A Late Summer’S Fire

By Sandra Rorie

A Late Summers Fire is a novel about love, motivation, pain, and difficult decisions. It is about tragedy that a family endured and about staying strong in faith to overcome lifes challenges. Beverly falls madly in love with Warren, and the race is on to the brokenness of a lot of drama. Warren is a tall, dark, handsome, and outgoing man, and almost every woman that he encountered was intrigued.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524504052

Sandra Rorie

Born in a small southern town in 1956, Sandra has seen a lot in her almost sixty years. She saw segregation at its worst and lived through watching her family members and friends being treated as if they were less than because of who they were. Sandra always loved to read. Reading took her places that she could only imagine in her mind. After moving to the city, Durham, North Carolina, at about age thirteen, her life changed drastically. Durham was a whole new place and would bring about a lot of life experiences. A mother of three and grandmother of six, she is proud to be the head of her small family, always trying to send the message to them that nothing is more important than family, God, and trying to always do the right thing. Reading a good book into the wee hours of the morning is one of her favorite things do, and she can cook up a mean meal. In fact, cooking is almost a spiritual event for her. When she is spreading the good smells of a home-cooked meal through her home and awaiting her family to come over for dinner, she is at her best. Sandra is a businesswoman and is always striving for ways to make her and her family’s lives better. She is a licensed insurance agent, but most of all, she is a mother who loves her children and grandchildren. She is a writer that finally got the nerve to put her stories on paper.

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Copyright © 2016 by Sandra Rorie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/24/2016

Xlibris

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www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Dedicated to my best friend Linda whom I loved like a sister. She always believed in me and was always there.

To my dad, a silent entrepreneur, who taught me that if you believe in yourself and in God, always do and give your best—in the end, you will not have any regrets.

Especially to my nephew Quint who fought a courageous battle with leukemia and was so brave all the way to the end. Quint, baby, you taught me—your old aunt—one of the most valuable lessons that I will ever learn in this life: how to be afraid but to have enough faith to allow God to walk you through it. Every time I get afraid, I always remember you and thank God for allowing me to be a part of your life all the way to the end.

And to every woman that’s ever been in a horrifying, abusive relationship and struggling to get out with their very lives, try God and have faith because your family, friends, and the police can’t always be there when you need them, but God can be there every moment.

I’m writing this book not just because I love to write and can read a good book into the wee hours of the morning but also because I believe that I have a story that I want to share. Perhaps someone can be spared pain, reach a goal, or maybe even be motivated. If that happens, I would have accomplished what I set out to do!

To my two beautiful daughters, you bring love and happiness into my life. You have stood beside me through it all: each business venture, every success and failure. You have given me the joy and blessing of my six wonderful grandchildren. I thank and love you more than words can ever say. Just know that I will always be there for you, and even years from now when I am in heaven, I will still thank God for you all being a part of my life and for the blessing of allowing me to be your mom and grandmom of six.

Love you!

PROLOGUE

(horoscope)

I woke up with a jolt, staring down the barrel of a .357 Magnum. Oh my god! I am going to die right here in my bedroom. My husband, Warren, was standing there with the gun in his hand, his finger already on the trigger. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I looked down the barrel of that gun. God, I do not want to die. I have so much more to do. As I quietly lay there in my king-sized bed, it felt like the bed was twice its normal size. It felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. This could not be real. The man that I was married to and had spent my life with for twenty-two years was about to take my life right here in our bedroom.

Warren had a dazed look on his eyes, a look that told me this man was going to shoot me. My mind started to race and my body trembled all over. I thought about my children and grandchildren sleeping in the other two bedrooms. This would devastate my babies; then I wondered if he was going to shoot them too. I knew my husband had snapped. I knew I had to do something, if not for myself, then for my children and my grandbabies sleeping innocently with not a clue as to what was going on in my bedroom.

With time feeling as if it had stopped and the next few seconds feeling like minutes, I glanced around my beautiful bedroom. Warren had painted and decorated it for me a couple of years earlier. He had even gone as far as using my favorite paint color, mauve. Glancing at the clock, I realized it was exactly 3:30 a.m. Something told me that trying to talk to him would only make the situation worse.

My husband started calling me a whore and a bitch. He told me that I was the sorriest whore he knew and that I did not deserve to live. I knew for sure that he had lost his mind when he started talking about a boyfriend I had when I was eighteen years old. My husband was standing there telling me, with this gun staring me in the face, that he believed I was still sleeping with this man.

Not knowing what else to do, I started to silently talk to God. I told him I do not want to die, and I don’t know what to do to stop this man from shooting me. Slowly, calm started to come over me, and I started saying Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of his righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies: you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Suddenly, the look on Warren’s face started to change; and slowly, he moved the gun from my face and turned to walk back to his side of the bed, sliding the gun under the mattress. Warren climbed back to bed as if nothing had even happened. I guess I lay there in the bed for about five minutes; the room was so quiet. Neither one of us spoke a word.

I slowly got up and sat on the side of the bed. Within a couple of minutes, I picked up my cigarettes from the nightstand table and slowly put my robe on. Not sure of what I was going to do and not knowing if my husband was going to shoot me as I walked out the door, I walked out the bedroom without looking back. Turning off the alarm, I slowly opened the kitchen backdoor that led out to the carport. Once outside, I lit my cigarette and just stood in the darkness thinking about what to do next.

I had to safely get my children and myself away from this house and this insane man tonight. I heard Warren’s footsteps as he came to peep out the door, I guess, to see what I was doing or if I had left. Assuming that I was just standing there smoking, and perhaps, trying to clear my head, I heard his footsteps as he headed back down the hall.

Gaining some courage that must have come straight from God, I took that opportunity to start walking away from the house. I must have looked like a crazy woman to the few cars that passed, walking in my nightclothes and a robe at almost four o’clock in the morning.

I was determined to find someone who would let me use their phone to call the police. I would find a phone even if I had to walk a mile. About a block away, I stopped at one of my neighbors’ houses. I rang the doorbell a few times before she finally answered. Of course, my neighbor wanted to know why I needed to use the phone and what was going on. Feeling ashamed and stupid, I explained that I had woken up with a gun on my face, and I needed to call the police. Thank God she let me in. I quickly dialed 911. I stood there waiting to hear the sirens that would announce to the world the horror that was going on in my life and thought to myself: How did I get to this desolate place?

I was born in the unseasonably sweltering heat of the Fall of 1956. My mother brought me into the world in