It’s release day for “BETRAYAL: A TALL PINES MYSTERY”. Romantic mystery/thriller set in the wintry woods of the Adirondack Mountains.
Prologue #1 – Sky
I leaned against my walker, needing a breather. I’d been shuffling my feet one agonizing step at a time for the past fifteen minutes, and I was beat.
Okay, so my life hasn’t always been a cakewalk. I’ve been tortured in POW camps in the Middle East. I’ve been on the run in the woods with nothing but my wits and luck to keep me warm and fed. And my heart was irrevocably shattered when my one and only love rejected me years ago. Her name—Marcella. I thought nothing would be harder than the pain of her disavowal.
Yet, this whole recovering-from-being shot-in-the-spine thing sometimes seems harder than all of those events rolled together.
No. I didn’t expect to have a bullet lodged in my spine four months ago.
And with the damage it inflicted, I hadn’t expected to ever walk again. The docs had been pretty clear, telling me I’d be wheelchair bound forever.
In the beginning, I’d been numb from the waist down. And I’d seen guys blown up and injured just like me in Afghanistan, where I’d served in the Marines for many years. Those I’d kept in touch with hadn’t recovered. Matter of fact, the loss of their mobility, and worse—their manhood—had destroyed many of them.
I was depressed at first, horribly depressed. God had graced me with unusually large, er, equipment. Men were pretty jealous of me in the locker room, even though I never did anything to earn it. I was just born that way. But I couldn’t believe after all I’d been through, that God would suddenly take it away, you know? Especially when I hadn’t been able to settle down and marry.
I had prayed someday Marcella would get tired of her beloved Indian brave and dump him. Maybe she’d see that I was the one who’d loved her from day one, and that I always would. It had been thoughts of her that got me through torture in the prison camps, being on the run from the law in the desert, and hiding out in the Adirondack woods last summer.
She is the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I doubt if I’ll find another who moves me as much as my sweet Marcella.
Just looking at her makes me quake, makes me weak in the knees. Her laugh sends thrills down my spine. One tiny smile from her, and my day is made.
Yeah. I have it that bad.
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Viv Drewa - The Owl Lady 