Through Ancient Eyes (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

  Through Ancient Eyes

  An ancient civilization with lost magic that could change the world...

  A desperate battle between two men and the woman they both want for different reasons.

  Danielle Taylor thought she was leaving behind the chaos of the big city, as well as the memory of her unfaithful boyfriend, when she bought the old country farm house on the internet, site unseen...

  However, the moment she stepped foot on the abandoned property, she was confronted with disturbing clues about the mysterious disappearance of its previous owner, a local professor at the nearby university.

  When she accidentally uncovers what is surely a priceless and stunning ceremonial mask, buried in secrecy on the grounds of the country estate, she begins to suspect the missing professor may have had more than a little accident in Peru.

  Even in her wildest dreams, she never thought she'd find herself standing inside the secluded and undiscovered ruins of a pre-Incan civilization, with a man who has unlocked the secrets of an ancient power, and who has opened her heart to a passion she never thought possible.

  Sensuality Rating: SWEET

  Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal

  Length: 68,406 words

  THROUGH ANCIENT EYES

  Kimberly Adkins

  ROMANCE

  www.BookStrand.com

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  A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

  IMPRINT: Romance

  THROUGH ANCIENT EYES

  Copyright © 2010 by Kimberly Adkins

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-905-8

  First E-book Publication: August 2010

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2010 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  This story is dedicated to my mom, the best proofreader ever and an even greater friend.

  THROUGH ANCIENT EYES

  KIMBERLY ADKINS

  Copyright © 2010

  Chapter One

  “Listen, Danielle.” Adam’s words still echoed in her ears like new, even after all those painfully long gone months. “I knew I couldn’t trust you not to make a big deal out of this situation, and you have proven me right once again.”

  His English accent was one of the things she had always found charming about him, and that was probably one of the reasons the sound of his voice still lingered in her thoughts as she drove down the unfamiliar and rugged country road.

  The setting sun streamed through the thick, green trees along the gravel and dirt route, and it dappled the windshield of her loaner car as she traveled along the scenic boundary. If she wasn’t careful, the flickering light could mesmerize her as it played across her half-closed eyes in spastic bursts.

  He never called me Danielle unless he was angry with me. It was always ‘Dani’ until he wanted something, she reminded herself as she briefly allowed her mind to wander in the past though her fingers gripped the steering wheel hard at present.

  “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us…for the gallery,” he had said it like it was a done deal and she was just a roadblock on his path to success. “Hillary Grayson will exclusively show all her artwork at Paint the Town, if I agree to be her date at the museum gala next weekend. It’s only one night of romance, in exchange for a future of prosperity.”

  The shock and disbelief welled up in the pit of her stomach once more, in the same way it had the night her fiancé sat across from her at the lonely café table and informed her he was going on a date with another woman.

  “You have two choices in this situation,” he began his appeal, and a part of her heart felt manipulated before he even started. “You can let this one night happen, and we can go on to build our lives together with a successful art gallery behind us…”

  He had trailed off then, and she remembered how smoothly he reached forward to take the glass of wine she had been gripping from her hand before he continued.

  “Or you could foolishly pack up your paintings, leave behind everything we have worked for so hard, and never see me again. The way seems perfectly obvious to me, even as we speak.”

  * * * *

  Danielle smiled as she hit a particularly large bump on the rural road. She still wondered a little about the look he must have had on his face when he came home the next day and most of the personal things she owned in the gallery, as well as the loft they shared overhead, were gone.

  Of course she heard it through the grapevine the gala was a fabulous event and Adam and Hilary told the press that very night it seemed like they were a couple after all, despite previous rumors to the contrary.

  She knew perfectly well that any woman who wanted someone else’s man would want someone else’s man again in the future and Adam would have to reap what he had sowed. Still, her pride was wounded and her heart shattered by the fact he had chosen such a shallow course over a lifetime with her.

  It wasn’t the best reason in the world, but it was probably why she’d bought the country house off the Internet without even seeing the lot. It was far away from the city; an awful city that swallowed people whole and made them either predator or prey before it was through with their lives.

