~*~
Coffee houses once were a source of inspiration. They had a vibe and a feel to them. Now, Kent thought, they were more like a bar.
The same people walked in and out of the door every day. They ordered the same addictive concoction and either carried it out or sat for hours and chatted with others.
He missed the days where he could pull up to a table and no one bothered him for hours. Since he was traveling, it was one of his only options. Sure, he could hole up in his hotel room, but that wasn’t very inspirational either.
Even though he’d rather be alone, he needed to surround himself with people for inspiration—he just wished they weren’t so noisy.
The door opened again. It had become habit to look up and study the person. This one had him sitting up, removing his fingers from the keyboard of his laptop, and following her with his eyes.
Long red curls bounced over her shoulders, which were bare in a sundress with yellow flowers. She was lean and toned and absolutely radiant.
She walked to the end of the line and Kent turned in his chair to follow her with his gaze.
Smiling at the boy behind the counter, Kent noted that the young man flushed at her simple gesture. That said something.
She continued on to pay for her drink. He heard the woman ringing up her order offer a pastry to which the redhead waved off with her hand and a laugh. Obviously she’d avoid that, he knew just by looking at her. Her drink was probably low-fat blah too.
When she turned the beauty of her hit Kent right in the chest. He’d never seen such a beautiful specimen.
She was scanning the room looking for an open seat. Wasn’t it his very lucky day? The only free chair was at his table.
He stood, bravely—as bravely as any man who locked himself in his house and wrote about aliens could possibly be.
Quickly he wiped the crumbs from the front of his shirt and put on a grand smile, just as the redhead waved at a man across the room and headed toward him.
Kent slithered down into his chair and ducked behind his computer screen. He was used to that. Why should today be any different?
He took a Harry Potter movie pen from his Star Wars Celebration bag and jotted a note on the napkin on the table.
Redhead, glorious redhead in a yellow flowered sundress.
She’d live on forever, he decided, on the pages of his books as the princess he’d needed to write who lived in the far away galaxy of Vela Centauri.
Meet the Author
Bestselling Author Bernadette Marie is known for building families readers want to be part of. Her series The Keller Family has graced bestseller charts since its release in 2011, along with her other series and single title books. The married mother of five sons promises Happily Ever After always…and says she can write it, because she lives it.
When not writing, Bernadette Marie is shuffling her sons to their many events—mostly hockey—and enjoying the beautiful views of the Colorado Rocky Mountains from her front step. She is also an accomplished martial artist with a second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do.
A chronic entrepreneur, Bernadette Marie opened her own publishing house in 2011, 5 Prince Publishing, so that she could publish the books she liked to write and help make the dreams of other aspiring authors come true too. Bernadette Marie is also the CEO of Illumination Author Events.
5 Prince Publishing offers many talented authors. Please enjoy a sample of
Lisa J. Hobman’s
Reasons to Leave
Prologue
“Oh darling, look at you. You look so grown up.” Stevie’s mum clasped her hands in front of her face, her eyes welling with tears.
Stevie rolled her eyes. “Um…Mum I hate to break it to you but I’m eighteen which legally means I am grown up.”
The sales assistant at the suburban London boutique had come to join the let’s stare at Stevie party, and she was beginning to feel a little like a museum exhibit in a prom dress.
“What do you think, darling? Is this the dress?” Her mum looked so hopeful.
The dress was ankle length and had a bodice that fit a little like a vice, but she loved the purple iridescent fabric and how it shimmered under the halogen spotlights of the dressing room.
The Leavers’ Ball was only a week away and as usual Stevie had left purchasing a suitable dress until right at the last minute. Her mother had been urging her to get organised for weeks, and all of her friends had long ago purchased their outfits and accessories. Carrie, Stevie’s closest friend besides Jason, had had hers hanging on the door to her walk-in closet for over a month. Carrie was like that though—uber organised—Stevie wondered why it was she who’d been allocated the role of Head Girl and not Carrie.
Baffling really.
Stevie bit her lip. “Um…yes. I think it’s the best one I’ve tried.”
“I agree…and I’m sure that Jason will think you look stunning too.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Muuum.”
Her mum was always fishing for information about her relationship with Jason. She had lost count of the number of times her mother had subjected her to the talk. And she had also lost count of the number of times she had informed her mum that she and Jason were not having sex.
Not even close.
However, this was not through want of trying on her part. She loved her boyfriend and had been with him since they were thirteen, for goodness sake. But Jason insisted that he was just not ready to take that next step. He wanted it to be special, not rushed and fumbled like the first times their friends had experienced.
She had presumed at one time that the real reason was because he didn’t want her, but his words and actions—and his body—showed her otherwise. He was just a gentleman. He had told her that they were a permanent fixture in each other’s lives, and so there was no rush to lose their virginity. In the end, she surmised that she was just a ball of raging hormones and that she could wait too, if she must. Although she had a sneaky suspicion that after the Leavers’ Ball things might take a step in the right direction. After all, her mum would be out with her best friend Jilly, and Jason would be escorting her home. For this reason, the dress had to be perfect.
“I’m just saying, sweetie. You look so beautiful.” A wistful look washed over her mum’s features. “You have a look of your dad now that you’re older.”
Dana Watts was a wonderful mother. She did the job of two parents, and she did it to perfection. Stevie’s dad, a failed musician and the exciting older man, had been a roadie and sound engineer working for London based bands after he left college. His passion for music, especially Fleetwood Mac, had given Stevie her name. He had apparently doted on Dana, and although at twenty-four years old was initially shocked at discovering his nineteen-year-old girlfriend was pregnant, he was excited about being a father.
Soon after her birth, Stevie’s father had been offered the chance of a lifetime to leave London and tour the world with some famous rock star and had grabbed it with both hands, leaving Dana to bring up her daughter alone. After keeping in touch for a while and sending birthday cards and letters, there was a long telephone conversation in which he informed Dana there would be another tour with another band immediately after the current one. He claimed to still love Dana but said that the long distance thing wasn’t working, that it was unfair to their daughter to be a dip in and out of her life kind of father and so it would be more beneficial, although not easier, for all concerned if he broke ties.
He chose never to return, and so Stevie had never met him. Thankfully, she was so young when he left that she hadn’t been cognisant of the heartbreak her mother went through. Her mother’s best friend Jilly had been the one to pick up the pieces and she didn’t have many positive things to say about him. All Stevie did know as she got older was that her mother was very careful with her heart.
There had been a lovely man in Dana’s life, when Stevie was around eight-years-old, who had been special to Dana, and Stevie h
ad adored him. Her mother had broken up with him when he had announced he would be working in Ireland for a period of three years. Dana wouldn’t even consider the relationship continuing as she presumed the inevitable would happen; he would figure out that the long distance thing would not work for him and she would be left alone yet again. There had been no one else since. As far as Dana was concerned—and Stevie was reminded regularly—Stevie was her life and it would stay that way.
She knew little of her father, other than what her mother or Jilly had deigned to share. Although from the photos Stevie had seen, it was evident that she took after him in so many ways, physically that is. Her long auburn hair and bright blue eyes were all Jed Marks. And her height for that matter; she was tall just like him. It was moments like this though, standing there in a prom dress and being told by her wonderful mother that she looked like him, when anger bubbled up for what that man had put her mum through. But as always she smiled sweetly and said nothing.