by Trin Denise
After the meeting was over, Sydney called Karen up to her office. She offered her congratulations for graduating with honors, and then offered her Allen’s former position as Assistant Vice President of Computer Logistics, reporting directly to Caitlyn since she had also been promoted to President of Computer Logistics.
Karen being true to herself, happily accepted the position and then proceeded to do a cartwheel in Sydney’s office. By the time she had left, Sydney and Caitlyn were practically rolling on the floor with laughter.
Rachel’s mother kept her word and had made no attempt to smooth things over with her daughter, but Lou on the other hand, did keep his and called Rachel several times over the past few months. He even managed to have dinner with them at least once every other week. Sydney had always believed that where there was life, there was always hope and she hoped that one day, Roberta would see that not only was she hurting herself due to her narrow-minded way of thinking, she was hurting her daughter and granddaughters as well and missing out on getting to know three really incredible people.
As for her own mother, Sydney held out as much hope for her changing as she did Roberta but that didn’t stop her from wishing it.
She thought about Edward, AKA Martin Hollis, and how he had already found himself a new wife but he had not attempted to contact Rachel or Alyssa and Sydney didn’t think he ever would. She had decided to keep an eye on him just the same and received monthly status updates. She would keep getting them as long as he remained alive.
She shook her head as she thought about Meredith. There wasn’t much to say really. She was still the same woman doing the same things, using women for her own selfish needs and then tossing them away like yesterday’s newspaper.
The part that bothered her most about everything that had happened was Maureen. She hated a part of herself for not being more feeling and compassionate all those years ago regarding her business practices. Unbeknownst to Maureen’s parents, she had made an anonymous deposit into their bank account for one-hundred-thousand dollars and she kept her word about allowing them to keep their house. She had made a promise to herself to look at the whole picture, to look at the people specifically involved or affected when making business decisions in the future.
What surprised her most was how Caitlyn had figured out that Maureen was the embezzler. The cd Jackie had accidently left in Caitlyn’s office didn’t just contain the computer code she had written, it also had Maureen’s grocery shopping list on it, a careless mistake that unraveled their entire plan.
Rachel reached over and took Sydney’s hand in hers, pulling her from her thoughts. “It’s beautiful here,” she said as she looked around their campsite.
“Yes it is.” Sydney frowned. “Where’s Caitlyn?”
“I’m right here,” Caitlyn answered before Rachel could answer.
Sydney shifted in her chair, smiling as she watched Caitlyn step out of the trailer, holding hands with her new girlfriend of three months—Natalie from the shipping department at EMCOR.
Caitlyn dropped down into one of the chairs, pulling Natalie down on her lap.
Natalie looked at Sydney. “I still can’t believe that the trailer has a fireplace and a central vacuum in it,” she said, shaking her head.
“My idea of roughing it,” Sydney laughed as she got up from her chair. She looked at Rachel. “I’ll be right back,” she said and went inside the trailer.
“What’s she up to?” Caitlyn asked, looking at her mom.
“Knowing her, it’s hard to say,” Rachel laughed.
Sydney came out a few minutes later. She kept her hands behind her back as she squatted down in front of Rachel. “Umm ... I was thinking since you’re legally a single woman now ... that ... um ... I would love to make an honest woman of you.” She brought her hand out from behind her back. She was holding a black velvet box.
Rachel gasped as Sydney flipped back the lid. Laying in the box was the most gorgeous diamond ring she had ever seen, lying next to it was a channel band wrapped in diamonds. “Will you be my wife, Rache?” Sydney asked.
“Oh my goodness, Yes! Yes,” Rachel yelled as she jumped up from the chair and proceeded to knock Sydney backward on her butt. Rachel pushed her back further so that Sydney was laying flat on her back. She fell down on top of Sydney and with tears streaming down her face, she kissed Sydney on the mouth. “Yes, I will marry you.”
“About time,” Caitlyn laughed as she did a fist pump in the air.
“Uh, Mom, what about the neighbors?” Alyssa asked. “They’re kinda watching.”
