G'day, ,

How are you holding up in the lead up to Christmas?

I feel I'm barely holding on by a thread and when I saw this meme on Facebook, I felt it all the way to my bones. 🤣🤣🤣

Before we get too far into this newsletter, I want to wish you peace over the holiday season. I know it's not a great time for everyone, but I hope you get to do all of your favourite things over the Christmas and New Year period.

Thank you for being here with me on this crazy author journey. I've truly valued and appreciated your continued support.

Without you, I wouldn't have any reason to write my stories and send them out into the world. So, thank you once again.

Wishing you peace and love ...

I'll see you again in 2025!

NEWSLETTER UPDATE!

I'm going to change the frequency of my newsletters starting from January. Twice a month feels like overkill and everyone's inboxes are already overflowing. The last thing I want to do is add more to your inbox.

So, I'm going back to one newsletter each month on the fourth of the month unless I need to let you know about something special like a competition, freebie event, or a new release from moi!

PRICE UPDATE!

After careful consideration and evaluation of my work and that of comparative authors, I've decided to increase some of my prices as of January 2025. Producing a high-quality product is an expensive business and I need to cover these costs at a minimum.

I'm currently undervaluing my work considering the length and depth of the stories I write and the time I devote to ensuring they are of the highest quality.

I will still ALWAYS offer preorders at a discounted rate and offer my books in Kindle Unlimited (at this time), so there are ways to read my books without breaking the bank.

I am aware that money's tight, but I can't continue to undervalue my efforts. I hope you understand.

In my last newsletter, I promised to reveal the cover for Everlasting Promises.

So here it is!!!

I've been waiting for ages to share this one with you because I'm so in love with the model. He's the perfect representation of Benjamin Taylor, Hope's love interest.

Let me know what you think!

Everlasting Promises | Everlasting — Book Two

A widowed single mom/cinnamon roll K9 handler romance

As a teen, I fell in love with my best friend’s older brother.

We made promises to each other and solidified them with marriage and a baby.

He broke his promise … I didn’t.

Our promises were meant to be everlasting. Or so I thought.

I was wrong.

Now, I’m raising our son alone and I’m too broken to be everything he needs.

Until a police officer turns up on my doorstep with my wayward son and a plan to help him deal with his grief.

The more time we spend together, the more my son falls for Ben and his dog, Rex.

The problem is, he’s not the only one falling for the duo.

I never expected to feel this way again.

Before I realize what’s happening, I’m breaking my promise of forever to my husband and wishing for a future with another man.

Everlasting promises are hard to keep …

Especially when we can’t control the future.

An emotional, steam-filled contemporary romance about a widowed single mom who thinks she’s broken beyond repair and the cinnamon roll officer who shows her there’s beauty in the broken.

💜WHAT TO EXPECT💜

✔️he falls first

✔️cinnamon roll police K9 handler

✔️single mom

✔️grieving military widow

✔️complicated grief

✔️reverse age gap (7 years)

✔️hurt/comfort

✔️accidental pregnancy

✔️emotional

✔️slow burn (I mean it)

✔️no third-act breakup

✔️🌶️🌶️🌶️

✔️HEA

To celebrate Everlasting Love being with the editor, here's chapter one for your enjoyment ...

(This is unedited and subject to change)

1 Hope

Sitting on the wooden bench, I watch Wyatt push Evan on his favorite swing. Evan’s giggles echo through the park, joining the other sounds of children playing, and I grin. This is what contentment feels like. Watching the love of my life play with our son.

“Higher, Daddy!” Evan squeals in delight, kicking his little legs.

Wyatt looks over at me with raised brows, silently asking me if I’m okay with our son wanting to go higher on the swing. We’ve always been able to read each other’s thoughts and communicate silently; I guess it comes from knowing each other for such a long time.

“Not too high,” I call out, getting more comfortable on the bench. I know we’ll be here a while.

