Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series)

SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR

Contemporary Paranormal Romance

by

Natalie G. Owens

Chapter 1

Chapter2

Chapter
3

Copyright 2011-2012, Natalie G. Owens.
All Rights Reserved.

PUBLISHED BY

Natalie G. Owens

via

Amazon Digital
Services

License Notes

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author's work.

Natalie G. Owens

Website/Blog:

http://nataliegowens.blogspot.com

Facebook Profile:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=563297082

Facebook Author Page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Natalie-G-Owens-Author/24911987111

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/natalie_g_owens

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:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4527498-natalie-g-owens

Cover Design by Zee
Monodee

Dedication

To all those who dare to dream, hope and
love.

Prologue

A message from Jeanette Lagrange, founder of
Moonlight Dating
.

There were times in history when the sun was
revered, its light a guide for travellers, a solace for the weak.

The moonlight, however, has always been a time
for reflection, a time for yearning and indulging in a bit of philosophy.
A time when lovers tryst and weary souls can finally find a place
to rest.
Kisses feel softer, a touch more electric, under the tender
vigilance of our sister, the Moon.

Who knows what secrets simmer in the night?
Even I cannot grasp the full dimension of their reach. The Moon, in all her
understated radiance, has many answers to give, many riddles to solve, and many
hearts to heal.

The Moon illuminates a path to redemption and
happiness, and gives me visions of a different world. Sometimes they’re
otherworldly visions, sometimes they’re as natural as the gentle ripple of the
water left by the motion of an indolent oar, its handler unhurried, thoughtful.
Because of this, I know that in the moonlight, the impossible can happen.
Strong bonds are forged, and others are mended. Lives become whole.

We often hear of the bad, sordid deeds that
happen at night time. Illicit sex, crime, cruelty – we thus fear the night. But
I, a willing optimist, want to offer a different kind of reality, for my sake
as well as yours. I want to give you a night that is radiant, beautiful,
sensual,
carnal
. A night in which all the faces of
love can be at arm’s reach, if you will them to.

Many are more apt to grasp life’s gifts from
the shadows, because they are used to small expectations and are afraid of
risk. They must allow themselves to slowly become acclimated to the change…
because those who hesitate to abandon themselves in the blinding heat of the
sun may feel newfound courage when the moon takes the reins of the skies and
shines on infinity along with its shimmering cohorts, the stars.

I created Moonlight Dating to get you started
on this journey to wanting more, expecting more, to give you all your heart’s
desires. Nothing’s up to chance.
 
If you
don’t believe this is possible, I dare you to take the plunge. For every
designed encounter, I need a man, a woman, a perfect match. If it’s there, I
will find it for you. Give me one night, one chance, to wake your dreams in the
moonlight…

Yours,

Jeanette Lagrange

top

Chapter One

A woman in need is her own worst enemy, if she
doesn’t follow her desires.

Melita
Saari
-Quinn’s vacant stare meandered to the tall mirror as
she took stock of her life. A smeared reflection stared back at her – the best
her eyes allowed her, she being practically blind.

But today,
her worries had nothing to do with her sight. Her work as a psychotherapist had
started weighing heavy of late. To try and strip away the burdens of others had
put more layers on
her own
shoulders.
 

Until all
she felt was the need to get away, to be free.

Most of
her clients came to her office to resolve what she dubbed as pseudo problems.
One lady felt fat at a size twelve. Another guy couldn’t get as many
girlfriends as he wished. A businesswoman wanted to feel more motivated to
fatten her already sizeable bank account. Oftentimes, she wanted to throw
professionalism to the wind and tell them to get a grip. How could these
qualify as real concerns?

Wanting
was one thing – but if one didn’t act, that desire could become a prison. Was
her own motivation to navigate the complexities of her job wearing thin?
Perhaps the universe was telling her something.

She
smoothed out her dress and shifted pressure from one foot to the other, then,
laid a hand on her stomach to calm the agitation brewing inside.

But she
hadn’t always been this disillusioned. There was a time when she believed… and
not only in her work. Her throat clogged when she remembered how, back then, a
pure, childlike enthusiasm drove her to do something she thought worthwhile. A
pang of nostalgia sliced through her heart.

Yes, there
was a time, even before she’d aggressively pursued her credentials against the
odds, when she plainly and simply
believed
that life was always good if one wanted it to be.
That
things
always turn out okay in the end.

Until a
decade and a half ago, when something happened that was not supposed to happen.

Don’t go there,
Melita
.
You
worked too hard, too long, for what you have. You chose to pursue a path of
science, to stay grounded, rather than focus on concepts that have no basis to
them
.

If she did
let the memories overwhelm her, she’d have to acknowledge something horrible
and fantastical, something that would drive her stark mad as it almost
did
then, simply because it was impossible to explain.

