Maggie McAllister's marriage to David ends in tragedy the night David's sailboat wrecks on a submerged reef. His bloody clothes and remnants of the boat are all that are found. Six months later, she has come to terms with her grief and no longer feels guilty over the unhappy state of her marriage before his death. But when a friend of his shows up at her doorstep, she has no plans on LOVING LUC.
Luc is more than Maggie can imagine and his secrets and David's are intertwined. As he insinuates himself into her life, he is finding that Maggie and her coastal town is perfect for him. But he knows that there is about to be a battle that takes them to another world altogether ... with Maggie as the prize. A prize he must win or all is lost.
LOVING LUC is a fascinating look into aliens and humans and love that will not be denied. I admit I wasn't sure how I would feel once I got into the book, but I loved Maggie's resiliency in the shock of her widowhood and later when she learns the truth about David and Luc. And Luc, well he is a sexy, amazing guy who took the time to let Maggie get to know him before he spilled the truth about who he really is. You will have to read LOVING LUC to get all the facts about where Luc really comes from. The only hint I will give is ... it isn't really Ireland. I hope author Vicki Crum comes up with another in this series so we can keep up with Luc and Maggie's future and maybe see some good things happen to a few of Luc's men.
Maggie McAllisterโs short, troubled marriage ended in
tragedy the night her husband splintered his sailboat on
a
submerged reef. Remnants of Davidโs bloody clothing were
found in the wreck, but his body was never recovered.
Now,
six months later, Maggie has come to terms with her shock
and grief, but guilt over the contentious state her
marriage was in at the end still haunts her.
When a beguiling stranger from Davidโs past shows up on
her doorstep and then manages to insinuate himself into
her life, Maggie is forced to deal with an intense,
unwanted attraction to the man, and worse, she canโt
shake
the feeling that Luc is hiding something, that he knows a
lot more about Davidโs fate than heโs willing to admit.
Despite Maggieโs best effort to remain indifferent to
Luc,
she finds herself falling in love with him. Little does
she know that the very act of loving Luc sets Maggie up
as
a pawn in a battle between good and evilโa battle being
waged by entities from another worldโwith Maggie as the
ultimate prize.
EXCERPT
The crows were back. Dozens of them. Clustered along the
electrical wires like dark smudges against the sky,
shifting continuously and piercing the air with an
occasional high-pitched caawk. And always, observing the
world around them with a keen, almost human intensity.
Just like yesterday.
And the day before that.
And the day before that.
An unseasonably warm breeze blew Maggie McAllisterโs hair
around her face as she watched the sleek black birds from
the wooden porch that wrapped around her house. She hated
crows. Sheโd had an aversion to the nasty things since
reading Poeโs The Raven when she was twelve years old.
And as if the crows werenโt enough, the trees in her yard
had been inundated with an army of bushy-tailed
squirrels. Two nights ago sheโd found a dead possum on
the porch not far from where she was standing, and
yesterday morning sheโd discovered the half-eaten carcass
of a rabbit out behind the garage. Odd, indeed.
High on her bluff that overlooked the rugged coastline of
northern California, sea gulls reigned supreme. Their
presence had always seemed to keep the crow population to
a minimum, but the gulls had been noticeably absent the
last few days. As for the influx of furry, four-legged
creatures, it felt to Maggie as if theyโd been unerringly
drawn here, like the foam-tipped waves to the craggy
rocks on the shore below.
Maybe thatโs why she wasnโt surprised when the stranger
showed up. A man, alone, on foot at the end of her drive.
All she felt was a mild sense of deja vu, as if sheโd
been expecting him.
His gaze held her captive as his long-legged gait ate up
the hundred or so feet of unpaved driveway between them.
Tall and lean. Dark hair, dark clothing, dark backpack
thrown over one shoulder. His bold, chiseled features
were striking, even from a distance.
Seldom had Maggie witnessed such raw sensuality in a man.
It radiated from him like early-morning vapor rising up
from the sea. Ethereal, yet undeniable.
He seemed to grow taller as he neared the stone steps
leading up to the yard. It was nothing more than an
optical illusion, of course, but her position on the
porch gave her the welcome advantage of being able to
look down at him while she spoke.
Then he smiled, and Maggie realized it would take more
than a four-foot elevation to grant her any kind of an
advantage over this man.
A crackle of awareness shot through her as she quickly
absorbed little details about him. The deep blue of his
eyes, framed by long sable lashes. The way his lips
tilted slightly at the corners, even after his dimpled
smile relaxed. His smooth jaw, minus the three-day growth
of stubble so many men seemed to favor these days. How
profound his tan, though it was only mid-March and the
damp California winter had yet to relinquish its hold on
the land.
