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ENDURING LOVE

Summer love never lasted and Lindy knew she was a fool to think it would.  Summer always ends and with it goes the love.  But when Cas and Lindy meet again several years down the track, can that love be rekindled.  Not if Lindy has anything to do with it - and not when her summer love is now a famous racing driver with women falling over themselves to be by his side.

SUNRISE LADY

A reporter on vacation, ready to bask in the Australian sun.
A race car driver back home in Australia after a long absence, ready to change racing styles.
Worlds collide.
Two people caught up in a love-hate relationship. Two people fighting hard against the attraction that has them in its grip.
Sasha and Chad come from different walks of life, with different outlooks on love and marriage. But they are drawn together. Drawn toward a relationship that has no hope of working.
Or does it?

She hated him on sight.  He was everything she despised in a man.  He’s a hell-raiser, a rebel who does not conform to the rules she lives by.  The rules her parents have instilled in her right from birth.  Against her better judgment she is tempted by this man.  Very tempted.

He thinks of her as a stuck up madam who wouldn’t give him the time of day.  But he is attracted to her despite this.  It was better that he forget her.

 

He was standing on the edge of town, one thumb hooked into the strap of his knapsack the other extended in the universal sign of a hitchhiker.

At first glance he looked like a typical freeloder.  With her second glance, the woman behind the wheel of the low-slung sports car revised her opinion.  Against all she had been taught about picking up strangers, Jody pulled to a halt a short distance ahead of the man.

THE DAY THE EARTH SHOOK.

The year is 1929.  It is mid morning in a small country area in Takaka, New Zealand. I was four years old but the memory still lingers like it was yesterday.

 

It was a typical domestic scene of that era.  Life was spent in front of the fire in the kitchen.  On this day my mother was bathing the baby in front of the fire, and I was playing.  Suddenly the earth seemed to tilt and sway and things began to fall from shelves all around me.  I screamed and ran to my mother’s side seeking reassurance that everything was alright.  Wrapping the baby in a towel she dragged me to the doorway.

 

From there I could see the tent where my father slept; he had tuberculosis and had to sleep outside to stop infection spreading to rest of family.  Suddenly after a particularly heavy shake it was surrounded by the firewood that a few minutes earlier had been neatly stacked against a shelter.  To this day I vividly remember seeing him struggling to get out of the tent and wishing I was big enough to help.  As I watched, and the world seem to continue rolling and rocking I saw him lift the back of the tent up and scramble over the wooden frame that surrounded it.

 

Then with a loud crash the two brick chimneys on the house collapsed in a heap on the ground spreading bricks all around the back yard.  Immediately on hearing that crash, my mother told me to sit down so I could hold the baby while she went back and heaved the bath water at the fire to extinguish it and stop the risk of fire.

 

Meanwhile in other parts of the house bedlam reigned. The house continued to sway and shake and with a loud crash all the bottles of preserves from the top shelf of the pantry ended up in a messy heap on the floor.  Ornaments and books fell off their shelves to become strewn around the large room in an untidy mess.

 

At the age of four I was not really aware of what was happening I only knew that I was scared. Back at my side my mother thrust me and my baby brother under the kitchen table and told me not to move until she came back for us. My little heart pounding out of control I did as she said.  At that moment I had no idea what was going to happen to me, or if I would see another day.

 

Pandemonium reined for what seemed like hours but was probably only a short time.  Time seemed to stand still for a terrified four year old in charge of a three week old baby.

 

At the school up the road, the children were screaming with fright. This terror intensified when they realised they were trapped in their classroom.  During the earthquake a ruler had jammed itself under the door and they were unable to open it.  It took a neighbour hearing those screams to come and break a window to rescue the frightened children.

 

For the parents at home and with no way to contact the school it was a worrying time.  They did not know whether their offspring were safe until one of the people who lived next door to the school took the rescued children home to their respective houses.

 

After the earth settled back onto its axis my parents were able to survey the house and the damage caused by this earthquake.  At four I was not really aware of how much damage had been done or what it would take to get it back to normal.  Luckily for us it was still habitable even though there was a mess of food and broken bottles in the pantry and a lot of our possessions were strewn all around the house.

It took my mother and the rest of the family weeks to clean it up and get it back to how it had been before the earthquake.  Weeks when I wondered when the next shaking would occur again.

 

This was the story my mother told me about the first earthquake she ever felt.  She is now 84 and I am sure has felt lots more since then.  But the first is always the worst.