David Bond – Romantic Excerpt – Part 3 of 3

Shannon here: Inspirational author, David Bond shares an excerpt from his latest release, A Time To Build. Comment on any post dated June 11 – 15 for a chance to win your choice of his e-books, The Attache or A Time to Build. Deadline: June 23, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s David:

Hallie folded her arms on the top of the island and leaned forward, her hair falling off her shoulders, a few strands dangling down the side of her face. He gripped the sides of his legs, refraining from reaching up to tuck the wayward locks behind her ear.
She shook her head, her gaze fixed on the floral centerpiece. “It’s so complicated. This man, he’s not behind it. I’m sure of that. You are aware we had another incident yesterday. Wanda panicked when an Asian customer came into the café. The police forced me to look at photos. They drilled me for almost an hour. I’m still recovering.”
She lowered her head, but not before he glimpsed a tear forming in her eye. This woman had the power to stir him down to his core. He forced his lungs to breathe, afraid to speak because he wasn’t so sure he still had a voice.
Silence prevailed for several moments, and Brian embraced it. She kept her head lowered. It gave him a chance to recover. A little cardboard daily reminder type of thing sat on the edge of the doily next to the flowers. He squinted at the small print. “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.“
He reread the message five or six times then looked up to meet Hallie’s curious gaze. She’d been studying him. “I guess that’s a Bible verse or something.”
She nodded, her lips shaping into her trademark smile. “The date is from about a month ago. I cling to that promise every time I read it, so I keep it there as a reminder.”
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something I’m working on. I may have a way to catch this creep. Then we’ll all be done with him.”
She raised her eyebrows. “The person who attacked Rene and you?”
“Yes. Remember, I have a score to settle with him, too.”
Hallie slid off the stool and went to the counter next to the refrigerator. She rummaged through a drawer in a plastic organizer then came back with a pile of newspaper clippings. “I said you needed to know something.” She pushed the clippings in front of him. “You could read them, but I’ll summarize what they say.”
Brian’s eyes zeroed in on a headline. He couldn’t help it. Stalker Eludes Police. And another one. Woman Victimized Again.
Hallie was a woman on the run. Someone trying desperately to elude a dangerous man.
His stomach became a mass of twisted knots. “Okay, well, this is pretty incredible. And you haven’t been able to lose this guy it seems. I’d think the police would be going wild with this.”
She extended her hand and patted his arm, letting it rest there. His face grew warm, as his heart jumped into overdrive.
About David: David Bond is blind. He lost his eyesight due to diabetic complications in 1988, less than two years after getting married. He was previously involved in different areas of the construction industry, from manual labor, to project management. One of his jobs involved drafting, in the days before CAD. He graduated from Reading Area Community College with an AS in Technical Illustration, and later, after losing his sight, graduated from Lancaster Bible College with a BS in Bible and a minor in Biblical Counseling. He was the Program Director for a ministry to victims of crime for five years until 2000.
David has been involved in writing since the early 2000’s. He was first published in an anthology, but began learning the craft of fiction following that. Authors like Gilbert Morris, and Richard Paul Evans, and a wide variety of authors have helped shape his style over the years.
David’s Christian faith is an important component in his writing. His stories involve characters who struggle with real-life issues, and who ultimately realize the God of the Bible is able to help them.
His stories are not meant to preach, but to model. Christians, or people unsure about Christianity, will find entertainment, emotional conflict, and resolution in his books. But always, Biblical principles and Godly character are demonstrated in the lives of his characters.
David lives near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, along with his wife and teenage son. They have a beagle who loves peanut butter, and can chew up any toy on the planet!
About the book: Brian Marshall lives a quiet, serious life. At age thirty-three, he’s content and reasonably prosperous. When a new client steps inside his office one July morning, and he recognizes her strikingly beautiful face, his thoughts are thrown back in time thirteen years, to a time when he committed perhaps the greatest mistake of his life.
Hallie Grover has come a long way in thirteen years. When she left central Pennsylvania as a dispirited seventeen-year old to live with her divorced mother in California, she couldn’t have imagined the path her life was to take. Will she be able to handle her new life, owning and managing a small café in McCane, Pennsylvania? And will she be able to rebuild a relationship with her sister, and a thirteen-year old girl she’s never had the chance to know?
Brian fears Hallie will one day remember him. He knows he needs to keep his distance, but it’s impossible.
Hallie blossoms, but is she ready to embrace a relationship she wasn’t expecting?
Come back June 16th for the top ten countdown of readers’ most visited romantic posts and June 18th for Jordyn Redwood!