Julie

by Sherry Foster

  He had threatened any pack member who so much as mentioned baseball or bats with permanent banishment to a deserted island. He was sure no one believed him but if anyone hurt Julie he was equally sure he would find a deserted island somewhere and dump them on it.

  “Okay love, open your eyes.”

  When Julie opened her eyes she was staring right at Edward who had forgotten he needed to lower her to the ground and spin her around to see her surprise. She giggled, “Oh yes Edward what a wonderful surprise. I do love your face but I also see it every day already.”

  Edward could feel himself blush as he realized he was so busy watching her face he had in fact forgotten the surprise. Sliding her down his body he let her feet touch the ground before taking her shoulders in his hands and turning her to face away from him.

  “I do believe I once promised you a spring meadow with a blanket spread out on the grass beside a gurgling creek, surrounded by the most fragrant of flowers. A warm spring breeze ruffling your hair while I fed you tiny morsels of food to tempt your appetite. Now I do realize that May is not springtime here, but unless I am mistaken, which you remember I told you never happens, it is springtime back in the States. So I was thinking, fall is close enough to the proper weather. Would you care to dine with me milady?” Edward held his arm out and waited for Julie to take it.

  Julie’s eyes shone with happiness as she performed a curtsy and placed her hand on the arm of the one man in the entire world she trusted beyond all measure. She could not wait for the next six months to pass so she could take him as her mate. She had fallen in love with him and although the nightmares still came, they were not as frequent as before nor was the whispered voice in her head as quick to urge her silence as it had been.

  “I would be delighted to dine with you.

  Author Notes

  You may think this story seemed out of place with what was going on in the Safe Haven world. And in a way, it was. But you see sometimes the characters take on a life of their own and demand their story be told. And sometimes you find you left some questions in previous books that just needed to be answered. As strange as it may seem if you have never been a writer, sometimes you just don’t know the answer until you start typing.

  I have known other authors who just don’t get it. They don’t understand how another writer can sit there and say I had no idea what was about to happen. That was not at all what I planned on writing. I don’t say these people have no imaginations, although I do believe one said recently those of us who could make the characters come alive for us were borderline delusional and verging on having serious mental problems.

  I disagree. No one thinks it at all strange when their small child invents an imaginary friend with various characteristics. I mean, I for one was certainly surprised to meet Joey when my daughter was small. Joey, you see, could fly. And Joey was the one who helped her climb into the playpen of her baby brother. Climbing into the playpen was very much against the rules. Not only was she much too big to be in there, but the playpen was one set of protections in place to keep her from accidentally hurting her baby brother. But every single time, Joey did it. This from the mouth of a two year old. But yet we nurture and encourage these imaginations. We tell the child how beautiful is the drawing of the dragon they handed us. Even though we turned the paper upside down and the child had to turn it around for us. Oops.

  But once you reach a certain age that imagination is discouraged. You can not talk to your characters. You certainly can not have your characters tell you what happened. No, you are the writer so therefore you are in complete control. But, we aren’t, you see these stories we tell are not ours. They belong to the ones we create. We give them life and they in turn tell us their story. And woe to the writer who refuses to listen to their characters. My entire Deyarian race went on strike because I was going to kill off another race. I had to promise to save them. And do you think they believed me? No, no they did not. I informed them I was the writer and I could do what I wanted! And I sat at my computer and stared at the blank screen trying to figure out what to type next. And I sat, and I stared because I was in control. I was the god of my creation and they would bow to my wishes.

  And… of course, being the writer meant I knew exactly what I was doing. So, I continued to stare at the blank screen with blank thoughts and what the world calls writers block. But eventually my characters caved to my command and ended their strike, because I am the writer! I am certain the fact I had 14,000 words written of the book which would tell of saving the other race had nothing to do with them ending the strike! They have allowed me to write 3 books and a short story since then in that universe without having to go back to the book saving the other race. Of course, I had to put details in the other books that mention saving the others. And they knew I would not want to waste 14k words.

  So many times what we think is going on isn’t what we planned. I thought, as twins Trina and Gabby, who are identical, would have identical wolves. They don’t and wasn’t I surprised. Trina, a force of nature all on her own, has killed to protect herself. The others think she is just talk. But two men know her brave talk isn’t just talk. Will that secret ever come out to her mate? I don’t know. They haven’t told me.

  Gammon is so protective of the mate bond he will not kill one who shows them self to be a true-mate to another. Why? Because he lost his own mate. I had no idea!! I had to go back and rewrite some things when that came out. I had no idea he had a brother, no clue he moved from Russia. And certainly no idea he brought his former father-in-law by mating with him when he moved.

  Some twists are just as much a surprise to the writer as they are to the reader. In a way you might say some of more of a surprise because we get an idea in our head of how something should go and we begin to type it and BAM … wait… what just happened?

  These stories continue to surprise me each time I start the next one. Dawn was started before Julie and I actually had to have my wonderful cover artist Megan change the cover to make it number 5 instead of number 4.

  I hope you enjoyed this book and look forward to the next book. I am in awe of the storyline in Miranda because of all the story lines and all the lives I must say hers took me the most by surprise. But before she can come into the scene, the others must have their stories told.

  If you would take a moment to leave a review I would appreciate it so very much. And if you started this series after Christmas you may wonder why the reviews on Gabby are so harsh when it comes to editing. They were well deserved. The first two editors were not so great. The last one was wonderful. So leave a review for Gabby while you are at it. Because I figure if you read this book you are one of the 51% of the readers who liked the series enough to continue to Trina, making you one of the 92% who loved Trina enough to continue to Kate. You see, you may not realize this, but sometimes those reviews mean the difference between letting a series go and writing the next book. I know writers who will drop a series because they have no way of knowing if the readers really enjoyed them. But the numbers tell me 92% of the readers who read Trina continued on to Kate. And those are some mighty fine numbers for an author to have. But I lose a lot of potential readers before they even pick up the book because they have no idea I corrected my mistake with the editor problem with Gabby. So they will never pick up Gabby and they will miss the story of Miranda. I think that is just sad. Because Miranda is just such a complete shock.

  Thank you to the many readers who love this series. The first few books were written because I had an incredible man at my side encouraging me. But these last few books have been written because I have some mighty incredible fans waiting on the next book. You can never know how much it means to me when one more person(s) falls in love with my books, with my characters. (Just for the record, Stormie annoys me also but it is not my fault!! She came up with her personality herself.)

  You can laugh about that, I hope you do. But remember, sometimes the writers you love the most never lost the ability
to let their imagination soar. And when that imagination takes off, you get new characters and new stories. After Miranda I will be taking a short break from Safe Haven Wolves because my mother threatened to choke me if I do not write more in my Deyarian Universe for her. (Ok, she did not threaten to choke me… she actually backed me against a wall with her hand on my throat and demanded I finish the other books. And wasn’t that cute. She only stands 4 foot 9 inches.) And I have to kill off a few people in another book because I told them I would. One my friends left a cliff hanger in the book I was reading! A cliffhanger!! Now she has to die and her co-author has to die also. Sometimes another writer does something and so we stick them in a story just so we can kill them. Hey, it happens. So far I have about six people who need to die in as many books as I can stick them in because, I am a writer, I can tell lies and kill people all day long. Mwahahaha. Too much?

  If you have questions, suggestions, think I left something hanging you would like to see resolved let me know. I love hearing from my fans and Safe Haven Wolves does have a facebook page.