Sweet Nothings

Sweet Nothings

Book 5 of the Rivers Run Cottage Series

It's finally here. This book has certainly been a labor of love. I had the book written and saved on a flash drive. I thought it was totally fool-proof and safe.

Then a microsoft glitch hit the flash drive, and I lost all but the first 46 pages of the book.

It was a very heart-wrenching day. I had to start over.

This was the hardest book so far, because I struggled to write it from the very beginning.

The snafu made me have to rewrite the book from memory. It also made me rethink the story, and dig in deeper.

It is available on amazon, and I'll have a couple of book signings coming up.

Here's a tiny excerpt:

Just as he grasped the railing, the ice beneath him gave way, and he dropped into the freezing water.

“Dear Lord,” he muttered as he struggled to stand upright. His legs were numb instantly, and the cold traveled quickly throughout his body. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He reached for the railing and managed to hang on. “Not this way, Lord,” he murmured. “I don’t want to die this way.” With strength that he didn’t know he possessed, he managed to pull himself up to the first step. The legs of his insulated coveralls weighed a ton. “One step at a time,” he whispered as he dragged himself upwards. “That’s what I always told my patients.”

He had to stop often to catch his breath and gather his strength. Above all else, he needed to get inside and warm up before hypothermia set in. It felt as if hours had passed as he grasped the railing with numb fingers and pulled himself up each step. The stars were twinkling brightly in the sky when he finally reached the top of the stairway and crawled across the landing.

“Finally.” He struggled to push the door to the screened-in porch open with hands numb with cold, and rolled across the wooden floor to the French doors. He fumbled with the door knob; stunned to realize that he no longer wore any gloves, and that one of his boots was missing. The heat from inside hit him in the face like a blast furnace as he pulled himself into the house on his elbows. His bloody and torn hands had little feeling in them. “Good thing I don’t do surgery any longer,” he thought.

“Awe, Emma,” he sighed. “I made it back.” He had no feeling in his legs. He tried to sit up but couldn’t find the strength to do so. His eyes closed as warmth battled with cold. “At least I didn’t drown. I may be joining you, my dear, but not the way I’ve dreaded all these years.” His eyes drifted shut as sleep overtook him.