It’s time for Snippet Sunday. FLIP THE TROPE: ROMANCE GONE WILD is a new anthology with 12 tales the flip a romance trope on its ear is here. My story is A TIMELESS HEART and it’s the second story in the ELEMENTAL HEARTS series.
A TIMELESS HEART is Captain Śandor Halmi’s story and he’s the captain of the Cloudburst Hot Shots, the local wildland firefighters in Cloudburst, Colorado. In this snippet, we’re in Bianca’s POV and Śandor took her out to lunch at the Mountainside Cafe.
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Bianca groaned and splashed more water on her face. That kind of thinking would get her into so much trouble. She wasn’t looking for love or romance or even a relationship. She was starting over, and her plans didn’t include a hot, sexy firefighter. But apparently sexual attraction didn’t wait on her plans and had broadsided her.
Yeah, it could happen to anybody, and she was currently in the hotseat.
Or is that ‘hawtseat’?
She giggled nervously as she dried her hands but was saved from more introspection when Trey’s ring trilled from her phone. She frowned. Why would Trey be calling? They were usually busy with school.
“Hey, Trey. What’s going on?”
“Mom, have you seen Dad?”
Bianca straightened and met her own gaze in the mirror. “No, I haven’t seen your father. Why?”
“I just went by his place to drop off some of my receipts and he wasn’t there.”
She rolled her eyes. Denton had always demanded to know what all of them spent while they lived with him, and he’d drilled it into the kids for college expenses.
Reason eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-six why I got away from him.
“What do you mean, he wasn’t there? Maybe he was at work.” Denton had worked all the time, and she suspected maybe he’d found another woman on the side, but she could never prove it. It doesn’t matter if he had a side piece, we were done for other reasons.
“No, Mom, like he wasn’t anywhere. I went to his office and the receptionist there said he’d taken some personal time off. But when I called his cell, he didn’t answer. You don’t know where he is?”
An old fear crept up her back and lodged in her belly, unsettling the food filling it. Where would Denton have gone?
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Uh-oh. 😉 There are several great authors on the Weekend Writer Warriors list, the Snippet Sunday Facebook group, and the Rainbow Snippets Facebook group. A few of my favorites are, P.T. Wyant, Karen Michelle Nutt, Veronica Scott, Karysa Faire, and Iris Blobel.
Blurb for A TIMELESS HEART:
When Bianca Pearce left Cloudburst, Colorado at eighteen, she swore she’d never come back. She moved to L.A., got married, and created a successful antique and modern clock repair business. But time mellowed the hurts of the past, and with a divorce and two kids in college under her belt, Bianca is ready to move back to the small town to have a quiet life in a familiar place. At her age, she knows who she is and what she wants, and figures love is better left to the young.
Captain Śandor Halmi is the commander of the local Hot Shots squad—and a Zomok, a Hungarian Forest spirit that most often takes the shape of a dragon. His main goal is to take the whole weekend off to relax, ignore his phone as much as possible, and generally disappear now that the Colorado fire season has ended. Love is not on the agenda…until he sees Bianca at the local farmer’s market. He’s struck dumb by her beauty, bearing, and experience, and now he can’t get her out of his mind.
Despite growing up in Cloudburst, Bianca doesn’t believe the stories about the town having non-human residents, and she definitely doesn’t believe in love at first sight. But something about the silver fox firefighter sets her desire ablaze, and she can’t seem to stop thinking about him. Not even when he shows her his true form.
Uh oh indeed! Sounds ominous and she’s right to be worried. Great snippet.