Isabel's Awakening

By TD Hassett

Who didn’t know the biggest rock band in the world? Singer and front man Thomas Morgan was destroyed by the loss of his brother and total destruction of his marriage. To avoid entanglements with others, even his young son, Thomas focused on promoting his music and newly formed record label. He thought he had everything at a safe distance, at least until Isabel literally slammed into his life.
High school teacher Isabel Warren finds herself falling head over heels in love with the sexy-as-sin singer for the rock band Becket. Soon Isabel’s orderly world of lesson plans, thesis writing, and student loan debt is competing against desire, passion, and her vulnerable heart.
As the sex sizzles, the two lovers will have to decide which parts of their dreams they will sacrifice for their fledgling relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TD Hassett
• Release date: Mar 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311937414

TD Hassett

T.D. Hassett grew up reading the romance greats, Jackie Collins, Julie Garwood and Judith McNaught. She was certain that life should be like a romance novel, lots of passion, some incredible adventures and a guaranteed happily ever after. She attended college in New England earning a B.A. in history and a M.S. degree in clinical psychology before changing her mind again and studying education. Currently Ms. Hassett lives in Connecticut with her very patient husband and two young children. Her rambunctious family shares their home with 3 crazy cats and a darling Beta fish named Dorothy. Her eccentric relatives and their quest to make her feel like the only normal nut in the family tree inspire her writing. She also writes under the pen name of Tiffany Dawn.

Book preview

Prologue

I don't know how it all got so crazy, just wait; just wait with me.

—Becket

Is everybody okay? Is anyone hurt?

Isabel heard the shrill voice calling out, but it was distorted by screams from all around the crowded room and the music blaring in the background. Time stopped, and the song, Dutty Wine, cut out midstream. Different colored lights swirled on the ceiling, and silver stars spun on filament. Confused faces looked down on her, her body writhing from pain that climbed from one side and ripped its way up to her chest. She couldn’t take in a full breath, and her hands tried fruitlessly to push the stinging sensation from her abdomen.

Isabel attempted to pull the fabric at the waist of her best dress, the black-and-white ankle-length sundress that she’d worn to her college graduation. Her fingers slipped on the wetness covering the front. Why couldn’t she get to the spot that was burning and sending searing pain all the way through her body? She looked over and saw Latecia crying in the arms of a coworker. Latecia shouldn’t be getting so upset right now, not with her swollen belly and the baby due so soon. Smudges marred Jayquan’s and Isaac’s white suits, as if they’d been wrestling on the ground instead of dancing. The sounds were getting softer and softer, and Isabel began to fade into that welcoming numb feeling that had been calling to her so sweetly.

A sadistic stranger flashed a bright light in her eyes and poked her arm with a pin, pulling her back from the encroaching darkness.

A louder voice shocked her into awareness. Miss, miss, do you have any allergies? Do you know where you are? He shook his head and then continued talking as if anyone should care what he was saying. We’re going to take you to St. Anne’s Hospital.

She couldn’t answer him, but her pain level left her wishing he would stop bothering her. Her arms were getting so cold, and she couldn’t even feel her feet, kind of funny because they were hurting so much earlier tonight in too-tight shoes.

Things were fading fast, but the memory of the tumult came back again—the music blaring, teenagers all around, and then the shooter, a single figure castigating the crowd, startling people at the edge of the dance floor before a loud pop instigated the raucous screaming.

There were bright lights everywhere, and Isabel felt completely numb, unsure of where the suffocating crowd had vanished. She could make out garbled phrases uttered by masked and gowned strangers, words that had little meaning.

Gunshot wound, moderate velocity, abdominal vascular structures damaged, prep for CT scan for intraperitonial penetration, laparoscopic surgery…

It all sounded like they were discussing someone else.

They couldn’t be talking about her; she was boring and responsible. She wasn’t the type to take risks or get into situations involving gunplay. Not the kind of person who got shot at in a crowded room. And then it occurred to her. Today she was a person who’d been shot in a crowded room, and if she died today, it would be as a person who’d put career and the onus of obligations ahead of the purest of human emotions and experiences of love and passion and risk.

She’d never told him. She hadn’t told him what she’d discovered, not any of it.

Chapter 1

Don't let me drown, don't let me drown in you.

—Becket

Five Weeks Earlier

Thursday

Sugar, honey, iced tea. She muttered rather than swear. Isabel was having a bad day. Again. The front clasp of her bra broke while crawling under her desk to get the papers her last period class knocked about in the bloodlust of a fight. She honestly didn’t know whether to call security or an exorcist today for these kids. They’d been impossible to settle down after the brawlers were hauled away. It was heartbreaking to have learning distracted by such events. The handcuffs and police presence just added to the drama.

