Lovestruck: A Little Bit Cupid

By January Bain

FROM POPULAR ROMANCE AUTHOR JANUARY BAIN

A Manitoba Tea & Tarot Mysteries story

From the A Little Bit Cupid collection

What if Cupid's arrow is real?

What if Cupid's arrow is real? When the ancient artifact is discovered by a newfound witch and lent to a friend for her Valentine's Day display, all Hades breaks loose when it inadvertently falls into the wrong hands.

Magic is in the air as two polar-opposite people, small-town Emma Hurst and big-city man Stone Collins, are forced to deal with his over-the-top romantic gestures that threaten embarrassment at every turn. Being swept off her feet by a heartthrob is one thing, but having love forced on her by a spell is quite another, something Emma won't stand for. Soon no one knows what's real and what's been caused by the tricky god of love.

Will Cupid win, or will cooler heads prevail? It's going to take every last sprinkle of Valentine magic to sort out this kerfuffle...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Totally Bound Publishing
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839433597

January Bain

January Bain has wished on every falling star, every blown-out birthday candle and every coin thrown in a fountain to be a storyteller. To share the tales of high adventure, mysteries, and full-blown thrillers she has dreamed of all her life. The story you now have in your hands is the compilation of a lot of things manifesting itself for this special series. Hundreds of hours spent researching the unusual and the mundane have come together to create a series that features strong women who don’t take life too seriously, wild adventures full of twists and unforeseen turns, and hot complicated men who aren’t afraid to take risks. She can only hope the stories of her beloved Brass Ringers will capture your imagination as much as they did hers when she wrote them. If you are looking for January Bain, you can find her hard at work every morning without fail in her office with two furry babies trying to prove who does a better job of guarding the doorway. And, of course, she’s married to the most romantic man! Who once famously replied to her inquiry about buying fresh flowers for their home every week, “Give me one good reason why not?” Leaving her speechless and knocking her head against the proverbial wall for being so darn foolish. She loves flowers.

Book preview

Totally Bound Publishing books by January Bain

Brass Ring Sorority

Winning Casey

Chasing Lacey

Romancing Rebecca

TETRAD Group

Racing Peril

Racing the Tide

Racing the Whirlwind

Manitoba Tea & Tarot Mysteries

Magic, Mayhem & Murder

Movies, Moonlight & Magic

A Little Bit Cupid

LOVESTRUCK

JANUARY BAIN

Lovestruck

ISBN # 978-1-83943-359-7

©Copyright January Bain 2020

Cover Art by Claire Siemaszkiewicz ©Copyright February 2020

Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz

Totally Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

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The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2020 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.

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A Manitoba Tea & Tarot Mystery

What if Cupid’s arrow is real?

What if Cupid’s arrow is real? When the ancient artifact is discovered by a newfound witch and lent to a friend for her Valentine’s Day display, all Hades breaks loose when it inadvertently falls into the wrong hands.

Magic is in the air as two polar-opposite people, small-town Emma Hurst and big-city man Stone Collins, are forced to deal with his over-the-top romantic gestures that threaten embarrassment at every turn. Being swept off her feet by a heartthrob is one thing, but having love forced on her by a spell is quite another, something Emma won’t stand for. Soon no one knows what’s real and what’s been caused by the tricky god of love.

Will Cupid win, or will cooler heads prevail? It’s going to take every last sprinkle of Valentine magic to sort out this kerfuffle…

Dedication

Dedicated to all those who love Valentine’s Day!

Thank you to my wonderful editor Rebecca Fairfax for making the journey the best it can be.

Bouquets to all the wonderful people at Totally Bound Publishing.

And a special thank you to my husband Don for making it so easy to write about what the heart wants!

Trademark Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Band-Aid: Johnson and Johnson, Ltd

Hamlet: William Shakespeare

Interact: Interact Incorporated

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: United Artists Corporation

iPad: Apple, Inc

Jeep: FCA US LLC

Mona Lisa: Leonardo Da Vinci

Real Magic: Dean Radin

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: The Walt Disney Company

Sometimes When We Touch: Dan Hill, Barry Mann

Stetson: The John B. Stetson Company

Top Gun: Paramount Pictures Corporation

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling: Phil Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil

Chapter One

Oh, did you expect me to play fair? Cupid laughed. I am the god of love. I am never fair.

—Rick Riordan, The House of Hades

Emma Valentine Hurst’s hand hovered over the open chocolate box. Hmm. A sinfully dark chocolate truffle or a heart-shaped melt-in-my-mouth orange liquor? After her dismal morning, both.

She slipped the first one into her mouth, closed her eyes and let it melt on her tongue while trying to ignore the ongoing struggle of wills between mother and son right behind her. A sudden, sharp snap alerted her to trouble. She whirled around to discover her new Cupid-with-arrow display teetering precariously on its pedestal. In a flash, she leapt the short distance, just in time to save the display from toppling over, but not in time to stop the child from taking off with his prize, clutched in his candy-stained hands—the bow and arrow recently held upright and loaded for action by none other than Cupid himself.

Timmy! Stop that! Put that back right now. Don’t you dare, young man, I’m warning you!

Timothy Adam Jones took off like a bat right out of, well, Hades for the front door of the newly minted Valentine’s Candy Shoppe, his mother Vanity trying desperately to catch up with the five-year-old. He seemed to have been blessed with feet that must be invisibly winged like Mercury or Hermes, depending on whether one preferred the Romans or the Greeks. Emma was personally more enamored of the Greeks, as their mythology came first, though Cupid was decidedly more Roman.

But the determined child, who had already made the front entrance, also had the advantage of being sugar-fueled, thanks to his doting mother allowing him to graze at each and every candy bin to his heart’s content, hence Emma’s dismal morning. To Vanity’s credit, she was hampered by her four-inch heels, a tight pencil skirt and a multitude of hair extensions that obscured her sideways vision like blinders on a plow horse. The fashion plate succeeded in only teetering dangerously back and forth on the tiled floor and within precarious inches of a towering display of cut-glass crystal stemware.

Emma swallowed the remains of the chocolate and charged after the child, waving off his mother, who gave her a grateful, though chagrined, look. After all, he had her Cupid’s arrow clutched in his tight little fists, having torn it from her new Valentine’s display. So now the display didn’t make sense, for why would Cupid be holding his arms out so awkwardly? Pretending to mime an arrow? It just wasn’t going to work.

And not to mention that her best friend Charm McCall had loaned it to her with the express order that Emma keep it safe and out of anyone’s hands. That it was the real deal. And, knowing Charm, that meant it was charged with magic, whatever that would entail. But right now, all Emma wanted was to get the precious artifact back in one piece and where it belonged before her friend found out what had happened.

Timmy turned the handle of the shop’s front door and slipped through the opening before she could grasp the back of his snowsuit.

Whoopee, I’m Robin Hood! he yelled at the top of his surprisingly robust lungs while tearing off down the street, holding his prize in front of him.

Emma took off after him, grateful for her running shoes. She ignored the frosty air that bit at her skin. February in Snowy Lake in the northern reaches of Canada’s heartland was a cold, cold affair. The next two weeks plus one day of celebrating the Winter Festival—claim to fame the longest one in Canada, beating out Quebec by twenty-four hours—concluded with a Valentine’s Dance on Saturday, February fourteenth. The town, competitive? Naw. Well, maybe. But it was the highlight of their winter