Radclyffe - The_Color_of_Love_-_Radclyffe

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The Color of Love

© 2016 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-717-0

This Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, New York 12185

First Edition: July 2016

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

Production Design: Stacia Seaman

Cover Design By Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com)

By Radclyffe

Romances

Innocent Hearts

Promising Hearts

Love’s Melody Lost

Love’s Tender Warriors

Tomorrow’s Promise

Love’s Masquerade

shadowland

Passion’s Bright Fury

Fated Love

Turn Back Time

When Dreams Tremble

The Lonely Hearts Club

Night Call

Secrets in the Stone

Desire by Starlight

Crossroads

Homestead

Against Doctor’s Orders

Prescription for Love

The Color of Love

Honor Series

Above All, Honor

Honor Bound

Love & Honor

Honor Guards

Honor Reclaimed

Honor Under Siege

Word of Honor

Code of Honor

Price of Honor

Justice Series

A Matter of Trust (prequel)

Shield of Justice

In Pursuit of Justice

Justice in the Shadows

Justice Served

Justice For All

The Provincetown Tales

Safe Harbor

Beyond the Breakwater

Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

Storms of Change

Winds of Fortune

Returning Tides

Sheltering Dunes

First Responders Novels

Trauma Alert

Firestorm

Oath of Honor

Taking Fire

Wild Shores

Short Fiction

Collected Stories by Radclyffe

Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace

Radical Encounters

Edited by Radclyffe:

Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2014

Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.

Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments

Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love

Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions

Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games

Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery

Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets

Breathless: Tales of Celebration

Women of the Dark Streets

Amore and More: Love Everafter

Myth & Magic: Queer Fairy Tales

By L.L. Raand

Midnight Hunters

The Midnight Hunt

Blood Hunt

Night Hunt

The Lone Hunt

The Magic Hunt

Shadow Hunt

Acknowledgments

Love comes in all sizes, shapes, colors, and combos—of age, ethnicity, cultural heritage, gender identities, sexualities, social strata, and more. The color at the center of this book is green and seems fitting in a time when difference is feared, and a great many people think building walls, physical and metaphorical, will cure what ails us. Those of us in the LGBTQ community know a lot about breaking down walls and out of closets and fighting to be visible. Preserving the rights and freedoms of others is essential to preserving those same things for us. So goes one, so go we all, sooner or later. This book is a love story about two women, about home and family, and about the boundaries that must fall for us to preserve our love and our lives.

Many thanks go to: senior editor Sandy Lowe for the inspiration and hard work, editor Ruth Sternglantz for endless attention and expertise, editor Stacia Seaman for her unique skills, Sheri Halal for a super cover, and my first readers Paula, Eva, and Connie for encouragement and aid.

And as always, thanks to Lee for the best colors of all—green grass and blue skies. Amo te.

Radclyffe, 2016

To Lee, for rainbows

Chapter One

At ten to nine, Emily settled into one of the leather and mahogany captain’s chairs at the round oak table in the library on the second floor of the Winfield Building and looked out the tall leaded-glass windows into the Flatiron District. A light, late snow fell, delicate and subtly powerful. So far the dusting was pleasantly picturesque, painting the sidewalks and marquees in a fleeting lacquer of white, and not enough to snarl traffic in Manhattan. She’d been in her office before six and hadn’t minded the walk from her apartment in Chelsea. Spring was around the corner, snow or not.

She sipped her Earl Grey and waited for the others, soothed as always by the faint lemony scent of furniture polish and the seductive aroma of parchment. She never used the renovated conference room on the first floor, with its bright lights, steel and glass tables, sleek modern chairs, and absolutely no soul. This room had soul. The shelves were filled with history—history she was part of now—books discovered, sponsored, birthed by the Winfield Literary Agency for a hundred years. She hadn’t been born into this world, but she’d been born with the love of words and she’d found her home.

Home. A flood of melancholy washed through her even after all this time. Almost ten years since home had become a place of sorrows and loss. She brushed the fleeting sadness aside, even while knowing it would return. The past was never truly gone, and she didn’t want it to be. She had forged a new life, but memories, even painful ones, could still bring moments of joy. She did not regret hers.

Right now she had a very busy day ahead of her, and she looked forward to it. She sipped more tea and scanned the agenda on her tablet. Acquisitions, launches, marketing and ads, budget, contracts. Business items to some, but excitement to her. Behind every bullet point a book was waiting.

At five to nine, Ron Elliott arrived, looking neat and polished as he always did in an open-collared, blue button-down shirt and flawlessly tailored black trousers. His chestnut brown hair draped over his forehead in a subtly artful accentuation of his dark brows and piercing blue eyes. He was handsome in the way some men could be beautiful and masculine at the same time. If she’d been interested in men in a personal way, and if he hadn’t been gay and happily married, she would have picked Ron as the perfect match. He loved the work the way she did—as more than a job. He hadn’t even complained when she’d been moved ahead of him into the senior agent position when she was younger and had less time in than him. He claimed he really only wanted to spend his time on acquisitions, and she believed him. Some days she envied him, when her carefully scheduled half-day of reviewing the slush pile went to hell in a handbasket with an unanticipated fiscal crisis, a frantic author with a missed deadline, or an impossible publisher request to advance a pub date.