Wyatt pushes him a little harder, and the swing goes higher. Evan cheers, his eyes sparkling beneath the morning sunlight, his hair going every which way as he swings back and forth. He loves flying through the air. I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes a pilot when he grows up.

“I wanna go on the slide,” Evan sings, so Wyatt slows the swing to a stop and helps him to climb down.

Standing, I hold my hand out to Evan, and he wraps his tiny fingers around mine. Wyatt’s too wide to fit through the tunnel at the top of the slide, so I always end up going with him because he’s too little to go on his own. When we climb to the top, I look across at Wyatt to find him speaking with a boy wearing a backpack and smile at my husband as he helps the young boy onto the swing and begins to push him.

Peeling my gaze away from my kind-hearted husband, I situate myself behind Evan at the top of the slide inside the tunnel. A huge explosion bursts through the bird song and children’s laughter, shaking the slide and making it unstable. With my heart racing like a wild horse, I quickly push us both, slipping down the slide so we can get to safety before it collapses.

Flames and charred playground equipment become visible as we clear the tunnel and terror-filled screams pierce the air. I snap my head toward the swings where I last saw Wyatt, but he’s not there. As soon as my feet hit the sand at the bottom of the slide, I scoop Evan into my arms and take off at a break-neck sprint toward the swings. Charred limbs with long ribbon-like smoke wafts upwards and the stench of burning flesh has me doubling over, crushing Evan to me as I scream until everything turns black.

I jolt upwards, realizing I’m no longer at the playground, but safe in my bed; my throat raw, my body dripping in sweat, and my sheets twisted around my body, keeping me trapped in place. My chest heaves as I try to draw a breath that doesn’t smell like the terror of my dream into my starved lungs. I gulp down air like my life depends on it and tear the sheets from body with furious hands, then I drop back to my pillow, squeezing my eyes closed. I snap them open again and stare unseeing at the ceiling when the visual remnants of my dream linger.

My chest heaves with a sob and tears stream down the side of my face, into my hair. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly had some version of this dream, as if my subconscious is filling in the blanks of my husband’s death, even though he was thousands of miles away when it happened. It’s not like I was there. I only know what the officers told me when they knocked on my door in the middle of the night almost six years ago. Not even Shane, Wyatt’s best friend, could fill in the blanks and Nix, Wyatt’s commanding officer, refused to discuss the horrific moment with me. In the beginning, I had dreams almost every night. Over time, they’ve lessened, but they still happen occasionally.

This is what living with grief is like.

It’s a weird thing. Just when you think you’re beginning to live around it, it comes up, slaps you in the face, and you land on your ass in proverbial quicksand that sucks you in and won’t let go. You can fight it, but the more you do, the deeper it drags you into its depths.

Weeks … even months can pass while I live life like everyone else and then, out of the blue, it hits.

Grief.

There’s no rhyme or reason. No explanation. No trigger that I can pinpoint. But I’ve returned to where I was a year after losing Wyatt. The father of my son. My best friend. My future.

We made promises, and he broke his. I didn’t.

They were meant to be everlasting. Or so I thought.

I was wrong.

I never quite sink back to the depths of despair I experienced during the first year after losing him, but almost six years later, I can’t seem to escape the clutches of it completely. Its claws latch onto my flesh, tearing at my soul and ripping apart my heart, yet there’s nothing I can do to combat it.

I’m helpless. At its mercy.

For the last two weeks, I’ve cried myself to sleep every night and woken every morning with tears soaking my cheeks. This morning is no different as I swipe angrily at the moisture on my face. I know I’ll always carry pain in my heart and a heavy ache in my soul, but feeling this way all the time is exhausting. I’m tired down to the very marrow in my bones.

I curl into a ball around Wyatt’s pillow, trying to make myself as small as possible beneath the burden that’s become too much to carry.

In my heart, I know Wyatt would be disappointed. He’d be pissed I’m not moving forward at a pace he would deem appropriate. He was never one to surrender to negativity, but he’s not here. He can’t comfort me and he certainly can’t tell me that everything will be okay.

