Ace's Wild (15 page)

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Acknowledgements

    First and foremost to my wonderful husband and children for supporting me through this, I love you more than I could ever say.

   
This process was a difficult one for me, there were days when I wanted to give up but with the help of family and friends I pushed through.

   
A huge, HUGE, thank you to Heather Diemer and Erica Cope for helping me through this process and answering all of my questions. Both of you rock! And thanks for helping me pick out booty guy, he was definitely a good choice.

    To my awesome editor Jenny over at Editing4Indies! You rock!

    To my family, the ones who have stuck by me, thank you for showing me such tremendous support, I could not have done this without you. This includes my amazing in-laws, I married into a hell of a family and I thank my lucky stars every single day.

    To all of my blogging buddies! Although, I’ve dreamed of being a writer since I was young I
became a blogger first and let me just say, it’s hard work. I have been blessed by the phenomenal people I have met in this community.

    Special thanks to- Akeisha, for everything! You have been one of my b
iggest supporters and I can’t thank you enough.

    To my friends, I don’t have many but the ones I do have
are amazing.

    To Erin- PURPLE.

     I’m technically an author now but that still doesn’t stop me from being a total fan girl. I could write an entire book saying thanks to all of my favorites. So, thank you to all who have inspired me. I’m lucky that I get to actually communicate with some of you, it’s a fan girls dream come true.

    To anyone I’ve met along the way that has given me advice, thank you.

    Last but in no way least, my readers, THANK YOU! I don’t think I will ever get used to someone wanting to read what I write but I am forever grateful.

Sneak Peek:

A new series

Maybe Memories
by Erika Van Eck

Book One

(Comin
g Early 2015)

Prologue

14 years ago…

    “Let’s hide in here Riley” I whisper. My mommy and Riley’s daddy are doing the bad stuff again. When they do the bad stuff we hide so they don’t do mean things to us. I’m older and bigger than Riley is so I always try to protect her but sometimes they still find us.

    I’ve known Riley ever since she was a baby. She’s four now and I’m seven. Her daddy comes over a lot and lets me play with her while he goes into my mommy’s room. They stay in there for a long time, sometimes he doesn’t come out until morning but those are the good days. The earlier in the night they come out of the room the worse it is for Riley and me.

    “Heavy, I’m scared” she cries. She still can’t pronounce my name right so she calls me Heavy instead of Heavenly, I usually can’t help but giggle.
Right now is different though, since we’re both in a hurry to get away from the bad things.

    “Shh, it’s okay Riley. I’ll protect you, I’ll always protect you.” I grab her hand and we shut ourselves into my bedroom closet. I scoot back until I can no longer move anything out of the way. I learned early on to put all of my clothes and stuffed animals on my closet floor that way I can bury myself underneath it and hide if I need to. I don’t have enough for both of us so I decide to let Riley sit behind me and I begin to cover her the best I can.

    After she’s settled I unhook one of my long jackets from the hanger and lie next to Riley while trying to cover as much of myself as I can.

    We sit quietly for a few minutes with the only disruption being Riley’s sniffles.

     “Do you want me to sing to you Riley girl?”

     “Y-yes” she whimpers.

     I find her hand beneath the heap of stuffed animals and begin singing “You are my Sunshine”. Slowly her sniffles disappear. Once I’m done I give her hand a reassuring squeeze. She asks me to sing it again, so I do.

    Sometimes my mommy drops me off at Riley’s grandma’s house where Riley lives. Those are my favorite times because her grandma always bakes us cookies and lets us watch TV. But on the nights that she has church or Bingo then Riley’s daddy comes here instead.

    I close my eyes and cuddle closer to Riley while not missing a beat with the song. After repeating the song for the fifth time my eyes grow heavy.

    I begin to dream of a place where there are no bad things. Maybe if I ask really nicely Riley’s grandma will let me live there too. I’d really like that.

    I must have fallen asleep because I startle awake from a loud banging coming from the front of the house and then voices yelling. I grab on to Riley and cover her ears. I start to pray for the bad things to go away. Riley’s grandma says that if I pray sometimes god will answer my prayers. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep praying for the banging to stop and for the bad things to go away.

    There are loud footsteps coming from the other side of my bedroom door. My body begins trembling but I’m trying to hold myself together for Riley. She is still somehow sleeping but I don’t see that lasting long.

    My bedroom door slams open. I hear shuffling and a deep voice say “all clear”. I let out a whimper but hurry to cover my mouth. I don’t want the bad guys to get me.

    My closet door suddenly opens and I try to make my body as little as possible, wrapping myself around Riley. She begins moving but before I can calm her it’s too late. The few clothes that are hanging above me are swept to the side and a huge scary man with a gun looms over us.

    We both let out a scream and then everything goes dark.