Blurb:
Morgan Ravn arrives in Denmark seeking
clues about her mysterious heritage. What she finds is a flirtatious stranger
who regales her with a story about a jewel thief from 1958 and then abandons
her with a large unruly dog.
Can
Morgan locate the irresponsible pet owner before his monstrous canine drags her
through every puddle in Copenhagen and sheds all over her last dress? And why
are strangers dogging her every step, snapping photos? Is the shutter happy
behavior a bizarre Danish custom or something more sinister?
Excerpt:
I dropped my purse.
With a few clacking steps, I maneuvered
back to where it had fallen. Was my skirt too short to bend over? I wobbled a
little but snagged the purse with a finger. My heel stuck in the strap. I
yanked. It remained immovable. I yanked again. No luck. With careful precision
I attempted to liberate the purse while simultaneously lifting the offending
heel off the ground. Standing on one leg while wearing girlish attire for the
first time in nearly a decade is harder than it looks.
I pitched forward toward the rolling
luggage carousal with windmilling arms and inarticulate squeaks of dismay. My
fashionably-clad self plopped down amongst the luggage. Unmindful of my peril,
the conveyer continued to trundle along toward a black tunnel where the bags
were slurped down into the darkness. A red sign on the left caught my eye.
No Bags with Lose Straps No Luggage
Constructed of Soft, Easily Shredded Materials. Any Damage is the Fault of the
Ticket Holder.
My person was a plethora of soft, strappy,
easily shredded material.
I struggled to escape. The fate of a flimsy
duffel bag awaited me within the dark maw of that luggage tunnel. I kicked my
legs like a frantic ladybug upended by a pack of Kindergarteners. Stuck. I was
stuck and this infernal pencil skirt resisted all my efforts to right
myself. My only chance was to wriggle
like a worm and flap my arms, thus launching my person off the conveyer.
I glanced at the approaching tunnel, and
then down at the gleaming tile where I would surely break my nose. Ugh, I had
no choice. Perhaps I would manage some kind of miracle handstand and not
actually smash my face. I flopped and scrambled until my head hung over the
conveyer edge. My hands scrabbled at the slick tiles below me, but the conveyer
failed to slow. My only chance was to jump. One last desperate wiggle and I
began to tip. I closed my eyes and threw my arms out, hoping to soften my
imminent crash.
I fell and landed in a pair of strong arms.
Someone had snatched me out of the air. My
head rested against a large, solid shoulder. I lay there for a moment, dazed.
My hairclip hung over my eyes in a nest of tangles. I pushed the mess of brown
and gold strands aside and looked up. It was the dog guy. I was in his arms,
pressed snugly against him, heart pounding, and mortally embarrassed. ‚
“Hey, you ok?” He peered around my fly-away
hair, his blue eyes intent.
“Um, my shoe, and the purse, my luggage is
pink!”
“So I would presume.” He grinned and tipped
me onto my feet, leaving his hands on my shoulders for a moment until I was
steady. Then he bent and scooped up my pink shoe. The dog started barking again, and the dog
guy rummaged in his jacket for another treat.
“Sit here for a moment and catch your
breath. You can watch Leroy for me. I’ll go ask about your bag.”
Oh, my goodness, he was adorable and
gallant. But the power of my new clothes was surely waning. The linen suit
sported black smears from the conveyer belt, and my left heel was now bent
sideways.
Leroy blasted me with another deafening
bark. His brown eyes were expectant, and drool glistened in moist strings from
his jowls. He didn’t seem too ferocious, only hungry.
“It’s just one suitcase and under the name,
Morgan Ravn.” He nodded and started off. After a couple steps, he turned back.
“And I’m August. August Bruun.” I shook his
hand and pushed my glasses back up on my nose, as though this happened to me
every day. I mean I talked to guys all the time for work. But they never, ever
had dimples.
Kristen Joy Wilks is the wife of a Camp
Director and board game enthusiast, the mother of three fierce boys, and the
owner of a Newfoundland dog. She spends her time preventing her hubby from
filling another wall of their dining room with board games, thwarting her 3
boys’ efforts to sneak their pet chickens onto their bunk beds whenever she
turns her back to fold laundry, and trying not to trip over the throng of
random teenagers that swarm her house to play all those board games. Kristen
can be found tucked under a tattered quilt in an overstuffed chair at 4:00am
writing a wide variety of dramatic tales or at www.kristenjoywilks.com.
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