Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Explore 1.5M+ audiobooks & ebooks free for 30 days

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Red Hawk Christmas: Women Starting Over, #1
    Red Hawk Christmas: Women Starting Over, #1
    Red Hawk Christmas: Women Starting Over, #1
    Ebook92 pages1 hourWomen Starting Over

    Red Hawk Christmas: Women Starting Over, #1

    By Rain Trueax

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Still recovering from an unwanted divorce, with a family who no longer needs her, retired history and political science teacher, Diana Ashburn sells all she owns, buys a Class C motorhome, and leaves Chicago for an adventure-- with no plans for what she hopes to find. 
    As Diana and her two Chihuahuas settle into life in her RV, which she calls Redhawk, she begins an exploration of places depicting the history of the West from the Native American cultures to those who came later.
    As winter approaches, Diana decides to settle into an RV park for a few months. The little community of Bluff, in a remote corner of Utah, seems most unlikely for Christmas. Even more unlikely, Diana has a retired banker, an artist, and a cowboy seemingly interested in her. After many years of marriage, Diana is unsure how to handle that or even more the fact that she finds one of them fascinating—except, what does he want? 
     Will she find a new purpose for her life in this strange land of red rock, deep canyons, red hawks, prehistoric ruins, and few people; or when Christmas is over, will it be time for her to move on?  
    A contemporary, starting over novella at 22,900 words. G rated.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeven Oaks
    Release dateNov 13, 2016
    ISBN9781943537136
    Red Hawk Christmas: Women Starting Over, #1
    Read preview
    Author

    Rain Trueax

    Westerns. I love reading them. Writing my own came as second nature after growing up on the edge of the wilderness, where Sasquatch might still roam, and living most of my adult years on the edge of Oregon's Coast Range. Much as I love the country, I also enjoy a night in a big city for theater, symphony, museums, or exploring bookstores. All my stories and art works portray the values of self worth, hard work, and community while intertwining the complications of physical attraction, sexuality and outside challenges, whether, malicious or societal. Eleven of my contemporary romances are now available in eBook format.Today, I work from a sheep and cattle operation in the Oregon coast range mountains or on the road in the inter-mountain west via satellite link. My goals are to portray real life, real passion, personal growth and mutual fulfillment for heroes and heroines, using the land and the mysteries that one finds when they stop to look around and listen to local legends.The romance novel is a bit of a modern fairy tale as it inspires with imagination and emotions. I think of mine as emotional roller coaster rides for the protagonists who take the reader along as they form a temporary partnership when the reader is pulled into the story. When a romantic novel doesn't build that bridge between story and reader, it hasn't fulfilled its highest purpose.When someone finishes one of my novels, I want them to wish there had been more and sorry it's over but knowing they will read it again someday. I want it to have been an enriching use of their time. Lofty goals? Maybe but without them, what would writing be about?

    Read more from Rain Trueax

    Related to Red Hawk Christmas

    Titles in the series (1)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Contemporary Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related categories

    Reviews for Red Hawk Christmas

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Red Hawk Christmas - Rain Trueax

      Chapter One

      August 15, 2014 Streamwood, Illinois

      Mom, have you lost your ever loving mind?

      Diana Ashburn smiled at her beautiful but distressed daughter. I might have for a while but now I’ve found it, Wendy. I hope you’ll wish me well.

      How can I—when you’ll be leaving here and going to... Where did you say you’d be going?

      Diana was glad she had opted to sell her home before discussing this with her children. She could only imagine what Pete would say. I don’t have a firm plan at this point. It’s going to be one step at a time. She took a sip of the peach tea she’d prepared for this meeting. She had hoped it would prove soothing. Perhaps not so much. Would whiskey have been better, even though it was only eleven in the morning?

      No plan and just selling everything? Wendy looked near to tears. Diana had seen for some time that Wendy was under pressure with trying to be the perfect mother, wife, and manager of an ad agency. She remembered the years of teaching and wrestling with the problems of two teen-agers. She did understand her daughter’s world; however, she could not help her with it, and now it was time to help herself.

      Not everything. I want you to look through the house, take what you want, you and Pete, but after that I’ll sell what doesn’t fit in the RV.

