Oxygen – Blackwood Elements #1
Sometimes love can be found when you least expect it…
Akari Takeda walked on the dark side for fifteen years until death gave her the chance at a new life. Determined not to waste the time she has left, she moves to Boston with her young son to follow her dream of becoming a pianist.
But three men get in her way—Jansen, the skilled but uptight violinist, easygoing Jude, who understands how important coffee is to a girl, and Lincoln, the smooth-talking janitor who looks good in leather.
Which of them will steal her heart, and who isn't everything they seem?
Oxygen is a standalone novel following one of the side characters from the Blackwood Security series. The story follows on from Forever Black.
Excerpt – House hunting:
“It’s too big,” I said as the realtor showed us around the first of the four potential homes we were due to see. “It looked much smaller on the internet.”
Emmy had found me the apartment in Tokyo, and it had been surprisingly cheap. Although it was far larger than we needed, I’d fallen in love with the view right away, and when my parents came to see the place, their awed faces had me signing the purchase contract. But in Boston, there was no need for me to live on such a grand scale.
Bradley didn’t share my sentiments. “I don’t think it’s big enough. I mean, it’s only got three bedrooms.”
“That’s plenty.”
He stared at me as if I’d suggested pink wasn’t the best colour or chocolate was an unnecessary indulgence and ticked off points on his fingers.
“One, Hisashi will want his own room before you’ve finished college. Two, you need somewhere for the nanny to sleep. Three, your family will come and stay.” He scratched his chin. “You need at least five bedrooms.”
“Hisashi can share with me if my family all come at once, and who said the nanny would be living here?”
True, I didn’t like being on my own, but I valued my privacy too much to share my home with a stranger.
“Well, I just assumed… Why wouldn’t you want her to stay? It’ll be easier for everyone.”
“I don’t want a live-in nanny.”
“But I really think…”
“I appreciate you coming to help, honestly I do, but this is my fresh start. I need to learn to stand on my own two feet and cope by myself. That means a live-out nanny and no bodyguards.”
“I’m not sure…”
“I am. Look, if I can’t speak to Emmy, then you’ll need to. No more shadows monitoring my every move.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but she won’t be happy.”
I’d spent my whole damn life trying to make other people happy.
“Well, I’m sorry about that, but she’ll have to live with it.”
Excerpt – Lincoln
Breathe, Akari. In Boston, I was safe. I just had to keep reminding myself of that fact.
In the practice room, I drew the sheet music I needed to learn out of my bag and propped it up on the piano. While Vivaldi wasn’t new to me, he’d never been one of my favourite composers, and after a couple of run-throughs, my attention wandered and I started to play a rock song I’d heard on the car radio in the morning. Oh, what the hell, there was nobody else around, so I began singing too. I could hold a tune, but my version of “One Vision” wasn’t a patch on Freddie Mercury’s.
I’d got halfway through the second verse when a shadow flitted across the doorway. My fingers played on for a few bars of their own accord then stopped, frozen in mid-air. Who was out there? I paused, listening carefully, but there were no footsteps and no voices. Had I imagined things?
A faint squeak sent a jolt of electricity down my spine. Someone was there. Or something. My brother used to read me horror stories when I was a little girl, and although I’d always been careful not to show how scared I was, the child in me still believed in monsters under the bed.
Just breathe.
A weapon. I needed a weapon. The nearest heavy object was a slender glass vase from a nearby side-table, and I hefted it in my hands as I crept over to the open door. Surely it couldn’t be that valuable?
I held my breath as I peered around the edge of the doorframe, and then… I relaxed. At the far end of the corridor, a janitor pushed a broom back and forth, and another soft squeak escaped from his rubber-soled shoes.
He looked up as I stared at him, then his gaze dropped to the vase I held.
“Is everything all right, miss?”
I struggled to work out his age since a thick beard hid half of his face, but he sounded younger than I’d first assumed.
“Yes, everything’s fine. You just took me by surprise. I thought I was on my own.”
He stepped forward, and as he passed under a light, I got a better look at him. Light brown hair curled over the collar of a pair of grey coveralls, reaching his shoulders. When he got within touching distance, I read the name embroidered on the pocket. Lincoln. The material itself stretched over a muscular chest, but that wasn’t what made my breath hitch as I looked up. His eyes drew me in, two dark brown pools that whispered of more secrets than a Mexican cenote. I struggled to tear myself away, only able to inhale again when my gaze fixed on the tiled floor. The floor was safe. The floor didn’t know what I was thinking.
“I drew the late shift today. I’ll try not to disturb you,” he said, his voice steady.
“You weren’t. I was just… I’m not used to being alone.”
Why did I tell him that? I couldn’t even admit my insecurities to my own family.
“We all get jumpy sometimes.” He shifted his broom to the other hand and made to move past me. “Nice music, by the way.”
“You’re a fan of Vivaldi?”
He threw me a glance over his shoulder.
“I was talking about Queen.”
