Eveline's Fall. A StoneBrook Series Novel.

Excerpt

Prologue

It didn’t seem real.

Everything around me seemed to be moving in slow motion. I was there, standing in front of my husband’s grave in the peaceful country cemetery outside of our small church, surrounded by all of our friends and family, but yet, I didn’t feel like I was there. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body. It was so odd, this feeling of numbness, of utter weightlessness.

I heard the minister saying the words, lamenting Daniels' incredible life. I heard the wind gently swishing through the trees in the small graveyard. I even heard the birds softly chirping in the branches. But somehow, everything felt like a whisper in the back of my mind as I stared at the name on the gravestone. Daniel Bishop. 1987-2023.

The marker was simple. No fancy headstone for Daniel. That just wasn’t his way. A smile touched my lips. Even in death, my Daniel was unpretentious.

With a breath, I let out a harsh sigh. My Daniel. He was always my Daniel. And he always would be. Always.

The tears I refused to cry caught in my throat. Daniel wouldn’t want that. Tears always made him uncomfortable, and although I’d cried a river of tears since the accident, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cry at his funeral.

But the longer I listened to the minister speak, the harder it was to keep the heart wrenching sobs from escaping. Daniel was gone. He was really gone. I don’t think it had fully sunk in before now. Not even when the hospital called to tell me about the accident.

One minute I’d been sitting in our favorite little Italian restaurant, waiting for my husband to join me for our weekly date night, and with one phone call from a very kind police officer, my whole world had come crashing down around me. My Daniel, killed by a drunk driver.

Barely thirty-six years old, and he was gone. It still didn’t seem real.

As the minister finished, the small crowd began to disperse, and I smiled back at our friends and family who passed me with gentle, encouraging smiles. With tears in their eyes, the women whispered words of encouragement as the men fought to hold their emotions at bay.

Finally alone, I stared down at my husband’s grave as the tears finally began to fall. “What am I gonna do without you?” I whispered. A knot formed in my throat as a kernel of anger made its way into my head. “It’s not fair,” I uttered harshly under my breath. “We should have had more time.”

As the wind mildly picked up, softly rustling the leaves on the ground, I sighed, taking a deep breath as I wrapped my winter coat tighter around me, then wiped the tears from my cheeks.

Placing a kiss onto my fingertips, I gently touched them to the cold, hard stone of my husbands grave. “Goodbye, my sweet Daniel.” I whispered brokenly. “I love you,”

And with a ragged breath, I turned and made my way out of the graveyard.

Eveline's Fall

A StoneBrook Series Novel by Janet Byers

Coming This Christmas!