Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess (15 page)

In Plain Sight

When Samantha Taylor dropped out of her senior year of college to marry gorgeous and almost ten years her senior Dawson Foster, she never knew what she was getting into. But Sam is a quick study, and a year into her marriage, she prepares to remove her unborn baby and herself from a bad situation before it's too late. A headlong tumble down some stairs, however, violently nips her plans in the bud. But someone upstairs has other plans for Sam in the form of rough-and-ready, newly-expired bounty hunter, Dara Kelly.

Twice-divorced, Dara Kelly doesn't want to get married again, not even to luscious, Cuban-Irish Caution Foster. An African-American woman, she thrives in a profession where men set the rules, garnering respect and a tough reputation to match. But along with respect comes envy and enemies who will stop at nothing to gain a bounty…not even murdering a fellow skip tracer.

Genre:
Contemporary Paranormal:

Angels/Ghost/Interracial/Reincarnation/Suspense

STORY EXCERPT

IN PLAIN SIGHT

By Gracie C. McKeever

Copyright © 2006

Samantha Foster drifted, memory fading in the wind as she tumbled head over heels down the stairs, surrounded by pitch-black silence before a burst of blinding white light greeted her several yards away, gently vibrating.

She slowed. She didn't know how far she'd traveled, or to where, and didn't know if she was in control or had totally lost it.

She just wanted the crazy ride to end. She'd had enough, and was tired of hoping for a different ending to her life than the pitiful reality.

Sam lowered her palms to her stomach, cupped her abdomen in a protective gesture to shelter a life that had already been lost.

She'd failed before she ever had a chance to try, failed despite her best intentions to remove her baby from a bad situation while she still had a chance.

"Why?" One word, encompassing, and the omnipotent voice understood.

We have plans for you.

"Plans? Why did you let me die then? Why not after I had my baby? At least you could have let me have my baby!" Sam sobbed.

She wondered if she would have done a better job as a mother than she had as a wife. She wondered how good she would have been at protecting her baby once it was born. Then she remembered her dream, the one where she made a clean getaway from her ranting husband, their newborn son alive and well behind her in his infant seat. Well, almost a clean getaway. If memory served her, she'd crashed on the highway as Dawson gave chase in his car, screaming about her not taking his son anywhere.

Not a dream.

Sam sniffled, heart skipping with hope. "You mean it was real?"

One reality. An alternate reality.

"Then you can send me back? I can have my baby, my life—"

Not in the way you expect.

What was that supposed to mean?
It means, we have plans for
you.

Sam wasn't so sure she liked the sound of that, but something told her she didn't have much say in the matter.

They had plans for her.

* * * *

Dara Kelly reached for her gun too late.

The shadow stepped across the threshold, gun drawn. He took aim at her chest, fired, hitting her dead center.

Dara flew back, realization dawning as the bullet pierced her vest.

Cop killers. Oh hell, oh damn…

Her old rival noiselessly, unhurriedly strode across the carpeted floor past the skip cowering behind the bureau. He smiled down at Dara as she crawled backwards, towards the window, on her elbows and heels.

She reached behind her, pulled herself up on the windowsill, blood seeping through skin, bone, and Kevlar, numbing her limbs.

She leaned a shoulder against the jamb as her assailant leisurely switched guns, leering at her once more when he raised the new weapon.

"I told you I'd pay you back no matter how long it took. No one takes a skip away from me and gets away with it. Especially not some lezzy cunt."

Dara wheezed, gurgling her next words. "Tarrent, think about what you're doing."

"Oh, I have. Long and hard." He smiled, moving so close to stare her in the eyes she thought for a moment he might have changed his mind. Then he reached out to snatch the small gold hoop from her left earlobe.

Dara gasped, then regretted it immediately.

"I'll keep this as a souvenir of our time together." He graced her with sharp white canines as he pocketed the earring. "Be glad it's not your ear. Not that you'll have much use for either in a few seconds." He stepped back, taking aim at her chest.

Barbarian, cannibal, man-eater…
Dara closed her eyes, knew she was a dead woman, but tried to get through to him one more time. "Tarrent, ple—"

"Bye-bye, bitch."

His next shot sent her crashing through the glass and tumbling out the window.

* * * *

Dara landed on the hard pavement, surprised that she wasn't dead and wishing she was.

Excruciating pain lit up every nerve ending in her body. She was sure she had broken her back, among other major and minor bones, in the fall, but her insides, they were the real problem, on fire like someone had shoved a grenade packed with razor blades inside her abdomen and detonated it. She'd heard about talon slugs before, breaking onto the street in the nineties, but had never come across anyone who'd used them, or lived to tell about being shot with one. Leave it to that mean-spirited bastard to use outlawed ammo.

The pain was unreal, unbearable, inhuman, and just when Dara thought she couldn't take another minute of suffering, she felt herself drifting—up, up, up, and away. Her body, however, remained on the rain-slicked pavement, still and bleeding.

Someone brushed by her on Dara's way out. Someone on her way in. Into Dara's body!

Dara sampled the other's soul as they crossed paths—her first impressions raising her hackles—rich, spoiled, suburban American princess. Bourgeoisie. Everything Caution's grandfather loved, everything Dara loathed. Her next impressions weren't much better—wheat-gold hair, sky-blue eyes, young, petite, beautiful…and very dead.

Oh God! I'm gone, dead, kaput…

Was He punishing her? Teaching her a lesson?

No, punishing would have meant leaving her soul in her body writhing in agony as her internal organs bled out. He had done her a
favor
by pulling her out of her body when He had.

