âThis is not a good idea,â Shannon murmured.
âFeels pretty good to me.â Reeceâs thumbs rubbed distracting little circles on the points of her shoulders. His smile was wicked. âMaybe my technique is rusty. You could help me polish it up.â
âThereâs nothing wrong with your technique.â With an effort, she planted her hands against his chest. âItâs justâ¦itâs too fastâ¦this isnât what I want.â Honesty and nerves compelled her to add, âWell, I do want it, but Iâm not going to do it.â
Reece opened his mouth but was cut off by the chime of the doorbell. âSaved by the bell,â he murmured.
His hands dropped away from her shoulders as he stepped back, and Shannon told herself that the little pang she felt was relief, not regret.
And if she tried hard enough, she might be able to make herself believe it.
loves books, old movies, her husband and her cat, not necessarily in that order. A sucker for a happy ending, her writing has given her an outlet for her imagination. Dallas hopes that readers have half as much fun with her books as she does! She has more hobbies than there is space to list them, but is currently working on a doll collection. Dallas loves to hear from her readers, and you can write to her at her Web site at www.dallasschulze.com.
For the first one hundred years or so of its existence, the town of Serenity Falls had managed to live up to its name. It had been founded in the 1870s by a gentleman of uncertain background but considerable charisma. He liked to say heâd been called to California by a force from the stars, though there were those who suggested that the only stars involved had most likely been worn by members of a posse chasing him out of town. Whatever the reason, there was no question but that heâd ended up exactly where he was meant to be. Where else but California could a man adopt the name of Jonathan Everlasting Reconciliation and not find himself incarcerated in the nearest asylum?
Whatever his background, Brother Rec knew what he was doing when it came to laying out a new town, though there were complaints at the time about the amount of open space he insisted be incorporated into the townâs design. What was the point of leaving empty fields sitting cheek by jowl with the houses? Didnât do anything but encourage mice and coyotes. Brother Rec spoke grandly of the need to retain a connection with nature, a close-up view of the good Lordâs work here on earth. Folks shook their heads over this foolishness, bought mousetraps and took potshots at any coyotes foolish enough to come within rifle range. As time passed, the mice and the coyotes moved on to less hostile environs and the fields became parks, giving the town a rural quality that was considered one of its biggest charms.
In the early 1890s, Brother Rec left Serenity Falls, taking with him five thousand dollars in town funds and the mayorâs sixteen-year-old daughter. The scandal rocked the community, not least of all because the mayor was more upset by the loss of the team of racing mules taken by the eloping couple than he was by the loss of his daughter. Then again, they were the finest mules in the county, if not in the state, and Millie Ann had been a pretty girl but not exceptionally bright so perhaps his reaction was understandable.
The town survived Brother Recâs betrayal and, over the next ninety years or so, it also survived two world wars, a depression, earthquakes both major and minor and the advent of cars, television and rap music. Through it all, it remained pretty much what it had started out to beâa smallish town with an unusually strong sense of community.
There had, of course, been crises over the years. There was the flood of â32, when boulders the size of small cars washed down out of the foothills and came to rest in the middle of town. In the midfifties, two lions escaped from a visiting circus, and citizens huddled inside their homes in fear of the ravening beasts. The lions, possibly confused by the lack of an audience, wandered the streets for a couple of hours before allowing themselves to be recaptured.
The sixties had brought the requisite amount of turmoilâlong hair, blue jeans, even a sit-in or two. But all in all, Serenity Falls had weathered the years well.
Of course, there was a time, more than twenty years back, when some citizens had thought the town might be brought to rack and ruin through the efforts of a single individual. Reece Morgan had been a newly orphaned ten-year-old when he came to live with his grandfather. For the next eight years, Serenity Falls had been considerably less serene than usual. If there was trouble, he was bound to be in the midst of it, and if he wasnât actually caught in the act, it was only because heâd just left the scene.