WE ARE THRILLED TO WELCOME BACK OUR GUEST AUTHOR, ELKE FEUER, TODAY. ELKE IS SHARING CHAPTERS ONE AND TWO OF HER NOVEL, 'THE TROUBLE WITH HEALERS' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
EXCERPT
Chapter 1
The chill of the AC from the supermarket blasted Skylar’s entire body when she strolled through the automatic doors, a relief from the humidity outside that was already creating sweat on her arms even with the brisk trek from the car. Typical Cayman weather. Year-round tropical heat, even in the shade, but she loved it.
Skylar weaved in between shoppers to reach the deli to buy lunch, ignoring the side-eyes she knew were because of her brightly streaked purple hair mixed with her natural blonde. A style she’d had for a few years now, despite the lecture from her parents about it being unprofessional for a psychologist. She grinned, remembering their pursed lips as she reminded her father their practices were not the same. Not to mention she was a grown-ass woman.
The supermarket was busier than usual for a Tuesday afternoon, but thankfully the line at the deli was short considering it wasn’t quite lunchtime. Only two people were ahead of her. She had an hour and a half before her next appointment, so plenty of time to eat and relax before returning to the office.
A tingle crept across her skin when her gaze raked over the back of the man in front of her. Reading people wasn’t something she indulged in outside of her office, considering the years it took her to block out the noise of others around her. However, there was something familiar and unnerving about him.
As if sensing being watched, the man turned. Skylar’s stomach dropped to her feet and shot back up to her throat, and her heartbeat ricocheted until it vibrated across her entire body. Matteo.
The easy smile on his lips vanished the moment their eyes locked. Chocolate eyes, framed by eyelashes she was always jealous of, assessed her face and the length of her petite body before settling on her eyes. “Skylar?”
Although it was posed as a question, there was no mistaking the flash of recognition in his eyes. Fifteen years later, his gorgeous dark face, looking like he stepped out of a Bollywood movie, still had the same effect on her as it did in high school. The urge to slap him and kiss his full lips in the same instant overwhelmed her. She chose silence instead, nodding in response.
His mother died a couple of weeks ago, and Skylar had avoided the funeral because she knew Matteo would be there. Why is he still on the island?
When Rachel, her friend with the gift of prophetic dreams, told her Matteo appeared in her dreams a few weeks ago, Skylar thought Rachel would see him. Not her. Never her.
When she heard about his mother’s death, Skylar was convinced that if she avoided the funeral, she’d avoid running into Matteo. No such luck! The urge to ask how he was handling his mother’s death crept in—the psychologist in her—but she shoved it back.
Matteo and his mother were close for many years before they weren’t, their relationship pulled apart by her “illness,” as their family called it, and the strain it put on everyone.
The blare of a “Next!” from behind the counter shattered their moment. Matteo grabbed his order and left the supermarket without another word or a second glance.
Numbness settled in her bones as she placed her order and headed to the seating area inside the supermarket. Her food was like chalk in her mouth and difficult to swallow. Although people poured into the supermarket and the seats around her, they were soundless blurs while her mind raced with questions no answers would arrive for. Answers she was better off not knowing.
Knowing he was on the island and seeing him again after all these years was a different experience. One her heart and body obviously weren’t ready for.
Skylar stood and dumped the rest of her lunch in the trash, no longer hungry. The afternoon sun followed her to the car, and she turned the AC on full blast, not waiting for it to fully cool the car before backing out of her parking spot and returning to work. Hopefully her assistant, Fay, wouldn’t notice her change in demeanor. She sucked at faking it, and Fay was surprisingly observant.
Busy lunchtime traffic was the drive back to her office space in a small building on the other side of oceanfront property. While she couldn’t see the ocean from her office, it was visible if she stepped outside and walked the sidewalk in front of the building. She raked a hand through her hair that managed to look unkept even after styling—another fault her mother loved to point out.
A ripple of trepidation ran through her frame, reminding her of the premonitions her grandmother taught her to sense and embrace carefully. With the turmoil of emotions, it was difficult to tell whether it was good or something to be wary of.
