Prologue I

Edinburgh, Scotland

       “Good morning, Margaret.” Dr. Neil Macalister formally inclined his head, offering his arm to the woman he’d been dating for approximately two months. Escorting her to a middle pew in Blackfriar Kirk’s sanctuary, he settled into the seat beside her and awaited the deliverance of the Sunday sermon.

Quietly clearing her throat, Margaret smiled as she offered him a stick of gum. “Would you care for a piece?” She blushed, growing nervous when he turned to regard her through his wire-rimmed spectacles. “I-It’s your favorite,” she stammered out.

         Neil slowly smiled, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Thank you. That was thoughtful of you, my dear.” He accepted the stick of gum and popped it into his mouth. Chewing quietly, he turned his attention back toward the front of the sanctuary where even now the minister was making his way to the podium.

         As the sermon began, Neil found his thoughts straying to the woman beside him. Margaret was desirous of marriage, he knew, and truth be told Neil had reached the stage in life where he no longer cared to be alone. He was thirty-nine, almost forty, could claim no children, and had never been wed. So for what was at least the fifth time in the past two weeks he allowed himself to consider the merits behind a union with Margaret.

       Companionship. Mutual respect. Similar upbringings. And Margaret was a fine cook to boot. She would make for a brilliant housewife and a terrific mother to his future children. He wished he held no qualms whatsoever in regards to marriage, but he supposed a touch of cold feet was to be expected.

       Margaret was rather ordinary of face and form, neither ugly nor beautiful. She was timid and reserved by nature, preferring to defer to Neil in all things. There was nothing particularly exciting about Margaret or her life, her idea of a good time being dinner over at her mum’s every Sunday following worship services. But Neil didn’t mind.

Neil was a sensible man not given to flights of fancy or passionate exchanges. A university lecturer of mathematics, he was authoritative and a tad brusque, dealing better with numbers than with people. Margaret understood these things about him and tolerated him for what he was. In return, he tolerated her affection for the church, not being an overly religious sort himself.

         In so much that Margaret was a tad humdrum, so too was Neil. He wasn’t the sort of man one puts on a guest list in the hopes of livening up a dull party, but rather he was the sort of man one calls upon when they have a flat tire and are in need of a ride to work. He was reliable and dependable, the very attributes that assured him he’d make Margaret a most proper husband.

         When the sermon came to an end, Neil rose to his feet and ushered Margaret towards her car. She clung to his arm, blushing slightly at the intimate feel of his muscles bulging beneath her hand. “I had a terrific time. I thought the sermon quite good. Did you?” she asked hopefully.

         Neil nodded his agreement. “I particularly enjoyed the minister’s recitation on the book of Daniel. I thought his insight remarkable.”

         “Indeed,” Margaret demurred, “I can only agree.”

He smiled.

When they reached the Toyota, she handed him the keys and waited while he unlocked the car door for her. “Will I see you at mum’s this afternoon?” She released his arm and smiled demurely. “She’s preparing all your favorite dishes.”

Neil rubbed his belly and grinned. “How can I pass up so tempting an offer. Of course I’ll be there, Margaret.”

Her blush grew deeper. “I’ll see you at two then.”

“At two it is.”

Neil watched as Margaret’s sensible four-door sedan made a turn out of Blackfriar Kirk’s parking lot and into traffic. She truly was all things practical and reliable, characteristics that were manifested in everything from her conservative no-frills attire to her clean but modest car.

He supposed he already knew what his decision should be. Neil was, after all, a most sensible man.

Prologue II

Atlanta, Georgia

        “Take it off, baby! Take it off!”

        “That’s right honey! Hell yeah!”

         Valentina Jason-Elliot laughed at her best friends’ antics. She watched in amused delight as Cynthia and Holly jumped up out of their seats and stuffed five dollar bills down an almost naked male stripper’s g-string. The stripper, who went by the stage name Hang Twelve, looked as though he lived up to his reputation. He winked at the women, grinning audaciously as they oohed and awed over the bulge in his metallic silver undergarment. Valentina dissolved into a fit of giggles.

         “What’s so funny?” Cynthia settled back into her seat and grinned as she picked up her glass of Chardonnay.

         Valentina smiled. “From Holly I’ve come to expect the outrageous, but from you?” She shook her head and chuckled. “Too funny.”

         Cynthia saluted her with the glass of wine. “When the cat’s away...” She let her sentence trail off playfully, wiggling her eyebrows like Groucho Marx. She knew Valentina would never judge her or think anything of the fact that a woman married twelve years was indulging in a little harmless fun on a night out with her single friends.

