A Jack Of All Trades

A rather gray-haired gentleman named John sat alone at the bar one night. He’s known around here as a Jack-of-all-trades. People who are acquainted with him say he can fix anything.

As happy hour was ending two people came in together. A young man named Jacob, who was walking with bit of a limp, and his mom Nora. Jacob had lost his leg over in Iraq a few years before and Nora was sort of forcing him to get out and have some fun. He hadn’t been anywhere besides home and hospitals for quite a while and was nervous about going out in public because of his prosthetic leg.

Jacob helped his mom into one of the tall chairs at the bar, and then pulled out one for himself. He stumbled a little as he angled into it and seemed like he was embarrassed by the misstep, which to me seemed understandable for someone adjusting to a prosthesis. Once Jacob had his leg situated they ordered a couple of beers. The poor guy looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock for having drawn attention to himself.

John had been observing unobtrusively the whole time and once they were settled he offered to buy their drinks and said, “Hey there, young man. You doing okay? Looks like you’re having some trouble with that leg.”

Jacob nodded but didn’t say much else and Nora smiled and said, “Thank you for the drinks, sir. My son lost his leg in Iraq and he’s been having trouble with his prosthetic for a while, but doesn’t want to go back to the doctor. He said he’s through with going back and forth to doctors after all this time. He’s a bit stubborn but I can’t say I blame him. I just wanted him to get out and have fun for a change.”

The three talked for a while, and eventually Jacob opened up and explained how he’d lost the leg. It was clear he didn’t like being the center of attention.

John said, “Son, it’d be an honor for me if you’d let me check out your prosthetic leg. I might be able to help with adjusting it, since I have some experience with them.” As he said this, John pulled up his right pant leg and revealed his own prosthetic leg. “Motorcycle accident when I was twenty-five years old.”

Jacob blinked at John’s leg for a few seconds and then a slight smile formed on his face. “You’ve lived with a prosthesis all these years? I kept telling the people at the clinic and the therapists that I was having a hard time balancing and they insisted that was due to my head injury, that I’d just have to adjust. My head feels fine but balancing is still a problem. I’m just really frustrated.”

John frowned as he reached out and lifted Jacob’s pant leg a notch higher and peered at how the leg was attached. Then he nodded at Jacob and gestured with a thumb to the front door. “I think I know what you’re talking about, with the balance problem. I’ve got tools out in my truck. Seems like anything is better than you hobbling around when you don’t need to.”

Jacob followed John outside to his truck. When they came back about thirty minutes later the Jacob’s limp had all but disappeared. He was smiling from ear to ear when he answered his mother’s inquiries. “He fiddled with it and made me walk up and down the sidewalk to test it out and then fiddled with it some more. I’m a little sore from all the exercise, but I can handle a little pain if it means getting around without you having to hover over me and worry so much…” He chuckled and shook his head. “This is the most solid and stable I’ve felt on my own two feet since I was back in Iraq.”

Nora’s eyes grew misty as she looked him up and down, standing tall and straight without something to hold on to for balance. “Son, I never minded being there for you.” She looked up at John as if he was a hero. “Sir, I don’t know how to thank you. This is incredible. How did you do that so quickly?”

John chuckled and blushed a little, and said, “Well, little lady, I used to fix typewriters and there’s not many mechanical devices I haven’t repaired in my life. Just have a knack, I guess, and the right tools of course. You don’t have to thank me, but I’d love to take you to dinner tonight.”

She blushed beet red and said, “Oh my, that would be lovely…but…”

She looked up at Jacob and he said, “For goodness sake, Mom, quit worrying about me. You’re the one who needs to have some fun. You haven’t left my side in three years. Please go have fun.”

One of our bartenders, who knows Jacob, leaned in and said, “Hey, y’all go have a nice dinner and I’ll make sure Jacob gets home, okay?”

They left after a half-hearted protest from Nora who was still blushing and smiling.

Jacob returned to his seat at the bar and gave a huge sigh of relief as he signaled for another beer. “Thank God. I thought my mom was never going to date again. She’s been great and stuck by me through everything but she needed this. Thanks, man.”

The bartender tipped his head and said, “Hey, it’s the least I could do after all you did for us. Thank you. Looks like someone wants to meet you,” he added, pointing over Jacob’s shoulder.

I grinned as Jacob turned to look in the direction the bartender had pointed and his jaw dropped when he saw the cute redhead standing there.

“Is this seat taken?”

Ranch Windmill Reflected in Farm Pond, Silhouetted Against Dramatic Sunset

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times and then he smiled. Patting the seat he said, “It sure is. By you.”

“Smooth,” my bartender said with a grin as he turned to stock the cooler.

Looked to me like Jacob’s wasn’t the only balance that was restored that night. I’ve heard recently that Nora and John are engaged and planning a beach wedding on some pretty Caribbean shore. And Jacob and that cute little redhead have been seen in here on Saturday nights, mostly two-stepping on the dance floor.

Cheers y’all!

All Material ©Heather Rainier 2015

The Wingman Wins

As a bartender, I’ve served as a wingman on numerous occasions, usually because I could tell the woman, or in some rare cases a man, didn’t want the attention.

I want patrons to feel comfortable in the Dancing Pony. Part of that means doing what I can to make sure it doesn’t become known as a meat market, or someplace a woman couldn’t expect to go to enjoy a drink, relax, and be left in peace if that’s what she wants.

Anyway, one night in the Dancing Pony, a guy was hitting on a pretty young woman named Jenny who was sitting at the bar. At first Jenny was polite and tried to be nice to him without encouraging him, but she was a little too shy to be blunt and tell him to get lost. Problem is, if you get enough drink in a guy like this one, all subtlety goes right over his head.

He kept leaning toward her, talking a little too loudly, and nearly spilled his beer on her, and she frowned as she leaned away from him. That was the cue we were waiting for.

Right as one of my bartenders was about to step in and act as her boyfriend, a cowboy who’d evidently been observing her predicament walked up. He met her gaze and smiled as he laid his forearm around the back of her chair in an obviously territorial gesture and stared at the man who was bothering her, “Hey, pal, are you hitting on my lady?”

She blinked and was about to speak up when the light bulb went on and she gazed up in awe at her good-looking cowboy savior and gave him a big smile…and relaxed against his arm.

The difference in size between the two men was considerable, and the annoying one left.

The young lady thanked the cowboy, who introduced himself as Paul, and he tipped his hat to her and said, “You’re more than welcome, pretty lady. I’m glad I could help. If he bothers you again just look my way. I’ll be right over there…admiring you.” He held her gaze and smiled,  I think, to let her know he was serious about admiring her but respectful of her boundaries if she’d rather be left alone. 

Jenny looked ready to swoon and stared up at him. I think she was trying to formulate a coherent response and not having much luck. Right as he turned to walk away she grasped his coat sleeve. “Don’t go.” She patted the empty chair beside her. “You could do that from this chair…if you wanted to, that is. If your friends don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind.”

He smiled kindly at her and nodded.  “They won’t mind a bit.  And I’d be honored to sit with you.”

He sat down and they talked and danced the rest of the night together. 

As I said before, we’ll help someone who is being bothered, from behind the bar, but I enjoy the occasions where these situations sort themselves out. And I’m pleased to report…since that particular evening,  I’ve seen them come in together several more times. This one might just last beyond the wing-man stage.

Cheers,  y’all!

Majestic alone beech tree on a hill slope with sunny beams at mountain valley. Dramatic colorful morning scene. Red and yellow autumn leaves. Carpathians, Ukraine, Europe. Beauty world.

It Pays To Have a Sense of Humor

604137_102082776625452_34904134_nConfidence may be the key to getting a lady’s attention, but if a woman likes a man’s sense of humor, he’s well on his way to winning her affection.

A big cowboy was at the Dancing Pony one evening. I mean BIG. So big that his friends nicknamed him Ox. In addition to being big, Ox is also funny. What the guy may lack in male-fitness-model good looks, he makes up for with self-confidence and a great sense of humor.

He was with his buddies that evening and they were having a fun and noisy time as usual when he set eyes on a very pretty, very curvy brunette named Liz who’d just come in with a group of friends to celebrate the end of the work week.

Ox observed the way Liz sang along with all the songs, and that she bobbed in place at the bar with her friends, as if she wanted to dance, but no one had asked her yet.

Never one to let an opportunity pass him by, Ox strolled up to Liz and said, “Sweet, voluptuous angel, would you care to dance with me?”

Now, being married to a sweet, voluptuous blonde angel, I readily noticed the flicker of defensiveness in her eyes as she blinked at him, as if wondering if he was making fun of her curviness.

She put a hand on her hip as she looked Ox up and down. “I think that beer belly would get in the way, don’t you?”

Without missing a beat, Ox patted his mid-section as if he was displaying washboard abs. “Sweet angel, don’t let appearances deceive you. This isn’t a beer belly, it’s a fuel tank for my sex machine, and right now it’s sittin’ on ‘full.’”

By the time everybody stopped laughing, we were pleasantly surprised to see Ox and Liz dancing together.

Looks are a great thing to have but they fade, where a heart of gold and a sense of humor last forever.

Cheers y’all!

Note from Heather: I hope y’all are enjoying the Slices of Life from the Dancing Pony. I have to say, I identified with Liz and this pickup line, only I wished that I’d encountered a man like Ox. We’ve all been there, I suppose, and not all men have as much “snap” as Ox did, in asking his curvy beauty to dance when she was trying to hide that she was afraid he was making fun of her. I know he was big, and funny, and self-confident, but at his core, I think his greatest asset was kindness.

You know I value a snappy pickup line if you’ve read the Divine Creek Ranch Collection, so tell me about the pickup lines you’ve heard. We’ve all heard the cringe-worthy ones but have you ever heard one that either struck you right in the funny bone, or one that strummed the chords of your heart? Tell me about it in a comment. 😀

Seize the day, baby!

All material copyright ©Heather Rainier 2015

PS: Thanks to all the readers who have contacted me with compliments about Bunny and the Beast. Thanks to wonderful readers like y’all, Bunny and Joseph’s story has been very successful, and I hope continues to be when it reaches Amazon. Thanks also for telling your friends about the series.

Part Five: Absentminded Angel Out-takes (Finale)

Out-takes Part Five

Winter trees in mountains covered with fresh snow

Author’s Note: This series of blog posts includes out-takes from Absentminded Angel by Heather Rainier. I hope you enjoy them. If you haven’t read Absentminded Angel in its released form, these scenes may be confusing as they were cut from varying places in the story. I’m posting them for the enjoyment of readers who are familiar with Divine, Texas, or would like to become familiar. 🙂 My recommendation would be to read Absentminded Angel prior to reading these.

