Tanya Eavenson is an international bestselling and award-winning
inspirational romance author. She enjoys spending time with her husband and
their three children. Her favorite pastime is grabbing a cup of coffee, eating
chocolate and reading a good book.
What’s the hardest part of writing romantic suspense? Tanya: I think the hardest part is writing the action scenes. I can see the
scenes playing out in my mind but telling it on paper for the reader to feel the
moment is a challenge, yet very rewarding in the end.
What’s your go-to when you need a pick-me-up to keep
writing? Tanya: Chocolate and coffee! And at times, more chocolate and coffee. 😊
What is one of your favorite ways to connect with
readers? Tanya: One of my favorite ways to connect with readers is at book signings.
There’s something special about meeting people face-to-face, shaking hands, and
receiving hugs. It’s almost like a family reunion and the joys of being
together.
Current book: To Gain a Bodyguard Undercover agent Madi Reynolds has spent years
infiltrating a human-trafficking ring, but when her life is threatened, she is
advised to leave the country with her bodyguard.
The words punctured my mom like a
pin deflating a balloon. Her shoulders slumped, and she suddenly looked every
inch of her nearly six decades. “Emily,” Mom’s voice broke on a harsh sob. “Oh,
my darling daughter. No, it wasn’t worth it. Not at all. I didn’t read the
Bible. I merely thought if I could be good enough that would atone for my
having lived when he died. But I couldn’t keep it up, and had to escape
sometimes. I didn’t pick up that old Book until a few months ago, when I
suddenly came across it on my bookshelf and remembered what that man had told
me all those years ago.”
I closed my eyes in grief at those
lost years, the years when I had so desperately needed a mother’s guidance. But
had I been any better? I hadn’t made any attempts to repair our frayed relationship
in the years since my father’s death. I had been content to maintain the status
quo, not bothering to look beneath the surface to see my mom’s hurting soul.
“I read it.” Her voice held amazement
as a smile broke through. “I realized what he had been telling me, that Jesus does
love me and has called me to Him.”
She turned a shining face to me. “Once
I accepted that, it dawned on me what a terrible, awful mother I had been, how
I had stifled all the love in our house by focusing only on me, and my wants
and needs and desires. I never once considered your father or you. I can’t ask
your father’s forgiveness, but can you find it in your heart to forgive an old
woman the wrongs she has done? Can we start over and have a real relationship,
even at this late stage?”
I stared at the wooden cross, and
thought about a man who had died pointing the Way to my mother. Her journey had
taken more than thirty years to find the truth. I reached out and touched her
arm. “I’m not sure how to start over, Mom.”
“I know.” She patted my hand.
“But lunch might be a good place to
begin,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “And maybe we can talk some more
about what you’ve been reading in that Book of yours.”
My hand flew to my throat. I could
nearly hear the squeal of breaks, the screams of passengers, and the crunch of
metal at the collision.
Her voice dropped even lower. “The
man next to me was covered in blood. Clearly, he was gravely injured, probably
dying. But he focused not on himself, but on me, on the state of my soul. He
thrust his Bible into my hands, begging me to read the truth within its pages.
His last words have haunted me to this day.”
A truck roared past, whipping up a
cloud of dust that irritated my eyes. At least, that’s the excuse I gave myself
for the tears in my eyes. Then her words registered on another level. “Wait a
minute. Are you talking about the Bible that sat on the mantle? The one with
the cracked leather and dark splotches? Those were blood stains?”
“Yes, that’s the Bible he gave me,
Emily,” Mom affirmed. “I clutched the Bible and tried to comfort him, tried to
stop the blood, but he waved off my feeble attempts and said to me, ‘Norma
Jane. Jesus said, “I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.” He’s calling your name, Norma Jane.’”
My eyes fell on the simple wooden
cross, representing a man who gave his last breath to reach another’s lost
soul.
“But I never answered Him, Emily.”
My mother turned to me, grabbing hold of my hands in a tight grip. “I could
feel His tugging on my heart, but I ignored His call. After the accident, I had
no heart left for continuing my journey, so I returned home to you and your
father. And I tried to be a good person, tried to love you and your father the
best way I could. I felt I had to, you see, because I was spared.”
“But you were always distant, so
cold in a lot of ways. I knew that you loved me, but I also knew that you
weren’t happy, that you would rather be off doing something else. And when Daddy
died, you finally did leave.”
Mom squeezed my hands, then let go.
“I’m an old woman now. My life hasn’t turned out quite like I expected. I
wanted you to understand what happened here, how it changed the course of my
life. I thought maybe we could reconnect somehow.”
I sighed in frustration as the old
hurts clawed their way to the forefront of my mind. “Changed the course of your
life? How, exactly, did it change your life?”
I paced away from her, stopping by
the foot of the cross, then whirling around to point an accusing finger at my
mom. “Instead of running away with some stranger, you returned to play the
martyr with Dad and me. Then you simply disappeared whenever the walls closed
in. That about sums it up, right? But then Dad died, and you had a golden
opportunity to recapture those ‘lost’ years, didn’t you?”
My voice rose to compete with the wind. “Was it worth
it, Mom? Didn’t you even read the Bible that man on the bus died to give you?”
I eyed the desolate landscape, then
looked at my mother, who I’d never seen shed a tear. “What are you talking
about?”
“How do I even begin? I know I’ve
not been a good mother to you. And part of the reason has to do with that cross.”
