Don’t Let Her Wake Up Alone

By Patricia C Garlitz

Kayleah Richard knew she was putting her life on the line by returning to Pleasant Green on the Indian Reservation, but the horrifying dream that awaken her around 2am involved her blood sister Lainie Deluca. Her face was twisted in pain and her eyes filled with terror.
The scream that shattered the silence my have been her own, but in her heart, there was no denying what she had to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia C Garlitz
• Release date: Dec 2, 2009
• ISBN: 9781102469483

Patricia C Garlitz

Nearly twenty years ago I fell in love with a dream. When I transferred it into the written state; it was like giving birth. I wanted it published in a E-Book form the minute it was completed ... and a rough draft was but never the completed version ... UNTILL now.I hope you enjoy the revised Chatterton Place saga.I will be adding additional books in the nears future, check back for coming soon announcements.

Book preview

Don’t Let Her Wake Up Alone

Patricia C. Garlitz

Copyright © 2009 Patricia C. Garlitz

All rights reserved.

Published by Patricia C. Garlitz at Smashwords

Edited by: Joann Crabtree

Cover Design and Layout: Charlotte Alire

Cover Art by: Charlotte Alire

Contribution of art by: Faith Goble

http://www.flickr.com/people/grafixer/

~~**~~

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

~~**~~

Visit Patricia at Smashwords.com

Or

at Patricia’s Bookshelf

http://home.comcast.net/~p.garlitz/

for more great books

*****

Chapter 1

The sleet like rain pelting the windshield made her desperate progression hindered and slow. She had cleared the first summit, but there most definitely could be snow on the next. The gray clouds that hung to the mountain valley, like the terror that clung to her psyche, hid the approaching ten thousand foot pass from sight. No matter how self-destructive the trip may be, Lainie being in trouble was all she needed to know to make the journey a requirement.

A fuzzy country station, faded in and out like her memories. It seemed a lifetime ago she had made the same desperate drive but in the opposite direction. Had it really been five years? White knuckling the steering wheel, she fought to shake the sight of Lainie's horrified eyes from her mind. There had been many a time she had cursed, ever-becoming blood sisters with the half-breed girl but this was not one of them.

The terror that had rattled her from a sound sleep around two am was real. The shrill cries for help may have been her own voice but it definitely, was Lainie's face, she had seen twisted in pain. The man bending over her crumpled body Kayleah had not recognized, although his general build was familiar. The broad brimmed Stetson framing his dark face cast a shadow against the morning sun, hiding the important features that would have allowed her to identify him. Was it something that had already happen or something she may be able stop?

The question whirled about in her head as she quickly gathered herself for the trip. Why had she not thought about just calling the old phone number? Just because she had changed her number twice along with residences, to free herself from the sleepy little valley did not mean the Deluca's had. Now she was racing the sunrise.

With every mile, a new scenario played itself out before her. In one, she would reach the Deluca house in time to stop the attack, another they no longer even live there. In one, McKenna meets her at the door and sweeps her off her feet declaring his life has been hell without her. That one was so vivid that she had to shake herself back to reality.

Kay, he didn't want you then so what in the hell makes you hope he’ll want you now.

Not a day had gone by in the past five years that she had not cursed the day her Father deposited her on Grammy's front porch. Twelve was too old to be deposited, as a dirty bag of laundry yet that must have been how they saw her. Sometimes she wondered why she never cursed the day she was born. They hadn't wanted her then either.

Grammy's sweet cocoa colored face was just always there. She was the one that had taken her to the park, and the zoo, and every other place a small child would normally be taken by their parents. She had picked her up and put a Band-Aid on her scraped knee, when the bike careened down the long drive and toppled into the thorny bushes. She had put together all twelve of her birthday parties. And it was only she, who had made Christmas what Kayleah would remember Christmas being.

Looking back Kayleah felt it was understandable that she would have had a hard time adapting to Grammy's departure shortly after her twelfth Christmas. Even when it was made clear by her parents, that she had only been a baby sitter. That may have been the way they saw her but she was more than a baby sitter to Kayleah. When her Mother explained that Grammy had gotten sick and needed to go home, she tried to understand. Looking back on it now, she figured that she would have learned to cope, if her parents had just given her more time.

Sure, as are all only children she was spoiled, but twelve was too old to be allowed to act the way she did. They needed to draw clear-cut lines. Grammy had, she never let her get away with anything least of all, throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of a special party for her Father’s business partner.

Be it as it were, she now understood that she was never shipped off to Grammy's for punishment. Her parents were simply incapable of loving her and that all the time she spent in cursing their names, was wasted. Instead, she should have give thanks that Grammy had been there.

