No Greater Love

By Emjae Edwards

How much would you sacrifice for love?

If you had the power to protect someone you loved, even if it meant he'd hate you forever, would you?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inknbeans Press
• Release date: Jun 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781301194636

Emjae Edwards

Emjae considers herself a professional romantic, but don't call her work romantic fiction. Like everyone else around Inknbeans, she prefers the term contemporary relationship fiction. She started writing fiction for her grandmother more than twenty years ago, and only recently decided to pick up quill and ink and begin again, after toiling far too long as a technical writer.She lives in a little castle on a hilltop in Southern California with the demanding and indifferent Lord Mogwollen, her collection of tea pots, crochet hooks and coffees from around the world. She is the last living Dodgers fan.

Book preview

No Greater Love

Emjae Edwards

Published by Inknbeans Press

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Emjae Edwards

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Chapter One

It should have been jarring to run across the photograph of Dane Dumont’s laughing (for Dane always laughed) face, but Fiona barely noticed it in her intense desire to locate some long discarded notes Tremaine had once dictated. Although Tremaine had been dissatisfied with the work at the time and ordered it destroyed, Fiona had saved it, along with every other scrap of paper or half formed idea Tremaine had.

Fiona didn’t save these pithy bits of prose for their potential value, even though many critics predicted the young writer would make a mark on literature’s landscape one day; Fiona treasured them because they were jewels from the mind of Tremaine Peckinpah, the man she had adored back when he used to babysit her and his own sister, Temis, when they were six and he was fourteen. Back then, Tremaine’s closest brushes with literature were DC Comics.

With a tiny whoop of triumph, she unearthed the appropriate notebook from the depths of a filing drawer, and laid it on her desk reverently. When Tremaine returned from his walk, she would present him with the work that he had, that morning, lamented as lost. Only then did she take notice of the photo in her hands, and her joy was muted by irritation. She hadn’t thought about Dane in months. In fact, he had been forgotten almost the instant he called off the wedding.

She considered the gleeful face, wondering what she had seen in him. He was a shaggy blond with brilliant green eyes, big boned, handsome and strong, so unlike Tremaine, and yet with some of his favorite attributes for his heroes.

Tremaine, in Fiona’s eyes, was simply beautiful. Of American Indian and Quebecois heritage, he had the dark skin, thick straight shiny black hair and intensely brown eyes of his father. But his features were more delicately European; thin, downturned nose, deeply cleft chin, wide set, open eyes, expressive mouth, lean compact body, and all blended together with grace and an underlying impression of great power and passion. Fiona, who had grown up among – in her opinion – ordinary looking Irishmen, thought he was exquisite.

For all her beliefs of being ‘ordinary looking’ Fiona was a remarkable example of Irish heredity. Her own black hair which, even at twenty four, was worn long and straight. It was healthy and shiny and even predisposed to a little curl, despite her efforts with a hair iron every morning, especially around her porcelain white, heart shaped face. Her eyes were large and blue and very expressive and were thickly fringed with very black lashes. Her upturned nose was lightly sprinkled with faint freckles and her mouth was small and delicate and naturally red, usually turned up in a quivering smile, or downturned in determination. She was a tall girl – only a few inches shorter than Tremaine, and her body was curvy in all the places curves would be appreciated. In fact, the only thing men found unattractive about Fiona Bryant was her obvious and singular devotion to Tremaine Peckinpah.

For a while, in college and a little beyond, Dane Dumont had managed to divide her attention enough to get a diamond ring on her finger and a date set. There were those, Fiona knew, who uncharitably suggested that the only reason she accepted Dane’s proposal was to prompt a response from Tremaine. His response? Regret that he was going to lose such an able assistant. The engagement did flounder after that, and ended very bitterly some months before Fiona went on her treasure hunt on that fine, fall morning.

Tremaine burst through the door of his living room-cum-office, brushing the merest suggestion of snow from the shoulders of his overcoat. Snow! he pronounced loudly, "in October. He shrugged out of the coat and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs. We never get snow in Los Angeles-we don’t even get rain until after Christmas. Tell me again why we’re in New York?"

Literary capitol of the world, Fiona coached, picking up the coat and carrying it to the row of coat hooks on the wall. Poor Tremaine. He hated everything when his writing didn’t go well. If he’d had a more productive morning, he would have dragged her outside to scrape up enough snow for a snowball fight.

