Staying Afloat with Friends with Guest Blogger: Kendra James

Welcome romance author Kendra James
to the Boost today!

She's here to chat about friendship and here's what she had to say...


Friends, Can We Ever Have Too Many?


February is the month we think about the heart. We reflect on family, friends, lovers, and co-workers.

This is a time when I’d like to pay tribute to Katie, a great friend and neighbor.

We’d had our first snowfall. I thought my troubles were over. But the snow melted and was followed by twenty-four hours of rain. Driving rain that flooded my basement with five inches of water. I wondered why the cat was crying down there but wouldn’t come up to see me.

He finally made it up unscathed and still dry. Maybe If he’d been wet I might have discovered the water sooner.

Alas, I came home at 10:30 pm from seeing Breaking Dawn (what an eye opening ending) to find water up to the bottom step. I had to go buy cat food and litter. Their containers were floating around the basement and my cats haven’t graduated their swimming lessons yet.

This is where a friend steps up to the plate. Thank heavens for wonderful neighbors. Katie saw my basement light at 11:30 pm and called to see if I had any flooding. (I had in the spring).

Moments later she appeared at my back door in her rubber boots and sweats. I would have put on my rubber riding boots but did I mention they were in the basement floating in the five inches of water. Barefoot and jeans turned up to the knees was my second option.

Katie and I worked at getting rid of the majority of the water until 1 am. Do you know that a fish tank tubing works great to siphon water? We thought ourselves very inventive considering the time of night.

The water was gone within twenty-four hours but it left me exhausted. I don’t even want to think about all the stuff down that I had to sift through and throw out do to water damage. The poor garbage men. But they were wonderful. I put a big sign, “Sorry, had a flood,” and they took it all.

I took a ‘me’ day from work to deal with the mess and then spent the rest of the day getting some writing done. There were so many ideas floating (oops bad pun) around in my head that wanted to make it onto the page. After I had a snooze, and recuperated, I caught some of those elusive critters and stuck them to a page. A poem of gratitude to thank my wonderful friend.

But I wanted to say thank you to the wonderful givers in this world. I work at a facility for children with behavioral and mental problems. We have a school and a residence where children come and stay for varying lengths of time.

We attempt to teach them better coping skills and how to make more sensible choices in their actions. The children are not our only focus. We also help their families learn more effective strategies to deal with the child and their behavior.

The last couple of years have been hard for families, and this year was looking particularly bleak for some of them. Remember your Christmas tree with the presents under it? Well some families didn't have any this year and had little chance of Santa coming to their house.

That is where the givers of this world stepped up to the plate. I am so thrilled to say that the staff and the community rallied up to our plate and 85 of our families were able to have presents under their tree.

I know its not Christmas now, but February, the month of the heart, is a great time to remember what people with heart do for this earth.

So to all our friends and neighbors and givers of this world, I send you a big, big red heart.


A Note from the Book Boost: Wow! That is quite an adventure and I hope the flood made it into one of your books. I'll bet your cats were giving you the evil eye for a bit--not big fans of water--I know. LOL Congrats on the release and on having such wonderful friendships. And thank you for the work you're doing in your community. Please tell us more about your book.


Blurb:


If you witnessed an accident on a lonely stretch of highway, would you stop or continue on your way?

For nurse Molly Tanner the choice is clear. Risking her own life, she pulls the seriously injured driver and his young daughter from the car.

When Pearce begs her to pose as his wife to keep Gracie from foster care, memories of her unhappy childhood rush back. But can Molly keep up the charade without her own secrets being discovered and her heart from being shattered?



Excerpt:


“No one ever said life was fair.” Molly clutched the leather-wrapped steering wheel of her Cavalier, her grandmother’s favorite saying echoing in her head.

Well, wasn’t that the truth. Fight or flight. Those were her two options. But was fleeing the right decision?

The sun had set an hour before, and the cloudy sky overhead hung like a mantle of coal. Molly tried to banish the fatigue descending on her. She should have stopped at that last motel, even if it did look like it would qualify for a five-star roach award. She could add that to her list of regrettable decisions.

The highway, arrow-straight when it left Hillsborough, now twisted and turned like a corkscrew. Pine trees bordered the roadway, encroaching like shadowy ghosts. Scenes from horror movies with lonely highways sent a shiver down her spine. Why hadn’t she left while it was still light? Molly tried to suppress a yawn. Wake up girl, you need to stay alert.

She flipped the air flow to maximum. Maybe the cool air would keep her going for a few more miles. She glanced in the rear-view mirror—no one else on the road, nothing to distract her, nothing but blacktop and an inky saw-toothed line of trees. She turned the radio up and listened to the lonesome country tunes.

It wasn’t working. She switched to a rock station.

“I’m not ready to make nice, I’m not ready to back down.” That was better. Just the way she felt. Molly sang along. Opening the window, she let the pine-scented breeze slap her awake.

A car approached, its bright headlights flickering like fireflies between the thick trunks of the evergreens. At last, a sign of life, the first she’d seen in the past half hour. The lights came closer, causing the pavement to take on the appearance of a striped swamp snake. The roar of a high-powered engine amplified as the distance between them shrank.

Thankfully, the high beams switched to low.

Molly jerked herself alert. What’s wrong with you?

He’s on his side of the road, and he isn’t speeding.

Why did she have a sudden sense of apprehension?

Calm down. The road’s wide enough to share.

There was a flash of movement. A white-tailed deer darted across the highway fifty feet in front of her. Instinctively, she white-knuckled the steering wheel. Her foot eased off the gas, and the car slowed.

At least something was going right. Her hands loosened their grip, and she settled back into the seat. A screech of tires broke into her thoughts. Her back stiffened and her heart rate spiked.

She clutched the steering wheel again, but her palms were sweating and she had trouble maintaining her grip. The oncoming car veered towards her, its headlights hitting her full in the face, momentarily blinding her. Molly froze.

Oh God,no. Her breath wedged in her throat. There was nothing she could do. Her heart skipped several beats as she battered the brakes. Too late. She was heading straight for the car.

She hunched forward, bracing for the inevitable crash.

Unable to breathe, Molly watched as the sports car lurched to the left and hurtled away from her. Hands trembling, Molly relaxed her foot and eased the car to the side of the road. One car out of control was enough. She watched in horror as the Jaguar’s wheels caught the ridge where pavement met gravel. It freewheeled sideways. There was a thunderous crash. A mushroom cloud of sand and gravel littered the darkness, obliterating the car.

Where was her cell phone? She fumbled through her purse.When would she learn to keep it on? The phone had migrated to the bottom corner of her canvas bag. Her fingers grasped the oblong object, and she flipped it open. Molly pressed the ‘on’ button. Only three numbers, why was she having trouble finding them?

Seconds crawled as she waited for the screen to illuminate. She twisted in the seat. Like a theatre curtain drawn in reverse mode, gravel and dust sifted back to the ground. In horizontal slices, the car inched into view. The hood and driver’s side were crunched into the base of a large pine tree. Her thumbs finally managed the number.

“911. What is your emergency?”

“There’s been a car accident...on Highway 57...about 15 minutes north of Arva. There’s someone in the car...he swerved to miss a deer...the car slid into a tree. Get an ambulance!”

Want More Kendra?

Visit her on the web here: www.kendrajames.net

Follow her blog here:
http://smpauthors.wordpress.com/author/kendrajames4/


Pick up a copy of her book today! Click here.