Because it will never be okay.

“Mom, are you awake?” Evan calls softly through my door.

“Yeah, big guy.” I swipe my cheeks again, trying to remove the evidence of my pain.

“Can I come in?”

My lips tip up. Ever since he walked in on me dressing, he’s started knocking to check if it’s ‘safe’ to enter instead of walking in unannounced like he used to. I appreciate it. I do. I’m just sad he’s at that age.

I place Wyatt’s pillow back on his side of the bed and wipe beneath my eyes, then sit up. “Sure.” When the door opens, I pat Wyatt’s side of the bed and encourage him to step beyond the doorway. “Come and sit with me for a minute.” He climbs onto the bed and I wrap my arm around him, sliding my fingers through his soft hair. “How are you feeling about starting middle school tomorrow?”

He shrugs. “Okay, I guess.”

“Did you and Elliott work out a place to meet?” I hate the thought of him being all alone, but what I hate more is that Wyatt isn’t here to see his son moving onto the next stage of his education. He missed Evan’s first day of kindergarten and first grade while he was still alive because he was deployed, but we video called so he didn’t miss out completely. Now, though, we can’t even do that.

“Yeah, sorta.” He looks up at me with his big brown eyes just like his dad’s. It doesn’t get any easier to look at Evan and not see Wyatt. The older Evan gets, the more he looks like his father. Even some of his mannerisms are like Wyatt’s and I would have thought with the limited time they had together and Evan’s young age, he wouldn’t be so much like his dad.

I was wrong.

About so many things.

I muss his hair a little, noting the length. “I think I’ll trim your hair after breakfast.” I meant to do it last week, but it totally slipped my mind.

He dips away from me, swatting my hand with a frown marring his young face. “I don’t need a trim.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You do. All the kids have fresh cuts for the beginning of the year. I’ll only tidy up the ends a little, but I’m cutting your hair.”

He huffs and climbs from the bed and I follow suit on the other side, grabbing my robe. “Dammit. It’s the worst having a hairstylist for a mom,” he snaps over his shoulder.

I chuckle to myself as I pull my hair free from my robe. “Watch your mouth.” I raise a brow at him. “Meet me downstairs. I’m making pancakes.”

He pops his head back around the doorjamb with a hopeful expression. “Chocolate?”

“I guess I could be persuaded.” We head downstairs, and when Evan sees me place the chocolate chips on the counter, he whoops loudly. He sets the table for two while I mix the batter and then stands beside me while I cook the pancakes. “So, what would you like to do on your last day of freedom?” I flip the pancake over while I wait for his answer.

He shrugs. “I was just gonna play Fortnite with my friends.”

I glance out of the window. “It’s a nice day. We should do something outside.”

He huffs, crossing his skinny arms across his chest. “You always make me go outside just because the weather’s nice. I don’t wanna.”

I press my lips together, hiding my grin at his adorable pout. “I’ll tell you what. After breakfast, I’ll cut your hair. Then humor me and join me on a bike ride, and then I’ll leave you to do your thing with your friends for the rest of the day.”

His eyes narrow as he contemplates my offer. “Hmmm, you drive a tough bargain, but okay. That sounds reasonable.”

“Fantastic,” I say as I carry the pancakes to the table. Evan wastes no time dropping a couple on his plate and diving in like I haven’t fed him for a week. “Hey, slow down.”

“I can’t, they’re too good,” he mumbles around a mouthful of food.

I can’t argue there; this batch tastes exceptionally delicious for some reason. We clear the table and Evan wipes the dishes as I wash, then I set up a chair on the back porch and trim his hair. As the brown strands slide through my fingers, I flashback to a time when Wyatt would let me cut his hair while I was training to be a hairstylist. I chuckle underneath my breath. Some haircuts I gave him were hideous, and he’d have to wear a hat to cover the disaster, but he never once denied me when I asked to practice on him. My heart flips in my chest as I remember his steadfast support which never wavered in the time we were together.

