PREVIEWA tropical island.
A widow.
A widower.
Pain buried.
Possibilities blooming.
***
At 47, Regina Clara Mae Wallace Richardson had recently buried more than her husband; she'd buried a life she never wanted in the first place.
***
"He may have been married to you, but he loved me!" the woman hissed.
All eyes of the three hundred or so guests at the burial turned on the woman with the overly long veil, who was pointing a finger at the preacher's wife.
"What?" Clara Mae said, unable to process the simple statement.
"He was going to leave you for me. And then, you, you-- he was miserable with you!" she shouted. "That's what brought on his heart attack. He wanted to leave you. He was going to leave you! But you just wouldn't let go. It's what killed him. He literally died of a broken heart, and it's all your fault!" the woman raged.
The collective silence of the crowd huddled around the soon-to-be-lowered-into-the-ground casket sounded like a cannon in Clara Mae's ears.
She recognized each and every face; faithful members of her deceased husband's congregation.
Every eye was trained on her.
"Say something you evil bitch!" the woman screamed in Clara Mae's face, droplets of spittle landing on the black lace that fronted her Jackie-O like, pillbox hat. "No wonder he wanted to leave you. You can't even shed tears over his dead body in a casket right in front of you. You're as cold as he said. And you killed him; just as surely as if you'd put a bullet in him!"
Clara Mae didn't remember her hand moving. She didn't remember any part of her moving. All she remembered was a body landing on top of her husband's casket, knocking over two floral arrangements that stood beside it, and the tasteful arrangement of white gardenias that adorned the top of it. They had been Fred's favorites.
"You'll pay for this! You'll pay for this! I swear to God, you'll pay for this!" the curvy church secretary sputtered in rage as two attendants from the funeral home helped her up off the casket.
By the time they'd hoisted her up, Clara Mae was seated in the back of the black stretch limousine the funeral home provided for the service. She could feel, rather than see, the hundreds of eyes on her as she looked straight ahead.
Should they continue with the burial ceremony?
Was she going to return?
And what about the raging secretary?
Who was supposed to do what with her?
***
With an unhappy marriage, a ton of deceit and a lifetime of regret behind her, Clara Mae decides to start over. The first thing she sheds is her 'preacher's wife' name of Clara Mae, becoming once again 'Regina.' Then, she moves to the tiny Caribbean island of Tranquille.
There, she hopes to find the woman she'd always wanted to be; to live life unemcumbered by the expectations of being a preacher's wife. She looks forward to going it alone. Only, life had other plans.
Her neighbor on what she thought was going to be her tropical paradise turns out to be a motorcycle-riding transplant from Montana who makes it clear from day one that he intends to have her. It disturbs her in ways she hadn't wanted, needed, or counted on.
But she soon discovers that there's more to the too-sexy-for-his-own-good, Holt Grambling. A dozen years younger than her, he's nursing a lifetime of grief, and is in tune with her in ways no man has ever been, despite their age difference.
Holt holds up a mirror to Regina's life, and she reflects his back to him. Can they overcome their painful pasts to forge a love that allows both of them to embrace what the mirror of life shows?
Or, will their pasts keep them apart?
