Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) Read online

  SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR

  Contemporary Paranormal Romance

  by

  Natalie G. Owens

  Chapter 1

  Chapter2

  Chapter 3

  Copyright 2011-2012, Natalie G. Owens. All Rights Reserved.

  PUBLISHED BY

  Natalie G. Owens

  via

  Amazon Digital Services

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Natalie G. Owens

  Website/Blog:

  http://nataliegowens.blogspot.com

  Facebook Profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=563297082

  Facebook Author Page:

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Natalie-G-Owens-Author/24911987111

  Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/#!/natalie_g_owens

  Goodreads:

  http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4527498-natalie-g-owens

  Cover Design by Zee Monodee

  Dedication

  To all those who dare to dream, hope and love.

  Prologue

  A message from Jeanette Lagrange, founder of Moonlight Dating.

  There were times in history when the sun was revered, its light a guide for travellers, a solace for the weak.

  The moonlight, however, has always been a time for reflection, a time for yearning and indulging in a bit of philosophy. A time when lovers tryst and weary souls can finally find a place to rest. Kisses feel softer, a touch more electric, under the tender vigilance of our sister, the Moon.

  Who knows what secrets simmer in the night? Even I cannot grasp the full dimension of their reach. The Moon, in all her understated radiance, has many answers to give, many riddles to solve, and many hearts to heal.

  The Moon illuminates a path to redemption and happiness, and gives me visions of a different world. Sometimes they’re otherworldly visions, sometimes they’re as natural as the gentle ripple of the water left by the motion of an indolent oar, its handler unhurried, thoughtful. Because of this, I know that in the moonlight, the impossible can happen. Strong bonds are forged, and others are mended. Lives become whole.

  We often hear of the bad, sordid deeds that happen at night time. Illicit sex, crime, cruelty – we thus fear the night. But I, a willing optimist, want to offer a different kind of reality, for my sake as well as yours. I want to give you a night that is radiant, beautiful, sensual, carnal. A night in which all the faces of love can be at arm’s reach, if you will them to.

  Many are more apt to grasp life’s gifts from the shadows, because they are used to small expectations and are afraid of risk. They must allow themselves to slowly become acclimated to the change… because those who hesitate to abandon themselves in the blinding heat of the sun may feel newfound courage when the moon takes the reins of the skies and shines on infinity along with its shimmering cohorts, the stars.

  I created Moonlight Dating to get you started on this journey to wanting more, expecting more, to give you all your heart’s desires. Nothing’s up to chance. If you don’t believe this is possible, I dare you to take the plunge. For every designed encounter, I need a man, a woman, a perfect match. If it’s there, I will find it for you. Give me one night, one chance, to wake your dreams in the moonlight…

  Yours,

  Jeanette Lagrange

  top

  Chapter One

  A woman in need is her own worst enemy, if she doesn’t follow her desires.

  Melita Saari-Quinn’s vacant stare meandered to the tall mirror as she took stock of her life. A smeared reflection stared back at her – the best her eyes allowed her, she being practically blind.

  But today, her worries had nothing to do with her sight. Her work as a psychotherapist had started weighing heavy of late. To try and strip away the burdens of others had put more layers on her own shoulders.

  Until all she felt was the need to get away, to be free.

  Most of her clients came to her office to resolve what she dubbed as pseudo problems. One lady felt fat at a size twelve. Another guy couldn’t get as many girlfriends as he wished. A businesswoman wanted to feel more motivated to fatten her already sizeable bank account. Oftentimes, she wanted to throw professionalism to the wind and tell them to get a grip. How could these qualify as real concerns?

  Wanting was one thing – but if one didn’t act, that desire could become a prison. Was her own motivation to navigate the complexities of her job wearing thin? Perhaps the universe was telling her something.

  She smoothed out her dress and shifted pressure from one foot to the other, then, laid a hand on her stomach to calm the agitation brewing inside.

  But she hadn’t always been this disillusioned. There was a time when she believed… and not only in her work. Her throat clogged when she remembered how, back then, a pure, childlike enthusiasm drove her to do something she thought worthwhile. A pang of nostalgia sliced through her heart.

  Yes, there was a time, even before she’d aggressively pursued her credentials against the odds, when she plainly and simply believed that life was always good if one wanted it to be. That things always turn out okay in the end.

  Until a decade and a half ago, when something happened that was not supposed to happen.

  Don’t go there, Melita. You worked too hard, too long, for what you have. You chose to pursue a path of science, to stay grounded, rather than focus on concepts that have no basis to them.

  If she did let the memories overwhelm her, she’d have to acknowledge something horrible and fantastical, something that would drive her stark mad as it almost did then, simply because it was impossible to explain.

  But today was exactly the eve of the fifteenth anniversary from the day when life as she knew it ended, when the vision was torn from her eyes through an inexplicable occurrence, one she could not ever bring herself to share with anyone. So, when the clock struck midnight tonight, it would mark a milestone date for her, and she couldn’t bring herself to forget, to obliterate from her mind the slightest recollection of that fateful afternoon.

