Elsker - The Elsker Saga (30 page)

He said it like it was a last resort, but I didn’t need a reason to be excited to see Ull’s grandma.

“We have to get you up to speed so you can help me figure out what we are dealing with. I have to know you are safe – that Ragnarok is over and this monster, whoever he is, is locked away. If he thinks he can mess with my bride, he has another thing coming.” Ull emitted fury and I waited for the wave to pass. His anger should have been terrifying, but the way this trained killer fretted over me was downright adorable.

After a minute, he wiped his palms on his jeans. “We will figure it out, darling. Maybe Olaug’s instruction will trigger something for you. If you recognize anyone when she talks you through the realms, please tell me.”

“I will, Ull.” I leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I tell you everything.”

“You had better,” Ull growled. “You gave your word.”

“Small price to pay for an eternity with you.” I kissed him again and his face softened.

“Please do not worry about this creature, Kristia. I will take care of you.”

“I could say the same to you.” I squeezed his hand while he pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the highway. But how could I protect us from Elf Man when I didn’t even know who he was?

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If you liked ELSKER, you might enjoy JELLYBEAN KISSES, a sweet New Adult romance from author Amy Evans:

There are hundreds of colors and flavors of jellybeans in this world. Each is distinct in color and flavor and the second they touch your lips a spark reaches your brain. Kisses are exactly the same. They have different meanings and textures, evoke different reactions in heart, body and soul. Together, Jellybean Kisses are the most romantic of treats. And one is never enough.

JELLYBEAN KISSES is the story of Jax and Jacey, two best friends who pretended to be a couple through all of high school. They both want more but refuse to admit it. It’s going to take a hurricane, a goose, and a pound of jellybeans to get them to confess their feelings to one other. But can they find the courage before it’s too late?

Find out why they’ve gotten stuck in such a strange friend and see if they can make it work over a summer apart.

The First Jellybean Kisses is a prequel novella, followed up by Jellybean Kisses, a contemporary upper YA read from Amy Evans. Both are available wherever books are sold. Please enjoy this excerpt, and one click when you’re done for more of this tasty new series about love and timing, and giving in to your dreams.

And now, a sneak peek at Jellybean Kisses:

JELLYBEAN KISSES

CHAPTER ONE

I blame the goose. No, not that fancy Vodka that had me talking to the moon the first night I tried it. But an actual goose, with a wing span larger than the back seat of my ten-year-old hatchback. At first, I didn’t see him. Or her. I had no idea how tell the sex of a goose, considering I’d never come face to face with one before.

It had been raining since the day before, and my mom had begged me to go to the store for just a few things. I was a typical artist type who could be a bit spacey, but even I wouldn’t leave my windows down in the middle of a rainstorm.

Cursing out the damp seats, I opened the door to find familiar pink circles littered all over the front seat. They vaguely resembled Apple Jacks, but I hadn’t put them there, and it simply didn’t make sense that they could’ve found their way to my car seat. I focused on the food, screwing my brain cells together to make sense of it, when I caught a flurry of white in the corner of my car.

It looked like feathers!

I shrieked and so did the feathers, which were attached to a white goose with wings spanning the width of my car. I screamed and ran towards the rickety stairs of the house just as I heard a runner come up behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

“Jacey? Are you ok?” I turned to see the person who’d been coming to my rescue for every single problem since pre-K when he brushed play-dough off my chair so I could sit down. The little red headed boy had grown into an auburn-locked lacrosse god. I’d never been happier to see his dimples in my life. By my choice, we were planted firmly in the friend zone, so I had a great deal of practice ignoring the flutter in my heart. But the flutter in the backseat that took immediate priority.

“Did you do this?” I asked, gesturing at the car. I expected him to sound as horrified as I felt, but he just looked back and forth between the goose and me and began to laugh.

“I wish. I’m not creative enough, but I’d love to know who is,” Jax said, still laughing.

“I really don’t care. I just need it gone,” I said, moving away from the car, hoping he’d just take over from there.

“Open the door, Jacey,” Jax said, as if he wanted me to handle this alone. “No, wait, don’t. I really want a better look.”

