This book starts like a mystery, with the intro of a large cast of characters and a murder, in contrast to the traditional romance with the emphasis on the main characters and their relationship connection and conflict.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter six. Yes, I soon heat things up. Don’t I always?

She (Taylor) heard someone gaining on her and looked back at Stone. He’d followed her, his long legs easily catching up with her and keeping perfect pace. He lit a cigarette. Taylor glanced at him, and the expression on his face was preoccupied, absorbed.

“Sorry,” he said, intercepting her glance, and started to throw away the cigarette. She shrugged. He took another drag before he tossed the cigarette into the street. Taylor saw a bus approaching and halted at the bus stop, waiting. Stone stood silently beside her. The bus pulled up and Taylor got on, walking to her seat while Stone followed, fumbling for the change to pay their fares. She stared out the window, grateful to Stone for not trying to carry on a conversation. The bus pulled up by the Atlanta Underground.

Taylor stood and exited, Stone following. She walked briskly inside, straight into a gaudy bar. Stone sat across the tiny table from her, and a waitress approached.

“Margarita. Make it a double,” Taylor said.

“I’ll have a Coke.” Stone thrummed his fingers on the table. “I’d never have taken you for a drink-before-sundown type of person.”

“Everyone has vices,” Taylor said.

A hint of a smile appeared at the corner of Stone’s mouth.

“What brand do you smoke?” Taylor asked.

“Marlboro.”

“Figures.”

“Why do you say that?” Stone asked.

“You know, the rugged, independent Marlboro man.”

“That white guy is a product of Madison Avenue. And he’s defeated me once again.”

Taylor nodded. “It’s very hard to quit any bad habit. Any sort of stress is likely to do you in.”

The waitress bought their drinks and Taylor took a long swallow.

“You seem rattled,” he said. “Before, you’ve always been so cool.”

Taylor took another swallow of her drink, and set it carefully on the table. “This situation is going to seriously compromise the agency . . . and maybe even my job.”

“I’m not even psychic, and I can tell more is on your mind than that.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes and took another sip of her drink. The tequila hit her gut and warmed her from the toes up. “You’re right.” She moistened her lips. “Every time I look around lately, you’re right behind me.”

The atmosphere subtly changed. The air between them became charged, tense.

“Hmmm. You’re not saying this is about me, are you?”

“Do you want it to be?” she asked.

Stone was watching her lips. Heat shimmered between them and it wasn’t from the Georgia sun. “Direct, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

“Why did you turn me down when I asked you out?” Stone asked.

The man also knew how to get to the point, Taylor thought. “You scared me. You remind me of my five brothers and my father. I sense that easy-going facade of yours is just that, a facade. You like to have control in your relationships.”

“A date isn’t a relationship.”

“With me it would soon be.”

“You’re pretty confident.”

“Only when I have good reason to be.”

He chuckled. “I suppose I don’t mind giving you the reason.”

Taylor leaned forward and looked deep into Stone’s eyes. “You cloud my thinking. It upsets me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I’d like to get this out of my system. My place is ten minutes away.”

Stone looked away, toward the waitress. She hurried toward them and laid down the check. Stone set a ten down on the table and gestured for her to keep the change. Then he turned to Taylor, his eyes somber. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on the invite. To be honest. . .Lady, you scare me.”

Taylor stood up in a smooth motion. “Thanks for the drink,” she said, taking care to keep her features unperturbed. She strolled out of the bar without a backwards glance. She’d walk home. She wanted to put a few city blocks between her and Stone Emerson before she gave into the mortification she was feeling.

Taylor was panting with exertion from her brisk walk when she let herself into her apartment. For once she was happy Tiffany was out. She needed the space and time to herself to mull things over. She went into her adjoining bathroom and turned on the hot water and threw two handfuls of chamomile scented bath salts into the tub and watched as the water turned a soothing green. She put on an Aretha CD.

