Blurb File Friday

Just so you can see someone besides Harper, here’s the scene from Totem following last week’s snippet where Harper meets Ethan.

[Copyright, common decency, mine mine, don’t steal, don’t copy, link if you will, yadda yadda…]

Is this what besotted feels like? Ethan stared at the office door, now shut, through which Harper had taken her leave.

Her eyes were a glorious golden green, wide-set and clear as a mountain lake. Tilted slightly, her almond eyes put him in mind of a cat. The directness of her gaze reminded him of the woman from his dream the previous night, though that was where the physical similarities had ended. Harper was bright where the young woman in his dream had been dark. He couldn’t envision Harper’s glorious sunny smile on the unsmiling mouth of that woman, who was on the brink of some sort of battle.

Abruptly Ethan realized that Dr. Nolan was waiting for a reply. He turned back to face the archaeologist, aware that he’d been staring after Harper for nearly a full minute. He twitched his feet in discomfort. “I, uh…I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”

Dr. Nolan arched a brow, then grinned a little.

“Her mother had the same effect on people. Harper looks just like her.”

“Then you, Sir, are a lucky man.”

“I am indeed,” Dr. Nolan agreed, smiling. “Now, we were discussing the terms of your undergraduate assistantship.”

“Assistantship? I was volunteering for research credit.”

“Well you can certainly do that, if you wish, but it so happens I have money in my grant budget for an undergrad assistant. It’d be 15 to 20 hours a week. Interested?”

“Absolutely.”

They discussed the details for a few more minutes, settling on a schedule and rate of pay. Then they shook on it, and Ethan took his leave. He caught himself looking for Harper on the way to the parking lot, though he was certain she’d already left campus. Briefly he considered hanging around and following Dr. Nolan home, but that would hardly leave a good impression on him as a mentor or as the father of the woman he desperately wanted to date.

How you gonna get around that little complication, Roarke? Ethan thought. She wasn’t just any girl. He would be closely working with her father. Ethan couldn’t just approach her as he would a girl he met at a party or somewhere on campus. He couldn’t take it casually. If it didn’t work out or ended ugly, it could seriously complicate matters for him with Dr. Nolan. He had to be careful in how he handled things. She mattered. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but the past couple of years had taught Ethan to have a little faith in the powers of fate. Miss Harper Nolan was going to mean something important in his life—he just wasn’t entirely sure as what.

Resigned to having to put off talking with her again until the following day in class, Ethan turned his thoughts to how he was going to talk her into letting him copy her notes from the first day of class. It was, after all, her fault that he hadn’t managed to take any, he mused. He’d been so struck by her that all thoughts of academia had fled. The tough part would be communicating that and coming across as legitimately sincere instead of spouting some kind of line.

Hope you enjoyed! Please sign Mr. Linky so I can go visit your snippet!

7 thoughts on “Blurb File Friday

  1. Wow! I’m glad we got to see more of Ethan. I love how he was so enamored of her. The characterization of Harper’s father was also great. He seems like an interesting character.

  2. Yeah, historically I wouldn’t do much with the parents in a YA, but in this particular case, her father plays a pivotal role in the story, so there are some later scenes from his POV.

  3. Ethan’s sweet! It’s nice to see his angle. Sometimes we don’t get that so the writer can preserve that sense of lofty mysteriousness about the object of interest. More real your way.

  4. So it’s both of them. Poor kids. *grin*

    I wonder what the father’s going to do. Precious daughters aren’t supposed to fall in love with assistants, I bet.

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