The animal squawked and danced around, more active than I’d seen it up to now. When the tail feathers started shaking to get Jax’s attention, just like half the female population of Avon and the surrounding towns, I decided it was definitely a she. At least she’d stayed dry, protected by the car while I got drenched in the rain.

Though we stood under the same exact storm clouds, Jax looked perfect. The slightly damp Rutgers shirt highlighted every muscle he’d earned running track and playing lacrosse. We were both going to college there in the fall. He walked even closer to the car. And the goose noticed. “Open the door, Jacey. You can do it.”

I shook my head. Jax stopped in place, crossing his arms. The goose noticed and froze in her tracks. Perhaps she didn’t know that look but I did. Half dare, half order, that was Jax’s way of silently getting me to step up to take care of anything I was too afraid to do. Applying for art school, jumping off the swing set, saying yes when Liam McCullum asked me to be his date for his Senior Prom. All those things had happened because of Jax.

At that thought, I gasped. “Liam!” I said, shaking my head and pointing to the car. This had his fingerprints all over it. He was from the next town over and famous locally for his silly pranks. I’d gone to his senior prom, and not even kissed him. This was exactly the kind of thing he would do to get back at me. We didn’t have white geese in Avon. They came from the next town south, which was Liam land.

Jax grinned. “Most likely. So we have to get the goose out of the car and back to Belmar.”

I paused; hand on the door, glad to have an excuse to wait. “And how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Jax chewed his bottom lip, far too calm for a person facing down a goose. I noticed how smooth his mouth looked.

“Jax! Answer!"

He just laughed. Sweetly. Which meant I couldn’t be mad. But I still wanted to poke him in at least one of the two dimples that framed his face.

“Do you have any bags for gardening?” he asked.

“Here? No,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration, gesturing around the cracked concrete driveway that surrounded the garage apartment we’d rented since the hurricane came through. At home, my real home, I did all the gardening, and Jax knew I wanted to move back there badly. A sorry looked flashed across his face, but I just shook my head. This wasn’t the time for sad reminders about my life and what was missing, not when there was a new addition that really had to go. At the moment, the goose snacked on the cereal, and seemed at peace with the situation.

Jax opened the door to the neighbor’s garage, unlocked as was usual in our town. He came back with a heavy paper leaf bag big enough to fit me.

“You’re going to put her in there?” I asked, slowly catching on to his plan.

“Well I don’t see her walking on a leash.”

The goose shook her head as if in agreement as Jax walked back towards the car. He gave me that look again, so I steeled my guts for a flying goose attack, opened the car door and covered my head.

Nothing happened.

“C’mon, c’mon,” I said, backing even further away.

“That’s a pretty lame invitation,” Jax said, laughing. He clapped his hands, as if she would come like a dog.

“This is a goose, not a poodle! She’s not going to respond to that.”

But she did. She’d totally ignored me, but she cocked her head and peered at Jax, giving him all of her attention.

“Go around and push her out from the other side,” Jax said, continuing to clap and whistle.

I shook my head so quickly wet hair whipped me in the eye. Jax brushed it from my eyes, finally seeing how disturbed I really was. “Ok, but then get ready to catch her in this,” he said, placing the wide-open bag in my hands and brushing the hair out of my eyes.

Why I thought that was the desirable job, I’ll never know. I stood quietly, ready to catch the goose whom I expected to pop perfectly into our neat little bag.

Which it absolutely did not. Because it was a goose. Inside a car. And there was nothing perfect about that.

For all that she didn’t belong there, she looked positively regal, staring at me. She bent her head gracefully and picked up a piece of the pink cereal in her beak, munching away. Jax opened the door behind her, stuck his hands in the car and pushed at her gently. She shook off his hand like a fly. So he did it again, adding a crazy noise right out of the old Bruce Lee movies he made me watch.

The goose whipped around and spread her wings and screeched at him. He mimicked her behavior and squawked back.

Startled, I jumped so fast that thin strands of hair whipped into my eyes. And missed the moment that Jax actually got the goose to leave the car.

