Snippet Saturday – Magical

I'm pretty sure the cover for GOES DOWN EASY is my favorite Blaze cover ever!

What Perry wanted most of all was for Jack to go away. He disturbed her, and she did not like being disturbed. Especially when, after living a rather disturbing life, she was finally feeling the calm of things going her way.

She stood at the register in Sugar Blues, having just rung up a customer. It seemed a good place to stay, what with the long, glass-topped counter between her and Jack. Because now that the two of them were alone, her senses were ringing high and loud.

He closed the book on Reiki training through which he'd been leafing and made his way to the rear of the shop. Of course she had to notice his walk, how he moved, all lanky and long and loose. She wasn't supposed to notice that about him, and she sure wasn't supposed to like it.

She sighed, obviously having listened too much to Sugar singing the blues, waxing eloquent about the beautiful men who'd broken her heart. Jack stopped at the counter, picked up a tiny gold incense burner. Funny how he always had to have his hands on something, stroking, fondling.

Perry groaned, catching the forward progression of her thoughts one stroke too late. "If you break it, you've bought it."

"Yeah," he said, running his thumb over the Buddha's belly. "I saw the sign on the door. Do you really sell enough of this crap to stay in business?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Do you insult everyone you meet or is this special treatment only for me?"

"I just say what comes to me."

"Open mouth, insert foot?"

He shrugged. "Guess that's one way of looking at it."

She barely managed to keep herself from rolling her eyes. "But not your way."

"Sorry, no," he said, returning the burner to the counter and reaching for her blue-plumed pen.

She moved it out of his reach before he grabbed it. "Do you think you could limit your touchy-feely habit to items you're going to buy?"

He laughed then, the sound deep and resonant like that of bass guitar, one that vibrated through her, tickling, taunting, one she knew she was going to have a problem with if he stayed around for long.

Or not, she amended moments later when he said, "There's nothing about this place that I buy. Horoscopes and healings and protection charms? What a bunch of—"

"—a bunch of what?" She bristled further, not quite sure why she was letting him get to her when his opinion was one she'd run up against too many times to count. "A bunch of crap? A bunch of, what did you call it earlier, hocus-pocus?"

"You're going to tell me it's not? That you believe—" he glanced at the cover of the book and read the copy "—I can learn how to create an electro-magnetic balance all the way to the cellular level in the physical body? Just by taking a couple of classes?"

She pruned her lips, forced them to relax. "I believe there are many things not easily unexplained by conventional reasoning."

"Let me guess. You're a big X-Files fan."

This time she gave in, rolling her eyes. "Just my luck, stuck entertaining a smart ass."

"Smart enough to know the difference between what's real and what isn't," he said, a brow going up and drawing her gaze to his lashes again.

"You think Detective Franklin would be here if Della's visions were fabricated? If he didn't have proof that what she sees is real?" Gah, but she hated finding intelligent minds closed.

"You tell me."

"What, and waste my breath? I think I'd rather show you," she said, having heard the faint croon of a female voice drifting down the stairs behind her.

He snorted. "I've been around the block, sister. I've pretty much seen it all."

"Ah, but have you listened to it?"

"Listened to what?"

She narrowed her gaze. "If I let you come around here, do you think you can keep your hands to yourself?"

The words left her mouth before she could stop them, swirling through the air in an ever tightening loop, settling around her neck like a noose to choke her.

His eyes flashed, specks of silver bright in the deep dark gray. He let his gaze drop from her face to her shoulders before she glared and moved behind the cash register to hide.

He laughed again, shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and walked his lazy and loose lanky way around to where she stood.

"Better?" he asked once he was close enough to touch . . . if only she had the guts to reach out.

What would be better would be to start this day over and not have him show up to disturb her. "Yes. Now listen."

She backed toward the staircase and motioned him forward. Wariness in his expression, he did as she asked, stopping when she held up one hand.

"Listen," she whispered, standing on one side of the stairwell opening as he stood on the other. "Tell me what you hear."

He propped a shoulder against the wall and hung his head; she leaned into the corner, her hands stacked behind her.



The days just ain't the same . . .

The walls of the stairwell that rose to the second floor were brick and hung with framed photos of Sugar. At clubs in the old Storyville district, performing with Jelly Roll Morton and Johnny Dodds.

The sun hangs low and hangs dark . . .

More Sugar Babin memorabilia remained stored in the attic. LP's and costumes. Even her famous gold cigarette case and gnarled walking stick.

The nights never end, never fade . . .

Perry didn't know how Jack—how anyone—could deny the interaction between this world and those that lay beyond when hearing Sugar sing.

Black is the color of my heart . . .

Neither did she understand why he wasn't saying anything. "Well?"

Still staring down at the floor, he shrugged. "Your aunt left a radio playing?"

"No." Perry shook her head. "That's Sugar."

"Another aunt?"

"This used to be where she lived. This building. She was a famous blues singer."

"So you pipe the music into the shop for old times' sake."

"No. That's Sugar singing." She waited and waited, but his expression never changed. "She died after a suspicious fall down the stairs. These stairs," she added, pointing.

"Then the piping's about exploiting the legend?"

It took all her control not to stomp her foot. "Jack, there is no piping. That singing you hear is Sugar's ghost."

For more Snippet Saturday excerpts:

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Sasha White

Jody Wallace

Lauren Dane

Beth-Ann Mason

Shiloh Walker

Eliza Gayle

Myla Jackson