Mesmerized Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  MORE BY ALICE WARD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  Mesmerized

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  CLICK HERE to download my bestselling novel The Billionaire Prisoner for FREE! This Book is NOT Available Anywhere Else! PLUS - Zek, the main character will personally deliver it to YOU! You’ll also join my VIP Readers’ Club and be the first to know about new releases, free book offers, sales, exclusive giveaways, early sneak peeks of new releases, cover reveals and more!

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  I have a legacy to fulfill. She has memories to hold on to. Who will win this clash of wills?

  As newly minted CEO of the Pennington’s enterprise, I’m thrust into the big shoes my late father left for his only son. My first task: Convince a certain stubborn metaphysical shop owner to sell the last piece of property needed to build our new superstore.

  But she isn’t giving in.

  I’m prepared to take Gretchen Laughlin down, until I meet her. Then, it all falls apart. Those bewitching mossy eyes, that snappish tongue, and her utter lack of intimidation has me torn and twisted, leading me to make a choice... the legacy or the girl.

  I can’t have both. Or can I?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  *** This is a full length novel with a happily ever after, no cliffhanger, no cheating, and plenty of steam. ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  Gretchen

  Lukewarm tea and passive-aggressive letters were plaguing my life.

  “Crap!”

  I jumped back from the wall-mounted mailbox, whose hinged cap banged shut as the overused travel mug from my college days betrayed me by freckling the front of my dress in a warm, amber dribble. The spray of tea on the fabric bloomed into sickly looking petals, and I was forced to shoot my arm out and hold the mug away from me like a symbolic totem to keep the remaining trickle from my previously flawless outfit.

  I growled deep in my chest. It was all Pennington’s fault.

  The morning had been going fine until I’d balanced the mug precariously between my elbow and ribcage to free up my hands, unlock the mailbox, and dig into the wad of envelopes. I was pulling the pile out when a flash of formal green font caught my attention, and I jammed the entire heap back into the box with such force that my mug and its decaying seal didn’t stand a chance against the jostling. At least the dry cleaner would benefit, but there was now a stain on the sidewalk in front of my store that looked like someone had been sick.

  Muttering a string of obscenities under my breath, I swiped my hand across the bottom of the mug to clear away the few droplets left and glared at the mailbox. It stared back at me with blank nonchalance. I had long loved that mailbox, with its glossy red paint and vintage flourished details, but it seemed to have turned on me lately and made friends with enemies. It was probably in cahoots with the mug, and judging by the way my favorite chair had started to squeak whenever I sat down, other possessions would soon join the conspiracy.

  “Morning, Gretchen!”

  I ceased my cussing and turned to find Marshall Dodd trotting in my direction. His sneakers lit up with every step, and several candy necklaces clacked together as they bounced against his chest. Add the six pinwheels hanging from his front pockets, and he was essentially the world’s largest man-child.

  “Hey, Marshall.” I pasted on a smile as he slowed to a stop at the curb and took long, wheezing breaths.

  “Nice day.” He bent over to plant his hands on his knees, necklaces swinging, and shook his head. “Man, I gotta get into shape.”

  “Mmm.” There was no good way to respond because agreeing with him would have been rude but disagreeing would’ve been nothing short of an invitation to dinner in Marshall’s mind. He was a harmless guy, but his social insight was lacking.

  A quick suck on his inhaler put his labored breathing to rest, and he straightened up. “Glad I caught you. Got some news.”

  “Good news, I hope.”

  “Could say that.” He bit a blue disc off one of the necklaces. I tried not to stare at the candy dust powdering his chapped lower lip. “I sold the store.”

  My heart plummeted into my stomach, and I jerked back in reaction, sending more tea streaming over my hand. “Wow. I can’t believe it.” The stale weight of hopelessness pressed down on my shoulders. For the sake of Marshall and his pleased grin, however, I kept my smile in place. “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. His bright smile only grew brighter. “A shock, I know. Spent so long finding all those childhood collectibles and watching the price trends, been in business for six years. Couldn’t refuse the offer, though. Been putting it off, but…”

  I flicked my gaze past his ear, briefly glancing at the hanging wooden sign I’d had customized to read “Auras: A Metaphysical Specialty Store,” and let his rambling dull to white noise. The street behind him was one I had known my entire life, but it was an unfamiliar backdrop now.

  Even with thick, golden rays of October sunshine kissing the cheerful brick-and-stone store façades, there were symptoms of surrender and defeat everywhere. Banners advertising going-out-of-business sales in bold letters flapped beneath perky striped awnings. Sandwich boards with closing dates scrawled in chalk interrupted the strolling flow of the sidewalks. Several box trucks were parked at the front of shops that had already shut their doors, and the mismatched inventory that hadn’t been sold in time was stacked carelessly at their bumpers. This was a block that had given up.

  It was all Pennington’s fault.