      Couldn’t you just get a smaller house here in Chicago? Do you have to leave? Are we making you unhappy, expecting too much.

      Honey, Diana said, rising from her chair and coming over to give her daughter a hug, it’s not up to you to make me happy. No, you don’t expect too much. I know you have your own life to live, and it’s busy enough. I just need this change.

      It seems crazy to me.

      Maybe it will seem less when you reach fifty-eight, retired, don’t have a sense of purpose, and want something different but do not know what.

      Is this Dad’s fault?

      Diana smiled. No, your father did what he needed to do. She would not burden Wendy with her own anger that her friend, Melissa, had gone behind her back to have an affair that eventually led to two divorces. She could not deny that their marriage had gone stale. She had wished them well, as much as she could. Her priority had to be the kids, and that her resentment did not taint their relationship with their father.

      What she hadn’t expected, even though she’d heard of it happening, was how her friends began to avoid her, not to invite her to dinner or their parties. Through friends, not even realizing what they were telling her—Jeff and Melissa were still included. The difficulty of adding Diana to the evenings had evidently embarrassed someone. Maybe she wasn’t as much fun—maybe she’d never been as much fun.

      Are you going to tell him about your selling and leaving?

      She had not planned to but maybe that would be fair. She wanted the kids to have what they wanted of her furniture, hopefully one would take the photo albums and miles of videos, some of her many books, but she had to admit Jeff had a right to the furniture they had often chosen together. Would you do it? she asked with resignation. If he wants something, he can come when I’ll arrange to be gone.

      Wendy sighed again more loudly. I can do that... Did you talk this over with Rachel? Wendy asked reaching down to pet Diana’s Chihuahuas almost absentmindedly.

      No, I haven’t seen much of her recently. Rosa and Betsy stared up at her with those big eyes. She supposed they wanted to go for a walk.

      She’s your best friend.

      Was... she had also been Melissa’s best friend—again a choice had been made. I made my own decision. I’ll be in contact with you all. It’s not as though I won’t have a phone and the Internet.

      I suppose. Wendy sighed again. Finally, she left, not any happier but perhaps reconciled to what was to be.

      Diana woke from a vivid dream that had her puzzled. The dream was somewhere she’d never been. There were red bluffs that soared into an azure sky. A man had walked toward her, mustached, looking strangely familiar and yet not. He said something but it was his eyes that told her he wanted her in a way a man had not in many years. A scream of a hawk woke her before anything interesting happened. She tried to think if she knew the man. The closest was Sam Elliot the movie star, who she most decidedly did not know.

      After breakfast, she twisted her hair into a loose bun at the back of her neck before sorting through what would be given away. She had little interest in selling any of it. She had decided not to rent a storage unit. The choices, of what to take, were more complicated than she’d expected. She had paintings she loved. They would not fit in the motorhome she planned to buy. She could not take her books, maybe a few precious tomes but certainly not three bookcases full. A phone call to a charity to which she had donated solved the problem of her car. They would take the donation when she called them the day she left Chicago.

      Her clothing presented its own complication. She studied her closet and decided four sweaters, three pairs of jeans, two skirts, one full and one straight, five blouses of varying weights, one black dress, a jean jacket, and a heavy coat. She would have no need for cocktail dresses. For footwear, a pair of boots, two of sandals and her tennis shoes would do. Underwear and nightgowns could all fit into the likely drawers. She began to box up all that was left to take to a store, which sold used clothing for charity.

      Wendy called to tell her that her father wanted nothing from the house. No surprise that Melissa would want no reminders of the marriage she’d ended. As she worked, Diana avoided thinking about how her world had collapsed and seemingly within a month.

      She still loved Jeff in the way one did after more than thirty years of marriage, but she admitted to herself that it had been years since she had been in love with him. They’d drifted apart, and the separation had grown more evident when she had retired from teaching. That was when she had time to realize not only was Jeff remote but he was obviously lying to her. He finally confessed he was in love with another woman. She hadn’t expected that and most especially not who it had been.

      Overall, she had come out of the divorce in pretty

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 5