Fire in the Blood (Harlequin Blaze #397)

Five months later Chantelle sat in her car and fiddled with her keys while staring at the door to her apartment. She'd loved the place when she first saw it, and the location was perfect, on Magazine Street in New Orleans. She'd liked her previous house, a rental in a nice Metairie subdivision, but after A. D. Romero had attacked Kayla in that house, Chantelle simply couldn't go back. Besides, the Magazine Street apartment was perfect. While she was the only tenant under fifty in the complex, she didn't mind. Though her neighbors would be deemed nosy by most, Chantelle welcomed their inquisitiveness. It allowed her to never feel totally alone. Chantelle hated to be alone. The quaint complex was near the Garden District, where old New Orleans was new again, and also near the homeless shelter where Jenee Vicknair volunteered. Chantelle helped out at the shelter every now and then; it was a way to not only honor her sister, who had died beside it, but also to visit with Jenee and keep up with the Vicknair family--and Tristan. He'd been on her mind lately. Or rather, he'd pretty much dominated her thoughts for the past five months, ever since Dax's wedding, when she propositioned him to sleep with her, and he'd given her a night that she simply couldn't forget. Tristan had held nothing back in their lovemaking. Unfortunately she hadn't been able to do the same. He'd touched her not only physically, but also emotionally, bringing her to tears--and scaring her enough that she'd left the next morning without so much as a proper goodbye. That night he'd nearly conquered her fear of men. Nearly. She'd felt her body getting oh-so-close to letting go, but even with Tristan Vicknair, the only man she'd ever truly wanted, the memories of her past had invaded her attempt at finding pleasure with a man. So she'd pretended, put on an act, because it was easier to act as if she was normal, as if she hadn't been damaged in the past, than to admit the truth.... After that night, she feared that she may never be rid of the ghosts from her past. And now, she was also unable to rid herself of the real honest-to-goodness ghost haunting her present. As if on cue, the car grew colder. New Orleans was never what one would call cold, especially not at the end of May, but it was chilly tonight. Or was that simply her fear getting the best of her? Was he in her apartment again? And what would she do if he was? She shivered as her blood passed through her veins. She'd thought about relocating again, somewhere far away from New Orleans and the pain of her past. But Ms. Rosa, the woman who'd cared for her during her teen years at the orphanage, had worked hard to find this place for her, and at a rental rate far below market value, because Chantelle had needed a little help getting on her feet after Lillian's death. She'd wanted to start over and pursue her dream of writing, and getting such a great deal on this place had given her that opportunity. And Chantelle was definitely back on her feet now; her first advance check for her novel had been a pleasant surprise, and the book's success even more shocking. She'd submitted it to a small press in New Orleans, and they'd wasted no time putting Stuck in the Middle Realm on local shelves. It wasn't on the NewYork Times list or anything like that, but New Orleans tourists--and locals--had really connected with the story based on Lillian's death, and Chantelle couldn't have been more pleased. She'd simply followed Lillian's final piece of sisterly advice: pursue her dream of writing and live life to its fullest. Chantelle had written about what was close to her heart at the time, communicating with Lillian while she was in the middle realm. During her stay at the Vicknair plantation, she had learned plenty about the other side, and she'd taken that knowledge and turned it into a fictional account of a ghost who was trapped between the land of theSt. John, Kelley is the author of 'Fire in the Blood (Harlequin Blaze #397)', published 2008 under ISBN 9780373794010 and ISBN 0373794010.