Syncopated Rhythm (21 page)

That inspired this cross country road trip.  I suppressed a chuckle when I looked at the food wrappers adorning the back seat, which Amber will make me promptly clean up once we get back home in Seattle.  She's so fussy about keeping Baltar clean it is almost an obsession.

I started to open my door but Amber just sat there, staring at the building.  She wouldn't look at me as she spoke.  “I can't do this Ky.  I changed my mind.”

I shook my head with a sad smile and got out and walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and squatted to look her directly in her 'deer in the headlights' eyes.  “You can do this baby.  You are the strongest woman I know.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath as I took her hand and she nodded and got out of the car.  I glanced at the pristine green paint job on Baltar as I shut the door.  I almost snorted again.  I don't really want to know what Kimi had said to the guy to have him give the title back to me in exchange for the girls paying him his two grand back.  But the man wouldn't look at me.

I turned to look Amber in the eyes again.  I fed her my strength through our clasped hands.  I winked and she said, “Let's do this.  I love you, Potato.”

I gave her a peck on the lips. “And I love you.”

We walked up the outside steps to the second floor and up to apartment 204.  She raised her hand to knock but pulled back.  I put a hand on her shoulder and she nodded then knocked.  A few seconds later a slightly heavyset woman who looked to be around fifty or so, in a sharply pressed maid's uniform, opened the door.

The woman's hand shot to her mouth in shock when Amber uttered, “Hi... Mom.”

The woman started sobbing on the spot and pulled my girl into a tight hug.  “Amber Lee?  My baby!”

I stood there with a happy tear in my eye as I watched the two Nelson's cry into each others shoulders.  I'm so glad I talked Amber into this.  She needed to forgive her mother.  She had simply done the best she could.  We should never judge someone for doing what they needed to to survive this world.

I knew she loved her daughter.  That's why she worked so hard.  I knew it to be true.  But even if I hadn't, one simple thing that Amber had told me, proved it.  Every morning, when Amber woke up to an empty apartment because her mother had to go to work...  she had left a bowl of cereal on the counter for her daughter.  I know that sounds stupid, that it isn't much... but it was enough for me to know.

I watched the reunion play out.  She invited us in and we sat on the old worn sofa as the two caught up.  My mind drifted to last Thanksgiving again.  When we had gotten back to my apartment, I was so embarrassed about the state I was living in.  I had assured everyone that I was getting furniture on my first paycheck.

Skylar had pulled me aside in the bathroom like she was angry.  She said, “Don't you dare apologize for how you are living!  I've been there.  Hold your chin up woman.”  I had nodded and she wouldn't let me get back out to the others until I had a smile on my face again.  I didn't understand that, but I'm sure she'll explain one day since they practically live with us now, as we are either over at their new place or they are over at ours.  Or we are all over at Bobbie's.

I opened the letter from Mandy Harris that night.  She was requesting that I handle the production of all music videos for Harmony Trax artists in the future.  She had seen my work on my iPad and my Indie films and was convinced she needed the best.  It was a multi-million dollar opportunity for me.

I had the shock of my life at the end of the month when my bank balance had an extra half million in it.  I found it was from downloads of my Indie films from iTunes.  The Babette Stevenson coverage coupled with the record downloads of the holiday album videos caused international attention to me, and my films had had hundreds of thousands of purchases in just a few weeks.

I wound up starting my own studio, Cornfed Potatoes Productions.  Starting small, with Harmony Trax work and then building quickly from there.

I grinned when I thought about the production of my first full length Indie film which was going to start next week.  A tongue and cheek production of a campy and sarcastic space film, Heartsong Warriors.  I had already got all of the artists from the holiday album shoot to agree to appear in it.  I believe Miranda's exact words were, “Hells to the yeah!”  When I told her that it was her debacle so she would have to play it through.

Amber's popularity has tripled, if that is even possible, now that she performs as God made her. Sometimes she will wear the pink wig for a number or two but she no longer hides herself away.

She still can't be alone for long before she has to have sound all around her, but she is getting better. And the therapist I nagged her into seeing is helping.  She is the same shrink that Reese Qualls uses.

I was knocked out of my memories by a warm hand grabbing mine.  Amber was looking between her mother and I with a fond smile she reserved just for me.  “Mom.  I want you to meet the woman I love.  This is my fiance, Kylee Marilyn Nelson.  She's a little odd and a certifiable geek but I love her anyway.”

I squinted an eye and waggled a fist at Amber.  “Watch it Cornfed!”

She just giggled and said, “You shush Potato.” Her mom ignored my offered hand and pulled me into a quick hug.

I blushed and felt my heart speed up in a syncopated rhythm when Amber mouthed to me, “I love you.”

So that's me, Kylee Nelson, work in progress.

Level up!

Books in the Music of the Soul universe...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Music of the Soul

A Deafening Whisper

Dating Game

Karaoke Queen

Silent Bob

Five Feet or Less

Broken Song

Syncopated Rhythm

Short Stories in the Music of the Soul universe...

Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

Return of the Asgard

Bloodlines

Folkvangr

Books in the Fracture series...

