As I’ll be mentioning later today at the Facebook Release
Party for An Amorous Dance, it wasn’t only a love of theater, but a desire to
explore the conflicts of a powerful, yet emotionally conflicted woman that
drove me to write an Amorous Dance. My
favorite example of this sort of troubled heroine is Polly Harrington,
Pollyanna’s aunt in the story Pollyanna.
Though Polly is a wealthy woman, one who’s opinion is highly respected
and whose power and decision making essentially effect and control an entire
town, she is deeply troubled on the inside.
The 1960 movie does not give us a clear indication of what exactly plagues
Polly but we see that the negative front she displays is not the person she
truly wishes to be when she crosses paths were her old love, Edmond
Chilton. It’s what makes a character
vulnerable that shows us who they are at the core. This is true of all characters but of
heroines who are broken at the core, like Polly Harrington Hannah Rabourn, the phenomenon
is even more fascinating.
Here’s a quick snip from An Amorous Dance, to give you a taste of
what’s to come. I hope you’ll all join
me at the release party tonight for some fun games and GIVEAWAYS! If you need an invite, please comment below
or contact me at: http://www.jessicalauryn.com/getintouchwithjessica.php I hope to see you there!
Unable to
stay still, Hannah maneuvered her way around the surrounding obstacles so that
she could pace. She’d been trying to convince herself that these flashes of memory
didn’t mean what they appeared to, but the truth was that she’d always had
her suspicions about the way her father died. The doctors she’d spoken with had
confirmed her father had a heart attack, but she’d always found it hard to
believe that a man in his fifties—a man in excellent physical condition with no
history of heart disease—would die suddenly, for what appeared to be no reason
at all. Having felt this way from the get-go, she’d conducted a bit of
research, from which she’d discovered that her father had had an argument with
Bruce Lancaster prior to the start of her birthday dinner. The stress of
whatever the they’d discussed might have taken a toll on him, and for years
Hannah had believed that a heated discussion with the theater’s former owner
had directly contributed to her father’s death. But if the images she’d been
seeing were real, maybe her father’s death had had nothing to do with
physiology at all.
Maybe he had
been murdered.
“Hannah?”
Evan called out as he opened the door. Failing to flick the light switch, he
made his way around, almost tripping over the settee in the corner before
asking, “Hannah, are you in here?”
Hannah
covered her tearstained mouth. She had no desire to reveal herself, but she
realized before she could hide that Evan had already seen her. After hastily
wiping her face in hopes that he wouldn’t realize she’d been crying, she
snapped, “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Me? What the
bloody hell do you think I’m doing in here?” Evan demanded, squinting at the
gigantic mushrooms behind his back, as if they were going to agree with how
ridiculous her question was.
“You
shouldn’t have followed me. I wasn’t thrilled to see that my cousin decided to
stay in a show her former stalker is a part of, but…I’m a big girl. I can
handle anything that’s thrown my way, Evan Masters, I promise you.”
“Hannah,
you’re shaking,” Evan said, catching her arm and pulling her back to him before
she could walk away.
As Hannah
looked downward, she realized Evan had no intention of releasing her. His grip
was strong, but his palm felt like melted butter against her skin. She
attempted to laugh at him, but instead fresh tears formed in her eyes. Evan
took her into his arms before she could stop him, bringing her against his body
with a force that demonstrated he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Unable to
fight him, or whatever it was he was doing, Hannah allowed herself to be drawn
against his warmth. His lightly bearded cheek sent tingles up her spine as it
brushed against her own.
Evan held her,
cupping the back of her head as he urged her toward the settee he’d all but
killed himself staggering over a moment before. As he whispered a couple of
soft, indiscernible things into her ear, the familiarity of his masculine scent
soothed her raw nerves. In her mind, she held an unpleasant picture of him
about to kiss her cousin’s shoulders, but the present moment played right over
it, and Hannah let go of her anxiety, allowing herself to simply feel, to let
her lover from another lifetime make everything right.
Evan brought
his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head so she was looking into his
eyes. His smile giving way to a smirk, he said, “I saw you, Hannah. I saw the
way you were looking at me when I was holding your cousin. The heat in your
eyes wasn’t there out of concern for Alicia, or even because you were angry
about my going ahead with the play. You emitted that scream
because you wanted to be playing Blair on that stage. More so, because
you wanted to be the woman that I was holding in my arms.”
Her eyes
widening as her body grew cold with fury, Hannah said, “Clearly the sky-high
opinion you’ve always had of yourself has only gotten higher. You make it sound
as though you actually think I could still want you after all this time,
knowing that I’m fully aware of what a bastard you really are.”
“You may hate
me on the surface, Hannah, but I daresay your body responds quite differently.
You shiver when I touch you and your skin warms on contact because it wants
more, just as you wanted more the night I carried you off to the dressing room
and gave you the passion that both of us so desperately craved.”
“So
apparently, you aren’t just egotistical, you’re also certifiably insane. You know,
you’re offered an extensive benefits package as part of the position that you
cling to with the very balls of your existence. You ought to ask HR for a
referral—clearly the shrink who ought to be treating Sebastian Nathanson has
some extra time on her hands.”
Evan secured
her in a grip that prevented her from running. Easing her back against the
wall, he said with fire in his eyes, “Is this crazy, Hannah?”