Indeed, Valentina had long been considered the freethinker of their group, which was saying a lot for two writers and an artist. Born to hippie parents who believed in everything from free love to the legalization of marijuana, very little had been considered taboo while growing up.

        In her early twenties, Valentina had dabbled in everything from lesbian sex to spending the occasional weekend getaway at nude resorts such as Jamaica’s famous Hedonism. She’d dated men of different cultures, men of different social strata, and because of that fact she was very comfortable and assured of what made her tick.

Unlike the friends of her acquaintance, Valentina’s parents had actually encouraged her to try new things, to experiment sexually that she might find what worked for her and what didn’t. They’d lectured her severely to be careful, to always take precaution against diseases, but they’d encouraged her nonetheless. A fact that had made her family life seem quite idyllic and trendy amongst her peers while growing up.

In truth, her life had been no more idyllic than anyone else’s. Her family had experienced the same ups and downs, joys and sorrows, as any other family. They’d just been more open with each other about the taboo than what was probably considered normal.

Now twenty-nine and getting closer to the big three-o, she knew what she wanted, had a firm grasp on her libido and its needs. She no longer had the drive to experiment, hadn’t had such an urge in over three years in fact, for she was very much in touch with her desires.

And what she desired more than anything else, she’d realized a little over a month ago, was an exclusive, monogamous relationship with a man as adventurous as she was. A man who puts the F in Fun, a man who could snag her attention and keep it.

She didn’t want a boring, reliable geek like the man Cynthia was married to. Osmond was a nice man she supposed, but dull, dull, dull. No, she wanted something vastly different for herself. She wanted a man who would whisk her away on a moment’s notice for a diving trip to Micronesia, take her to all of the latest gallery exhibits of her favorite artists, fly her to Paris on a whim and hold her captive there for a week or two while they made love and drank wine.

Osmond’s idea of adventurous, Cynthia had complained to her, was dinner out at the local steakhouse, and if she was really lucky, a movie afterwards. Definitely not what Valentina was looking for.

Valentina good-naturedly blamed her inability to settle for the ordinary on her far from ordinary parents. They heralded from the Age of Aquarius, from a moment in time when passion had ruled over logic. And Valentina had followed in their footsteps in more ways than one.

Her mother was a performance artist, her father an equally talented playwright. By the age of ten, Valentina had known she would follow their lead, and indeed, like her father, she had become a writer. Where her father wrote for Broadway, however, she wrote strictly suspense novels. She hadn’t quite reached the level of notoriety her parents had, but she was firmly on her way.

“So,” Cynthia asked, her attention now trained on Valentina since the pulsating noise of the music and the strobe lights from the stage were winding down until the next act, “how long will you be gone to that art festival?”

“Which one?” Holly said wryly.

Cynthia chuckled. “The overseas one. That festival in Edinburgh.”

Valentina smiled, her light green eyes twinkling. “A month. The festival is the grandest in Europe I’m told. I can’t wait to see it.”

Cynthia nodded. “Is this just another working holiday or a real honest-to-goodness, full-fledged vacation?”

“I guess you could say both.” She picked up her White Russian and swirled it around in the glass. “Ballast Books is throwing a couple of parties there in an effort to introduce their writers to the European market. But for the most part the month is my own.”

“Lucky girl.”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “You guys wanna come?” She looked pointedly at Cynthia. “You’re supposed to be there anyway. You are a Ballast writer if you will recall.”

Cynthia snorted at that. “Os would never let me leave for an entire month, girl. He’d never watch Erica while I was gone. You know that.”

Holly sighed. “It’s a no-go for me too. I’ve got two exhibits scheduled next month.”

“I’m sorry I’ll miss them,” Valentina said sincerely. “I wish I’d known about them before I went and prepaid for the entire month’s trip.”

Holly waved that away. “I understand. Besides, I haven’t left my Black Period yet,” she said dramatically. “The pieces I’ll be exhibiting are all new ones, but nothing drastically altered from my last showing in Manhattan.”

Valentina nodded. “I love your Black Period. Very smoky and sexy.” Smiling slowly, she tilted her head toward Cynthia. “And if you change your mind and can get away, if even for a few days, come on over. I’ve already got the hotel room, all you need are the plane tickets.”

Cynthia smiled, loving the idea. “Thank you. If I can arrange it, I’ll be there!”

Valentina didn’t respond because the music was picking back up and a new performer dressed up like Darth Vader was taking to the stage. Besides, there was no point in responding. Cynthia would never show up in Edinburgh and they both knew it. Cynthia would never do anything to rock the boat at home in order to gain a few days of paradise sans Osmond. Cynthia was a most sensible woman, a woman not given to flights of fancy or momentary whims.

Nothing at all like Valentina.