Snippet Saturday, HOTY-1

HOTY final FINAL copy 8-13-15With so many of you visiting the website, I thought it might be fun to share ‘snippets’ of my stories – both previously published as well as the ones I’m currently working on. I’ll do two or three posts for the ones that are already available. As for the new stuff? It just depends on how far along I am in each story as to how many will show up here.

Here’s the back cover blurb…

For three years, she’s haunted his dreams…

When the woman he loved more than life wanted to take their relationship to the next level, Kyle Ferguson’s fear of marriage sent her running away from him. It was only then he realized he’d do whatever he had to in order to be with her, but before he could tell her how sorry he was, how wrong he’d been, Maggie died in a tragic accident.

Now, with the third anniversary of her death looming, is it possible a drunken wish might change the events of the past? Might allow him to save her? Might give him a second chance to make her his wife? Or is it all just a delusion brought on by too much alcohol and too many lonely nights?

Find out if wishes really can come true in the first book in the Wishes in Time series, Holding On To Yesterday..

And here’s the first scene. Hope you enjoy it!

The raindrops pelting his face felt like the stings from a thousand ravenous fire ants as Kyle clawed his way across the spongy, water-soaked ground. A gale force wind pushed against him almost as though it were a living thing, determined to keep them apart, and yet he pressed on, inch by hard won inch.

Still, he couldn’t get close enough to save her. He never got close enough. All he could do was watch, helpless, as she lay there dying, impaled by an impossibly huge tree limb. Its branches and leaves covered her like a shroud, leaving only her face, and one lifeless hand exposed.

“You killed us.”

Rather than being drowned out by the hellacious storm, Maggie’s soft accusation drifted across the distance, echoing in his head, slicing his heart in pieces. Blue eyes, filled with sadness, locked with his as she watched him fight the elements, determined to change the outcome this time.

“No! I didn’t mean to,” Kyle cried, his hands fisting in the grass. Tears streamed from his eyes, washed away by the deluge as he tried to explain, to make her understand. “I couldn’t get there in time, Mags. I tried, but I was too late. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

“If you’d ever wanted us, we’d have been home where we belonged. We’d be there with you now. Our daughter would be two years old.”

Daughter?

Kyle never understood why she always talked about a baby, but she had. Every time. This was the first time, though, that she’d identified it as a girl. Why did she think they had a daughter? Because she’d desperately wanted to start a family? Because he hadn’t been ready and he’d robbed her of the one thing she’d desired above all else?

The pain squeezing his chest felt like it might crush him, made it hard to breathe. Thinking of a child in generic terms had somehow made it not as bad as it could have been. But – a daughter?

Would she have had Maggie’s silky straight chestnut hair? Or would it be more like his, sandy blond with a tendency to curl? Her blue eyes, or his brown? If they’d had a daughter, she would be walking by now, maybe even talking so he could understand her.

If he hadn’t killed Maggie. Killed her dream. Killed their child.

The vision before him changed slightly. Instead of just Maggie lying there, he could see a pair of tiny feet, the head and torso hidden beneath a canopy of leaves. In a sick way it reminded him of the witch who had been killed by a flying house in the movie about little people, apple throwing trees, and a dancing scarecrow.

Only this was his family who had been crushed by a falling limb during a storm the likes of which he’d never seen before that day. The family he could have had, only he’d hurt and chased them away because he hadn’t cared enough to make them his own.

Freedom had mattered more to him in that one crucial moment than anything else. Even though he’d realized less than a day later that he’d been wrong, it had been too late. Before he could get to her, to tell her that she was his everything, to beg her to forgive him, she was gone.

“Think about us,” Maggie whispered as the vision wavered and began to fade.

 

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2 Responses to Snippet Saturday, HOTY-1

  1. Hmm… The daughter angle makes me think they’ve done this time travel thing before.

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