Uncross My Heart (29 page)

“Now that’s the kind of remark that will make my job really hard,”

I said.

“Hard is good,” she teased as the church bells rang and the congregation clustered in the courtyard of the chapel, chatting with one another. We looked out over the balmy sky above the large stone buildings and sensed that spring was coming for us, and for the church, and that God would bless us all.

THE END

Dear reader, if you’ve enjoyed the Richfield & Rivers series and
Mistress of the Runes
, along with
Uncross My Heart
, you might note the latter is a keystone in a body of work that began with Callie and Teague (Richfield & Rivers), progressed to Liz and Brice (
Mistress
of the Runes
), and culminated with Viv and Alexandra (
Uncross My
Heart
).

As the Mistress herself points out, we reincarnate and life itself is a circle—we’re here to work on archetypes and issues at many levels, and we do it with people we have known throughout the ages.

Teague (Richfield & Rivers) is simultaneously Brice (
Mistress
) and Alexandra (
Uncross My Heart
)—a trinity of a single being—working on the same issue, which in her case is commitment. At the most carnal level of her being, in Richfield & Rivers, Teague worries about commitment because she’ll have to give up other women. In
Mistress
, her slightly more evolved self (Brice) won’t commit because she’s had four relationships that didn’t work out. In
Uncross My
Heart
, her higher self (Alexandra) won’t commit because she fears her father—both earthly and heavenly.

Callie, Liz, and Viv are the same person working at different levels of consciousness on the issue of spirituality. Callie, in her most nascent efforts, seeks something tangible—the astrology chart—to connect with the other world, while Liz in
Mistress
needs only the intangible—
“a knowing” she believes we all have if we will only listen to it. And finally Viv in
Uncross My Heart
takes the great leap to say that our connection to God is through the deity in ourselves.

In the realm of archetypes, the weary warrior plays out in Teague’s 
character. She was a cop fighting crime and gave it up to become a screenwriter, but continued to battle entertainment moguls. As Brice she’s an executive fighting the corporations yet has flashbacks of having been a warrior centuries before. And finally as Alexandra, she’s a priest fighting the church and her own sexuality.

Callie’s archetype is enlightened teacher. In the Richfield & Rivers series she is “given” to Teague to teach her to be less jaded and more open to the cosmos. As Liz in
Mistress
she teaches Brice to set herself free and embrace her sexuality. And finally as Viv in
Uncross My Heart
she challenges Alexandra to accept her own enlightenment and divest herself of religious and sexual repression.

Secondary characters play across the time and space of all the books, as evidenced by Alexandra’s father in
Uncross My Heart
who meets Viv and immediately wants to dance with her and later, in a non-lucid moment, begs Alexandra not to “kill me again.” Alexandra wonders if he’s asking her not to break his heart by having another affair with a woman. In fact, he is the king in
Mistress of the Runes
who was beheaded by a warrior (under Brice’s command) who stole his queen (Vivienne). The king is back as Alexandra’s father, dominating her in a different way by denying her a relationship with any woman.

And bit players perform at multiple levels as well. The blue-eyed ethereal Callie in the Richfield & Rivers series is a portent of messengers to come, including the Mistress herself—an amalgam of the blue-eyed shopkeeper who encouraged Brice to buy the antique horse and begin her journey, the docent in
Mistress
who said there are plenty of battles yet to fight, and the blue-eyed Indian woman who said of Brice’s land purchase, “The land outlives us, so who owns who?” This blue-eyed messenger is also the mysterious priest on the park bench in
Uncross
My Heart
who encourages Alexandra to join the church and fight from within. And again, the messenger is the blue-eyed mother superior who tells Alexandra that before she can share the truth with others, she must know it for herself.

Subtle connective tissue binds the three series, such as the Richfield 
& Rivers death stones, the rune stones in
Mistress
, and the stone buildings and tablets of the church in
Uncross My Heart
. The basset hound Elmo in the Richfield & Rivers series is Teague’s best friend, the Icelandic mare Rune in
Mistress
is Brice’s mirror on relationships, and Ketch in
Uncross My Heart
is Alexandra’s “shepherd.” 

While we never intended any of these elements to be overtly evident to readers, we do think they provide another layer, particularly for those interested in reincarnation and parallel lives.

Andrews & Austin

Andrews & Austin’s strong characters step off the page with style and humor, the same attributes the authors strive to achieve as they lead exciting lives on their horse ranch, running their entertainment network, and other related ventures. When they’re not writing, they’re riding.