work, for one thing. Just because it was his day off, that didn’t mean he had to stay away. Or maybe he could go fishing. He hadn’t been fishing in months. Or else…he could go for a hike, couldn’t he? Or out to a movie…
Or he could just stay here and wash his car.
His car really needed a wash, come to think of it. Hell, he could wax it, too, while he was at it. Maybe change the oil, clean the spark-plugs. And when was the last time that he’d taken the time to really detail it?
But thinking of cars was not such a terrific idea, he realized a little too late, because so many of his memories of her included cars. That was how they met. She’d been hitching a ride one foggy April night and he had stopped for her…
No. Stop that. Cut it out.
He picked up his paper and tried once more to read it, but put it down a moment later, when he realized that his mind was working up a ridiculous fantasy about seeing her again. Of coming across her trying to hitch a ride back from the festival. Maybe, if he drove up there right now—
What the hell am I thinking? She’s not a teenager, anymore. There was no earthly reason to suppose she’d be hitching a ride back from the fair.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
He ground his teeth, as his eyes strayed back to the mountain. It really didn’t matter because he was not going up there again. He hardly ever went to any of the festivals, and he’d just been to this one, yesterday.
There’s no way I’m going back up there again. No way in hell.
He was actually glad he’d found out that she was back in town, but only so that he could make damn certain he did not run into her by accident.
Liar, a small voice in his head admonished him. Why’d you back out on the camping trip, then?
But that had nothing to do with her—no matter what Joey thought. He did have a lot of work to catch up on. And it made perfect sense that he save a few of his vacation days for later in the summer, so that he and Kate could go somewhere.
I wonder what she looks like now?
The thought came out of nowhere, and for a moment he was overcome with the longing to find out. Jesus, but this was getting ridiculous. What could she look like, after all? She was thirty-six years old, for pity’s sake. She was probably settled and dull. Probably nothing at all like the wild, unpredictable girl he remembered.
Thirty-six-year-old women did not look or behave like teenagers. Which, if he were honest, was not a bad thing. There was a whole range of really objectionable, immature behaviors that he associated with those years, and he, for one, was just as happy to have seen the end of them.
Thirty-six-year-old women did not hitch rides, for instance – a dangerous and illegal activity the whole world would be better off without. And they did not go around creating the kind of havoc Scout had positively excelled at when she was sixteen.
They had jobs and they had families and they had mortgages and commitments. And most of them wouldn’t be caught dead dancing around a balefire in the middle of the night, not even with their clothes on. Most of them—the sensible ones—wouldn’t even have bothered going to any damn pagan festival in the first place!
Except that she had been there.
And she had not forgotten all about him, damn it.
She said I have your eyes.
Her own eyes had been a smoky, warm, greenish gold; like the moss that grew in damp, secret hollows all along Domingo Creek.
And her hair had been a streaky mass of yellow and brown. The same color as the grass along the cliffs there, late in summer, after it had been bleached and debauched and blown about by the sun and the wind.
And when she smiled – but, no, he wouldn’t even think about that. He’d spent years forgetting her smile.
And anyway, none of it mattered. Not anymore. I’m over her now, he reminded himself again, more firmly. Definitely and completely over her. And he was not going to go there again. No possible way.
Scent of the Roses
Oberon Book 1.0
For years, Scout Patterson has tried to run from the mistakes in her past. Now, she's coming home--to face the ghosts she's never laid to rest, and the love she thought she'd lost forever. Reawakening that love would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, love is not the only emotion that can last forever.
Memories and dreams are the only things that have gotten Nick Greco through the past twenty years. Memories of the girl he loved and lost, and dreams of what his life would be like, if he could only find her again. And if he can bring himself to believe that anything she tells him is true.
Can the star-crossed lovers put aside the hurt and distrust they still harbor toward each other? Or will the evil which already nearly destroyed them once, triumph yet again?
https://www.books2read.com/ScentRoses
