Samantha - Reflections of Love Book 2: Reflections of Love, #2

By Taya Rune

Will he ever understand why she had to go?

 

It always felt like Samantha and Andy were destined to be together, until she broke his heart.

 

Now, decades later, Samantha has returned home for her father's funeral, something she had been bracing herself for. What she wasn't expecting was to have Andy walk into her bedroom or all the memories it stirs up.

 

Follow Samantha and Andy's lives as they walk their separate paths. Can they find a way back to each other after all this time?

 

Reflections of Love - Real women. Real life. Real love.

*All novellas can be read in any order.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Taya Rune
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922604026

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Samantha

Samantha stared at the photo frame, a much younger, carefree version of herself smiled back. The image in the frame had long, dark blonde dreadlocks, green eyes, and very little life experience. She wore a white t-shirt with fluorescent green Go-Go written on it and over-sized denim overalls. The image that now reflected in the large mirror—that stood on its stand in the corner of the room—was very different. All grown up and successful. The dreadlocks abandoned when they became an impediment to moving forward in her career. Samantha’s hair was still long and dark blonde, but now it came from a bottle to hide the ever-encroaching grey. She still liked to wear over-sized clothing but had swapped the overalls to pretty maxi dresses and brightly colored kaftans. Today, those had been put aside for a more traditional simple black dress and tailored jacket. With the frame still in hand, she sat down on her old teenage bed and looked around her childhood bedroom, surprised that even after thirty years it still felt safe and just like home.

The noise from her father’s wake drifted up the stairs and into the attic bedroom. People chatting, dishes clattering, and mobiles ringing with their personalized ring tones all fought for dominance in the silence of her room. Her eyes slowly swept around the bedroom and fell on memories everywhere. Trophies from tennis playing days, pictures of her group of girlfriends that she had shared her firsts with, tubs of cosmetics and nail polishes, all old and cracked. Samantha knew her father had been the one to not allow her mother to clean out her room when Samantha had left to follow her dreams. Though Samantha had been home for visits over the intervening years, she always felt it wasn’t necessary to change the room as her father was obviously attached to it, probably far more than she had ever been.

Finally, her eyes came to rest on the large wooden workbench that sat under the huge bay window that she had stared out and daydreamed from in her entire youth. The wooden workbench was covered in scorch marks and scratches, just like the ones in her workshops in New York and Paris. A pile of old, well-loved tools sat in a cluttered heap in the corner of the bench, as if she had only used them yesterday instead of thirty years ago.

Her open suitcase sat on the end of the bed. Her current tools—just as well-loved as the ones on the workbench lay—still wrapped in the center of the case, having been protected by a layer of clothes surrounding it. Samantha traveled everywhere with a basic tool set and sketch pad, as she never knew when an idea would strike.

She was exhausted but knew that even if there were no wake going on downstairs there would be no way she could sleep. Jet lag killed her. No matter how long she had been traveling the globe, her body somehow never adjusted to it. It was her own personal kryptonite.

A photo of her father and herself standing at the peak of one of the nearby mountains caught her attention amongst the other photos pinned to the photo board. She would have been no more than ten, but still remembered the day clearly. They had packed their lunch and left early to avoid the crowds and heat. Her parents had always been hikers and introduced Samantha to it early, slowly building up her stamina and strength. That day had been the culmination of years of training and she had finally reached the summit. It was a day to celebrate and the photo would now return to New York with her.

Samantha put the photo she was holding back on her bedside table and tried to relax her shoulders. It had been a chaotic few days and everything had not been processed. It still felt like her father was going to walk through her door at any moment and ask her if she was ready to go. She had been prepared for this moment a long time, but now it was here she found she was not ready at all. He had been diagnosed with cancer years prior and told he had no more than a few years to live. Yet, not only did he live, he had thrived; throwing all the doctors' predictions away and taking each day as a gift. After the initial shock—with Samantha returning from Paris, where she had been working, while living in Sydney—he underwent his first rounds of chemo. After that, they settled into a pattern of her returning twice a year when her business brought her closer to Australia or Australia itself. He had looked great and still healthy the last time she had been to visit—just four months ago—but cancer does that sometimes. One minute you are well, amazing the doctors with your resilience, and the next minute the fight is lost and it is time to go.

The phone call had come in the early hours of the morning while she was in a small village in the middle of Chile, on a research holiday. It had been difficult to find flights to get home to Australia on such short notice from the remote location. It had taken four flights of ever-increasing size of plane and distance traveled before she had returned to Sydney airport, to then face the drive out to the Blue Mountains. At one point, she wasn’t sure if she would make the funeral.

The service had been held in her father’s favorite gardens rather than a church, and the celebrant was an old family friend who had cried with the rest of them as they celebrated his life, while saying goodbye. Her father had come from Irish stock so the wake was expected to be rousing and long-lasting, and the tight-knit community was doing their best to honor that. They were heading into their fifth hour, which was why Samantha had decided to come up to her bedroom for a little respite before going back to help her mother.

A cough interrupted her thoughts. Samantha turned to find the last person she would have expected to be standing in her house. Three decades after she had walked out of his life, her stomach filled with butterflies and her heart quickened.