All the years of personal growth and dealing with her inner demons and the scars his abandonment etched in her heart were nothing after one glance from him. Reading him wasn’t necessary to know he still hated her. And she…there were no words for the emotions tearing through every inch of her mind and body. Even after all this time and soul-searching, she hadn’t managed to dig him out of her heart.
She hoped to God he was leaving the island any day now. The sooner the better.
Chapter 2
Skylar stared at the sunset in the distance as she leaned against her car. No matter how many times she watched it set, the beauty of the red and golden hues painting the sky never ceased to amaze her.
Her grandmother’s cottage sat beneath the stunning skylight as she waited for the sun to disappear beneath the horizon, forever watching for the blue spark her grandmother told her about as a child. No matter how many sunsets she watched over the years, she never saw it. Not once. Like so much in her life she longed for, it eluded her.
The cottage, which looked as though it was still made of wattle and daub, stood on stilts that kept it a mere two feet off the ground. This was the home where her father grew up as a child, and in a lot of ways, she did too because she spent many days after school here before her parents bought a home closer to town and she changed schools.
No more hanging out with her grandmother, learning everything to hone the gifts her father wanted her to hide. This was the only place she was truly herself while with the only person she could be herself with. She had that with Matteo for a while, although she never told him about what she could do. Afraid he’d reject her the same way her parents had.
Skylar shoved away thoughts of Matteo as she pushed away from the car and walked up the sand driveway with seaside plants scattered on either side. Before her hand knocked on the door, a warm and bubbly, “Come in, child,” came from behind it.
She grinned and turned the knob, striding through the worn wooden door. Skylar made a mental note to have someone come out and repaint it, so it was protected. That was easier than convincing Edna Seymour to replace her old door.
If she and her grandmother stood together with strangers, no one would guess they were related. Where Skylar was light-skinned with blonde—now mostly purple—hair and sea-blue eyes, her gran’s skin was the color of toffee, with dark-brown eyes and hair she kept short since the afro went out of style. Their petite height and frame, along with their gifts, were the only similarities.
The smell of sugar and coconut wafted around her, along with the smell of oxtail and other scents that were everything happy about her childhood—memories of sitting at the table doing homework while her gran cooked her dinner and a sweet treat of coconut tarts, her favorite. Fridays included fresh-baked bread, warm right out of the oven, that she slathered in guava jelly and gorged herself on.
When she was here, the rest of the world didn’t matter. The pressure of her parents’ expectations was silenced, as if locked out in the psychic cocoon her grandmother surrounded them with. During those times, she learned how to listen to her own inner voice while blocking out the noise of the world around her. She learned how to develop her skills of sensing the thoughts of others around her, without them overwhelming her, and to respect the privacy of another person’s mind by not invading it.
But the most important skill her grandmother taught her was how to channel her spirits and guides and hear dead people who reached out to her, while making sure to keep her personal boundaries so unwanted dead and their voices didn’t invade her space. That one was vital. She saw firsthand how the lack of spiritual boundaries could overtake your life and infect your mental health. Managing one gift was challenging enough, but two? Her grandmother had multiple and was why she isolated herself so much. Something her son—Skylar’s father—never understood. Or wanted to understand. Logic and science were all he entertained.
Spirituality and alignment were superstitious nonsense to him and why his practice was focused solely on the antiquated teachings of psychology and how to help people. Using meditation, tarot cards, crystals, and engaging with a patient’s past loved ones who had messages for their family were dated and unnecessary.
But regurgitating their past helped? Skylar felt it kept patients stuck in a cycle of reliving their trauma instead of finding ways to help them move forward. Was it necessary? Absolutely. But was it the only way? Not in her mind. It was merely one cog in the machine to help patients heal themselves and provide them with tools to maneuver through life with.
“You’re overthinking, child.”
Her grandmother’s voice interrupted her rant, and the continuous argument with her father and the reason she started her own practice. Something both her parents were still angry about because of how it looked to the community.
She took her patients with her and found more thanks to word of mouth and because she offered holistic options for people who wanted something different because what they tried in the past hadn’t worked.
“Are you going to stand around all day or come and talk to me?”