But today
was exactly the eve of the fifteenth anniversary from the day when life as she
knew it ended, when the vision was torn from her eyes through an inexplicable
occurrence, one she could not ever bring herself to share with anyone. So, when
the clock struck midnight tonight, it would mark a milestone date for her, and
she couldn’t bring herself to forget, to obliterate from her mind the slightest
recollection of that fateful afternoon.
 

She
remembered that blasted outing in the Maltese countryside with her
Irish-Maltese mother and Finnish father. They had
both
been mindful that the more widely visited
bucolic areas of the Mediterranean island of Malta where they lived rarely
presented danger for an inquisitive adolescent. She, on her part, was the
average fourteen-year-old with a burning desire for independence.

She had no
care in the world. The
Buskett
Gardens area and its leisurely
pathways were situated in one of the most beautiful fertile valleys on the
island. It was such a perfect day that she got a hankering to explore the woods
past the low stone walls. Her parents didn’t fret when she strayed.

If only
they’d known…

It was a
spring Monday, which meant the
place
was devoid of the
chaos one would expect from groups of picnickers on any given weekend. The
cheerful birdsong transmitted from the small sparrows and other fowl overhead put
the finishing touches to an already idyllic setting.

She
sidestepped a huge shrub with foxgloves in bloom and walked into the thicket of
shady cypresses until she could barely hear her parents’ voices. When she
reached a small clearing, the trees got denser and shut out most of the
sunlight.

She stood
for a moment and relished the silence, until her eyes fell on the sprawled body
peeking from behind a tree.

A cautious
step forward brought sneakers, jeans, and a light blue shirt in her line of
sight. His fingers curled around the trigger of a gun. Blood spattered up the
limp, exposed arm and stained the front of the cotton shirt. The head was only
partially visible from behind the tree bark, but abundant dried blood coated
what she could see. She stopped in her tracks and screamed.

A young man.
Lifeless.
Gone.

Then, a
humming sound made her turn her head left. The hum fast turned discordant, as
would be the sound made by opening a rusted iron door that had been locked for
centuries. A sudden explosion rang in her head and a light as bright as a
nuclear blast penetrated her eyes.

Black
spots danced in front of her as she instinctively stepped toward it. The last
thing she saw was a large ghostly hand come out of nowhere to push her, trip
her back into a bed of twigs, leaves, and grass. The icy touch chilled her to
the bone. The hand seemed dismembered from a body, surrounded only by a large
frame of beaming filaments. It was the last thing she saw as the sparks
weakened and overcast shadows threatened the clear sky.

In
moments, it was over and the peace returned while inside her, everything was
spinning. Her heart raced. Her stomach clenched. Her pulse galloped. And her
eyes . . . she squinted, shook her head and opened them wide.

Her eyes
had stopped working. Just like that. When her parents rushed to her side, it
was already too late.

Memories
of that fateful day – a dry and sunny May third – were clear, too clear, in her
head. Nothing like the
Melita
she now ‘saw’ the
mirror. She could only make the major details of her slender body shape and
face that looked back at her, although it was much more than she could see at
first, right after the accident. Back then, her world was one large black hole.

As she
stood now, she was only legally blind, which prevented her from doing things
like driving a car or piloting a plane.

Melita
tamped down her thoughts. Meanwhile, another May third was rolling by, and she
longed to replace that dreaded memory with something else.

Something
that would make her
feel
entirely different emotions.
Something that would make her smile, lust,
exult
, fly
to a different plane – like she never truly had.

To venture away from the mundane.

It was
time to start living, to do what she always encouraged her clients to do,
despite their resistance to change. Why shouldn’t she practice what she
preached?

And this
year, she had it in hand.

Two months
earlier she’d found out about
Moonlight
Dating,
an online service
run by Jeanette
Lagrange, a self-professed loner and eccentric from Market Drayton, the
picturesque village in the British West Midlands. It was one of those things that
Amelia, her single best friend, learned through one of her well-meaning
relatives who forwarded the site link to her.

“I think
you’ll get more use out of it. I much prefer the idea of cooking myself in a
roasting pan to nagging or jealous boyfriends. Even temporary ones,” Amelia
said bluntly when she told her about it.

Melita
shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

“You say
that because you never met my ex-husband,” Amelia retorted. “But I’m here to
talk about you. Let me read Lagrange’s bio.”

A
passionate gardener with a romantic streak, Lagrange wrote how she’d sought life
away from the hustle and bustle of London for the past ten years. At first impression
Melita
had thought it some local business struggling
to burst from obscurity. But, judging from the many glowing testimonials from
all over the world it seemed that the provincial tone may be only skin deep. She
could only imagine a little old lady operating a lauded matchmaking service from
her battered oak writing desk in a quaint little cottage.

Odd that Lagrange
was the only listed employee and customer service information consisted of the
woman’s generic email address; yet the site, Amelia said, boasted feedback from
over a thousand past clients who’d gotten their match over a decade. The lucky
ones were always hand-picked from a pool of applicants based on the five page
application form, Lagrange handled all cases personally, and the service cost a
paltry fee!
 
Melita
had never come across anything like this, and at first wasn’t too keen.