This scene was cut from the midst of the scene where she purchases the sewing machine in San Antonio. You may remember that at Kendry and Jared’s urging, she took Jared’s phone with her for the trip, since hers wasn’t functioning. In the original version, she’d lost the phone while working in Marvin’s cluttered office. This is also her first conversation with their cousin Felicia, who was a trip. Writing her dialogue was like a day in my life when I had toddlers at home. Herding cats would’ve been easier. 🙂 

~~~

Presley Ann and Whit returned to the front of the shop and she was sitting in the waiting area looking at a magazine when the melody from “Crazy” starting playing in her purse. She wouldn’t have taken Jared for a Patsy Cline fan but to each his own. Concerned that the call might be from Kendry, she answered it.

“Hello?”

“Who is this?” a female voice asked with a sharp tone.

“You’ve reached Jared McCulloch’s phone.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Tell me who this is.” Maybe the ringtone had been an indicator of something else.

Debating the wisdom of answering Jared’s phone after all, and peeved at the woman’s snippy tone, she replied, “This is Presley Ann Woodworth. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“Are you that pregnant chippie? You’d better not be taking my boys for a ride,” the woman said challengingly.

“Excuse me? I—”

The woman started fussing in the background and Presley Ann grew more confused as she listened. “Stop hitting your brother! If you don’t quit that crying I’m going to give you something to cry about. No, do not put Spaghetti-Os in your sister’s hair. I’m about to go Crazy Mama on the bunch of you if you don’t stop your whining and finish your lunch. Ashley, go wash your hands, please. Now, where was I?” she said, speaking directly into the phone with what sounded like a multitude of little voices in the background. “Jared and Kendry are my honeys and you’d better not be taking them for a ride.”

Presley Ann shook her head, trying to not get riled up by the challenging tone. “Last time I checked, Jared and Kendry were grown men. I already know their mom is deceased so you can save the protective mommy routine. Not that it’s any of your business, but I am friends with them, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to take anyone for a ride. Now who in the hell is this?” Her ears throbbed a little as she waited through the long pause on the phone.

A female chuckle finally came on the line over the hubbub in the background. “They told me I’d like you but they forgot to mention how prissy you sound when you get riled. My name is Felicia and I’m married to their cousin, Marty.”

Felicia! Oh crap! “I’m so sorry—” She remembered Kendry referring to Felicia as Dommy Mommy.

Felicia cut her off as she laughed out loud. “Ah, no backtracking now, missy. Are either of them around?”

“I—uh—I—” The mother to twelve children. Presley Ann had hoped if she ever met this iconic woman that she’d make a better impression and all she could do was stutter.

“Now you sound like one of my kids when they are in trouble. I must’ve laid the bitchy on a little too thick. Let me guess, you thought I was an ex-girlfriend and you were regretting answering the phone.”

Presley Ann giggled and took a deep breath. “Yeah, pretty much. They’ve told me a little bit about you.”

“Unfortunately, it’s probably all true. Hang on. Garth, you either eat what I put in front of you or you go hungry until suppertime. Your choice, mister. Sorry. So, is Jared around?”

“No, but they are both on duty right now so if you call Kendry’s phone you should be able to reach him. I lost my phone right before a road trip and Jared insisted I take his phone with me.”

“Okay. He showed me a picture of you with your little cutie pie.”

“Really?’

“Yeah, you’re very pretty and your boy is gorgeous. If you look in his pictures on his phone, you’ll find pics of me and Marty with the brats. Listen, Presley Ann…”

Presley Ann waited, sensing that Felicia was choosing her words even though she didn’t strike her as the type to pull any punches, ever.

“He likes you. Actually, I think they both do. I don’t know what’s up with that. They told me Divine is a different kind of place to live and I guess I’m just hoping it’s not different, like, making the Nightly World News kind of different. Please don’t hurt him or Kendry. If you’re not really interested in them don’t string them along. I don’t know if you’re the reason they moved or not but I just want you to know they are good guys and they don’t deserve to get their hearts broken. Kendry just got back on his feet after being so sick, and Jared…Let’s just say he’s had enough bad luck with women.”

“Felicia, I don’t know what to say.”

Felicia hushed a crying baby and then said, “It’s not me you need to say anything to, Presley Ann. It’s them. I’m just a protective family member who wants to see them happy, whether it’s there in Divine, or back here in Abilene. It was great talking to you but I’ve got to get three little ones down for a nap so I can start prepping for supper.”

Presley Ann looked at the phone after the call ended, her head filled with all kinds of thoughts. She had a hard time getting one little baby down for a nap and this woman handled them three at a time? Supper prep started after lunch when feeding fourteen people? Parents still said “if you don’t stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about”? And Felicia was concerned enough about her husband’s cousins to call and check on them and quiz her. Her mind was like a pea in a whistle and she got curious when she remembered Felicia saying there were pictures of her and her family on his phone. Curiosity consumed her and she tapped the screen on his phone and pulled up his pictures.

“Aw,” she murmured softly while stroking Whit’s sleeping head. The picture on screen was one she remembered him taking just a couple of days before, of her and Whit at the firehouse, when she’d joined them for lunch at the picnic table located in the shady lawn area behind the firehouse. There were several other pictures of the two of them and then she came across a picture of a couple with children chaotically massed all around them, one baby crying, a couple of younger kids in mid-argument, and the rest in various stages of ready-to-stop-smiling-for-the-camera. The mom and dad looked harried but happy, and it was cool to be able to put a face with the name.

“Ms. Woodworth, here we go,” the owner of the embroidery shop said as a male employee followed her out into the waiting area with the machine packed away in its box and loaded on a dolly.

***

This section is from the same chapter, just a little later on, picking up at the moment where Presley Ann is accidentally run off of the increasingly icy road by a ranch truck hauling a trailer. It’s raining, she is off in the muddy ditch, the temperature is dropping, and she has a squalling infant on her hands. Oh, and it’s dark. What else could possibly go wrong?

~~~

The driver never stopped and Presley Ann’s pulse was like a drum in her ears as she watched the taillights fade into the growing dark. The next thing she was aware of was Whit crying. She unbuckled and turned to kneel over the driver’s seat so she could see him. He quieted when her face came into view and she patted and soothed him until the tears and wailing stopped. “Poor baby. Did that big ranch truck scare you? He scared me, too.” He pooched out his lip and let loose a final wail and then started sucking his fist, a sure sign he’d want to nurse soon.

Turning to sit back in her seat, she looked out the window at the rain, wondering how badly her car was damaged. Bundling up, she pulled out her umbrella and climbed out to inspect the damage and her flats slid a little under her as she walked in the slushy mud. The bumper had a dent in it but that was all she could see. The temperature definitely felt like it’d dropped since she’d left San Antonio and she shivered as the cold mist blew in her face.

A vehicle was approaching and realized she hadn’t turned on her hazard lights. As she opened the door, the older minivan hit a puddle on the road, spraying her with icy water and mud as it flew past her without slowing.

Now she was not only cold, she was also wet, and filthy. Barely holding back a juicy curse, she looked down at her clothes and the interior of her car, which were both a mud-spattered mess.

“Son of a biscuit-eater! It’s even in my mouth!”

She spit a few times and her stomach churned at the grit and taste of mud in her mouth. Whit whimpered as she reached in the car and stroked his cheek and then grabbed a handful of tissues from the front seat and wiped her face and the front of her ruined coat and then quickly wiped the mud spatters from the cloth upholstery.

The rain fell a little harder as she surveyed the vehicle and the mud her tires had sunk into made her stomach fall. Her car was still running but the door was open, letting out all the heat.

Chilling wetness soaked between her toes as the mud seeped inside her flats. On her budget she hadn’t been able to afford boots and she hadn’t dressed to be outdoors in weather like this.

Climbing back inside, she adjusted the heat, buckled up and put the car in gear. Offering up a prayer she slowly accelerated, heard the wheels turning, but the car didn’t move.

“No.”

Shifting into reverse, she tried backing out of the mess and had similar results. Not wanting to dig herself in any deeper, she groaned as she took out Jared’s phone.

~~~~~~~

That’s it for out-takes from Presley Ann’s story, Absentminded Angel. I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes process. A book can go through multiple changes prior to being released, and almost none of the out-takes ever see the light of day. I knew I’d never recycle these into another story, because they were written for very specific characters, but I hated to just leave them to languish in a folder.

For information about the series, and to find out what I’m currently working on, please visit the Works in Progress page on my website. I also make frequent updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Absentminded Angel Copyright©2014 All rights reserved, Heather Rainier

Buy Absentminded Angel at Siren-BookStrand

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Part Four: Absentminded Angel Out-takes, Chapter Four

 

me-hr-dcr-absentmindedangel-fullOut-takes Part Four

Author’s Note: This series of blog posts includes out-takes from Absentminded Angel by Heather Rainier. I hope you enjoy them. If you haven’t read Absentminded Angel in its released form, these scenes may be confusing as they were cut from varying places in the story. I’m posting them for the enjoyment of readers who are familiar with Divine, Texas, or would like to become familiar. 🙂 My recommendation would be to read Absentminded Angel prior to reading these.

 

This scene picks up about three weeks after Presley Ann had given birth to Whit. Kendry is helping out at Marvin’s Computer shop, where all the old-timers like to congregate in the morning, solving the world’s problems while they drink coffee. This was another one of those scenes I hated to cut. It features check-ins with familiar old-timers in town. Readers also get a little glimpse of Uncle Marvin’s sweet little crush, Miss Petunia Dawson.

This installment also includes the original migraine confrontation scene between Kendry and Presley Ann. Some of it may seem familiar, although the released version takes place in her apartment instead of Marvin’s office, but read through to get to the following scene, which got cut from the released version but explains how Kendry wound up over at the fire station while she was at her doctor’s appointment and Violet’s Emporium. I liked that scene because of the mention of their cousin Felicia (mother of twelve children). She was quite a character, as readers will see in the next installment, but it didn’t justify a whole scene.

~~~

Kendry sat on the barstool behind the customer service counter at Marvin’s Computer Repair, tinkering with an old computer. Woody Porter came over to the pot and poured the last cup of coffee in his chipped mug before pulling out the ground coffee and a fresh filter from the supplies beside the old Mr. Coffee. Marvin’s friends didn’t seem to be fazed by Marvin’s absence that morning as they shot the shit while sitting in the chairs around his waiting area out front.

“We’ll have more going in just a minute, gentlemen,” the venerable Justice of the Peace said as he lowered himself back into his chair by the window.

Having something else to focus on set his mind at ease, as he tested the computer’s power supply with Marvin’s multi-meter. Listening to the men talking helped, at least that’s what he kept telling himself, but he kept catching the hint of sound from upstairs. Being in the building with her made him feel a little better but it also put temptation so close he could almost feel her silky skin against his lips.

There it was again. That sound.

The coffee pot gurgled as it did its thing, filling the carafe with coffee so stout one cup had hit him like a shot of espresso, not that he was given to drinking that much of the stuff. The men’s conversation hummed in the background as they set about solving the world’s problems while he killed time.

They’d been in town for three weeks and he hadn’t seen Presley Ann even once. He and Jared had agreed to not press her too much because she had her hands full with Whit. Kendry grinned, just thinking about the baby’s name, which suited the infant perfectly. Maybe it was the impending holidays that made him sentimental but he missed her. Whit wasn’t his biological son, he even missed the baby. The memory of the fire in her eyes that day in the hospital made him smile.

He’d just dropped off groceries at the station earlier that morning, a favor for one of the firefighters who was trying to put together a Thanksgiving meal for the firefighters who would be on duty during Thanksgiving, when he’d seen Marvin across the street. He’d been leaning up against his truck, coughing.

Concerned about the old-timer that had become his and Jared’s friend, Kendry crossed the street to check on him. It didn’t take much for a cough like that to turn into pneumonia and Kendry knew him well enough to know that he’d ignore the symptoms until it was serious.

“Marvin, you need help with anything?” he’d called out so that he didn’t startle him.

Marvin grinned and shook his head. “Nah, just allergies and a little congestion this morning. When the temps swing back and forth like they do this time of year, this is what happens.” Kendry had seen the way he labored a little to catch his breath and had made a decision. He was off that day and he’d offered to watch the shop for him. Marvin had needed a little convincing but he’d finally said, “You know, I was coming in today mainly just because the other fellas will be by for coffee. It’s likely you wouldn’t see anyone besides them. I could do with a little nap and a hot toddy. You sure you don’t mind?”

“No. I’ll come check on you later today. I don’t like that cough.”

Marvin had nodded and handed him the keys to the shop and told him to make himself at home. Now here Kendry sat. Jared had grinned when he’d gone back across the street to let him know where he’d be during the day. Jared was supposed to be bringing him lunch from the firehouse kitchen before long.

There was that sound again. He strained his ears, trying to catch it again. A couple of times he’d thought he’d heard Whit crying but the spells had been brief. Sometimes he heard her soft steps overhead. His senses were on alert and his worry increased. It had sounded like she was crying.

“Son?”

He blinked and looked up to find Woody standing there with the coffee pot in his hand. “I’m sorry, I was distracted. What?”

“Want more coffee?” Woody asked with a grin and twinkling eyes which he shifted up to the ceiling before looking at him again. “You’re distracted, boy, aren’t you?”

Kendry chuckled. “Maybe a little.”

From the corner, Joe Warner said, “Bet he’s got his mind on a pretty little blonde. He’s awful distracted and keeps alternatin’ between looking at the ceiling and starin’ off into space.” The gray-haired man, who he’d discovered was Jack Warner’s dad, chuckled and lifted his old coffee mug as if in toast to Kendry.

Kendry laughed with them good-naturedly and quietly said, “Just wonder how she’s doing, that’s all. New babies can be demanding.”

George Owen pulled a paper towel from the roll by the coffee maker and wiped out his mug before setting it upside down on the nearby towel and said, “That is the truth. I remember when out youngest girl was an infant and had colic. Maizy could scream so loud I swear it rattled the neighbors windows. Nearly drove poor Amelia and me to drinking.”

Joe scoffed and said, “Couldn’t have been as loud as Jack. To this day I’m a little deaf in my right ear from walking that kid for hours on end with colic.”

The old timers all nodded wisely but Kendry’s worry ratcheted a notch tighter. Was it possible Whit was keeping Presley Ann up all night with colic?” His resolve to not bother her weakened a tiny bit more.

George turned to the group and said, “Well, gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure. Got to get to the house and see what the missus is up to.”

Joe slapped his friend’s back as he came over and wiped out his mug. “Probably planning another trip for the two of you.”

George grinned and nodded. “Maybe so. She was talking about going to Atlantic City this time.”

The men teased him about being a jetsetter since retiring and he took it goodnaturedly as the rest of them rose from their chairs. During a lull, Kendry heard the sound from upstairs again. Kendry decided that he’d check on her the second they were all gone. He’d hear the front door bell if anyone came in the shop while he was upstairs. He couldn’t stand it anymore.

Joe patted the counter and said, “Kendry, thanks for covering for Marvin. Let him know we we’re thinking about him.”

“Will do. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and then groaned miserably as Joe held the door for a little elderly woman who walked up as the last of them exited. In her frail arms she carried a venerable old Smith Corona electric typewriter.

Her eyes widened as she looked at Kendry and then cast her gaze around the room and the space behind the customer service counter. “Is Marvin around?”

“No ma’am. He’s a little under the weather today.”

Her shoulders drooped a little as she said, “Oh. I was hoping he’d be in. I’m having trouble with this, and…”

“I could take a look at it for you,” he said as he came around the counter and carefully took the weighty machine from her and put it on the counter.

“I hope I’m not taking you away from your work, young man,” she said, pointing at the disassembled computer on the counter. “All of these newfangled machines are a mystery to me.”

Kendry grinned as he lifted the cover on the 70s-era typewriter. The computer he had been working on was probably brand new in 1980. “You’re not taking me away from anything, ma’am. Can you tell me what’s happening with your typewriter?”

