Cover Art by Teresa Tunaley
Sarah Black
The Forever Kind
Excerpt from The Forever Kind
Interview with Sarah Black
Coming in February 2006
The phone was ringing as Rachel ran up the steps to her house. It was late, after six, but she'd had a busy afternoon in the clinic. She shook out her wet raincoat and dumped her bag on a chair. April in Virginia, she thought in disgust. It sounded nice unless you had to live here. She picked up the phone.
"Rachel, my dear, Uncle Joe."
"Hi, Uncle Joe. You sound tired."
"Long day," he admitted. "I saw your young man. I want to do surgery in the morning."
Rachel was silent, eyes closed. "Is he okay? How did he take the news?"
"Well, I thought he was okay. He got the blood work, talked to the anesthetist, and signed the consent forms. Then he just got up and walked out of the office. I need to find him, make sure he knows to be at the hospital for pre-op at 0630. He looked a little, what is that expression? Freaked out?"
Rachel sighed, running tired fingers through her hair.
"Can you go find him, Rachel? It looks like he lives on your street."
"He does," she said. "Just four houses down from here."
The man on the phone hesitated. "He's a nice young man, Rachel. He looks like his mother, doesn't he?"
"Yes, he does a little," she said. "He's got Black Jack's eyes, though. I like him, I like his art very much. Very passionate and bold, but warm. Nothing like that woman."
"He likes you, too. Said you had warm and gentle hands. Listen, Rachel, I wouldn't ask you to go, but I'm on my way to the ER. A decorative stud tangled with a ring. I've got to go repair a lacerated urethra."
Rachel winced. "Ouch! Don't worry, I'll go see him, Uncle Joe."
She changed into her Navy sweats and fixed herself a cup of espresso with a teaspoon of sugar. She tossed it down like medicine, then headed down the street to John's house. She knew where he lived. He was hard to miss pulling his trash can to the curb or planting flowers around the tree in his tiny front yard. They had not done more than nod at each other, though, since he had moved into the little house last summer.
She'd been surprised when he finished his graduate work and decided to stay at the University. His Master of Fine Arts show had nearly caused a riot in the local art world, and everyone had expected him to bolt for Paris or New York or wherever cool young artists went these days. But he stayed in Virginia to teach.
Daffodils were blooming in a big clay pot on his porch. His front door was propped open, and Rachel knocked softly on the screen door.
"It's open," he called. Rachel pulled off her wet shoes and left them on the porch, then pushed open the screen and came into the front room. He had the entire first floor converted to a painting studio. A tiny galley kitchen was along one wall, with a bar for eating and a couple of bar stools. The only furniture in the big room was a long, deep leather sofa pushed up against the wall, underneath the front windows.
Rolls of unprimed canvas were standing around like sentinels. He had a huge painting propped up on a pair of easels, easily eight feet long. The canvas was primed, and blocks of mellow color filled the space- dusty lavender, soft blue-gray, touches of snow white and sage green. The colors had the feeling of the mountains at dusk, warm and sleepy, with night's quiet moving in.
John had a pallet knife in his hand and was working in a thin line of vermillion, like the gaping edges of an open wound. He turned to look at her. His hair was loose, and he was working in jeans and bare feet. His face was bleak as he turned back to the canvas. "Just give me a minute."
She went to the counter that separated the small kitchen from the rest of the space. The coffee pot looked like it came off the space shuttle. A bag of French Roast beans lay next to a grinder, and several pottery cups sat on the counter. Rachel picked one up. It was thrown by hand, rich golden-orange earthenware on the outside, smooth white glaze on the inside and lip. The glaze had the smallest blush of blue.
She wandered over to the couch and curled up on the end, watching him. He was so focused, his concentration unwavering between his hand and eye and the canvas. What would happen to him tomorrow at the hospital would change him, would hurt him. She thought he probably knew that. He was painting like he might never be able to paint again.
He looked like his art. Rachel had been looking at John's paintings for some time, had one of his smaller canvases in her living room. She loved the power and the hopeful, innocent, erotic quality. She felt safe with him, and thought she knew him a little. He painted with such joy, such bold, exuberant love of life.
Dread and desire were at war in her heart, and some creeping sense of inevitability, like she was always meant to walk into his little house, like this was the final act in a play begun ten years before. She wanted to comfort him, to ease the panic that must be crawling along his bones, but there was too much history between them. And he knew nothing about any of it.
Can't wait to read the rest of the story? You can find it on the Heatwave Romance site.
COMING FEBRUARY 2006
An Interview with Sarah Black about the writing of The Forever Kind
You were in the Navy Nurse Corps, like your character Rachel Kincaid. How did that experience influence the way you developed Rachel's character?
I did use my own Navy experience for Rachel. I joined the Nurse Corps in 1981. I can remember like it was yesterday what it felt like the first time I put on my dress-blue uniform and stood at attention, saluting an American flag. Personal honor is strong in the military, then and now. The worst thing that could happen to an idealistic and proud young officer like Rachel would be a stain on her honor that would cost her the uniform.
Who's your favorite character in the book?
Well, I'm half in love with John, but I must admit Drew is my favorite. I've known lots of good guys like him, really caring guys who set themselves a hard road to walk in life. I really wanted a happy ending for him, too.
The character of Black Jack Morgan doesn't make an appearance until the end of the book, yet most of the story involves him directly. Why did you write his character this way?
Black Jack is out to sea during most of this story. That's pretty common for Navy families, to have the sailors out to sea when a crisis happens. Nobody likes it, not the sailors and not the families. But it's part of military service, and everyone does the best they can. The thing sailors look forward to more than anything when they retire from the Navy is being home when their families need them.
What was the hardest part of the book to write?
The hardest thing for me was getting into the head of Francesca Morgan when she was so full of hatred and bitterness. Yikes! I tried to feel what she would feel, but it was hard.
Why did you choose testicular cancer as the illness that afflicted John Morgan?
I choose testicular cancer because it's so common in young men his age, but no one talks about it much. For a guy like John, finding himself as a man is hard enough with a mad, bad father like Black Jack. Loosing a testicle, that's not just a threat to his life, but a real blow to how he feels about himself as a man. Rachel helps with that, and Drew, but he really climbs out of that hole on his own.
Was it erotic for you personally to write the sex scenes?
Oh, yes. Doubly so, because I had to think it all up, and then write it. I loved those sex scenes, because I had really become attached to the characters, and I wanted it to be good for them.