Anyone whos already read The Spirit of the Place will know what this is all about! https://youtube/watch?v=WOgvh8_N2zI For the rest of you, heres an excerpt. This is Brandons first glimpse of Jasmine: Brandon Ablemarle sat on a barstool in the cantina section of the Totawka Brewery & Restaurant, nursing his beer and brooding about the wreckage of a once promising financial career. His own. His future, which only four months ago had been running smoothly on the inside track, headed straight for success, now seemed in imminent danger of being derailed. And the worst part was: it looked like his father had been right. Once again. When Brandon arrived in Oberon the previous August he’d been filled with optimism. Sure, UC Abraxas might not seem like the likeliest or most logical place to pursue an MBA, as his father had been all too quick to point out. But the opportunity to assist the legendary Sam Sterling—who’d inexplicably re-located to the little town a year earlier— was too good to pass up. Except...how was he supposed to have known that the man was a total flake? Sure, Sterling’s track record was impressive, and he could definitely talk the talk. He could converse knowledgeably about trends and price points, resistance and support, he had technical analysis down to a fine art. But all too often, without warning and for no good reason that Brandon could discover, the man would digress into more esoteric subjects. Astrology. Numerology. Arcane mystery schools. Sacred geometry. Lunar eclipses. Star charts. Cuniform tablets from ancient Babylon. Shit, if tomorrow Sam claimed that all the buildings on Wall Street had been built using bricks recovered from the lost continent of Atlantis, Brandon wouldn’t even blink. Had he always been crazy? Was Sam’s phenomenal trading record nothing more than a fluke? Or had he been corrupted by the self-proclaimed witch with whom he was living? Brandon knocked back the rest of his beer, signaled for another and thought about his Nemesis. The woman who had destroyed one of the greatest technical analysts alive today. At first glance, there didn’t appear to be anything obviously or especially evil about Marsha Quinn. In fact, there wasn’t anything special about her at all, at least not that he could see. She certainly wasn’t his idea of an enchantress. In fact, she looked just like anyone else—like someone’s mom. She wasn’t young or thin or particularly beautiful. She wasn’t wealthy or talented or otherwise interesting. She dressed like a hippie, she talked like a New Age nutcase and, in Brandon’s opinion, she pretty much personified everything that was wrong with the State of California. But enchantress or not, she’d sure done a number on Sam. A small commotion at one of the booths across from the bar caught Brandon’s attention. Wow. Talk about your enchantresses, the young woman seated alone in the second booth in from the door made a much better candidate for the title than the woman Brandon had been contemplating. The two women couldn’t be more different. Although their hair color was eerily similar, that, and their gender, were about the only things they seemed to have in common. Marsha, for example, would no doubt fit right in here—in fact, it was from her that Brandon had learned of the brewery’s existence. While the stranger, on the other hand, with her dark skin and long auburn hair, carefully arranged in dozens of tiny braids, appeared as out of her element in the dim, dusty, countrified atmosphere of the tavern as a rare, exotic orchid would be in a field full of dandelions. He watched her for several minutes—covertly, because he wasn’t a jackass like the other guys in the bar, most of whom were openly staring—and, man, she was definitely something worth staring at. She looked as regal as a princess, composed and elegant, yet with all the poised-to-flee hesitancy of a young gazelle, and she aroused a whole range of conflicting instincts within him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to protect her, admire her beauty from a respectable distance, or chase her down and devour her. Not that the eventual outcome posed much of a question. Base appetites were a lot more compelling than abstract constructs, after all. He hadn’t even needed the psychology elective he’d taken in his junior year to know that. As he watched, she was approached by no less than seven different men in about twice as many minutes. Obviously, he was not the only orchid aficionado in the vicinity. She smiled at each one, and time and again Brandon felt the same peculiar wrenching in his gut. It seemed all wrong that she should hook up with any of the men here tonight, and he hated the idea that he might have to actually sit by and watch as it happened. It was a relief every time she turned one away, and Brandon’s appreciation for the unknown beauty grew stronger. Clearly the woman had taste. But, despite her lack of encouragement, he doubted the barrage would let up any time soon, she was just too tempting. Unless someone did something to stop it, he was sure she’d continue to be prey to unwanted advances all night long. An odd collection of impulses brought him to his feet. It was part chivalry; his mother had been determined that her son grow up to be a proper southern gentleman, and a true gentleman must always come to the aid of a lady in distress. And it was in part an innate belief in his own superiority—as well as in hers. A lady like this deserved someone a damned sight better than the kind of hick who made it a habit to hang around in dusty old bars. She deserved him, in fact. And he was not at all adverse to showing the local losers just how the game was played back home. But mostly, he was driven by an overriding desire to get close enough to determine the exact color of her almond shaped eyes. To find out if all those bead-studded braids were real. To learn her name, her scent, the sound of her voice. He asked the bartender for a second beer and a basket of peanuts and then, when they’d been delivered, he headed across the room; like Sir Galahad off to save a princess.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:14:24 +0000
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