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  THE FALCON FINDS HIS MATE

  A Nocturne Falls Universe Novel

  By

  Candace Colt

  Dear Reader,

  Nocturne Falls has become a magical place for so many people, myself included. Over and over I’ve heard from you that it’s a town you’d love to visit and even live in! I can tell you that writing the books is just as much fun for me.

  With your enthusiasm for the series in mind – and your many requests for more books – the Nocturne Falls Universe was born. It’s a project near and dear to my heart, and one I am very excited about.

  I hope these new, guest-authored books will entertain and delight you. And best of all, I hope they allow you to discover some great new authors! (And if you like this book, be sure to check out the rest of the Nocturne Falls Universe offerings.)

  For more information about the Nocturne Falls Universe, visit http://kristenpainter.com/sugar-skull-books/

  In the meantime, happy reading!

  Kristen Painter

  Dedicated to my wonderful husband who tolerates my writing obsession.

  THE FALCON FINDS HIS MATE

  A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

  Copyright © 2017 by Candace Colt

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction and was made possible by a special agreement with Sugar Skull Books, but hasn’t been reviewed or edited by Kristen Painter. All characters, events, scenes, plots and associated elements appearing in the original Nocturne Falls series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kristen Painter, Sugar Skull Books and their affiliates or licensors.

  Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or Sugar Skull Books.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Chapter One

  Sipping sweet ice tea from a Mason jar, Jessica ‘Jess’ Callahan rocked in the porch swing, watching car after car file past; each one packed with gawking tourists dying for Nocturne Falls to open.

  "Morning, precious." Echo Stargazer slipped into the seat next to her granddaughter. "Look at that traffic." With the August Reunion Festival kicking off this weekend, cars would be stacked all over town.

  "Stacked cars? What a hoot!" Echo said.

  Jess slammed her heels on the ground halting the swing. "Nana, you can’t keep reading people’s thoughts out loud. At least while my friends are here."

  "Don’t be such a worry wart. They won’t arrive until tomorrow. " Echo beamed a

  crooked grin and waved her knotty-fingered palm. "Decorum, grace, and charm will ooze from my very being."

  This would be a supreme challenge for the little lady sitting next to her. "Let’s not overdo it," Jess said.

  "Moi? Overdo?" Echo slipped a pearl encrusted cuff bracelet from her pocket and polished it on her thigh.

  Barefoot in her faded Boston University sleep shirt, Jess marveled at this seventy-six-year-old wearing marigold yellow culottes, a hand-embroidered over-blouse, and full makeup down to crimson lipstick on her wizened lips. Her grandmother had fashionista style.

  Sunrise to nightfall, Jess spent the last three months on repairs to their two-story Victorian and applied more color to the walls than to her cheekbones.

  "You look lovely without makeup," Echo said.

  "Thank you, Nana, but don’t change the subject. Zoey and Sierra don’t know what goes on in this town and no clue about my dear grandmother."

  Echo’s impish eyes sparkled. "What happens when I’m with clients?"

  "Could you meet them somewhere else for the week? How about the Hallowed Bean coffee shop?"

  "Where someone’s always bellowing orders?"

  Echo gestured to the left, and a half-dozen bracelets tinkled down her arm like a wind chime. "A tall Jack O’ Lantern Latte with soy, no whip, for Eliza." When she raised her other arm, another half-dozen bangles followed suit. "Double Enchanted Espresso for Jake. In the corner, a card reading for Maude."

  "You made your point." Jess opened a weather app on her phone. "Ninety-five by noon."

  "Hot enough to fry green tomatoes on the vine. Outstanding. Tourists will flock inside for our cold air conditioning and stay to buy trinkets."

  Forever optimistic, Echo’s freezer was full of lemonade squeezed from a lifetime of lemons. She could find a rainbow in a pig sty.

  Starting with only five hundred dollars to her name, Echo had leveraged the first floor into the Carpe Diem, a profitable costume and tchotchke shop. Private card readings in their living quarters on the second floor of their carnation pink Victorian home, iced the cake.