“Jacey, crap!” Jax said, taking off at a run while I tried to figure out who was where. The goose stayed two steps ahead of him, leading him down the slippery bank of the small pond by our rental. He tripped a bit down the slope, catching himself in a half spin on the grass. Recovering quickly, he kept moving, following the goose into the murky water.

As she hit the surface, she screamed and did an about face, somehow knowing in her little goose brain that she did not belong there. She paced up and down the bank for a moment, going back and forth quickly enough to avoid Jax. He held the bag wide open, attempting to scoop her into it. When that didn’t work, he dropped the paper and pounced.

“Don’t hurt her,” I yelled. Jax shook his head at me, and I could see that he protected her at the same time he’d captured her.

“Get over here. Grab the bag,” he said, and I sprang into action. I wasn’t an athlete like Jax, but years of skateboarding around town had build some mind/body connection. I ran the twenty feet to chase down the bag that Jax had let go of, and caught it fast.

I didn’t want to approach them. At all. But the goose’s beak was coming closer and closer to Jax’ face with every second. I sped towards them with the bag wide open. At exactly the right second, Jax popped up, making room so that he could push the goose into the bag.

She squawked and fought against the bag. It took all four of our hands to close her in. We sat on either side of the bag, breathing heavy from our chase as the goose inside adjusted to her situation and calmed a bit. Distracted, I moved a hand off the bag to push the stringy, soaked hair from my face, and the goose sensed the perimeter breech instantly.

She bopped her head up, and Jax reflexively pushed it back down and closed the top that much more firmly.

“My pocket. Twine,” Jax said, nudging his chin down to the left. I followed the movement to see a piece of twine outlined in the pocket of his shorts. “Grab it Jacey. Fast,” he said, struggling to hold the goose in place by himself.

I reached around the bag with one hand, trying to balance on the ground and hold onto the bag with one hand. I missed falling sideways right onto Jax. The full body contact startled me, and I forgot what we were doing for a minute.

“Pocket,” he said, more out of breath than he should have been for a simple friendly reminder. Hot to touch, the contact distracted me. I lingered an extra second, staring him, forgetting exactly why my hand had an intimate invitation to a part of his anatomy I’d never come close to before.

The goose picked that moment to remind me exactly why I was there. I pulled the twine out so fast Jax’ thigh muscles bunched at the sudden movement. Tying a lose knot, I wrapped the length around over and over til the small opening was secure. And then, I began to laugh. Hysterically. It didn’t take long for Jax to join in.

I watched his dimples come and go, heard how his laugh sounded so different from mine. Then the goose joined in, reminding us that her full size accommodations had recently been downgraded, and we needed to get her home.

“There’s goose poop. Everywhere,” Jax said, grimacing. Unfortunately, my car wasn’t in any kind of drivable condition. I gagged a little, dreading the cleanup, which had failed to enter my mind til that very second.

“You can hold the bag, or you can scrub up,” I grabbed the bag. And he actually smiled at me as he walked over to get cleaning supplies from the garage.

“Good enough,” Jax said five long minutes later, balling up the gross paper towels and bagging them up. He put lawn bags over the seats to protect us from the ick. “We can stop at the car wash after we take it home,” Jax said. I nodded and slid into the driver’s seat. It still felt uncomfortably gross.

I drove quickly, spurned on by the noisy breathing and the constant movement of the creature. I felt like a criminal, keeping an animal like that, but I wasn’t about to let it free.

“What if we get pulled over?” I asked, gasping at the thought. I feared cops, almost unnaturally considering I’d never gotten so much as a parking ticket in my life. Even though I’d known most of the officers in town for years, I still freaked when I saw flashing lights.

“I don’t think goose-napping is against the law,” Jax said, staying calm as my heartbeat ramped up. He knew, of course, had seen my reaction time and again over the years. Even when the officers helped us after the hurricane, clearing everything away and making sure we were safe, I had bad chills in their presence. My sister Lola said in a past life, one must have killed me. I didn’t think any such thing. But I did watch a little too much news.