“Let em, watch,” Rachel said as she kissed Sydney again.
“Do you think we can roast hotdogs now?” Alyssa asked in a serious tone, causing everyone else to burst out laughing.
“Yes, baby, we can roast hotdogs now,” Rachel laughed as she helped Sydney up off the ground.
THE END
Author Bio
Trin Denise lives with a house full of rescue pets, which all happen to be physically challenged. She is a huge advocate against bullying, especially when it comes to physically challenged children and she also writes children’s novels under the name T. Denise Robinson. Her writing career began eight years ago when her love of movies led her to write her first screenplay. Since that time, she has become an award winning and produced screenwriter and multi-published author.
Find out more about the author at: www.trindenise.com
If you have the time, friend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. She is always happy to meet new people.
Web site: www.trindenise.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/trindenise
Twitter: @trin_denise
Listen To Her Heart
Due to be released late 2012
Yalen Martinez is a bestselling author of lesbian fiction. She has thousands of fans that come from all walks of life, yet she is alone.
Since the breakup of her ten-year relationship two years ago, there has been no one special in her life. She just doesn’t have the time or energy for it.
After countless attempts by her two best friends to set her up on blind dates, she decides to use the internet to get to know a few women because she thinks it’s safe and she can do it anonymously. They don’t need to know who she really is or what she does for a living, thus eliminating her constant worry of whether the women in her life will like her for her, or for what she can give to them materially.
She joins a lesbian dating site called, “Lesbian Neveah” and soon finds herself on the receiving end of several beautiful women who would love to get to know her better. One in particular named Emily gets her attention and they begin conversing.
Over several months, they develop what could be viewed as a romantic relationship but then something goes terribly wrong. Being an author, Yalen has a way with words and when Emily sends her a poem that she supposedly wrote for Yalen, alarm bells go off. The poem is just too perfect.
Being somewhat internet savvy, Yalen copies the poem that Emily wrote and pastes it in the Google search engine. What she finds, turns her world and her stomach upside down. The poem comes up under a website detailing copies of letters used for online dating scams. Part of the scam Emily is running, leads Yalen to believe that she’s from California and is away in Japan at chef school. To make matters worse, Emily claims to be hearing impaired, therefore, Emily’s often chopped vocabulary never sent up a warning sign.
Yalen chastises herself for not doing a more thorough investigation and everything she thought she knew about Emily, is now a lie. She’s not even sure that the pictures that Emily sent of herself are real or if Emily is even female. Not only is she hurt, she’s pissed off and is now determined to discover Emily’s true identity.
Yalen’s curiosity gets the better of her and she starts an investigation by tracking the IP addresses from Emily’s emails. Lo and behold, the emails are originating in the United Kingdom and being rerouted through San Francisco and they are being sent by a Bl
ackberry.
Without letting Emily know that she suspects that she is a con artist, Yalen hires private investigators in Japan and the United Kingdom to track down the owner of the Blackberry, and once she knows their identity, she is determined to confront them face to face. Her investigators determine that the woman running the con is not the same woman shown in the pictures that Emily had sent and that the chef school is not a chef school at all. It’s a cooking school that offers one and two days classes for those interested in learning Japanese cuisine.
Yalen, though disappointed, becomes obsessed with finding out who the woman in the picture is and she’s willing to go to any length to get that information, starting with posting the woman’s picture in all the major newspapers in the U.S. and on Billboards. She anonymously offers a $50,000 reward for any information that will lead to the woman’s identity. After only two days, she gets the call she’s been waiting for and passes the information onto her investigator. The report comes back that the woman is a former Victoria’s Secret model, single, and a lesbian.
Armed with the woman’s name and address, Yalen boards a flight to Tennessee without any idea as to how she plans on approaching this woman. She’s just going to have to wing it and hope like hell that the woman doesn’t think she’s some kind of psycho head-case.
