To Stand Beside Her (61 page)

Somberly
,
Nalick
returned downstairs
to
Leila still in bed asleep.
She had asked him to wake her before he left, but he just could not do so.
I
f
he did,
Leila
would be able to read his eyes and know what was going to happen.
He sat for over an hour watching her sleep.
Every now and then
Nalick
would gently stroke her face or hair, trying to will himself to stand and leave her for one last time.
Gently he touched her stomach knowing she was pregnant with the one child he would never meet.
Nalick wiped the tears from his eyes as he again tried to stand.

“Goodbye my love,”
Nalick
said silently to Leila and his unborn child.
Gently he kissed her forehead before he forced himself to stand.
He was not afraid of dying and had accepted his fate the day he first saw her, but it
was
difficult to give her one last goodbye.
Leila
was everything he could have ever hoped for in life.
He could have never found someone as bright, loving, and caring as she was.
E
ven after he was gone, she would still be the bright light that their children depended on.
Leila
was the best wife and mother, and
Nalick
was proud to have married her.

“You will never be alone,” he added
,
slowly walk
ing
away.

As he stopped at the door to their wing of the palace,
Nalick
gave one last look around.
It had been his home his entire life, but it never really felt like a home until he had found Leila.
The quietness around him was in stark contrast to the normal chaos of six children
,
aged from three to fifteen
,
running around.
Nalick sighed as he could hear Phillip down the hallway.
Nalick quietly closed the doors
,
hoping that
in future
years his children would still remember him.
Hastily
,
Nalick tried to be more cheerful, so that Phillip would not notice.

Leila woke from her sleep to find Nalick had already left.
Leisurely she sat and yawned.
Leila
had asked him to wake her before leaving but again he forgot.
Leila slowly stood and wrapped her robe around herself walk
ing
to the kitchen to get a cup of tea.
It would still be an hour or two before any of the children beyond Tim would be awake.
Unlike her normal morning which she spent in the garden, for some reason Leila felt like sitting on the balcony.
Leila stood by the rail and looked down below at Nalick and Phillip checking the cart filled with their supplies for their trip.
Phillip noticed his mom and eagerly waved to her.
Leila waited for Nalick to turn to her also, but he did not.

Leila’s hand
s
began to shake, and she set her tea down on the seat.
She knew what this meant.
She had been waiting since their anniversary the week before.
Leila continued to watch, but he did not look up.
Leila was so caught in the thoughts racing through her mind she didn’t hear Tim and Anatolio approaching from inside their home.
Tim joined his mom and watched his dad below.

“He’s not coming back,”
Tim
said the same thought running wild in Leila’s mind.

“No,” she replied quietly.
“He’s not.”

Anatolio moved to Leila
’s
right while Tim stood on her left.
Anatolio placed his arm around her hip
,
and Tim placed his around her shoulder.
The two men support
ed Leila while
she was doing her best not to
break down
.
B
elow as the cart moved to the gate, Nalick turned and glanced one last time at his home and wife.
Above Leila stood with Tim on one side and Anatolio on the other.
Nalick was sad to see her one last time, but happy to see she was not alone.
His plan had worked
;
he had made sure
of it.
Leila would never be alone again.
Nalick had seen the future
,
and
in time
she would be happy with Anatolio.
Nalick did not regret
his choice, to stand beside her.

Acknowledgements:

As with any work of fiction, there are many people to thank along the way.

First off- to you the reader. Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I have been writing as long as I can remember, but you are the first to actually read my works. If you liked it please leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your own blog, my blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The greatest help you can provide to keep a writer going is supporting them through spreading the word about their books and leaving them with a few encouraging words.

Secondly, and not any less important, I’d like to thank my husband who has pushed me to finally let other people read my works. This novel was written over five years ago; while he was at work on Saturday mornings, I was at home with nothing to do but write (we only had one car at the time). So I set out to see if I could write a novel. Five weeks and 180,000 words later, I had done it. Thanks to his encouragement, I have continuously edited to make it to the point I am at today and finally have the courage to publish it. Thanks hubby for all the encouragement and nudging along the way.

Third on my list are
my finishing
touch people- cover artist,
beta readers
,
and editors that have made my novel a better read for all that followed. A special thanks to my editor
s
Morissa Schwartz
,
David Calver, and Eric
Boler
.
Thank you for all your help making the story better and catching all those o
op
s moments.
Thank you Wicked Cover Designs for a wonderful cover and making this process feel so much more real.

Last is my family and kids that take time to let mommy write and edit as an ongoing hobby that has now resulted in a published book. Thanks
to my
mom and dad
, my husband,
and my kiddos AK and KB.

