For this edition of First Kiss Friday, I am sharing the first kiss between Collin Bird and Rosemary Kakeway from She Talks to Eagles, a time travel, paranormal romance.
He’s shocked that the beautiful girl in the picture is alive…
Maybe the stories of the notorious Route 66 are true. Road trips don’t result in encountering ghosts, but they do for Collin Bird. When he spies a beautiful girl hitchhiking during a thunderstorm, he can’t believe his eyes. It’s Rosemary, a young woman from his Ojibway community who went missing over forty years ago.
Rosemary Kakeway is dead. Her only hope to reach the spirit world is Collin. Before departing to the place of her ancestors, she seeks vengeance against her killers, and Collin is the man to help her do just that.
A ride with Rosemary through pea-soup fog brings Collin to 1977, where he meets a very much alive nineteen-year-old Rosemary. The bold and wild girl is nothing like he imagined her to be as she introduces him to a time he embraces. Knowing they are meant to be together, neither wishes to say goodbye, but that’s up to Rosemary’s spirit in the twenty-first century to decide.
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance, Time Travel Romance, First Nations Romance, Contemporary Romance
Heat Rating: Level 2
Publication Date: September 6, 2024
Publisher: eXtasy Books
Rosemary settled with her beer and cigarette. Shadows of flying eagles permeated the sky. She squeezed her eyes shut. Why did they have to show up, a reminder of her fate? All she wanted was a few beers and to enjoy herself.
“We could call the radio station and request the song, but I don’t have access to a cell tower.” Collin waggled his phone, teasing filling his taunt.
“Oh, you and that darn thing.” She settled against him. His warmth, even though it remained hot outside, covered her like a blanket.
“C’mon, I bet you’re always making calls.”
“Maybe.” She sipped some beer.
“The eagles are back.” He used his chin to point at their shadows in the sky.
“Yeah. I already saw them.” She couldn’t stop the disappointment in her reply. If her beer was a bottle instead of a can, she would’ve picked at the label, something she did when bothered. Instead, she kept her head bowed.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Maybe it’s a good sign. Not a bad one.”
“How can it be good? You said they were there when you…dug my grave.” She shuddered.
“Eagles are messengers. Remember? They bring good messages from the spirit world. I think this means something good.”
Her peripheral vision caught him turning to face her. If she glanced up, their noses might bump. “Is this your way of trying to cheer me up?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?” She finally glanced at him.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He again squeezed her shoulder.
“You really care, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“I told you already that your picture sits on the mantel. I felt like…I felt like I’ve always known you.”
Her heart was close to tears. She touched his cheek.
He wrapped his fingers around hers, staring.
His eyes seemed to plead with her to kiss him. When she leaned in, he met her halfway, closing the small slip of air between them. His breaths were warm on her skin as his mouth claimed hers. She touched soft flesh. Gentle. Barely skimming her lips. His mouth firmed against hers, not opening, but gliding like a feather, offering her a light taste. The scent of beer and cigarettes soaked the car. Actually, her smoke remained in her other hand.
He freed the cigarette from her fingers. How he managed to find the ashtray she wasn’t sure, because the kiss had sucked the breath from her lungs. What he lavished on her wasn’t lust-filled or passionate, but reassuring, even fuzzy, reminding her of the song about the boy offering to help the lost girl find her way back to Albuquerque.
Maybe she had finally found her way.
Maybe this what was her imprisoned spirit had searched for.
He never deepened the kiss but continued to let his mouth skim hers.
The heat from his skin became hotter, though, his desire more than apparent. She doubted he’d do anything else but kiss her. The men of the twenty-first century seemed to be quite careful around women.
There was also steam happening the longer their mouths remained molded together. She couldn’t resist parting her lips. He took her offered invitation and slid his tongue between them. When she tasted what lay hidden inside him, her insides squealed.
She wanted more. But how much more, she wasn’t sure.
Maggie Blackbird 