Healer (The Healer Series) (33 page)

Don’t miss out on what happens when Aldo wakes up.

HYBRID

Coming 2014

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My Aunt Lucy used to say, “
If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.
” She said many wise things I never heeded when she was alive. I want to be the woman that’s okay with hiding from what she fears and letting her big, strong man protect her. But that’s not me. I hate to be scared. I hate the feeling that there is an evil out there that could hurt me if it finds me. But mostly, I hate that so many before me lived in fear and died at the hands of evil. That is why I cannot find peace within. There is no peace for me while Healers suffer the atrocities of others.

I know Rhett would protect me at all costs. He loves me. And
that
is why I must leave him behind. It’s impossible to justify hurting someone you love—or many you love—to do what you truly believe is right. Lucy also used to say, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I get what she was trying to tell me now. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. Sometimes we choose a path we think will lead us toward a noble cause, full of ambition and altruism, only to look back and see we’ve run over and crushed the ones we love most along the way. I can only pray that one day those I love will forgive me.

I woke up and I left. I left Rhett, the man who saved me from myself. The man I love. I left my brothers—my best friends. 

I left.

But leaving led me to more. I found answers. I found others like me—who want what I want.

But most importantly, I found myself.

My name is Aldo Lawson.

I’m awake.

And I’m a Hybrid.

.

acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank a few ladies who made me believe that this might actually be a book people would want to read.

Alice,
(a.k.a, Sugar Bush) years and years ago you were the only one I would let read what I wrote, you know, those stories I wrote when I should have been trying to sell houses. Because of your encouragement I pressed on. Thanks for that. You have no idea what it has meant to me.

K8te- thank you for your encouragement and letting me bounce ideas off of you. Mostly, thanks for the laughs. You are the best.

Ashley, thanks for the first edit and encouragement, I needed it. 

Leah, thank you for your support
, love, and encouragement.

Suzanne Hartman, thank you for your editing and advice. You really held my hand
, and I’m grateful.

Ellen C.
Sallas,
thank you for all of your hard work formatting and answering my bazillion questions.

Amy Jo, thanks for being the best sister
ever
and making my cover and taking my photos. You are a truly talented soul, and I am grateful for your love, support, and help.

Finally, my husband.
Toler, your love and support through this has humbled me. You let me dream, you believed in me, and you will never know what that means to me. I love you to the moon and back.

B N Toler
is a happily married, mother of three who lives in Virginia. She enjoys reading and lives for a good book she can’t put down.
HEALER
is her first self-published novel, and she is currently working on part two of the HEALER series,
HYBRID
, available in 2014.

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