  My hometown of Fawn, Michigan was a pleasant little hamlet set along the northern coast of Lake Michigan. At some point during the last fifty years, the entire county had become a prime tourist destination for our historical landmarks, nautical activities, and small-town charm. When the droves of summertime visitors slowed for the winter months, Fawn remained peppered with the quirky locals who kept the region alive with flavor hearkening back to a simpler time. We didn’t even have a McDonald’s because our town council kept voting it down for twenty years before the fast food joint quit trying. I was proud to be part of a community built on family businesses and mom-and-pop shops.

  Enter Pennington’s, a nationwide superstore chain and the bane of all that Fawn represented. Someone somewhere decided my tiny little tourist town was in need of inexpensive, low-quality, mass-produced goods for health, beauty, and home, and at least half the council had lost their minds and approved property acquisition.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, Pennington’s had come to the decision that the entire Marke
t Street block where I and a number of others made our livings was the land they wished to acquire. The first to sell was Bitty Baker, who, ironically enough, owned the bakery on the corner of Market and Rhodes. Bitty had been talking about retiring for a decade, and the monetary offer she received from Pennington’s for her plot gave her the inarguable out she’d been wanting.

  Over the course of the next three months, other business owners began to succumb one by one to the glittering dollar signs dangled in front of them, and the kitschy street I once knew became a somber glimpse into what was to come.

  Marshall was evidently the latest to turn his life’s dream over to the soul-sucking corporate machine, though he acted as if this drastic decision was as commonplace as choosing which fruit-flavored cereal would best satisfy him this morning. “I may want to open up again somewhere else. Heard Barney might be closing the microwave store down on Smoky Trail. Could be worth checking into.”

  “Could be.” I shrugged nonchalantly and twisted away from the depressing sight of Market Street to retrieve my mail successfully this time. The envelope featuring that hatefully elegant emerald script was at the very top of the stack, and I couldn’t stop my lip from curling as I locked my mailbox.

  “Yeah.” A waft of fresh autumn air sent the pinwheels hanging from Marshall’s pockets into spirals. “Be a shame, though. Where are we gonna buy our microwaves?”

  “Pennington’s, probably,” I replied with the dryness of a good Cabernet. god, I could use a good Cabernet. Hell, even a bad one would be welcome at this point.

  He mused aloud about that as I cast one last sour look at my fragmented neighborhood before turning the chipped white knob to my own shop. Chimes tinkled a fairy’s greeting to me as I opened the door, and I was instantly bathed in a pungent blend of herbal and floral aromas.

  Stepping over the threshold, I flipped the CLOSED sign in the paned window to OPEN and switched on the seven Himalayan salt lamps in the entrance display. Marshall followed me in with the familiarity of a regularly invited guest, still yammering about the benefits and disadvantages of a big-box store taking up residency in Fawn.

  I started the usual Sounds of the Sea soundtrack I played during business hours, but it didn’t quell his chatter. “Might be nice not having to drive all the way to Escanaba for new video game releases, though.”

  “That’s a really thin silver lining, Marshall.” I clunked my travel mug a little too aggressively on the service counter and plopped the mail beside it with an added measure of hostility. To my smug satisfaction, I noticed pale tea stains on the otherwise pristine corporate envelope where I’d held mail and mug together to free up my doorknob-turning hand. “Besides, as far as I’m concerned, there won’t be any Pennington’s in Fawn. Not on the Market Street block, anyway.”

  He lifted his sandy bangs to scratch his forehead. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not selling.” I gritted my teeth and set my jaw.

  “Didn’t think I would either.” He lifted a flippant shoulder as he leaned down to rest his elbows on the glass countertop, which also served as my jewelry display case. I watched the sunlight filtering through the window onto the sterling silver settings, bouncing in prismatic arcs to the shiny pinwheel petals dressing Marshall’s hips, and shooting back again to rest upon the array of stones and crystals that made each piece unique.

  “You did what you thought was right for you at a time you thought made sense. I respect that.” I reached into the case to straighten a pair of lapis lazuli drop earrings, then decided to move an onyx bracelet from one side to the other. Their energies were combatting each other today. “Selling isn’t right for me, and it definitely doesn’t make sense.”

  Marshall plucked the top envelope from the pile and held it up. My gaze was involuntarily pulled to the repugnant name in the upper-left corner, and my gut shriveled with resentment. He rocked it from side to side and followed the movement with his eyes. “Pretty sure they’ve sent enough of these to everyone on the block to repaper all our stores.”

  “That’s my third this month.”

  “Kind of gets to a point where it feels foolish to keep saying no, doesn’t it?”

  That was the thing about Marshall. He had the look and behavior of a man refusing to grow up, going so far as to make his career out of selling toys, collectible cards, and comic books, but then he’d say something that made people realize he was actually smarter than all of us because he knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.

  Even the grade-schooler getup was a meticulously planned marketing tactic to promote his business. Though, now that he’d sold, I had to raise my brows a little at the Cartoon Network t-shirt he wore.