***

I jump on one leg to put on my second shoe. “C’mon, Evan, you’re gonna be late for your first day!” I fasten the last buttons of my work shirt. Mom’s better at keeping Evan on time for school, but I wanted to take him on his first day of middle school. She’s such a godsend, looking after him, so I can open the salon each morning. I don’t know how I’d manage without her.

“I’m coming!” he shouts down the stairs to me.

By the time I’ve grabbed my purse, he’s puffing and panting at my side. “Let’s go.”

We climb into the car, and I load up Evan’s favorite playlist to hopefully put a smile on his face. His nerves fill the space like a suffocating cloud and I want him to start his day in a better headspace. We pull up to the kiss and drive section and he releases his seatbelt, so he’s ready to climb out as soon as we stop.

“Hey, have an awesome day. I love you, big guy, and I can’t wait to hear all about your first day when I pick you up.” When I stop, I lean back as far as I can to plant a kiss on his cheek, but he climbs out of the car, leaving me hanging.

“Thanks, Mom. See you later.” He slams the back door and races toward the gate.

I exhale a long breath and shake my head. Where’s my baby gone? Why does he have to grow up so fast? I blink away the sting at the back of my eyes and suck in a shaky breath, then put my foot on the gas and move out of the drop-off section to head to work, all the while wishing Wyatt were here for this milestone.

The backs of my eyes sting and I swallow quickly, pressing my lips together to stem my emotions. I’m so tired of being an emotional wreck. I turn up the music as a distraction and direct my focus outwards instead of inwards. Something I learned at the coping with grief group I sometimes attend when I’m really low.

With a few minutes to spare before I need to be at work, I drive through Starbucks to grab coffee for me and the girls. I’m sure Sophie will need one too, since James started second grade today. I take a deep breath to clear my emotions and breeze through the back door. I drop my purse in the cupboard and head out front, where Sophie and Lucy are already working with clients.

“Morning, ladies,”—I hold up the coffee—“brought you guys a treat.”

Sophie shimmies her ass and blows me a kiss as she wets my client’s hair, ready to shampoo. “Thanks, lovely!”

Lucy makes grabby hands. “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

I chuckle at her theatrics as I deliver the drinks to the girls, placing Sophie’s at reception and Lucy’s on the small round gold table closest to her chair.

“How nervous was our boy for his first day?” Lucy asks.

She stops mid-cut, waiting for my answer, and I shrug my shoulder. “He jumped out of the car before I could kiss him goodbye.” My lip trembles as I share my disappointment, but I take a deep breath to regain my composure. After years of practice, I’m a pro at pushing my tears away in public.

“James was the same. What’s wrong with these kids? Don’t they know we need momma hugs?” Sophie chuckles and I force myself to do the same.

Mrs. Davies pipes in, “I was always so grateful to send my boys off to school after summer vacation. My sanity was barely hanging on by a thread and I was desperate to have some peace.” Sophie rolls her eyes as she massages her scalp, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. Mrs. Davies’ boys were probably just as happy to be at school and away from her.

Sophie finishes up and grabs her coffee from the reception area. She’s our receptionist-slash-girl Friday and I’m not sure how we managed before she started working here a few months ago. It feels like she’s always been part of the team. I know she won’t be here forever, she has bigger dreams than working in a hair salon. The phone rings and Sophie answers it as I lead Mrs. Davies to my chair. I run the wide-tooth comb through her shoulder-length bob and catch her eye in the large gold-framed mirror. “What would you like done today?”

She gets a twinkle in her eye, which makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “I thought you could surprise me. I’m ready for a change.” She shimmies her shoulders.

Ugh. I hate it when clients do this and Mrs. Davies has done this before and hated what I did to her hair, even though it looked amazing. I raise my eyebrows with a fake grin—another thing I’ve mastered—as I run my fingers through the fine, wet strands. “So you won’t mind if I dye it hot pink and give you a mohawk then?”

