Winters' Phoenix

By Teresa A. Beeler

In a second chance romance novella, Kristina Colby is a quirky, middle aged woman ready to enjoy retired life with her husband, Grant. They had raised two children and were ready to travel. Until that tragic morning she woke and found him as cold as a popsicle.

Happy wife to devastated widow in a blink of an eye. How was she to survive this crushing blow on the cusp of retirement? How could Grant do this to her? Where was she to go from this point on? Could she rise out of the ashes of her life like the phoenix she admired? Or would she be buried in her grief?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Breckenridge Crossing
• Release date: Feb 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386244950

Teresa A. Beeler

Teresa Beeler is married with two grown children, one grandchild, one chicken-of-a-dog, and a herd of cows. She lives on a rural farm in West Central Illinois. She has a degree in business and has worked in public service for thirty years. She is an avid reader accumulating thousands of books on her kindle and bookshelves. Yes, she still prefers paperbacks.

Book preview

Winters’

Phoenix

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Teresa A. Beeler

WINTERS’ PHOENIX

A Novella

Published by Breckenridge Crossing

Copyright © 2018 by Teresa A. Beeler

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published in the United States of America

First Printing, 2018

Breckenridge Crossing

255 N County Road 1200

Sutter, IL 62373

www.TeresaBeeler.com

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tABLE OF cONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Epilogue

About the Author

Disclaimer

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

CHAPTER 1

One does not wake up expecting to receive news that will change one’s entire life. That was what happened yesterday. Kristina went to bed with her husband of twenty-five years. All was fine except for the nightly fight over the covers.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The alarm blared at six am. After several minutes of the beeping and blaring music, she rolled over to nudge Grant to shut off the alarm. Not only did he not move, but he was ice cold. Kristina jumped and searched for a pulse. There was none. She picked up the phone on the nightstand and dialed 9-1-1 as she started CPR. Kristina knew this was not good, but she had to keep it together for the next twenty minutes until help arrived.

Please send an ambulance. My husband isn’t breathing! she screamed into the phone.

What is your address? the 9-1-1 operator asked.

Really?! I don’t know. I thought you had all that in your system!

Ma’am, please calm down. I need your address.

Give me a minute. Kristina closed her eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled, and calmed enough to rattle off their address.

We have first responders on their way. Please remain on the phone.

How am I supposed to talk to you and do CPR? she sneered.

Ma’am, please remain calm.

If you say calm one more time I am hanging up! I have to lay the phone down to continue CPR.

Ma’am, Ma’am? Kristina heard them asking for her but she didn’t have time to deal with them as she counted to herself, one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand...

Arms like cooked spaghetti, she finally detected the sirens approaching. The dogs were barking and howling at the sirens. Yelling over the dog’s racket, Kristina picked up the phone and instructed the 9-1-1 operator, Have them come in, turn left, and go up the stairs to our bedroom.

Kristina wasn’t for sure how much longer she could keep doing compressions when help had arrived. She expected everything to be fine once the professionals arrived, she stepped back to watch a miracle. It didn’t happen.

The EMS workers took over CPR and were hooking Grant up to