Winter Wonderland Blog Hop – Excerpt “Rescuing Dawn”

Is everyone having a great time on the hop? I hope you’ve been leaving messages as you hop from blog to blog. Don’t forget to leave your email in the comments so that we can email you if you win!  For the overall blog hop there are three prizes 1 x $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card and 2 x $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Cards.

On my blog you can go into the draw to win a copy of Masquerade, a Masquerade Mask (For when you get to go to a Masquerade Ball) and some Swag.

Today I’m going to do an excerpt from my next release from Crimson Romance and that’s Dawn’s story. Dawn had a cameo in Masquerade. She played such a small role but she made a big impression in my mind. Initially I had her as an older woman with a husband and teenage son and she was happily married until tragedy struck and they were killed in a car accident. That is who I THOUGHT she was! Of course she had other ideas and well she was married, but her son was just a baby when he and her husband died in car accident. So she was telling me she was too young to be alone and she wanted a happy ever after. What could I say, but of course I’ll give you a happy ever after, any idea who you want your happy ever after with? Then up popped a very hunky paramedic, Andrew, who said, “Me. I’m Dawn’s perfect hero”.

Today I’m going to give you a little snippet from the beginning of Dawn’s story, BUT it’s not the full beginning because Sophie and Alex appear at the beginning of Dawn’s story and well if you haven’t read Masquerade yet, I don’t want to spoil it for you. So I’m going to start a little bit in and just give you taste of Dawn and her character!

Enjoy! Oh and listed after the excerpt is the listing of Blog Hop Participants – don’t forget to hop and comment to win!

Rescuing Dawn – Excerpt!

They had no more time to deal with small talk as the ambulance bay doors swung open again. It only took one look to know that this patient was far worse off than the previous one. A paramedic was straddling the patient doing chest compressions.

“Trauma One,” Dawn called out. “Will you need me, Alex?”

“No, we’ve got Phoebe on tonight, pull her from wherever she is and tell her I need her. I’ll need you to deal with family members when they come.”

Dawn nodded her agreement but wished she could be helping out, there was nothing worse than talking to the victim’s families. It always brought back horrible memories of the time when she was the family of a victim, that the victims of the accident were her own husband and infant son, just made it even worse. Those comforting words, the same words she’d spoken on numerous occasions to calm a family member, did nothing for her that night. Coldness had filled her soul that night. And nothing had been able to warm it.

“Dawn? Is that you?”

A voice dragged her out of her maudlin thoughts. There was no changing the past and she had moved on—sort of. Dawn looked up at the person who’d voiced those words. The moment she locked eyes with the paramedic standing in front of her she wished she was anywhere but where she was.

“Andrew?”

“Hey, I thought it was you,” Andrew’s voice was as smooth as it had been when they’d dated in high school. “How are you?”

Dawn stopped herself from rolling her eyes. It was such a silly question to ask when he’d just brought in a person that was arresting on the gurney. The last thing she wanted to do right at that moment was make idle chit-chat with her former lover. “Busy. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to get a nurse to help the doctor deal with the patient you just brought in.”

She moved away from the desk and rushed down the hallway to get Phoebe from the break room. She needn’t have worried, Phoebe was heading in her direction.

“Where do you need me?” Phoebe asked.

“Trauma one with Alex,” Dawn laid her hand on Phoebe’s arm. “It doesn’t look good, the paramedics were doing CPR when they brought him in.”

“Ok, no worries, thanks for the heads up.” Phoebe said as she continued towards the trauma room at a fast pace.

Dawn took a moment to get her breath. She hoped that when she returned to her desk, Andrew would be gone and she wouldn’t have to face him again. It was the cowards way, but seeing him had her thinking a whole pile of ‘what ifs’ again. What if he hadn’t of left her to follow his need for adventure? What if she hadn’t of married Tom?

Why did she keep doing that to herself? For the second time that night she’d started a pity party. She was better than this. She’d pushed the tragic events in her life to the far recesses of her mind, where they belonged.

But boy did it still hurt sometimes.

So many reminders in the space of a few minutes, car accident victims and her former lover all in one night. But she had a job to do. People would be coming in and she would attend to them. Like she always did. It was her job and people were counting on her.

With that resolve humming through her, Dawn strode down the hall, back to her post and if Andrew happened to be there, well she’d deal with that if it happened.

She rounded the corner and saw that Andrew was still standing at the counter. She’d only been gone for a matter of minutes so it had been wishful thinking that Andrew and his partner would’ve left.

Once Dawn reached the counter Andrew looked up and the years rolled away. Instead of being in the busy ER with action happening all around her, she was back in the hallways of high school, seeing him for the first time again. The years had been good to him, the only difference between now and then was the scar that ran down his cheek, no doubt an injury from his days on a boat.  Why was he standing in the ER and not off in some exotic country waiting to set sail for his next adventure?

“Why are you here, Andrew?” she asked the question that was bugging her. She really hoped it was just a co-incidence that he was here.

He laughed and the sound trailed slowly down her back, reminding her of  the good times they’d shared. “It’s pretty obvious why I’m here, Dawn. You know, we just brought a patient in.”

“Yes I realize that, Andrew, but why are you back in Perth? Shouldn’t you be sailing into the sunset somewhere?”

Dawn was surprised to see shadows dull the brightness of Andrew’s sky blue eyes. With a quick lowering and rising of his lashes, the look was gone. It was only because she had spent countless hours gazing into his eyes that she noticed the subtle change.

“Sunsets tend to look the same after a while,” he mused quietly, before giving a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides I decided it was time to come back home.”

So there you have it, a little slice of Dawn and Andrew’s story!  Has someone from your past come back and surprised you?
Here is the list of participants in the blog!