Water Bearer
by Wendi
Christner
GENRE: Contemporary
Romance
BLURB:
In a small Southern
community, inseparable lifelong friends prepare to follow their own paths, but
one last summer together changes their lives forever.
Excerpt:
Seven years after Cassidy Strumond
set the fire that consumed her parents, the scent of ash still lingered in the
newly sprouted corn and in the wide blades of grass that blanketed the rolling
hills; only, nobody seemed to smell it but her.
Cassidy rolled her high school
diploma over the worn floor planks of her grandmother’s back porch and watched
Jared Walker’s horse, Delilah, clomp across the stone footbridge that spanned a
stream separating her family farm from his.
The arms of a young man who worked
outside and handled livestock for a living extended from the sleeves of a
t-shirt that looked like he’d slept in it. His pointed boots stuck out from the
frayed legs of his jeans, and the outline of his thighs pressed against the
easy fitting denim. Details she had only recently begun to notice. He looped
Delilah’s reins around the porch railing and lowered himself onto the steps.
“Is that what you wore under your
graduation gown?” She knew the answer before his lopsided smile betrayed him.
“Figured if I was gonna wear a
dress, I’d better look like a man underneath. What’d you wear under yours, a
suitcase?”
“Nothing.” She eased the hem of her
navy blue polyester gown up her bare calves and laughed as the implication
registered on his features.
“You shameless liar.”
She took hold of the zipper at her
throat. “Wanna find out?”
“There’s something bad wrong with
you, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know.” Cassidy squinted at
the branches of a massive oak in the middle of the pasture.
Beyond the oak, on the back acres of
the property, were the ruins of her childhood home, reduced to a charred
foundation and three concrete steps that led to an emptiness she could taste in
her soul. From this rubble, the odor of her every nightmare emanated. As long
as she stayed here, she would live with the smell of death.
One short summer and she could put
this place and its constant reminders behind her.
AUTHOR BIO:
Wendi Christner is the author of Writer’s Digest
Short-Short Story Competition winner “Throwing Stones,” a fairy self-help book,
and several novels written under various pseudonyms. Her gritty, emotional
stories tend to have a Southern voice born of her roots in the Florida
panhandle. She currently lives in Tampa with her husband, son, and their fur
family.
Buy Link:
Giveaway:
$10 Amazon or B/N GC
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.
2 comments:
Thank you for the giveaway; and I like the excerpt. :)
Thank you, Cali. Best of luck!
Post a Comment