Her Father's cruelest act had came the day he insisted that she was going to stay with Mrs. Roseland, in Pleasant Green. Kayleah knew nothing of Pleasant Green, nor the party to which she was to be entrusted. Even when he called her Grandma Roseland, the connection had not been made in poor Kayleah's head.

That had been an awful trip. She had begged and pleaded the full two hundred miles, to be allowed to travel with him and her Mother to France. His reply was always the same– she was too young. When they left the main road and traveled another ten on nothing but dirt. She feared he was going to leave her out in the middle of nowhere, with no one to care for her. The dust that collected inside the car turned her tears to mud. She could even feel the grit between her teeth, which she had clinched together in an arrogant manor, ignoring her Father's monotone repetitions.

Pulling to a stop in front of the single story frame home that looked more like a cracker box then anything she was used to seeing, she took her final stand. Screaming and whaling at the top of her lungs, she let everyone know she was not going to stay there. She even briefly recalled striking her Father about the chest, when he towed her from the car.

Then Grammy stepped out onto Mrs. Roseland's front porch, she instantly put the two together, and rushed into her waiting arms. Her Father left with no more than the pat on her head, her Mother had bestowed before they left the house earlier in the day. Within minutes, he was out of sight in another cloud of dust.

Grammy on the other hand did as she had for the past twelve years. Quickly she hurried her into the small home and cleaned her face, then plied her with fresh cold lemonade to cut the dust in her mouth. Soon she no longer cared where her parents had gone or when they would return, she had her Grammy again.

Readjusting her tight grip of the wheel, she wondered if she had known how lonely that first summer was going to be, if she would have felt so content to be left behind. She only watched the warm loving black eyes that had kept her world going. Never knowing just how different the two of them were. When her face was clean and her tongue wet, she took a minute to scan the new world she had been plunged into.

The house was even smaller then she had originally thought. It offered only one small bedroom– Grammy's, a parlor, dining room and a kitchen. After wandering through each, she returned with a look of bewilderment on her fair-skinned face. Grammy brushed her strawberry blond hair from her cheeks and said.

You shall have the attic, the whole attic. She made it sound as if she had built her, her own palace somewhere atop the diminutive home. Similar to the wing in which she had grown up in her home, but when she showed her the steps that lead up from the small back porch, Kayleah knew she had better not expect the polished marble floors and towering windows dressed in velvet. At the top of the steps, was an old door that hung haphazardly. It blocked their entrance for a moment, before Grammy pushed it away offering Kayleah the full impact of how much her world was about too changed.

There before her lie the rubble of untold lives, old trunks, broken down rockers, even an old iron bed frame. There was no highly polished wood furniture, nor the rich fabric to adorn cushioned objects. The only window was to the front of the house and it she would not have called a window, for it had little slats of wood that caused the light to be defused and fall in ribbons of color across the dusty rotted wood flooring.

She hesitated to follow Grammy in, fearful the creaking boards would not support both their weight. Oh dear I know it looks terrible now but just wait, Grammy's voice was reassuring even if Kayleah doubted she knew what she was saying. It'll be beautiful. A small rose colored carpet, your favorite. And of course I'll have someone finish the walls. she hesitated raising her hand to played with the nail protruding through the small opening between the rafters in the ceiling.

Again, Kayleah shook off the memories to concentrate on the present. Snow had indeed fallen in the higher peaks. She was once more traveling at a slower speed. The thought that she would not make it there in time to stop the terrible thing from happening to Lainie, sent chills down her spine. One more week and they would have set the clocks ahead, giving her an extra hour to play with, before sunrise but that thought was useless now, the tragedy wasn't about to wait.

Her only hope was that she could make up the time on the lowlands. She had sped across them in less than an hour, one night with McKenna. The weather had been good that night, the road untraveled by many, and of course, his fit of temper had helped. At least in the time it took, it hadn't helped her. If they had gone slower, she may have never gone to Marcus's that night, Stop it Kay! She found she was reprimanding herself verbally.

She had allowed her mind to wander to a time she had fought to forget, a point were all time ended. Her time in Pleasant Green, Grammy's time on earth, even the minute her love for McKenna had died. It should have been a night filled with her greatest joys, her graduation, McKenna was home on leave from the service, and she had even planed on becoming a woman that night.

NO, Again her voice broke the silence the drifting radio had left behind. She wouldn't think of it. Yet how was she going to separate the two worlds, once there.

