Chase 'n' Ana

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Chase ‘n’ Ana

ISBN # 9781419908378

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Chase ‘n’ Ana Copyright© 2007 Ciana Stone

Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: January 2007

his book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written

permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 443103502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales

is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Content Advisory:

S – ENSUOUS

E – ROTIC

X

-

TREME

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme).

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been

rated E–rotic.

S-
ensuous
love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E-
rotic
love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall

word count. E-rated titles might contain material that some readers find objectionable—in other words,

almost anything goes, sexually. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry in terms of both sexual

language and descriptiveness in these works of literature.

X-
treme
titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Stories designated

with the letter X tend to contain difficult or controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

CHASE ‘N’ ANA

Ciana Stone

Dedication

For the “real” Chase—a cowboy whose smoldering sensuality,

quick wit, and sexy, slow drawl when he calls me Fancy, makes

this little new age witch think of all sorts of things a person can do with a rope.

Acknowledgements

My deepest appreciation to all the people who were so instrumental in the creation of this book:

Ari, who shares my love of cowboys and is always there with a hilarious comment

about some of my ideas.

Susan, who is a mental gunslinger that cannot be outdrawn and whose wicked humor

makes me laugh even when I’m trying really hard to mope.

Suz, who gives me bellyaches from laughing at her stellar wit, and teaches me every day

how to be a better writer.

And Raelene, the publisher who really cares about each and every author, and who I am sure is

hiding all sorts of wickedly sexy tales under her hat.

And special appreciation to Patty Marks.

You are the one who makes it all happen, who keeps things going every day, making Ellora’s

Cave a welcome place for all of us. Your praise is not sung nearly enough, but make no mistake,

we all know that if there was an award for the most dynamic, creative, caring and all-around

most kick-ass CEO in the world, you would win it hands down.

Thank you for all you do and how much you care. You are amazing.

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the

following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Bewley’s: Bewley’s Cafes Limited

Colt: Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Crabtree & Evelyn: Crabtree & Evelyn, Ltd.

Dodge: Chrysler Corporation

iPod: Apple Computer, Inc.

Patron: St. Maarten Spirits, Ltd.

Wave Runner: Yamaha Hatsudoki Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Ciana Stone

Chapter One

The car coughed. Literally coughed. Then it died. In disbelief, Ana pumped the

accelerator. Nothing. Like an elderly animal giving up the ghost, it coasted down the

road for a few hundred yards, each passing foot getting slower and slower until it was

barely moving.

She steered it off the side of the road and just sat staring through the front

windshield. She was screwed. Here she was on—she had to check the map that lay on

the passenger seat to determine just where—Highway 70 in Bumfuck, Arizona, with a

broken-down car, no water, no phone and very little money. Yep, she was officially

screwed.

Ana let her head fall forward onto the steering wheel. Either she was paying off

some really horrible karmic debt, or she was having one of the worst runs of luck in the

history of man.

Her summer had started off badly. First the Wicca shop she worked for went bust.

Literally. The owner got busted for growing hydroponic pot in the basement of the

store. That left Ana without a steady job. Teaching yoga and belly dancing three nights

a week at the senior citizen center, and the occasional card reading wasn’t going to keep

her in organic veggies and tofu for long.

Fergi, her ferruginous hawk, attacked her husband Giovanni, who tried to shoot it.

Ana used a broom to knock the gun away, and Giovanni shot out the kitchen window

and the refrigerator. Fergi got pissed and took off and Ana was not able to get her to

come back to the house until the day Ana packed her bags.

Then someone let her rabbit out of the house and it got eaten by a Doberman

pinscher, grossing out the guy walking the dog and scaring the crap out of two kids

playing on the sidewalk. Not to mention earning her a fine from the department for

animal control. She still didn’t understand that.

