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    Glass
    Glass
    Glass
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Glass

    By Suzanne D. Williams

    ()

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    About this ebook

    “Cerise.” The pull of her breath flared her nostrils the tiniest bit and lifted her chest. She was beautiful, and priceless, like this house. She didn’t deserve to be trapped by all its legends. Because that is all this was, the stories of the past holding her in some vice-like grip, the grip of an old woman who wouldn’t let them go.

    -----

    Andre Garner, up-and-coming glassmaker, thought the trip to the island was worth the risk. He’s been warned the place is full of mystery, that the old woman living there is peculiar and anything can happen. 

    Yet the Delacroix glass collection is the stuff of fables. To contribute to it could make his career and set him up for a very long time. 

    But soon the stories and legends of the past pull him in, he and the beautiful girl he didn’t expect to find there. Trapped together, unable to escape, he finds the most valuable thing inside isn’t the glass at all.

    A romantic mystery by best-selling author, SUZANNE D. WILLIAMS. 31,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSuzanne D. Williams
    Release dateFeb 22, 2016
    ISBN9781524223281
    Glass
    Author

    Suzanne D. Williams

    Best-selling author, Suzanne D. Williams, is a native Floridian, wife, mother, and photographer. She is the author of both nonfiction and fiction books. She writes a monthly column for Steves-Digicams.com on the subject of digital photography, as well as devotionals and instructional articles for various blogs. She also does graphic design for self-publishing authors. She is co-founder of THE EDGE. To learn more about what she’s doing and check out her extensive catalogue of stories, visit http://suzanne-williams-photography.blogspot.com/ or link with her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/suzannedwilliamsauthor.

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      Book preview

      Glass - Suzanne D. Williams

      SUZANNE D. WILLIAMS

      Feel-Good Romance

      © 2013 GLASS by Suzanne D. Williams

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Epilogue

      From The Author

      PROLOGUE

      He’d surrounded himself with a wall of glass bottles, each a unique shape and color, in pristine condition, and all arranged by size and shade. But not ordinary bottles. Antique art glass, which if valued would be worth some quarter of a million dollars.

      His collection made newcomers nervous because it looked like one false step would send it crashing down. However, he’d insured himself against that, both financially and physically. The windows surrounding the collection were hurricane-proof glass, and the shelves which supported it all were made of a steel alloy used in the space program. Nothing about the structure was fragile or weak, but it appeared that way.

      He’d done that on purpose. Glass was misunderstood. It was delicate in its beauty, yes, but pliant, tactile, under heat. Properly worked, it could take on most any form, be useful in a myriad of ways from the aesthetic to the scientific. It was this property that had drawn him to it, that had made glass his life’s calling. His gift.

      Bordered by vases and bowls, globes and cylinders in multifarious hues, he fashioned a world visually friable, but underneath unshakable, unyielding, shatterproof.

      CHAPTER 1

      Ten Years Later

      The spray off the sides of the boat combined with the persistent drizzle to create doubt in Andre’s mind. Perhaps he should have waited until tomorrow. This weather promised to not let up for hours, maybe days. But a client of this magnitude was hard to come by and the profit from the job she wanted him to do, potentially astronomical.

      That she’d picked him out of all her other choices blew his mind. Yes, his work had been in the news as of late, but still, with her funds she could have hired someone from anywhere in the world. Instead, she’d chosen him, a newcomer on the glass scene, and commanded ... there was no other word for it ... commanded him to appear at first light.

      He cast his gaze skyward as much as possible in the increasing wind. What light had finally appeared did so only with the weakest effort. Diluted by the constant rain, it shone a dismal shade of gray, barely bright enough to warrant the effort of getting out of bed, much less dressing and taking a boat ride.

      The boat was old, a classic wood-hulled yacht from the turn of the twentieth century, but one that obviously received a lot of care. The golden grain gleamed, and the inboard motor purred cleanly.

      The boatman was also aged, but like the boat, well-dressed. Clean white slacks, crisp-pressed, set off a light blue button-up shirt hidden beneath a thick wool navy blazer. He’d only spoken once, and that was as Andre had climbed aboard.

      Andre Garner? he’d asked in a sonorous voice.

      Yes.

      Welcome. And that was it. A coffee-colored smile, a shift in position toward the wheel, and conversation was over. Not that there was need to say more. She’d said over the phone she’d send him, no matter what the weather.

      The dampness of Andre’s clothing sent a shiver down his spine, and he buried his hands in the pockets of his brown leather coat, grateful for what little warmth it gave. He braced for the next hop across the choppy surf. A particularly high wave of water temporarily blinded him. The boatman seemed unperturbed, however, and kept a steady forward motion. He’d obviously done this many times before.