His heart lurched as he heard the sound again from upstairs and he prayed the solution was a simple one as she pointed at one of the keys and demonstrated the problem to him.

“Is Marvin going to be all right?” the little lady, who had to be close to Marvin in age, asked as Kendry went back around the counter and pulled a couple of tools from the organizer under the desk top.

“I think so. Just needed a little rest.”

“When I talked to him on the phone about this old machine he told me I could come anytime I wanted and he’d be more than happy to take a look at it. Figures I’d miss him. Maybe I’ll have to make him some homemade chicken soup.”

The look on her face was sweet and hopeful and he smiled at her and said, “He might like that, ma’am.”

“I’ll just call him at home and check to make sure. Are you related to him? He’d never mentioned children or grandchildren to me before.”

“No ma’am. I’m just a friend. I work across the street.”

Her eyes rounded and her eyebrows rose. “Oh, are you a fire fighter?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, thank you for doing that. Can you see what’s wrong with it?”

He couldn’t help but smile as he pointed with the tiny screw driver at the problem. She asked him his name and where he’d come from. She was cute and if he wasn’t mistaken, she had a crush on Marvin. He had to wonder if maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual. Marvin had told him he’d been a bachelor all his life but had indicated he knew a little lady whose company he enjoyed very much. Maybe this was her.

He heard the downward thump of footsteps on the staircase as the woman asked him questions. Moments later he heard the sound of footsteps ascending again, and then coming back down. Her car was parked around out back and his heart fell as the sweet old lady kept talking. The door between the front of the shop and the hallway that led to the back was closed and Presley Ann would probably leave before he could even say hello.

“Can you fix it, Kendry?” she asked as she leaned in to look at the broken part.

He heard the final thump of the back door and his heart fell. “Yes ma’am. It won’t take but just a few minutes.” He waited for the sound of her car pulling around the gravel on the side of the building. Damn.

“Oh, then I can wait?”

Might as well. “Sure. I saw a model just like this one in his office when I was in there earlier. I’ll just take it apart and swap out the broken piece. Help yourself to coffee if you’d like. Mr. Porter just made it, but I’ll warn you, it’s strong.”

Petunia Dawson smiled at him and reached for a cup as she said, “I don’t mind if I do. My now deceased husband, Harold, made his coffee strong, too.”

Kendry disassembled the necessary components of the typewriter, lamenting that they didn’t make devices that were that easy to service anymore. “I’ll be in the back for a minute, Mrs. Dawson.”

“Take your time, sweetheart,” she as she browsed through Marvin’s collection of magazines on the coffee table.

Relief hit him as he heard the sound of the baby crying through the door as he approached it, and the full volume hit him as he opened it. Whit wasn’t just crying, he was screaming.

“Honey,” she whispered soothingly and he followed the sweet cooing sounds to the office, where she was bent over a portable bassinet. She was dressed in a gauzy red flowing skirt and a soft V-neck top and standing in profile, he got a glimpse of her full bust and curvy bottom and hips.

What a goddess. 

His cock stirred and the sweet sounds she made to Whit only made it worse. “Honey, Mommy has to get some work done or Uncle Marvin is going to think I’ve forgotten him. I wonder where he is today—” She turned and let out a scream and Whit began to wail again. The sound was so loud that it created reverb inside his ears.

“I’m sorry—” she began to say as she held out a hand to him and then looked back at the baby and cringed. She looked around at the mess as she reached for Whit and lifted him from the bassinet. Kendry went to her and got a close look at the desperation in her eyes as she cast her gaze around the office.

Reaching out to her, he flipped on the overhead lights so that the room was illuminated by more than just the desk lamp. She shielded her eyes and winced. Whit screamed even louder, his face beet red and big tears rolling down his cheeks as he looked up at Kendry. She jostled him and bobbed, trying to soothe him but the crying only grew worse. She looked up at him and he could see that her eyelids were red and swollen as if she’d been crying for a while. There were dark shadows under her eyes. She cringed and tears leaked from her eyes and his heart thumped hard as the need to fix the situation for her overtook him.

She’d told them she could do this all on her own but she looked as though she was nearing the breaking point. He caressed her soft shoulder and squeezed gently to get her attention because neither of them could hear each other over all the noise.

He held out his hands to Whit and looked at her for approval and said, “Let me?”

More tears leaked from Presley Ann’s eyes and her brows furrowed as she handed Whit off to him. The baby felt warm and a little sweaty in the sleeper he was dressed in and he reached for the receiving blanket she had draped over her shoulder. With pure defeat written on her features, she placed the receiving blanket over his shoulder and watched as he spoke.

“Little man, you have got a set of lungs on you. Where did you get those from?”

Whit sucked in a breath and stared wide-eyed at Kendry, his mouth hanging open as if he’d forgotten what he was doing in mid-wail. In the short space of silence, he heard Presley Ann draw in a ragged, shaky breath.

He turned his gaze to her and said, “Are you okay?”

Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she shook her head. As if on cue, Whit began wailing again and Presley Ann started crying, too.

“Oh, kitten,” he murmured as he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close so that he had his arms full of both of them and just let them cry themselves out. “Poor, poor babies.”

***

Presley Ann wanted to kick the crap out of her inner angel, the self-sacrificing maternal one that had told her she could handle an infant on her own. The only thing worse was her inner devil, that remnant of the spoiled brat she’d been rearing her ugly head, who told her that perhaps her aunt had been right.

The pain in the left side of her head was so intense that she was actually seeing stars, and crying only increased the pressure and the pain. She could barely function, so all the desire in the world to succeed as a mother was wasted, and the inner negativity only increased the feeling of failure. The knot in her throat grew as she looked up at Kendry, defeat settling uncomfortably on her shoulders as he made a sympathetic sound deep in his throat.

Whit let loose with another bloodcurdling scream and the nausea roiled in her stomach. Kendry watched Whit and when he lost steam and finally drew a long, stuttering breath he turned his gaze to her and asked, “Have you slept?”

She shook her head but couldn’t speak as another pain-wracked sob rose up as she estimated the distance to the nearest bathroom. If she got sick in front of him it was going to be epically embarrassing. Whit’s subsequent wail made the knot of muscles at the base of her skull tighten another degree.

With the baby’s next inhalation, Kendry asked, “Are you in pain?”

Helpless to do anything but nod, she put her hands to her temples and leaned against him.

Whit’s next shaky breath was less intense than the last one. Either that or she was finally going deaf. Kendry asked, “Got a headache?”

She nodded and managed a weak smile. “Migraine.”

She held her hands open expecting him to hand the baby right back to her. Lots of moms dealt with migraines while caring for an infant and she needed to suck it up.

“I have an appointment with Doctor Emma later this afternoon.”

“Have you had them before?” he asked as he caressed her brow, which sent a wave of shivers down her spine, leaving her feeling a little weak in the knees.

“Rarely. The normal over the counter meds aren’t helping and obviously I can’t go lay down in a quiet room with a washcloth over my eyes. I thought a distraction might help.” She gestured around the office. “I’m helping Marvin get this place organized, or at least I planned to. Right now, not much is getting done.”

“What time is your appointment?”

Whit began wailing again and he patted the baby on the back. His deep voice drew Whit’s attention and he gave a piteous cry, and then sucked in a few stuttering breaths. His face was red as he gazed up at him and then rubbed his eyes. He was just as exhausted as she was.

Kendry turned the baby in the crook of his arm so he faced Presley Ann and said, “Could you unzip his sleeper all the way down? Let’s get this off of him for a few minutes.”

“But he’ll get chilled,” she said, thinking a sick baby was the last thing she could deal with right now, but did as he asked.

“We’ll cover him with the blanket. There.” Whit bleated as she gently tugged the sleeves free from his arms and then eased the thick blanket sleeper down his back and off of his legs. Whit flopped his head on Kendry’s shoulder and went back to sucking his fist. “What happened?” she asked as she looked at the sleeper and then at her son.

“Maybe he was hot.” Kendry brushed his lips against Whit’s head as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do and flipped the light switch back off, easing the pain behind her eyes slightly. “Let’s see if cooling him off doesn’t help the little man. You couldn’t hear me before when I asked but what time is your appointment with your doctor?”

“Not until this afternoon at three. They couldn’t fit me in before then and I didn’t want to sit with Whit in the waiting room since it’s flu season now.”

Kendry bobbed Whit in a gentle motion and said, “When was the last time you had a break? A few minutes to yourself?”

She hated answering because she didn’t want to sound like a whiner. Being a single mom meant she played the hand that was dealt her and breaks were a luxury she just couldn’t afford to think about, let alone indulge in.

“He conked out last night and I had enough time to take a quick shower.” Yeah, at four o’clock in the morning. She’d had to take the opportunity while it was allowed and the hot water had felt sooo good she’d nearly cried. He’d been awake and crying again before her hair was even fully dry. “I’m glad you didn’t see me yesterday,” she said as she fingered the straight ends of her hair. She hadn’t been anywhere in days, much less had the time or energy for the basics. She’d been a mess.

Whit made a snorting sound and began rooting and Presley Ann giggled as Kendry shifted the baby in his arms. “Can’t help you there, buddy.” He didn’t seem at all embarrassed.

Grabbing the receiving blanket from Kendry’s shoulder, she flipped it over her shoulder, and hissed softly at the pain the simple movement sent through her wrist. Kendry handed Whit to her and she sat in Marvin’s chair with her back to him, parted the overlapping neckline on her top, got Whit latched on, and then draped the blanket so she had a little privacy before turning back to Kendry.

Frowning, Kendry knelt down and lifted the hand she was using to stroke Whit as he began suckling in earnest. She smiled, because this part she could deal with. At least until Kendry manipulated her wrist and her thumb. She hissed at the sharp pain that had been nagging her for two weeks.

“That hurts?” He glanced at her and moved it in a different direction and she flinched when pain shot up her forearm. “I’m sorry, kitten. Looks like tendonitis and tennis elbow, too. A brace will help. You’ve been holding Whit a lot, haven’t you?”

A lot. A lot. A looooooot.

She nodded. “He hasn’t been sleeping or napping well since the end of the first week.”

She’d loaded him up when he was four days old, to take a little ride and go visiting. Get a little fresh air. How smug she’d been, thinking she had this mommy stuff down. Whit was so good and nursed so well that she’d disregarded when Emma had cautioned her to take her time getting back up to speed, and Leah had offered to keep the baby for a few hours every now and then so she could take a nap or go relax. That night, Whit had introduced her to colic. She’d thought he was dying and almost called 911. She’d called Emma instead and the doctor had assured her it was just colic. Just colic. She hadn’t left the apartment since then. Nights were a misery and days weren’t much better. And the baby blues had struck, along with exhaustion. Tears made her irritated eyes sting.

Kendry stroked her knee and she could feel the heat of his hands through the gauze of her skirt. A disconcerting warmth spread through her and further embarrassment heated her cheeks when the sensation set off another letdown reflex. Whit was audibly having difficulty keeping up as he glug-glug-glugged. She tipped his head up a little bit to keep him from choking but didn’t move for fear of breaking the moment as Kendry looked into her eyes. His cheeks took on a slightly ruddy hue and she blushed even harder, thinking he might’ve caught on to what he’d done with his simple touch.

She inhaled a stuttering breath and licked her lower lip, slowly leaning toward him as if drawn by a magnet. Their breaths mingled as he moved closer and their lips brushed against each other, their warm flesh meshing together like silk on silk, barely making contact. Suddenly Whit thrashed out an arm, interrupting the moment. Kendry looked down and his expression went blank as a cool draft wafted over the upper curve of her breast and the cool air tightened her damp nipple.

Oh. My. God.

But like the eager little piglet that he was, Whit rooted around until he found the source of his nourishment. He patted her breast and squirmed closer, now perfectly content, as though he hadn’t been screaming at the top of his lungs for the last five hours. And half the night. And most of the previous day. And all of the previous night. And…

Her head bobbed and then she blinked as she looked into Kendry’s concerned gray-blue eyes.

“Whoa, kitten. You just zoned out on me for a few seconds there. I don’t think you’re going anywhere until after you’ve had a nap.”

“Hello?” a soft voice called from the front of the building. “Is everything okay back here?”

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he rose to his full height and left the office. Judging by the voices, he was conversing with someone who’d come in for some sort of computer service. It sounded like Petunia Dawson, the little old lady that had been coming in to see Marvin every so often. While he was out of the office she shook her head and stretched out her shoulders, trying to revive herself a little. Just having a little company bolstered her mood.

As a testament to her sleep-deprived state, she gasped as she realized they’d just kissed and she’d flashed her rather large boob at him. It struck her as funny for some odd reason and she started to giggle. He returned from the front and smiled at her, she got tickled all over again, and before long her laughter involved her entire body. Whit stopped nursing and when she peeked behind the drape he was staring up at her as if she’d grown another head. That struck her as hysterically funny and she laughed some more until tears were streaming down her cheeks and then held a hand to her head as the pounding increased. “Oh. Ow.”

She tried to dial it back and took some deep breaths as Kendry grinned and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“I am seriously loopy, that’s all. I just fell asleep sitting up, after sharing a very sweet kiss with you and then flashing my mommy boobs at you.”

