Infinite Harmony
Authors: Tammy Blackwell
INFINITE
HARMONY
A Shifters
& Seers Novel
Tammy Blackwell
Contents
Copyright ©2014
All rights held by the author. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, please contact
[email protected]
Content editor: Gwen Hayes of Fresh Eyes Critique
Copy editor: Leslie Mitchell of G2 Freelance Editing
Cover Designer: Victoria Faye Alday of Whit & Ware Designs
Digital formatting: Kathryn Sills
Cataloging Information
Blackwell, Tammy
Infinite Harmony/ Tammy Blackwell - Kindle edition
Summary: When a gunshot wound forces Joshua, the Immortal, to tell Ada the truth of what he is, there is more at risk than the safety of the Alphas he’s sworn to protect.
[1. Werewolves - Fiction. 2. Kentucky - Fiction.
3. Paranormal.]
For the sick kids.
Keep fighting.
Have Sex.
Ada Jessup stared at her journal and waited for a wave of emotion that never came. This was supposed to be it. The one. The thing that when crossed off her list would make her feel like she had really accomplished something. Instead, all she felt was the need for a nap.
Well, a nap and for her boyfriend to send her a text. She didn’t even care what it said.
“Nooooooo!”
Across the lobby, a guy braced his arms on either side of the vending machine. His shoulders slumped dejectedly as he scanned the ravaged bins.
“There is another vending machine at the picnic pavilion,” she called out, trying to use the cheerful, welcoming voice her boss assured her was the most important part. It was certainly the hardest part of her job since she was feeling the exact opposite of cheerful and welcoming at the moment. “If you can’t find what you want there, Minit Mart is about a mile and a half down the main highway. They stay open all night.”
“There were two Kit-Kats in here this afternoon,” the guy said, pressing his nose up to the glass as if he was going to find them hiding behind the Swiss Cake Rolls. “I’ve been pining for them all night. Crispy wafers. Milk chocolate. Crispy wafers. Milk chocolate. It’s like a chorus in my head. I swear, I can
smell
them.”
Ada draped a tissue over the distinctive orange package sitting next to her keyboard.
“Would you like directions to the picnic pavilion?”
“It’s no use,” he said, feeding money into the machine. “I ate all of those before dinner.” He punched a few buttons, causing a Reese’s to take a swan dive. Another dollar fed into the machine, another push of buttons, and another Reese’s. And then a Snickers. And a Milky Way. And finally, a Milky Way Dark.
“Partying hard tonight?”
The guy stopped stuffing candy into various pockets of his well-worn jeans and turned towards Ada. He blinked a couple of times, the act exaggerated by his owl-like eyes.
“Party?” His voice was an octave lower than she was expecting and held a soft, farther-south-than-Kentucky accent.
“I know how you kids do it these days. You jack yourself up on tons of chocolate and then play your
Worlds of Warcraft
s and
Grand Theft Auto
s until the wee hours of the morning. Chocolate and video games. It’s ruined many a good boy.”
“No one wants to be good forever.” His mouth was wide, which meant when he smiled, it took over his entire face. He tore into a pack of Reese’s and popped an entire peanut butter cup into his mouth. “It’s a horrible burden to bear. Might as well fall down the chocolate and video game rabbit hole while you’re young and get a head start on some good, clean, hedonistic living.” He meandered towards the front desk while he talked until he stood just on the other side of the two-foot wide counter separating Ada’s personal domain from the rest of the world. “Come to the dark side,” he said, holding out the second Reese’s cup. “We have chocolate.”
Ada felt the corners of her lips tugging upwards despite herself. Who was this guy? Was he for real? Normally the only people she encountered on her late night shifts were drunks and frustrated families who made a wrong turn in Illinois and ended up getting to the resort six hours after they intended. Flirty teenage guys were a rarity. Actually, as far as Ada could remember, this was the first time in her seven months at Serenity Shores she’d encountered one.
“No, thanks,” she said, even though the thought of spending a moment in a chocolate coated peanut butter heaven had her mouth watering. “I’m good.”
The guy tilted his head and studied her more closely than was entirely comfortable. “Sorry, but that music and those brackets around your mouth say you’re the exact opposite of good.” He held out the Reese’s cup a bit further. “Come on. Take it. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t need to feel better. I’m already having the best day ever.”
Or at least, it should have been. It was supposed to be.
“Then let this be the cherry on top of your perfect sundae day.” This time the peanut butter cup did a little dance in his fingers as he thrust it forward. Unable to resist temptation the third time around, she snatched it from his hand as a deeply satisfied smile spread across his face.
“Word to the wise…” His eyes roamed down to her less-than-impressive chest and narrowed on her name tag. “Ada. I like it.”
Ada tilted her head in something that could have been interpreted as a shrug or a half-hearted thank you. It was a name. Sometimes she hated it, other times it wasn’t so bad. Either way, it wasn’t exactly like she had any choice in the matter. She’d been incapable of anything other than floating in amniotic fluid when it was chosen.
“If you want someone to believe you’re having the best day ever,” the guy continued, “you might want to lay off the Patsy Cline. Someone might miss the sadness in your eyes, but it’s impossible to overlook the velvety tones of melancholy floating out of your speakers.”
