Sweet Summer Breeze by Anita L. Roseboro – Sugar Anthology
Summer gasped at the sound of her voice, wondering how could a dead woman be on the other end of the line?
“Summer, are you there?”
Summer was shaken. Karen Reynolds had been her best friend since middle school. They were tight as sisters and could pass as twins. They shared everything until one day Karen took it too far and thought sharing extended to Summer’s boyfriend.
“What the hell do you want?” Summer said, sitting up in bed, thoroughly awakened in the middle of a good night’s sleep.
“You need to know why I disappeared.”
“I’m more interested in why you reappeared,” she snapped. “I can give you directions to my house. I’ll be here waiting.”
“That’s not necessary,” she replied. “I made an appointment in your office for tomorrow.”
Summer had checked her calendar before leaving and was sure Karen’s name was not on the list, only a Charity was penciled in, a woman who’d been cagey about her reason for wanting to see Summer, but had cancelled multiple times. “Is this personal or business?”
“Personal and business.” Karen’s phone disconnected.
Summer rushed downstairs to the lower level of her townhouse, opened her laptop, after a few clicks and searches, brought up the article about Karen’s car crash. Now she had to wonder who was in the car because Karen was somehow on this side of the grave.
At exactly noon, Summer’s assistant escorted Charity into the office and gently closed the door upon her exit. As suspected, Charity was actually Karen, with a little cosmetic surgery and nearly fifteen years thrown in. Summer pulled the papers and slid them across her desktop. She had grown tired of this masquerade, thinking it was time to play a little of her hand. “Karen, do you want to tell me why you’re really here?”
Charity was silent for a long time, then she let out a long sigh, “Here I thought I had you fooled, but all along I’ve been the fool.”
“The voice and the mole were the dead giveaways for me. Everything else is different, but I know that trouble follows you wherever you go.”
Charity’s expression morphed from anger to relief. “Seemingly it does.”
“Tell me the whole story? Why’d you come here?”
“Your father sent me to find you.”
Summer smirked at the response. “You and I both know my father’s dead.”
“No, he isn’t. He’s in prison for the murder of the man who hurt you as a kid. Telling you that he was dead was a lie told to you to protect you.
Now that took the wind out of Summer’s sails. “How can you prove any of that? I have no reason to believe you whatsoever.”
Charity opened the folder she brought in with her, pulled out several pictures and spread them out in front of Summer
“Juan Carlos had them delivered to your father,” she explained. “Thinking it would buy his silence and cooperation. Everything I’m telling you can be verified in the documents your mom sent you before she died. The cartel went after you to keep your father in line. Your mother had lied to protect you, Summer. I didn’t know you all were in witness protection. When I tried to make up for what I’d done by finding your father, it led them right to you.” Charity took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “It’s my fault your mom died.”
No sooner than the words were out of her mouth, three men burst through the door. The first one Charity recognized as a man who’d she spotted at the coffee shop she frequented.
“Ladies,” Juan Carlos said rubbing the tip of his gun on Summer’s face.
Summer turned her face, wishing she had brought her own weapon with her today. He moved on to Charity and rubbed the gun around the baby.
“What do you want?” Summer growled.
“Oh, besides the kid? I think she already told you what I want. Didn’t you, doll?” Juan Carlos kissed Charity across her lips.
Summer tried to gauge Charity’s expression but couldn’t tell if she was disgusted or if the frown was because she’d been busted. “So, you’ve been working for him all along?”
About Sweet Summer Breeze
Summer is still mending a broken heart from a relationship that ended long before its expiration date. When she runs into her ex, Devon, he tells her the most devastating news she’s heard since her mother was murdered. Then she learns that a mysterious woman, with ties to Devon, is stalking her under the guise of becoming a client. Summer now has to figure out if she’s been targeted as her mother had been.
Devon, promised to love Summer forever. Unfortunately, forever came much too soon when she made it clear that they had different goals in life and love. After their breakup and a few drinks, he finds himself engaged and soon to be a father with a woman he barely knows. The more Summer and Devon fight their feelings for each while they uncover the truth behind the mysterious situations that occurs, the more they are drawn together. Now with new developments that are not in his control, he must face Summer and risk breaking her heart again, while figuring out the secrets that his new wife is keeping.
Karen has infiltrated Summer’s life, trying to right old wrongs. She will do anything to save the child she carries, even sacrifice herself to put it in the hands of a woman who will protect it from a man who wants the child—and her—for his own lurid purposes. How long can she hide in plain sight, redeem herself in Summer’s eyes, before all that is hidden comes to the light?
Devon and Summer are soon confronted with the fact that one woman holds the keys from a dangerous past and an even more devastating future.
Story Notes: Sweet Summer Breeze
My process for this story wasn’t the greatest. I started this story many years ago with different names and a different scenario. After developmental editing, the story took shape into more than I could’ve dreamed. Now reading the story in the final stages and growing from the put from veteran authors in the project, I’ve become stronger as a writer and am applying what I’ve learned to a work in progress.
Anita L. Roseboro, a native of North Carolina. She has a B.S. degree in MIS (Management Information Systems) and a Master’s in Business Administration from Gardner-Webb University and the University of Phoenix respectively. The road has finally curved to the path of her life-long dream of writing, she stands ready to take on the world as she lends her devotion and passion to her own life long motivations.
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