Issue 17, October-November 2019 Featuring Kathryn Nolan: Heart's Kiss, #17 by Kathryn Nolan

Author:Kathryn Nolan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612424781
Publisher: Heart's Nest Press
Published: 2019-10-04T19:58:20+00:00

An award-winning author and an Amazon bestseller under a different pen name, Olivette Devaux writes LGBT contemporary and paranormal romance. Her novel Like a Torrent, book two of the Disorderly Elements Series, has won a Honorable Mention in the 2017 Rainbow Awards. She enjoys swimming the rivers in Pittsburgh, PA and can be reached at www.olivettedevaux.com.

THE MUSIC OF LOOSE SPRING

by Olivette Devaux

Berkley Springs sat halfway in West Virginia and halfway in Maryland, but Roan had come up from Virginia, which was only a few miles to the south. Little intertwining tentacles of the three states’ borders tried to grab as much of the Hot Springs Creek’s valley as they could. The long-dead colonials, who had established these borders, must have had a notion that someday, the valley and its hot spring would bring them untold advantages.

The Main Street, where Roan stood, was all gussied up just like the Commons to his right. Main Street was Route 522, whose civilized four lanes shrank to only two while passing within city limits. Cars crawled along the cheerful, quirky tourist traps, local folks going places. Delivery trucks with their produce and goods, pickup trucks with their occasional Confederate flag statement, and tourists with their money.

If the colonists who had tried so hard to claim this little valley rose from their historically protected graves, they’d shake the dirt off their bones in shock at how insignificant and poor their descendants have become. Good thing the valley had the springs that drew the moneyed sorts from elsewhere. Roan’s family had visited Berkley Springs in his teens, and they had been the tourists back then.

He was one of the locals now. New, still a fresh face in town, but he bought his basics in Dollar General with the rest of them. Roan Christy worked four blocks up and one block over as a nurse practitioner. His pay at the clinic would be lower than elsewhere for the next five years, but his position came with a modest apartment, and would satisfy his debt to the state. Some scholarships were like that—go to school for free in exchange for serving in a rural area for a time.

“Come on, let’s get some lunch,” Rachel said. She elbowed him, then jogged ahead toward The Common Cup. “I can smell their chicken soup all the way down here, and their sandwiches ain’t half bad!”

“Quit bossing me,” Roan said, barely putting one foot before the other.

“I’m older, I get to boss you all I want,” Rachel said. “And they’ll have biscuits!” She tossed her head and laughed, and as she did so, her auburn hair sparkled like burnished gold in the thin, dappled shade. The leaves, chartreuse and thin, let the sun shine right through as though they were made of stained glass. Vernal breeze caressed his smooth-shaven skin, whispering of fragrant crabapple trees in full bloom right across the Commons, by the hot springs.

Roan smiled, stopped, and looked up again. So pretty. Life was so beautiful, sometimes it just took his breath away.

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