Kendry chuckled. “Actually, it was only one mommy boob, and it was rather nice, if you want my opinion. Kitten, you need a little break. Finish nursing him, we’ll change him, and then I want you to go back upstairs and lay down for a while.”

“But—”

“Do you trust me?”

No hesitation was needed. “Yeah, I do.”

“Finish with him while I take care of a customer for Marvin, who’s also at home in bed, only he’s sick.”

“Oh, no.” Whit finished and she quickly did up the cup on her nursing bra and adjusted her top before switching the baby and the cover to the other side. Kendry had been right, she thought. Whit had been overheated because now his skin was warm and dry to the touch, not sweaty and flushed like it had been. And he wasn’t fussing. She looked up at Kendry and blinked. “I’m sorry. I was zoning again. Is Marvin okay?”

“I think so. I’ll go up front and finish with this customer and then you can leave Whit with me down here for a couple of hours so you can nap in peace and quiet. It might even help your head if you use an ice pack on it.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to thank him and refuse the offer. Whit was her responsibility. But then she thought about driving somewhere with him in the car. No. She needed to be responsible by not getting behind the wheel in a seriously sleep deprived state.

“Okay. If you’re sure you don’t mind. I’ll be just a few more minutes and I’ll change him and get his diaper bag and a bottle for you. Oh, and tell Mrs. Dawson that I said hello.”

“I will.”

Kendry grabbed a typewriter from one of the shelves and hustled back out front, the sound of their voices mingling before the door cut off the sound. Belatedly, she wondered how long he’d been down there and if Kendry had heard her crying upstairs. She hoped not. She hated looking pathetic.

After Whit was full and burped, she took him back upstairs, changed his diaper, dressed him in a onesie, prepared a backup bottle from her precious store of pumped breast milk, and grabbed a thicker blanket and his diaper bag. Just this once, she’d accept help.

She stood in the bedroom holding Whit and paused, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything he might need. Closing her eyes, she remembered the warmth of Kendry’s lips on hers, the way her heart had pounded, and the rush of pleasure that had coursed through her body. Her mind went fuzzy for a few seconds and then she gasped as she shook her head.

“Falling asleep while standing up holding the baby. Not good.” She rushed to the kitchen sink, got a glass of water and took a long drink, before carefully going down the steep stairs. Her wrists ached as she held Whit securely in her arms and she noticed he looked like he felt better, too. “Sorry for overdressing you, sugar. I don’t like that either and don’t know why I thought you would.”

He blinked those baby blue eyes at her and stuck his fist in his mouth.

Kendry had already moved the portable bassinet to the front of the building and reassured her about his ability to take care of Whit before hustling her back up the stairs. “Don’t forget to eat lunch while you’re up there.”

“Can I make you something?” she called from the stairs.

He waved his hand at her and smiled. “Jared is bringing me lunch. Go. Sleep, Mama.”

Heat filled her again and she bit her lower lip as she smiled on the way up the stairs. Looking around the apartment, it was tempting to do the flight of the bumble bee and clean house while she had the chance. Her body felt like she’d been carrying the baby nonstop for days. She nipped the cleaning impulse and went to the kitchen and got herself a bowl of cereal, after realizing she hadn’t eaten anything that morning. “That’s good for a headache, too.” She drank more water and then flopped on her bed with a cool washcloth over her eyes.

Her mind wanted to race but she knew the next two hours would be fleeting so she regulated her breathing and closed her eyes.

***

Carrying a couple of plastic food storage containers and a travel cup full of sweet tea, Jared crossed Main Street in front of the firehouse at lunch time. The sight that greeted him when he knocked on the back door of Marvin’s shop wasn’t the one he’d expected.

“Hey, Mrs. Doubtfire.”

Kendry chuckled as he cuddled Whit in his arms. “Tater-tot here got droopy-eyed during our staring match and I decided to occupy the baby with my extensive repertoire of funny noises and faces before putting him down for his nap.” Besides looking exhausted, Whit looked about as fit as a three week old baby could be.

“Dang, he’s a pudgy little thing, isn’t he? How’s our girl doing?”

“She puts on a brave face but she’s having a hard time. I sent her upstairs to lay down for a bit. She has a nasty migraine and she’s dog-tired. Whit’s had colic for the last two weeks straight and she was at her wit’s end, no pun intended.”

Jared cringed. “You remember when little Ashley had that?”

Kendry grimaced as he bobbed Whit gently and he crossed the space to the portable cradle-thingy and eased Whit down into it on his tummy. Whit curled up with his cheek to the fuzzy sheet and didn’t make a sound. “If you think Ash was bad, you should hear Whit when he gets going. It’s enough to make your eyeballs bleed. No wonder Presley Ann has a migraine, on top of everything else.”

“Everything else?”

“Yeah, looks like he startles easily so she’s been holding him a lot, hoping that would help him get some rest. It’s been a downhill spiral for them both. She’s got a bad case of tennis elbow and tendonitis in her wrists from holding him so much. I think she’s got the blues, too. I know I would. This is one of those times when hanging out with Marty, Felicia and the kids really came in handy.”

Marty had always been like a brother to them and they’d spent a lot of time at his house, even babysitting on occasion so the two adults could have some time alone, which it seemed they’d used to make more babies.

Jared smiled at the memory of their cousin and his extensive family. “Felicia would like Presley Ann. She’d probably take her right under her wing. I can hear her now. ‘Darlin’, you let that baby cry it out a little. It won’t hurt him.’”

Kendry chuckled. “‘Put him on his belly. He’ll sleep better and he won’t have a flat head.’”

Both men chuckled softly, remembering Felicia’s loving but often politically incorrect way of expressing herself.

“Anyway,” Kendry said, “She’s seeing her doctor this afternoon and I didn’t want her driving in a sleep-deprived state.”

“Good call. She gonna leave him with you while she goes?”

“That’s up to her when she comes down but I was actually thinking the same thing, if she’s willing. She has him on a feeding schedule, although she packed a bottle for him that I can warm up if I need to.”

Jared peered into the cradle and grinned when the baby’s jaw bobbed as if he was nursing in his sleep. “Bring him for a visit at the station if you get bored after he wakes up. There’s spaghetti in one container and some fancy Italian salad with dressing in the other. I grabbed you the last piece of garlic bread and stuck it in with the spaghetti.”

Jared lifted his gaze to the ceiling where it sounded like everything was quiet upstairs. “Sounds like she took your advice. How long has she been up there?”

“Only a half hour or so. I’m hoping she’ll sleep until at least two-thirty. Though what she really needs is a solid twenty-four hours of it.”

“That bad?” Jared asked, worry for her edging into his heart. He hated that she was in pain and that worn out. The need to provide a solution was strong.

Kendry nodded. “She wants to do all of this on her own and I think it’s shaken her confidence to find out she needs help. I’m glad I decided to check on her.”

“You aren’t worried she’ll see that as swooping in and saving her?”

Kendry leveled a gaze on him and said, “As tired as she is right now, she may not like it but that’s what she needs. I’m even thinking about calling her sister. If Leah knew, she’d be over here in a heartbeat.”

Jared nodded. “I don’t want her upset with us. You’re the better judge right now. Come visit later if you want to. The fresh air would probably do him some good, too.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

Jared left a few minutes later, trying to reconcile the urge to fix the situation with understanding her need to succeed on her own. If she viewed herself as a “bad” person in the past, then she might equate being self-sacrificing with being “good.” He didn’t care if she’d been a spoiled daddy’s girl. He only knew her as the beautiful, caring woman both he and his brother were attracted to.

~~~

Be watching for the fifth and final part of the Absentminded Angel out-takes, coming tomorrow!

Absentminded Angel Copyright©2014 All rights reserved, Heather Rainier

Buy Absentminded Angel at Siren-BookStrand

Happy New Year!!!!!

Sparks Fly! 2

Part Three: Absentminded Angel Out-takes, Chapter Two-Three

Out-takes Part ThreeWinter Landscape

Author’s Note: This series of blog posts includes out-takes from Absentminded Angel by Heather Rainier. I hope you enjoy them. If you haven’t read Absentminded Angel in its released form, these scenes may be confusing as they were cut from varying places in the story. I’m posting them for the enjoyment of readers who are familiar with Divine, Texas, or would like to become familiar. 😀 My recommendation would be to read Absentminded Angel prior to reading these.

This scene picks up right where the last one left off, with Presley Ann preparing to do laundry. What could go wrong?

~~~

While the washer and dryer spun and hummed through their cycles, she poked around in Marvin’s office, familiarizing herself with what needed to be done. First on the agenda was clearing the clutter off of his desk so she could have a flat surface to work on. Midway through the piles she discovered a radio and set it to a pop station, humming along with Adam Levine but eventually, she changed the station. The contemporary pop music brought back memories that weren’t necessarily happy ones. She didn’t like the person she’d been.

Self-absorbed and trying to snare one of the Carlisle brothers. Too stupid to realize they were both already head over heels in love with Lydia.

Flirting with Cody Welsh, even though it had been obvious he was in love with Maizy, because Presley Ann had thought there was no way the little kindergarten teacher could handle three men. So she’d decided to try her hand at tempting one of them away from her. No biggie.

Yanking Lucy Carter’s chain, and her corset strings, at the Dancing Pony’s Halloween party and very nearly revealing her voluptuous attributes to the entire crowd. That one had been motivated by pure jealousy both because she’d looked hot as hell in her Elvira costume but also because Presley Ann could see that Lucy was pretty much clueless about how riveted Patrick and Beck were by her presence.

She’d laughed at and looked down upon Grace Warner, Summer Webster, and many—no—all of her friends, simply because they were full-figured women who must have no self-control. Now, here she was, destined to be full-figured herself, just like her mother and grandmother. She’d held it at bay with dieting and starving herself but the writing was on the wall. Her presumption that having curves meant she was somehow “less than” was embarrassing to look back on.

Sometimes she hated the person she’d been.

Her life was now divided into halves, much like the B.C. and A.D. calendar. There was B.B., before baby, and A.B., or after baby. That was better for her than “before” and “after” cowboy because thinking that way just kept him on her mind and that wasn’t healthy for her right now. She’d begin missing him, after only having had a night with him. A one night stand was not a good basis for framing her life around. But this baby…Her baby was a good point of reference.

She settled on a station that was playing a seventies love ballads and was humming along to “What A Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers when she heard the rinse cycle end on a load of wash. Feeling a little ungraceful, she waddled into the kitchen at the back of the older house that Marvin had remodeled into an office, emptied the dryer, transferred the load from the washer and then set the washer to fill again. One load left. All blacks. She looked down at her outfit, contemplated the next step, glanced out the window at the dark yard beyond, and pulled the white nightgown she’d folded earlier from a basket.

She stripped out of her maternity clothing, every stitch, and dropped it into the washing machine and quickly slipped her nightgown over her head, smiling as the slinky fabric slid down her legs to her ankles. It tickled and even little peanut wriggled a little as she settled the lace bodice in place beneath her now enormous breasts. They’d always been on the large side, to the point she’d even been accused of having breast augmentation surgery, but now they were seriously prodigious, and also a little achy and tingly.

More thunder rumbled in the distance, creating a little static on the radio and making the floor vibrate slightly beneath her feet as the simple guitar chords of a Bread song began to play. She listened intently to it, trying to remember the name of the song she hadn’t heard in ages and smiled when she remembered it. “Everything I Own.”

Humming with the music playing in the other room, she went back to work, filling the washer with the last of the dirty laundry and then returned to the office. Her robe was upstairs, already clean and hanging on the back of her bathroom door but she didn’t worry about it. Marvin had told her that she had the run of the place at night and that he’d call if he needed to come to the office for something so she wouldn’t be scared if she heard anyone downstairs. She heard the growl of thunder from the storm moving into their area as she considered how to make sense of Marvin’s chaos.

Boxes of files and computer parts were piled around so she couldn’t get close to the filing cabinets to see if they were empty or full already. She cleared everything off his desk, except for the radio and the old touch tone phone and felt like she’d accomplished something. He hadn’t intended for her to even start that night so she felt good about making a little headway he could see in the morning. Then she’d negotiate her hourly rate with him, she thought with a smile. She would put every dime of the money she made at her part time job in savings.

Light flashed and thunder boomed outside, startling her and making the lights flicker overhead. Hoping to finish her laundry before the storm blew in and she possibly lost power, she turned off the radio and the office lights and went into the kitchen and folded the load she’d taken out of the dryer earlier while she waited for the washer to finish. She pulled out the romance novel Leah had loaned her that she’d brought downstairs with her and sighed as she sat down. It was one of Veronica’s books, a bestseller according to Leah. Presley Ann had never been one for reading but the cover looked good so she’d decided that she might give it a try if she didn’t have anything else to do. Books had never held her attention, which was why she’d never done more than average work in school.

She smiled when she saw the inscription on the title page. Leah had loaned her an autographed copy. That was really something, to think that they had several published authors in their community. If she read their books she might have even more to talk with them about. She turned to the first chapter and began to read.

Twenty pages later, with her heart pounding and her nether regions aching and hot, she jumped up when the dryer finished and pulled warm clothes out one-handed while she kept reading.

She flipped the book over to look at the cover. Bound By The River Bridge.

“Holy crap, we were never assigned reading like this in English class.” She bit her lip as she read, anticipation ratcheting higher as the heroes and heroine faced off in their first meeting, the sexual tension building with every word they snapped at each other.

