Lone Star Magic

By Karen Whiddon

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Karen Whiddon

All the characters in this book are
fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced,
scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of
copyrighted materials in violation with the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions.

FIREBALL! AN instant after he’d transported
himself to her back yard, Alrick of Rune spotted both the magical
menace and the woman he’d been sent to protect – the fireball
shooting angry sparks in the sky and the woman kneeling in a ragged
garden near a ramshackle, old barn. Oblivious to the danger
hovering above her, she hummed to herself as she yanked out weeds.
A black and white dog nearby noticed both the fireball and Alrick
at the same time and began barking furiously.

Was he too late? Had his enemy so quickly
bested him? He saw no sign of the Warlord who’d created the menace.
Alrick ran. The woman looked up, spotted him, and made a sound of
surprise. She stood, a quick and graceless movement.

The fireball began spinning faster. Alrick
knew he’d run out of time. Any moment now the thing would dive down
and consume the woman with magical flames, flames that were ten
times hotter than any mortal fire. She’d be nothing but charred ash
by the time he reached her. Only magic had a chance of stopping the
thing.

Stopping, Alrick raised his hand and
concentrated. Fight fire with fire, or so he’d heard. He sent out a
jag of magical energy towards the thing. Like a lightening bolt of
power, his energy zinged towards the threat, even as the fireball
dipped, causing him to miss.

The woman, staring open-mouthed at Alrick,
followed the flash of power and finally took notice of the menace
spinning in the sky above her. This time, she screamed. The sound
was loud and clear and full of terror.

The fireball honed on the scream. The buzzing
noise it made increased until it sounded like a thousand angry
bees, about to sting in a large, venomous cloud.

Alrick had one last chance. The future of his
race depended on him. Drawing all his power into himself, he leapt
into the air. He’d shield the woman from the threat and take on the
fireball with his own, magically shielded body.

Contact! Gritting his teeth against the awful
scent of burnt skin, knowing it was only an illusion, Alrick
wrapped himself around the thing and squeezed. Hard. He felt the
burn, smelled the awful smell of singed flesh, then with a blinding
flash, the fireball vanished. Poof. One second beneath him, the
next, he was left wrapped around empty air.

Instantly, he crashed to the ground. The dog
ran to him, still barking, and stopped long enough to sniff his
face, then his burned chest and arms.

At least his enemy the Warlord wasn’t there
to finish him off. If Alrick died, Carly Roberts would have no one
to protect her. And, because he hadn’t spoken to her yet, she had
no idea she was even in danger. He tried to sit up and everything
went black.

Too much sun. Carly wiped her hand across her
sweat soaked forehead. Maybe she had heat exhaustion, though until
she’d looked up and saw that
thing
she hadn’t felt ill. But
she must be – that had to be the reason why she was suddenly
suffering from hallucinations. Really odd hallucinations. And one
of them had fallen to the ground right by her tornado shelter.
Where he lay unmoving and still with Kayo, her border collie,
standing guard.

Muttering under her breath, she forced
herself to march on over and confront the illusion head on. A
strange man, a gorgeous man, leaping through the air like Conan the
Barbarian. Here. In her backyard. Unconscious.

She knelt down, scrunching up her courage.
When she reached out, expecting her hand to go right through to the
ground, and touched skin instead, she snatched her hand back and
cursed. Kayo licked her arm.

“This can’t be real.” She looked back up at
the cloudless sky. No fireball. She rubbed her eyes and looked
again. Still nothing. Okaay. She blinked, but the crumpled body on
the ground remained. The skin on his massive forearms was beginning
to blister. The fireball had burned him.

Damn. She needed to get him help.

Pushing herself to her feet, she took a step
back. Then another. If she left him, he might die. But if she
didn’t call for an ambulance, he surely would. Finally, she ran for
the house and the phone. Thank goodness they’d recently activated
911 service in her area. The paramedics would know what to do. They
were better equipped to deal with him and his injuries. They’d take
the unconscious man away to a hospital.

And she could go back to being alone, exactly
as she liked to be.

She punched in 911 and told the operator what
had happened, omitting the fireball, and hung up while the woman
was telling her to stay on the line. Then, once the call had been
made, Carly locked the front and back doors and closed all the
windows. Then, and she couldn’t say why, she went back and secured
the deadbolts. Between the fireball and the strange things she’d
seen the man do, she felt as though she was under attack.
Unsettling, to say the least.

In the ten minutes it took for the emergency
vehicles to show, she checked out the window at least seven times,
fighting the urge to go check on the stranger. The man – or
whatever he was – lay where she’d left him. Unmoving. Hopefully
alive. Kayo still stood over him, guarding him silently.

Lights flashing, siren blaring, an ambulance
raced down the dirt road to her place. Kicking up a huge cloud of
dust, next came a fire truck and two Hill City police cars. Carly
ran out the front door to greet them as they skidded to a halt in
her gravel driveway. Kayo tore around the corner of the barn,
abandoning the man for a much newer and more exciting target.

“He’s around back.” She pointed, her finger
wavering unsteadily. Wagging his fluffy plume of a tail, Kayo
barked his agreement, taking off to lead the way.

One of the policeman squinted at her through
his wrap-around sunglasses. “Stay here, ma`am. We’ll take care of
this.”

Maybe it was his
stay-put-girl-all-women-are-dumb voice or the way he tried to look
down her blouse, but Carly ignored him. She led the way around her
house to the back of the barn, where she’d been peacefully weeding
her pitiful garden barely a half hour ago.

