Category Archives: Free Read

The Story Behind The Fourth Date’s the Charm and Come Inside Our Garden

This week featured The Fourth Date’s the Charm by Robin Covington, which marked the end of the Come Inside Our Garden Anthology from the Waterworld Mermaids.  Recently, we cornered our fellow mermaids in the lagoon and got the story behind their stories.

The Fourth Date’s the Charm by Robin Covington

The garden heats up when lust and the promise of love collide in this steamy tale of when opposites attract.

What inspired your Waterworld Mermaids: Come Inside Our Garden story?

Robin: What gave me the idea for my Garden Story?  I love a story of two people who from all appearances should not be together.  The exploration of the push and pull of attraction in spite of what you believe to be “correct” or “acceptable” is fascinating to me.  To see Jake, the ambitious and intense surgeon, finally let go and focus all of his sexy energy on persuading Piper to give into the incredible attraction between them was just delicious.

And . . .  when the Mermaids thought of putting together this special project, someone (I can’t remember which one) joked that I would be hard-pressed to put one of my sex scenes (I lOVE writing sex scenes) in the middle of a garden. I took that as a challenge and this was the result! ; )

Come Inside Our Garden Anthology by the Waterworld Mermaids

Romance blooms in the garden when seven mermaids weave together tales of love lost and found among the roses.

What inspired you to put together the Come Inside Our Garden Anthology?

Waterworld Mermaids: Insanity? Ha. No, really, it’s because we all love to make up stories. We are lucky to have such a talented bunch of writers among us who were willing to give up what little free time they had to create this anthology. Each story is a unique take on love with the garden setting tying them together. Even though we didn’t plan it, each tale is from a different romance sub-genre, which just goes to show that romance stories are as varied as love itself.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come inside our garden. We hope you’ve enjoyed the journey.

 

 

The Fourth Date’s the Charm (Part Two) by Robin Covington

(Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read The Fourth Date’s the Charm (Part One) first. Also, this spicy story has the water bubbling, so be warned.)

Oh no. Not the nibbly thing.

Piper arched her neck into the caress of his lips. Jake wasn’t playing fair. He knew she turned to mush when he did that little nippy thing with his teeth on her skin. He was just trying to keep her off-balance in order to stop her from pointing out how this thing between them was a bad idea.  He was doing a great job because she’d somehow ended up on her back with his hard length pressing her into the soft turf.

“Jake.”

“I love it when you call me that.”

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The Fourth Date’s the Charm (Part One) by Robin Covington

(Mermaid Note: The water’s bubbling with this spicy tale. Be warned.)

Where the hell did she go?

Dr. Jacob Ash peered into the evening twilight, the music from the party drifting up from the Rose Garden Terrace on a light summer breeze.  There were only so many places to go on this path leading through the National Botanical Gardens and he was quickly approaching the end marked by the amphitheater and the water feature.

 Piper Hill couldn’t have just vanished. She was just a girl. Although, there were times when he believed she was part fey creature and had bewitched his soul and — let’s face it — some other parts of his body located a bit farther south.

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Memory Garden (Part Two) by Kerri Carpenter

(Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read Memory Garden (Part One) first.)

Drew watched as all the color drained from Lilah’s face.  Damn, he didn’t want to hurt her again.  She started to walk away but he grabbed her arm and spun her to him.

“No, you have to listen to me.”

“I don’t have to listen to anything.  Let go of me.”

He dropped his hand immediately and watched her storm out a set of side doors.  He ran a hand over his face.  This wasn’t going how he had hoped at all.

And couldn’t she have looked a little less gorgeous for this?

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Memory Garden (Part One) by Kerri Carpenter

“This one here.  Is this a lily of the valley?”

“Um…” Lilah stuttered, praying for some flower enthusiast to spontaneously walk by.  “Well, actually, I think it’s quite lovely.  It looks so fresh and happy there, doesn’t it?” she attempted lamely.

Chrissy pinned her with a dubious stare before rolling her blue eyes.  “Whatever.  I don’t really care what it’s called but I want this flower in my bouquet.  Make a note,” she commanded.

Lilah suppressed an urge to make a note about possible hit men in the Washington, D.C. area.  Instead, she took a picture of the flower in question with her phone and made a corresponding note.  Flowers really weren’t her thing.  She knew dandelions, roses and, well, dead, since that’s how all living plants ended up in her apartment.

Chrissy let out an annoyed whine before moving on.  The one good thing about Lilah’s current bridezilla, er client, was that her attention changed every second.  “Where’s Perry?  I mean, ohmigod, we have so much to do.”

“I believe your fiancé said he was meeting his best man out front and would be back in a couple of minutes,” Lilah supplied.

“But that was like ten minutes ago.  Doesn’t he realize how busy I am?  I mean, I have like a million things to do today.”

None of which involve a real job, school or anything remotely adult, Lilah thought with a silent sigh.  She did suppose that swiping daddy’s credit card took some energy.  At least at the rate Chrissy used it.

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The Garden Party (Part Two) by Denny S. Bryce

(Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read The Garden Party (Part One) first.)

“Will you miss me?”

Jeesus. Guilty as sin and still he flirted. “Nope, won’t miss you one damn bit. I will, however, get a full weekend of sleep for the first time in two years.” It was her turn to grin at him. “I told you not to come back here, but your ego made you careless. You think you can steal from the Garden as if it was your neighborhood candy store.”

His half-gaze followed her as she paced compulsively for a moment. The Fedora still draped at the same angle showed only one smart-mouthed eye. Suddenly she couldn’t resist the urge and flipped the hat off of his head.

He sucked in a breath. “Why’d you do that?”

