Fractured
by Leanne Pearson
For twenty three year old Katrina Smith, the events of one day irrevocably changed her life. Life in Christchurch, New Zealand, couldn't have been better. She was in love with a wonderful man, had a job she enjoyed, and had her life mapped out before her... What dawned as a typical summer’s day, changed into a day of devastation and overwhelming loss. An insidious danger lay beneath the benign land surface, seismic tension, like a ticking time-bomb, was counting down to a catastrophe. And Kate and her boyfriend, Daniel, were in its path. It took mere seconds for the world to be ripped out from under her. Suddenly, Kate was deluged by a vortex of Post Traumatic Stress, guilt and crippling anguish. Dominic Dell’Antonio, an American marine working in New Zealand, was a man hiding from his own demons which lurked behind depthless blue eyes that read so much, yet yielded so little. He kept himself aloof and isolated. Nightmares regularly plagued him. As Kate slipped under a suffocating wave of heartache, she blocks out the world behind self imposed walls, drowning in the torrents of grief. Quiet, yet commanding, Dominic connects with Kate on some inexplicably deeper level. He wants to protect her. He wants to make her his. Two damaged and guarded souls drawn together through tragic circumstances. Two lonely hearts drawn to one another to find comfort.