When she lived with Kara, she’d gotten hooked on the sound . . . Aretha . . . Etta James . . . blues and old soul. Dropping her clothes into a puddle on the bedroom floor, she went in the bathroom and stirred the bath water with her toe while Aretha moaned that she would never, ever love a man the way she loved him.

The water was almost too hot. Perfect. She sank in, slowly parboiling, her brown flesh turning ruddy mahogany. Taylor loved her color of rich brown earth, red-tinted like the Georgia clay. It often seemed silly to her, the significance people attached to skin color. The colors of the earth. How could pale glass-toned sand be more or less beautiful than rich black earth? Different, yes, but each valuable and necessary as the other. White sand, yellow clay, brown loam, black earth, and every gradient in between, all the children of the earth reflected their kinship in their very skins.

A tiny high window let in the rosy setting sun. The hot steam released the green odor of the profuse hanging ferns in the bathroom mixed with the apple-sweet scent of the chamomile. She inhaled deeply, feeling the tensions and stresses of the day dissolve. The emotions and energies of others washed away in the bath water. She tried to take her full measure of the simple pleasure of the bath. But the ever present image of Stone kept intruding past all her barriers.

The moment she first met Stone a couple of years ago, she’d felt a flash of significance. It had scared her to death and she’d fled, and had been fleeing ever since. Destiny brought him into her sphere once again. She’d decided not to flee or fight. She’d wanted to give in and be done with it. She’d thought they’d kick it a few times and that would be that. He’d be out of her system, and she’d have the upper hand again over her emotions. Deodorize him of the stink of cigarette smoke and Stone would make one fine man-sized boy-toy.

But he wasn’t about to make it easy for her. She still could hardly believe he’d turned her down without blinking. He’d wanted her. She was an attractive, young, healthy, reasonably in-shape female, and his hormones were functioning fine. But he wanted her on his terms. And that was the problem. Taylor wasn’t about to cow to any man’s terms but her own. There he was, hovering at the edge of her consciousness, invading her reality, and she couldn’t make him fade into non-significance.

She sighed deeply. Lying back against the inflated bath pillow, she let the cooling green water lap against her body. She needed to take the man to bed. Easily done, and only a matter of time. She had to play the game. Most men couldn’t take the direct, let’s-get-down-to-it approach from a woman. Once she had him, he’d be out of her system, and she could have her life back free of unsettling feeling. Not to mention the strong premonitions of a lifetime tied to and ordered around by Stone Emerson. He was completely wrong for her.

Taylor got out of the bath, and massaged sesame oil into her skin until it gleamed. She was slipping a sky-blue cotton caftan over her head when she head a woman’s voice say clearly, “Two gone, the rest to go.”

A quick intake of breath, and a rush of adrenalin. Tangible sensings such as otherworldly visions, and mysterious sounds, odors, and touches unsettled her profoundly. She’d happily wait until she was a spirit herself before she sighted another ghost. Two gone, the rest to go. A prophecy, a warning.

She shivered. A killer was out there, someone close to her. Someone she knew. The abusers of the women at the shelter . . . their husbands, their lovers–they would die. She knew. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. The men were going to die. That was as certain as if it had already happened. But a host of other possibilities lay hidden below the horizon. Others might die, or be harmed irreparably,too. When Death walked, Death wasn’t finicky.

Taylor reached for her pack of Tarot cards and sat cross-legged in the center of her bed. Taking a deep breath, she shuffled the cards slowly, and though loathe to lay them out, she formed them into a simple Celtic Cross. She stared at the confused message. From the jumble she read, the road would not be easy. Dangers and obstacles, heartbreak and betrayal abounded.

She reshuffled the cards. The cards fell in almost the exact same pattern. A statistical improbability. Taylor gathered the cards up knowing that sometimes they misled. She prayed that this was one of those times. Rising, she placed the cards carefully on a shelf, then picked tiny white buds from a plant and dropped them into a small amethyst bowl of water. She lit a blue candle and released words into the air. Sometimes the small things made a difference. Sometimes small things balanced the universe to its good.