Fracture: Divergence

Sample Chapter from the Drakon: Awakening

Prologue

It was so exciting as I crested the peaks of the Rocky Mountains and saw the ocean of lights of Denver, spreading out before me, and twinkling to the horizon.  I may have squeaked a little in my excitement.  Here I was Myra O'Connell, going to Denver on my very first research grant.

I still couldn't fathom the fact that at twenty six, I had my Doctorate in Mythological Studies now!  It was a hell of a thing, handing in my dissertation on the Dublin Fire Stone and then waiting.  The waiting was the worst.  Finally I was awarded my doctorate and I applied for a research grant to study shards of the Fire Stone and other associated scrolls and writings associated with medieval mythical creatures.

Now if only I had a fecking place to live until the grant money came through at the end of the month.  Ma and Da would tell me to suck it up and do what I must.  I patted the steering wheel of dependable ol' Maggie, my white Toyota Prius, a gift from my parents on my first day of college eight years ago.  “Looks like it's gonna be you and me for a stretch, all close and intimate like.  Us bettys gotta stick together ya know?”

I descended into the city and pulled my thick glasses down to the end of my nose and looked over them at the GPS on my smart phone.  The museum should be the third exit.  It was past eight, and they would be closed, but I wanted to familiarize myself with the area ahead of time.

My unruly mass of curly red hair fell in front of my eyes as I looked back before getting onto the off ramp.  I indignantly tried to blow it off to the side but had to reach up and push it back over my shoulders.  Why couldn't I have straight hair like my Da?  'Twould be much easier to manage.  But noooo, it has to be this fiery mess like Ma.

I drove slowly past the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, twas huge.  I noticed the reserved lot for staff, that would be where I would park.  I glanced over at the parking permit sitting on the top of the packet I had received from the museum last week.

I smiled to myself, trying not to get excited again.  Come on Myra!  Get a hold of yourself you're supposed to be professional now, not a fecking archeology fan girl.  I snorted at the memory of the poster I had in the dorms in school, Indiana Jones.  He was what I envisioned myself to be, an adventurer sifting through the past and finding connections between myth and reality.  Plus ya know... yum!

I pulled over and looked over my glasses at my phone again and pulled up the location of the nearest YWCA, at least I could get a shower there in the mornings until the money came through.  I
had to really ration what I had for the next week.  I navigated the roads, which were surprisingly still quite busy as the rain started falling.

Well Denver is such a huge city, so I guess that makes sense a lot bigger than the tiny in the pale coastal town of Wicklow in Ireland.  We had moved to from Seattle when I was seven.  Da was a tenured archeology professor at the University of Washington.  Ma used to run a bakery in Wicklow, and they fell for each other when he was in Ireland doing some research.  We'll that's Ma's story anyway, Da just agrees to keep her fire branded temper at ease. I grinned at that, besides my hair and the rake of freckles over my entire body, I got Ma's hair-trigger temper.

I drove past the Y and nodded to myself as I continued on down the lane until I came upon a park. I pulled into the lot to the farthest corner from the road and settled in as the rain started sheeting.  I ate a few snacks from my travel bag and reclined the chair as I removed my heavy glasses and set my alarm on my phone.  I really hated being nearsighted.  Once my research is done here I think I'll get that laser eye surgery everyone is always babbling about.

I took a minute to look over the packet the museum had sent and run my finger over the picture of the Fire Stone shard in their collection.  This was almost a dream come true for me to actually see a piece of it.  Literally, the stuff of legends.  The shard and some associated scrolls were on loan from Dublin to the Denver museum.

It was unearthed in a dig near Dublin eighteen months ago.  A perfect orb of red crystal.  Some gobshite at the dig had dropped it, and it shattered into hundreds of pieces.  Analysis of the shards dated them to around 450 AD.  The most curious thing about them was that they glowed slightly at night, though compositional analysis showed them to have no impurities whatsoever.  They were pure silicate glass, there is no explanation as to how they glow or why they appear red when there is nothing in them that would cause the effect.  Nor was there any explanation as to how the glass was so pure when it was beyond anything the people had in the middle ages could produce.

My research for my dissertation actually lead me to an obscure writing about Saint George the dragon slayer that mentioned the Fire Stone that allowed him to trick and destroy the last of the dragons.  It was described as a red orb of fire.  Most scholars discounted that writing because it was not mentioned in any of the other Saint George tales.  But the discovery of the Dublin Fire Stone changed all of that.  And suddenly, little  Myra O'Connell is the leading “expert” on the stone.  I snorted at that,  like I knew anything more than the poor eegit that broke it.  There were some Gaelic scrolls that were unearthed along with it, that needed restoration.  They might shed more light on the artifact.  Those scrolls were what had my knickers all damp.

I grinned and looked into my rear view mirror.  I was knackered and weak as a kitten.  It was a very long drive.  My emerald eyes didn't have their normal sparkle.  They're my best feature if I didn't say so myself. I sighed and patted the steering wheel again.  “Well Mags, it's you 'n me now, ya'know.”  I locked the doors and let myself drift off, wondering what mysteries would be revealed on the scrolls.  It was surely going to be an exciting new chapter in my life.