Between Darkness and Daylight

Between Darkness and Daylight

Over-achieving and skeptical securities and commodities sales agent, Nova Foxx, is dragged kicking and screaming into believing the supernatural when an almost-fatal mountain climbing accident results in a near-death experience that kick-starts her inherent psychic abilities into overdrive. Nova soon discovers with her newfound "gifts" comes great responsibility and is forced to relocate to another city in search of the subject of her clairvoyance with the hopes of ending her visions and saving a stranger's life. But first, she must convince him that his life is in jeopardy without revealing who she is and how she knows.

Zane Youngblood is a high school social worker who wants to save the world one child at a time. An impossible order to fill, but this doesn't stop him from trying, especially when he's raising a young troubled teen of his own looking for acceptance and a savior wherever he can find them.

Sensuality Rating:
SCORCHING

Genre:
Contemporary Paranormal/Psychic/Interracial

Length:
Super Plus Novel (114,000 words)

BETWEEN

DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT

Gracie C. McKeever

EROTICA ROMANCE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Erotica Romance

BETWEEN DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT

Copyright © 2007 by Amanda Hilton

ISBN: 1-933563-35-4

First Printing, February 2007

All cover art and logo copyright © 2007 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

Printed in the U.S.A.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

BETWEEN

DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT

GRACIE C. MCKEEVER

Copyright © 2007

Prologue

Los Angeles, California

Nova Foxx sighed as she folded her last piece of clothing and packed it in her carry-on. She’d made enough errors in judgment in the past year to last her a lifetime. Time to rectify.

"I can't let you go like this."

She started; she hadn't heard him come into the room. Nova didn't turn as he neared but soon felt strong arms slide around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.

No one could ever accuse Matthew Dalton of being a quitter.

"Please, Matt. Don't."

Rather than release her, he turned her to face him, pulled her closer, and she let him—inhaling his warm tangy scent, snuggling in his firm embrace—for the moment too tired to fight anymore.

"We can work this out."

Silently, she shook her head.

"How can you walk away from us, Nove?"

"I have to do this."

"You realize this is total insanity, what you're planning."

6

Gracie C. McKeever

"I have to do this," she repeated, frowning. "I can't explain it any more than I have."

Matt shook his head and released her. He took several steps away, staring at her from the other side of the room as he forked a hand through rich honey-blond waves. Disbelief and frustration etched his face. "What do you expect me to do while you're gallivanting across the States? This is the worst time in the world to be traveling anywhere by air, especially to New York."

She bit her tongue. Since when was he daunted by air travel to New York? He made business trips there almost monthly, despite the threat of terrorist attacks.

Besides, she had so many other fish to gut and scale, terrorism fell pretty low on her list of worries. The visions terrified her and had for a while, more every day and night. Maybe she was being a little self-centered, but she was only concerned with what she could do to stop them, to ease her own personal conflict.

Nova would have repeated all this to him, but didn't feel like wasting the effort on something more futile than trying to ride a stone camel. She settled for closing her eyes and shaking her head. "I don't expect you to do anything, Matt," she finally whispered.

He stalked back to her, caught her arms, leaned in and kissed her hard on the mouth.

She felt his tongue briefly caress her lips and before she could object or withdraw, he pulled back to glare down at her as if he sensed that he had stepped over the line, felt her anger boiling and wanted to beat her to the finish line.

"You should expect everything and more from me because I love you."

"Matt—"

"I thought you loved me, too."

For the first time since getting up that morning, finally ready to do something about this problem—the proverbial elephant sitting in the middle of their living room for the last year—Nova felt uncertain. She was abandoning her fiancé, a man she loved, who clearly loved her and with whom she had been sharing a pretty decent life until a year ago—before the accident and the resulting visions that had precipitated this urgent need to act. To leave.

Between Darkness and Daylight

7

What am I doing? Why?

When she stated her reasons out loud, she could well understand Matt's incredulity and concern. He feared for her sanity. Nova knew this, because she feared for it herself. It was surprising she had been able to relate her plans when he’d pressed her for a logical explanation of her departure. She was acting irrational, impetuous, impractical—she could go on down the line—all attributes not normally found in the makeup of a successful, levelheaded stockbroker.