Her whole body shakes as she chuckles. “Well, no … I mean yes, obviously, I don’t want anything like that. Be sensible, dear.”

I roll my eyes internally. “How about bangs? Are you ready for that much of a change? I could layer the hair here,”—I slide my fingers through a portion of hair on each side of her face—“so it frames your face. It would give you more movement and look fresh.”

She draws her lips into a thin line. “Hmm, that would mean I have to come back to see you more often to keep my bangs out of my eyes. I’m not sure I like that idea.”

“If I make them long enough for you to still pull back into a ponytail, you wouldn’t need such regular maintenance. I know how busy you are,” I suggest.

She nods as her cheeks rise slowly. “Yes, I think that sounds perfect.”

“Great.”

I separate portions of her hair and twist them, holding them in place with sectioning clips, then start cutting an inch off the length. As I cut her hair, we chat about the latest episode of The Bachelor.

“That brunette girl … what’s her name?”

I rummage through my memory and the girls that are left. “Bianca?”

“Yeah, that’s her. I want her to win. She’s a real sweetheart.”

I grin. “She is, but I think he’s more interested in Candy’s boobs.”

Mrs. Davies chuckles. “I think you might be right there.”

Once I’m happy with the cut, I blow dry and straighten her silver-streaked hair, using my fingers to comb it into position. “There, what do you think?” She turns her head side to side and I hold a mirror up behind her so she can see the layers I’ve added. “It’s still long enough to tie up for everyday convenience, but you now have some volume and movement for when you want to leave it down.”

“I love it, Hope. As usual, you’ve done an amazing job.”

I spend the rest of my day cutting, coloring, and styling and as soon as the clock hits, three p.m. Sophie and I walk out the door to collect our boys from school. I’m grateful Marina’s happy for me to finish work early enough to collect Evan from school. It means I get to spend essential time with him. I’ve been with her ever since I started hairstyling and have always considered myself extremely lucky to have her as my boss. She’s always been amazing and flexible with my work hours to accommodate me being a single parent because, let’s face it, even when Wyatt was alive, I may as well have been a single parent.

Pulling into the pickup line, I spot Evan straight away. He’s talking with a group of boys that I don’t recognize, and I grin. I’m so glad he made some new friends today. He hasn’t noticed I’m here, so I quickly shoot him a text, then check my rearview mirror. Cars are lined up behind me and I watch kids climb into the cars. C’mon, Evan. I can’t wait here all afternoon. Sure enough, the woman behind me beeps her horn and I wave to acknowledge her. Evan glances at his phone but leaves my message unread and slides it back into his pocket. Damn it. I’m going to have to drive around the block and come back.

Pulling onto the road, I drive around the corner and wait for ten minutes to give him time with his new friends, then continue around the block and pull into the pickup line again. There are only a dozen or so kids left waiting, and the line is empty. Evan’s standing on his own, and when I come to a stop, he stomps toward my car, climbs in the back, and slams the door, startling me.

The vibe coming from my son is not what I was expecting, especially after watching him laugh with the group of boys I saw him with earlier. “How was your first day?”

He shrugs, looking out of the window. “You’re late!” he snaps.

I narrow my eyes, keeping my gaze on the road. “I wasn’t late. I was here on time. I even texted you, but you were busy with your new friends.” He huffs and slumps back into his seat, dragging the seatbelt across his body and clicking it into place. “What’s with the attitude?” I ask as I indicate to turn left.

We drive in silence, but the air in the car is stifling. I’m not sure what’s happened to put him in such a foul mood, but I don’t like it. I know the first day of middle school can be overwhelming, so I’ll give him a pass today because he’s probably had a big day and his emotions are all over the place.

“I thought we could grab a milkshake before we go home. How does that sound?” I push as much enthusiasm into my voice as I can but I’m really not feeling it.

“Whatever.” The single word drips with his surly attitude.

