Her Protector

Chapter 1

Dianna Montgomery was sitting peacefully on a beach shore. Softly she felt the water touch her feet. Looking out to the sea, she saw a gorgeous sunset. It had colors of blue, red, orange and yellow over the ocean. The beach around her was vacant, but she sensed there was someone coming. She looked to her right and saw a figure down the beach walking towards her. Dianna waited for it to reach her. But it didn't get any closer. Courageously, she got up and started walking towards the figure. There was a warm breeze that blew her long brown hair and white dress. The sand was like silk against her feet. Frustratingly, she was not making any progress walking. So she started running frantically. Out of breath, Dianna sat down. Since she could not get closer to this silhouette or figure. She decided to try to figure out what it was from her view. She ruled out animal, alien, and machine because it had two legs, hair only on its head, and well there was no green skin. So it was definitely a human.

"Is it a man or a woman?" she whispered. But before she could answer that question about the anonymous person, she woke up.

Dianna was back in her queen sized bed that her dad had bought her 10 years ago for college. But she didn't get to finish college because she had to help support her brother. Dianna's dad lived in Louisiana. She lost her mom when she was young from breast cancer.

Dianna had had that dream about 4 or 5 times in the last couple of weeks. Instead of lingering on the subject in her mind, she knew it would pass in the next couple of weeks. It usually did.

She was covered by her black comforter on top of her bed, and was now contemplating if she wanted to get up or just sleep in. Ensconced in a warm place, she didn't want to move. Knowing; however, that she would be late for work if she slept in. She jumped out of bed to fast and was immediately cold. She ran to her bathroom and turned on her shower. Slowly, the water warmed up. She was more than eager to get her clothes off and get in the warm shower.

After her shower, she brushed, dried, and straightened her hair. Dianna applied her make up which was just concealer, mascara, and eye liner. She put her white ear warmers over her freshly dried hair. Layer by layer, she put on her work clothes: a red jacket, black cover-alls, and also black snow boots. It took her about 15 to 20 minutes to get dressed. That was a record for her because it is hard to move around in a two bedroom and one bathroom apartment. She shared the place with her brother, Trevor. Trevor had gotten his graduate in culinary arts. Now he was head chef at the Italian restaurant called the Mona Lisa in the Hilton Ski-in-Ski-out. Trevor had difficulties paying some of the bills sometimes. So Dianna had to make up his shortages. He always said he would pay her back, but she knew he probably wouldn't.

Quickly, she got breakfast on her way out of the apartment which that was a granola bar. It was 4 days before Christmas in Colorado. So naturally the ground was covered in a thick blanket of snow. The concrete walkway going to the apartment was wet and icy. Dianna almost slipped on her way to her car on the concrete but she stabilized herself. Dianna's red SUV was covered with snow, ice, and water. It would take her 30 minutes to defrost the car. She checked the time on her phone, and realized she didn't have enough time to do that. Beside her car was her brother's ford truck, it wasn't as badly covered as hers was. Running and sliding, she reached the apartment. She was so grateful that she hadn't had an apartment on the second floor. Quickly, she made it through the apartment without a second to spare. Trevor was fast asleep under his navy comforter. Dianna then burst through his door. She made her way through the path of clothes, dirty and clean. It smelled like flour and body odor.

Nudging Trevor on the shoulder, Dianna tried to arouse him from his unconsciousness. "Wake up!"

He moaned," Go away."

"Where are your keys?" Dianna ignored him.

Without uncovering his head he pointed to the large dresser across the room. Trevor was not much of a morning person. He generally got up at ten-thirty in the morning. It was 7:45 so this was really early for him. Dianna would be like that too if she didn't have work. She was a ski school instructor on Peak A in Vail. She taught mostly adult classes. Thank goodness to because she had a horrible experience with the children's classes. The class had started with 5 kids, but ended up with 2 because the other three decided not to listen and went down a triple black diamond, which is one of the hardest slopes there. She had bent down to fix a little girls ski goggles and taken her eyes of the three kids. In the end, Dianna had gotten to them before they got really hurt. They learned a valuable lesson that day to listen to the teacher.