Sanctuary
by
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"What did Lee Ann look like?" Lea asked curiously, since she had never seen a picture of Russell's first wife. "
She looked like a Penthouse Pet," Russell said shortly. ...
"Is that why you married her, because of her looks?"
"I married her because she wouldn't let me inside her great body without a wedding ring on her hand. So I convinced myself that my raging hormones were love and proposed."
“Is that customary in America?” Lea asked. “For women to be virgins before marriage?”
“Lee Ann wasn’t a virgin. But shortly before I met her she’d become a born-again Christian and decided to practice secondary virginity.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” Lea said. “I didn’t know that virginity is renewable. But then, I didn’t know that people could be born more than once, either.”
“Being ‘born again’ is the way some Christians explain their acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior,” Russell explained. “They feel that it’s a chance to start over with a clean slate, to expunge their past mistakes.”
Lea laughed, then saw that Russell looked offended. She remembered what Forbes had told her about Russell’s being a deeply religious man. “That seems very American,” she said. “Continually renewing oneself. In my country, people never change. They just keep on hating and killing from generation to generation.”
“Renewal is always possible,” Russell said gently.
“Maybe for Americans,” Lea said doubtfully. “I think that most other people are too weighted down by their history.”
“In America we have a saying, Lea,” Russell said earnestly. “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. You need to figure out some way to light your candle.”
She laughed derisively. “In my country, people not only curse the darkness, they blow out the candle.”
Russell looked pained. “You’re too young not to have any illusions, Lea. You’ve got to have something to believe in.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s easier not to believe in anything. And a lot less painful.”
“Don’t shut yourself off from life, Lea,” Russell said, looking at her with a troubled expression in his gray eyes. “You have too much to offer.”
“Your army seems to be able to supply everything,” Lea said lightly. “Perhaps you could requisition a set of illusions for me.”
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About the Book
Nineteen-year-old Lea Kostovic, a cynical and emotionally fragile former university student, has been abandoned by her family at the outset of a Balkan civil war during the late 1990s. Major Ed Russell is a gruff yet idealistic divorced American army officer stationed in the former Yugoslavia on a peacekeeping mission. While manning a border checkpoint, Russell learns that Lea intends to head south to find her family and must convey to the young woman that the borders will not reopen until spring. Lea realizes that as a person of Croatian descent, neither the Serbs nor the Muslims will take her in. The thought of roaming the countryside for months—freezing, starving, and alone—prods a wary Lea to accept Russell’s offer not only to work for him as an interpreter, but also to stay with him. There’s just one condition to their simple bargain—Lea must trade sex for protection and survival. A complex relationship ensues and as Russell and fledgling artist Lea begin a new life in America, they attempt to build a marriage from a barter that originally had nothing to do with love and respect.
About the Author
N. E. Julian is an attorney who retired from the practice of law to pursue her interests in writing and painting. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their dogs. Sanctuary is her second novel.