Keep Me Warm
by Jude Ouvrard
Genre: Contemporary Romance - Short Story
Release Date: December 1, 2016
When a fire turns your heart into ice, it can’t possibly melt without revealing scars.
Adele has lost everyone and everything she loves. Now she’s coping with an unwanted new reality which includes working as a maid in a chic hotel in downtown Seattle to make ends meet. Uninterested in a relationship, her frozen solitude suits her just fine.
She thinks.
When a handsome guest walks into the room she is cleaning and sets her frigid life ablaze again, Adele discovers there is more than one way to burn. Will this new friendship be a smoldering ember or ignite a conflagration which could consume what remains of her heart and soul?
Sitting in the back of a cab on a cold, starless night after an amazing night with my friends, I see flames leaping from a roof down the street and the flashing lights of firetrucks. Checking our location, I try to convince myself the chaos is far from my place, but the closer we get, the harder it is to breathe. My chest aches and my mouth is dry. In actuality, we’re very close to my home.
“This can’t be real,” I mumble to myself.
When we reach the last corner, a police officer asks the cabbie to stop. Panic and agony build in me at an unreal rhythm. There’s no more question as to whether it’s my home, our building, on fire. I jump out of the car and run toward the scene, but am held in place by two strong men. Though their hands are keeping me in place and they’re talking to me, I don’t hear anything.
“My husband and my son are in there. My husband… my son… please. Hurry!” I yell at them urging them to get my family out. Pushing their hands away, I try again to run inside to get them myself. My life is in there. My whole world. “Gabe? Brock!” I pray calling upon all the Saints, and God.
“Ma’am, you can’t go inside. It’s too dangerous.”
Crying, hurting, and looking everywhere around to see if they’ve made it out, I don’t see them. I don’t. The firefighter is trying to bring me to the ground. I’m kicking, pushing, and punching, though; there’s nothing stopping me while I yell, “A boy and a man from apartment four, on the second floor.” Pushing myself from the ground with my legs, once more I’m trying to run away.
“Ma’am, you can’t go in there.” Another man has joined the first, and together, they drag me out of the danger zone.
“Where are they?” When his face falls, void of all emotion, I know how bad my life has just gotten.
Jude Ouvrard is an author who writes from the heart, and reads with passion and devotion. Jude enjoys stories of drama, true love, tattoos, and everything in between. While writing is her therapy, reading is her solace. Life doesn't get better than books and chocolate, and maybe a little bit of shopping.
A romance lover, Jude writes about love, pain, heartbreak and matters that will challenge your heart. A book can tell an unexpected story, no matter which directions it takes. Jude embraces words that have haunted her for years.
Jude is a working mom who dedicates her time to a law firm and writing books. She has an energetic superhero son, and a supportive boyfriend of many years. Her family is her rock; she could not survive without them. Born a country girl, she transformed into a city woman who now lives in Montreal, Canada. Although French is her first language, Jude decided to write in English because she liked the challenge.
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