Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

This week’s theme is lost love. I think I’ve posted this scene before, but I like it, so I’ve posted it again. Camryn Sullivan has lost her older husband and his death sends her on a downward spiral–until she is kidnapped by aliens.

HOUSE OF THE CAT by Shelley Munro

“I don’t care if Camryn’s your sister. She’s an alcoholic, and I swear she’s overdoing the prescription drugs as well. I don’t trust her near our son.”

“She loves Luke,” Max said.

“Last time Camryn baby-sat, she let Luke wander onto the racetrack. She was blind drunk.”

Her sister-in-law’s angry words brought Camryn O’Sullivan to an abrupt stop. She wavered on unsteady legs, not wasted but experiencing a buzz and blissful ignorance of the true state of her life. She smothered a giggle, slapping her hand over her quivering lips. Okay, she’d had drinks. Lots of drinks in pretty colors. Teeny umbrellas to match.

“What do you want me to do? I can’t throw her out. She’s my twin sister. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

A hit! Camryn screwed her eyes shut, protecting herself against the onslaught of pain. No, she didn’t want to think about Gabriel, about being alone. How much it hurt. Max couldn’t make her leave. He wouldn’t.

She had nowhere else to go.

“Max, it’s almost two years since Gabriel’s death. Camryn’s not improving. She needs help. More than we can give her.”

Silence fell, but Ellen’s words throbbed like the harping notes of a badly played violin. They hurt her head and brought forth a wave of indignation. She didn’t need help. She needed Gabriel, dammit. Only her husband’s presence would belay the paralyzing guilt she carried with her every day.

A rough masculine sigh sounded. “Love, you’re right. Camryn needs help, but she doesn’t see it. Until she realizes, all we can do is be here for her. She has to want change.”

“Fine, and meantime Camryn drags us down with her. I found her smoking inside the stables this afternoon. She reeked of alcohol. Other people have noticed. She won jockey of the year two years running, but have you noticed she’s not getting the rides she was a year ago? Camryn has real aptitude with horses, the gift you both have, and she’s throwing it away.”

A direct hit. Ellen’s words sliced with precision, ripping open wounds barely scabbed. The agony hit instantaneously, ferocious and heart-stopping. Silent tears ran down Camryn’s face, and she staggered against the door. Invisible bands clamped around her ribs. Camryn gasped hoarsely, the last of the drunken buzz bleeding away as she attempted to breathe. She wanted to rock away the pain, the guilt that came from knowing Gabriel would never return.

The wind caught the door, slamming it shut and the murmur of voices from the kitchen stopped abruptly.
No, not here. She couldn’t fall apart here. Camryn fumbled with the handle, increasingly desperate when footsteps neared.

“Camryn? Is that you?” Her twin brother’s baritone sounded in the passage not far from where she teetered.

Camryn finally managed to coordinate brain and hands. The door opened. She stumbled into the winter air. The bite of the wind brought a shiver, an increase to her misery. Whiskey. She needed a drink. And maybe one of those little yellow pills the nice doctor had prescribed to help her sleep. Anything to escape the horrid truth. She hadn’t meant to leave Luke alone. She loved her nephew. He raced about, so fast on his feet, and the sleepless nights had taken their toll. She’d fallen asleep in Gabriel’s favorite chair.

Luke loved horses. No surprise since his father bred and trained racehorses. She and Max had lived and breathed horses since they were Luke’s age. Camryn lurched along the muddy track leading to the cottage at the back of the main house.

Really, she didn’t need help. If Gabriel returned things would improve. She could kick the alcohol any time she wanted. A few pills to lift her mood. Camryn didn’t need them either. She needed Gabriel.

Camryn burst into her cottage, tracking mud across the tile floor. She staggered through the cluttered kitchen and into the dining room where she’d instructed her brother and his workers to place Gabriel’s chair. Camryn slumped into the big, masculine chair and pressed her nose against the cool leather. The faint scent of lavender soap and whiskey filled her senses, and a surge of tears blurred her vision. The chair didn’t smell of Gabriel anymore.

It smelled of her.

Camryn crawled onto the chair properly, ignoring the muddy boots on her feet. She curled into a tight ball, her thin shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. The cruel truth hit then. Gabriel wouldn’t be coming home. He would never come home. Gabriel was dead, and it was all her fault.

Purchase House of the Cat from Ellora’s Cave

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To read other Snippet Saturday excerpts follow the links below:

Emma Petersen
McKenna Jeffries
Vivian Arend
Ashley Ladd
Shelley Munro
Lauren Dane
Mari Carr
Lissa Matthews
TJ Michaels
Shelli Stevens
Elisabeth Naughton
Juliana Stone
Leah Braemel

Related posts:

1. It’s A Fight!
2. First Love
3. Run! Character in Danger!
4. And they’re off!!
5. This Day Many Years Ago…