That thought brought back memories of how she had once considered the two worlds, one. How could she have missed the undeniable strange looks as she walked the dirt road into town with Grammy, to order all the things needed to make her attic livable? Why was it she never noticed the darkened red skin of the loving woman that had raised her, nor paid little attention to her blackened eyes that glowed like ebony in the light? She had never cast a thought to the uniquely different clothing Grammy usually wore, but suddenly, she was the one who was different.

Everyone they met along the way wore the same type clothing, all their skins were dark with a red glow, and their eyes too were ebony. She and Grammy had traded places. She stuck out like a sore thumb, with her flowing blond hair, kissed with the slightest hue of red. Unexpectedly her skin had never looked so pink, and the blue eyes that reflected back at her, as they pushed open the door to the small trading post, were unmatched. She may have never given the differences a second thought but it was drawn to her attention every time they came upon a friend of the old woman. Natural instinct ran toward lifting her golden locks for examination, and then they would pinch her pale cheeks and gaze deeply into her blue eyes, before exclaiming what trouble she would bring the old woman if left to dwell with her too long. Grammy's response was always the same, My little Sunshine could bring trouble to no one.

Sunshine She hadn't heard the name said aloud, in far too long a time. That was Grammy's name for her. Her parents had called her Kayleah and McKenna– he always called her Morning Star. The name Grandfather gave her, shortly after she started school that fall on the reservation.

Of course, as with all others she called Grandparents, he was not hers. She had never even met her own Grandparents. Surely, somewhere out there she had to have a set of her own but like her own parents, they had chosen to avoid her, or perhaps her parents had never mentioned her. In either case, she did not know them.

It was her surrogate family on the reservation that she called by the loving attributes that were reserved for family members. Grandfather, Grammy, and later after she and Lainie became friends, she would know what it was like to have a sister.

Again the frightened eyes of her only sister, flashed before her. God– please helps her. Her frightened voice broke into the silence of the empty car.

Lainie had been her salvation, her savior, her blood sister. She could not bare the thought that someone could hurt her. She had never agreed with Lainie's decision to marry Marcus, but it was Lainie's life after all. Grammy had taught her many things, mainly though she had taught her to judge no one, before walking a mile in their shoes.

Seated before the slated window that first summer, she would witness how a father was supposed to play with his children, hold and kiss his wife before the children, and even reprimand them, when they were disobedient. When she went with Grammy visiting, she discovered that a Mothers first place was in the home. It was her position in life to care and raise the children, teach them, train them, but mainly love them.

For the first time she knew the tall walls around her home in the capital city had done more than to shut the noise of the city out. It had blocked her view of the world. Grammy’s teaching and later private school had only added to her seclusion from reality. Here she saw it all, the good and the bad.

There was more good than bad. She thought, as she again straightened the car from a slid that threatened to bring her to a stop. It was through that slated world she first discovered Lainie, the only girl of the five Deluca children. Of course, she had not been sure the fifth child was really theirs until the day Lainie saved her from her older brother Josh.

He too, she knew from the two story home that stood across the dirt road, visible from her slated window. She had deemed him the older brother and rightfully so. Yet even as he tugged and pulled at her childish braids, finally getting away cleanly with her new ribbons, she had never thought he would actually hurt her. Lainie had raced to her rescue immediately–– unfortunately though it was too late for the fine braids Grammy had made special effort to see wrapped into her hair.

Lainie's hair was black but shone a shiny blue in the morning sun, wore loose and straight about her shoulders. She was small and thin, with just the slightest hint of her oncoming womanhood, visible through the bright yellow turtleneck shirt she wore. It looked as if she and Grammy had bought their jeans in the same place, right down to the small fray near the hem of the right leg.

Her parents would have died if they had seen her wearing jeans and a light cotton blouse to school, but they hadn't returned from France yet, so Grammy had no alternative but to register her for school.

Once on the bus, that drove the twenty miles into the larger town of Pleasant Green itself. Lainie managed to retrieve her ribbons and set about combing out the childish braids from her hair.

It'll be Ok, you'll see, we'll put a braid on the side like I saw in the magazine, and Mrs. Roseland won't be upset. You don't look anything like her, so why do you call her Grammy?

She spent the better part of her day retelling her story everywhere she went. To everyone Lainie introduced her to, and then even to a few Lainie didn't know–– which was hard to believe since she seemed to know or be related to everyone in the town. By the time the bus returned to pick them up later in the day, she thought she knew everyone in the school.

Josh had even introduced her to several of his friends. He didn't seem as cruel as he had earlier in the morning, but there was always an air of torment to his teasing. He too had blue-black hair but unlike Lainie's bright blue eyes, his were dark like all the others she met that day.

