Titolo: The final omen
Autore: Heather Topham Wood
Genere: New adult paranormal, romance
Trama: Psychic Kate Edwards had seen her death in a premonition. She was given the opportunity to stop her murder from happening and finally reconnect with her love Detective Jared Corbett. However, fate had different ideas…
Kate finds herself trapped between life and death. Her only companion is Rose Corbett, Jared’s long dead mother. Rose offers answers to many of Kate’s long-awaited questions and alludes to what the future could hold. However, before Kate can finally be happy, she must complete a seemingly impossible task: save Jared from his own tragic fate.
Trama: Psychic Kate Edwards had seen her death in a premonition. She was given the opportunity to stop her murder from happening and finally reconnect with her love Detective Jared Corbett. However, fate had different ideas…
Kate finds herself trapped between life and death. Her only companion is Rose Corbett, Jared’s long dead mother. Rose offers answers to many of Kate’s long-awaited questions and alludes to what the future could hold. However, before Kate can finally be happy, she must complete a seemingly impossible task: save Jared from his own tragic fate.
Heather Topham Wood’s obsession with novels began in childhood while growing up in a shore town in New Jersey. Writing since her teens, she recently returned to penning novels after a successful career as a freelance writer. In 2012, she published the first two novels in her Second Sight series: First Visions and New Revelations. Heather graduated from the College of New Jersey in 2005 and holds a bachelor's degree in English. Her freelance work has appeared in publications such as USA Today, Livestrong.com, Outlook by the Bay and Step in Style magazine. She resides in Trenton, New Jersey with her husband and two sons. Besides writing, Heather is a pop culture fanatic and has an obsession with supernatural novels and TV shows.
#1
Just breathe, Kate…
Hysteria bubbled up inside of Kate
Edwards as she realized her ridiculous line of thinking. She couldn’t breathe.
Because she was dead, and the dead didn’t need to breathe.
Grasping the edge of the kitchen
countertop for support, she used her free hand to touch the side of her face.
She needed assurances of the corporeality of her body. Her flesh felt real.
Taking a quick inventory of the rest of her body, she saw the same arms and
legs, the same ten pounds she’d been trying to lose.
Her head snapped up and Rose Corbett
was still standing there, staring at Kate with a mix of emotions she couldn’t
discern. Anguish floored her again as she took in Rose’s raven colored hair,
the same hair of her son, Jared. The son Kate craved with her entire being. The
one she’d told she loved before she died. She’d abandoned him like his parents
had done. How many losses did he need to accumulate until he broke apart completely?
They were in the Edwards’ home or some
alternate version of it. Minutes ago, or possibly longer since she was unsure
if time worked the same, she’d been murdered by an insane masked intruder in
her own home. The irony was she had a premonition of her murder before it
happened. Details had changed, but the final act remained the same—she ended up
in a puddle of blood on the floor, butchered, her ex-boyfriend Jared too late
to revive her.
When she came to in the dining room,
nary a cut in sight, she assumed it was another premonition. Her assumption
being the psychic visions were once again trying to protect her. A flash of
black hair in the kitchen made her tremble with relief. Jared was there! She’d confess everything to him, tell him about
her premonitions, and how she feared someone wanted her dead. He’d protected
her in the past and he’d do it again. Instead, Rose had stepped towards Kate,
saying her name.
“Why?” Kate demanded. “What was the
point of it all? Why did I have the premonitions if I was going to die no
matter what I did?”
A security system and self-defense
training hadn’t stopped her attack. Investigating her future murder with fellow
psychic Declan Brayden hadn’t unmasked her killer. Months of knowing she
could die, but foolishly believing her circumstances weren’t hopeless.
“Kate, I…” Rose began.
“You can’t…I can’t hear you say it. Because
when you say the words, it’ll be real and I’ll be forced to accept that it’s
all over.” She took a long minute to study Rose, taking in her thick dark
eyelashes and her glossy midnight black hair, cascading in waves to her
waistline. She was exquisite, unearthly beautiful in a yellow sundress. She
didn’t look much older than Kate’s twenty-two. It was as if Rose was stuck in
time, destined to remain the same age she was at the time of her death. “Is
this my purgatory? Being stuck inside my house and forced to stare at a
spitting image of him?”
#2
He tilted his head as they entered the
sunroom. “Is that Nelly’s Hot in Here
you have playing?”
“Yes; and let me tell you it was slim
pickings trying to find decent music from the year you graduated. After some
investigation on my part, I did find out your school’s prom song,” she bragged.
He followed her to the iPod while she
shuffled through the songs. Eve 6’s Here’s
to the Night blared through the sound system. She’d cleared away the patio
set they had in the sunroom to create a makeshift dance floor. His hands
instinctively wrapped tightly around her waist and they began to sway to the
music.
“I wish my class had picked a more
upbeat song. The lyrics ‘In a day and a day love, I’m gonna be gone for good
again’ doesn’t exactly work for our fun night.”