      Sight of land brought a rush of relief and at the same time, an eerie sensation. Jutting out from a tiny spit of land, the dock protruded through head-high cattails and cypress trees adorned with gray strands of Spanish moss. The wind scratched the trees’ naked limbs against a bleached sky in a drone of sound much like some spirit from another world.

      The boatman paid this no mind, but hopped from the boat to the dock, throwing a line around a weathered post. He waited for Andre to make his own way onto firmer footing and led him down a path worn smooth from years of foot traffic.

      What little light provided on the open water disappeared beneath the trees. Andre tucked his neck beneath his collar and trudged forward, only releasing his breath when the narrow, black space became an evenly trimmed field of green. He stopped briefly, a whistle of astonishment begging escape then scrambled to keep up. As old as the boatman was, he was quite spry.

      Stories circulated about the house along with the rare aerial photograph, so he’d known it was big, and old, and exquisite, but seen in person it boggled the mind. The info he’d gathered placed it at three floors and eight thousand square feet, but that didn’t do it justice either. Towering over the slight rise of the landscape, its Victorian architecture sprawled in the midst of a flower garden better suited to summer.

      Enormous bay windows looked out beneath a portico lined with dentil molding. The upper floor sported a corner turret, a gable, and an elaborate cornice turned and twirled around every edge. The whole of it was painted a strange shade of green with the trim a darker hue of the same. This gave it the appearance it had risen from the land. Perhaps that was the desired effect.

      Andre was huffing and puffing by the time the land leveled. Waved by the boatman toward a butter-yellow front door, he stepped ahead, stomping his shoes on the steps, and raised a curled fist over the surface. His knock was lost with the rise of the wind, but apparently not to whoever was inside because the door creaked and sucked inward moments later.

      A maid in a black dress and white apron, sporting the expected white cap, reversed herself in the doorway. Mr. Garner? she asked. Stray gray curls lifted on her brow in the wind.

      He nodded. No one ever came here, or so rumors said. The location and the commute prevented visitors, as well as the peculiarity of the owner. Word had it she never left, never, not since her husband had died ten years ago under mysterious circumstances. She’d closeted herself since then, turning into a recluse who wandered the halls.

      Wait here, the maid said.

      Here was a parlor lined with maroon wallpaper bedecked with ivory roses twined around and over one another. A fireplace sat at one end and before it an ornate settee.

      All it lacks is a damsel in a silk gown. Andre crossed the room and stood before an oil painting hung central to the mantel. The distinguished old gentleman in the image appeared to be in his mid-fifties. Thick gray whiskers curled down his temples, vanishing into the black collar of a burgundy waistcoat.

      Granda was handsome. Don’t you think?

      The voice of someone so young shook Andre from his reverie. He turned on one heel and met the gaze of a girl in her twenties. She fit in with the room, her bearing ramrod straight, her hands poised at her sides, unflinching.

      Your grandfather? he asked.

      She smiled, pulling pink lips taut, and inclined her head. Great-grandfather. At this, she glided his way. That was the only way he could describe it. She not so much walked as floated, a feather adrift on a lazy stream.

      On closer inspection she was extremely lovely, breathtaking even. Hair the color of cornsilk perfectly coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck. Not a strand was out of place, and not a flaw could be found in her skin. Skin like glass. She tilted her head, elongating a slender neck.

      Delbert Delacroix the third, she said. He was actually the middle son and shouldn’t have inherited the place, but his older brother, Ignatius, fell in love with a middle-eastern woman and their father, Delbert the second, disapproved.

      Delbert, Ignatius, and who? he asked, his curiosity aroused.

      Fredrick. Fredrick was the black sheep, dabbled in loose women and looser monies.

      So you come from the best of the three. At least, he assumed so.

      She laughed lightly. That’s still debatable. Granda was an oddity. On nights with a full moon, the servants said he’d go outdoors and howl like a dog. I like to think I come more from my grandmother’s side. She extended her hand. Cerise Delacroix, and because you are wondering, grandmother is on the patio ready to receive you.

      She made no move, and so neither did he. He pulled his hands from his coat pockets and lifted hers to his lips with his right. She stared back, unblinking. You have beautiful eyes, Mr. Garner.

      He released her fingers and smiled. My father’s eyes. My mother’s are nondescript brown.

      Like mine.

      Oh, no. He shook his head. Not like yours at all. He left her to wonder about that, and instead, posed a question. What I’m wondering is why a young girl like you would secret herself away in this place, family obligations notwithstanding.

      She turned then

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