Oh-kay then. “Or … we can go straight home. Your choice.”

I watch him roll his eyes in the mirror. “If you want a shake, we can get a shake.”

“I’m asking what you want, Ev. You usually love Declan’s Diner, so I thought we could celebrate your first day at middle school. But if you’d prefer to go home, we can do that.”

“I just wanna go home.”

“Okay. We can do that.” I take the cue from him and shut my mouth. He’s obviously in a mood—which has been happening more often than not lately—and I find it best to give him some space when he gets like this. He usually snaps out of it pretty fast … well, he used to.

The second I turn off the engine, Evan climbs out of the car, slamming his door. He stomps up to the house and waits impatiently for me at the front door. As soon as I open it, he storms inside and upstairs, slamming his bedroom door. I stand frozen at the front door and blow out a long breath. Some days I don’t recognize this kid and I don’t know how to deal with him when he’s like this. There have been occasions over the last few weeks where he’s been moody—which I’ve put down to him being nervous about middle school and I guess today’s been a big day—but this is beyond anything I’ve experienced with him so far.

Give him grace. Give him grace. Give him grace. I repeat the mantra to remind myself to stay calm and give him space when I really want to follow him upstairs and pull him up on his behavior.

Pushing away from the front door, I hang my purse on the hook, head into the kitchen, and pull out the ingredients to make brownies. Maybe that’ll cheer him up. I know it’ll make me feel better.

As I’m pulling the brownies from the oven, footsteps sound on the stairs and my lips tip up. Worked like a charm. He drags a stool out from the counter and I keep my back to him, pretending he’s not there as I place the tray on the cooling rack and take out two plates. I toss some frozen berries, oat milk, and ice cream in the blender to make a smoothie and pour it into two milkshake glasses.

This single parent thing is tough, though I should be used to it by now; I’ve been one for more than half of Evan’s life. It’s tiresome having to be both parents, and it’s not what I signed up for. I have nobody to bounce ideas off of or to get a second opinion about what I should do in different situations. I flounder with confrontation and it would be great to have someone else here to be the tough guy sometimes. My gut tenses and guilt grows. I hate how my thoughts narrow to blaming Wyatt for leaving me in this position. This isn’t his fault. He never would have left us willingly.

I draw in a deep breath and blow it out slowly, trying to cleanse my thoughts as I plate up two generous slices of warm brownie. I silently slide a plate and glass across to Evan and then bring mine to the counter and sit beside my son. The one piece of Wyatt I have left. We don’t speak for the longest time and I wonder if this is how it’s going to be from this point forward.

Evan swallows the last bite of his brownie, then uses his fingers to collect the crumbs. “Thanks, Mom, that was yum.” He says with a wide smile. “Can I have another piece?”

“You’re welcome and sure, but make it a small piece. I don’t want you to ruin your dinner.” Should I say anything about his behavior? Do I risk asking him about his day now that he seems to have calmed down, or will my questions set him off again? I feel like I never know the right thing to do.

He grabs a piece and returns to his seat. “I’m sorry I was in a bad mood,” he mumbles around a mouthful of chocolate and I do my best not to grin.

“Thanks for apologizing.” I glance at him, then return my gaze to my food. “I’m not the enemy, you know.”

“I know.” He stuffs another forkful into his mouth and chews.

I sip my smoothie to give us some time to breathe. “Anything you wanna talk about?”

“Nah.”

My heart sinks and I flounder for what to say next. Lord knows I haven’t had the emotional strength to deal with much since losing Wyatt, but I need him to know I’m here whenever he needs me.

“Well, I’m always here if you change your mind.”

He grabs his empty dishes and carries them to the sink. “I know.” Without looking back at me, he leaves the kitchen and heads back upstairs.

I can’t be left alone with my thoughts, so I turn on the television for background noise and collect a load of laundry to do while I prepare our lunches for tomorrow. We’ll be back to our usual routine in the morning, so I need to be organized.

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