“We should’ve picked my prom song. It
was Love Story,” She added after he
twirled her. “You can’t go wrong with Taylor Swift.”
He dipped her low and kept her
suspended. Her left leg reached out in front of her body as he supported her
weight by pressing his hands against her lower back. He shifted forward to rain
a trail of kisses starting at her chin to the top of her neckline. “I can’t
believe you went to all of this trouble for me. It’s amazing.” He moved his
lips to her ear. “You are amazing.”
She snaked her hands around his neck
and lifted out of the dip. She crushed her mouth against his and he responded
hungrily. His hands caressed down her back before resting against her backside.
He palmed her behind and pulled her nearer while never breaking their kiss.
As she broke away, breathless, she
laughed nervously. “You can’t grope me yet, you haven’t even tried the punch.”
“Maybe we could have the punch later.”
Between the gleam in his eyes and the seductive tone of his voice, he was
apparently putting the moves on her. Judging by her weakened knees, it was
working.
Opening her mouth to protest, she instead
was silenced by his kiss. His tongue slipped inside her mouth and collided with
her own. His hand moved to the front of her dress and he caressed her breasts.
As he flicked the fabric across her nipples, she moaned into his mouth. She
felt dizzy over his actions and unsure of whether to pay attention to what he
was doing with his mouth or with his hands.
She pressed into him and he fell back
onto the patio sofa. Refusing to halt the passionate embrace, she instead
straddled him across his lap. As she moved close to nibble his earlobe, her
knees dug into the sofa cushions. His hand became tangled in her hair,
prompting her to remove the clip and toss it to the floor. His tongue snaked up
her neck until he began to nibble on her ear. He growled, “God, I’ve wanted you
for so long.”
Kate realized she should stop him. He
was heading into territory she wasn’t ready to visit. But her throat seized up
when she tried to tell him to hit the brakes. Her body wanted him and the
things he was doing to her made it impossible to imagine ending the moment.
His hands moved to her thighs and he
stroked the bare skin below her dress’s hem. She rocked forward and his fingers
inched below the skirt. Her skin tingled where he touched, and she felt his
mark long after his hands moved to another part of her. As she leaned forward
to kiss him, she felt him growing excited beneath her.
Her body screamed for him, desiring
nothing more than to revel in the feeling of him inside of her. Yet as his hand
reached for her back zipper, she leaped off of him. She
stumbled backwards in her haste, just barely regaining her balance as her face
grew hot with embarrassment.
“Kate?” he questioned softly.
#3
“Did you slip some crack in my iced
tea? Because I could’ve sworn you just said Declan was coming to Atlantic City
with me,” Kate asked, her voice rising with disbelief. Her suitcase was packed
for the bachelorette weekend and set next to the front door. Jared had stopped
home for lunch to see her off and had decided to drop an unexpected bombshell
on her. He gave her a sheepish look and shoved his hands into his pants
pockets.
“Kate, it’s not the ideal situation for
me, either, but I can’t get out of work. Believe me, I tried. Sending you off
with another guy, especially Declan, feels like a punch to the gut.”
“Here’s a thought: Neither of you come
with me,” she said and set her iced tea in the kitchen sink.
“You know that’s not an option. Someone
is after you and you can’t go out unprotected…”
She snorted in response. “And Declan is
supposed to keep me safe. Did you lend him a gun?”
“We live in New Jersey; he can’t just
go around carrying a concealed weapon. He can fight though, and he’s one of the
few people I trust to look after you when I’m not around.”
“Jared, I’m going to a bachelorette
party. No boys allowed. Julie will kill me if I show up with Declan in tow,”
Kate argued. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to do anything to put myself in
jeopardy. I’ll be with Julie and her girlfriends in the middle of a crowded
casino.” The doorbell rang and Kate’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m guessing that’s
Declan now.”
“He knows to stay out of your way. I
told him to just fade into the background and look out for anything
suspicious.”
“That’s hilarious. Declan can’t fade
into the background, it goes against his basic nature. His mere presence just
screams look at me.”
Jared didn’t respond and opened the
door to permit Declan inside. Her psychic friend noticed her displeasure
immediately. “What’s the matter, Kit Kat?”
She silently seethed, causing Jared to
answer on her behalf. “Kate is pissed that I asked you to go to Atlantic City
with her.”
Declan placed his hand over his heart.
“You wound me. And to think I’ve spent all morning putting together our
playlist for the road trip.”
“It’s a bachelorette party. It’s a time
for the bride to be with her best friends and get dressed up in ridiculous
clothing. The clothing may or may not include pictures of penises. The night
will also involve elaborate drinking games that aim to get the bride as drunk
as possible. At the end of it all, the bride will hurl because of the copious
amounts of alcohol consumed.” Kate looked pointedly at Declan. “It’s not a time
for the maid of honor to bring along a male party crasher.”
He gave her a dumbfounded look. After a
second, he apologized, “Sorry Kate, you lost me after I heard you say the word
penises.”
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