An argument is raging between the couple about his delay fixing the air-conditioner.
Dripping with sweat, Laura wanders too close to the window and yanks it open for some relief.
Instead an explosive, blinding flash of lightning knocked Laura unconscious.
In book 1, "Bibles and Bones in the Forest," Laura was abducted with her sister-in-law, Stella. What will happen now? Hasn't Laura been through enough?
What will happen now in Book 2?
Here is the link to Book 1.
https://www.amazon.com/Bibles-Bones-Forest-truth-Angels-ebook/dp/B0F1MNZ2JD
You are invited to check out a sample chapter from Book 2.
ANGELS & DEVILS IN THE FOREST: CHAPTER 1
After that steamy July night, life would never be the same for Laura and Chris Murillo or their Pine Branch Horse Ranch and Rescue. A rare heat wave had settled over New York State's Adirondack Mountains, like an opaque curtain, overworking the couple’s old air-conditioning system, causing it to spew dust and die a miserable death.
Unable to sleep with her nightshirt sticking to her skin, Laura rose to open the window for some relief. But inhaling the air felt like breathing soup. The fog nearly obscured the horse barn, normally in clear view, giving it the surreal look of an abstract Picasso painting. Through the mist, a sole owl hooted.
Laura’s brother Raul and sister-in-law, Stella’s house slightly beyond, was also "floating" in the fog, as was their friend Tiffany’s, further up the rural road.
Wide awake in a puddle of sweat, Chris groaned. “It’s 3 a.m. and I start work at seven. I need to shower at 5:30, check on the horses, and rush to work.”
“I’ll take care of the horses, hon, but after the kids wake up, they can come with me,” Laura offered, coughing in the soupy air. “After what happened to Stella and me, I won’t leave the kids alone.”
Chris grit his teeth. “If I ever get my hands on that animal who abducted you, I’ll tear him limb from limb.”
Forcing back more angry words, Chris returned to the subject at hand. “I set up those big fans in the barn and gave the horses plenty of water. The kids have ceiling fans, and they seem okay. Of course, ours had to break.”
Laura felt little comfort. “I’ve been asking you to fix that fan since May.”
“And when am I supposed to do this?” he barked. “Before I get up for work, or when I drag myself in the door twelve hours later to gulp down supper and start caring for the horses?”
“Excuse me if I don’t shed any tears for you,” she snapped back. “My life is no bed of roses.”
After a while, the owl stopped hooting, and the world became still as a graveyard, interspersed by distant thunder.
The next instant it exploded into a blinding flash that burned through Laura like lava and slammed her against the wall. She collapsed to the floor.
As if from the other end of a long tunnel, Chris called her name.
“Laura, Laura, Talk to me. Are you okay?”
In the background, their children cried in the doorway.
Olivia held out her arms. “Mama, Mama.”
Chris spoke with forced calm. “Stay away from windows. Mama will be okay.”
Soon after, Champ’s panicked whinnying and kicking echoed from the barn.
What’s going on? Laura wondered.
She tried to speak, but unconsciousness overcame her.
When she opened her eyes, her uniformed state trooper brother, Raul was there, performing chest compressions on her while EMT’s wheeled a gurney into the room.
“I got a pulse,” Raul called to Chris, who gasped in relief, “Thank God.”
Laura looked up through blurry vision. Strong wind flapped in the curtains and pushed rain into the open window. Chris slammed it shut.
She struggled to speak while being lifted onto the gurney.
“I smell smoke.”
Chris’ face filled with horror as he glanced out the window. “The barn’s on fire!”
“Chris! Where are the children?” Laura gasped, sweat pouring down her face and her heart racing.
She looked up to see Tiffany with a child in each hand, hurrying them out.
“Tiffany’s taking them home, away from the fire,” Chris gasped.
“Good. The animals? The horses?” she whispered while being lifted unto the gurney.
“Most are accounted for.”
“Champ?”
Still within ear-shot, Olivia turned around and called to her mother, her voice fading as Tiffany urged her on.
“A big, shining man carried Champ out of the barn.”
The choking stench of smoke burned in Laura’s eyes and throat as she was wheeled to the ambulance.
How could this possibly have happened? Just the other day, I was watching the horses in the field, lazily grazing and swishing their tails.
A gentle breeze had rustled in the trees and Laura had felt like she need a light jacket.
Now this!
