BLOOD CURSE (sample chapters)

Chapter One

He didn't even know her name.

It had been, what, three weeks now, of stopping by the Petro Canada service station in small-town Montague, PEI, just to see her and he still didn't even know her name. And it wasn't for lack of reminding himself. As he pulled into the parking lot, or pulled up to the gas pump, Mackenzie Adamson would tell himself, Check for a nametag... they all have nametags.

But once he entered the store and took one look at her, he would forget. He didn't know why he forgot, but Mac had his theories. The way she looked at him. Those soulful brown eyes; that cute little dimple on her right cheek, the easy way she smiled, the innocent way she would dart her eyes away from him if they stayed a little longer than what was considered polite. And her hair. He loved her long natural blonde hair and the disarming way she brushed away a lock that seemed to have a mind of its own and would dangle loose and sweep across her sight-line while she leaned to ring something through the cash register.

Then there was the other theory, which heretofore Mac had been unwilling to fully espouse, either privately to himself or publicly to one of his friends. What friends? Why? Because it involved his feelings, feelings that he had a hard time believing were real. What were the feelings, or feeling? Love at first sight. Mac thought the notion was as silly as putting ketchup in chicken noodle soup, although he knew people did it.

But, why, he asked himself as he wheeled his trusty Dodge pick-up into a customer parking stall at the service station, did he always feel so euphoric and light-headed after seeing the Petro Canada chick—get her name this time, you idiot—with her radiant smile, or engaging in some light-hearted small-talk about something as mundane as the weather? You like her admit it. You love her. Don't be daft.

He turned the wipers and the ignition off and stared outside at the black sky and the snowflakes already gathering on the windshield. It was only five-thirty-six in the afternoon but it felt like ten-thirty at night. In December the night snatched away the day early. Outside it was a frigid minus-nine degrees Celsius but, with the wind-chill, it felt like minus-nineteen. The weather man had predicted winds in access of 100 kilometers an hour and another ten to fifteen centimeters of snow by midnight tonight.

A nasty Atlantic storm was on its way.

Mac glanced in the mirror at his two-day stubble and scraped a hand over its sandpapery surface. He smiled for the mirror and then frowned, thinking it came off as forced, unnatural, not anything like her smile. He pulled his black Budweiser baseball cap down so the wind wouldn't sweep it off his head and put on his black cotton gloves.

He wasn't self-conscious about his lack of fashion sense regarding the baseball cap. At least in the rural areas, many men wore them, even some women. You fit in like a glove in cold weather here. Even in Charlottetown, the big city with a whopping forty-odd thousand people, locals didn't look at you askance if you were wearing a baseball cap—even in the banks, restaurants and a lot of bars. The baseball cap here was to the male population what a flashy suit might be to a stock broker on Wall Street. It almost made you fit in.

Almost, but in Mac's case, not quite.

The weather, he thought, as a gust of cold wind chilled him to the bone as soon as he stepped out of the truck. He shivered. That'll be an easy one. Talk about the upcoming storm, the expected power outages, blah, blah.

Mac sighed deeply. He wanted more than just small-talk about the weather. For three weeks he had made any excuse whenever he left his rural oceanfront acreage on Blackberry Grove, a short twenty-minute drive to Montague, to stop at Petro Canada and see her. Before he left, whether he planned on approaching her or not, he would dutifully remind himself to put a business card and a pen in his top shirt pocket to make it easy to swap numbers. When it didn't make sense to fill up with gas, he would buy gum, cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, whatever, just as an excuse to make contact. He wanted to be friends with this woman. He wanted to date her. He wanted her as his girlfriend. He wanted her to move in with him. He wanted to marry her. And he thought that was the only thing that could save him from the isolation, loneliness and despair he was starting to feel since relocating here from the big city.