Perhaps, it was Lainie's blue eyes, that had paired the two of them together or maybe it was just her natural instinct to look after her, as she did her smaller brothers. Whatever it was Lainie had guarded her like a big sister right from the start, even though they were the same age, minus a few months.

Once she had checked in with Grammy it was to Lainie's she headed to come up with an easier story to tell about her parents. Even though she figured everyone that would ever count in her life from that minute on, had already heard the story. It was as good an excuse as any she had come up with over the past three months, to see the inside of the large home, which offered the only complete second floor in that part of town. Surprisingly it offered up six complete bedrooms on the second floor along with a bath. On the first floor, there was the extra large kitchen, dining room, parlor, and her father’s office, as well as another bath and numerous storage spaces. The care of the home stunned Kayleah. Not knowing what it was like to live with more than adults and servants, the rubble that lay about the home disguised her. How could anyone live in a home that offered neither a clean shiny kitchen nor bath?

Climbing over toys Lainie's smaller brothers, Will and Travis, T for short, had left laying everywhere, suddenly became her pet peeve. One she didn’t know she had before arriving in the small town. Yet once she realized how difficult it would be to keep the two, only seven and nine, from scattering them, she understood a portion of what Mrs. Deluca was up against daily.

Will's eyes were a dark shade of chocolate, unlike Josh's but T's was just as bright blue as her own was. It wasn't until Mrs. Deluca appeared sometime around six, that she understood the differences. The woman's skin reminded her of whipped milk, adorned highly by her own deep blue eyes. Beneath her jet-black hair, were the reddest roots Kayleah had ever seen?

She never asked about the reasoning behind the coloration of her hair, nor mentioned all the other things she would hear through the grapevine about how the native Irish woman who had brought discourse to the Deluca name. What she did do was take pity on the woman. Her face was so fatigued, as she grasping sight of what could be called a kitchen on a good day that Kayleah had nearly missed the pain that lay behind those tired eyes. A pain that would someday take her life, but as of yet laid undiscovered by even its occupant. Her frame was small, not much larger than Lainie, and was clad ghostly in her white nurse's uniform. Later she would find out that Mrs. Deluca was a nurse's aide at the local nursing home.

She and Lainie were then hurried out onto the front porch to finish their discussion of her supposed dilemma, but even it offered a comfort she had feared days earlier would never occur. Parent after parent, had made it clear that their children were not to play with the lightheaded child of a rich man. So many in fact, that she had never sought out the companionship of the Deluca children. Oh how she regretted that fear. She had lost the entire summer to a slated world that lay just beyond her window.

Josh followed them onto the porch, as usual in his tormenting mood, when sudden down the dirt road come the rickety old truck she believed belonged to a person she had thought was the hire hand.

Mac's home Josh shouted loud enough that she would have known of his return, even if she had been perched in her lofty slatted world.

A second later, the brakes were applied and the truck fishtailed in the loose gravel and came to rest a few feet from where they sat. His full six-foot structure bound from the cab, even before it had come to a complete stop, shouting Is Dad here?

Not yet, Josh answered jumping from the porch to take a perch on the hood of the truck.

Groovy. Was the only reply from the broad shouldered cowpoke, sporting a dust covered straw hat trimmed with a wide leather band, as he bound onto the porch and shot for the door. Then suddenly as if halted in place by an invisible rope, he turned to her and Lainie and strolled their way. Well sis, I can hardly believe it. You finally got the Sunshine to grace us with her presents. His tone was sarcastic, but his flashing blue eyes spoke of different emotions, as they ran the length of her skinny, undeveloped frame. Only adding more pink to her already different complexion.

Ignore him, Kayleah. He's about the biggest tease we got around here. Lainie suggested, as he removed his hat and swept the porch with it in a deep bow.

The suggestion was not that easy to accomplish, he reminded Kayleah of the magical prince charming in Cinderella. While his hair was the dark black color, almost jet, it waved unlike any of the others. In addition to gracing the family with another set of blue eyes, his skin tone was much lighter than the rest. It drew thoughts of the malted milk chocolate shakes Grammy used to make her before bed, mainly because Grammy's secret ingredient was a small scoop of raspberry jelly. The small scoop only added enough red color to say it was present, but not much more than a well-tanned person would have been after a day in the sun.

McKenna at your service Ma'am She thought his voice sounded of many years on earth, many more than she that was.

Hesitantly she offered her hand, the way her parents had struggled to teach her to do, when in the company of their friends. But she couldn't find a voice to match.

