Meet Your Mate (A Good Riders Romance Book 1) (22 page)

Thank you for reading my debut
novel,
Meet Your Mate
! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed
presenting it to you.

Cursed by Love
, the next book
in the Good Riders Series will be available in early fall of 2014, followed
soon after by the third book in the series,
Meant for Me
. An excerpt of
Cursed
by Love
is included in this
ebook
..

For information and notification of
when these and future books by me will hit the virtual bookshelves, please
visit
www.jaciefloyd.com
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Molly Webber dodged
through the backstage chaos of the popular antiques’ appraisal show,
Your
Grandma’s Attic
. With her attention bouncing from one fascinating mound of
stuff to another, she pulled up just short of following Ernie, her speedy
studio guide, under a towering suspension ladder.

Not that she
truly
believed
walking under a ladder caused bad luck. But was it only coincidence that Ernie
plowed into a senior citizen carrying a box of door knockers? She thought not.

After Molly and Ernie up-righted
the old man, apologized profusely, and returned his treasures to their carton,
they hurried on through the surreal maze of lights, cameras, props and cables.

“Wait in here.” Pointing his
finger, Ernie indicated a small, nondescript room that reeked of stale coffee.
Other than snack and drink machines, the temporary holding area contained a
lumpy couch and a folding table with two chairs and a lone male occupant.

“How long?” Eager to get to the
on-camera appraisal of her palm-sized pink carving, her step carried a little
bounce on her way into the room.

“’Bout an hour.” Ernie tossed the
information over his shoulder, hot-footing his way back to the studio.

“Okay, then,” Molly muttered to his
disappearing backside. After waiting in line for three hours to meet an
appraiser, what was another sixty minutes of lost time?

She took stock of the room’s other
inhabitant—a preppy type in a crisp button-down shirt and sharply creased
khakis. Too carefully pressed and repressed for her taste, but wait. Her gaze
caught on a pair of red Goofy socks peeking out between pant cuffs and loafers.
Quirky.
Cute... Interesting.

He held a sleek phone, scrolling
down the screen with the repeated flick of his index finger. The kind of
pretentious phone Batman would use for intercepting messages from his Rogues
Gallery of enemies or for redirecting missiles away from Gotham City. The kind
that made people way too dependent on technology and not nearly dependent
enough on their brains and memory and logic.

Setting the magical phone aside, he
opened a wafer-thin laptop. Peering into the screen intently, his fingers
flashed across the keyboard with deft strokes and an economy of motion.

He didn’t so much as glance Molly’s
way as she dropped into a chair. She cleared her throat and waited for him to
acknowledge her. No response--unless taking a sip of bottled water constituted
one.

With his attention solidly focused
elsewhere, she studied him.

His body was as slender and taut as
a steel blade. Agile, but toned. No spare flesh there, just lots of compacted
male strength. She would describe him as lithe, if lithe described someone so
masculine. Yes, lithe. With the whip-cord intensity of a swimmer or a runner
rather than the over-inflated look-at-me bulging muscles of a football player
or body builder. Strong, but supple.

Darn, no one to talk to
. She
sighed, wishing her mom had accompanied her the way they’d planned. Fascinating
though the day had been, sharing it with someone would rock.

So far, she’d been poked with a
weathervane, attacked by an unruly set of bagpipes, and jabbed with a
revolutionary war sword before she’d been funneled into the queue for Asian
antiquities. Still, she’d much rather be out in the crowded auditorium with all
those interesting people than in this dull space with an oblivious techie.

She searched through the apple-appliquéd
canvas tote one of her students had given her for the self-help manual she’d
been reading. A tinny rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” interrupted her.
She groped around through the bag for her very basic, ancient cell phone.
Before she located it, the guy moved his way smarter phone from the table to
his ear.

Hmmm. They had the same Disney tune
to personalize their cell phone rings? What kind of sign was that? Not that she
was looking for a sign. But still.

Now that he no longer had his head
bowed over his laptop, Molly openly took stock of his better-than-average
looks. Gorgeous looks, in fact. If one liked that sort of boyishly attractive,
intelligent type.