  As an orphaned eight-year-old, Jess adapted to Nana’s quirks. But her college roommates would be here for only a week; not nearly time to adjust to anything.

  "Are you finished with the stage?" Echo asked.

  Jess shook her head and crunched the last ice cube. Weeks ago, tickets sold out for tomorrow’s Ellingham Animal Sanctuary Showcase, the first event of the Reunion Festival. And the Harmswood Academy auditorium stage was far from ready.

  Though her stock-and-trade was building elaborate museum displays, she would never again tackle a project like this. Not because she couldn’t handle tools—she could.

  Lassoed into chairing the Showcase, her problems started the moment she called the first work meeting to order. Not that order ever reigned. Leading this motley group was a test of wills akin to directing a migrating wildebeest choir.

  Gypsum jacked up mercy. There’d been more pre-planning, planning-to-plan, and review-the-plan meetings to overflow both claw-footed bathtubs upstairs. Still, they were down to the wire.

  Half the volunteers had magical powers; all failed to conjure a break from bad luck. First, the electrical panel blew. The toilets in the women’s bathroom wouldn’t flush. The AC cashed out. Delivered two days early, three dozen white gladiolus intended for the lobby had drooped and turned brown.

  What she wouldn’t trade for a day to rest.

  "It will go better today, believe me. I talked with the fairies and they agreed to stop their tricks. I told you what would happen if they weren’t on your planning committee," Echo said.

  "From your mouth to the Goddess’s ears." All Jess wanted was for the show to be over, and to tame her growling stomach with yogurt and fresh Georgia peaches.

  "Sliced in the fridge," Echo said.

  Jess dropped her chin. Again? "Nana, I love you to tears, but—"

  Echo raised a three-finger scout salute. "On my honor…"

  The rest lost as a "meworowow" and crash rattled the front door.

  "I’ll get him," Jess said.

  Through the threshold sauntered Echo’s beloved cat. Focused like a Mini-Sumo wrestler, he faced his opponent, a half-pulverized scratching post. With one paw smack, the contraption succumbed.

  Under the cat’s stony glower, Jess gathered the broken pieces. "How many does that make?"

  "Since you came back? Five, counting this one."

  Echo grunted as she lifted a cat the size of a small snowman. "Crealde, honey. Are you sneaking food? Calling pizza delivery after we’ve gone to bed?"

  His purr grew to a lion’s roar. Jess covered her ears. "He doesn’t like being fat shamed."

  "Stop it, Crealde. You’ll wake the dead." Echo hooked a thumb over her shoulder to her neighbor’s shuttered house. "Though it would take more than a catcall to stir th
at bunch."

  The cat went quiet as Echo’s fingers spun over his snow-white fur.

  Jess leaned against the wall, arms folded over her chest. "And how do you propose we explain Crealde to houseguests?"

  Echo’s wide-rimmed glasses magnified her eyes to hockey pucks. "What’s to explain?"

  Jess gave her temples a deep massage. What’s to explain? "Work with me, Nana. Except to us and all supers in Nocturne Falls, your nineteen-pound fur baby with one blue and one green eye is entirely invisible."

  "Details. Details. By the way, I’ve arranged for the Ford brothers to come help today," Echo said.

  More help meant more novices to herd and Jess didn’t have time to play nursemaid.

  Wait. Surely she’d heard that wrong.

  "Who did you say was coming to help?" Jess craned her neck at an angle toward her grandmother.

  "You heard me. Besides, many hands make the load lighter."

  For certain, this was a load of something. But not something nice smelling. Jess had managed to steer clear of Connor Ford the whole time she’d been home. It had taken seven years to get over him and ten seconds to jump-start old feelings.

  Calm down. This wasn’t high school. They weren’t kids anymore. He’d probably forgotten all about her as she had him, if only for a minute.

