Hap­py Valen­tines Day Week­end! Wel­come to my web­site! If you’re here with­out the tour bus, click HERE to join us.

I hope you have some time to poke around! One lucky win­ner this week­end will receive a copy of my book Falling Star. Ready for more fiction?

The fol­low­ing is a work of fic­tion. The char­ac­ters, inci­dents and dia­logues in this scene are of the author’s imag­i­na­tion and are not to be con­strued as real. Any resem­blance to actu­al events or per­sons, liv­ing or dead, is com­plete­ly coin­ci­den­tal.  © Olivia Brynn

Pic­ture © 2011, by Michael Clothier

Jon was up to some­thing. All after­noon he’d been skit­tish. They’d been eye­ing that Harley David­son Black­line motor­cy­cle in the show­room, but until stu­dent loans were paid off, there was no way they could afford it. If he went ahead and bought that thing…

“You sure you don’t want a soda?”

Kendra shook her head. If any­one need­ed a drink, it was Jon. He was sweat­ing, and had to release the top two but­tons on his shirt.

“I don’t want any­thing. Thank you though. Are you sure every­thing’s okay?” She gripped his hand and they wend­ed through the throngs of the Farm­ers Mar­ket traffic.

“Every­thing is fine. Sor­ry. I’m just…uh…thinking about stuff.”

Stuff. Some kind of “stuff” that had a Twin­Cam 103 engine, tour­ing pack­age, and a leather seat. Kendra sighed. She did­n’t want to think about it. Maybe next year.

“Peach­es? You love peach­es.” Jon let go of her hand, and while she wiped the sweat from her palm, Jon threw the fruit in a brown bag.

Kendra said noth­ing, as he paid for the peach­es, and grabbed her hand again. What did it say about their rela­tion­ship that he felt he had to hide things from her? If he real­ly could find a way to afford the Black­line would­n’t he have dis­cussed it with her?

She chewed her lip. She loved Jon with all her heart. She could­n’t imag­ine Jon doing any­thing that would change that. Even if he did blow their sav­ings on a motor­cy­cle. A beautiful…custom made…Blackline Harley Davidson.

But to hide it from her? To buy it with­out her there? Know­ing how much she dreamed about dri­ving that bad boy off the lot?

“Now you’re qui­et.” Jon nudged her.

She nudged him back. “Now you got me think­ing about stuff.”

“Good stuff, I hope.”

“Only if your stuff is good.”

They’d stopped in front of a wood­en cart with fra­grant cut flow­ers. Jon tossed a bill at the woman beneath the umbrel­la. “My stuff is so good it makes me feel like I’m a lit­tle kid.” He picked a rose from the bunch avail­able, then reached into his pock­et. “It’s so good I’m afraid that I’m going to mess it all up if I don’t say the right thing.”

Kendra shook her head, aware of the small crowd that was form­ing around them. “What…”

“I’ve been sav­ing up for almost a year for a ring, but I looked all over the place, and could­n’t find one that was beau­ti­ful enough for your fin­ger.” Jon dropped onto one knee, and offered the rose. I hope you don’t mind this untra­di­tion­al offering.”

As she accept­ed the rose, he showed her the keyring he’d hid­den in his hand. Black leather, with the famil­iar orange design tooled on both sides. The key glit­ter­ing in the sun­shine could only fit one machine.

“Kendra, will you mar­ry me?”

She nod­ded a few times before she found her voice to answer, “Yes!”

Thanks for stop­ping by. Don’t for­get to join us on Sat­ur­day evening, at 7pm EST as a gag­gle of us authors will be chat­ting in Gem’s Chat Room. There will be a link to the chat at the end of the blog hop.  Hap­py Valen­tines Day to you all! Good luck in the drawing.