Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2) by Beth Kery
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I’d like to give thanks and love to my husband, who gives me everything from rich factual information to much-needed support while I’m writing a book. My thanks also go out to my wonderful readers, whose encouragement, feedback, and good wishes offer much-needed daily fuel for a career that is mostly carried out in solitude.
Dear Reader,
I’m so excited that the sequel to Glimmer is finally making its way to your bookstores and e-readers! This marked the first time in my writing history that I had a story arc that I felt was just too big to squeeze into one book. After writing Glimmer, I knew there was much, much more to tell about Alice and Dylan. In Glow, I wanted to give Alice the opportunity to surmount the incredible challenges associated with her past and grow to a self-confident woman who is learning how to trust . . . and love. I hope you are as thrilled with the conclusion of Dylan and Alice’s intensely passionate and emotional romance as I am.
Thank you for reading!
Beth
ONE
The night after the fierce storm, Alice dreamed while she lay in the circle of Dylan Fall’s arms.
She was again sitting in front of the vanity mirror at the Twelve Oaks Inn—that lovely home overlooking the lake where Dylan had first told her she was special to him, where she’d first realized she was more than passingly pretty in an edgy, “I don’t take any shit” kind of way. She was beautiful. Desirable. That was a truth she’d read in Dylan’s eyes that night.
In the dream, Deanna Shrevecraft, the sophisticated, kind owner of the Twelve Oaks Inn who had been so knowing and compassionate of Alice’s awkwardness during the romantic getaway, was once again applying her makeup.
“Your eyes are so pretty,” Deanna murmured as she gently stroked on eye shadow.
“Dylan doesn’t like the way I wear my makeup,” Alice confessed impulsively, once again experiencing a sharp pain of embarrassment at the memory of Dylan’s words. “I hate that you darken your eyebrows. And you shouldn’t put so much liner and mascara on your eyes.”
“He doesn’t like to see you hiding yourself. He knows there’s something special underneath,” Deanna said matter-of-factly.
“If you think basket-case geeks are special,” Alice mumbled.
“Some are,” Deanna assured with a glance of amusement. She reached for a tray of eye pencils. Something glittered on her wrist, capturing Alice’s attention. An uneasy feeling coursed through her.
“How did you get that bracelet?” Alice demanded. She noticed Deanna’s startled expression. “I mean . . .” What did Alice mean, snapping at Deanna that way? “It’s so pretty,” she faltered awkwardly. The vision of the unique bracelet on Deanna’s wrist felt wrong somehow. Out of place. But Alice’s dreaming brain struggled to recall why exactly.
“My husband gave it to me,” Deanna said, stepping toward her with an eye pencil in her hand. Alice lunged back when she saw the stains and burns on her gripping fingers, the dirty fingernails. A familiar chemical odor entered her nose, toxic and foul. She looked up, startled, and saw the gray pallor of a ravaged face. Deanna had disappeared. In the magical way of dreams, Sissy had taken her place.
Alice’s mother, Sissy Reed, was forty-five years old. She could easily pass for seventy. It was one of the many hazards of being a methamphetamine cook and abuser.
Anger flooded Alice, not because of the vision of her mother, but because Sissy dared to wear the exquisite rare bracelet. She grabbed at her mother’s bony wrist, lifting the bracelet with the ridge of her finger.
“This isn’t yours. You stole it. Your husband didn’t give it to you! You don’t even have a husband, Sissy.” She pushed at the other woman’s arm disdainfully, guilt mixing with disgust when she realized how hollow and insubstantial Sissy felt . . . when she saw how she stumbled back at her shove.
“You never would call me Mom,” Sissy accused, her passive-aggressive whine an all too familiar splinter under Alice’s skin.
“You never did earn the title.”
Her disgust and guilt stung like acid at the back of her throat. So did her longing for something different. Something more.
Before her eyes, Sissy altered, transforming into a beautiful pale-faced woman with large blue eyes—eyes that looked very much like Alice’s, except they were wide with terror. Alice realized with her own sense of dawning horror that there was bright crimson liquid wetting the side of the woman’s cheek and neck. She reached out to Alice, desperate in her intent, and Alice again saw the delicate gold bracelet on her wrist.
“Run, Addie. Hide!”
Alice awoke, gagging in fear.