An Excerpt from Desperate Choices

This will be a quick blog post tonight. So many things are happening in e-publishing right now, it's enough to make your head spin. I'm sure in the long run, this will ultimately be a good thing for both publishing houses and authors. Its just this transition time that can be ultra-scary.

So, here's a short excerpt from Desperate Choices, which releases on September 27, 2010. I hope you like it.

Even though it was late afternoon, in her mind’s eye it was twilight. The dusky time between day and night where everything fades to shades of gray, black and white. She extended her extrasensory flow, hearing nothing except the normal sounds of nature. Crickets chirped, mosquitoes buzzed, an occasional bird lifted in flight. The normal sounds of a Louisiana evening.

Things began coalescing into definition. She stood alongside a motorbike. The motor wasn’t running.

She let her psychic senses run free. In the distance, she heard an engine. Its growl grew louder as it approached. A vehicle pulled to the side of the road a short distance ahead of where she stood beside the bike.

“Theresa,” Max interrupted. Never opening her eyes, she raised her finger to her mouth, motioning for quiet.

She concentrated on the vehicle, but as hard as she tried, it wouldn’t come into a clear image. She could only determine it was a light color and large. Focus, she whispered in her mind. Go deeper. Bring it into focus.

A sudden jolt broke her concentration. Her neck snapped back, jarring her from the vision and back into reality. Theresa stared up at Max’s face inches from hers, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. His grasp on her shoulders felt firm yet insistent.

“Theresa.” A hint of anxiety filled Max’s normally placid voice. “Theresa. Snap out of it.”

“What’s wrong, Max?”

“What’s wrong? You were standing there, barely breathing, shaking like a leaf, and you ask me ‘What’s wrong?’” Max’s hold on her eased and she watched him run a hand across his eyes. “What the hell just happened?”

The vision vanished, faded away like mist evaporating. Nothing left but the daylight surrounding her and Max. She handed him the phone and managed to stagger a couple of steps, resting her hip against the hood of the car.

Her body trembled, exhaustion enveloping her like a heavy cloak. This was one of the reasons she hated this kind of reading. It wiped her out, leaving her emotionally and physically drained.

“There’s not a lot I can tell you, Max. I saw the bike at the side of the road. Right there.” She pointed. “It wasn’t running. I couldn’t tell why not. I didn’t get the impression there was anything mechanically wrong, but…”

She took a few steps away from the car and glanced toward the woods. They were dense, thick and mysterious, yet no sense of danger emanated from them. Sunlight poured through the few leaves, wiping away all trace of the twilight hues from her vision.

“Another vehicle pulled over there.” She gestured toward the road again, indicating an area about twenty feet beyond where his car was parked. “It was large, light in color. Maybe white or a light yellow or tan, I couldn’t tell. It stopped. I sensed a brief moment of fear, but just as quickly it was gone. Tommy felt relief. He didn’t seem afraid. He seemed thankful, maybe even happy.”

Theresa looked up into Max’s eyes for the first time since the vision ended and met his gray-eyed gaze.

“Max, whoever took Tommy wasn’t a stranger. It was somebody he knew.”

Copyright 2010 Kathy Ivan
Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A.


Till next time,

Kathy