Thunder crashed and the lights flickered and she screamed out loud. Then she cackled with laughter as she pulled the last load out of the dryer and began folding them.

“Okay, so maybe I’m a little bit of a reader after all.”

She carried the first load to her apartment door, and was propping it open with the doorstop when she heard a noise. Cocking her head, she set the basket down and went to the window over the sink. It was all inky black darkness outside and rain had begun to fall. She stilled and listened and frowned when she heard the noise again. It couldn’t be—

“Waaah!”

Shaking her head, she went to the heavy back door. “Who would have a little baby out this time of night?”

She flipped the deadbolt lever and pushed the release bar on the backdoor, which unlocked it automatically, and cracked it open. At first she couldn’t hear anything because of the wind and the rain and then it came again from beneath the window. She’d have to open the door all the way in order to be able to see around it.

“Waaah!”

It sounded so much like a baby instinct took over and she hurried out onto the concrete steps, ignoring the splattering rain that soaked her in seconds as she tried to block part of her body with the heavy door. “Hello?”

Wishing she’d grabbed the flashlight from her room upstairs first, she opened the door further and looked around it. Belatedly, she remembered the stories going around on the Internet about rapists using the recording of a baby crying to get unsuspecting women to open their doors. Lightning flashed, illuminating two mating cats crouched near the foundation that snarled even louder. The crash of thunder made her scream and jump, and her hand slipped from the damp metal door. The wind caught the door and she remembered Marvin’s words the day he’d replaced the back door as she watched it slam closed.

“If you go outside make sure to keep your keys with you. Even if you unlock it to get out, this door locks automatically when it closes.”

“No!” she cried as she yanked on the door handle ineffectually.

The cats snarled and growled and then tore past her on the porch and disappeared into the night.

“Hey! At least you got laid,” she groused and then gaped as she looked down. The nightgown was plastered to her from neckline to ankles and her favorite cushy house slippers were soaking up the water. Chilly water seeped between her toes. “Oh no!” Looking around, she surveyed the bare backyard, the houses in the neighborhood beyond, and heard the rumble of cars on Main Street out front. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the cold.

“What the hell do I do now?” It was cold and she needed to get back inside immediately. She knew that much. But her mind went blank. Light pierced the air and she was already shrieking when the thunder shattered the night. She screamed again and was filled with fear when her abdomen tightened up in a contraction. It was mostly painless but it scared her into action.

She went to the window and tried to reach it but couldn’t. Using the more benign flickers of distant lightning, she looked about the yard for a ladder or crates. Anything she could use to get back inside. Marvin would understand about the broken window but no way was she running around the neighborhood in a transparent nightgown. Lightning flashed again nearby, startling another scream out of her.

If she kept screaming like a ninny the police would be there before she could get in and how humiliating would that be? Hysteria bubbled up inside her when she considered that it might be one of her brothers-in-law who were dispatched to check out the disturbance. That would be the worst, most embarrassing thing that could happen to her. As if fate was having a field day on her pathetic ass, she suddenly heard male voices drawing near.

“I think it came from back here!” a deep voice called as she whimpered and prepared to explain. Lightning flashed and thunder blasted again, making it hard to hear for a few seconds and when she looked up from her crouched, protective position, their faces caught the flicker from distant lightning and she recognized both men.

Shoot. Me. Now.

***

Jared’s worry multiplied as the second scream echoed across Main Street. They’d just been dropped off by James Elder at the fire station, where they’d left their truck, after having a late supper with him, Vincent, and Leah. The plan had been to make the short trip back to the Hourglass Inn, catch a good night’s rest, and head back to Abilene the following morning. They were just opening the truck doors when they’d heard the first scream and that plan was all but forgotten. The voice was clearly female and his immediate fear had been that, given the hour, it might be Presley Ann, and that she was in some sort of danger. A quick glance across the street showed the lights of her apartment upstairs were on.

Both of them were drenched by the time they made it across the street and the same fear must’ve been uppermost in Kendry’s mind because he headed for the back of Marvin’s building, calling out, “I think it came from back here!”

They barreled around the corner and lightning lit up a white clad figure under the window at the back of the building. She looked up and the lightning illuminated the fear written in her body language as she crouched there, her arms wrapped protectively around her tummy.  “Oh, honey,” Jared murmured as he tore off his jacket and draped it around her as he squatted to offer additional shelter from the rain beating down on her. “Presley Ann? It’s me and Kendry. Are you injured?”

Shaking her bedraggled head, Presley Ann said, “I got l-locked out.”

She shivered against him and he turned to Kendry. “Call the firehouse to bring a blanket.”

“No! No! They can’t see me like this,” she pleaded with chattering teeth as she grabbed hold of Kendry. “They-They’ll be able to see through my n-nightgown. Please don’t. Just help me get back in my apar-partment.”

“I’ll check the window,” Kendry said after also wrapping his jacket around her. She moaned softly as Jared helped her stand and didn’t even hesitate to wrap his arms around her when she burrowed close as a cold wind gusted around them.

“Locked,” Kendry said.

“Bring the truck.” He handed Kendry his keys. “We can wrap her up and then call Marvin or her sister.” Kendry bolted for the front.

“Th-thank you.” He could barely make out her words. She trembled as she put her hand up to shield her face from the rain that was now blowing sideways. Looking down, he groaned when he saw her slim bare feet, only one of them encased in a soggy slipper that was stained with mud. The other lay nearby, ruined, in the sparse grass and gravel.

A minute later, the light from headlights bounced into the parking lot on the side of the building. Kendry pulled clear to the back and left the truck running as he hurried to them with the wool blanket they kept handy for just such a need.

“Let’s get you out of the rain,” Jared murmured as he and Kendry quickly wrapped her up.  She turned with him and he caught her just in time as her feet slipped out from under her. “Whoa, darlin’.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the passenger side door and raised her into the truck and into Kendry’s arms as he reached for her from the driver’s side. They both climbed in on either side of her and Kendry turned the heater up and directed the vent at her. She passed their jackets back to them from under the blanket, carefully keeping it closed as she did. Her little feet were completely pale and felt like ice when he wrapped his hands around them and rubbed to warm them.

“I-I had s-slippers on earlier.”

Trying to get her to smile, Jared said, “I think the lightning scared you right out of them. I saw one on the ground and you must’ve lost the other one on the way to the truck. Sorry, but I think they were pretty much ruined.”

“You look like a bedraggled kitten,” Kendry said with a grin as he took the edge of the blanket and began blotting at her pale golden hair. Jared had to agree, thinking that the appellation suited her. “What’s Marvin’s number?”

“I hate bothering him this l-late.”

“Okay, what about Leah?”

“Oh, no! That’d be worse. I don’t want to worry her.”

“Then Marvin it is?” Jared asked as he brushed a drenched lock of her hair back over her shoulder.

“I—uh—yeah, I guess s-so.”

Kendry dialed the number she gave him.

She held her hands out to the warm air coming from the vent. Jared asked, “So how did you come to be outside in a thunderstorm?”

He noticed the way she tensed as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly and he and Kendry made eye contact over her head, and his EMT instincts came alive. Kendry held the phone to his ear while the call rang through and then a distant voice came on the line.

Glancing at his watch, Jared softly asked, “Presley Ann, you okay?” and then watching her face for any sign of pain.

She looked up at him and nodded. “I was downstairs in the kitchen, where the washer and dryer are located. While was I finishing my laundry, I heard a noise outside,” she said, and proceeded to explain what had happened. Guilt showed in her eyes when he groaned at the vulnerable position she’d put herself in.

“I know. It was stupid but I really thought it was a baby. I went out there and saw the cats and the thunder startled me and the wind slammed the door shut, locking me out.”

“Are you having labor contractions?”

With a shake of her head, she said, “I don’t think so. Being startled caused a really hard Braxton Hicks contraction, that’s all.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Including the first one, there have been three. None of them hurt…at least not really.”

He was relieved that her teeth were no longer chattering and turned his attention to Kendry as he finished his call with Marvin. He really wanted to get her upstairs and make sure she was okay.

“Marvin said he’ll be here in just a few minutes.”

“I feel bad for disturbing him,” she said as she pulled the blanket tighter around her.

“He said you’d say that,” Kendry said as he helped her cover up her knees, which were visible through the filmy white fabric of her gown.

Poor baby, she must be chilled to the bone.

The wind, rain, and thunder outside made a lot of racket. With a giggle, she looked down at her blanket covered tummy and said, “The excitement has the baby all stirred up.”

“Any pain?” Kendry asked as he put his hand out to her middle.

“No, just moving around a lot. Oh, heck.”

“What?”

“Now I need to pee. He just shifted onto my bladder. The rain doesn’t help, either.” He and his brother chuckled and then she looked up at Jared with solemn eyes. “Sorry to be a bother. I know the last thing you probably planned on tonight was getting soaked and cold while coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. It’s really embarrassing being seen like this, especially by you.” She bit her lip after the last word was out of her mouth and a rosy blush filled her otherwise pale cheeks as she looked down at her stomach.

“Kitten, we don’t want you to be embarrassed. I’m just relieved we heard you. I hate to think of what could’ve happened if we hadn’t. And I for one am happy to see you under any circumstances.”

“Same goes for me…kitten. Hey, I kinda like that,” Kendry said with a nod as he stroked her hair from her cheek, warmth filling his eyes. A warmth that didn’t surprise Jared because he felt it, too, at least where this woman was concerned. Expecting or not, she’d captured their interest and their hearts practically from the first night she’d met them.

Presley Ann’s cheeks turned pink and she held the blanket higher under her chin as she looked from Kendry back to him. “Kitten? You mean like a nickname?”

“An endearment,” Jared said, hoping she didn’t take offense. “Would that bother you?”

She bit her lower lip and he didn’t like the resignation that came into her eyes. “Guys, in case you didn’t notice, I’m like…super huge and pregnant. You really don’t want to waste your time on me.” She sucked in a shaky breath and shook her head. “I heard you were moving here and there’s lots of pretty single women in this town. Why would you—”

Jared laid a finger lightly on her lower lip, his heart aching at the desolation he saw in her blue eyes and the set of her mouth. “Why would we be interested in you?”

Presley Ann gave him a conciliatory smile and shook her head. “I know why. It’s because of Leah. She told me you asked her if she had a sister, because you took a liking to her when you met her but she was already taken. But really guys, you don’t know me at all. You don’t know how I’ve been over the years.” She stammered as she continued, talking faster and faster. “My life is way too complicated and I have no one but myself to blame. If you really knew me you wouldn’t think I’m much of a ‘kitten’ or anything else sweet, cuddly, and likable like that. You really don’t want to spend time with—”

She was getting more and more worked up and Jared did the one thing that would distract her from saying such negative things about herself. He kissed her right on the lips. Her soft squeal was muffled against his lips and her blue eyes flashed open wide as she gazed up into his eyes before her eyelids slowly slid closed. Her breath puffed in little pants from her as she cuddled close to him. A shudder rippled through her as Kendry gathered her hair from beneath the blanket and he laid a kiss at the juncture of her shoulder and throat.

At such close proximity to each other, Jared looked up and made eye contact with his brother. Kendry’s eyes held more than a trace of heat and he groaned softly as he sat back and said, “We’ve got company.”

Jared drew back from her, pleased with the dazed look on her beautiful but pale face. Her eyes fluttered open, revealing bewilderment as she looked up at him and then turned to look at Kendry, then back at him, then back at his brother.

Kendry chuckled and said, “Careful, kitten. You’re going to give yourself whiplash. That lace is pretty on you.”

“Huh? Oh!” Presley Ann said, gasping as she looked down. The blanket had fallen around her shoulders, revealing the lace on the neckline and bodice, and the lush swells of her breasts. His cock tingled as he caught a glimpse of perky pink nipple before she jerked the blanket back up around her neck. Before she could say anything else, Marvin Kramer’s truck pulled in next to theirs in the back lot. Feeling disappointment that they’d been interrupted but happy that they could get her back inside and warmed up, Jared opened his door as Marvin climbed from his truck.

Jared stopped Presley Ann when she would’ve hopped down and said, “Wait until we get the door opened, kitten, and then I’ll carry you inside so you don’t have to walk on the gravel. There could be glass or something that would injure your feet. You don’t need that right now.”

“Oh, but it’s just a short—”

“Hey folks! Sorry you got locked out Presley Ann! You okay?” Marvin called over the wind and the rain as he came around to the passenger side. He clucked sympathetically when he saw her soggy state.

“I’m fine, Uncle Marvin. Sorry I got you out of bed for nothing.”

“It’s no trouble at all, sweetheart. I’ll get that door opened for you in a jiffy.”

He hurried over to the steps and had the back door unlocked and held open for her a few seconds later. Jared lifted her, enjoying her solid, warm weight against him, despite her protests, and carried her up the steps and over the threshold. “Smells like fresh laundry in here,” he murmured as he set her on her feet.

Presley Ann smiled and then flushed crimson as she grabbed for the opened paperback book lying beside one of the laundry baskets. It was a pretty hot-looking romance, judging by the cover. She stuck it in the side of the basket. “Yeah, I’d just finished folding my last load when…all that happened.”

Marvin shook the water from his hat in the sink and said, “I’ll install a back-up key for you somewhere out back just in case something like this ever happens again. I’m so sorry about this. You must be freezin’.”