  She remembered that blasted outing in the Maltese countryside with her Irish-Maltese mother and Finnish father. They had both been mindful that the more widely visited bucolic areas of the Mediterranean island of Malta where they lived rarely presented danger for an inquisitive adolescent. She, on her part, was the average fourteen-year-old with a burning desire for independence.

  She had no care in the world. The Buskett Gardens area and its leisurely pathways were situated in one of the most beautiful fertile valleys on the island. It was such a perfect day that she got a hankering to explore the woods past the low stone walls. Her parents didn’t fret when she strayed.

  If only they’d known…

  It was a spring Monday, which meant the place was devoid of the chaos one would expect from groups of picnickers on any given weekend. The cheerful birdsong transmitted from the small sparrows and other fowl overhead put the finishing touches to an already idyllic setting.

  She sidestepped a huge shrub with foxgloves in bloom and walked into the thicket of shady cypresses until she could barely hear her parents’ voices. When she reached a small clearing, the trees got denser and shut out most of the sunlight.

  She stood for a moment and relished the silence, until her eyes fell on the sprawled body peeking from behind a tree.

  A cautious step forward brought sneake
rs, jeans, and a light blue shirt in her line of sight. His fingers curled around the trigger of a gun. Blood spattered up the limp, exposed arm and stained the front of the cotton shirt. The head was only partially visible from behind the tree bark, but abundant dried blood coated what she could see. She stopped in her tracks and screamed.

  A young man. Lifeless. Gone.

  Then, a humming sound made her turn her head left. The hum fast turned discordant, as would be the sound made by opening a rusted iron door that had been locked for centuries. A sudden explosion rang in her head and a light as bright as a nuclear blast penetrated her eyes.

  Black spots danced in front of her as she instinctively stepped toward it. The last thing she saw was a large ghostly hand come out of nowhere to push her, trip her back into a bed of twigs, leaves, and grass. The icy touch chilled her to the bone. The hand seemed dismembered from a body, surrounded only by a large frame of beaming filaments. It was the last thing she saw as the sparks weakened and overcast shadows threatened the clear sky.

  In moments, it was over and the peace returned while inside her, everything was spinning. Her heart raced. Her stomach clenched. Her pulse galloped. And her eyes . . . she squinted, shook her head and opened them wide.

  Her eyes had stopped working. Just like that. When her parents rushed to her side, it was already too late.

  Memories of that fateful day – a dry and sunny May third – were clear, too clear, in her head. Nothing like the Melita she now ‘saw’ the mirror. She could only make the major details of her slender body shape and face that looked back at her, although it was much more than she could see at first, right after the accident. Back then, her world was one large black hole.

  As she stood now, she was only legally blind, which prevented her from doing things like driving a car or piloting a plane.

  Melita tamped down her thoughts. Meanwhile, another May third was rolling by, and she longed to replace that dreaded memory with something else.

  Something that would make her feel entirely different emotions. Something that would make her smile, lust, exult, fly to a different plane – like she never truly had.

  To venture away from the mundane.

  It was time to start living, to do what she always encouraged her clients to do, despite their resistance to change. Why shouldn’t she practice what she preached?

  And this year, she had it in hand.

  Two months earlier she’d found out about Moonlight Dating, an online service run by Jeanette Lagrange, a self-professed loner and eccentric from Market Drayton, the picturesque village in the British West Midlands. It was one of those things that Amelia, her single best friend, learned through one of her well-meaning relatives who forwarded the site link to her.

  “I think you’ll get more use out of it. I much prefer the idea of cooking myself in a roasting pan to nagging or jealous boyfriends. Even temporary ones,” Amelia said bluntly when she told her about it.

  Melita shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

  “You say that because you never met my ex-husband,” Amelia retorted. “But I’m here to talk about you. Let me read Lagrange’s bio.”

  A passionate gardener with a romantic streak, Lagrange wrote how she’d sought life away from the hustle and bustle of London for the past ten years. At first impression Melita had thought it some local business struggling to burst from obscurity. But, judging from the many glowing testimonials from all over the world it seemed that the provincial tone may be only skin deep. She could only imagine a little old lady operating a lauded matchmaking service from her battered oak writing desk in a quaint little cottage.

  Odd that Lagrange was the only listed employee and customer service information consisted of the woman’s generic email address; yet the site, Amelia said, boasted feedback from over a thousand past clients who’d gotten their match over a decade. The lucky ones were always hand-picked from a pool of applicants based on the five page application form, Lagrange handled all cases personally, and the service cost a paltry fee! Melita had never come across anything like this, and at first wasn’t too keen.

  Amelia pressed her. She said her cousin had used the site and met the lady who was now his wife. “I mean, that woman must be psychic. Clara’s so right for Ian. She stuck with him even when he picked her up for a movie date in his wet suit and flippers. That’s what I call a miracle!”

  Melita chuckled and said she’d do it, but on her own terms.