But this was a battle she’d been waging since she was a girl—her undisciplined fey side facing off against her disciplined pragmatic side—a battle she’d seen played out time and time again between her spiritualist medium mother and Marine sergeant-major father. Although her mother accepted and fully embraced reincarnation and the continuous existence of the human soul, Nova didn't think even she would go this far. Traveling thousands of miles, transplanting to a strange city to look for a man who may or may not exist, who more than likely would think her a kook if she were lucky enough to find him—and all this based on a transcendental meeting in a rarefied tunnel with a woman who’d probably only been a figment of her imagination.

Hmm, maybe even dear old Mom would think this all a little crazy.

"Nova, you're willing to risk so much, risk us, on something that probably isn't—"

"Real?" She pulled out of his arms. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"You know what I mean, hon." Matt immediately turned conciliatory.

"It's all a little…far-fetched."

"Far-fetched or not, it's real to me."

He pulled her close again, nuzzling her hair with his chin. "Can't you just take some time off, a vacation? I really think that's all you need."

Nova let the irony of his suggestion wash over her as she smiled. A vacation wouldn't cure what ailed her, and it was what had gotten her into her current straits in the first place.

Matt must have read her thoughts, for she saw the look of guilt flash in his slate eyes when he pulled back to stare at her.

"I never meant for anything to happen to you, Nova. Surely you know that."

8

Gracie C. McKeever

"I know, Matt." She returned his hug, wrapped her arms around his waist. "I made an amateur's mistake. Don't blame yourself."

"How can I not? You were my responsibility."

"So you're no Stipe Bozic," Nova teased, trying to lighten his mood but immediately realizing her mistake when Matt frowned.

"Stipe may be the best, but I had more at stake than breaking a mounting climbing record." He kissed her forehead before sliding his face down, cheek-to-cheek, and whispering against her hair, "I feel like I've already lost you."

Nova swallowed, unable to speak. She didn't want to confirm or deny the truth of his words. She didn't want to tell him he was right, that he had lost her to that mountain. She had come out of the experience a changed woman; almost dying did that to a person.

"You know how this sounds? Me, letting you run off to another city to look for some stranger you've seen in a vision?"

"I hate to break it to you, pardner, but you're not
letting
me do anything." Nova grinned, tried to take the edge off her statement, inject a little levity. But she didn't want Matt making any mistake about her intentions; she was leaving come hell or high water.

"Nova—"

"He's in danger, Matt."

"
If
that's the case, I don't see how it's your concern."

"I don't expect you to understand."

"I want to."

That was what made this so difficult. She knew he did, and wanted to make him understand but didn't know how or where to start. How could she tell him she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't make this trip and at least try to find him?

Matt diverted her thoughts when he caught her against him, palms sliding up, firm on her shoulder blades, as he leaned in for a kiss. He coaxed her lips open, his mouth tempting and insistent. She let his tongue in, more out of duty and curiosity than lust and desire. She felt nothing but basic affection, almost like kissing her brother. Nothing like when
he
kissed her in her dreams; nothing like the hot and insistent way
his
lips claimed hers; nothing like the way
his
tongue thrust and stroked inside her
Between Darkness and Daylight

9

mouth, and had her eager for his long, eloquent fingers caressing between her thighs…

Nova just barely stopped the whimper rising in her throat when she pulled out of Matt’s arms, and rather than feeling as if she were being unfaithful to him, she felt like she was being unfaithful to the other—a man she hadn't yet met, whose face she’d only seen in visions. And all she could recall of him were the somber set of his jaw, the sensual tilt of his full lips, and the soulful, tea-colored eyes gazing from his painfully handsome face. Not to mention her other dreams of the man, the ones she didn’t want to think about or mention to Matt; the ones that woke her up next to her fiancé in a sinful state of arousal that had her entire body hot with a furious blush and her pussy clenching and wet with need…need of a total stranger.

Matt scowled. "It's him, isn't it? I'm losing you to a specter?"

"I'm sorry, Matt." She could have told him the choice was no longer his or hers to make, but the resolute gleam in his eyes said it wouldn't have made any difference, that he would not give up easily. His next words confirmed this.

"Don't be sorry, Nova, just be prepared."

She frowned and Matt smiled.

"I'll give you one year. Then I'm coming out there to bring you back."

10

Gracie C. McKeever

Chapter 1

New York City - One Year Later

Nova anticipated a hectic day of highs and lows as she scrutinized the quote boards, following the prices of several securities in which she had invested for numerous clients.