She knew the city schools had drug problems, gang problems, and attendance problems. She just hadn’t expected it all to be so in your face or frequent. The school was a neglected barracks of a building yet was surrounded by some of the wealthiest suburbs in the country and located just an hour outside of New York City.

Isabel wanted to think of gangs as more West Side Story and less Colors, but she was wrong. The colors of T-shirts worn under mandatory uniform shirts ran deeper than the ties of blood, deeper than any platitude about hope that one teacher could offer. The world history class was barely into the Middle Ages, and the last term was right around the corner. New students appeared on the rolls just as many old students started to check out for the school year. Frankly, the mayhem and distraction of new students coming in and trying to prove themselves to the crowd did quite a number on both teaching and learning. Nothing she tried seemed to be working.

Isabel grabbed the last of the scattered papers and glanced down at her blouse, only to realize that her full breasts were flying free. She repaired her bra clasp with a rigged paperclip. It seemed to hold the front of her lingerie together well enough.

The plan was to leave school as soon after the end-of-the-day meeting as possible and pick up some magazines to read to her dad at her next visit to his nursing home. She’d hoped to get there tonight and get the visit for the week over with but she was behind on her mater’s thesis and cranky over today’s mishaps. She’d still go to the Media and More outlet store. It would distract her and besides, she could think of few things better than reading, except maybe watching science fiction movies. One of these days she wanted to buy one of those tablet things. Movies and books in the palm of her hand!

Isabel headed down the abandoned stairwell anxious to be on her way. Despite her bad mood, she waved to some of the kids hanging out in the courtyard.

The brisk air of the parking lot pulled her out of her own head. She was feeling sorry for herself right now and only focusing on the negative. Jerry, her dad, had been in that home for the last five years after suffering a stroke during her senior year of high school. He’d never recovered from it and didn’t really know who anyone was anymore. He wouldn’t notice a skipped visit.

She would have loved to have someone to hang out with tonight, but her closest two friends were both unavailable. Jess was out with other friends, and her oldest friend was on bed rest waiting for her twins’ birth. Losing herself in someone else’s fictional existence would be a treat.

Her cell phone rang as she unlocked the door to her crappy Kia. She checked the number and saw that it was her mother, Susan, calling. She just couldn’t have one of those conversations right now. She needed to get to the bookstore and put Operation Distraction into action.

National Public Radio news droned on the car radio. The Kia’s windshield wipers ran in time with the news anchor’s pauses. She liked the news well enough but actually listened to NPR whenever driving because it was the only station that came in on her busted radio. The phone beeped to indicate Susan had left a message.

Her Mom lived in constant crisis mode. Something was always going wrong. Her parents had gotten married wicked too young, and Isabel was pretty sure that having a kid was a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage. It didn’t work. Susan was now on her fifth or sixth husband. Isabel had lost track. She had a younger half sister as a result of one of these unions. Susan was always falling in and out of love with the wrong man. Thus Isabel wound up living with Jerry who may very well have kept her around more for her laundry and cooking skills than any sort of fatherly affection. Either way, she felt she owed him something for the roof over her head.

She parked toward the back of the lot and headed into her own personal utopia, the local big-box bookstore. It was sad that the smaller mom-and-pop stores had to close down, but there she found a certain glee in the huge inventory of the chain store. Isabel was determined to avoid the little café at the back of the store; her hips and ass really didn’t need a pecan roll, but the aroma sure called out.

The run through the rainy parking lot didn’t help her appearance any. She arrived in the store with her hair plastered to her cheeks. Her dark blonde locks went from a frizzy mass held back with a couple of combs to wet and stringy strands hanging all over the place. Whatever. It might even be an improvement over her usual style.

She made her way to the back of the store stopping at the science fiction aisle. A placard at the end of the aisle advertised the newly released anniversary edition of Herbert’s original Dune novel. Awesome! Inspired by the promo she looked for the book with such glee that she didn’t notice the step stool until it was too late. The short heel of her favorite teaching shoes hooked back into the hem of her ankle-length pencil skirt. Her next step sent her flying forward with hands thrown out to try to catch her fall. She slammed into another customer. Her momentum sent them both into the bookshelf. A few paperbacks tumbled to the ground, but the shelf held despite her fears of a domino like scenario., She was left tucked somewhat upright into the stranger’s grasp. His books lay scattered in the aisle.

One, two, three. Her breath caught, and she pushed back onto her legs and looked at her rescuer. Wow. His eyes. All she noticed at first were his eyes. They were so bright and crinkled just at the corners, as if he was holding back his laughter. Which he probably was. Those eyes were the color of the Caribbean, or at least what she could recall the color of the Caribbean waters being from watching that bad remake of The Blue Lagoon.

He is beautiful, and I am a wreck, seriously.

Isabel started to babble. I am so sorry; I’m truly always this clumsy. I must have gotten you soaked, and who just leaves something like this lying in an aisle?

Pause for breath, Izzy.

