WE ARE DELIGHTED TO WELCOME BACK OUR GUEST AUTHOR FOR TODAY,VANESSA ROSE, WHO IS SHARING AN EXCERPT FROM HER NOVEL, 'BURNING OF SINS' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Burning of Sins
Book 4 (story 6) of Metal Embers
Chapter 6
Clara
“There are a couple of people still here, but I’m heading out before the weather hits,” Clara said to Ron, the cook and owner of Clear Rock Diner.
“Yeah, see you in a few days. I know you get pretty trapped up there,” Ron answered, coming out from the back. “There aren’t a lot of people left here anyway.”
Clara waved as she headed toward her truck. The temperatures had dropped quite a bit, and she could feel the sensation of the snow ready to hit. Hopping into her truck, she started it up and prayed the heat would work. It was hit or miss on whether or not her truck would cooperate. At least it always ran true. She certainly couldn’t complain about how reliable it was.
Shifting into gear, she began to drive out of town. Clara didn’t live in the town limits, which was why when the weather was bad, she didn’t come into work. Her home was up in the hills out in the woods with no neighbors to bother her. She had decided to move into the small cabin several years ago after leaving her husband. Life was easier there with no one expecting anything from her, and she had quickly grown to love the silence. Hell, she didn’t even have a phone. Now and then, people at the diner would ask her if she got lonely, but she never had.
The road grew narrower and more winding, and she was not far from her home when the snow started to really fall. Clara knew she would be able to make it, but she was glad she hadn’t waited for the diner to clear out. That’s when she saw it. Something was on fire. Slowing down, she pulled up and saw a very expensive car smashed between a tree and part of the mountain. It was on fire, and she knew it could get worse at any moment. Parking, she jumped out of her truck to see if the guy inside the car was still alive. She recognized the rich stranger’s car from earlier.
Yanking open the driver’s side door, she found him slumped over the steering wheel. Placing her finger on his neck, she was relieved when she felt a pulse. He was alive but unconscious. The bastard was also a million miles tall. While she wasn’t small, he was much bigger than her.
“Hey, wake up!” she yelled, smacking at his cheek. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and pills and powder were strewn everywhere. Fuck.
When he didn’t respond, she started to wrap her arms around him to pull him out. A huge piece of glass was stabbed into his side. The man needed a hospital, but there was no way she could get him to one. The road was already almost completely covered with snow. At this rate, she would be lucky to get to her place, much less all the way back into town.
“If you fucking die on me, I’m going to kill you,” she groaned, dragging him to her truck. How she managed to get him into it, she had no idea. But he fell in, and she lifted his legs to tuck him in, hoping she wasn’t doing more damage by moving him.
Running around to the other side, she got back into her truck just in time to see his car completely engulfed in flames. Well, he wasn’t going to die in a fire, though the rest was yet to be seen. Throwing the truck into gear, she did her best to get them to her cabin safely but as quickly as possible.
The man moaned a bit when she pulled him from the truck. At least it was higher off the ground, so she wasn’t having to lift him as much.
“Dude, please wake up.” She groaned, dragging him toward her cabin.
The stairs were not fun. She ended up dropping him and dragging him the rest of the way in like a dead body, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.
Once inside, she shut the door, prepared to have to pick him up. With all of her strength, she lifted him up and managed to plop him onto the mattress, cringing as blood seeped more steadily from where the glass was lodged in his side. Her cabin was small, very small. After all, it was meant for just her. It had one room that was pretty much everything. The only separate room was the bathroom.
Her first task was to start a pot of water to boil. While it got up to temperature, she grabbed scissors, fishing line, a sewing needle, and as many clean towels as she could find.
“Okay, mystery man. I still would prefer you not die on me.”
She used the boiling water to sterilize her equipment and then went about cutting off the man’s clothes. He had a bunch of cuts and bruises, but the gash on his side from the shard of glass was the worst. His shoulder was obviously dislocated as well, which would need to be fixed.
A million years ago, Clara had gone to nursing school. She had planned to go into the medical field but instead followed her heart to play wife to a man who saw her as nothing more than an arm ornament and servant. However, her knowledge had come in handy over the years.
Hopefully she had enough to deal with the severity of his injuries. She didn’t have gloves, so she washed her hands with antibacterial soap and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol. It was the best she could do.
“Okay, mystery man, here goes nothing,” she whispered and got to work. She cleaned the area where the worst gash was then started to sew him up.
“Fuck!” the man screamed, waking up finally. He started to sit up, but she pushed him back down.
“Don’t move,” she said as more blood poured from the wound.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he cursed, pushing at her as if to make her leave him alone.
“Stitching you up. You have a huge wound here, now lie still before you bleed out all over my bed,” she answered, smacking his hand and forgetting that he had several other wounds.
“Where am I? What is going on?” he asked, his voice full of panic.