  “I find the money insulting.” Rounding the counter to the sales floor again, I started rearranging the herb satchel display, as the premeasured packets had gotten intermixed the day before when a customer kept giving them to her daughter to sniff and stuck them back wherever she wanted. Ginger was blending with thyme, and the lemongrass rod didn’t have a single mesh baggie of lemongrass on it. I unhooked the rod from the rotating display and extended it toward Marshall. “Would you mind holding this for a second, please?”

  “Sure.” He took it with nimble fingers, but he wasn’t deterred from the conversation at hand. “Pennington’s hasn’t offered you enough?”

  “They’ve offered me more than enough. It’s ridiculous what they’re willing to pay me to vacate the property and turn the deed over to them.” I shook my head, feeling my insides starting to twist together in indignant disgust. “If Auras was just a financial means to an end to me, and Fawn was nothing more than the town where I grew up, I’d hop on that wagon with you and let them have the place. This store is my memories. Not to mention I live upstairs, and that apartment has memories too. Pennington’s doesn’t give a damn about nostalgia or sentimental value, though. They seem to think money is the be-all, end-all. I’m definitely not giving a company like that a leg to stand on in this town.”

  Marshall handed the rod back to me as I reached for it, and he studied the Pennington’s envelope with a critical eye. “Makes sense. Can I just say one thing?”

  “Of course.”

  “Memories can be made anywhere.” He flipped the envelope between his fingers and turned his critical eye to me. “Sometimes, turning down the opportunity to make new memories is worse than clinging to the old ones.”

  There it was, the Marshall kernel of wisdom that left me feeling like I was a high school dropout in the presence of Einstein. I frowned, pausing my reorganization, and considered what he said. There was justified truth to his words, but the very idea of closing the door to Auras and letting it become nothing more than the dirt beneath a brand new commercial megastore gave me a stomachache.

  “Just think about it.” He dropped the envelope back onto the pile of less offensive mail and straightened up. “You’re the last one holding out. Hate for you to have regrets.”

  I nodded, and he departed with an enthusiastic wave akin to a child flagging down the ice cream truck. When he left, the chimes on the door clinked a musical goodbye, and I was left alone in my shop of memories.

  I looked around at the silk tapestries depicting moon phases and astrological signs, the shelves stacked high with slender boxes of incense, the tables of Tibetan singing bowls, and naturally formed geodes. Strands of white sage bundles hung from the ceiling to rest against whitewashed clapboard walls, and candles of every shape and hue filled each shelf, tabletop, and display with bright spots of color. If I gave in to Pennington’s mounting pressure, all I saw before me would become a parking lot or aisles of plastic dishware.

  In a flash, I was infuriated. The massive chain might have harassed and bullied my peers into succumbing to the degradation of our quaint community, but I refused to join them. Snatching the envelope and tearing it open without ceremony, I flattened it against the counter and pulled my cell from my back pocket. Something caught my eye as I pulled up my call log.<
br />
  Over the course of months, I’d received enough of these letters to have memorized their appearance. The only thing ever to change was the dollar amount they were offering and the date. This letter was different, though. The wording had changed completely, and while the money had indeed increased as usual, the name at the bottom was a new one.

  Cash Pennington, CEO.

  His signature, clear and proud, was sketched in real pen ink, and beneath his name was a list of contact information including a direct extension. I clenched my jaw, punched the number into my phone, and waited for the ringing to start. So far, my refusals had fallen on deaf ears. Maybe a message to the very top of the chain would finally get the beast off my back.

  “Pennington’s Corporate Headquarters, how may I direct your call?”

  The woman sounded young and snobby, and I pictured a bleach blonde with manicured nails and a permanently bored expression.

  “Cash Pennington, please.” I wasn’t messing around with casual conversation and idle niceties but couldn’t stop myself from adding the “please” at the end. My grandmother would metaphorically kick me if I forgot the good manners she’d instilled in me.

  “Please hold.” The line flooded with tacky elevator music, and I tapped my fingertips impatiently against the countertop. I hadn’t yet decided how to handle this conversation as the call was made impulsively, but I figured I only had seconds to choose whether I was going to fly off the handle or kill him with kindness.

  The music stopped, and there was nothing but silence for a fraction of a second before a new female voice filled my ear. “Mr. Pennington’s office. How can I help you?”

  “I need to speak with Cash Pennington, please.” It seemed the man had an army of unenthusiastic women between him and the world.

  “Mr. Pennington is currently on a call.” Her Oklahoma twang was so strong that I pressed the phone hard against my ear in an attempt to correctly understand her. “Can I take a message?”

  For whatever reason, I found the idea of being added to a list of other hopeful callers as insulting as the constant string of letters urging me to sell despite my many rejections. After months of badgering, the least I felt Mr. Pennington could do was pick up the phone when I reached out to him for once.