Her voice steadied as she told me about a day more than 30 years ago.
The facts were simple. A Greyhound
bus with a half-dozen passengers bound for Mexico collided with a semi-truck
whose driver ran the stop sign at the intersection. The resulting crash killed one
bus passenger and injured both drivers.
I stared at the cross, questions
swirling in my mind. I asked the one that floated to the surface. “Were you on
the bus?”
The silence between us stretched on.
As I waited for her answer, I reflected on how little I really knew my mother.
She had always been somewhat mysterious, suddenly disappearing for a few days at
a time, once or twice a year. My father would smile sadly when I asked about
her unexpected absences and say that she was off exploring the world. She
always returned and, to my knowledge, my father never questioned her
whereabouts. He also refused to tolerate my asking her about the trips.
The summer between my junior and
senior years of college, she abruptly took off one sultry August night and
didn’t come home—or call—for two weeks. While she was away, my father suffered
a fatal heart attack. I, as the only child, had to shoulder the responsibility
of burying him. My mother traipsed back home to find her husband dead and
buried, and her daughter so furious with her that their relationship never
quite recovered.
Now I wondered if her words would
shed any light on her past.
“Yes, I was on the bus,” she said in
a voice barely above a whisper. “I was running away to Mexico to be with some
drifter who had caught my eye. Now I can’t even remember his name. I, well, I
wanted adventure, not a baby and a husband.”
“And so?” I prompted when the
silence lengthened again.
“I sat on the bus by myself for
most of the journey, until an older man took the open seat beside me a few
stops before Orogrande. He didn’t say much at first, but then he began asking
questions about my journey and my life, such as where I was headed, where was I
from. His gentle eyes put me at ease, and I found myself pouring out my unhappiness.”
Mom blinked back tears, her voice
becoming thready as she continued. “After refueling at Orogrande, the man pulled
out a worn Bible. I rolled my eyes and said, ‘Don’t you go quoting Scripture to
me, mister.’ He just lovingly stroked the Bible’s cracked cover and said, ‘But,
Norma Jane, Jesus loves you, and He says so right here in this Book.’ Whatever
else he was going to say, I’ll never know. At that very minute, the semi hit
the bus.”
This is part one of a short story I wrote a few years ago. Enjoy!
It’s always startling to find out
your mother has a secret, especially when it’s not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill
secret, but an I’ve-never-told-a-living-soul secret. My mother, Norma Jane
Brookings, began unburdening this secret with a simple phone call.
* *
*
My cell phone jarred me awake from
a deep, dreamless sleep. Disoriented, I grabbed the phone and croaked out a
greeting.
“Emily? Did I wake you? Time to
rise and shine, sleepyhead,” a familiar voice chirped sweetly into my ear.
“Mom,” I squinted at the time on
the screen, “it’s five-thirty. In the morning.”
I rubbed my eyes and waited for my
mother—who never called without an agenda—to continue.
“You haven’t fallen back asleep,
have you? Emily?”
I exhaled loudly. “I’m here, mom.
What’s going on?”
“You’re still in Santa Fe, right?”
“Yes, I’m researching the Delaplane
family’s trek to California
along the Santa Fe trail.”
“You have the most interesting job.”
My work as a genealogical
researcher provided one of the few topics my mother and I could discuss without
animosity. When I was a child, she had often taken off without explanation for
days at a time, leaving me alone with my father. She left for good after my
father died during my college years. Our communication now mostly consisted of
brief phone calls and birthday cards, and the sporadic correspondence
contributed to my feelings of hurt and anger toward my mother.
“Can you take a day off to drive to
Orogrande?” Mom asked.
“Is that in New Mexico?”
“Yes. Could you do it today?”
“Today?” I mentally reviewed my
remaining workload. “I suppose so. Why?”
“Wonderful. It’s about a four-hour
drive from Santa Fe,
so I’ll call you about ten-thirty.” She ended the call without waiting for my
answer.
Drop everything and drive to Orogrande?
The phone rang again.
“Emily? Aren’t you in the shower
yet? Get moving!”
Click.
I grimaced and staggered sleepily
to the bathroom.
* * *
I arrived at Orogrande, New Mexico,
at precisely ten-twenty-eight. Only a rundown hotel, grocery store, gasoline
station, two restaurants, and a dilapidated bus station greeted me.
Swirling dust added a filmy layer of
grit to my already sticky skin as I stepped out into the mid-morning sun.
My phone rang. I checked the time: Ten-thirty
on the dot.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Emily. Where are you?”
“Where else but in Orogrande, on Main Street.”
“Oh, good. I’ll be right there.”
Another click.
In shock, I swiveled around and saw
my mother walking towards me from the hotel.
“All right. Let’s go,” she said,
opening the passenger car door of my vehicle.
I shrugged and got behind the
wheel.
“Now head south on Highway 54 and
pull off the road at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 13,” she
instructed.
“Mom, what’s this all about?”
My mother stubbornly pressed her
lips together and stared straight ahead. I shook my head and started driving.
At Highways 54 and 13, I pulled off
the road and found myself staring at a weather-beaten wooden cross. Straggly grass
grew up around its base. A barbed wire fence separated the shoulder from ranch
land.
“What on earth are we doing here?”
She sidestepped the question as she
exited the car. I followed.
“I’ve failed, you know.” She paused
and broke into sobs. “That cross should have represented my death, but instead,
I’m here.”