“I brought you to my cabin because it was close. You were in a wreck. Do you know your name?” she asked, not sure if he had any brain injuries from it as well.
“Jace, my name is Jace Jackson,” he answered, but he finally fell back. “That fucking hurts.”
“I bet it does,” she answered and went back to sewing him up. Now and then she had to wipe up some of the blood that had poured from the gash. “Are you dizzy, feel cold, anything off?”
“Yeah, all that,” Jace answered.
“Okay, similar or different from before the wreck?” she asked next, remembering the drugs all over his car.
She could feel him looking at her, and she glanced up. He didn’t seem to want to answer that question. “Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know, but you’re talking, so that’s a good sign,” she answered. Clara finally got the wound on his side patched up and cleaned. Then she went to pop his shoulder back into place. “Sorry, but this is also going to hurt.”
“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, his head moving to watch her.
“Your shoulder is out, so I’m going to put it back in. Then I’m going to stitch up the smaller cuts.
“Don’t fuck up my arm. I need that,” he said, more panic setting in.
“Yeah, well, it will get worse if I don’t fix it. Now stop being such a baby and let me finish helping you. As it is, I already had to drag your ass out of a burning car and into my house without any help from you, so chill,” she said, but as she talked, she did what needed to be done.
He screamed as the shoulder shifted back into place and then passed out again.
It took her another couple of hours to patch him up the rest of the way. Blood was everywhere, and she kept checking his pulse to make sure it was steady. While weak, it was beating. Getting up, she threw all of the bloody towels into a pile by the door. She would have to take them out to be washed in the morning if she could get through the snow.
Jace, the mystery man, was asleep and practically naked. She needed to change the bedding, so she grabbed some fresh linens and went about pulling the sheet from the corners. Rolling up one side, she tucked it under him and then pulled him toward her so it would pop through on the other side. The mattress was soaked through with blood, so she put another couple of towels down before putting the fresh sheets on. Again, she rolled Jace to get the sheet under him and then tucked the corners.
Finally, she covered him with her comforter before heading to her bathroom. She, too, was covered in blood, mud, and sweat. Stripping off her clothes, she started the shower. The warm water soaked into her muscles that were trembling from all of the work she had done. Being a nursing student and being a nurse were two different things. Once she was done with the shower, she wrapped the last clean towel around herself to go search for clothes.
She had managed to pull the shirt over her head when she heard him speak again. “Where am I?”
“I told you earlier, you’re at my cabin,” she answered, leaning down and pulling on her pants.
When she turned, she could see him staring at her. “Why am I here? Did I come home with you? I don’t remember you leaving with me.”
“Do you not remember?” she asked, slowly walking over to him. Placing her hand on his forehead, she could feel him feverish. “Shit.”
“Remember what?” he gasped, pulling the blanket off of himself and looking around the room. “Where’s my stuff?”
“Jace, you were in a car accident. Please stay in bed. I don’t know how well the stitches are going to hold,” she answered, searching her cabinet. Clara was pretty sure she had some old antibiotics that she could give him.
“I can’t think straight. Who are you?” he asked, still trying to get out of the bed.
She grabbed a cup and filled it with water before going over to him. Pushing him back down, she handed him the pills and watched as he just took them and tossed them in his mouth, swallowing them without water. “I could have just given you poison, and you wouldn’t have even known.”
“Did you give me poison?” he asked, taking the water and gulping some down.
“No, but I could have,” she answered.
“Okay, it doesn’t matter,” he said and fell back onto the bed. “Everything fucking hurts, and I can’t think straight.”
“I can make you some tea for the pain, but you really just need some sleep,” she whispered, brushing her hand over his forehead.
Jace was a handsome man, and she had a feeling he knew it. Now that she had a moment to breathe, she could take in what he looked like. At the diner, she had been too busy to really notice. Then she had been focused on making sure he didn’t die.
Lying back, he was breathing hard and shaking, but his body was exposed. His long body was cut, and his arms and chest were littered with tattoos. He had dark brown hair that was long enough to get in his eyes, but not very long. It was too dark for her to see his eyes, but she knew they were light.
“I have stuff for pain. It’s in my things,” he gasped, trying to get his breathing under control.
“Your stuff burned up with your car. Sorry, but the tea is all I have,” she answered.
“No, no, no,” he chanted, and she got the feeling it was about more than just the pain he was in.
**********
**********
AUTHOR BIO
Vanessa Rose is a Contemporary Romance author currently residing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She can often be found at a coffee shop working on her books and refers to these trips to town as “Going to the Office”. She credits her friends and family with inspiring her and being a sounding board as she plots out her next book. To read her Paranormal Romance works, look for her under the pen name Cherron Riser.
All my social media, book links, website, and more can be found on my Linktree -
**********
COMING SOON: On Sunday, 5th September, we are thrilled to welcome our guest author, Deborah E Fox, who is sharing an excerpt from her children's novel, 'Where Is All The Grass Going?
Comments