Presley Ann shook her head and said, “No, it was my fault.”

“A hot bath will get you warmed up, sweetie. I’ll let you know where I put the key when I see you tomorrow.” Glancing at the Jared and Kendry, he added, “Everything else okay? You need help getting your baskets back up those stairs?”

“No, Uncle Marvin, I can manage. Everything else is fine. They weren’t visiting or anything, just…rescuing me,” she said with a little smile before looking between the two of them.

“We don’t mind carrying the baskets upstairs for you, Presley Ann,” Kendry said. “Especially since you were having those minor contractions. We have EMT training so we know that’s not active labor but you shouldn’t push your luck after being frightened and chilled.”

Marvin nodded and looked at them and then toward the door. “All right then. Kendry and Jared seem like nice guys, and they’re gonna be neighbors over at the fire station. You should let them carry those baskets up.”

Biting her lips, Presley Ann finally nodded.

Marvin said, “I best be on my way, then, folks…if that’s okay with you, Presley Ann?”

She nodded and thanked him for bringing the key. He went on his way, after giving Jared and Kendry one last long look and tipping his hat.

Jared piled two baskets on top of each other and Kendry grabbed the third and her laundry products and Kendry said, “Lead on, kitten.”

***

Another mild contraction wrapped around her middle and Presley Ann looked at the loaded baskets and at the two handsome men, standing there holding them. The energy to carry them upstairs had deserted her. A shiver wracked her and the contraction pulled tighter. All she wanted was to get out of the night gown and into a very warm shower.

“Kitten, your lips have a bluish tinge to them,” Kendry said as he inched a little closer. “All we want to do is help get your laundry upstairs and then we’ll let you get warmed up. Whatever worries are in your head, just let them go. We’re only here to help.” He smiled and looked a little guilty. “I liked kissing your neck but I wouldn’t take advantage.”

She bit her lip as she glanced at Jared but he just gazed at her with those gray-blue eyes of his, a paler version than Kendry’s medium gray-blue eyes. His mouth curled up ever so slightly at one corner but he didn’t say a word, just glanced down at her laundry and then stared at her lips. His gaze created a little flicker of heat in her core, all the more noticeable because she was frozen.

Not only is he not sorry for kissing me, he looks like he’d do it again, given the chance.

She shook her head as she motioned toward the propped open door to her apartment and slowly climbed the steep stairs. She had to pee really bad and she breathed shallowly as another contraction tightened her middle. It was painless but disconcerting.

When they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, she darted a glance back at them, wondering what they thought of her tiny home and then, because she had little choice in the matter, she scampered with all haste to the bathroom and shut the door.

“Oh my gaaaaaaah…” she moaned in sweet relief as she huddled there, finally able to relieve the pressure.

“You okay, Presley Ann?” Kendry called through the door. The hint of amusement was clear in his voice.

“Um, yeah! I’m fine!” One of the pitfalls of living in a loft apartment. Very little in the way of sound barriers.

Still shivering, she stripped off the clammy wet gown and hung it up to dry and slipped into the comfy fleece robe she kept on the back of her bathroom door. After tying the sash, she looked down at the soft knot pushed up high by her abdomen and shook her head. Prepared for them to take one look and hightail it, she exited the bathroom carrying their blanket.

Jared said. “We put your laundry baskets on the table. Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure,” she murmured as she went to Jared and handed him the blanket as she glanced at him and his brother. “Thank you again for being there for me. I’d probably still be down there if it wasn’t for you.”

Jared folded his big callused hand around hers as he took the blanket from her. “Promise us you’ll never go outside alone at night like that again.”

She nodded. “I promise. It was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.” Speaking of… “Guys, I really meant what I was trying to say earlier, before…You really don’t want to waste your time on me.”

“I wouldn’t consider it a waste of time,” Jared said.

“I have too much on my plate as it is. I’m just…”

Kendry drew close. “Just what?”

“Just not a good bet. Let’s leave it at that.”

Kendry shook his head but didn’t argue with her. “Kitten, you’re still shaking and you need a hot shower. We’ll get out of your hair. But consider this once we’re gone—why not leave it up to us to determine if you’re a good bet?”

Because I’m the one who stands to lose that bet.

She looked at them and said, “You’re soaked and shivering, too.”

Jared said, “That’s okay. We have fresh clothes at the Hourglass Inn.”

“I wish you luck on your move here, and finding a place to live.”

Kendry turned back to her and grinned. “Thanks. And we did find a place, out near James and Vincent’s cabin. Plenty of room to run. You’ll like it.” He spoke as if he assumed she’d be visiting and then he winked at her.

Kendry was the more extroverted of the two, although Jared didn’t seem unnecessarily taciturn. He just didn’t smile or open up as easily as Kendry did.

Jared leaned forward and kissed her brow and his scent, wood and spice, invaded her senses. “We’ll lock up. If you have any more contractions, call your doctor, kitten. We’ll be in town until tomorrow. I left our numbers on the note pad on your table. Call us if you need us.”

“Or if you just wanna talk,” Kendry said quietly, smiling up at her with those sparkly eyes of his before he kissed the corner of her mouth, sending a tingle shooting through all of her extremities and into her core. “Drink lots of water. And don’t open your door unless you’re sure who’s on the other side.”

With a soft chuckle, she nodded and put a hand over her abdomen as the baby jostled around some more. “I’ll be very careful. Thank you.”

The door shut behind them and she heard the telltale click of it being checked from the outside and then felt the thud as the heavy outside door was closed tight as well. It was kind of nice to be looked out for like that.

Don’t go there, girl. They were being nice. Now they probably feel even sorrier for you.

She lit the wall heater in her bathroom and took a leisurely warm shower. The heat went a long way toward easing the ache in her back. After the excitement of the evening had worn off, fatigue gripped her and she dressed in a clean nightgown and retrieved the sexy romance novel from her laundry basket and climbed into bed, wondering if she’d be able to stay awake to read.

She didn’t even make it to the next chapter before a tight—and most definitely painful—contraction wrapped around her abdomen.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Once it had passed she reached for her phone and checked the time. Laying there, breathing with as much calmness as she could summon, she stroked her abdomen—and her suddenly quiet little boy—and began talking to him.

“Is it time, little one? Too much stress this evening?” Whispering softly to him, she watched the clock on her phone and moaned when another contraction came five minutes after the first one. She let out a shaky sigh, trying to remember what Leah had told her about when to call and who to call. In her anxious state, she needed to reach out to someone.

The image of the note with the phone numbers scrawled in a decidedly masculine hand on her table came to her, but she needed her sister this time. Part of her heart mourned that it was not the confident warmth of a significant other that she reached for. After the third painful contraction she pulled up the last number she’d dialed on her phone and waited for the call to connect. It picked up on the second ring.

“Hello? Presley Ann? Are you okay?” Leah’s voice brought instant calm with it.

“Sis, I think I’m having contractions.”