  ‘Dozens of acres roll away from your front porch in quiet waves of solitude and peace as you bask in the private serenity of your new, secluded home’

  Those appealing words headed up the blurb on the website, and she had to admit the word “secluded” had drawn her to the property more than anything else. Well, that and the price was right. The phrase “fixer-upper” didn’t really mean a lot to her, but she was confident she could manage whatever repairs it needed. She had always kept a bank account separate from Adam and she thanked the heavens above for that now. The joint savings they had set up for the gallery was in the red most of the time, and Adam was always after her to provide her personal money for him to wine and dine clients and artists.

  Danielle shuddered to think of all the times the sale of one of her very own paintings had funded a bottle of Moet for the insidious Ms. Grayson and her ulterior motives.

&nb
sp; I can’t let any of it matter now, she told herself as she slowed the car to look at the map once again. She could plainly see there was a small college town just a handful of miles to the east, but her own destination on the paper was a little unclear. She blamed it on the fact there were actually no roads listed where she had purchased the house and a glaring red X marked the spot somewhere in the wilderness near the place where she left the highway.

  She came to a creeping halt in the middle of the dirt route and pulled out the printed email from her online realtor. In the city, you didn’t stop on any road or there was sure to be an accident, but she felt comfortable with her notion that rush hour traffic did not exist here or anywhere near the spot where she braked.

  Danielle could see the motes of pollen dancing through the leaves of the tree-lined ditch, and she was sure some kind of back woods allergy would set in at any moment.

  If she followed the map as far as she could and then took the instructions from the realtor just as she had, she should be able to see a huge X sitting somewhere near the middle of the field to her right.

  “How do people get anywhere out in the country,” she grumbled to herself. Nothing had signs. Nothing had numbers…and most of the old barns and farm houses she had passed were tumbling down with a sad, grey type of majestic tale that only wood could convey.

  She decided this could go on for hours with no definite landmarks to guide her way and determined the best course of action would be a quick U turn in the next driveway. At least at this point she could backtrack. Who knew what could happen if she got further into the woods?

  Carefully listening for the sounds of an oncoming tractor or insidious banjo, Danielle slowly accelerated back onto the dirt path they were currently calling a road and quietly prayed for a driveway big enough to turn around in to appear.

  Of course she was grateful for the large car her one remaining friend allowed her borrow as she escaped the city but was shocked by how many close acquaintances she had lost in the time she was with Adam as they planned their new life together. She hadn’t noticed how many people her fiancée had pushed away, how he carefully and quietly made sure she was available to take care of his needs before any other.

  The morning she’d decided to leave was the morning she’d realized he had changed her entire world to fit inside his view, and there was precious little room left for the people she’d loved before him.

  “It’s about time.” Danielle thankfully left her thoughts in the past when she saw the break in the trees which surely told her there was a place to turn about.

  She slowly swung the manual car inexpertly into the gravel drive, nearly taking out a mailbox that looked like it might have had one too many encounters of a similar nature.

  She was immediately faced with an overgrown yard and an imposing two-story farmhouse which had probably been white at some time or another. Living in the city all her life, she never had much of a reason to practice her driving skills, and it was something she was currently regretting. Danielle desperately attempted to shift the car into reverse before a shot gun-wielding manic could warmly greet her from the porch, but the car slipped into fourth gear and lunged forward like a thing possessed.

  She instinctively slammed both feet onto the brake pedal, her face in the rearview mirror a mask of horror as the car’s engine died out.

  Danielle forcefully removed her fingers from the warm blue steering wheel, her knuckles still clenched in uncertainty. The funny thing was, if you had asked her what the country was like a month ago she might have told you it was quiet and comfortable and safe.

  At that particular moment, however, a swarm of bees flew alarmingly close to a patch of overgrown clover a little too near her car and a multitude of birds sang their lovely and contrasting songs from every scraping branch on every tree that creaked ominously in the summer wind.

  She saw the top of the real estate sign above the brambles and weeds that spotted the front yard in random sections of unruliness. The metal frame itself was rusted, but the white laminated sign inside was clear. So was the ‘Sold!” addition, wedged in at the side.

  “Oh, my God,” Danielle said numbly, and promptly forgot the surrounding flora and fauna as she opened the creaking metal door of her chariot to see she had arrived.

  She kept her hand on the open window, like you might do with a chess piece. As long as she didn’t take her fingers off the pawn, she hadn’t moved.

  In disbelief, she leaned over the driver’s side of the stalled vehicle to grab up the handful of pages she had printed out online.

  She held the white sheets against the panoramic view and was actually able to see that at one time the house in the picture may have been the elderly structure standing before her.

  “Standing is such a generous word to apply to this establishment,” she said sarcastically to the veranda just a few yards away. As if in response, the house promptly dropped a shutter, which slid to the ground in apparent defeat.

  Danielle took a few steps toward the dilapidated porch before she nearly hit the deck as a series of loud buzzing sounds flew past her head. Steadying herself, she tried to see just how big the bumblebees got out here when she noticed a hummingbird feeder on the porch. After careful inspection, she realized it was dry as a bone and must have been for quite some time. She didn’t know a lot about wildlife, but she remembered something a friend had told her once.

  Never start feeding hummingbirds unless you can keep it up, because they will come back to the same place every year, and end up going hungry if you stop.

  From the look of things the place had been abandoned for a long time, but as far as she knew, the real estate agent had fed them when she came out to check on the property. Once it had been sold she likely stopped the practice, not knowing any better.

  It seemed like the strangest feeling in the world to Danielle, but just knowing these tiny, delicate creatures were depending on her meant more than anything else at the moment and all of a sudden she wanted to go inside and make at least one thing right with the world.

  With a resolute sigh she grabbed her purse off the driver side seat and pulled out the ring of keys they’d shipped to her a week after the sale.

  “I hope the electricity is on.” She glared suspiciously at the bare bulb which haphazardly sprouted from the ceiling of the porch as she gingerly climbed the stairs. White paint speckled the frosted glass and she was sure now the house had indeed been painted that color a long time ago.

  The metal coil leashed to the screen door creaked in rusty rebellion as she pulled it outward to get at the main entrance. A yellowed doily hung over the double panes of glass that stood waist high. They blocked her view of the interior as she fumbled nervously with the keys like she was coming home to someone else’s house.

  The auction had been for the building and all of its contents, Danielle suddenly remembered. At that time, the idea it would come fully furnished was comforting to her, but now that she was here she felt almost as if she were invading someone else’s life.

  How was it she’d never even thought to ask what happened to the previous owners? What part of her had decided it would be all right to live among someone else’s things? A shiver flew down her spine as she finally found the proper key for the door and tried to memorize which one it was for the future.

  She attempted to tell herself the furniture and items owned by the former tenants would be replaced by her own things, but it was with a heavy heart that she was forced to admit she had left most of her furnishings behind.

  If there was a price to be paid for freedom from the past, she had done it and would have to pony up. Very few possessions she had shared with Adam in the gallery would be coming into this place, and she had to make do with the leftovers that were here for now.

  Resigned to the fact she would be living in ancient and decrepit poverty as she finally gained access to the foyer, Danielle had already formed a vision in her mind before she entered the place. She braced herself f
or animal heads mounted on the walls and tractor parts laid out on the dining room table. Once inside, however, the actual decor inside the deceptively ramshackle farm house was a complete surprise.

  The floors were all hardwood, which she had expected, but they were a deep, rich mahogany that would cost a fortune in this day and age. She could still smell the oil soap that polished them to a shine, which was clearly visible through the light coating of dust that covered most of the surfaces in view.

  The foyer was unusually spacious, and a prominent staircase on the side rose up to the second floor. The steps were carpeted and a little frayed, but the banister shone with beautiful molding that curved down near the bottom to ensure a smooth ride for all the sliding which had surely taken place there.

  A doorway stood open to her left, revealing parts of an elegant sitting room and overly large fireplace. To the right was a heavy oak door, slightly ajar, and the tantalizing glimpse presented more temptation than her newly adventurous nature could resist.

  Danielle grumbled under her breath as she tried to push through and into the room, but the door was either broken or blocked from the other side. She was barely able to force an opening large enough to fit her face into, and with no concern as to what might lie on the other side, she did just that.

  “Oh man, look at this place,” she exclaimed, her voice heavy with dismay. “I really have my work cut out for me, now.”

  From what she could see, book after book was scattered across the floor and many more torn copies teetered precariously in random piles on top of the one solid wooden reading table at the center of the small library. It looked like someone had either left in a hurry, or they were looking for something in a hurry to leave with. Either way, ripped pages lined the wooden floor in a haphazard pattern and though she wasn’t an expert on that sort of thing, she could swear a crow bar had been applied to certain vulnerable areas of the wall inside the devastated room, leaving slender crossed slats of wood visible behind the plaster.