Strong jaw with just a hint of five
o’clock shadow. Brown eyes that looked intelligent and guarded at first glance,
but took her breath away as they flashed for just a moment with something dark
and complex. He blinked and the peek into his inner depths disappeared, leaving
Molly to wonder if she’d misinterpreted the expression.

She fanned her hand in front of her
face to cool the first heated licks of interest.
Maybe she imagined too
much.

If his voice lived up to the rest
of him, she might be willing to forget she’d sworn off men for good.

Her breath hitched in anticipation
and her palms perspired as she waited for him to speak. His lips parted on the
simple word “hello” and her ears perked up.

Aaahhh
,
yes!
Tantalizingly deep. The kind of voice that would turn her into a
puddle of desire if it whispered seductive words across her pillow in the dark
of night. Molly, he’d say with his breath tickling that
squirmingly
sensitive spot beneath her ear—

“No!” He shouted the word into the
phone and jerked Molly from fantasy back into reality. “Did you hear me? I said
no!
”

She leaned back in her chair and
grimaced.
She
heard him all right. Everyone out in the Convention Center
auditorium probably heard him, too.

“Stay where you are, don’t touch
the Quigley project, and don’t let Chloe near the computer again until I get
home.” He barked out the commands in a tone more suitable to a drill sergeant
or prison guard than a friend, or employer. Or spouse, or father. “Yes! All
right, I’ll stop at the store on my way home!”

Without a word of farewell, he
thumbed off the connection and glanced up, catching Molly’s look of
disapproval. His eyes met hers for the first time. She pulled back, shocked by
a starkly incongruous tug of attraction.

Of desire?

But, no. She wasn’t gullible enough
to forgive unforgivable manners just because a guy had a handsome face and
intriguing expression. She wasn’t that shallow. But she couldn’t explain the
zippy feeling tickling her in secret little places. Her nipples puckered and
her pulse raced in anticipation.

Good God, girl, get a grip.

His lips twitched in a small frown.
“Sorry about that.”

Instinctively she crossed her arms
over her chest and clamped her thighs together. Could he tell what she was
thinking?  “Sorry about ...?”

That call.” He gestured to his
phone. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Right, the yelling. She cleared her
throat. Of course, the phone call. They didn’t have a secret ESP link that put
them on the same intimate wavelength. He hadn’t had the same confusing,
physical reaction to her she’d had to him.

Except for that special...
something
,
he was clearly beneath her notice. She shrugged away her awareness of him along
with her disappointment. She wasn’t into S
or
M, and her self-image was
too strong to allow for verbal bullying.

“No problem.” Not for her anyway.
Too bad for the unfortunate caller he’d berated.

Perfectly gorgeous he might be, but
so far, he’d exhibited the manners of a troglodyte. She could think of no
excuse for a reasonable human being to use that tone anywhere outside of
military boot camp. She sniffed and opened her book. Choosing to ignore him,
she flipped through
Ten Ways to Save a Marriage
even though she could
feel his gaze examining her.

Sure,
now
he was interested.
Now that the dark underbelly of his personality had been exposed.
Do I know
how to attract ‘
em
, or what?

Molly gave herself a mental slap.
She needed to get through this book to help her parents, even though the
subject held no practical application for her own life. She hoped ways number
seven through ten would provide more useful advice on salvaging her parent’s
strained-past-the-breaking-point thirty-two-year marriage. Numbers one through
six had sucked.

Some of the suggestions involved
activities intimate enough to make a daughter blush when picturing her parents as
the participants, but these were desperate times. She’d do whatever she had to
do to get her mother and father back together again.

Happily for her, way number seven
looked promising. List ten qualities you and your partner found attractive
about one another when you first met. Compare your lists and reminisce about
the head-over-heels days of your courtship. Hmm. That might work. If she could
talk her mom and dad into—

“Gabe Shaw?” a stout woman wearing
horn-rimmed glasses barked out as she stepped into the room. Pulling a pencil
out of her curly mass of hair, she scribbled something on the clipboard lodged
in the crook of her arm.

“Here.” The Phone Bully closed his
laptop and stood.

She glanced Molly’s way. “Molly
Webber?”

“Right.” Tucking her book into her
bag, she got to her feet as well.