Right. Tremaine slumped down in the same black leather chair where he had dumped his coat, scowling.

Fiona smiled affectionately. In his black turtleneck and equally black mood, he looked positively sinister, but Fiona would never be afraid of him. She reached across her desk and held out the notebook. Look what I found.

For a moment his eyes flickered over the pages in undisguised disinterest, but then a familiar word or phrase caught his memory and his eyes widened in delight. This is… he looked up at her beaming face, I thought this was…you’re a wonder. He pulled the notebook from her hands and looked at another page. A wonder, Sis. He settled back contentedly, flipping pages.

Fiona’s smile faded at his appellation. She and Temis had been best of friends until Temis died in an auto accident in high school. Tremaine had taken the loss of his sister very hard and literally enveloped Fiona in his grief, volunteering her to be Temis’ proxy. He had been very good to her, of course. He was the one who agreed to come East so that she could attend Cornell and not be all alone. He was the one who had provided room and board for her when she graduated and didn’t want to move back to Los Angeles, and he was the one who ultimately gave her a job as his assistant when she couldn’t get work anywhere else. But he couldn’t give her the one thing she desperately wanted – his love.

This is great, Tremaine enthused. I feel a rush of words already. We’ll be working all night. You’d better order something in and – what’s the matter, Sis? Fiona? Are you all right? Tremaine vaulted from his chair and touched her cheek.

Fiona jerked her thoughts back to the present. I’m sorry. What were you saying?

He leaned against the desk, his back to her, his eyes fixed on the notebook. I was telling you to order something to eat and you went off into dreamland. He turned another page. Pizza sounds good, doesn’t it?

Fiona sagged against the desk, crestfallen. She didn’t know why she had hoped for anything more than his usual, self absorbed response, but she always deluded herself into believing that this would be the time he’d really notice her. I…I suppose. She drew a deep breath. I’ll order it before I leave.

Leave? He shot her a look over his shoulder. Where do you think you’re going? Oh, no, this is going to be an all-nighter.

I’m sorry, she said, already losing her resolve, but I made plans…and I…

It was on her lips to deny the plans and offer to stay but he was picking up Dane’s photo from her desk. "Oh, no…is he back? Fiona, he’s not good for you. Don’t get tangled up with him again."

Fiona snatched the picture back with more ferocity than intended. He’s got a good job with a very prestigious publishing company. It’s not a good idea to snub him.

So you do have a date with him. Tremaine backed away from the desk, and sighed. This can wait. Go on…get out of here. Get ready. I can order my own pizza.

Fiona, wounded by his off-hand manner and high handed advice about her long gone fiancé, decided not to back down this time. Thanks, I will. She knelt and pulled her purse from a drawer, so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in her face. There was no date, of course, and she would merely sit at home, rereading one of Tremaine’s two previously published novellas, and wishing she had a cat.

As she slid into her coat, she saw Tremaine from the corner of her eye, looking longingly at the notebook on the chair. Oh, she said, surrendering with a matching sigh, you wanted to work. I can always-

No, no. He waved away her unborn offer. I’ll be fine. If I really must work, I’ll talk to Mrs. Miniver over there. He indicated the ancient Dictaphone on the shelf behind her desk, lovingly named after his first assistant. Go on, get out now, while you can still catch a cab, and I’ll see you tomorrow. He pulled the door open, pushing at her shoulder. Oh, and uh…have a good time tonight.

Three days later, sipping hot chocolate, watching the skaters at Rockefeller Center and daydreaming, she was confronted by Dane Dumont in the flesh. "Hello, Fiona. Who let you loose without Lord Tremaine?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. Oh, hello yourself, not so great Dane.

Ah ha, aren’t we witty? It must come from living with a writer. Despite the words, Dane’s grin was surprisingly without malice.

It didn’t matter to Fiona, she was still watching the skaters. I didn’t live with him, Dane.

Dane shrugged and pulled out a chair at her little café table. You had the same address.

Not the same. It was true that she had occupied Tremaine’s spare bedroom for a while after graduation, but snide comments from friends and a gruff letter of protest from her father put an end to that. Still, on more nights than not, she and Tremaine worked so late that it was unthinkable