Flash Excerpt ~ Secret Lives of Fortunate Wolves

From my WIP ~

Secret Lives of Fortunate Wolves by Savanna Kougar

“Oh crap!”
Keira pressed her accelerator again. And again. No response. Gradually her car slowed while the pit of her stomach churned. She stared at the slashing rain, close to panic.
“Now what!?”
Guiding her car onto the highway’s narrow shoulder, she let it roll until it stopped. Turning off the ignition, she tried to calm herself by recalling past rescues.
“Another crisis! In a long series of crisis.” Keira reached for her cell phone. “Just what I need. Why didn’t I get the number to the Half Moon?”
Drawing in a long breath, she fought despair. What now, Goddess?

Blinking at her cell, she wondered just who she should try to reach. Her mother didn’t drive. Aunt Debbie didn’t have a car. And all her friends would be working, brutally busy with their lives.
“No service,” she stated flatly, not greatly surprised by her fate. “Well, that solves that. Can’t call anyone anyway.”
Bad luck had been her constant companion for the last several years, despite her best efforts to change her luck – her exhausting, endless efforts to keep her karma right.
“Help,” she appealed to God, Goddess, her Guardian Angel.
Keira sat calmly, waiting for something. Anything good.

Her mind spun chaotically, searching for any idea out of her horrid predicament.
“I definitely need help. A miracle or two,” she spoke moments later. Again to her Guardian Angel. Or any Good Being.
She waited, watching the rain pour in glistening sheets down her windshield. She waited, observing her own internal battle and watching the rain rage harder.
Calm or panic? Both tore at her, the giant claws of an invisible monster living in the ethers.
“Direct from hell. Or the X-Files,” she murmured. A glint in her rearview mirror caught her eye.
Glancing around, she saw flashing lights.

The patrol car rolled behind her.
“Friend or foe?” she wanted to ask whoever sat behind the wheel. The news stories of bad cops, of bad men impersonating cops, gripped her mind. Was it slasher movie time?
“Not a Patrol uniform. More of a sheriff’s look.”
As he stepped out, Keira focused on the man in her side mirror. No rain gear. Not even a hat. But armed. Definitely armed.
“Armed and dangerous?”
“Geez!” Keira straightened fast as her insides ran wild with lust. “He’s gorgeous!”
Flowing to his shoulders, his rain slickened hair revealed his sculpted, rather exotic-appearing features.

“Rain god impersonating a mere human male?”
The casually arrogant way he strode toward her side window twisted Keira’s loins back to life, against all her wishes. Men weren’t her thing now.
“Omygod!” His thighs – sleek, yet powerfully muscled – Keira wanted to carve them with her hands. She broke out in a light sweat. Her hand squeezed the door handle, as she girded herself against the onslaught of rain.
“Hello,” she shouted through her cracked door.
“Follow me,” he invited, more than commanded.
Once she’d grabbed up her purse, he pivoted toward his car. Keira plunged into the drenching rain.

With no protection from the downpour, she dashed behind him and hoped he wasn’t the devil incarnate posing as a rain god.
Quickly, he snatched open the passenger door. Keira dove inside, part of her ridiculously concerned about getting his seat wet. As her rain god sheriff, or whatever he was, opened his door, she finger-combed her stuck hair off her cheeks, and concentrated on not looking at him.
Rain god or devil in disguise, she wasn’t prepared for him. No way.
His door clicked shut, an ominous sound. “Keira Summer Windsor. Would you like to see my driver’s license?”

She reached in her bag.
“Ms. Windsor.” His voice did not disappoint. No, smooth and deep, his timbre reminded her of a long summer night beneath an endless black sky.
Resisting the urge to shudder like a wanton, Keira looked at his face, compelled by his tone.
“Marshall Zane Dominik Vhulfe,” he formally intoned.
He also presented a small formal smile. Though, it was the warmth emanating from his gaze, the flame rising in the depth of his eyes, that captured her attention. The flame intensified.
Why his whole name?
“Your license is not necessary, Ms. Windsor. Are you stranded?”

Keira nodded, shivering inside. Suddenly she felt possessed. Held in some sort of weird hypnotic state while he inspected her.
Strangely, she knew he sniffed her all over like one of her dogs. She felt it as tingles of awareness. Somehow she knew, as she knew the feel of the rain on her skin, he found it immensely pleasurable. Found her sexually desirable. Found...
If I open the door, run – I wonder if they’ll find my body?
Dark, but flecked with gold, his eyes mesmerized her. Gold flared into blazes, leaping toward her.
“What happened?” he asked, breaking the spell.

“No power, when I pressed the accelerator.” Keira averted her gaze. Goddess! The bone structure of his face was to die for. “Know where I can get a tow to a mechanic?”
“I’ll have David bring your car to his garage. I’m Marshall of Blue Moon Bay. David will take care of you. Fair price.”
“Thanks. Blue Moon Bay? What a wacky coincidence, Marshall Vhulfe. I’m looking for my cousin, Rob. Robert Bateman. He’s supposed to be staying at the Half Moon motel.”
“Zane,” he patiently encouraged. “Mother read all of Zane Grey’s westerns. You said ‘supposed’. Is something wrong?”

“Rob was supposed to call his mother last night. I was on my way past here. Said I’d check on him. He always calls.” She rushed the words out, then noticed how tight she’d clutched her bag against her chest.
“We’ll head over there right now. Nothing doin’ tonight with the rain. May I call you, Keira?”
“Of course... Zane,” she managed. “Great name. Read a few Zane Grey books... my teenage years.”
Is it possible to actually jump out of your skin?
“Nervous, Keira?” He moved to switch on the car.
Terribly. Wickedly. Jump out of my skull nervous.
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Author’s news and mews ~

The Kougar joined the Coffee Time Romance forum to participate in Eva Gordon’s Wolf seminar.
February 2010 - Seminar Host is Eva Gordon
Call of the Wild : Wolf Lore, truths and myths every writer should know about wolves

3rd -17th

A month long seminar for writers who are interested in writing about wolves and werewolves in their stories but who want more background on the basic biology and behavior of real wolves. Writers will also learn why the wolf evolved from admired archetype to savage evil nemesis of man.
~ http://coffeetimeromance.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=480 ~
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HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

May your brightest, most romantic dreams come true ~

Savanna

Savanna Kougar ~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance ~