Authors: Renee Matteo
He looked up and over to her. “Join me.” He lightly tapped the spot on the step next to him.
Gina slowly walked over to the steps, taking every moment in as she tiptoed her way cautiously down to him. She took a seat, wrapping her arms around her knees and lowered her head into her body. She was nervous again, or maybe angry. She couldn’t decide. Something about the moment cautioned her emotions. She sat quietly next to him, watching his mind race through his eyes.
“I was driving. Thinking of all the things I had packed up trying to remember if I forgot anything. That feeling came over me. You know that feeling you get when you know you forgot something?”
Gina looked up at him, nestled from her fetal like position as she sat next to him.
“So then it hit me. I didn’t have something with me. And then this song came on the radio, and I realized what it was. It was something so important, something I could not live the rest of my life without. I knew I couldn’t because I have tried before. The song that came on was “Break your Heart”. That something was you.”
Gina’s heart felt as if it dropped out of her body. She froze in his words trying all she could to be as logical as possible with the situation in front of her. She wanted to be mad at him, she wanted to be strong and tell him to leave. She wanted to cry and scream and yell. However, the most overwhelming feeling she had was the love she had and always felt for him. She searched her mind for the right response, but she was too shocked by the moment to say a thing.
Grant turned to her, taking her hands in his. They sat like two school age children at the bottom of the porch, holding hands, burdened and excited by the unknown. “When I am not with you, all I can think about is being with you. And when I am with you, next to you, inside you, it still isn’t close enough. I could crawl under your skin and I still wouldn’t feel close enough to you. You are my other half Gina, my soulmate. I knew it the moment I saw you at Chris Weaver’s house and I knew it the moment you showed up at my house.” He stared at her so deep she could feel his eyes pierce through her body.
Gina exhaled a long breath, one she didn’t realize she was even holding and let out a light laugh, breaking his words that were still hanging in the air. She slowly smiled, allowing it to grow even bigger as she watched him smile back at her.
“You busy?” He put his arm around her, pulling her in close.
“Right now?”
“Yeah. Now, tomorrow, this Yeahr, the rest of your life?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was hoping I could pack up that thing I forgot and take it to Chicago with me.”
“You really think it was going to be that easy?”
“I was hoping.” He looked at her with approval; she offered no response. “Gina, I am sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, or string you along. It was complicated for me. I didn’t want to hurt Sarah. I felt an obligation to stand behind the promise I made to her. At the end of the day, I had to let my pride go. I can’t live without you. Gina, please don’t make me live without you.” A Grant Gina rarely saw had surfaced. The strong, sexy confident Grant was overcome by a raw emotion she had only seen from him a few times in her life.
“Was that your back up plan?” To apologize and then to beg?”
“Pretty much,” he said cautiously. “Did it work?”
Gina smiled at him. She loved Grant. Everything in the past, how they got to this moment didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was they were together again. They sat quietly on the steps, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
“Come with me Gina. Be with me.”
“I think that could be arranged.” She replied. He
held her tight, with her face snuggled into his chest. “I can’t think of another place I would rather be than with you. I love you Grant.”
“I love you too Gina, always have, always will.”
About the Author
Even as a child Renee Matteo would craft stories and poems for her family. Every special occasion, wedding, birth or anniversary became a new poem. When she lost her mom at six Yeahrs old, it was just the first of many setbacks that she learned from and had to recover from. Her passion to connect through her words led her to a degree in communications from Kent State University where she graduated a semester early. Since writing had always been her passion, Renee hoped that she could express the heartaches, successes and exhilarations she’d lived herself and heard from others in stories that would touch those who would read them
.
Renee resides in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH with her eight Yeahr old daughter Reilly where she is an active part of the school and her community. Her most important volunteer work can be found at
www.ritamatteo.org
, a non-profit foundation started by her family to award scholarships to students of their community who share the same spirit for volunteerism as her mother.
*Biography written by Lawrence Matteo
Titles Available From
Charles Towne Publishing
True Heroes
by Myles Gann
Caleb Whitmor
was born with unusual talents. From day one, he has been obsessed with the details that most people in the world couldn't see, and capable of feats that most people could never dream possible. The question facing his unlimited potential is simple: what side of good and evil will he take? Even as he must decide that answer, his rare gifts fight for control from within his own mind, and it is up to a shy girl named Alice to show him the love that could point him towards the righteous path. Now Caleb must fight every battle from all sides, as the world around him screams for a true hero to save everyone.
Available at Amazon.com and on Kindle
The Connection
by L.A. Lyons
Kennedy Clark cannot wait to get out of her small hometown, where country clubbing is a bona fide activity and gossip mongering is an Olympic sport. She only has to make it through the teenage cliché of prom night, and then she can start her new life. With the disappearance of her best friend, Natalie, Kennedy is forced to explore the possibility that she may have some psychic abilities. A connection between her dreams and real life will lead her to the truth behind her friend’s disappearance, and also to a family secret that will shake her to the core.
Available at Amazon.com, the Kindle, and at B&N
Lily in Bloom
by T.J. Burton
Lily Carter needed a husband if she was going to save her family from financial ruin. She was beautiful, from a well established family, and was sure that finding a suitable man would never be a problem. But as men swirled around her, it became clear that only one could hold her heart, Eric Sampson. A victim of kidnapping and a casualty of the world around her, Lily becomes more focused on Eric and the love she has for him. Unfortunately, he is the one man who does not seem interested.
Available at Amazon.com and on Kindle
Crooked River
by M.P. Murphy
Captain Gilmore, a baron of Cleveland industry, is appalled by the negative press his two daughters have brought on the family, so when the youngest is caught up in a blackmail scandal he does everything he can to keep it out of the local tabloids, including hiring former FBI agent Jack Francis to track down the blackmailer. With a passion for bourbon and women, Francis dives headfirst into a case that soon turns into a murder investigation with a disappearing body. Knowing that he may be in over his head Jack calls on the help of his former partner at the Bureau to give him a hand, only to discover it was agent Colin Sommers who had recommended him to the Captain in the first place. Soon Jack is looking over his shoulder and questioning loyalties as he tries to retrieve the blackmail evidence and stop a killer from striking again.
Find the WWII novella,
The Hunted
on Kindle now!
Available at Amazon.com and on Kindle
For more information visit www.charlestownepublishing.com