  This was so not going to be easy.

  While she ate breakfast, Jess couldn’t sidestep worry. A dozen times Sierra Everest and Zoey Houston had pestered to come home with her on college breaks. Each time she came up with a baker’s dozen reasons against it.

  Three years after they graduated, she finally caved. Good time as any, Festival week would give them the full Nocturne Falls experience.

  She braided her hair and rehearsed ways to explain Nana’s eccentricities to Sierra, the world-traveling child of a UN ambassador, and Zoey, a Senator’s daughter.

  Above all else, explanations had to be simple. Brag on Nocturne Falls, the quaint community that celebrated Halloween all year long. Where diversity was embraced and everyone accepted for who they were.

  Coincidences. Echo didn’t read thoughts. No magic about it.

  Sure. That will work. No problem at all…until the very human Sierra and Zoey saw fangs, fur, or statues that talked, and ran for the hills.

  Jess sighed away a long breath. No plausible way around this except the coward’s route.

  Sneaky as it was, only one thing would work. She would convince Zoey and Sierra to drink the specially charged Nocturne Falls water. Right from the start and often.

  Humans who drank Moonbow Water didn’t sense any supernatural presence or notice magic. Sad, in a way. There were positive things about being a super, though Jess rarely used her gift.

  She rinsed her dishes and glanced out the kitchen window. Nana and Master Cheng were practicing Tai Chi; their dance-like moves synchronized poetry.

  No telling how old the man was, or where he lived. Like clockwork, he came every Friday morning, shared time with Nana, and left as quickly as he appeared.

  People came and went all the time; in the garden, through the store, and upstairs. Even with privacy at a premium, she was grateful to come home after her dream job shattered like Humpty’s shell.

  At first, the headhunter called every few days with upbeat prospects. Now Jess’s calls went to voicemail. It seemed there weren’t many jobs for museum archivists at the moment.

  She mentally clicked down an unfinished task list. Too little time. The Showcase had to be flawless. No more problems. She could keep Connor and his brother busy in a far corner. Two of the wealthiest men in town helping build a stage? They might not even show up, or be much use if they did.

  As she jimmied her work boots over her socks, a sharp thwack heralded brain-searing pain.

  What. Just. Happened.

  A bent fingernail? She hoped.

  She opened one eye at a time. Good news. Not the nail. Bad news. Thumb angled like a U-turn road sign.

  Hurts. A lot.

  "Noooooo." Crouched on the floor, her head to her knees, she took long slow inhales.

  Deep breathing should help. Why didn’t it?

  Chapter Two

  Footsteps. Closer.

  "Nana?"

  Echo knelt beside Jess. "We heard you all the way downstairs. What on earth is wrong?"

  Without raising her head or saying a word, Jess stuck her hand in the air.

  "Gracious. I won’t even ask how," Echo said.

  "Don’t." Jess’s voice muffled between her knees.

  Soft fingers wrapped around her hand, easing the screaming pain to a distant shout. Someone held the wicked renegade thumb.

  "I help, Miss." Not Nana’s voice. Her eyes opened a slit to see Master Cheng on his knees beside her. "Hold breath, Miss."

  She filled her lungs to capacity and hiked in one more smidgen. Master Cheng clasped her hand and an electrical cavalcade coursed through her.

  "Breathe out." The man’s hands opened like a delicate lotus blossom. "No more pain."

  Jess stared unblinkingly at her perfectly straight thumb.

  *~*

  "No. Not a chance." Ryan Ford’s teeth ground at the image in the mirror. Emblazoned across the front of his black T-shirt, in bright shiny letters: I falcons.

  His brother, Connor, wiped workbench sawdust off his hands. "All in the name of charity."

  "I don’t care if it’s for the Queen of Egypt. I wouldn’t use this moronic thing to polish wood, let alone wear it. Does Mother realize we’re grown men?"

  "Always better to humor, than argue with her."