I am so embarrassed. Sorry. She shrugged, feeling embarrassed and defeated. Why, why, why, did I have to klutz out in front of this guy?

The stranger absently wiped a couple of rain droplets from his cream cable-knit turtleneck. Isabel didn’t dare look too far below; she wasn’t ready to analyze the tight black jeans he sported. This man was incredibly beautiful, and no other description would suffice. Okay, maybe hot would cover it.

A deep, cultured voice answered her lame apology. No worries, you seem like you got caught out in this deluge. He gestured toward the rain beating against the shop windows.

Isabel was startled by the stranger’s accent. Her rescuer was both English and hot. Actually super hot in a smart-guy-in-a-bookstore kind of way. He couldn’t be more than thirty years old. His hair was streaked somewhere between blond and brown and slightly wavy, falling a little too long, just past his shoulders. The multidimensional color must have been what made his eye color pop like crazy. He was tall, at least six inches taller than Isabel, who wasn’t exactly a short, petite thing at five feet six. His sun-kissed skin was the color she wished hers could be with some tanning, but her pale Irish-American epidermis would only burn and peel.

He looked at her with amusement. That chiseled face, hard chin—no cleft and full mouth… She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Isabel felt like the proverbial American peasant to this European god, as though she had just run into Hadrian, Roman emperor and wall builder of Great Britain. Stop bringing your favorite historical heroes into this; stay in the present.

Oh, darn. She had been staring too long and knew she should really say something, anything.

Speak, Izzy.

For a moment, she thought things might be looking up for the day, and then her newly found optimism plummeted. She looked down to see that her earlier MacGyver-style paper clip clasp had fallen out of her bra’s front closure and was lying on the brown commercial carpeting. Maybe she could hide it under her shoe. Oh craptastic.Two bigger problems loomed. Her white shirt was still soaked, and without the clasped bra holding her breasts in check, they once again flew free. Her nipples, hardened from the cold rain, clearly poked through her blouse. Isabel’s chest looked even fuller with the cups of the now defunct bra hanging to the sides, practically under her armpits. Her face flushed hotly, and she fought to not simply cross her arms over her chest as shame morphed through her.

Well, yes, it’s really coming down out there, she said, congratulating herself for sounding somewhat neutral and calm. She wanted to give up, forget the book, and just get the hell out of this moment, but the floor refused to cooperate in her pleas to just swallow her up.

Cold too, huh? the British god said with a smirk. Isabel gave one more plea to the goddess to let her sink into the commercial-grade carpet and disappear.

Umm, well, thanks for catching me before I fell flat. Oh God, did I just say flat? She needed to get the heck out of there and go to Plan B—cheap wine and bad pizza.

Okay, well happy browsing, she said as she turned to go. She kicked her foot into the shelf bottom in her haste to get away and had to slide her shoe out from under the rim of the step stool.

Well, did you find your book at least? he asked with what she could only hope was a bit of sympathy for a confirmed nut job.

Ahhh… Stalling pause. I sound like a moron. Can I just get some real words out? I, umm, was looking for a Herbert book. An anniversary edition is being released, but they probably ran out already.

Did you say Herbert?

Yes, I wanted to get this old science fiction book called Dune.

He laughed, a really full-belly-not-being-a-jerk laugh, and he looked to the books now scattered onto the floor. She spotted a hard copy of Hellerman’s Deep Space and what must have been his dropped selection—Herbert’s Children of Dune.

So you like that series too? she asked. Dumb-ass question, Izzy. Of course he does if he was skimming one of the books in the series.

He replied, The Dune series was a favorite of mine as a lad, a real escape. I loved all the intrigue and politics and the idea of folding space. Besides, the fortieth anniversary edition just came out. Now he looked shy, as though he’d just admitted something really embarrassing. But it couldn’t be nearly as embarrassing as tripping over a step stool and pressing nipples into a stranger’s chest, not that she was into one-upping anyone.

Wow, I’ve read all his books and wanted to reread them from the beginning but wasn’t sure I would be able to find them here. Anyway, thanks for the rescue … umm … Mr. …. ah… She hated when she got stuck using the umms and ahhhs. She wanted to know his name. After all, she knew she would be thinking of him a lot this week, and a name to go with that perfect face would be nice.

Thomas Morgan. Nice to meet you, Miss…?

Hah! What a relief it was to not be the only one who was unsure about the whole name-exchanging thing.

Isabel Warren. Always good to meet another science fiction reader. Wow, she sounded really geeky. He probably thought she hung out at Star Trek conventions and sewed her own costumes. Then again, her own hobbies really weren’t any cooler, and she did live with a cat.

Well, enjoy the book, Isabel. He smoothly reached up a shelf level above her head and handed her a hardcover copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune. For the first time, Isabel actually liked the way her name sounded spoken aloud.