Mac, this is Kayleah. Lainie had once again come to her rescue.

I prefer Sunshine, until you come up with something more appropriate. Was his response, as he gently squeezed her hand, allowing her to feel the deep calluses embodied there, but still she could not find the voice, to tell him how glad she was to make his acquaintance. Dumbfounded she just sat there smiling.

We've been trying to figure out what to tell the other kids when they ask why she's living with Mrs. Roseland. Lainie keep the conversation going, while she sat there like a bump on a log.

Tell them it's none of their business. He finally let go of her hand as he responded. No–– He seemed to have changed his mind, Tell them that she's your legal guardian. She is, isn't she?

Now she had to answer, but the slow nod of her head accomplished the feat.

Fine, then that's what you’ll tell them. He remarked, reaching out to give her golden locks a swish before pivoting and shooting off, like a racehorse out of the gate. Josh jumped down from the hot hood of the truck and followed like a little puppy.

Uh she definitely was glad she had keep her mouth shut in his presents, Who was that?

Mac, Lainie responded with an air of pride, and confusion, Didn't you hear him say so?

But who, I mean what is he doing here?

He lives her silly! She remarked giving the swing another push, a bit harder this time causing it to brush against the porch rail. He's my oldest Brother. What'd you think he was some kind of a hire hand? She had asked the question with such sarcasm that Kayleah knew better then to answer truthfully.

No! I just hadn't seen him before. Which was another lie, but Lainie would never know.

He can drive, so he's not here much anymore. Again, her pride showed through. Josh drives too, but only the tractor and never on the county roads. Daddy would shoot him.

The man that everyone seemed to fear appeared around the edge of the house just about that then. His long legs and broad chest were clad in western cut clothing. Atop his head smartly sat a full-fledged Stetson, adorned with a shiny silver and feather band. His rich wine colored boots completed the picture of the true cowboy he was.

The massive muscles that bulged beneath the cotton shirt spoke of the damage he could do if pushed, but there was no danger in the tone of his voice, as he scooped Lainie from the swing and swirled her around telling her how pretty she looked. After returning her to the porch, he turned his attention to Kayleah. For a minute, she feared he might just do the same to her. She had never been twirled before. It would become his usual greeting in the coming years for her as well, but her apprehension must have been apparent that day, for he backed away saying And I do believe this must be the famous Sunshine, Granda has been telling everyone about. His eyes were dark, as was his hair when he dropped his hat to the porch and knelt down in front of her. I do believe your eyes are as clear as a spring sky after a fresh rain.

The compliment made her giggle. The acceptance she found in his face was all she would remember. Kayleah never again feared what might roll from this man's tongue and knew better than to tremble when he raised his voice, which he did many a time in her direction over the next six years, for he only responded that way when he knew his words were important.

Looking back on that day, through the blinding tears that now made even the swift lowlands treacherous, Kayleah had to admit that she should have known right from the very start, that she had found the true meaning to the word home.

*****

Chapter 2

Wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her jacket draped loosely across her shoulders. Kayleah thought, her life might have changed that day, but the Deluca home would never be the same either.

While the sky still looked threatening, the road had nearly dried out, since she had made the turn at the junction. The billowing dark clouds appeared to be headed north as they so often do in eastern Utah, dropping the precious moisture needed to grow crops, high in the mountains. She had so hoped that with the approaching storm that the sun wouldn't get a chance to stick its impending nose through the dense clouds, hence delaying whatever danger it was she had seen from happening. Tightening her grip on the wheel, she knew the race was back on. By the grace of God, she would make it in time.

Then what, she thought? Paw will listen he always listened. If it had not been for him, her acceptance in the Deluca home may not have been so smooth. One way or another she had determined that she was going to make herself at home in their family that day on the porch swing. Before the week was over, she knew all the important facts to be a member. Paw's name was Robert and Mom's Magdalena. He was born and raised on the reservation, she in Ireland. They met and fell in love while he was in the service during World War II. McKenna, named for Maggie's Father, was not as old as she had thought. A short four years was all that spanned their ages. Josh, not short for anything, was only two years her senior, and was the first to be born on the reservation. Lainie carried her mother’s name she had been one of a set of twins. The other died shortly after birth, and both were girls. William was three years younger, a fourth grader, and full of all kind of mischief. And finally Travis; T, the baby was a mere two years younger than Will. While not really a baby, they all treated him as if he was and she understood that syndrome. Grammy treated her as if she were a baby too.

Truthfully, if it had not been for wanting to be so grown up, around McKenna, she may have been willing to