The race to the hospital was a blur of rain pounding the wailing vehicle, thunder crashing and Laura’s pounding pulse.
When an EMT pierced her hand with an IV needle, then injected something into the tubing, it caused a troubled sleep. It recalled the children crying in the doorway, Champ’s pained whinnying and Laura on the floor, unable to help anyone.
The next morning, she woke to sun sparkling in raindrops on the window and Chris’ hand on hers. She looked up into his face—his eyes filled with love and moist with tears. He bent over her.
“How are you, baby?”
“Got a headache. Dizzy,” she whispered in a hoarse voice.
He cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry about that dumb argument last night. I was a jerk.”
“Me too.”
She hesitated. “Was I struck by lightning?”
He nodded, his brow furrowed.
“It was indirect. Raul saw it strike the barn, then ‘bounce off’ as he was getting home from work. He rushed right over.”
Laura’s voice was choked.
“I remember him working on me. He saved my life.”
Chris wiped away a tear that escaped his eye.
“I thanked him.”
She took a deep breath. “How are the children?”
“They’re still with Tiffany and playing with Faith. They know you’re getting better in the hospital.”
“The animals, Champ and the barn?”
“There were some injuries, mostly from panic, but no fatalities.
They all ran out when Raul forced the doors open. Some fur and feathers were burned. Two chickens have sores. We had to separate them from the others and each other, so they don’t get pecked to death.”
“Champ?” Laura asked in dread.
Chris looked away, then back again.
“He must have kicked his way out of his stall, because that’s where we put him before the fire. After Raul saw Champ trapped by flames and running in blind panic. Raul had to choose between helping you or Champ.”
Chris took his wife’s hand.
“He chose to help you.”
In the moments that followed, Laura could not speak, for fear she would bawl like a baby. She pushed through the deep emotion, which permeated the room.
“Did Champ sustain any burns or injuries?”
“We found him lying in the forest, barely alive, with deep burns on his legs. He’s now in the care of a veterinarian and is expected to make it.”
“I called your mom,” Chris added. “She was upset and wanted to fly right here, but she just had an emergency appendectomy, so I told her to concentrate on getting better. We have plenty of help, from friends and people from the Bible study.”
Just then, Laura remembered Olivia’s strange words and repeated them to Chris”.
“Olivia said she saw a big, shining man carry Champ from the barn.”
“Chris was dubious. “That’s impossible. Champ weighs a thousand pounds."
“She also told me later on, that the white buck that helped us last year, saved the cats from the fire.”
“And how did he do that?” Chris asked, casting her an askew glance.
“He chased them from the barn.”
Chris rolled his eyes.
“Tiffany saw it too—and you know I saw the buck last year.”
“Hon, you probably saw an albino buck. I suspect that can explain much, if not all of it.”
Laura left it at that.
“By the way, Chris,” she said as he was later preparing to leave. She’d been dreading to tell him.
“A cardiologist said the strike may have caused some That’s what killed my Papito, you know.”
Chris nodded, clearing the emotion from his voice.
“I spoke to the cardiologist. He expects you to recover because you’re young and strong.”
Laura choked back a sob. “He’ll be keeping me here for a few days to monitor me, and he prescribed some meds that make me wonky.”
“You’re always wonky, babe,” he said, bending to kiss her and their tears mingled.
That night, Laura’s thoughts drifted back to a pleasant June day.
She and Chris had attended a barbecue to celebrate the opening of their friends, Stevie and Tiffany Cavanaugh’s new church. Seventy-eight people had turned out for the on-the grounds event. Many contributed side dishes and dessert. Laura took generous helpings of the barbecue.
She liked her lips. “Yum, tangy with a deep smokiness.”
The homemade potato salad and coleslaw provided a creamy savor of mayonnaise with sharp onions, herbs and vinegar. But there was so much more to sample.
Raul’s wife, Stella was there, nibbling and holding their new baby, Luis.
Stella’s four year-old son from another relationship, Tyler, was nearby, playing with other children.
Despite giving birth only a month before, Stella was back to her svelte self, her toned ballet legs flawless in shorts. She flashed her perfect teeth smile, courtesy of her hardworking bartender father. But Laura saw the pain behind Stella’s mask—having been abducted with her six months prior.
Stella’s mother Alicia stuck by her daughter’s side. She’d come after the abduction to help an emotionally fragile Stella get back on her feet.