The next blow came in the form of Jimmy Lowe, a sweet thirteen-year-old boy two

houses down, who was several bottles shy of a six-pack. Ana was taking a shower

trying not to let water go all over the bathroom. The shower curtain was missing, torn

off when her best friend Cecilia and her new boyfriend decided to have a nooner in

Ana’s shower. Apparently Cecilia slipped on the soap, fell into her new honey man who

toppled over, grabbed the shower curtain and ripped it off on his way out of the tub.

Lucky for Ana he had decided not to sue her for the four stitches it took to close up

the gash in his head caused from whacking the toilet on his way to the floor.

Ana rinsed the soap off her face and turned to rinse the back of her hair. That’s

when she saw Jimmy, standing at the bathroom window, masturbating. She yelled at

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Chase ‘n’ Ana

Jimmy. Jimmy fell. And now Jimmy’s mother was threatening to sue Ana for

contributing to the delinquency of a “mentally challenged” minor.

And all that happened before the end of the first week. But the straw that broke the

camel’s back was when Ana’s husband, Giovanni, slugged her. Actually balled up his

fist and punched her in the gut. And all because she disagreed with his narrow-minded

stance on same-sex marriages.

She’d heard that love can’t die in a day, but knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the

moment Giovanni hit her that the saying was wrong. There wasn’t a drop of love left in

her heart for him. Truth be told, there hadn’t been that much for half their married life,

which was only three years. She’d put up with him because she felt it was her own fault

that she fell for the act he put on when he was chasing her. Once the ink was dry on the

marriage contract, he became someone she didn’t know, and didn’t particularly like.

But she blamed herself as much as him and hoped that in time she’d come to

appreciate him for who he was and learn to view his shortcomings with affection. It had

not happened, but since Giovanni didn’t share his money, car or insurance with her, she

had little choice but to stay in the marriage. She couldn’t afford the mortgage on the

house by herself and wasn’t ready to get back into a roommate situation. The last one

had ended up getting her tossed in jail because her roommate was running some kind

of illegal porn site from a computer setup in the room she shared with her boyfriend, a

sleazy guy called Snake. That pretty much made Ana’s mind up that she wasn’t

equipped to deal with roommates.

Then, of course, she got married and figured wedded life had to beat the heck out of

the single game. Getting slugged changed everything. It was an awakening, an

epiphany, and hurt like hell to boot. Not as bad as the beating he gave her when she

announced she was leaving during their argument.

Ana had not imagined Giovanni had it in him to hurt her that badly, but when she

woke up in the hospital with two broken ribs, stitches in her scalp and looking like

she’d been…well, beaten, she realized how horribly wrong she had been.

Ana was on her own and didn’t have a clue what to do. All she knew was that she

wanted to get as far away from Giovanni as possible. She remembered hearing her

parents talk about a place in Arizona where the people were laid-back and openminded, and decided that’s where she would go. With all her possessions crammed into

the back of her car, three hundred dollars in her pocket, a full tank of gas and Fergi with

a death grip on the top of the front seat, she hit the road, hoping that the house she left

behind would fall in on her worthless husband.

And wound up here. An image flashed in her mind of herself, hanging onto a

knotted rope and a little red demon hovering above her with a cigarette lighter, burning

the rope fiber by fiber. She knew she was teetering perilously close to losing control of

the tight rein she’d been holding to for the last few months and that scared her. Thus far

she had not cried, trembled or screamed at the course of events that had turned her life

into a gigantic pile of crap. But she was sure close.

7

Ciana Stone

Which meant she had to get it together and take action. And the only action

available to her at the moment was to get out of the car and start walking.

Which was exactly what she did. Fergi took to the air and Ana walked. Cars and

trucks passed her by but not one stopped to ask if she needed help and she was too

cautious to stick out her thumb for a ride.

Lucky for Ana, she wasn’t as far from civilization as she imagined. In a couple of

hours she found herself on the outskirts of the town of Safford. It was not what she’d

imagined at all. A mixture of old and new, it was a city of diversity. Before she realized

it, she’d spent several hours walking through the city. She spotted a bookstore and went