“I’ll be right there. Sit tight.”

~~~

Watch for the third installment soon. 🙂

Absentminded Angel Copyright©2014 All rights reserved, Heather Rainier

Buy Absentminded Angel at Siren BookStrand

 

 

Part One: Absentminded Angel Out-takes, Prologue and Chapter One

Out-takes Part One Fashion portrait of nude elegant woman

Author’s Note: This series of blog posts includes out-takes from Absentminded Angel by Heather Rainier. I hope you enjoy them. If you haven’t read Absentminded Angel in its released form, these scenes may be confusing as they were cut from varying places in the story. I’m posting them for the enjoyment of readers who are familiar with Divine, Texas, or would like to become familiar. 😀  My recommendation would be to read Absentminded Angel prior to reading these.

What follows is the original opening of Absentminded Angel. I took readers back to the day Presley Ann gets the piece of news that changes her life forever.

 

Prologue

 

March…

“This can’t be happening,” Presley Ann Woodworth whispered, barely able to get the words out. She broke out in a cold sweat. “This can’t be happening. Are you sure?”

Dr. Emma Rivers patted her shoulder and gave her a compassionate smile. “Very sure. A lot of women don’t notice symptoms for at least a couple more weeks but the tests indicate you’re pregnant. At the next visit you’ll be able to hear your baby’s heartbeat.”

“My baby’s heart—” Her throat closed up as panic tightened its grip and cold chills of shock shimmered across her arms. Her cashmere turtleneck felt like it was choking her.

Doctor Emma laid a form on the examining table and then removed a couple of pamphlets from the drawer by the sink. “I’ll leave these with you to look over once you catch your breath. Stop into the lab next door to our office and they will draw blood for the lab work we need done.”

“Draw blood? Lab work?” She felt like an idiot parroting everything Emma said.

Emma reached for the rolling stool, sat down on it, and scooted over into Presley Ann’s field of vision where she sat in the straight back chair. “You do have options, Presley Ann. We can talk about them at the next visit. Maya specializes in prenatal and maternal care and can also answer your questions if you need to call in after you get home. For now, just take a few minutes and breathe if you need to. We’re in no rush for this room. Just get the blood work taken care of before you leave.”

“That’s probably best, since I’m likely to forget otherwise.”

Emma just smiled and nodded. Presley Ann wanted to cringe as she replayed her words in her mind. What kind of mother forgot to take care of necessary things like blood tests? No. What kind of dingbat, you mean.

Taking a deep breath, Presley Ann rose from the chair, trying to disguise her shock as she adjusted her Coach handbag on her shoulder. Her feet were like ice in her Louboutins and cold sweat trickled at her temples and between her shoulder blades as she followed Doctor Emma out of the exam room and into the hallway.

“Saltines and ginger ale may help with the nausea. Just remember several small meals throughout the day are better than three larger ones.”

Presley Ann didn’t bother asking if two teeny-tiny meals were any better. There went her weight maintenance strategy, a major daily concern up until five minutes ago.

She’d called in earlier that morning for an appointment with Doctor Emma, complaining of nausea and fatigue, thinking she might have the flu. Now here she was. Knocked up.

In a haze, she settled up at the reception counter and mutely nodded when the lady asked if she’d like to set up a time for her first pre-natal appointment. Presley Ann accepted the reminder card the woman filled out for her and then exited the office, stepping out into the atrium that was ringed by other doctor’s offices.

Frosted glass hid the occupants of the waiting room in the dermatology office across the way. Next to it was a pediatrician’s office. Through the tidy, multi-paned windows, children of various sizes could be seen playing with toys or sitting and looking at books in their parents laps in the waiting room.

One young woman sat with a tiny dark-haired infant nestled in a bundle against her chest while her toddler sat looking at a child’s book on her knee. The dark-haired child, obviously the infant’s sibling was chattering non-stop to his mother. And she was surely their mother. There was spit-up staining her shoulder and what looked like wet cracker tangled in the strands of her long curly blonde hair. She looked utterly exhausted, if one was going by the dark circles under her eyes. But then the mother smiled at something the toddler said, and Presley Ann caught a glimpse of something besides the fatigue in her eyes as she stroked the toddler’s cheek. An emotion Presley Ann couldn’t identify.

That mom looked like she didn’t get much sleep but she didn’t seem troubled by it. Presley Ann griped non-stop anytime she had to get up before nine in the morning. Her life had been only about herself up to that morning. I would make a horrible mother.

The mother looked up and their eyes met across the atrium for a split second before Presley Ann looked down at the forms and ordered her feet to put one in front of the other and get her out of there. She didn’t care where.

She wound up in the back entry and her attention was drawn to the fountain located in the midst of crape myrtles that were still dormant from the long winter. Someone had recently tidied up the landscaping and the fountain was already functioning again. Her feet took her to a bench and she plopped down hard on it and was instantly reminded of the nausea when her stomach lurched.

A baby?

She blinked and tears finally overflowed her eyes as she looked down at the forms. Lab work. She’d walked out of the building without stopping at the lab. Feeling wobbly, she put her fingertips to her forehead and they came away damp. It wasn’t hot but the sun shone down on her with intensity that was blinding. Her head began to ache. She needed to get inside in the shade, get the blood work done, and then get a bottle of water so she could take something for her headache.

What can I take for a headache? Is it even safe?

“Shoot!”

She hurried back inside but groaned when she got to Doctor Emma’s door and saw the sign on it indicating they were out for lunch.

With a shaky sigh, she turned and headed next door. The receptionist at the lab greeted her and took the forms Presley Ann handed her, nodded, and told her the phlebotomist was out to lunch but would return shortly, if she would have a seat and wait.

Presley Ann nodded and walked on wooden legs to the row of cushioned chairs facing the windows and the landscaping beyond. She blinked and her eyes stung as more tears came.

She didn’t know the first thing about being pregnant. Had never wanted to be pregnant. She didn’t even know if she could take an aspirin, for crying out loud. She looked in her handbag, realized she didn’t have any pain relievers in it, but spotted her birth control pill pack.

Zipping the bag, she laid it aside with a wry chuckle. Fat lot of good those had done her. Not that she could blame them. She forgot to take them as often as she remembered and had to double up.

Now look at the fix you’re in, dingbat. You thought you hated your life before.

She sat there for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes as reality settled heavily on her shoulders. Wracking her brain, she thought back to the last time she’d had sex and let out a long, shaky breath.

“Oh boy.”

The dark blue eyes of a raven-haired cowboy hovered in her memory. She’d met him at O’Reilley’s while waiting for tables to become available. Her dad was supposed to join her and he’d called and cancelled on her because he had to work late. Not a big surprise coming from her dad and she’d decided to stay and eat on her own anyway, since it beat cooking at home alone. Their eyes met across the lobby and the spark between them had been so powerful, so perfect. He’d greeted her and once he found out she was on her own he’d invited her to be his guest at his table for the evening. There was no way perfection like that could last, so she’d refused to give him her name and cut him off gently when he tried to introduce himself. He’d smiled and played along.

“Why did I do that? It was so stupid.” Not only because she was pregnant, either. He’d been different toward her. She had been used to men taking what they wanted, and she was mostly okay with that as long as she got what she needed first.

His hair had been cut short but would be curly if he let it grow longer. His black eyebrows had arched any time he laughed and his neatly trimmed beard had given him a rakish look that reminded her of a pirate. His chest had been broad, covered with a dusting of black hair that had peeked out over the top button of his shirt during that one evening they’d had, until he’d finally taken it off, along with everything else.

His lips were perfect, full and sensual as he’d smiled, and so warm as he’d kissed her all over. His hands had mesmerized her as he’d stroked her flesh, his fingers long and gentle, rough at the very tips.

The night hadn’t ended with dinner, or with their evening spent at the Dancing Pony, and he’d invited her back to his hotel. Perhaps knowing it would end had made the flame burn brighter and stronger, at least in her memory. He’d made love to her with skilled abandon. He’d brought her to orgasm so many times she’d lost count. And when he’d held her afterward, she hadn’t felt used or disappointed. She’d felt a connection with him.

It’d been on the tip of her tongue to tell him her name so that perhaps they might somehow meet again but by then he’d drifted off to sleep, still holding her close. She’d fallen asleep debating about telling him the next morning.

But when she woke, it was to find his note on the pillow next to her, telling her that he’d had a wonderful night and he hoped like crazy that someday his life would bring him back through Divine again. And that maybe then she’d tell him her name.

Crestfallen, she’d showered, dressed, and gone home. The memory of his winsome smile and sparkling eyes created a fresh rush of tears. She wasn’t always the best judge of character but she knew in her heart that he would want to know about his baby.

There had been nobody else for months before him, and nobody else since. Anytime she’d gone out, the men she’d encountered hadn’t measured up to his memory. Yes, he’d want to know. And she had no way to tell him.

An uncomfortable wave of shame wrenched her heart. She scoffed and whispered, “Two ships passing in the night. What an idiotic plan.”

 

***

Early April…

Kendry McCulloch’s conscious thoughts floated like a fishing line bobber on currents of sound and light as they neared the surface, able to process neither the sounds nor the sensation. His head…his brain…felt like it was wrapped in cotton, muffling sound and making it impossible to organize thoughts. Then his cognitive bobber popped to the surface.

Beep. Beep. 

He was chilled. His eyelids felt like they were stuck together and he felt powerless to open them.

“There he is,” an approving feminine voice said as it moved around the room. The deep reply was muffled so he couldn’t make out the words that were uttered. Distant sounds of an intercom echoed but made no sense either.

“I’ll let his doctor know.”

His hands felt stiff when he clenched them and they moved toward his torso seemingly of their own volition as he took a deep but shaky breath. A gentle hand stayed his as he clutched the soft material at his chest.

“Steady there, Mr. McCulloch. You’re in the hospital, remember?”

Hospital?

He remembered. Surgery. A heart. Finally.

He was finally able to break the seal on his eyelids and his eyes teared a little as he blinked and saw the double image of a female face and form bending over his bed, smiling at him. No angel wings on her back. No heavenly chorus or blinding lights. He had a new definition for the word awesome. “Your surgery went just fine, Mr. McCulloch. Your brother is here with you.”

“Hey,” the familiar voice of his brother came to him from the other side of the bed and he took another deep breath as he turned his head. His eyes finally focused in the dim room on Jared’s familiar face.

“Hey.” His voice sounded rusty and distorted.

Jared pulled up a chair and sat down. The beeping of monitors and the sounds of a voice on the intercom in the hallway broadcast again and Jared’s unshaven face came sharply into view as the curtains of anesthesia parted completely and reality slipped in.

“You’re gonna scare all the nurses with that wolfman look.”

Jared grinned widely. “Are you kidding? Several of them gave me their phone numbers already. One told me I’m worthy of a romance novel cover. You, on the other hand, look like hammered hell.”

He felt tired and out of it but the bone crushing weakness and unrelenting cold in his extremities caused by poor circulation from a dying heart was gone. “It worked?”

Jared’s face broke into a relieved smile and his eyes got shiny. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. It worked.” His hand was practically crushed in Jared’s grip as he looked away briefly and nodded. “It worked.” Relief was in every syllable.

Kendry’s eyelids grew heavy again but he smiled and said, “I wish I could thank them…”

“Who? The doc will be here in a few minutes.”

“No, whoever it belonged to before…” Sleep enveloped him again.

Chapter One

 

November…

“Hope you weren’t expecting a baby shower, cuz. I mean, I can chip in for cheapo diapers if necessary but…” Willie said as she grabbed up an armful of blouses off of the fully loaded rolling rack and hung them en masse on the round display rack, leaving them all askew on their hangers. “Baby showers should be reserved for moms who get their wedding rings on the right side of the pregnancy test, you know? Straighten those blouses for me, will you?”

Her job had been ever so much fun since her cousin, Wilhelmina Perkins, better known as Willie had come to work at Stigall’s earlier in the summer.

Presley Ann imagined a flame thrower in her hands. Willie wore so much hair spray in her hair that it was liable to combust if someone so much as flicked a lighter at it. And she was mean. “I can buy my own diapers, thank you very much. And you made a mess of the blouses. Straighten them yourself. I didn’t need any help over here.” At least not from you, heifer.

“I was told you needed help over here. So here I am, helping you do your job. You can’t lift your arms above your shoulders so I’m doing the bulk of the work. Least you can do is go behind me and fix them.”

I’d like to go behind you and plant my foot in your hateful ass. “Who told you I can’t lift my arms?”

Willie rolled her eyes and scoffed at Presley Ann. “Dummy, you can’t lift your arms over shoulder height because it might wrap the cord around the baby’s neck.” A customer in the nearby juniors department looked Willie’s way and rolled her eyes.

Presley Ann burst into laughter and her baby boy wiggled in interest at the sound as she caressed her burgeoning abdomen. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Willie. You should lower your voice and stop repeating old wives’ tales as though they were medical fact or people will think you’re a hick.”

Willie curled her lip. “I’m not the one who’s knocked up and two steps away from trailer trash. Like I said, I hope you don’t think you’re getting a baby shower out of this out-of-wedlock pregnancy.”

Feeling her heart racing, Presley Ann knew when she was being baited. Willie was not worth the escalation in her blood pressure. “Your concern is heart-warming, cousin, but I’m perfectly capable of doing my job, including lifting my arms over my head. And I don’t need a baby shower. I’ll be ready with all the necessities when this baby is born later this month.” She was proud that she’d managed to get together most of the basics for her baby, plus build up an emergency fund in the last eight months. Things weren’t perfect but she was hopeful. Evelyn and Leah had offered to throw her a shower but she’d turned them down. She didn’t feel like sharing that information with Willie. Willie would just turn it around and tell her how ungrateful she was.

Willie scoffed. “That Prada diaper bag is gonna set you back a pretty penny. You sure about that, cousin?”

Willie’s comment didn’t even deserve a response. Presley Ann was getting good at overlooking or ignoring hateful remarks like that. Because there was a time when she might’ve thought she deserved baby showers and things like designer diaper bags, she also felt that in some small way she deserved the catty remark. She could probably cover four or five months’ rent with what it would cost to buy a Prada diaper bag and cringed again at the kind of money she’d spent blindly over the years.

“I’ll bet you’re going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe once you have that baby,” Willie said as she dug a fingernail into her ear and looked Presley Ann up and down.

Presley Ann lifted a handful of the blouses from the trolley and began arranging them on the rack and straightening the ones Willie had mussed. “Why do you say that?” She knew exactly why Willie said that and wished Willie would go back to wherever she’d come from and leave her alone.

“There’s no way that fancy designer wardrobe will ever fit you again, you’ve put on so much baby weight. You’d have to work out nonstop and there won’t be any time for that once that baby comes. Since you got pregnant you’ve ballooned. Those fancy designers don’t make clothes in plus sizes, you know.”

Presley Ann breathed slowly, trying to find her Zen happy place by imagining her baby boy’s face. Willie didn’t need to know that Presley Ann had already sold every stitch of designer clothing and all of her designer purses, shoes, and accessories to a designer resale boutique in San Antonio months ago. She was being careful moneywise since she’d need to shop for clothing once the baby arrived and she knew what size she’d be. In truth, she was surprised she wasn’t completely freaked out by the thought of moving up a few sizes but Doctor Emma said she was doing fine and her baby was healthy. She had more important issues to deal with than whether or not her thigh gap was really gone for good.

“I’ll worry about that when the time comes, Willie.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say. Next thing you know, you’ve been carrying the baby weight for ten years. Mark my words, the best thing you could do is give it up for adoption. I even know a couple who might be willing to take it off your hands—”

Presley Ann froze and met Willie’s hateful brown gaze from across the rack. “My baby is not an “it”. I think it’s time for you to go back to whatever department you came from.”

An elderly customer meandered into the Misses department and Presley Ann drew in a deep breath and smiled as she recognized the lady.

Willie brushed past her, barely missing jabbing her abdomen with an elbow as she called out, “Oh hello, Mrs. Porter! How can I help you today? We have a sale on those blouses you liked so much last week—”

“Thank you, Wilhelmina. I wanted to visit with Presley Ann. Would you mind letting Evelyn know that I’m here to take her to lunch?” Charlene Porter said with dismissal clear in her eyes and tone.

