My Girl

By Dorothy Ewels

*** Previously part of the Romance Writers Organisation of South Africa anthology, Summer Singles, this novella (re-edited to include new chapters) is being rereleased under the author's name. ***

Gabriel Stone’s answer to all life’s problems is to avoid facing it head on. When a serious accident threatens to end his career as a drummer, his life is thrown into turmoil.

Sister to the band’s manager, and lifetime friend, Sheridan Daniels opens her home to Gabriel as a place to recover and hide from the world, as their family had done before. But Gabriel’s teetering on the edge. Can Sheridan pull him back or will all be lost?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorothy Ewels
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998972906

Dorothy Ewels

South African author Dorothy Ewels lives in the city of her birth, Cape Town, with her husband, son, two crazy rescue dogs and a cat with plenty of cattitude. A lifelong love affair with reading got her writing at a young age, but it wasn't until she was retrenched in 2017 that she finally found the courage to write her first book, leading to its publication in 2018. She’s addicted to coffee, books and finding humor in life, not to mention happy endings against all odds.As well as being a proud and active member of the Romance Writer’s Organization of South Africa (ROSA), Dorothy is also thrilled to be a contributing author in Samantha A. Cole’s Suspenseful Seduction World, Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Cocky Hero Club and Susan Stoker’s Aces Press.

Book preview

My Girl

MY GIRL

DOROTHY EWELS

Copyright © 2021 Dorothy Ewels

Published by Dorothy Ewels

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, to [e-mail].

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Front cover design: I Pub Press

Formatting by I Pub Press

Edited by Candy Royer

Proofread by Marilize Roos

First edition 2021.

www.dorothyewels.co.za

Reason is powerless in the expression of love.

~ Rumi

CONTENTS

Also by the Author

1. Gabriel

2. Sheridan

3. Gabriel

4. Sheridan

5. Gabriel

6. Sheridan

7. Gabriel

8. Sheridan

9. Gabriel

10. Sheridan

11. Gabriel

12. Sheridan

13. Gabriel

Epilogue

Chapter 1

About the Author

Also by the Author

Where to find the author

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Love at Last

Burn for Me

Destined

A Cowboy for Christmas

My Girl

Meet Me Halfway

Suspenseful Seduction World

Trusting Laurence

Liberating Mia

Cooper’s Salvation

Cocky Hero Club

Sassy Surrogate

Special Forces: Operation Alpha

Operation Checkmate

Knight’s Queen

Lucky in Love

Baring All

Dutch’s Defense

Scooter’s Endgame – releasing September 2023

Gator’s Gambit – releasing November 2023

Digit’s Deflection – releasing January 2024

New series launching in Susan Stoker’s Special Forces World 2025

Meeting Leila – short story only available to newsletter subscribers

Loving Leila – release date to be advised

Audio

Sassy Surrogate

MY GIRL

Gabriel Stone’s answer to all life’s problems is to avoid facing it head on. When a serious accident threatens to end his career as a drummer, his life is thrown into turmoil.

Sister to the band’s manager, and lifetime friend, Sheridan Daniels opens her home to Gabriel as a place to recover and hide from the world, as their family had done before. But Gabriel’s teetering on the edge. Can Sheridan pull him back or will all be lost?

GABRIEL

The shriek of metal as it twisted, a child’s shrill scream of distress, and the sound of glass shattering as it exploded ripped through the quiet of night. Sleeping passengers were woken with a fright as the bus tipped over, and then over again, onto its roof. As the bus skidded down the road upside down, time slowed. Like he was viewing the world from underwater, Gabriel watched from his window as the barrier drew ever closer to their vehicle.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the inevitable. Regret filled him. For all the things he should have said or done. For missed opportunities. But most of all, for never having had the balls to tell the most important person in his life how he felt.

That barrier was the only thing between them and a substantial drop down a mountain cliff. There was no way they could survive a fall like that. His thoughts went to the families on the bus, the small children whose innocent lives would be over before they even began. A familiar feeling of helplessness assailed him, and he had to fight back the urge to scream out his pain and his rage against it.

Gabriel lost all sense of time and reality. At some point during the continually rolling over of the bus, he became trapped, his right arm and upper torso pinned between two seats. Blood trickled in his hair, over his face, and down his arm.

When the bus had first gone over, he’d been jostled about like a ragdoll. But when the metal had started twisting, clamping him in an unforgiving metal grip, he’d no longer been able to move. Excruciating pain had radiated out from his arm, quickly spreading through his body. Everything hurt. But as he hung there, a blessed numbness finally settled over him.

In his mind’s eye, however, present and past merged, becoming impossible to separate, and he could see the past like a movie playing solely for his viewing. It took him back to another time, another place. He’d been consumed by this raw anguish, powerlessness, an all-pervasive fear that had gripped him on that other night. The terror was so like the past that at some point they blurred into one, and he slipped into that nightmare.

He no longer heard the scraping of the metal as it slid across the asphalt to what surely would be their death. He never noticed the change in the road’s camber, slowing the bus down in its final approach to the barrier. He was oblivious to the vehicle coming to a jarring halt against the structure as it held firm. All he could see was the traumatic events on that night long past.

An eerie hush settled over the accident scene.

But for Gabriel, there was no lack of noise. His world was overwhelmed by deafening sound. Glass shattered, wood splintered, and all hell broke loose as five armed men burst into their homestead. He watched as his father shouted at the home invaders in rage, his mother screaming in pain when they dragged her away by her hair, and his siblings huddled together, wailing out their fear. He stood, immobilised by the horror he was witnessing, unable to utter a sound.

Then he heard his father shout, Boeta, vat hulle en hardloop. Son, take them and run, referring to his younger siblings.

But he’d been unable to. The feeling of paralysis persisted. His heart pounded in his ears, rivalling the rest of the noise. It was only when he saw his father lurch for the nearest gun that he was finally galvanised into action by an even greater fear.

Nee, Papa. Moenie! No, Daddy. Don’t! He screamed as he ran towards his father.

Gabriel heard a terrified scream from his parents’ bedroom a split second before a single gunshot. As if in slow motion, he saw his father sink to the ground, a startled look on the man’s face, his own unfired weapon still clutched in his hand.