The man was gone. Burns and all. Except for a
broken tomato plant or two, there was nothing to show he’d ever
been. Kayo sniffed the ground, looking up at her with what she
could have sworn was a perplexed expression.

“Me too, boy,” Carly muttered. She drew a
shaking hand across her mouth and turned to the EMT’s, policemen,
and firefighters to explain. “He was here, I swear. My dog was
standing guard on him.”

They all looked at her like she was crazy.
Maybe she was. Or maybe the man hadn’t been too badly injured after
all and, once he’d regained consciousness, he’d simply wandered off
into one of her fields.

“Maybe he went in the barn.” Her voice
sounded weak, even to herself. Dutifully, the two policemen nodded.
They looked at each other and one of them disappeared inside the
barn. A moment later he emerged, shrugging.

“Nothing. Er, Miss…”

“Mrs.” Her sharp tone had him narrowing his
eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. He was here the last time I checked. He
seemed pretty out of it, so I don’t understand how he could have
disappeared.”

“I see.” He nodded like he understood, though
his expression said differently. “Could we talk to your
husband?”

That
was absolutely the final straw.
Carly felt heat rise in her face as anger tightened her throat. “My
husband, Officer,” she peered at his nametag, “Holt, is dead. I run
this ranch and any talking you need to do, you can do with me.”

She saw in his face what he thought of that.
Lonely Widow
. Again his gaze traveled to the v of her shirt.
She had to force herself not to cross her arms as she glared back
at him. Sensing her mood, Kayo gave a loud growl.

It went even further downhill after that. The
last thing Office Holt said before he left made Carly shiver,
though she managed to keep that hidden from him.

“If you get a reputation for calling in false
reports, Miz Roberts, when something really does happen you won’t
find the police so eager to respond.”

She bit her lip and watched them walk back to
their patrol car. The Ambulance and fire truck had already left in
clouds of dust. Weeding was out – the sun had risen too high in the
sky, increasing the temperature and humidity along with it. Spring
in central Texas was a bitch. If it wasn’t pouring rain, the
weather was hot and steamy. If she wanted to do much outside she
had to do it early in the morning.

There was still housework. Carly grimaced.
Her least favorite weekly chore. Wiping her hands off on the front
of her shorts, she went inside to get started. Kayo went back to
the shade by the barn and lay down.

Two hours later and she had nearly finished.
She’d just started to mop the kitchen floor when someone pounded on
her door. Bam, Bam, Bam. Hard enough to crack the weather-beaten
wood.

Scowling at the front door, Carly stuck the
mop back in the plastic bucket. “Okay, okay. I’m coming. Just
because my doorbell’s broken doesn’t mean you have to beat on the
wood like you’re trying to break it.”

Irritation fueling her, she marched over and
yanked the door open without even looking through the peephole.

He
stood in front of her. Her
hallucination. The man who’d disappeared that morning. Apparently
unhurt, unabashed, and looking like some sort of movie star. Odd
how she hadn’t noticed his stunning good looks before. Dark, thick
hair cascaded to his broad shoulders, and his aristocratic features
were perfectly chiseled. Muscular arms, a trim waist, and lean hips
completed the picture. He had to be a concoction of Hollywood. In
Carly’s experience, real men didn’t look like him. Not even
close.

“You…!” She tried to shut the door in his
face.

He stuck his foot in the way and smiled at
her. “Carly Roberts?”

“Look,” She narrowed her eyes. “Whatever
you’re selling, I don’t want it. Got that? Go away.”

Instead of doing as she’d asked – well, okay,
ordered, his smile widened. “Is this your horse?”

“My… what?” When she forced her gaze past
him, she realized he held a length of rope, wrapped loosely around
the sturdy neck of TM, the sole remaining horse she owned. He must
have escaped from the round pen. Again.
Dammit
.

“Yes. He’s mine.” But when she reached to
take the rope from the man, TM snorted, showed the whites of his
eyes, and curled his lip. She snatched her hand back, watching in
disbelief when Mr. Too-Perfect-Hallucination spoke a few soothing
words and TM instantly quieted.

She cocked her head and squinted at him,
suspiciously. “How did you do that? And while you’re at it, explain
about this morning too.” Pointing at his arms, she scowled. “You
were burned. Now I don’t even see red.”

“I heal fast.” He turned violet eyes towards
her, making her blink. “And I have a way with animals.”

Great. Next he’d be telling her he was a
horse whisperer or something. The latent sensuality in his voice
nearly made her forget he’d ignored the second part of her request.
He had a strange accent too, like he wasn’t from around here. No
Texas twang.

“What happened here this morning?” Hands on
her hips, she didn’t take her eyes off him. No telling what he
might do.

“Later.” His expression promised more. “We
need to talk.”

Carly didn’t want there to be a later. She
sure as hell didn’t want to talk to this man, nor matter how
gorgeous he was. But, she still had to get TM into the barn. Though
he hated the padded stallion stall, it was the safest place for
him. Especially with the spring storms cropping up. Catching TM and
coaxing him inside was normally a two-hour ordeal minimum, so she
owed this stranger more than a simple thank you.

She studied her unwanted visitor again,
narrowing her eyes. He wore a weird, antique-looking, tunic-like
shirt the same color as his eyes, held together at the neck by
ties. His legs were encased in black leggings, which showed off his
muscles but made him look like he was either on his way to a
Renaissance Fair or a Star Wars convention. Besides being strange,
his clothes looked odd, handmade, and homespun. Like he might be
poorer than even she.