Loving Her Storm

By J. DeVene

Can he tame the storm inside her?

 

Jenna Morgan, a successful but lonely archeologist, suffers from night terrors and a horrific mistake that has caused her to isolate herself from everyone she loves. Vilified by her community, she moves away from home and builds a career that keeps her so busy she doesn't have time to think about what people back home know about her. Then her mother falls ill, and Jenna returns to the town she left behind. 

 

Almost immediately, Jenna senses the glares at the back of her skull and an overwhelming amount of judgment. It's not until she meets her mother's doctor, the swoon-worthy Dr. Gabriel Fleming, that she feels like she can handle the hostility in their eyes. But who exactly is Gabriel, and why does he make her feel so safe?

 

As her mother recovers, Jenna and Gabriel grow even closer, but is it enough to help her face her past?

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. DeVene
• Release date: May 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201459130

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Y ou know it’s not that easy. 

Jenna tightened her fingers around her cell phone to keep her hands from shaking. Sitting on a beaten up ottoman, her head resting on her hand, she tried to explain for the umpteenth time to her mother why she couldn’t move back home.

It’s been years, Jenna, came the faint, almost hopeless voice. 

I know, Mom.

We miss you terribly.

Her tears made tracks down her cheeks, falling off her chin onto her bare knee. Jack, her golden retriever, sat at her feet and put his paw on the top of her leg. Jenna gave a half-hearted smile before giving the top of his head a couple of pets.

I miss you guys, too, Mom, but I’d fall apart if I came back. I couldn’t look his mother in the eye.

She heard a soft sigh on the other end of the line. Bye, Jenna.

Bye, Mom, she said to a dead line. Jenna hung up and let her head fall into both her hands, taking deep breaths to quell the tremors.

If she understood half of what I was feeling, she wouldn’t ask me to come home.

Jenna stood and went to the kitchen, wiping her cheeks. She started the tea kettle and then went in search of her favorite pomegranate flavored green tea. Pulling the little green box out of the maple wood cabinets, she set the tea bag in a ceramic mug and added honey. 

Jack sat right behind her. She felt his wet nose press against the back of her knees. You want a treat? she asked, and watched his ears perk.

She grabbed a box of milk bones and fed him one. Here you go, big boy. No more until dinner. She scratched behind his ears as he munched happily, then went to grab her favorite sweater while she waited for the water to boil.

Curling up on her plush purple couch, the same color as the ottoman, she stared out the french doors in the living room toward the back yard. There was a wooden swing on the porch she loved to sit on in the early mornings with Jack. It gave her peace of mind when her brain decided to