Determined to get to the bottom of the online dating mystery, Yalen and her new found friend in Tennessee, set out on a high-risk adventure that will have them criss-crossing the globe and risking their lives repeatedly as they come face to face with a million-dollar, underworld crime syndicate that specializes in on-line dating scams.
Is it possible that two women who live very different lives who never knew the other existed can meet after being forced together due to unforeseeable circumstances, only to discover that they were brought together because it was their destiny? Sit down, buckle up, and hold on because Yalen Martinez is about to find out the answer to that question.
Dedication
This novel is for all those ladies who have finally found the woman who left them breathless. For those who haven’t found her yet, be patient, she’s out there. I promise!
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Author Claire Chilton for doing such a fantastic job on the book cover. She is by far the Queen of cover design and structural editing in my opinion and I love, love, love the cover you made for SLMB!
I would also like to thank Author Eileen Gormley who in my opinion is the Queen of book blurbs!
I would also like to thank Margaret Farrell for all the help she gave me in bringing SLMB to fruition. Without your hard-core critique’s, SLMB wouldn’t be as good as it is. You are the Queen Beta Reader LOL.
Elisa, one of my biggest fans in the Netherlands: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your suggestions and feedback were so fantastic, I had to implement them, and I am so glad I did!
Note from the Author
About
She Left Me Breathless
I’m often asked where I come up with the ideas for my stories. I guess the easy answer would be to say everywhere. Well, that answer is the truth. I get ideas from watching the news, reading the newspaper or I may overhear a piece of a conversation and sometimes something personal that happens or has happened in my life sparks the idea.
As with all stories I write, I find songs that inspire me as well. With this novel, the artist just so happens to be Adele. Her songs, One and Only, Rolling in the Deep, and Set Fire to the Rain were the songs that I listened to as I wrote this novel.
With She Left Me Breathless, this story just so happens to hit a little closer to home and is somewhat personal to me although it is a work of fiction.
When I was twenty-one years old, I fell in love with my best friend, who also happened to be straight. At the time, she was married and going through a painful divorce. She was also the mother of a beautiful, seven-year-old little girl. However, twenty-years ago, being an out-of-the-closet lesbian like I was, just was not as acceptable as it is today. The woman that I had fallen in love with couldn’t get past what her mother, society, and the church thought about homosexual relationships. What everyone else thought about us being of the same sex was more important than how much she loved me. The day I walked out of her life was the day she told me that she could not raise her daughter in that kind of an environment, meaning a lesbian relationship. It was as if being in a relationship with me was worse than being a serial killer.
There is a scene in this novel where Sydney loses control and she talks about how some parents, society, and the church would rather see a woman be with a man who physically abused their daughter, than see her with a woman who worshipped the ground she walked on. Twenty years ago, I yelled those exact same words because the woman that I loved was indeed in an abusive marriage and that was more acceptable than being in a relationship with me.
I am so grateful that I no longer have to live under those type of circumstances. I have all of the lesbian and gay men who came before me to thank for fighting for, and giving me those rights, rights that now allow me to openly love whomever I choose regardless of the fact that my lover is a woman. I say to hell with what anyone else thinks about it. You only get one life, so enjoy it :)
After twenty years, me and my old love have reconnected and once again we are friends. We both realize that we can no longer look back at the past with regret and instead, be grateful for the friendship we now share in spite of it.
The only words of advice I can offer is to never ever live your life for someone else :)
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Trin Denise
First Edition
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 and the United Kingdom Copyright Act of 1956 and 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Print Edition
ISBN-13: 978-1908822-12-3
RAGZ BOOKS
Ebook Edition
ISBN-13:978-1908822-11-6
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental
Cover Art by Claire Chilton
Editor: Janet Brooks
Ebook Structural Editor: Claire Chilton
Print Edition Structural Editor: Trin Denise
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Listen To Her Heart
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Note from the Author
Copyright
Contents
Table of Contents
Intro
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Author Bio
Listen To Her Heart
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Note from the Author
Copyright
Table of Contents
Intro
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Author Bio
Listen To Her Heart
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Note from the Author
Copyright