Ada felt her chin jerk up in defiance at the same time heat spread across her cheeks. “Maybe I just like Patsy Cline,” she said with a bit too much snark. Getting caught up in what some random guy thought about her wasn’t normally Ada’s thing, but Mr. Lanky McLankster and his assumptions were pissing her off. What made him think he could just waltz into her lodge on his long legs and tell her she was miserable? She was happy, and if not happy, then at least content.
Except for the way she wasn’t so much content as wanting to curl up into a ball and have a good cry.
And now she had to admit it to herself thanks to Reese’s Boy, who was still standing there, and who, for reasons she couldn’t understand since she was doing absolutely nothing to encourage him at this point, was still talking.
“Everyone likes Patsy, because everyone likes to feel wretched. It’s human nature,” he said, pulling the Snickers out of his pocket. His fingers were long and spindly, reminding Ada of a newborn colt’s legs. She expected them to be just as uncoordinated and clumsy, but they were almost graceful as they freed the candy from its confines and broke it in half.
Pianist fingers
, she thought as she refused the half he extended towards her. Her mother had played the piano in church since Ada was barely big enough to crawl up onto the bench and had high hopes for her daughters, but as always, Ada proved a disappointment. Her fingers were short and stubby, the exact opposite of pianist fingers, and she didn’t have the desire or disposition to overcome the obstacle they presented. When the mood struck, she could sometimes tap out “Chopsticks,” but even then she managed to miss a note or two.
“How about you?” she found herself asking. “Do you enjoy misery?”
He leaned across the counter and motioned for her to do the same. Curious, she braced her arms on the edge and leaned her head in close to his.
“Lifelong member of the Official Patsy Cline Fan Club,” he confessed in a whisper. When she giggled, he pulled back and attempted to widen his already round eyes. “True story,” he said. “I still have the certificate somewhere.”
Ada slid back into her seat, surprised to find a genuine smile teasing the corner of her lips. “So you’re an official, lifelong fan of misery, are you?”
“I’m very into the human fandom, and nothing is more human than misery.”
On any other day, Ada might have argued. Humanity was a lot of things, most of them of the warm and fuzzy variety. To put misery over all the laughter and love in the world verged on sacrilege in her mind, but today she felt like he might have a point. Misery felt more real to her than anything else at the moment.
As if sensing all she needed was to add some more disappointment and frustration onto her current mood, the customer service line rang.
“Sorry, I gotta take this,” she said before picking up the handset on a phone so old it belonged in the Smithsonian. Random Guy leaned against the counter like he planned on being there all night. “Serenity Shores front desk. This is Ada.”
“Hey, Ada, darlin’. It’s Jennie over at Lake’s Edge. I thought you would want to know you’ve got some squatters, hon.”
Ada muttered her thanks before dropping the phone back into its cradle and then methodically banging her head against the side of the filing cabinet, accenting every slap of flesh against metal with a whispered “Damn it.”
“Problem?”
Problem didn’t even begin to cover it. Serenity Shores was an exclusive community of rental cabins where nightly rates ran in the thousands of dollars. Currently, every cabin but one was reserved for a wedding. The largest cabin, which was really more of a lakeside mansion, was being renovated and hadn’t been available all summer. Since it was pretty far down the lake from the main office, Ada’s boss had asked the staff at Lake’s Edge, Serenity Shore’s poorer cousin across the water, to keep an eye out for any shenanigans. It was only June and this was already Ada’s third call.
Going out in the middle of the night to tell someone to vacate the premises before the authorities were called was bad enough, but Ada already knew who she would find, and that made it worse. She thought about telling her boss a lot of his problems could be solved if he would do a better job of hiding his keys from his son, Timber’s most notorious druggie, but the big guy was stupidly loyal to his offspring. Last year, when Dorian nearly beat his ex-girlfriend to death, his father threw around a lot of money to keep the situation quiet. Even when the poor girl was walking around in a cast and sporting a black and blue face, Mr. Rudolph insisted his son was a good boy who was just a bit misguided. He wouldn’t tolerate anyone mentioning his son’s shortcomings, but at the same time, he expected his staff to keep the hellion from destroying the business he’d devoted his entire life to building. The situation placed Ada in a cabin featuring dazzling, up-close views of both a rock and a hard place.
“It was nice meeting you—”
“Joshua,” he said, extending a hand in her direction.
Ada gave his hand two hard pumps and affected a look of mock sincerity. “A pleasure making your acquaintance, Joshua, but I must be off. It seems I have some business to attend to.”
Joshua’s eyes darted to the wall of glass overlooking the lake and then the clock above her head.
“You have business to attend to at one in the morning?”
“A front desk clerk’s work knows no hours,” she said, extracting her hand from his so she could grab the golf cart key from the little hook hanging off the desk. “Not rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor dead of night can keep us from breaking up a party.”
“A party?” Joshua’s eyebrows raced across his forehead to meet each other in a downward slope. “Here? In the resort?”
“No. It’s over at the state park. It doesn’t matter where a party is, I’m going to break it up. I’m Party Breaker-Upper Girl. I have a cape and stuff, but I don’t really like to talk about it.” She slid through the door separating the front desk from the back office and then walked out into the hallway, making sure to lock it securely behind her. The rest of the resort had undergone a giant facelift and upgrade over the past few years, but the main lodge was still an old building with ancient locks, so it took her a minute to free her key. By the time she was sliding it into her pocket, Joshua was standing at her side.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m coming with you.”
“I don’t really—”
“Come on.” His grin was boyish and endearing. “Every super-hero needs a sidekick.”