Coming Soon
Febuary 2012
- a new series by B. Kristin McMichael

The Legend of the Blue Eyes

ONE

“Auntie, I’m leaving now,” Arianna Grace called into the busy diner kitchen from the stairwell.
Her dark blond pony
tail bobbed up and down as she jumped back onto the next step
to avoid a
passing worker. The short
,
black
-
haired woman in the middle of the mob of people, dirty pans, and food only nodded. To avoid the early dinner crowd Arianna hurried out the back door of the diner into the all
e
y. It was Friday; the one day of the week Arianna did not help with the diner run by her guardians, Aunt Lilly and Uncle Dean.

             
“Don’t forget to come straight home. We need to leave tonight at
midnight
to catch our plane,” a large man yelled from behind her. Arianna quickly nodded and waved to her uncle as she turned the corner.

             
Arianna ran to the nearby bus stop
and
ducked into the bus
-
waiting shelter to escape the light rain.
Rain
drops accumulate
d
on the plastic enclosure and trickle
d
to the ground as she waited. The old man shuffling
along
with his small black dog across the street waved to her as he continued to be led by the
much younger dog. Every Friday
Arianna took the same bus to meet with her friends at the movie theater. As the rain picked up, Arianna rushed from the bus shelter
,
through the open door of the waiting bus.

             
“Hi
,
Fred,” Arianna said to the portly bus driver as she swiped her pass
which showed as belonging to
Robert.

             
“
Five o’clock
movie, Ethel?” he replied with a wink.

             
“Is there any better time?” she responded as she passed the normal riders: the dark
-
haired tall girl always dressed in ripped
,
purple fishnet stockings matching the streak in her hair, the clean
-
shaven
,
young bald
business
man
wearing
a suit and tie
, the older gr
a
y
-
haired couple who shopped each Friday near the theater, the two twenty-something boys she always counted as brothers that went to the gym to play basketball, and the cute blond
-
haired
,
blue
-
eyed boy from her math class that always sat in the back corner. Just like Arianna, they all rode the
five o’clock
bus to the parking lot next to the theater.

             
“What’s playing today?” the young black man asked.

             
“It’s Mary Ellen’s choice,” Arianna answered
,
sitting behind him
. “So I’
m guessing it will be that new teen romance. I dunno the name.”

             
“Something Roses, I think,” he replied
, putting his business papers away at her arrival
.

             
“It’s my choice next week,” Arianna replied. “I’ll make sure to pick something bloody with a lot of action to make up for this week.” The man smiled and chuckled. To the outside world, Arianna was just a shy fifteen
-
year
-old, but around her friends she was her normal,
bubbly self.

             
As the
y
neared the parking lot, Arianna walked to the front of the bus. “Fred, can you let me off by the theater before you turn?” The driver nodded as the rain poured down faster. He checked each of her hands. “No umbrella. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain,” she explained
.

             
“Have fun
,
kiddo,” he replied as he stopped the bus as near to the door as he could g
et
. “Keep dry.” Arianna smiled and waved as she ran from the bus to the theater door. The driver smile
d
back as she left. Everyone on the bus knew life had not been easy for Arianna, but despite everything she was always cheerful and friendly.

             
Arianna hurried through the door and out of the rain. She quickly scanned the lobby, but her friends had not arrived yet. As she had every time since she started Friday night movies with her two best friends, Arianna went to the concession stand and ordered her usual large popcorn and small drink. The teenager behind the counter filled the empty popcorn bowl that was sitting alone near the drinks. Arianna nodded her head in thanks as she took the bowl and carefully slipped her hand beneath the cardboard edge.
She
cautiously pulled the note from the bowl and slipped it into her sleeve.

             
Arianna
sat down in the lobby and waited for her friends. She was eager to read the note, but she had to be careful. The writer had warned
her
if anyone found out about the notes they had been exchanging, she would get into trouble. It had been over six months since she received the first
one
. She thought it was a prank by her friends, but both Mary Ellen and Tish had no idea what she was talking about. At first she didn’t respond to the notes. It was obvious the person knew who she was, but without know
ing
who the writer was, Arianna only glanced at the messages each time. It was not until the person told her he knew her mother and father that Arianna began to seriously read each note. She had only a very faint memory of her father
,
who died when she was four
,
and nothing of her mother
who
died the day she was born. No one, including her aunt and uncle, would talk about either her
parents
. Arianna didn’t even know if her guardians were siblings of her mother or father. They were the only family she had ever met and neither talked about their families or her parents. The complete silence and lack of any family often disappointed Arianna as a child. Though
she
never felt sorry for herself, she could not help but be interested in the notes from someone who claimed to know her parents
,
whom she knew nothing about.