โCan I help you?โ Maggie asked, raising one hand to shade
her eyes from a swathe of afternoon sunlight that had
stolen beneath the porch roof.
โI hope so.โ His voice, as dark and mysterious as the man
himself, held a faint Scottish burr. The first little
blip appeared on Maggieโs radar screen. Her late husband
had had a similar burr in his speech.
โIโm looking for David McAllister.โ The stranger shifted
his backpack from one arm to the other, drawing her
attention to thick, broad shoulders beneath a worn black
T-shirt. The very essence of the man rose up to engulf
her, made her achingly aware of how accustomed sheโd
grown to living alone over the past few months.
โYou know my husband?โ she asked warily.
โI do, indeed. Our connection goes back many years. To
childhood, in fact.โ He treated her to another heart-
tripping smile and said, โDavid and I grew up together.โ
โOh. I see.โ That explained the accent. โSo youโre from
Killearn?โ
An odd glint appeared in the strangerโs eyes, then
quickly died away. โIs that what David told you?โ He
shook his head and grinned. โA bit of an exaggeration,
Iโm afraid. We come from a much smaller village far to
the north of Killearn. We made the journey here to the
States several years ago, but lost track of each other
when David came west and I settled on the East Coast.โ
Something in his words rang hollow, but Maggie couldnโt
put her finger on precisely what it was. She dismissed
the less-than-subtle suggestion that David had lied about
his birthplace. It hardly mattered now, and besides,
certain parts of Davidโs life had always been shrouded in
mystery. It was part of his charm, and part of what had
drawn her to him in the first place.
It wouldnโt be easy saying what needed to be said while
staring into the strangerโs intense blue eyes, yet if
what heโd told her was true, if he really was a good
friend of Davidโs, she didnโt have much choice. โIโm
sorry you had to come all this way for nothing, Mr....โ
โLuc. Just call me Luc.โ
Maggie took a step forward, her fingertips digging into
the worn wooden newel post rising up on her right. โIโm
afraid I have some bad news for you...Luc.โ
From where she stood, tiny crinkles at the corners of the
manโs eyes were visible. They deepened when he squinted
into the glare coming off the ocean, accentuating the
small, diamond-shaped scar just below one eye. There was
something hauntingly familiar about him. A crazy notion
if sheโd ever had one, since she was positive that sheโd
never set eyes on him before.
She cleared the thickness from her throat. โDavid was
killed in a boating accident six months ago. Six months
ago today.โ Maggieโs gaze swung out over the water, in
the general direction of a small cluster of rock
formations about a mile and a half offshore. Theyโd have
been virtually invisible the night her husband splintered
his catamaran on them. Sheโd never understood what he had
been doing out there in the wee dark hours of the
morning, without so much as a full moon to light his way.
Lucโs amazing eyes went wide with shock as he struggled
to come to terms with her words. His mouth thinned until
it was a flat line of resignation, and he followed her
line of vision out over the ocean. She should have said
something, offered her condolences, at least, but nothing
that sprang to mind seemed appropriate. Instead she just
stood there, awkwardness clinging to her like an unwanted
lover.
One minute the stranger was below her on the walkway, and
the next he was towering over her at the top of the
stairs. He reached out to her, but she was strangely
hesitant to touch him. She didnโt want to be drawn in,
weighed down, by anotherโs grief and sadness. She had
made her own particular peace with what happened to
David, or tried to, in any event.
Lucโs solemn gaze didnโt waver. If anything, it
sharpened, like a piercing blue laser capable of cutting
straight through to her heart and dissecting her
emotions. Maggie threw up every invisible barrier she
possessed to keep him out.
โIโm very sorry for your loss,โ he said.
She stared at his outstretched hand, where another thin
white scar partially circled one knuckle before
disappearing into the crease between his fingers. His
nails were clean and neatly trimmed.
His hand bespoke of strength and of gentility, and still
she hesitated.
What did she think was going to happen if she touched
him? Was it really his feelings she was afraid of
divining, or that he might somehow guess her unpleasant
little secret---that her grief over losing David only
went so deep? That guilt, more than anything, was the
source of her distress?
Perhaps a bigger concern, at the moment, might be the
irrational path her thoughts were taking, and whether or
not she was becoming delusional. The man couldnโt read
her mind any more than that flock of crows observing them
from on high. She brushed her uncertainties aside and
laid her palm in his.
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