Rocky Mountain Angels (36 page)

“I’ll love you forever, Joseph Rhodes.”

She rested her forehead against his temple, content to let him carry her for awhile. They had their whole lives to walk side by side.

Dazzling Joe, angel of my heart.

Thank you for reading Rocky Mountain Angels
.
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About The Author

Until recently, I lived with my husband and six cats in northeastern Kansas. We now live with four cats in Colorado Springs.

I’ve worn many hats in my life, but I spend most of my creative talents these days on art and writing. You can read more about what I do at jodibowersox.com (be sure to check out my blog). You can also find me on Goodreads, Linked In, Pinterest, RedRoom, and Facebook (facebook.com/jodibowersoxartistry).

In addition to romance, I have written two children’s stories,
A Tale of Two Kitties
and
The Stubborn Princess
under the pen name of J.B. Stockings.

Read on for a sample of another one of my romances,
Interiors By Design
:

Interiors By Design

Chapter 1

It’s too bright – impossibly bright.

The little red-headed girl in overalls and a white t-shirt is running through flowers – sunflowers, daffodils, daisies. She stops to pick one. She lifts it to her nose, and a baby starts to cry.  The little girl searches among the flowers but can’t find the baby.

“Where are you, baby?” she yells.

“It’s over here!”

The girl looks up to see an old man motioning for her in the distance. She starts toward him, but a purple flower catches her eye. She stops to pick it, and when she looks up again, the man is gone.

She climbs a hill to get a better view of the meadow. There is a flock of chickens at the top scratching and pecking around. As she surveys the meadow below, the chickens surround her. A rooster comes over the hill and stops when he sees her. The little girl sees the rooster and freezes, her heart pounding. The rooster cocks his head to one side and stares for a moment then charges. He jumps with spurs headed toward her chest and wings flapping at her face.

Amanda Billings sat straight up in bed with a gasp, her long red hair plastered in a sweaty mass to her head. Looking frantically around the room, she could just make out jungle leaf wallpaper by the light of the street lamp shining in her window, and her breathing began to slow.

“Another friggin’ nightmare,” she grumbled as she whipped off the sheets and pulled her sweaty night shirt over her head. Feeling around the corner of her closet, she grabbed a robe and slipped it on as she stumbled to the kitchen, flipping on her bedroom light on the way out. She opened the freezer and pulled out the Peanut Butter Panic ice cream. Touching the box to each cheek before opening it, she then popped off the lid and dug in with a spoon from the dish drainer.

Is this my life now?

She stood a moment staring at her white cupboards by the dim light coming from the lamp post in her backyard, then carrying the ice cream box with her, she left the kitchen and walked purposefully to the mantle in the next room. She turned on a small lamp and picked up a picture of herself in a black graduation gown, arm in arm with an older gentleman – the one from her dream. Putting it down, her eyes came to rest on a school picture of a teenage boy with a devilish grin.

She ate another spoonful of ice cream.

Spying her cell phone charging on a table by the front door, she grabbed it, pushed speed dial #1, and plopped down on the sofa beside her two cats, Buffy and Fiddlesticks, who were curled up together.

Buffy was a blue-eyed moggy chocolate-point with a chocolate beard and half-mustache. Fiddlesticks was a grey and black striped tabby with a mostly white muzzle and underbelly, although tabby patches adorned her white legs in various spots. Disturbed from their slumber, they stretched, yawned, and trotted out to the kitchen.

“Hello, my friend,” sang a young man accompanied by a ukulele, “thank you for calling me, but I’m not here right now…”

Amanda smiled through the song, and at the beep, she left her message. “Yeah, it’s me. I just wanted to listen to your song – needed a laugh. Talk to you soon, Bro.” She ended the call but didn’t move from the sofa.

I wish grandpa were really here
.

She ate several more spoonfuls of ice cream until she had scraped out the last of it, sighed, and forced herself up. She put the phone back on the table and headed to the kitchen to deposit the empty carton in the trash and the spoon in the sink. Then she headed back to her bedroom and turned out the light.

Five seconds later, she turned the light back on.

***

“What’s all the fuss about autumn, anyway?” Mick half said this under his breath as he clutched the collar of his grey wool sweater just a little tighter against the winds that swirled leaves bedecked with the usual fall garb around his shoes.
These are just the colors of impending death.

Mick didn’t say this out loud as a group of children were pushing past him in after-school exuberance, seemingly unaware of the wind, the chill, the steady march to bare trees and a lifeless world.

Mick Thompson had put the finishing touches on the ad campaign he had been working on for three months not two hours ago, and already his excitement was lagging. He’d left work early to celebrate but realized during his trek home that he really had no one to celebrate with except his sister, Clarisse, and her family, and he knew she worked late on Thursday evenings.
Maybe tomorrow night.

The overcast sky was in no more of a celebratory mood than he was, and all alone on the cracked sidewalk in front of a row of townhouses, he once again took to mumbling out loud. “How does she stand this place? I’m driving tomorrow even if it takes me an hour to find a parking space.”

Mick’s sister was a detective with the Kansas City Police Dept. and had talked him into moving to KC from California after his fiancée walked out on him two weeks before the wedding. This had been nearly a year ago, and he still knew practically no one and didn’t really care that he spent most of his evenings alone in front of the TV, a mindless lump of depression.

Turning the corner, his medium build was met with the full force of the wind, which blew whatever small spark of good feeling still remained in him out his back and down the street.

Why am I still here?
He thought this last, as saying anything aloud proved difficult. He tucked his head down and pressed forward through the gale.
Now that this project is finished, maybe it’s time to go home.

Clare was wrong. Leaving didn’t help.

