It All Started with a Lima Bean (Intertwined Hearts book 1)
Author: Kimi Flores
Published: August 8th, 2013
Hosted By: The Book Avenue
A past that haunts can be laid to rest through the act of forgiveness, even if the person you forgive is yourself. It must be gifted freely.
Abby Sullivan cherishes the life she is creating for herself in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California. She adores her best friend and supportive family. Her job as a kindergarten teacher offers her life hope and purpose. She is very talented at many things, especially hiding the pain of her past. That is until her world collides with Caleb Hunter’s, giving them both a lesson in forgiveness and love.
A life changing love is cruelly snatched by sickness and death. A person must be willing to give love, the greatest gift of all, to receive love.
A successful writer, Caleb is living life day-to-day. Giving refuge to his sad and lonely heart since his wife's sudden death from cervical cancer, his primary focus becomes honoring her memory by rearing their five-year-old daughter, Madison. Yet, when Madison Hunter walks into Miss Abby’s kindergarten class, everything changes for all three of them.
With a little nudge from a loving mother-in-law who has everyone’s best interest at heart, anything is possible, especially when forgiveness and love gift even more blessings than ever imaginable.
"PROLOGUE"
“No, please,” he choked out. “I can’t do this without you.” His chest was tight. Agony strangled his heart with its greedy hands. Caleb shook his head as tears fell from swollen eyes that had witnessed his wife go through so much hell that past year. Softly, he whispered, while closing his tired lids and tilting his head back, “Please don’t take her.” The corner of his lips trembled when he sucked in a shaky breath. This wasn’t the way to let her go. Their family and friends had gathered in the brightly lit room, witnessing him behaving with such desperation. The life he’d created with his wife, Rene, was crashing down all around, shredding his soul into pieces, like glass shards from a shattering window, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. The smell of sickness and death lingered in the air, assaulting his nostrils and lungs. This scent would be ingrained in his memories forever.
“It’s okay Caleb.” Her chest rose up and down as she labored to take shallow breaths. His gaze fell upon her sunken eyes. Lying in the hospital bed she’d spent entirely too much time in, she let out another painful moan. “Everything is going to be fine. You know I’m going to a better place. We will be together again.” Rene gave an exhausted cough, further proof of her long suffering.
“I know, but I can’t let you go.” With quivering hands, he leaned over to stroke her cheek, using the pad of his thumb while holding the side of her neck. “You’re my everything.” A trembling hand touched his shoulder, attempting to provide comfort. Caleb didn’t need to look up to know it was his mother-in-law, Grace. Everyone in the confined space of the hospital room had said goodbye to Rene several hours before Caleb took the seat beside her bed. Now that her end was so close, he wished more than anything that they would all leave. He couldn’t ask anyone to do that though. They were hurting, just as he was.
He sensed in her once brilliant blue eyes that she only had moments left. With a weak smile, she whispered so softly it was difficult to hear, “I love you. Please make sure Madison knows how much I love her, too.” Her labored breaths came few and far between, and she winced with the effort it simply took to breathe. She spoke those last words before falling into a morphine-induced slumber. A nurse stayed close, administering the pain medication as needed to ensure Rene’s comfort.
With tear streaked cheeks, Caleb bent down, gently placing his trembling lips onto hers. “I love you too. I always will.” The woman he’d counted on spending the rest of his life with took her last breath under his kiss. The piercing hum of the heart monitor confirmed what he couldn’t bear to accept; she was gone.
“No, no, no! Come back to me, please!” Caleb’s violent sobs echoed throughout the room while he gripped his wife’s withered, unresponsive body.
Kimi lives in So Ca with her high school sweetheart, prom date, and now husband of over 20 years as well as with her two boys that bring so much joy and laughter to her life. There is never a dull moment in Kimi's day with these three guys by her side. They are happily involved in volunteer work with several local non-profit organizations and believe that everyone needs to do their part, so a portion of her sales will always go to charity.
At an early age, Kimi discovered the magical world of imagination. Many stories were written as well as illustrated by her as a child. Not realizing at the time that she had dyslexia, schoolwork became extremely difficult, and her confidence as a reader and writer dwindled. Thanks to a high school teacher who took the time to invest in her, Kimi found a love for literary legends such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Jane Austen. This teacher helped Kimi create one of the happiest school memories she holds. Discovering in college that she had the learning disability was terribly discouraging since help was not readily available and her reading and writing confidence fell once again.
Needing to find a distraction when her husband unexpectedly ended up in the hospital for a week, Kimi explored the indie reading world. Jumping in with everything she had, Kimi pushed herself to read over 150 books last year. During that process, many characters reappeared in her imagination and insisted that their stories be told. Putting all self-doubt and barriers aside, she started writing the outlines and drafts for the four books in her Intertwined Hearts Series as well as bits and pieces of the three books in her next series, Down by the Bay.
Her message to you is similar to that of pop icon, will.i.am's:
~You can focus on your problems or you can focus on your dreams ~
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