After a few weeks Alicia returned to her native California, but moved back in with Stella and Raul after losing her job for taking the long absence. With her rent unpaid, she also lost her apartment. The mom made the attic rooms in the couple’s rambling old farmhouse her new home.
In its entirety, the more than hundred year-old house had fourteen rooms. But due to their spaciousness and the grand entrance hall, the historic house stretched like an old manor.
“The place is comfortable now that Raul and his friend Josh added a kitchenette and bathroom,” Alicia told Laura at the barbecue, her voice trailing off.
“But sometimes it seems like another world up there. I feel so small and alone in those big rooms with their high ceilings. They always hold a chill. Sometimes I think I hear footsteps—And I never go into that so-called ‘secret room’ after what happened.”
Alicia’s voice trembled.
“Of course you know that’s where that white buck painting was found in a desk. Stella told me its eyes seemed to follow her. I see them in my dreams. . .. Then there was the day, I worked up the courage to peek in that room, but the door slammed shut, as if someone on the other side had pushed it. I screamed and Raul ran up the stairs to see what was the matter. He said it must have been the wind. The attic is breezy.”
Alicia crossed herself. “Raul thinks I’m loca.”
Laura tried to quell Alicia’s fear
“It probably was the wind. Raul checks that room every so often and so far there, has been no sign of the painting. It disappeared. Besides, if that white buck really exists it’s good, not evil.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Alicia said.
Despite Alicia’s eccentricities, Raul had told Laura how glad he was to have his mother in-law with them.
“A doctor said the abduction left Stella with PTSD. She still has nightmares about being in that cold cabin with that pervert drooling over her. But the nightmares are fading. When she’s upset or has a ballet class to teach, Alicia is right there with an extra pair of hands and a hug. Before she came, I’d have to leave work early to care for the kids. My sergeant was getting annoyed.”
This was despite Alicia’s unsolicited advice to her daughter.
Laura would hear them going back and forth.
“You shouldn’t let Luis cry. You should pick him up and love him.”
“I do love him Mama. But the baby needs to learn to wait.”
“Or maybe he’ll grow up insecure.”
“The doctor says he’s doing fine.”
“Why aren’t you feeding him baby cereal? He cries because he’s hungry. Breast milk isn’t enough.”
Stella would roll her eyes in exasperation.
“I know what I’m doing, Mama!”
But at the barbecue, Stella was all smiles and charm.
Laura watched more Bible study members to offer their congratulations. Among them, were Bob and Justine, Adam and Lucy, Josh and Carl, James and Jessica.
Stevie, the Bible study teacher, and his wife, Tiffany, greeted everyone and spoke with them.
Some, such as Laura and Chris, who were Catholic, attended other churches. But all were welcome at the Bible study, where they met on the common ground of their faith in Jesus.
A tall and muscular young man approached Stevie and the two shook hands.
“I’m Brandon. My wife, Gina, and I look forward to checking out the Bible study. Even though we don’t have a religion, per se, we’ve heard good things about the study.”
He motioned to a buxom brunette whose ample bosom spilled from a low-cut top.
“This is my wife, Gina.
Stevie introduced a windblown and disheveled Tiffany, trying to comfort the wailing infant in her arms, who had just vomited on her shirt. Another daughter wailed for her mother, pulling at her clothing. Different shades of red hair crowned the mother and daughters.
“We have two sweet girls, Faith and Joy,” Stevie said.
“Sweet indeed,” Gina purred. But her eyes wandered over Stevie’s tall, sinewy form.
Laura saw Tiffany observe the flirting. She also saw the hurt, open-mouth-look it brought to her friend’s face.
Unlike Stella, Tiffany did not bounce back into shape after her baby was born. She was left with ten extra pounds of puffy flesh and a looming case of depression, to which she was prone.
“Did you hear what she said to Stevie?” Tiffany whimpered.
“I did,” Laura snarled while glaring at Gina, who made a hasty retreat.
Tiffany chuckled through her tears. “I guess she heard about you beating up a killer.”
Laughing and talking with Brandon, Stevie appeared oblivious to it all.
Gina motioned for her husband to come over.
He moaned. “Well, the boss is calling. I’d better get going. We’ll see you at next week’s Bible study.
Stevie waved. “Great! We’ll be glad to have you.”
Something’s not right about those two, Laura thought.
