Page 1 of The Bell’s Toll (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

Prologue

Angelica

Twenty-Seven Years Earlier….

“ Maybe it’s for the best, Angie.”

Looking over at the love of my life, my gut tightens.

I met Romeo Williams two years ago. At the time, I was a twenty-one-year-old college senior, and he was a thirty-one-year-old truck driver.

He was dropping off a delivery at the restaurant I worked for.

The moment I saw the handsome dark-skinned man, I fell hard.

“How can you say that?” I sniffle. “She’s our baby.”

We’re sitting in his car in the parking lot of the grocery store.

We’ve just returned from the hospital. Two weeks ago, I went into early labor and delivered a one-pound five-ounce baby girl.

Nasiah Joy was the spitting image of her father.

Romeo has been by our side every day since she came into this world.

He is a happy, doting father. Even the nurses in the NICU talk about how proud he looks.

After four miscarriages, I don’t blame him. Nasiah was supposed to be our miracle baby. Now she’s fighting for her life. Though the doctors say she won’t win the battle.

Romeo runs a hand over his short hair. When he cuts those dark brown eyes over to me, my stomach drops. Something tells me I won’t like what he says next.

“Vanessa’s pregnant.”

Those words leave his mouth, wrap around my heart and squeeze the life out of me. I clutch a hand to my chest as if that would keep the pain away. My eyes water, but I fight to keep the tears from falling.

A year before I met the man of my dreams, he married another woman.

I know some people will call me a homewrecker.

They’ll say I’m a whore that’s trying to take a married man away from his wife, but they don’t know that he was created for me.

Romeo was put on this earth to be mine. I knew it the first time I saw him.

Unfortunately, I met him a year too late.

“I thought you said you weren’t sleeping with her?” The pain in my voice is obvious.

He shakes his head, turning in his seat to look at me. His eyes softening.

“Baby, it was a mishap. I was drunk, and she was crying about me growing distant. I felt like I had to.”

My heart believes him, but my head tells me he’s lying. He’s been telling me he was going to leave his wife since we met. He said that he just needed to wait until the time was right.

“Maybe this thing with our daughter is my punishment. God’s trying to tell me I need to do right by my wife. Be there for her like I promised in my vows.”

I can barely hear him over the roaring in my ears. My heart knocks so hard and rapidly against my chest I feel like I might pass out. I can’t lose this man. He is the love of my life, my everything.

“You can’t leave me, Romeo.” My statement sounds like a plea. It is. I would die if he walked out of my life.

He grabs my hands from my lap and brings them to his lips for a kiss. “You think I want to leave you? I love you, Sweets. You’re my entire world. But,” he doesn’t finish his sentence.

It’s then I realize that if my daughter dies, I’ll lose Romeo to his wife. I refuse to let her have him. She doesn’t love him like I do. She doesn’t value him or his hard work how I do. She doesn’t deserve him.

“My baby is going to make it,” I declare. She doesn’t have a choice at this point.

He smiles, showing off those deep dimples that make me swoon.

“If baby girl is anything like her momma, I know she’ll survive this.”

“I love you,” I tell him.

He leans over the center console in the car and places a kiss on my lips. “I love you more,” he says.

I don’t argue with him about how that isn’t possible. There’s no way he can love me more than I love him.

“Alright,” he says. “I’m going to run into the store and grab you something quick for dinner. I want you to relax and get some rest tonight. I’ll come back early in the morning and take you back up to the hospital.”

I smile big. “You’re so good to me.”

He winks before climbing out of the car. I watch him jog across the parking lot and run into the store.

Sinking back in my seat, I shut my eyes and offer up a prayer.

“To whatever higher power that’s listening, I pray you help me. Please let my baby live. I don’t care what it costs. Just let her survive.”

The moment I finish my prayer, a loud cracking sound—almost like lightning—draws my attention. In the shopping center beside the grocery store is a new store.

“Where did that come from?” I question out loud.

I’ve lived in Cedarwood all my life. I’ve come to this grocery store a million times and don’t remember this little shop. With little thought, I unbuckle my seat belt and slide out of the car. I quickly make my way across the parking lot toward the red door of the shop.

The Wanderlust Emporium, the title above the brightly colored door reads. The arched stained-glass window catches my eye. It depicts a man falling from the sky; his white wings look to be losing feathers.

