by Kim Pritekel
“Mama, can we go riding tomorrow?” Bronte asked, stealing a quick spoonful of mashed potatoes from the huge bowl at the center of the table.
“Only if you don’t do that again.” Lysette pointed a playful finger at her.
“Well,” Jim said, clapping his hands from his seat mid-table next to his new wife. “Time to carve that gorgeous turkey.”
Eleanor grabbed the carving knife she’d set next to her plate and stood, noting Jim was, as well. The two stood there looking at each other, the most awkward Wild West standoff in history before he grinned, laughing at himself before he reclaimed his seat.
“Uh, I think that’s your job,” he said.
“Okay, gang,” Eleanor said, running the carving knife over the sharpening stone a few times. “Who wants what?”
“Uh…”
Eleanor’s attention was drawn to Fran, who sat there looking a bit shell-shocked. “Fran? Did you say something? You like dark meat, right?”
“Uh…”
“White?”
“Honey?” Jim reached down to lift the tablecloth as he glanced at her belly. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him, hazel eyes large. “My water just broke.”
The room went deathly silent for a moment until there was an explosion of sound and flurry of movement. Jim was helping Fran to her feet while Emma and Lysette hopped up from the table, barking out orders to each other and to Jim. Eleanor, Josie, Bronte, and Jimmy remained at the table, the kids looking as baffled and frightened as Eleanor did. Josie, on the other hand, nibbled on a dinner roll as she watched the hectic activity.
“What do we do?” Eleanor asked, feeling utterly helpless.
“Nothing,” Josie said, meeting her gaze. “Stay out of their way until it’s time to leave, honestly.”
Eleanor pushed back from the table and walked to the front door, which stood open after Jim had helped Fran through it. They were down the stairs at his car. She hurried down to them, unnecessarily holding the front passenger-side door open for him just to feel useful.
“Here’s your newspaper, Jim,” Emma said, tossing the folded post to the backseat of the car. “You’ve probably got some time to kill.”
He looked at her but said nothing as he got Fran seated. “You okay?” he asked. At Fran’s nod, he closed the door, trotting around the front of the sedan he’d traded the Corvette in for. He glanced back at the crowd that had gathered at the bottom of the stairs. “Well, uh, Happy Thanksgiving, all,” he said, panic in his voice before he climbed into the car and roared away from the house, red taillights disappearing into the darkness.
“Well,” Jimmy said. “That was interesting.”
“What do we do?” Bronte asked. “Do we go to the hospital to meet them?”
“Nah,” Josie said, placing an arm over her shoulders. “That kid ain’t comin’ out until tomorrow sometime.”
Eleanor glanced at Lysette, who stood next to her. “What do we do?” she asked. “Are we terrible for not going, too?”
Lysette chuckled and shook her head. “Let’s eat, everyone. They’ll call when he’s ready to come out.”
“I get the wishbone!” Jimmy called, turning and taking the stairs two at a time toward the porch.
“Do not!” Bronte hollered after him.
Josie and Emma grabbed hands and climbed the stairs together, disappearing inside the house. Left alone in the cold, late November night, Eleanor looked at Lysette again, and their gazes met.
Lysette snaked her arms around Eleanor’s neck, clasping her hands behind her neck, their bodies pressed together. She studied her for so long, Eleanor began to feel like a bug scrutinized under a microscope. Finally, Lysette smiled. “My whole life,” she said softly.
Eleanor wrapped her arms around Lysette’s waist, letting out a contented sigh as she felt the love coming off the woman in her arms. “What about it?” she asked.
“My whole life I’ve waited for you.”
Eleanor chuckled. “Hey, now, I know I stood you up when we were sixteen, but I showed up.”
Lysette let out a soft laugh, absolute music to Eleanor’s ears. “Yes, yes, you did.” She leaned in, leaving a lingering kiss on Eleanor’s lips. “Thank you,” she whispered against them.
“Certainly my pleasure. I love you,” she whispered back.
“And I love you, with all my heart.”
Eleanor felt those words to her very soul. She let out another contented sigh before asking, “Hungry?”
“Starving,” Lysette announced, trailing a fingernail from the nape of Eleanor’s neck down along the side of her neck before her hand dropped away. “Worked all damn day on that dinner,” she muttered, grabbing Eleanor’s hand and tugging her back toward the house. She glanced over her shoulder and gave Eleanor that look that had first melted a fifteen-year-old girl’s heart. “By the way, you’re dessert.” With a giggle, Lysette scurried through the front door, squealing at the pinch to her behind.
About the Author
Kim has spent her life in Colorado and can’t imagine living anywhere else. She’s been writing since she was 9 and stumbled into her first book being published in her mid-20s. She’s worked in the film industry as a writer, director and producer, but now enjoys the quiet, happy life of a professional author. She can be reached on Facebook and on her website at, www.kimpritekel.com
Check out Kim’s other books.
Zero Ward - ISBN - 978-1-943353-19-4
Danny Felts grew up in the heart of the Midwest on a dairy farm, expected to follow in her mother’s footsteps and marry a farmer and become a mother. Danny had other ideas. As World War II heats up, she makes a decision that will change her life forever as she becomes a lie, serving with the Seabees in the Navy as Daniel Felts.