  Ryan yanked off the shirt and slapped it over his brother’s shoulder. "Fine. You wear it. You walk across the stage in front of two hundred people."

  "Sorry, bro." Connor extended the shirt to arms’ length. "Mother volunteered you."

  "Don’t remind me."

  Why didn’t he just write a check for his appearance, stay here and finish the Fareed project? It hurt to part with the five-foot tall, carved wooden stallion, but the seventy-thousand-dollar commission eased the ache. With the money, he could afford to move his studio off his mother’s estate. That day couldn’t come soon enough.

  "Dude," Connor said. "Mother’s crossing the driveway. ETA forty-five seconds. I’m gone."

  "If you’re determined to abandon me, at least do it on foot and not wing."

  Elenora Ellingham, an elder in the Nocturne Falls founding family, forbade shape-shifters to turn during the day. Like that would stop his brother.

  Connor flashed a devious grin. "I rise to meet the wind. Later, bro." With a finger snap, he shifted into a falcon and took flight out the back door into the woods behind the estate.

  "Thanks, bro." Ryan stuffed the obnoxious T-shirt into a cabinet seconds before a shadow crossed the threshold, blocking the morning light.

  Solange Ford kicked aside wood shavings and walked further into the workshop. "How can you stand this mess?"

  How? For starters, to avoid being hassled by a playboy brother and a sharp-tongued mother. Though today solitude was an illusion.

  "This is a working studio, Mother. Not a tea room."

  "I hoped for a preview of your outfit," Solange said.

  He cut a glance to the hiding place where the outlandish shirt would never again see daylight in this lifetime or the next. "Preview or approval?"

  "Was that a nice thing to say to your mother?"

  Not in the slightest. Ryan remained tight-lipped.

  Solange rubbed a hand over her son’s cheek and gave his hair a slight tug. "You could use a shave, and maybe get your hair trimmed, just a teeny bit."

  If he could help it, never. "How about I shave my head like Connor?"

  "Do not under any circumstance mimic that horrific butchered haircut." His mother went to the door and stared into the pines. "It would mean the world to me if you won."

  He ran a cloth down the stallion’s sm
ooth haunch. "No matter who wins, the money goes to a good cause."

  "But it would be wonderful to boast on my good-looking son."

  "Or show off to your cronies?"

  In mock displeasure, she rolled her eyes. "Connor is acting so childish. As though I can’t see him up there. Has he forgotten who taught you both how to hide? How to wait? And when the moment was right, how to—"

  Ryan hammered shut the lid to a tin of wax. "Mother. Don’t go there." Hunting prey was in the Ford DNA, but not something he enjoyed thinking about, nor doing.

  After he had mucked up his first, only, and last kill, he became vegetarian.

  Solange fluffed her dappled gray hair. "Time to charm your brother from the tree. I believe you’re both due at Harmswood."

  Modeling in the Showcase was humiliation enough. Building the stage was like forcing condemned men to build their gallows.

  And what use would tag along Connor be? It drove Ryan up a wall any time his brother got near a tool.

  "One more thing," Solange said.

  Always one more thing and the second was never good.

  "I found out Jessica Callahan will be there."

  Ryan cocked his head toward his mother. "So what?"

  "I don’t want him tempted into rekindling an old romance."

  "Are you kidding? Connor can’t remember who he dated last year. You think he remembers high school?"

  "We don’t need this now that he’s settled down and about to be married."

  "The original runaway groom settled down?" His laugh reverberated through the rafters.

  Unmoved, Solange faced him. "I’ve instilled high mating standards in you boys. It doesn’t matter how many women you almost marry. The one you do marry is the one that counts. This union will be an asset. As will yours to Melanie."

  Melanie McPherson? That arranged engagement to the highbrow Atlanta shifter had ended a long time ago. Sooner or later, he’d tell his mother, but with the permanent bad mood his she wore like a wetsuit, later worked.

  "You never liked Jess or her grandmother because they aren’t shifters. Admit it," he said.