Skylar chuckled and headed into the kitchen, where her grandma stood by the small counter surrounding the gas stove. On two outlets was a pot of rice and beans, and oxtail; the other two burners were covered with a baking tray covered with coconut tarts.
Her grandma grabbed a plate from an overhead cupboard and spooned rice and oxtail on top and handed the plate to Skylar before making her own. Her grandma slapped her hand when she reached for one of the coconut tarts. “Lunch first, child. That rule doesn’t change just because you’re an adult.”
“It’s for later so I don’t have to come back to the kitchen.”
Edna rolled her dark eyes and shook her salt-and-pepper-covered head. “My house isn’t the mansion your father’s in, child. You can make that trip easy.”
Some things never changed. In a good way, Skylar thought as she followed her grandmother to the living room.
The room, like the whole house, was old. A somewhat new couch sat next to a wooden rocking chair she refused to get refurbished.
Skylar kissed her granny’s wrinkled tan cheek and sat on the couch she replaced while her grandmother was at church—the only way any new furniture entered the house. A house she loved to visit for the happy memories that were created here. Most of them, anyway.
Skylar dug into the food on her plate, sighing after the first bite. No one made oxtail like her granny.
Being here was her therapy, because her gran was the only person she could talk to about her gifts. Rachel and Arlene were there for her in other ways, and although Rachel understood the challenges that having a gift came with, Skylar was the one everyone usually came to with their problems. Occupational habit. If she were honest, it was that way when they were kids. Whether it was just part of her nature to help others or because of what her father had embedded in her since she could speak, she was the reliable one in the group. The one everyone came to when they had a problem. The one everyone thought had their life together and who was enlightened to the point she didn’t need help.
Relying on people, even friends, was never easy for her. But after the way Matteo had abandoned her when he was her rock and foundation at a time in her life she needed it most, it devastated her on multiple emotional and spiritual levels and took her years to recover.
“I heard Matteo is back in Cayman.”
Skylar gave her a sideways glance that was like “Really, you heard it?” That was laughable, considering her gran seemed to know everything that happened before it happened.
“Church gossip,” she clarified.
Skylar placed her plate on her lap. “Since when do you listen to church gossip?”
She shrugged a thin shoulder before answering with, “I listen sometimes.” Edna placed her half-eaten plate on the table in front of the couch. “How are you doing?”
“Okay. I guess. I’m still muddling through the shock of him being friends with my best friend’s husband. They have a strange bromance going on.” She’d found out days ago he was part of the wedding party and the person walking her down the aisle.
Edna’s dark eyes sparkled. “People find each other when they need each other.”
“Hmm. Is that why Arlene and Rachel found me?”
“They found each other because of Rachel’s gift, and you all needed each other. Still do, but you need them more right now. You should tell them.”
Skylar didn’t respond and tried to keep her mind quiet even as it raced with thoughts like: What if they think I’m weak, or that my friendship isn’t worth the trouble? What if their friendship disappears because I’m not meeting their needs?
“They love you. Depending on them won’t change that.”
“Matteo said he loved me too and look how that turned out,” she mumbled.
Edna sighed deeply. “I thought you had moved past that?”
She placed her empty plate next to her granny’s on the table. “I thought so too, but seeing him is stirring emotions I thought were buried.” She realized she used the wrong choice of words the moment they left her mouth.
**********
BOOK LINK: Book: https://mybook.to/TTWE
**********
AUTHOR BIO
She once dreamed of becoming the next Nora Roberts and traveling the world on book tours. Today, she channels that imagination into stories filled with romance, suspense, and spiritual depth. A mother of two and a lifelong lover of both superhero movies and love stories, Elke writes for readers who believe love is powerful, intuition is real, and hope can exist even in the darkest moments. Her books explore what happens when love is tested, truth is uncovered, and healing becomes possible.
Social Media Links.
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/elkefeuer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elke_feuer/
**********
COMING SOON: On Sunday, 11th October, we are thrilled to welcome back our guest author, Val Penny, who is sharing an excerpt from her novel, 'Murder in The New Town'.
Comments