Amber Austin
TAROTICA
Introduction
Some people believe the ancient, mysterious, beautiful oracle called the tarot holds the secrets to life.
Miranda Malone isn’t sure.
But she’s about to find out…
Tarot decks feature seventy-eight illustrated cards, divided into two sections called the Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana. Originally, however, the tarot only contained the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana. These cards symbolize people, situations, events, or even cosmic forces. Seen as a whole, they describe a journey from innocence to wisdom, sometimes called The Fool’s Journey. Each Major Arcana card—beginning with 0: The Fool and ending with 21: The World—depicts a stage of this journey and reveals an insight, lesson, or spiritual truth.
In Tarotica, Miranda Malone undertakes her own journey that winds across the United States. Along the way she encounters a colorful cast of characters who portray the cards of the Major Arcana. The first of these is Eli Hart, who’s dressed as The Fool when she meets him; he becomes her lover and companion on the journey. Each chapter of their erotic adventure corresponds to one card in the tarot deck. Miranda’s and Eli’s experiences and the people they meet during their trip guide the lovers on their path to self discovery and teach them the secrets of the tarot.
Join Miranda as she explores the mysteries of life and discovers her own erotic potential in Tarotica…
Card 0: The Fool
Miranda Malone watched a menagerie in sequins, feathers, and black leather parade down San Francisco’s Market Street. The Castro’s carnival atmosphere was more outrageous and exciting than she could have imagined. When a young African man dressed like a gumball machine invited her to drop a dime into his codpiece, she laughed and caught the handful of rainbow-colored treats that spilled out. Miranda knew plenty of unusual characters back home in Salem, Massachusetts, but none compared to these!
Even with the new purple streaks in her long dark hair, she felt a bit ordinary.
She’d flown to California three days ago to begin a cross-country journey she’d been planning for seven years. Originally she’d intended to take the trip right after graduating from art school. But then her father was diagnosed with cancer and she’d stayed home to care for him. Now, with the money from his life insurance policy, she could follow her dream.
A tall man wearing only body paint and a boa constrictor passed Miranda and wagged both his snakes at her. She shrieked with laughter. Three trumpeters with gold lamé g-strings strolled by. A masked man in a jester suit abandoned the parade and approached Miranda. Throwing his arms around her as if they were long-lost friends, he hissed in her ear, “Don’t scream.” Something hard jabbed into her ribs.
Before Miranda had time to react, the man hustled her through the crowd. “Do you have a car?” he asked and poked her in the ribs again. This time she saw the gun.
She nodded.
“Take me to it. And no funny stuff.”
Fear and anger surged in her stomach as the reality of her situation sank in.
Struggling to keep her emotions from clouding her thinking, Miranda tried to recall what one was supposed to do in a case like this. She couldn’t run—the streets were jammed with people—and if she yelled, this crowd would probably mistake her plight for some kinky foreplay ritual. If they could even hear her over the hullabaloo. She reached for her cell phone, but the man noticed and snatched her purse away. In San Francisco, a man carrying a purse didn’t even attract a glance.
When they came to the spot where Miranda had parked her rented Kia, she considered kicking the car hard to set off the alarm. But nobody paid attention to car alarms anyway, and she didn’t want to provoke the man in the jester suit while his gun barrel was nuzzling her bra.
He rummaged through her oversized purse and found the keys. Maybe he just wants the car, she hoped. But her hopes dissolved when he unlocked the passenger side door and shoved her in.
“Climb over,” he ordered. “You’re driving.”
She crawled over the console, banging her knee on the gearshift. Keeping the gun trained on her, the man got in beside her and fit the key into the ignition.
“Where are we going?”
“Just head for the Golden Gate Bridge.” He waved the gun at her. “Move it.”
Slowly she slid the car into the stream of traffic. As she navigated San Francisco’s famous hills, her mind scrambled for an escape plan. Suddenly she recalled one of those Read this: It could save your life! e-mails she’d received. Biding her time, she began scouting about for something big and solid she could ram the Kia into, launching the air bags and bringing police to the scene of the accident. Soon she spotted a concrete bridge abutment, aimed for it, and sped up.
“Hey, what are you doing?” the jester demanded, grabbing the steering wheel.
Miranda jerked the wheel as hard as she could and banged his other arm with her elbow, dislodging the gun. It toppled onto the console. Quickly, Miranda snatched it.
It was a toy.
A car blew its horn as the Kia swerved into the other driver’s lane. She pulled back into her own lane and slowed down, clutching the wheel to steady her shaking hands.
“What the hell?” she shouted and threw the plastic pistol at him.
With a sigh of resignation, the man removed his mask and the ridiculous hood with the jingle bells, revealing amber-colored hair, pale green eyes, and a face right out of a Calvin Klein ad. He smiled sheepishly.
“Please, I can explain everything,” he said, holding up his hands.
“Oh my God!”
Miranda’s heart banged against her ribcage, and she wasn’t sure whether the wild ride or the guy next to her had provoked it. She veered onto the shoulder of the road and hit the brake. As the car came to a stop, she seized his right hand. In the center of his palm, she saw a silver-dollar-sized tattoo of the Earth.
Her father’s strange deathbed prophecy rang in her ears: Your future husband will hold the world in the palm of his hand.
“Oh my God,” she said again. “Who are you?”
“Eli Hart.”
“Heart, as in love?” she asked, placing her hand over her own pounding heart.
“No, H-a-r-t, like a stag. I work at the Meditrina Vineyards in Napa. Or at least, I did. Now I’m running for my life.”
Miranda glared at him. “What did you do, steal the payroll? Poison your boss?”
“Of course not,” he said indignantly. “Hey, what about ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”
“So far, you’re guilty of kidnapping.”
“I apologize for scaring you. I only did it because I was desperate. I couldn’t use my own car. They’d have followed me.”
“Who are they?”
“It’s a long story.” He gave her that sheepish grin again and Miranda felt her heart skip a beat.
“High-concept it for me,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll try. Someone has been killing Meditrina’s grapevines by infecting them with a deadly fungus. I suspected the source might be foreign, so I took samples to a botany professor I know at San Francisco State. Turns out I was right. It’s a disease called Mort Jaune—Yellow Death—that until recently only existed in France. Now the bastards want to eliminate me before I can blow the whistle.”
“Why would anybody want to kill grapevines?”
“Listen, Ms…”
“Miranda.”
“Miranda, could we keep driving?”
Do I dare trust this man? Miranda asked herself. Cute guys had been her downfall before. And this one hadn’t behaved like a gentleman thus far. Maybe he really was in trouble, but helping him could endanger her, too. Still, he had that tattoo on his palm…
“What’s the story behind that tattoo?”
“I got it to honor Mother Earth. And my own mother as well—she was a dedicated environmentalist. She died two years ago. It’s sort of a talisman, too, I guess.
I’d hoped it would help me grow the best grapes in California.”
Miranda eased the car onto the highway. The whole reason for taking this journey was to have an adventure, she reminded herself. Be careful what you ask for!
“One more question. Why did you abduct me?”
Eli laughed. “If you’re going to kidnap somebody, it might as well be a beautiful woman.”