“I’m Janice Scott, your director.”
She shook hands before passing each of them a contract. “We’re all set up for
you. Here are the usual disclaimers about the lack of payment for your
appearance, the appraisals aren’t guarantees, and you won’t sue us if it turns
out we were wrong about the value. Read ‘
em
, and sign
‘
em
. If you don’t agree with the terms, no hard
feelings, but adios.”

Molly and Gabe read ‘
em
and signed ‘
em
. Janice then
pointed to a mirror in the corner. “Check yourselves out. Make any adjustments
you want. We like our guests to look natural, but that doesn’t mean you need to
go on camera with your hair sticking up, or with spinach between your teeth.”

Molly tucked her chin-length hair
behind her ears, bared her teeth for a spinach check, and then dabbed on peach
lip-gloss.

Gabe Shaw stood behind her,
enveloping her in his heat, towering more than half a foot above her
five-feet-five inches. He flicked a casual look at his image and swiped his
fingers through his sandy hair, stopping for a quick look at his
Eeyore
watch.

First, the socks, now, the watch.
The fairytale cell ring. It took a lot of self-confidence for a man to carry
off that much whimsy. Neat and tidy with a dash of eccentricity. Maybe he was
batting for the other side. She wasn’t picking up a gay vibe, but maybe her
gay-
dar
had gone for a hike along with her luck.

Molly ducked her head and smoothed
the wrinkles from her bright pleated skirt. “Do I look all right?”

Janice gave her and Gabe cursory
glances. “Fabulous. The camera will love you two. Ready?”

“How long will this take?” Gabe
rubbed his palms together in anticipation, or possibly, impatience. At least,
his speaking voice differed from his phone bellow. Amazed by the vocal
transformation, Molly slid him a look from the corner of her eye. He appeared
as eager to get the show on the road as she did.

“Follow me. A normal taping will
take about ten minutes.” Janice led them on a trek back through the studio,
narrowly evading a woman pushing a baby buggy stuffed with teddy bears. “Your
appraiser will ask a few questions, then give you some historical background on
your jade and its approximate value.”

Gabe Shaw surprised Molly again by
taking her elbow in a strong capable hand to maneuver her around a bearded man
transporting a suit of armor in a wheelbarrow. She surprised herself by wishing
he’d keep it there. He acknowledged her small smile of thanks with a nod.

“Forget about the camera, if you
can, but when the appraiser talks, look interested.” Janice sidestepped a lanky
teenager toting a brassbound trunk. “When the estimated value of your article
is revealed, show some animation, surprise or disappointment, whatever’s
appropriate.” She stopped in front of a backdrop with the show’s logo. “Which
one of you will be talking about the jade?”

“I will.” Molly and Gabe spoke in
unison, then stared at one another.

“Hmmm.” Janice consulted the
information on her clipboard. “Oh, I see. There are two separate pieces. But
you’re going to appear in the same segment.”

“Is that good or bad?” Gabe asked.

“We’ll soon find out.” She motioned
them into chairs behind a table where Molly’s pink carving was displayed beside
another one.

The two pieces were similar in size
and style, but dissimilar in shape and color. It might be fanciful for Molly to
think so, but the pieces seemed to take on a glow of their own, as if they were
lit from the inside.

Molly spotted a height-challenged
dandy wearing a gray pin-striped suit, plaid vest and red bowtie threading his
way through the crowd toward her. It was James
Lindermann
,
the nice Asian antiquities appraiser she’d spoken with earlier.

As he approached, she hoped this
wasn’t going to be one of those depressing, instructional bits, where two
people had brought in comparable objects. One a priceless original, the other a
worthless copy.

When watching the program at home,
she always sympathized with the unsuspecting owners of the fakes. Her stomach
took a slight dip. As a teacher, she was all for education, but she’d hate to
be the one whose favored memento turned out to be a valuable learning
experience, with no bankable price tag.

More from habit than any
expectation of good luck, she randomly fingered the charms attached to her
silver bracelet. A star, a rainbow, a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe. Some
misguided friend had given her a rabbit’s foot once, but Molly discarded it. It
sure hadn’t been lucky for the rabbit.