Kate Adams is about to graduate high school in her prestigious and elite San Diego neighborhood when she’s dragged to the USO for a dance with friends and servicemen. There, she meets the person that will catch her eye and her heart, only for jealousy and vengeance to tear her apart.
Are Danny and Kate strong enough to win the battle within and fight for their love?
Connection - ISBN - 978-1-939062-24-6
Julie Wilson lives a charmed life as a beloved teacher and aunt in the small town of Woodland. Close to her brother and guardian of two adorable Yorkies, she loves her life, the only negative being ex-boyfriend, Ray who can’t seem to understand the phrase, “We’re done.” Believing that’s her only problem, Julie has no idea what hell awaits her during a normal summer afternoon.
Remmy Foster is the quirky, friendly drifter who has never found roots after a difficult childhood, as well as the difficulties her very special gift brings into her life. Though she may call it exploring, the truth is she’s running from ghosts that haunt her every step.
After a chance meeting with Julie while hitchhiking, Remmy will be thrown head first into darkness she could never have foreseen, regardless of her abilities. As the clock ticks, life and death is on her shoulders to make the right connection.
Warning - Some scenes may be too intense for some readers.
1049 Club - ISBN - 978-1-939062-97-0
Almost two hundred souls, one plane, six survivors, endless heartbreak.
When flight 1049, headed from Buffalo, NY to Italy falls from the sky, a firestorm of drama, pain, angst and sorrow ensues. Can an author, a business owner, a teenager, good ol’ boy, veterinarian and ruthless lawyer survive? Better yet, can those left behind?
1049 Club is a story of survival, love, deep regret and miracles. Can the living make peace with the
presumed dead? Can the presumed dead make peace with the lives and loves they thought they had before?
Blinded – ISBN – 978-1-943353-53-8
After a horrible explosion sends local television news reporter, Burton Blinde reeling both physically and emotionally, she walks away from her life and the dream job she was about to start at a major news network.
For six long years s
he hides out in a small mountain town, working at the local library, though is haunted by the life she had, including mysterious messages and gifts she was receiving before her life was turned upside down, a veritable bread crumb trail leading to the unknown.
Unable to resist, Burton begins to follow the clues, which will lead her into the darkest places of human nature that she may not be able to return from.
Damaged - ISBN - 978-1-939062-45-1
Family. A group of people you are related to by blood or love.
Nora Schaeffer has come home to her family after twenty years working around the world as a photographer for National Geographic. She’s welcomed into the open arms of her father and siblings.
Family. A group of people who support you, lift you up when you fall.
Shannon, the youngest of the four Schaeffer siblings, has vanished, leaving her five-year-old daughter, Bella, terrified and alone. To help find Shannon, Nora has no choice but to turn to the dark-haired specter who has haunted her for twenty years. Along the way, she finds her own long-dead heart and uncovers chilling family secrets beyond imagination.
Family. A group of people who will stick together to hide the rotten soul at its core at any cost.
Who will live? Who will die? Who will be the most damaged? And who will learn to love again?
The Gift - ISBN - 978-1-948232-47-0
The dead do speak. You just have to listen. Homicide Detective Catania “Nia” d’Giovanni is the only daughter in a large Italian family of six children. The backbone—a position not applied for nor wanted—she continues to create new glue to hold the dysfunctional group together. For Nia, family time feels more like herding cats than spending time with her brothers and feisty, aging parents. Her heart has always been in her career with the Pueblo Police Department, especially since it will never be okay with her very Catholic mother to openly give her heart to any woman, until she meets a secretive waitress who has her at, Can I take your order? And then it begins… Three murders that are so gruesome, so horrible, they rock the small town to its core. Nia and her partner Oscar are left to piece together a deadly puzzle to find the key to unlock the monster they hunt. Or, are they the hunted? As they dissect the murder scenes where not one shred of evidence is left behind, more bodies begin to show up, each cleaner than the last, the shadowy specter that is the killer vanishing without a trace, making the woman Nia loves disappear right along with it. When there is no evidence to follow, Nia must trust her instincts…or, is she being guided?
Other books by Sapphire Authors
Twisted Deception - ISBN - 978-1-939062-47-5
There are two types of people who can’t look you in the eyes: someone trying to hide a lie and someone trying to hide their love.
Addie Blake’s life isn’t black and white—more like a series of short bursts of color that sustain her until the next eruption. She isn’t a ladder-climber in the corporate world. Instead, she works long hours at the office and even at home, something her mechanic girlfriend, Drake Hogan, can’t stand. If Addie can’t focus on Drake, then Drake finds arm candy that will. After a long week of late nights and a series of text-messaged demands, each one a bigger bomb than the last, Addie has had enough of her Motor Girl.
Greyson Hollister inhabits a world where everything is either black and white, or money green. She’s a polished, certified workaholic. As head of Integrated Financial, she has built the ladder others want to climb. Now she intends to attend a business mixer to confront a rumormonger and kill merger rumors involving her company.
Detective Nancy Hill, the lead detective on the Elevator Rapist task force, has just been called in to investigate an attack at Integrated Financial. She can’t quite put her finger on it, but something doesn’t add up with this latest assault, and Greyson Hollister isn’t exactly lending a helping hand.
A storm’s brewing on the horizon. Can Addie and Greyson weather it, or will it blow them over?