Mick turned and climbed the stairs to his apartment building, making a mental note to dig his wool topcoat out of storage. He reached for the door, but it suddenly opened, revealing a petite redhead who was struggling to get out, her arms loaded with large, cumbersome books.

He quickly moved to hold the door for her, and she threw him a smile and a “thank you” as she hurried out, her long hair flying both from the wind and her speedy departure. He watched her sail up the street until she unlocked the trunk of a sky blue Mustang parked half-way up the block and dumped the books inside. He was still standing there staring as she drove away, the wind mercilessly tousling his brown hair.

***

“Oh my gosh, girl, how much candy did you buy?”

Amanda, carrying two loaded grocery sacks, was making her way through the furniture displays of her interior decorating show room toward the tall, slender blonde with short, spiky hair sitting behind the counter. She grinned as she plunked the bags down in front of Sally, her friend and co-worker.

“I get a lot of Trick or Treat-ers at my door,” Amanda defended, “and you know the crap that most people give out – that awful taffy stuff.” She pulled a snack-sized Snickers from one of her sacks and held it high. “I will not let children go home without chocolate.”

Sally, dressed for Halloween in a green sweater and short orange skirt, tapped her temple with the tip of her pencil. “And there’s no point in having any leftovers that you don’t like, right?”

Amanda grinned and tore open the wrapper. “Exactly.”

Sally turned back to her customer worksheets. “You better watch your weight, girl. Look around. It’s not difficult to end up looking like a hippo.”

Amanda took off her long grey trench coat, revealing a red button shirt atop an almost ankle-length black skirt and short boots, and stashed her bags of candy under the counter before plunking down in her chair to check her afternoon appointments.

“I’ll watch it later,” she mumbled, her mouth full of chocolate.

Amanda Billings was the owner and chief designer of Interiors by Design, and Sally Winters had been working for her as long as she had been in business – about three years. Having gone through college together, Sally was Amanda’s dearest friend and confidant.

The show room was full of the colors, fabrics, and styles currently popular for windows, furniture, and walls. The displays were constantly changing, partly to keep their customers excited about the possibilities but mostly to keep themselves from becoming bored with the show room they worked in every day.

As Amanda looked through her appointment book, Sally handed her a post-it note. “Mrs. Taylor called while you were out. She would like you to bring more samples – today, if possible.”

Amanda sighed and threw the candy wrapper in the trash under the counter. “I was just there yesterday with a million samples, and she didn’t like any of them. I’m not sure what else to take.”

Sally lowered her voice and did her best Mrs. Taylor imitation, complete with hand gestures, “I’m not sure what I want, love, but I’m desperate for something on my windows! The whole world can look right in!”

Sally yawned, stretched, and went back to punching numbers in her calculator. Both decorators had more clients than they could handle with the holidays approaching. Amanda had to figure out something for Mrs. Taylor and fast.

Amanda stared at her desk – piles of fabric samples on the left, piles of decorating estimates on the right, a bottle of Mylanta in the center. She took off the cap and downed a big swig.

***

“Mick, great job on the Harris account,” congratulated a short, stocky man with a receding hairline. “I heard they were very happy with it.”

Mick, who had been heading to the break room, stopped when Ted from Accounting intercepted him from a connecting hallway. “Thanks. They were a hard sell, but I think we finally ended up with something they liked.”

“We?” Ted questioned then lowered his voice. “I mean, did Janine really contribute anything? I heard―”

Mick cut him off. “I’ll have to talk to you later, Ted. I’m late for my own party.”

With that, he turned and continued toward the break room of the Henry Martin Advertising Agency. As he opened the door, there were cheers and cups of punch held high. The table held a cake with “Congratulations” scrawled across it in light blue icing, and red balloons had been taped at random spots around the smallish room. Mick smiled self-consciously and headed for the punch bowl.

A slender black-haired woman strode across the room with a knife and spatula. “Now that Mick is here, let’s cut the cake!” She slipped past him. “What took you so long?” she pouted. “We’ve been waiting forever.”

“I got tied up with the big guy,” he lied. “He wanted to discuss our next project.” He knew that meeting was coming, but it really hadn’t happened yet. The truth was he just couldn’t make himself get out of his desk chair. Social events just hadn’t been the same for him since Tammy left him. He felt awkward and alone.

“Oh, let’s not think about the next big project just yet!” put in a plump woman in a bright blue pantsuit helping herself to a piece of cake. “I’m still having nightmares about the last one!”

When she was out of ear-shot, dark-eyed Irena leaned in. “You need a new partner. Janine is so lazy.” Then she grabbed Mick’s arm and stood on tip-toe, her lips practically touching his ear. “Put in a word for me with Mr. Martin,” she whispered. “You and I would make a great team.”

He half smiled, and pretending to notice someone he needed to talk to across the room, excused himself and headed toward a young man in a well-tailored suit. Mick had no idea who he was, but he knew that Irena was watching him, so he decided to find out. Mick offered his hand to the young man who turned out to be a student intern. Mick chatted until Irena was involved in a conversation herself then excused himself, downed his punch, and headed for the door.

He was met yet again by Ted, who, although from a different department, had decided to crash the party. “So, Mick, some of us are hitting the bars after work. You want to join us?”

Mick knew he should say yes. Wasn’t that what he wanted yesterday – somebody to celebrate with? But he knew Ted’s crowd and the bars they tended to frequent – singles bars and exotic dance clubs. That just wasn’t his style, and he couldn’t bear the thought of it becoming his style. “I’m sorry, Ted, I’ve got other plans,” he lied again. He wondered if he were forming a habit. “Maybe another time.”

Ted grabbed his sleeve before he could make his escape. “Hey, there’s Irena.,” he said, ogling her across the room. “She is so….” He let out a slow breath. “Do you think she’d go out with me?”