Nocked Over Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Nocked Over

  ISBN 9781419919688

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Nocked Over Copyright © 2009 Sam Cheever.

  Edited by Helen Woodall.

  Cover art by Dar Albert.

  Electronic book Publication February 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Nocked Over

  Sam Cheever

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

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

  Band Aid: Johnson & Johnson Corporation

  Boy Scouts: Boy Scouts Of America

  Gentlemen’s Quarterly: Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.

  Solstice GXP: General Motors Corporation

  Teflon: E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company

  Prologue

  Poor Cupid

  I am Cupid.

  No I’m not a cute little chubby guy with a large bow and a quiver of arrows.

  In fact I’m not even a guy.

  But I am a Cupid. As were my parents and their parents before them, on and on throughout time, back through the millennia of our Greek ancestry.

  I’m not sure where the whole chubby little guy thing started. It’s probably because Cupid was represented as a guy in both Greek and Roman mythology. Of course in Greek mythology Cupid was called Eros. And Greek writer Hesiod once described Eros as the “loveliest of all the immortals” and said that Eros “makes…men’s bodies go limp, mastering their minds and subduing their wills”. Now I ask you, does that sound like a guy?

  Of course there are some men who are Cupids, though not one of them is chubby. They’re all devastatingly gorgeous in fact and they certainly wouldn’t appreciate being called “cute” in any way. As a whole the Cupid race is exceedingly good-looking and pleasing in every way.

  For all the good it does us.

  Our deepest, darkest secret is that we look like every man or woman’s dream but we’re destined never to find love of our own. Unfortunately, that part of mythology is correct. Cupids are like Teflon when it comes to attracting a love interest. We can give love to others but we can’t take any for ourselves.

  We tend to engage in loveless marriages just to keep the bloodlines healthy but it is the very rare Cupid marriage that contains any love at all.

  It really sucks let me tell you.

  But our jobs are so demanding that most of the time we don’t dwell on our loveless lives.

  Most of the time.

  My name is Daphne Charissa and I figured I was destined to live out my five hundred some years in a loveless state, having to take pleasure from what I could help others find.

  I had almost resigned myself to that fact.

  But then the strangest thing happened…

  Chapter One

  Paperwork, Paperwork

  I bent closer to my computer screen and squinted. The couple was certainly attractive enough. Their interests seemed compatible. But I just wasn’t getting that zing that told me it was the right match.

  I sighed and hit Search again, rubbing my eyes with a knuckle. This subject had been a particularly difficult one to match up. On the surface he’d been a competent match with hundreds of women.

  Which was exactly my problem.

  But dig a little deeper and it always fell apart.

  I had no doubt he could make an agreeable relationship with any of the women whose files were spread out on my desk. But for some reason, I felt compelled to find him the “perfect” match.

  And it was proving difficult to say the least.

  A gentle knock on my door brought my head up. “Come in.”

  The door opened inward and a tall, slim god walked through. I smiled, “Hey, Christian.”

  He smiled back, showing two rows of perfect white teeth between soft, generous lips. His dark eyes flashed in mischief. “She’s here.”

  I groaned and dropped back into my chair. The firm’s most famous and difficult client was back for another try. My eyes flew to Christian’s, filled with a plea. “You take her!”

  He shook his head, laughing softly, “She’s been through the whole staff. Nobody will touch her.” He cocked his head, causing his shoulder-length, silky black hair, which reflected his Greek roots, to curl softly against one shoulder. I briefly wondered why he didn’t have it tied back as usual. “I thought you had a match for her?”

  I glanced down guiltily at the mess of files on my desk. Hers was buried somewhere under there. I sighed. “I might.” But somehow I was reluctant to give her to him. It didn’t seem…fair…somehow.

  To him.

  Rubbing my eyes, I started digging through the mess looking for her file. “Send her in.” I found it quickly. It had been flagged several times with the firm’s bright red heart stickies, proof of matches made. And it was about three times as thick as the rest of the files.

  While I waited for her to make her usual dramatic entrance I shuffled the files together into neat piles and pushed them off to the side. When I was done there were two files left. I pulled the slimmer file to the top and opened it. A dark face with angular lines and a strong, elegant nose stared up at me from a glossy photo. The intense gray-green eyes looked out from the photo accusingly, as if he knew what I was considering. “I’m just trying to find you the right match,” I murmured stupidly. Then, as I’d done probably a hundred times already, I reached a long, well-manicured finger to trace the outlines of his lush mouth and strong jaw. Stopping, as my door swung open with more force than was necessary, on the deep dimple in the center of the masculine chin.

  I looked up and fought a sudden urge to cry.

  She swept into the room in a cream-colored suit that probably cost twice what I made in a year. Her celebrated white blonde hair was tucked flawlessly into an updo that was her signature and had been called the Grace Kelly look.