She reared back. “Do what? Tell you the truth. Too tough to hear? Or are you threatening me? That’s not a smart move considering you’re cuffed to a rail in a plant museum surrounded by a dozen armed guards, and at least a dozen squad cars parked outside, hoping you try something stupid.”

“You talk too much when you’re mad. That’s how I caught you in Chicago.” He winked, devilishly, and leveled his gaze. “Or are you mad because I let myself get caught?”

Shayna refused to fall for his nonsense. A penetrating gaze wasn’t going to make her suddenly dumbfounded. “Stop with the flirting and the sexy voice and the hard body. What did you do? Crunches until I walked in so your abs would pop through your T-shirt?”

He licked his lips; fighting the grin she saw threatening the corners of his mouth.

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The Garden Party (Part One) by Denny S. Bryce

Then there was the Garden. Dark and hot, it smelled like jungle or what Shayna Marigold imagined jungle smelled like when jungles still existed.

A steady stream of wet fell from sprinklers planted in the glass ceiling. Fake rain, they spewed a hot clingy mist that seeped into Shayna’s every open pore. It made her skin itch as if tiny wet ants marched over her flesh. Then the wind, blown by propeller-sized fans tossed fallen leaves and dirt in her face. Thankfully, there were no fake bugs or neon sunlight. She scratched her nose and wondered why scientists bothered to create keepsake gardens for the wealthy anyway. When a world collapsed might as well let the soon-to-be extinct things die. Better to wallow in reality than make-believe.

Washington, DC, was a sea of broken concrete, cracked monuments, and pools of black mud. The earthquakes, volcanic ash and acid rain had made a mess of the city and the rest of the continent, leaving a killer atmosphere, no plant life and little food. Shelter was bleak, too, unless you had a government job. Just wasn’t much left worth its weight other than what the well-to-do and the scientists stowed away in mausoleums like the Garden.

The domed building with a half dozen rooms, or chambers, overflowed with exotic plants and other remnants of extinct ecological systems. The rich and powerful kept their newest version of antiquities, the plants that no longer grew outdoors, safe and secure in the Garden. So yeah, it might look like a jungle, smell like a jungle, but it was Noah’s Ark without a sea to sail.

Shayna, special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Environmental Crimes Task Force, walked into the middle of the Garden’s atrium, wiped the water from her brow and looked around. A short janitor in a gray jumpsuit, with a bulging gut, rushed to the nearest wall and a metal switch box. Opening it, he flipped the switch up, then down, and an instant later the water and wind stopped hitting her in the face. She sighed, relieved, and gave him a nod of thanks.

Shayna then shrugged out of her heavy overcoat, but a last morsel of dust flew into a nostril, and she sneezed so hard her eardrums popped. She hated working the Garden beat. The moist heat, flying bits of dirt and indoor plant life pushed her allergies into overdrive. She should be at home, comfy in her hermetically sealed apartment, hiding out for the weekend, safe from the atmosphere, beat cops and dust.

But she drew the short straw—supposedly—and forced to work the crime scene of the biggest heist attempt in the Garden’s history. She also got to interrogate the primary suspect, currently handcuffed to a banister in the Orchid room. She smiled smugly. No way was she going to miss out on this chance, not for all the Benadryl in the District.

After a quick swipe of her itchy nose, she handed her coat to the closest beat cop. He guarded the tapeline in front of the Jungle, the largest chamber in the Garden.

“I’m FBI Special Agent Marigold,” she said to the officer.

“Wow, ma’am, you got here fast.” The cop, a bald-headed boxer-type in a poorly fitted uniform, tucked her coat under his arm as he lifted the yellow tape.

Shayna slipped beneath it. “Headquarters called me on my PDA. I live up the street.” Answering his question fast was best. She didn’t want him treating her silence as an opportunity to chitchat.

They stood in front of the unmoving electronic doors without speaking for a long moment. The doors weren’t working. Shayna glimpsed the handyman in the jumpsuit dash around a corner, searching for a different wall switch to jimmy the doors open. She hoped.

Waiting not so patiently, she gathered her locks into a ponytail and stretched her neck to the side to relieve some of the tension. Faced with another opportunity to go head-to-head with this particular thief thrilled and disturbed her all at once. He was the architect behind more than a thousand successful cons up and down the Atlantic Coast and in the Midwest. Now here he was a hundred feet away on the other side of the sliding glass doors in handcuffs.

It was about damn time.

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Garden of Knight (Part Two) by Dana Rodgers

(Mermaid Note: If you haven’t already, please read Garden of Knight (Part One) first.)

The train rocked gently as Gemma flipped through a stack of photos from their last visit, pausing at a shot of her, Gran and Aunt Margaret. Gran and Margaret looked almost the same as they always had; the same dark eyes, olive skin and stubborn chins, but Gran’s hair was grayer, and they each carried a few more wrinkles. Studying the photo carefully Gemma saw strained lines around Gran’s mouth. She’d been so preoccupied  she hadn’t noticed before.

Gran and Aunt Margaret had kept their word and visited her every month. They’d planned special vacations for her holidays and breaks from school, and been there for all of the important moments of her life. But Gemma had let her resentment of being sent away build into frustration, anger and then open rebellion. By the time she was seventeen she’d refused to go home at all, even for the annual family reunion. She remembered Gran begging her to come, and stressing the importance of knowing her family, but Gemma hadn’t listened. She hadn’t even bothered to return Gran and Aunt Margaret’s recent barrage of phone calls.

It had been more than three years since she’d seen them in person, and now she’d give anything for just one chance to go back, to say she was sorry. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek and stuffed the photos back in her red striped tote.

According to the authorities, they had been attacked by some kind of animal.

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