Van, Becca - Coming Home (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

BECCA VAN

Copyright © 2011

Prologue

Present day

Bella McPherson hopped off the bus in the small town of Big Lake, Texas. She breathed in the warm spring air as she looked around, took her bag from the kind, elderly bus driver, and thanked him. It was sunset, and the sky was a beautiful range of oranges, pinks, and reds, fluffy white clouds streaked throughout as the sun began to sink.

Twenty-two-year-old Bella had always pictured herself as an average-looking female, with long light-brown hair cascading about her shoulders in a riot of waves, her hazel eyes sparkling with life and mischief. She was an average height of five feet four inches, slim of body but with curves in all the right places. Bella had always pictured herself as a plain Jane—nothing exceptional about her looks—but she was happy with who she was. She had never bothered with makeup. She didn’t really need to, and she hated the way it felt on her skin.

Bella turned away from the bus terminal and headed toward the small motel she had booked into for the next two weeks. She was on her first vacation, and she had every intention of enjoying it in its entirety. It had taken Bella over two years to save enough money for this vacation, as she worked as a waitress in a diner and only earned minimum wage. She had scrimped and scraped tips she had earned until she was finally able to afford the trip.

Bella had no family to speak of. Her parents had been killed when they had been caught in a bank robbery that had gone bad. She had been in day care at the time, and when no one came to pick her up, she’d been handed off to the child welfare department to be taken care of. She had been moved from pillar to post, going from foster home to foster home, never staying long enough to fit in. She was lucky to be an optimist rather than a pessimist, which suited her bubbly personality.

Once Bella had checked into her motel room, she unpacked and headed straight for the shower.

Bella rose with the sun, eager to get out and explore. She showered and dressed in her light-fawn-colored, three-quarter-length cargo pants, a sleeveless white cotton shirt, and sneakers. She grabbed her wallet, keys, and cell phone then headed out to find breakfast. She found a diner this time and ordered a ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich with a coffee to go. She sipped at her coffee as she wandered the length of the main street of Big Lake, heading toward the trees she could see, intending to eat her breakfast there in the morning spring sunshine.

Bella glanced in a tourist shop window she was about to pass and stopped in her tracks when she saw a small sapphire pendant displayed in the shop window on a bed of black velvet. It was so pretty it took her breath away. It was surrounded in either white gold or silver, but she couldn’t tell which, as she’d never had the opportunity to buy any jewelry. For some unfathomable reason, Bella felt as if that pendant was supposed to be hers. She found herself opening the shop door and walking in and felt as if she were standing outside her own body, watching herself do something totally out of the norm.

“Hi, may I help you?” asked the woman behind the counter.

“The sapphire pendant in the window. How much is it?” Bella asked.

“It’s one hundred dollars. It’s a pretty piece, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. I’ll take it,” Bella heard herself say.

She watched as the woman got the pendant and placed it in a small jewelry box. She paid the woman and clutched the box in her hand.

“Thank you,” Bella said then exited the shop.

Bella couldn’t remember walking the rest of the way to the park at the end of the main street, but there she found herself, staring off into space and clutching the small box in her hand. She placed the box on her lap, opened her now-cold toasted sandwich, and ate her breakfast. Once done, she disposed of her trash in the bin provided next to the bench seat and opened the box.

What on earth had possessed her to buy such an expensive trinket? She really didn’t have the extra money to spend on such a luxury. She was going to have to watch what she spent, or maybe she should just take it back and get a refund. Yes, that’s what she’d do, but first she just had to try the pendant on. Bella pulled the necklace out of the box, clasped it around her neck, and gently pulled her hair from beneath the chain. She found her fingers moving up to touch the pendant, running the pad of her thumb over the delicate gem and setting. The warmth of the stone surprised her, but she couldn’t seem to draw her fingers away. She felt so warm and safe, but she knew that feeling was false, as the world around her began to spin. She felt so dizzy. A cold sweat broke out over her skin, and her stomach began to feel queasy. Everything felt so surreal. She had no idea what was happening to her. She should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. The world before her was spinning so fast now that she had to close her eyes to prevent herself from being ill. Her body felt so heavy, her arms and legs not obeying any command from her brain. She felt as if she was being sucked up into a black hole. The edges of unconsciousness began to move over her, tentacles of darkness reaching out to drag her in. She felt herself falling but couldn’t even reach out a hand to stop her body’s momentum. Her last thought before she succumbed to the darkness was that she was dying from food poisoning.