Here's another little excerpt to celebrate Bealtaine.
[Lucy] made her way from the little
enclosure and headed back up the garden path.
It was a beautiful evening.
Dragonflies danced jewel-like in the warm spring air, and the late
afternoon sun poured down around her like a thick, golden syrup. The grass had been mown that afternoon and
beneath her feet the ground was warm and soft and damp. Lucy knew the bottoms of her bare feet were
probably turning green, but she didn’t care.
She stopped to breathe in the heady scents and for a moment her heart
lifted and she felt like dancing, right there in the grass. It was almost May Day. And for just a moment she felt herself
transported into the past...
She was a junior in high school the
night she and Lisa snuck out of the house to attend May Faire. Lisa wanted to go for the sole purpose of
spying on her boyfriend, Glenn, whom she suspected was once again sneaking
around on her. Lucy went along only to
provide company and moral support. They
split up shortly after they got there, figuring they could cover more ground
that way, and find Glenn faster. But in
no time at all the music and the magic of the moonlit night had gotten to
her. The fragrances of freshly cut grass
and wood smoke from the blazing balefire, the intoxicating aroma of mead as it
spilled down her throat, and over her clothes, and onto her dusty feet as well,
made Lucy’s head spin and enflamed all her senses.
If Lisa had not intervened, Lucy
might very well have ended up stripping off her clothes and joining in with the
dancers who swirled in ecstatic circles around the fire; or she might have
allowed herself to be led off into a secluded thicket by a handsome
stranger. Or, maybe even more than
one. Who knew what she might have
done? Or what might have happened to
her, if Lisa had not reappeared when she had?
“Hey! Back off, you creeps!” Lisa growled, as she pushed her way into the
crowd that Lucy had been only dimly aware of as a warm, seething wall that
surrounded her. Lisa snatched the
wineskin out of the hands of whomever had been squirting the mead into Lucy’s
mouth at that point, and tossed it aside.
Lucy still remembered the resounding chorus of male voices that was
raised in disappointed protest as she was grabbed by the arm and hauled roughly
away. “Jesus, Luce. Have you gone insane?”
“Oh, God, Lisa!” she murmured
blissfully, practically bouncing with excitement. “Let’s go back, Lisa, please! I was having so much fun!”
“Fun? Right,”
Lisa growled as she continued to drag her relentlessly towards the
car.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Lucy protested, when she realized where they were
headed. “We’re not leaving already, are
we? Did you find Glenn?”
Lisa shook her head. “No.
He’s here somewhere, but it’s not worth sticking around to look for
him. I just wish I could figure out who
he’s seeing this time.” She lapsed into
a thoughtful silence, but a moment later, her irrepressible smile had
resurfaced. “Shit, girl. You’re the original wild thing tonight. What the hell’s got into you all of a
sudden? You’ve gone totally pagan. I swear, I have half a mind to toss you in a
creek somewhere. Might sober you up, and
at the very least it would maybe wash the smell of that wine off your
clothes. You’re gonna have a hell of a
time explaining that one to your mom!”
“Ooh, a swim.” Just the thought of it was irresistible. “Yes!
Lisa, let’s do it!”
“On second thought, let’s not and
say we did,” Lisa answered, turning serious again. “C’mon, hurry up. I want to go home.”
A Taste of Honey is one of three, full-length novels included in the second Oberon boxed set, Return to Oberon. Currently available at All Romance ebooks and Barnes & Noble, at a ridiculously great sale price, get it while you can! Also available at Amazon, Kobo and Synergebooks.
Welcome back to bewitching Oberon, California! This small, coastal town is an enchanting place. Anything can happen here – and all too often it does! Clinging to corrugated cliffs above a windswept beach, and isolated amid a tangled network of canyons and creeks, Oberon can be a hard place to get to. But, as all too many visitors have learned over the years, it can be an even harder place to leave behind.
In Return to Oberon the series continues with books four through six. Once again, these are full-length novels. Although many of the same characters appear in each one, all the books in this collection can be read as stand-alone stories.
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