  She had a choice. Did she want a tryst, a casual affair or a serious relationship? She’d instructed Amelia to tick the first option and indicate the date of April third in the preferences section.

  “But don’t you want a boyfriend?” Amelia had protested. “I always thought you to be the romantic one yet you’ve been alone so long I bet you forgot how to give a hickey. You can meet someone for fun but why all this hassle just for a fling?”

  “A boyfriend wouldn’t know what to do with me,” Melita insisted. “And I’m not about to dive into the bar scene.”

  That was that.

  She was told the company would take care of all the arrangements but she wouldn’t meet the guy until the day of. This was a singular condition only for the tryst category.

  It unnerved her in no small measure but she went for it anyway. She’d experience a forbidden encounter with a stranger. She wanted it, above all, because it was time for her to do something out of character, and the very notion of it was just wild and insane enough to tempt her.

  Time passed and she’d put it out of her mind but a week earlier she’d received the confirmation and details. Misgivings sank their tiny sharp claws into her, and she considered chickening out.

  But when the dread she’d come to know so well each year woke up with her this morning and draped itself around her, she knew she’d go through with it.

  Melita ran her fingers through the long chestnut curls she’d inherited from her mother, switched off the sconces, and left the sanctuary of her bedroom. The taxi was due any minute now.

  No more would she use her handicap as a crutch. She fully intended for this night to change her life. She was sure it would. After all, Lagrange had promised an attractive man, a man of hidden depth, an adventurous man, a man who’d make her feel things. It promised her all that she wanted and more.

  ***

  The Nautica wristwatch marked seven ten in the evening when Alex Moncado put the padlock on the outer gate to his art supplies shop. As it clicked in place, the twisted shackles around his heart responded in kind.

  He swallowed, and thought how much he hated this time of year. Hated it with a viciousness that would scare off a champion gladiator readied for the fight.

  Grief steam-rolled over him. At other times, it was easier to set aside the rogue waves of sorrow that gripped him now. Really, who hadn’t lost a loved one at some point? He should know. It was part of the normal cycle of life. Only that there was nothing normal about what had happened to him. For him it felt different; it had proved impossible to completely move on.

  Even spending hours at the gym today and tomorrow, or an entire day of extreme trekking wouldn’t get his mind off things in the end. He’d still lie awake until midnight, and then drink himself into a stupor until morning, in the futile attempt to forget the horror that painted his soul with heavy black tar on every third day of May.

  Perhaps nothing would ever work.

  Still, tonight, he had a plan.

  If he made it to the car and out of the city of Valletta in five minutes, he’d make his appointment on time.

  Jeanette at Moonlight Dating had informed him via email that a cold supper would be provided at the meeting venue so he didn’t have to pick up dinner. He impulsively contacted the service after reading a short write up about it on a social media site.

  The streets were semi-deserted after seven o’clock on a weekday, when most of the shops have closed. In moments, he had reached his car three blocks down on Old Bakery Street. He started the engine and took t
he usual way out around the four and a half centuries old city bastions, headed north. After three or so kilometres, however, he kept straight, directed to the villages of Mosta and Mgarr, rather than veer right toward the thoroughfare that led to his apartment. Tonight, he was going somewhere different.

  A couple of successive potholes rattled the car suspension and jolted his conscious mind into overdrive. What had gotten into him to do something this insane? He knew lots of people, and his calendar was full every weekend. He went to a nightclub and got the pick of the female litter. Simple and painless. He visited the gym five times a week, and it showed, although he didn’t care. He did it to blow off steam – work off the noxious drive that pummelled him – not to become a babe magnet. Still, women loved a guy who took care of himself, especially if he wasn’t cocky about it.

  He didn’t need help, not on the surface. But, deep down inside him lurked a quiet despair he couldn’t continue to ignore. Loneliness clung to him like a spectre reluctant to leave a spooked mansion. True, it was by choice. A deep, emotional attachment can destroy a person, just like the time it almost crushed him to the point of no return.

  It was so much easier to keep feelings in check, to be genuine and down-to-earth, yet, stay away from too strong ties that create so much havoc and hurt, or at the least, disappointment.

  It was too bad that he couldn’t shake off a sense of helplessness, for life was flying by and he didn’t have much to show for it. On the business front, he ran a successful family business, but personally, he lived with a mask permanently glued to his persona. That mask was his spectre, his friendly ghost that gave him what he wanted. A life lived alone, in his small one bedroom apartment in St. Julians, the fun capital of the island.

  What he wanted...

  Well, he suddenly wanted to evict that ghost, at least for a night.

  He wanted something more – with an urge so strong that he signed up with Jeanette Lagrange’s service on a whim. If his friends found out they’d rib him to death, but this would remain a secret between him and the four walls of his flat.

  No one would ever find out that he craved the company of a different sort of lady. He had specified “intelligent”, above all else. Classy but not conceited. Feminine but not prissy. A woman who would look beyond his physical shape and see the man he was beneath, without him having to explain or prove anything – only for a night.