Other than the unique stained glass and the red door, everything else looks normal. It’s like any other glass-front store; however, you can’t see inside from all the antiques blocking the view. Grabbing hold of the peculiar door, I step inside. A bell chimes over my head.

The store is well lit and smells of aromatic perfume. For as cluttered as it looks from the outside windows, it’s clean and neat on the inside.

“Welcome to the Emporium. Look around, see if anything speaks to you,” a short older woman appears out of nowhere and says.

Her large glasses sit on her face, making her almost comical.

Her skin is deep brown. Not as dark as Romeo’s but nowhere near as light as my caramel complexion.

Her gray hair is braided in two fishtail braids, reminding me of my grandmother.

She wore a flower-print dress that touched her ankles.

She had a warm presence as if she was familiar.

“Hi,” I say, looking down at the fingers I’m twirling in the hem of my shirt. “I don’t really know why I’m here. I’m not looking for any antiques.”

The older woman smiles. “My dear, no one ever knows what they want until they see it. Look around.”

Her smile is so sincere. I dip my chin as I step onto the first aisle.

Shelves reaching from floor to ceiling are crammed with many objects.

There are notebooks, clocks, a single pair of gold cat-eyed glasses, a golden chalice inside a dusty box, another box filled with bottles of perfume, and I even spotted necklaces.

I walk through the entire store. However, I didn’t need or want any of this stuff. I head back toward the door but decide to say goodbye to the older woman first. She’s up at the register.

“Sorry,” I say as I approach. “I don’t think anything in here….” I stop.

Behind the shopkeeper, perched on a shelf in a single glass box, is a bronze bell. There is nothing special about the bell. It isn’t covered in jewels or solid gold. It’s just a small bell no bigger than my hand. However, the way I want the bell is crazy.

“The bell,” I say. “How much for the bell?”

The woman frowns. Her dark eyes seem to grow darker. She watches me intently for a few minutes. She stares so long I grow uncomfortable and shift my weight. Finally, she turns and grabs a step stool. Placing the stool down, she steps on it and reaches for the glass box.

When she gets down, she holds on to the box as if she’s reluctant to let it go.

She looks at me, then down at the bell, before walking it over to me.

She places it on the counter. I immediately pick it up.

Up close, I notice the bell isn’t as plain as I thought.

Etched into the bronze are weird symbols and words in a foreign language.

“Seven dollars,” the woman says.

I quickly place the bell back down and go into my purse to get the cash. As soon as I hand it over, the woman wraps both her hands around mine. I look into her dark, nearly black eyes.

“Are you sure it’s worth it?”

I quirk my brow.

“What are you talking about?”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Your heart is asking for a debt I’m not sure you want. Is he worth it?”

I gasp, pulling my hand out of her grasp. How does she know there is a man involved? And what does she mean by a debt?

I stare at the older woman. For the first time, I start to feel as if I might be in the presence of something way more than an antique shop owner.

My family is originally from New Orleans.

I know all about the supernatural. I can almost feel my ancestors telling me to put this bell down and get the hell out of this store.

However, I’m reminded of what’s at stake. If my baby dies, Romeo walks. Assurance wraps around me like a lover’s caress.

Lifting my shoulders, I lock my gaze with hers. “Yes.” I reply.

She nods. “At the dead of night, when the clock strikes twelve. Light a candle and ring this bell three times,” she goes on to say.

My heart is racing. Could this be the miracle I’m looking for? That urge from my ancestors seems to push even harder for me to leave. But nothing will keep me from what I want.

Grabbing the bell, I press it to my chest.

“Keep the change,” I mumble as I turn to walk out with my new prized possession in my hands.

“A warning, Angelica Reynolds,” I pause when she calls out my name. A name I did not give her. I turn to face the old lady.

“Pay attention to the price of your desire. Nothing is given without a cost.”

Her words of warning once again tickle the flame of fear inside me. I look down at the glass case in my hands, once again debating if I should give this bell back.

“If you want to keep your man, you know what you need to do.” The voice in my head says.

“Okay.” My mind is made up. I quickly turn and rush out of the store. I no longer wanted to be in the presence of the old lady.

Climbing back into the car, I look down at the bell inside the glass case. Something tells me I hold the answer to my problems in my hands.

Later that night…