Oh, they do have it, thanks. She greedily grabbed at the book and used it as a shield to cover her chest. She smiled, hoping her face was no longer beet red with embarrassment and turned to leave the aisle.

Have a good night, Mr. Morgan. There. Isabel thought she’d spoken with about as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances.

Isabel walked down the aisle and headed toward the cashier station. She was no longer interested in pecan pastries; she needed to go home, crack open her new book, and eat frozen pizza. In fact, she needed cheap wine too. She was done with today. The world would be safer with her tucked away on her crappy couch in her little apartment.

She’d made it halfway to the set of register stations but stopped in her tracks upon hearing a not-at-all New England accent say, Pardon, miss. Wait up, umm, Isabel.

It was him, the hot English dude, calling to her. Oh God, What if he wants to give me my bra paperclip back?

Chapter 2

How can you tell you’re lost when everyplace always looks the same?

—Becket

Mid-April

Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

Thomas Becket Morgan was cranky and bored with this place already. His band was playing two shows in this tiny state over the coming weekend, and the small city lacked decent lodgings for the first night’s engagement, so the tour manager had set them up in this suburban hotel from hell.

The town appeared to be a bedroom community, ritzy houses set in quiet neighborhoods and one main road crowded with shopping malls, gas stations, high-end eateries, and designer outlet stores. Drive six miles down the road, and the view became tenement houses just like those in the depression-era book a photographer he admired named Riis had put out. This place was reasonably close to New York City—its one redeeming value—and had he known how close it was in advance, he would have commuted here for the show from his flat in the city.

Gordon, or Gordy as Thomas preferred to call him, acted as both babysitter and tour assistant. He stood in a ridiculously long line at the Five Guys burger place while Thomas looked for something to read. He was sick of hotel food and just wanted bangers and mash but would settle for a decent burger and fries. It had been dreary and raining all day, and they couldn’t even set up and do sound checks at the stadium until Friday morning. Today had been a wasted day.

He envied Rick, the bassist. Fucker. He was staying in his own home with his wife and children and just showing up to do the area shows. That bloke had brains and talent.

Thomas’ most prized possession, a 1963 Fender Telecaster custom guitar, had traveled with him to thirty-two states and twelve countries over the last twenty-four months, and he was sick of it all. He missed his boy and his house, which was now owned by his ex-wife, Sasha, the cheating coke-whore bitch. Thinking about Sasha left a bad taste in his mouth. At this point he even wondered if crazy should be added to the litany of insults against her. He had been receiving odd postcards mentioning his personal skeletons and offering to keep quiet in exchange for joining the sender in making a real family. She’d been just unhinged enough since the divorce to try mess with his head and send him that kind of shit.

He’d slept on the plane from Toronto today for too long and woken up with a kink in his neck and an urge to read the next book in a series he’d started reading some years back. Thomas didn’t know why he loved Herbert’s Dune series. Maybe it was the made-for-television movies they’d done on two of the books but whatever. All the desert scenes made him want to visit the Sahara or some big sandy place and ride a camel or some such foolery. Besides, for the rest of the East Coast portion of Becket’s tour, he would be stuck on buses with hours of boring highway scenery with few days off in between shows.

He grabbed a couple of books off the shelf and read the backs to kill time; he was already holding what he’d planned to buy.

The place was quiet; some soft pop canned music played over the store speakers. Sounded like a fucking Justin Bieber song. The walls were the standard beige with framed prints of famous books and movies scattered about. The DVD section had the largest number of shoppers, so the section with the science fiction novels was all his, although he thought he should buy some movies since hotel selections could be trying. He wouldn’t mind picking up the director’s cut of THX.

Just as he switched books, he saw a young woman walking toward his area. She was tall, early twenties or maybe late teens trying to look older, with wet hair hanging out of what he thought must have been a bun-sort of updo, that or one of those new styles. She looked so distracted in her wet blouse and severe long brown skirt. He idly wondered if she would bug him for an autograph and gush like so many of the others her age did. For the first time in forever, he actually hoped she would. It was not something he usually liked; he detested fan meet and greets. But this girl… She just looked yummy.

Her breasts were full. They were practically falling out of her bra through the thin, wet shirt, and her hips were what his granddad would have called good breeding hips in his day. She wasn’t all stick shaped and harsh angles like his ex; this girl was curvy and feminine. Her mouth was overfull, with lips that most women would have had to pay a surgeon to pump full of silicone, but somehow, he just knew they were natural. He didn’t think she was wearing makeup, and her skin looked so milk-pale and flawless. Absently, he wondered if she realized that the long, tight skirt down to her ankles made men think more about what was underneath than if she had been wearing a tight mini with fishnet stockings. He watched her like some sort of stalker while pretending to decide between two books.

She walked down the aisle, coming closer to him, and the whole thing was like an auto accident in slow motion. He