Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

what you wish for, because you will get it.”
    Startled, Breeanne jumped up, banging her knee against the shelf and knocking loose the dolls. She grabbed for them, barely managing to right them before they hit the ground.
    Jerking her head around, she searched for the source of the voice and found a wizened woman that she hadn’t noticed before sitting in a small black rocking chair. The woman wore a shapeless floral print dress and men’s rubber-soled camouflage hunting boots. A thick gray bun, held in place by two green pencils, sat pinned to the top of her head. She studied Breeanne with yellow, unblinking eyes as if she was a fairy-tale crone debating if Breeanne was worth eating.
    The wind gusted, sending pine needles swirling through the air, and the temperature dropped at least five degrees. A shiver, cold as a refrigerated knife blade, sliced down her spine. Vigorously, Breeanne pumped the heels of her palms up and down her arms to warm herself. “Is this a hope chest?”
    “It’s not for sale,” the woman said, sounding as if she regularly gargled with gravel.
    “Then why is it here?”
    “Someone made a mistake.”
    “I’ll give you two hundred dollars,” Breeanne said, surprising herself. What was with her today? Saying things she hadn’t thought through.
    People milled through the small stall, but they might as well have been on Saturn. Only she and the crone and the trunk existed in this strange new world.
    For the first time, the woman blinked. “Not for sale.”
    Breeanne crouched down to caress the chest once more. Her palm warmed against the wood, and her vision blurred softly the way it did with surgical anesthesia. An ethereal fog rolled over the stall, and it was as if she were watching an old timey television set with fuzzy reception.
    In the weird vision, she saw a young woman dressed in a gauzy white gown, bluebonnets braided through her hair, put something inside the trunk. The ethereal woman turned, and Breeanne realized, without surprise, that she was that woman.
    In the vision, a man came to stand beside Dream Breeanne, who raised her head and held out a hand to him. The image wavered, ghostly and unreliable.
    She squinted.
    Who was the man?
    His chestnut brown hair was mussed, his smile wide and lopsided, a devilish grin that promised a world of bedroom delights. He wore distressed, button-fly blue jeans, and nothing else. His crystal blue eyes cut a hole straight into her heart, and it was as if he knew every single thought that passed through her head and approved of them all.
    Rowdy Blanton.
    Breeanne sucked in a hot puff of air, and a peppery taste popped into her mouth. Was this a hallucination? Some weird aftermath of being hit on the head with a baseball? Did she have a concussion? Breeanne rubbed the crown of her head where the ball had landed, but the spot wasn’t even sore to the touch.
    The old woman observed her, a knowing look polishing the yellow of her eyes to a high sheen. Her lips did not move, but Breeanne distinctly heard her say, Trust your feelings, and don’t be afraid.
    The mist rolled away. Breeanne’s vision cleared and the out-of-body sensation evaporated.
    Don’t be afraid.
    “What did you say?” she asked the old woman.
    “The trunk is unique.”
    “I can tell.”
    “It’s very old.”
    “How old?”
    “Older than time.”
    “Nothing is older than time.”
    The crone shrugged.
    Breeanne scratched her cheek, more to release tension than because her skin itched. She disliked haggling. Hated the confrontational nature of it. But she wanted this trunk. “Did the hope chest belong to Irene Henderson?”
    “For a time.”
    “Where did it come from?”
    “Across the universe.”
    Breeanne pressed her palms together and rested her thumbs against her sternum in a quasi yoga prayer pose. It was a calming technique she’d learned as a teen in a support group for kids facing potential death, and she glanced back at the trunk. “What’s