But, Mighty Isis, what had homegirl done to deserve the fate Dara had just escaped?

Dara didn't have time to think much more on it. She hadn't stopped drifting; her journey was just beginning. She was mildly amused and mightily shocked that her trip seemed to be going in an upward direction.

* * * *

Sam slammed into her new destination with such force, the trauma left her breathless for several long moments. Awareness –

painful, corporeal awareness – forced her to finally take a breath.

She immediately regretted it, cursing Their plans and wishing for sweet oblivion again. The broken neck was nothing compared to what she was feeling now. Fire inside and out. Heck, even her left earlobe throbbed! This new body must have been thrown down
several
flights of stairs, if not the roof of a tall building. How it still possessed the ability to breathe and feel anything was beyond her. But not beyond Them, evidently. Why?

All in time, Samantha.

Yeah, sure, You say. That's what They
all
say.

Might as well have been talking to the backward-talking creature in Star Wars since the answers she'd gotten about her predicament so far made about as much sense as Yoda’s brain-twisting phraseology, and were about as satisfying.

"Dare!
Dios mio, que paso?"

Sam opened her eyes as someone rushed over to her in the rain.

The dimly lit side street where she lay afforded little opportunity to see her rescuer clearly. Or maybe he was her attacker, for all she knew, coming back to make sure he'd done the job right.

God, what had They gotten her into?

Take care, child. All will be well.

You're leaving me?

"No,
chica
! I wouldn't leave you for the world. And I'm so sorry I was late."

Sam hadn't realized she'd spoken out loud until she saw the horrified look on her rescuer's face and something else she could just barely make out: guilt.

She tried to sit up and gasped as the stranger pushed her back.

He placed his rolled up leather jacket beneath her head and opened her jacket to probe her rib cage with gentle fingers. When one of his hands brushed the outer edge of a breast, she slapped it away before she realized he was searching for wounds, wounds inflicted despite a bulletproof vest.

She felt the weight of the contraption against her chest and abdomen, and the blood, wet and sticky against her skin, and almost became sick with the implications.

Just how badly had this body been injured? And whose body was it? Who was this Dare?

Gradually, pain faded as if fleeing in response to her questions, or perhaps the stranger's touch. Sam didn't care which, just that alleviation was at hand.

"Dios
, I am so sorry, Dare. I…I was detained. I don't know what else to say."

Sam didn't know what to say either, deciding not to say anything at all for the time being, and just tried to take everything in.

She was in a cold, wet, dark alley and some strange man, obviously concerned, obviously her friend, needlessly ministered to her already healing body.

"I'm ready to get up now."

He frowned. "I really think you should wait for an ambulance."

"No!" Sam sprang to a sitting position, surprised that it didn't hurt, almost not at all. She seemed to be completely healed. She knew she had Them to thank for her miraculous recovery. The least They could do. And for some reason, she didn't think a trip to the hospital was in Their plans for her.

"All right,
chica
. Don't have a cow." He grinned grimly as he helped her to her feet.

Sam glanced at him from the corner of an eye, wishing she knew who he was, what his name was, and what her connection to him was.

"Did the skip do this to you? I didn't peg him for this rough a customer."

"Skip?"

"Dios
, you must have gotten knocked on the head pretty good, huh?"

"Guess so," Sam mumbled. "You're, uh…?"

"Diego." He grimaced at her incomprehension, shook his head.

"Your partner?"

As in? Sam wondered but didn't say it out loud. Partner in crime? Partner in business? Life partner? Exactly how close a relationship did they share?

"C'mon, I'm taking you home."

That was an answer she hadn't expected, and raised more questions than it answered.

Where was home? Their home? His home? Her home?

She let Diego grasp her under an elbow and lead her out of the alley, having no idea where they were going, but strangely trusting him. She didn't see how she had a choice.

ADULT EXCERPT

IN PLAIN SIGHT

By Gracie C. McKeever

Copyright © 2006

[Scene note:
Sam, who is in Dara Kelly's body, realizes that the man she thought is her abusive husband Dawson turns out to be Dawson's identical twin brother Caution.
]

Shaken, Sam turned back to Dawson just in time to see he'd unlocked the cuffs.

He stood in front of her, grinning, restraints dangling from the pointer of his right hand as he whistled a nameless tune, looking entirely too self-satisfied.

How the heck had he gotten out of the cuffs? Sam couldn't remember being married to Harry Houdini!

Her heart hammered not just from the fact that she was in the room with a dangerous escaped felon, the man responsible for her death, but from the wicked butter-melting grin spreading across her husband's face and reaching his eyes. She couldn't tell whether he was enraged or just a little peeved, and didn't want to find out, but he reached out and caught her wrist with both hands, wrestling the Glock from her grip before she could squeak.

Dumbfounded, Sam watched as he ejected the chambered round, emptied the clip and pocketed it before placing the empty gun atop the marble center island.

He stalked her around the kitchen as she tried to gain the door.

She dodged to her left, didn't fool him as he caught her by an arm.

Sam threw one leg behind his, but just as she was about to flip him over a hip to the floor, Caution reversed position in time to take her with him, cushioning her fall with his body as they both went crashing to the linoleum.

She struggled as he flipped her beneath him, straddled her hips, pulled her arms up over her head and grasped her wrists.

"You shouldn't do that."

Sam frowned. "Do what?"

"Thrust and plunge that way. I might get the wrong idea."

She struggled harder at his words and it only made him laugh.

"Let me go."

"You came into my house, Ms. Big Bad Bounty Hunter, pointing a
gun
at me as if I was some dangerous felon, and now you want me to let you go?"