  Her face, literally heart-shaped, was cream and pink and completely without lines, though she was in her mid-thirties quickly heading toward the end of that decade. The mouth that currently pouted in my direction was plump to the point of ridiculous and heart-shaped to match her face.

  Her body was long and lithe, with just a hint of softness around the breasts and hips.

  The media had christened her a goddess and she certainly looked like one. However, I knew that her personality lacked some of the better qualities that mark a god, not the least of which was an awareness that she wasn’t the only one in a room.

  I stood up, extending a reluctant hand. “Dema, I’m so glad to see y
ou again.”

  Dema Pence gave me a queen-to-subject version of her array of smiles and extended a limp, cool hand toward me.

  “Daphne, how nice to see you…again.” She swept me with her cold blue gaze to let me know she blamed me totally for any previous failures and I gritted my perfect teeth before motioning toward the chair on the other side of my desk.

  “Please sit down, make yourself comfortable. Can we get you something? Tea? Coffee? Water?”

  Arsenic?

  “I’ll take a cup of my special Darjeeling please. Very hot, or I’ll send it back, with just a drizzle of honey…you put too much honey in last time…”

  And yet she’d sucked it down like a discount vacuum cleaner…

  “And I’d like two of those lovely shortbread cookies with it.”

  She sat back in the chair with the air of royalty awaiting the fulfillment of her commands.

  I glanced up at Christian, who’d been lounging against the doorframe awaiting the woman’s predictable demands. He chuckled silently at the slightly bulging quality in my eyes and bent deeply at the waist, swirling one hand in front of him like a palace slave, in acceptance of the quest for the perfect cup of ridiculously expensive tea.

  He turned away and left, leaving me alone with the woman.

  I swallowed and fumbled with a well-worn corner of the file on top, my mind racing for an alternative. Unfortunately nothing jumped to the forefront and I sighed inwardly, pushing the file toward her with an unprofessional reluctance.

  Dema eyed the file like a judge at Westminster and cocked her head. “I hope this one is a better match, the last five have been unmitigated disasters. I have to say I had hoped for better things from Cupid’s Arrow. I’d heard such good things about you.”

  Based on the fact that we almost never mismatched couples and had a ninety-nine point nine percent successful match rate.

  It had been one hundred percent until Ms. Dema Pence had walked through our doors.

  I gritted my teeth again, wondering if I’d have any left by the time I found Ms. Pence her perfect mate, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry we’ve let you down, Ms. Pence. But I’m very confident this match will stick.”

  I, of course, was no such thing but if it fell apart like the rest it certainly wouldn’t be the fault of that unfortunate man whose file she was fondling unopened in her lap or, for that matter, the fault of Cupid’s Arrow, the most well-known and successful relationship matching service in the world.

  She gave me an insincere smile and, taking a deep breath as if preparing for a dive into the ocean, yanked the file open. Her eyes and mouth grew round as his perfect face shone out at her. “Heavens,” she breathed.

  I noticed that her voice had gone from New Jersey rough to the sultry goddess version she used in all her movies. Just like that.

  I fidgeted and squirmed in my chair as she read through his stats. My discomfort at the match was alarming to me and I wondered at its cause. Going strictly by the book, the two beautiful people were a perfect match. Everything in those files, along with everything we’d gleaned from the two people by spending time with them, told me that they should work well together. Yet something wasn’t right.

  “I’ll take him.”

  I closed my eyes and moved my hands to my lap so she wouldn’t see how they’d clenched into tight fists. Fighting the urge to grab her fashionably slim shoulders and shake her until her perfect, white caps dropped out of her mouth, I unclenched my fists forcibly and opened my eyes.

  “I’m so pleased,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “I’ll contact you as soon as I get his approval for a meeting.”

  Her arctic blue gaze widened just slightly at the idea that she might be rejected. “What do you mean, his approval? Of course he’ll approve. I mean…look at me!”

  Putting aside the obnoxiousness of her assumption that the way she looked was all that could possibly be important to any potential suitor, the slightly shrill aspect to her voice told me more than anything how desperate she’d become to “mate”.

  I tried to use this knowledge to feel better about her.

  She didn’t make that easy. “I demand that you make him meet with me!”

  I had been shuffling the files on my desk in embarrassment. But at this my gaze jerked up to her again. The soft, pretty face was gone and in its place a fairly cute but scary angry space alien stared back at me. The cold blue eyes had a certain Medusa quality to them now.

  I swallowed. “I can’t make the man meet with you, Dema…”

  “Ms. Pence if you please.”

  I frowned, I’d let my professionalism slip. I hated when I did that. “Of course, I’m so sorry. I’ll do everything humanly possible to get you a meeting with him.”

