The Crying Bridge

The Crying Bridge--Chapter One

Author's Note: The creepy cover for this book was created to the sweet and talented Kylia Wood. If you ever need a cover, please ask her! She is very fast and always has great options to choose from. Visit her profile:  kyliawood to learn more.

The porch swing was her pride and joy. It was perfect for the little house nestled in the quiet, wooded lot. She'd found it at a flea market one day shortly after she'd bought the place. Some of the slats had been broken and the suspension chains were nearly rusted through, but she'd bought it anyway, for next to nothing. Two men had delivered it here and after the movers had unloaded all the other stuff from Chicago, she had gotten started making all of it a part of her new home.

More than a few contractors had visited as she'd had both the inside and outside of the house completely overhauled. New paint, new floors, new windows and a new roof had transformed the place from a run-down dump into something quite charming. The old claw-foot bathtub in the single bathroom and all the original cabinetry in both the bathroom and kitchen had been kept. New fixtures had been needed for both rooms, but she couldn't have imagined not keeping as much of the original stuff as possible. It all gave a sense of history to the place. Everything really was perfect, and she had easily been able to afford all the work that had been needed, thanks to the very generous prenuptial agreement Gavin had asked her to sign before their short-lived joke of a marriage. Truth be told, she could have afforded them without Gavin's money, but she figured it was poetic justice that he should fund her new start on life. She had considered buying something bigger, more affluent given her financial circumstances, but in the end she just wanted a space to call her own and this tiny little house had immediately captured her heart.

For the porch swing, though, there were no repairmen. That was all hers. It had sort of been therapy, rehabbing it. As she had patiently stripped the old wood, replaced the broken and missing slats and repainted the whole thing she had actually allowed herself to work through some of the feelings she hadn't even realized were still bottled up inside of her. She was glad the marriage was finally over, but she had been holding on to a ridiculous sense of failure as a wife. She knew she'd married for all the wrong reasons, but she had still hoped she and Gavin would be able to make it work.

As she had worked on the swing, her thoughts drifted randomly and would almost always end up with the baby...but, no, she wasn't ready to think about that just yet. There is no baby she would remind herself and with that would return to the work at hand, only letting herself think about what a shit Gavin had been in the end.

And now the swing was complete. As she looked it over, she mentally patted herself on the back. She had done a good job on it, and not such a bad job on healing her wounded psyche.

She glanced at her wristwatch and felt a slight pang of annoyance. Mr. Robertson had told her yesterday that the handyman he'd recommended would be happy to hang the swing for her today. She'd made a special trip into town early this morning to pick up the chain, and now the guy was twenty minutes late. She didn't much appreciate tardiness. She supposed it was the teacher in her. She heard the rumbling of an engine and the sound of crunching gravel behind her. She turned, brushing a stray brunette curl from her face and saw a small-size blue pick-up truck coming down the private drive, just now crossing the tiny bridge that spanned what used to be a creek but was all but dried up now.

"'Bout time,' she muttered as she returned the driver's wave. She began walking toward the approaching vehicle.

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