MEET MY CHARACTER: Jessica Wonder from “Code Red”

You may have arrived from Susan Peterson Wisnewski’s “Meet My Character.” If not, go check out her blog http://www.spwwrites.com/blog/. She is the author of Secrets in San Remo and Chasing the Rainbow, both romantic suspense novels. She will be releasing a new series of paranormal thrillers this fall, tentatively titled Adams Thriller I, II, & III.

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MEET JESSICA WONDER, from CODE RED, my newly released novella from Boroughs Publishing.

Instead of describing the heroine of the story- I thought I’d give you a piece of backstory. A tiny slice of why she acted as she did in the first scene of the book!

Jessica had never met his family although they’d been engaged over a year. Somehow, it had never mattered. When Robert had arrived in her life, she just accepted the fact that he’d drive through a few times a year between his parents’ house and his work at the University of Toronto. Now it mattered.

His death came to her through a bare bones obituary, listing only his funeral arrangements and the car accident that took his life, not from a phone call of a family member. A family she’d never be part of now. It took three hundred dollars she’d had to borrow in order to travel to the small town of Eagle’s Den where his family’s farm was located. She was late and didn’t have time to meet the people who would never be her in-laws before the funeral. Instead, she hustled through the parking lot to the back of the small white church and into the cemetery. Her dark blue dress with the Peter Pan collar seemed appropriate among the twenty or so people wearing somber dresses or plain black suits and standing around the casket. She would have fit in nicely in this town.

Jessica sought an older couple being consoled by loving touches and warm hugs of neighbors and friends. She wanted to comfort the parents of the man she loved and gain some comfort as well. But the attention of the crowd fell on a little girl, so tiny and cute in a pink dress, carrying a teddy bear. Her blonde hair was like Robert’s.

A thin elegant woman with dark hair and big brown reddened eyes hugged the girl close. One of the well wishers placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry. Robert was an amazing man. I remember your wedding as though it was yesterday. 

“Thank you.” The woman gazed down at the little girl. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He only had one semester left before he graduated and we could move back here.”

Pain cracked the woman’s voice and shot something lethal into Jessica’s heart. He was married. Jessica inhaled, but her windpipe had tightened and not much air could make it through. It wouldn’t have mattered, because her chest felt as though a boulder had smashed into her, leaving her breathless and sore. He had a daughter and a wife and a life without her. The love of her life was a lying, cheating, sack of shit.

No wonder she’d never met the family. No one introduces the mistress to Mom and Dad. She pulled the tiny diamond and gold off her finger, scraping the knuckle until it bled. She walked over to the casket, already dropped into the hole that would keep him away from her forever. Although the mourners may have noticed her, the blurry images caused by tears she was now embarrassed about shedding provided a shield from caring about what others thought. She tossed the ring back to the demon asshole who had used her for sex and offered only the illusion of a future in return.

She raced back to her car,  struggling for breath, and drove away. Her hand pushed back her dark hair, eerily similar to the almost black waves flowing over the shoulders of Robert’s widow. Jessica needed to change that. Red. Like blood, like hate, like sex disguised as an act of love.

 

 

Next week, catch Susan Scott Shelley‘s Meet My Character.