  I didn’t want to…but I would.

  She sighed and the space alien dropped away. Her smile was breathtaking. I was once again reminded that she was a highly skilled actress. “Perfect.” She stood up, extending a soft, elegant hand toward me. “I’ll wait to hear from you then.”

  After Dema Pence left my office I sat for a few minutes with my head in my hands. After a while I heard my office door open and close with a soft thud. I didn’t look up until a cup of hot, fragrant tea was set gently under my nose. I inhaled and smiled.

  Dema Pence’s Darjeeling.

  Christian laughed at my expression of delight and dropped into the chair that had previously been occupied by Ms. Pence. He lifted his own cup of the expensive tea to perfectly sculpted lips. “How bad was it?”

  I set the cup down gently and groaned dramatically. “Oh my god, Christian, I so do not want to foist this woman on him.”

  Christian raised an elegant black eyebrow. “Him?” Then he smiled.

  I felt suddenly flustered and defensive. “Or anyone! She’s a monster.”

  Christian’s smile slid away. “Yes. That she is. And so you face the dilemma each and every one of us has faced here at Cupid’s Arrow. You know you gotta but you surely don’t wanna.”

  I laughed. “Succinct and exact as usual, my friend.” I lifted the dainty porcelain cup in the air and he tapped it with his. Then we drank a silent toast to doing what we didn’t want to do.

  Christian cocked his head at me. “So who’s the poor sap she’s gonna destroy this time?”

  I grimaced. “Oh, don’t say that. I don’t want to give her to him.”

  “Then don’t.”

  I met his dark gaze in a moment of blissful hope and then sighed, knowing I would do what I was expected to do in the end. “I have to. Their specs match up perfectly. Even though I don’t see how it can be, somehow they must be suited to each other. Who am I to decide otherwise?”

  Christian smiled at me. “Good girl. Now just make the call and let it go.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. Thanks for helping me justify sending another lamb to slaughter.”

  Christian laughed and stood up. “Hey, I’m Greek. I know a thing or two about slaughtering lambs.”

  I laughed again, feeling better. I watched him leave and then, taking a deep breath, picked up the phone.

  One of the things that makes Cupid’s Arrow better than basically every other personal matching service, aside from the fact that it’s run by actual Cupids, is our pre-screening process. As part of this process, a Cupid’s Arrow representative spends a minimum of ten hours with each subject, getting to know him or her.

  We structure these meetings like actual dates, so that we can get to know the subject under the same circumstances that a potential mate would. We carefully document each and every nuance of the time spent with the subject and use this information to match prospective mates. The information is enhanced considerably by our non-factual but eminently useful special cognitive powers.

  After all, we are gods.

  I had only spent about half the allotted time with Bion Chronos. It wasn’t entirely unheard of to cut the pre-screening process short if a representative felt that he or she had everything needed fr
om a subject in a shorter period of time. However, it was rare.

  I wasn’t sure why I’d done it. Except that my instincts told me I knew everything there was to know about the man, almost from the first moment I’d met him. It happens that way sometimes.

  “I insist on the full pre-screening.”

  I’d expected to bump up against trouble with Ms. Pence. It surprised me that Bion was giving me a hard time.

  “I don’t feel any further time is necessary, Mr. Chronos. I feel like I’m wasting your time.”

  He chuckled. “It’s Bion…and time spent with a beautiful woman is never a waste, Daphne.”

  I resisted the urge to smile. Flirtatious clients were not unusual but I knew it could never amount to anything. Although at times I wished it could.

  “If you could manage it, Mr. Chronos, I could expedite a meeting with Ms. Pence here at the firm next Wednesday.”

  A long pause, then, “I’ll meet with her on one condition.”

  I forced back a disappointed sigh. Part of me, it seems, had been hoping he’d continue to resist. “Good. I’ll pencil you in for Wednesday at four o’clock then. What’s the condition?”

  I could almost hear him smile. “You complete the pre-screening. You still owe me six hours.”

  “Five and a half actually.” Did my voice sound giddy? Crap.

  I sighed to let him know what a chore he was being. “I really don’t think it’s necessary…”

  “It’s in the contract I signed with Cupid’s Arrow. Ten hours of pre-screening time. I’ll enforce it one way or the other. You might as well capitulate now, Daphne, and save me the trouble of hounding you for the time.”

  I tried not to grin as I capitulated. “I certainly wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble, Mr. Chronos.”

  “I insist that you call me Bion. Is tonight at seven all right? I’ll pick you up at the office.”

  All I could do was smile.

  *

  I stood in front of the mirror and blinked. The face looking back at me had lost its healthy olive tone and looked pale and pinched. My violet-colored eyes, usually my most attractive feature, looked overlarge and filled with fear.