So…there is a prologue for WHEN YOU ARE MINE, book 1 in my Bennett series.
*NOTE: It is unedited and does have one “head hop”, sharing another character’s point of view mid-scene. I could have fixed it…but it is just for fun and I wanted you to know what that other character was thinking. Am I excused? 🙂 Thanks!
Prologue
Kerris Moreton’s first impressions were of drifting. Two years old? Three? It was hard to remember how old you were when you started to recollect; forming memories and impressions of the world. She would never be sure, but she knew that from the beginning, she had been adrift; passed fleetingly from one set of indifferent hands to another. She had been abandoned at birth. Her parents were like a path in the dirt the wind had carelessly blown away; leaving a vague physical impression, but not enough to follow in any direction.
She was left on the doorstep of a North Carolina orphanage, making her beginnings inauspicious and clichéd. A crumpled note with her name scribbled in barely legible writing, a bottle of formula and the tiny clothes she was swathed in were the only items connecting her to a maternal trail gone cold. The private orphanage provided a safe, if sterile, incubator where she slept and ate and grew for the first three years of her life. Private funding had dried up, though, and all of the young charges had been turned over to the state system. The safe, cocooned existence had splintered into a dark chasm fraught with desperation, danger and uncertainty. Foster care.
A clear picture remained with her still of her first foster home. Home – surely there was a better word to describe the cramped quarters already crowded with other drifting, un-parented children who had been little more than meal tickets for the woman who had taken them all in. Kerris was never sure what had gone wrong there, but she had soon been shuffled to another cramped house, barely having time to forge the tentative friendships little girls made before she moved again.
And then came Mary Jessup. The closest thing to a real mother’s love Kerris had ever known. Kerris landed in her fifth foster home at nine years old. Four other girls ranging in age from 4 to 12 were already there. Five girls splitting two bedrooms. Kerris had been the proverbial cuckoo in a nest of birds. After greasing four heads and pulling thick, coily hair into gravity-defying afro puffs, Mama Jess, as they fondly called her, looked in dismay at Kerris’s silky, nearly waist length dark, fire-shot tresses. With a quick shrug and a wry twist of her mouth, she’d bundled it all into a rubber band, top center of Kerris’s head. Though so obviously physically different from all the other girls with her silky hair and her tawny eyes, she had felt for the first time that she fit; that she belonged. That she was home. And that she was loved.
There were brightly-decorated brown paper bags for lunch. There was a snack on the counter when she got home. Fairy tales at night, with happily ever after endings at odds with everything she had known in her short life. Freshly-pressed clothes laid out the night before school. Long walks around the block before the sun went down. Hop scotch on the sidewalks. Home-cooked meals every night. Help with her homework. And so much laughter. Kerris marveled that there were little girls who’d had these things their whole lives. She knew she had somehow landed on another planet. She was unsure of how she’d arrived, but was certain she never wanted to leave.
For six months, Kerris had tasted such security. And then she had come home from school one day, somehow immediately sensing with her child’s intuition that a dark force had entered their safe haven. The curtains had been drawn, keeping out the bright after school sunshine, casting shadows in the front room. He’d been there, lounging in the corner, ensconced in the lumpy recliner. His eyes had gleamed predatorily from the first glimpse of Kerris’ long hair and the downy curve of her cheeks. Kerris had clutched her backpack to her flat chest, feeling the hairs raise on her arms and the back of her neck.
At dinner that night, Mama Jess had explained that her brother Thomas Jessum, was going to stay with them for awhile. And wouldn’t it be good to have a man around the house? Kerris had pushed her peas around her plate, disturbed to find TJ watching her like a tiger watches his prey. Waiting patiently to strike
Two weeks. She lived in fear of an unknown threat she could not articulate to herself or anyone else. Unknown, but real. Then finally he’d pounced, devouring her innocence, until only its ravaged carcass remained.
In the cold, bright whiteness of a clinic examination room, Mama Jess had shared a tearful good-bye.
“You be a good girl for the Thompsons now,” Mama Jess said, running her hands briskly up and down Kerris’ skinny arms, chafing away the goosebumps.
She paused, gently fingering the fresh cigarette burn that flowered on Kerris’ fragile wrist. Mama Jess’ mouth tightened around the edges, teeth gritting in righteous anger at her brother, but mostly at herself. Her carelessness with this little one. So special. Her favorite, though she would never have said it aloud. It wasn’t Kerris’ beauty, though it made a person’s breath catch the first time you saw her. It was a purity of heart; a longing to be loved and to love. How had she left this one unprotected?
“I-I don’t want the Thompsons,” Kerris blubbered, clutching at Mama Jess’ dishwater-roughened hands. “I want to be with you! Please don’t m-make me go!”
“Baby, we’re lucky they found someone so fast. Someone who was waiting to get a beautiful little girl like you! I want what’s best for you. Everyone wants what’s best for you. You gotta be safe,” Mama Jess whispered, swallowing around the lump in her throat. She stroked the burnt flower on Kerris’ wrist again, hoping it would convey her meaning.
“Safe,” Mama Jess repeated, watching the word wrap around Kerris’ battered mind.
“I’d rather be with you than be…safe,” Kerris said, catching her quivering lower lip.
“No, baby. All the girls are leaving because I didn’t take care of you right.” Mama Jess didn’t bother to check the tears sliding down her unpowdered cheeks. “It’s my fault.”
“No,” Kerris murmured dully, pulling her hands away with a small shake of her head. “It’s my fault. TJ told me so.”
WHEN YOU ARE MINE & LOVING YOU ALWAYS – Goodreads
Buy links for WHEN YOU ARE MINE & Pre-Order Links for LOVING YOU ALWAYS (Available for pre-order on Aamzaon release day – October 7!)