"Past Hurts Healed"

by Liz and Tom Q. MacClintock

Copyright ©2002
ISBN: 0-87714-760-4 eBook edition
ISBN: 0-87714-263-7 PB edition

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

THE AUTHOR

These authors are career writers. In fact, in 1997, they met as two people writing to each other on the Internet. Between Tom’s home in the United States and Liz’s in Australia, they exchanged over a thousand pieces of email, fell irrevocably in love, and found they could not be apart. Late in that year, Tom joined Liz in her country and, in May, 1998, these two lovers married. During that year, they assembled about two-hundred of their letters into a book, named it Hearts That Cross an Ocean and submitted it to Denlinger’s Publishers Ltd., Florida. Denlinger’s published it in 1999.

While this publisher was considering Hearts, Liz and Tom wrote a romance novel entitled Big Truck, Tender Heart and, about the time Denlinger’s decided to take Hearts, they submitted this second project which the publisher also accepted for publication in 2000.

Prior to his moving to Australia, Tom worked in Radio Broadcast Public Affairs and, after the deregulation of that industry in the Reagan Administration, he drove Interstate tractor-trailer for eight years, an experience that contributed nicely to writing about Big Trucks.

This novel, Past Hurts Healed, is a collaborative effort in a romance tale set in 1997 on Australia’s South Coast, a kinder, gentler and slower paced world where these authors live.

Their more mundane statistics have Liz in Nursing Home Administration since 1982 and Tom writing their next novel. In that effort, Liz dreams up plots, Tom writes them, Liz critiques them and, between the two of them, they accomplish the final edits – all these activities in a marriage made in heaven – three years after they became a couple in Australia and began the living chapters of Hearts That Cross an Ocean.

THE BOOK

For the most part, Alexandra Barclay’s life ran smoothly for 31 years. The attractive, successful, wealthy, smart, single Australian woman had it all — plus the independence some married women envy. Until she met Matt, an internationally famous athlete. Matt’s life ran smoothly for 37 years. The successful, wealthy, smart superstar had it all — plus independence the rest of the guys could only wish for. Until he met one very independent Australian lady who had a reputation. A reputation for being kind, considerate, even charming. And taking no disrespect from anyone!

When the irresistible superstar meets the unyielding, if understated, charm of a sophisticated Aussie girl, somebody’s gotta make some changes. And somebody does — eventually, but not without a struggle caused by past hurts, past hurts that, through the shattering power of love, are healed, strengthened, and made victorious.

Past Hurts Healed is a happy romance set in the lovely South Coast of Australia. Alexandra “Lexie” Barclay, twenty-seven and never married, meets international cricket star Matt Robertson from the West Indies. These two entertain us with smart dialog and intelligent thinking. They don’t fall in love easily and, when they do, their respective years of single living and an unsatisfactory relationship in Lexie’s past have us wondering if they really could succeed. To add more international flavor, Lexie’s father, Charles, the Washington bureau chief of a chain of Australian newspapers and his love, Julianna, the White House reporter for a television network, visit Lexie. As sharp as these two are, they still make all the mistakes Yanks make in the land DownUnder.

Sample

Life was good. In fact, as Lexie leaned lazily against the jamb of the open sliding door between her bedroom and the world, she decided, life was very good! She smiled as she inhaled the fragrance of the sea gently washing up on the sandy beach fifty meters away. The coffee sipped strong and bold in her throat as the cobwebs vanished from her emerald green eyes.

Out of bed less than an hour, still in her dark blue nightie, Lexie looked comfortably marvelous! At five feet three inches, she wasn’t tall, but with one hundred and thirty five pounds on her bigger than average bones, she was solidly impressive. Athletic since her earliest childhood, her curves were well placed and her bottom taut. Her abdomen was only a little more than flat. Lexie’s face, while not drop-dead beautiful, was well-shaped with moderately full lips, round chin, and a pert nose she wished were a bit bigger. At twenty-nine her dark brown shoulder length hair which, even though not yet brushed out, was radiant and its sun bleached highlights shimmered in the morning bright. As well it should be as, after each swim in her ocean, she’d shampoo it and apply a coconut conditioner from the exclusive Harold’s in Sydney. The stuff was so expensive, each time she’d call Justin at the salon with her order, instead of asking the price, she asked for a quote.

“For you, Lexie, today only,” Justin would joke, “less than gold bullion.”

The hair would be well-behaved in any setting if it weren’t for her habit, when nervous, of twirling strands that fell beside her right ear. If she had been left handed, the strands on that side would have been the victim of anxious fiddling.

But today didn’t look like anything would come along to agitate fingers that twist hair. It was a good day!

Over the ten years she’d lived on her private little isthmus, she’d never tired of the view which was, of course, never the same from one day to the next. Sometimes the variations were slight, as with a freshening breeze, and other times they were great, as in an incoming storm.

The August day was uncharacteristically warm. The clear, blue sky was material for a poet’s rhyme. Since the weather bureau had forecast a cold front later in the day, Lexie knew the view of golden sun skipping along the wave tops would be temporary.

Alexandra Barclay took comfort in the journey she’d made over the last six months from the shattering of heartbreak to the healing of self-esteem. She was, after all, quite okay. Of course, she was alone, but she wasn’t lonely. Well, maybe a little, but that was a small price to pay for the knowledge she’d keep her head and heart intact from now on. For a while there, she wasn’t so sure, but this morning she was certain. She was once again her own person. And she’d never again make the mistake she’d made that long half-year ago. A half-year. That wasn’t so long, come to think of it. It just seemed that way, she smiled. In fact, to come from utter defeat to total victory in six months was an accomplishment that deserved some kind of reward! Cheers! Here’s to you, Lexie! In toast to herself, she raised the Royal Doulton china mug and admired the King Charles Academy crest inscribed on it. While the head mistress at that very exclusive school insisted nothing less than tea should ever be drunk from that hallowed vessel, Lexie drank coffee from it as she had done for the last nine years since being allowed, as a graduate, to own it.

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