This will be my last post for the day. Thanks so much for letting me spend some time with you here at Coffee Thoughts Blog. It’s been great and I loved hearing your thoughts and magic pills for less stress! I hope to return soon and I’ll try to keep you posted about my new adventure. In the meantime if you’d like to read about my East Coast experiences, you can find them at my travel blog, The Stoweberry Adventures.

I’d like to leave you with an excerpt from my book Tender Trust. It’s available at most ebook stores including, White Rose Publishing, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Thanks and I hope you enjoy the excerpt!

Excerpt from Tender Touch:
Royce slowed his pace until they were far behind the other two. When they were a good distance away, he halted his steps completely.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Ah, Lacy, need you ask? You stand there with your hair down, glinting in the moonlight, looking so soft and warm and you ask me why I want you? What man wouldn’t?”

He cupped a long length of her hair in his hand and brought it to his lips.

“Did you do this for me?”

She started to shake her head in denial. Then stopped. She couldn’t lie. Slowly she nodded.

He smiled. “Good. I’d like you to think of me when you wear your hair down.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because I think of you, with your hair around you, leaning over me, touching me. I wonder what you did that night that keeps you in my dreams. Tell me, Lacy. Tell me the secret that keeps you hiding on the mountain,” he murmured.

Lacy heard someone call her name. Penny ran toward them, her skirts hiked up around her knees and tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You have to come,” she said as she grasped Lacy’s hand. “Someone attacked us and hit Alex with a piece of wood. He collapsed.”

They ran through the dark streets, almost silent except for Penny’s ragged breath. Lacy saw Alex’s huddled form on the ground. Her senses jumped in tune with Alex and she sensed a dark danger.

Something serious. She ran ahead and dropped to her knees.

Blood came from his ear. By the silver light of the moon, she saw a large swelling just behind it.

“Oh, Penny,” she murmured and one hand reached reflexively toward the blood. Lacy pulled it back because she felt Alex slipping into a deep, dark hole.

“You have to do this for me, Lacy,” Penny said, grasping her still extended hand. “You have to. I love him, Lacy. You have to help him.”

“Penny, you know it doesn’t always work,” she said.

“You have to try, Lacy. Please.”

It was a bad injury. It would take time and that would be dangerous. Exposure frightened her. Besides, the healing didn’t always come. What if she wasn’t able to help Alex? Would Penny blame her? She hesitated again.

“Please, Lacy, for me. Please.” In the end, Lacy knew she would do it for Penny. Not for Jesus. For Penny.

In that instant, her fledgling feelings for Royce, her fear of discovery, all of her own selfish needs disappeared. She wanted to help Penny.

Royce watched in amazement as Lacy nodded and sat on the road, mindless of the dirt. She carefully cupped one hand around the swelling at the back of Alex’s head and the other near his ear. Then she closed her eyes and dropped her head. She held that pose a minute, then another.

Penny clasped her hands together and pressed them to her lips. Even in the shadows Royce could see her lips moving in silent prayer.

Royce held his breath. At long last, he would discover Lacy’s secret. He looked at Lacy’s hands and was shocked to see light, pulsing like blood through them. Even as he watched, the light grew brighter and brighter. It appeared as if the light flowed out of her into Alex.

He looked at Lacy’s face and saw her features were peaceful and empty. She looked beautiful. Angelic.

Royce heard the sound of voices. Penny heard it, too, and leapt to her feet. Grasping his arm, she dragged him away from Lacy.

“Stop whoever is coming,” she said. “For pity’s sake, don’t let them see her like this!”