Willie’s jaws flapped for a second and she frowned. Her dark bushy eyebrows drew together in the fuzzy caterpillar look that was so common among the Woodworth men, as well as Wilhelmina’s mother, Presley Ann’s aunt. Willie nodded and reluctantly left to do the venerable Mrs. Porter’s bidding. Her husband was the local Justice of the Peace and highly thought of in the community. Willie wouldn’t dare do other than what she bid her to do, not if she wanted future business from Mrs. Porter.

Presley Ann threaded her way carefully through the rows of racks, which were full with merchandise for the approaching Christmas season. “Hello, Mrs. Porter. How are you and Mr. Porter doing?”

“We’re doing beautifully, dear. How many times do I have to remind you to call me Charlene?”

Presley Ann laughed and said, “I’m sorry…Charlene.”

“How’s our little man these days?” Charlene asked as she gathered Presley Ann to her for a hug.

“He’s been very wiggly today. Dr. Rivers said he could come anytime.”

Mrs. Porter’s eyebrows shot up. “Should you be on your feet so much?”

Presley Ann rubbed her lower back when it gave a slight twinge and said, “I prefer staying busy and keeping my energy level up with activity, you know? I think if I was at home I’d just sit and stew.” And I need the income.

“Oh, that wouldn’t be good either. When do you take your lunch?”

“In a few minutes.”

A big smile spread on Mrs. Porter’s face. “Well then, that’s just perfect. Allow Evelyn and me to take you out to lunch. I’m in love with the new chicken salad plate at Rosalie’s Café.”

A blush spread heat across her cheeks as she replied, “Oh, Mrs. Porter—I mean Charlene, I couldn’t intrude.”

“It would be no intrusion at all, dear,” Evelyn said as she made her way through the racks. “We would love to take you to lunch. You can finish the rest of that trolley when we get back.”

“Well…if it’s no imposition, I’d love to.” No adult in her life, besides her dad, had ever invited her out to lunch before. “Let me just push it off to the side so it’s not in the way.”

“I’ll help, dear,” Evelyn said as she took hold of the back while Presley Ann guided the front of the trolley around to an open spot against a wall near the dressing rooms. “It should be fine here. One thing, Presley Ann. You might be careful how much information you share with Wilhelmina.”

Mrs. Porter harrumphed as she drew close and said, “That young woman is every bit as bad as her mother. Interfering harridan.”

Presley Ann groaned, recalling Wilhelmina’s domineering mother’s attempts at helping her husband hunt under the guise of finding her temp jobs. Even though Lydia Carlisle had forgiven her, it still shamed her that she’d gone along with that attempt to snare one of the Carlisle brothers. She certainly hadn’t been showing her best side or good character. The memory made her heart heavy. “You can’t choose your family, right?”

“Too true,” Evelyn said with a wry smile. “She’s a talker, that one. I’m glad Leah sees through her obsequious attitude.”

“What do you mean?” Presley Ann asked softly as the ladies came close.

Evelyn shushed her as Willie walked past, eyeing them suspiciously, and then said, “Go get your purse and we’ll tell all.”

Presley Ann grinned and nodded. As she waddled slowly down the main aisle to the back of the store she smiled to herself. Her friendship with Evelyn had blossomed in the last eight months to what it should’ve been all her life because that was how long she’d known Evelyn.

She’d never had any good friends, much less close ones. She’d always thought friendships were just too much work. Too much mindreading necessary. Too much cattiness and too many head games. That’s why she’d never been friends with Willie. She’d given up early on and learned to make her own self happy.

After grabbing her purse, she was walking back up the aisle when she encountered James and Vincent Elder, her still somewhat new brothers-in-law. They were both dressed for work in their police officer uniforms.

“Hey, sweetie!” James said with a big smile as he opened his arms and she went right to him. “You doing okay today? How are you feeling?”

Happiness fizzed in her chest as she hugged him back and then returned Vincent’s gentle hug as well. “I’m just fine. Hey, I was wondering if I could get some help from you gentlemen.”

“Whatever you need, just ask.” Vincent said easily.

“I found a good used crib at a baby resale store in Morehead. I looked at the picture of it online and I think it might work, once it’s cleaned up. More importantly, the price is right.”

James and Vincent shared a brief look and a smile and then said. “Let us know when you want to get it and we’ll take the truck and help you with it. Is it already put together?”

Presley Ann bit her lip and said, “That’s part of what I wanted to ask you about. The lady said it’s in several pieces, and it comes ‘as is’. She can’t vouch for whether all the hardware is with it or not.”

James nodded and said, “Just tell us when. I’m sure we can improvise if there’s hardware missing.”

“Thank you. Are you here to see Leah?”

“Yeah, we’re taking her on a picnic at the park,” Vincent replied with a grin.

What was it like to be with two such thoughtful men? She was happy for her sister. She’d waited a long time to find her happiness and it still saddened Presley Ann that their threesome might’ve been a foursome if fate hadn’t intervened when James and Vincent’s brother, Patterson, had been fatally injured in a motorcycle accident the previous spring.

Life was hard sometimes. She wondered yet again how it would be for her son growing up with his father missing from his life. Often she wondered what had become of that sweet cowboy and if they might ever meet again.

“Well, you go have fun. I’d like to try and get the crib in the next couple of days if I can. I’ll call you?”

“Sounds good,” James said with a nod and then grinned big. “Hey, you might be happy to know that Kendry and Jared McCulloch made it official.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the mention of their names. “Made what official?”

“They’re moving to Divine. All the visiting they’ve been doing has them convinced that this is where they belong.”

Kendry and his brother Jared had come to Divine during the summer to meet James and Vincent. Kendry’s life had been saved earlier that year when his number had come up on the heart transplant list and the heart he’d received had been their brother Patterson’s. In Presley Ann’s eyes, Patterson took the term “hero” to a whole new level because his decision to donate his organs if he died had led to numerous lives being saved or made better.

Heat blossomed in Presley Ann’s core as she thought of the handsome McCulloch brothers. Her heart palpitated every time she remembered the kind way they’d treated her when they were around her, like she was made of glass. Always making sure to speak to her when they were around her. They obviously felt sorry for her. It was dangerous to think about them but she couldn’t help it.

They made her feel twittery which made her feel embarrassed, which made her blush, which made her feel even more embarrassed. The part that surprised her though was that she’d never acted that way around any other man before, even the father of her baby. He’d brought the boldness out in her while Kendry and Jared made her want to hide. When they looked at her, she wondered if they could tell what she was thinking. She had no business thinking those thoughts, however. She had to stay focused on learning to be a good mom and not get sidetracked by romantic fantasies.

“I’m glad to hear they’re making the move. Abilene is losing two good firefighters, I’m sure. When are they moving?”

“Soon. They’re here today looking for a place to live. They’ve already hired on at the fire station in town. I think that was in the works last time they visited.”

Oh boy.

That information made her quiver a little. The central fire station in Divine was located directly across the street from Batson’s Grocers, Divine Auto Repair, and Marvin’s Computer Service…and her little apartment located above Marvin’s.

“That’s great news. I imagine you two must be hungry. The last time I saw Leah, she was in the stockroom, working with the receiving manager, trying to get the most recent delivery in the back door.”

Vincent’s eyes widened. “She’s moving boxes?”

Presley Ann chuckled and said, “No, she was giving orders.”

Both men laughed and reminded her to call them when she was ready to get the crib. The crib might possibly fit in her car in its disassembled state but she knew there was no way she could unload it and get it up the steep stairs to her apartment. It wasn’t worth the risk. And with her luck, she’d probably wind up shredding the cloth upholstery of her older Toyota Camry.

After her dad had insisted on fixing the air conditioner and the fuel pump in her Mercedes coupe, he’d assisted her in finding a buyer for it and then put out feelers for a good used four door car. She’d drawn the line at him contributing toward the cost of it. In the end, they’d found a reliable car that would get good gas mileage. She’d made an offer, which the seller had accepted. She’d had sufficient money from the sale of her Mercedes to cover the cost plus enough to buy new tires for it.

Her dad had wanted to give her one of several cars he owned but she’d refused him outright, saying he couldn’t keep swooping in saving her. It was enough that he would keep her on his insurance and that he was covering her medical expenses, and even those, she paid for herself whenever she could, without telling him.

After saying good-bye to the men, she went on her way to the front, rubbing her lower back which ached and felt stiff all the time now. She drew a deep breath, trying to feel grateful that her pregnancy had been uncomplicated, according to Emma, and her baby was right on schedule developmentally.

At Rosalie’s, the ladies clucked over her like mother hens as she eased into the seat, her enlarged tummy keeping her from getting very close to the table.

After they’d looked over the menu, Presley Ann said, “Okay, now tell me what you were being so hush-hush about. You said Leah sees through Willie’s obsequious attitude.”

Evelyn cleared her throat and frowned. “When she came to the office to let me know Charlene was here, I heard her tell Leah that every time she turns around you’re loafing around or talking, in other words not doing your job.”

Charlene sipped her sweet tea and then said, “I can’t say I’m surprised. I think that in her mind, because she is family, she’s jockeying for a position of authority.”

Evelyn scoffed. “I’ve seen that, too.”

Charlene replied, “That one is trouble. She’s the type that likes to keep the ugly gossip going. She is what my mother would’ve called a little pot-stirrer. She likes to stir trouble up just so she can watch the resulting fireworks. She was baiting Presley Ann when I walked into the store earlier.”

A blush heated Presley Ann’s cheeks. “You heard her?”

Charlene patted Presley Ann’s hand and said, “Her voice carries so I heard the last part of what she said. I couldn’t hear your reply but I saw the look on your face. You mustn’t let her destroy your happiness, sweetheart. Lord knows it’s hard enough to find in this world. She’s only happy when others are miserable. Now, I’m curious, Evelyn. What did Leah say when she told her that Miss Presley Ann here was sluffing off?”

Evelyn snorted with laughter. “Leah cut her off and told her that even nine months pregnant you could work circles around your cousin.”

Presley Ann almost dropped her fork and her jaw practically hit the table. “She did not.”

Evelyn grinned at her and said, “She did. Leah knows how hard you work. Wilhelmina has always been trouble, even as a child. And I doubt Doug would’ve pushed Leah to hire Wilhelmina if his sister Dorothy hadn’t called in a favor. He’d do anything for family.”

Presley Ann nodded, a bittersweet ache in her heart, thinking of her dad telling her that he thought her situation was partly his fault. Like he’d somehow been responsible for her poor decision making abilities. But he was a sweetheart and an old softy.

Their food arrived and as they ate and shared the latest news, Evelyn said, “I’ve heard that the McCulloch brothers are moving to Divine.”

Presley Ann nodded. “James and Vincent mentioned that just a few minutes ago. I knew they’d talked about it the last time they were here. That’s good news, I suppose.”

“Very good news, I think. I have a good feeling about those two,” Evelyn said and then filled in Charlene on their unusual relationship with the Elder brothers. “I rather like the thought of Patterson’s heart still being around, causing mischief.”

Presley Ann smiled, also happy that Leah had been able to move on with James and Vincent after the heartbreak she’d suffered over losing Patterson. Presley Ann couldn’t imagine what it was like, being bonded to two men, being loved by two men.

Well, yeah, actually you can, but it’s just a fantasy.

Evelyn pulled out her smartphone and said, “Time for a selfie, girls. Here, Presley Ann, you do the honors. My arms are too short.”

Presley Ann giggled and took the picture with the ladies and then handed it to Evelyn. After a few seconds of fiddling with the phone, Evelyn let out an uncharacteristic growl.

“What’s the matter?” Presley Ann asked as she leaned closer. “Having trouble uploading it?”

“No,” Evelyn said, “I posted it on Facebook. It’s your cousin that has me perturbed.”

Now curious, Presley Ann took out her own phone and checked her newsfeed.

“It’s not worth looking at, dear. That cousin of yours is the queen of passive-aggressive posting.”

Presley Ann chuckled and said, “Now I have to see what she said.” Her heart pounded as Willie’s post popped up and she read it out loud. “She just posted this a couple of minutes ago. It says, “Pet Peeve #28: The way some people take advantage of me. They get help and are they grateful? No. They act like they are entitled to everything when all they actually are is spoiled and relying on their daddy’s wealth. I’m not knocked up trailer trash. And some other people need to mind their own—” Presley Ann paused and coughed and then amending the message for Evelyn and Charlene’s sake. “Eff-ing business and keep their hurtful opinions to themselves before they wind up on their asses when I get sick and tired of being told what to do.”

Charlene growled a little, too, and said, “Evelyn, isn’t she still on the clock?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Evelyn said as she put her coffee cup to her lips as she tapped at her phone screen. “I just passed her helpful hint on to Leah.”

Comments began to pop up to Willie’s post. Dorothy Perkins, Willie’s mother, commented about how some people needed to be taken down a notch. Several other people commented who obviously had no idea who Willie was actually talking about. Presley Ann felt lucky she didn’t have anything in her mouth or she would’ve choked when Leah’s comment popped up.

“Pet Peeve #29: People who have a problem with me but are too chickenshit to say it to my face. You’re still on the clock. Get off your phone and come to my office if you have something you need to say to me. Otherwise get back to work.”

Evelyn chuckled when the comment evidently popped up on her screen and she said, “I wonder how long it will take Willie to delete Leah’s comment? Oh…not long at all.”

Charlene snorted and shook her head. “That young woman is a chip off her mother’s old block. All one has to do is look in her eyes and see what a miserable person she is.”

Presley Ann shrugged. “She was partially right. My dad is taking care of most of my medical expenses.”

Evelyn put a warm hand on her forearm. “When George and I were first married, we lived with my parents while we saved up for a down payment on a house. Then I got pregnant and what had been a temporary situation turned into eight long years when he was drafted. My parents were happy to have us there, sharing the burden, and my father said he worried less about me, because I was with them, when George was overseas. What you think of as being a burden may actually be doing your father some good. You just take care of you and that little baby and don’t worry about the opinions of dried up old biddies and their boorish daughters.”

She gasped when Evelyn slid a small envelope across the table with her wizened little hand. “This is from Charlene, Woody, George, and me. Now, no fussing, Presley Ann. You refused when we tried to put together a baby shower for you last month, so we just pooled our resources and got this for you.”

Biting her lip, Presley Ann lifted the flap on the envelope and saw a gift card from a large discount warehouse store located out on the Interstate. “You shouldn’t have.”

Charlene giggled and said, “Oh yes we should have. We all know what it’s like to be on a tight budget with a baby on the way. It’s not as much as we’d like it to be but it should buy you some diapers or other things you might need.”

Blinking back tears, Presley Ann reached out and covered their hands where they rested on the table with her own and whispered, “Thank you.”

She’d argued with her dad over providing the baby diapers on several occasions, telling him that she could provide for her baby. He’d insisted, saying her mother would be so upset with him if he didn’t help her in some way, as if he wasn’t already doing enough. Since she’d refused the car he offered, she had to allow him to pay for her diapers. In the end, she’d won the argument when she’d told him to invest the money in Whit’s college fund so he could have his pick of universities when he was ready. Her father, ever a practical man, had finally thrown in the towel. Her son would have an education and she would keep his little bum covered. Everyone was happy.

“Now, what are your plans for day care, sweetheart?” Charlene asked, blinking back a few tears herself.

“I looked at several daycare centers in the area but I didn’t have any luck finding something I could reasonably afford. I was nearing the panic stage when Leah told me that she’d heard Margie’s daughter has a small baby, too, and needed a job that would allow her to stay home to help Margie out. She and her mother live near Dad so I’ll be taking the baby out to her place every day that I work in the store.”

Margie was a former Stigall’s employee who had struggled in recent years after her husband, a disgruntled ex-employee of Stigall’s had been arrested and sent to prison for coming into the store with a loaded weapon and shooting the place up. Margie and her kids had always been sweet, and with her husband behind bars and likely to stay there for many years, Presley Ann felt like the choice was a good one.

“Well, that’s perfect!” Charlene said as she clapped her hands.

Perfect? Not hardly. “I still wish I didn’t have to leave him with anyone at all.”

Presley Ann couldn’t shake the feeling that at least in part she deserved Willie’s criticism, however harsh and uncalled for in a public forum it might be. She was knocked up and she was receiving help from her father. She just didn’t know what else to do, besides work every chance she got.

~~~

Be watching for the next out take post tomorrow morning at 7 AM Central

Absentminded Angel Copyright©2014 All rights reserved, Heather Rainier

Buy Absentminded Angel at Siren-BookStrand!

me-hr-dcr-absentmindedangel-full

 

NaNoWriMo: Now What?

A nanowrimo2012-tuawYou took that leap of faith. November 1st or thereabouts you set fingers to keys and unleashed the visions in your head on the page. You learned a few things along the way:

~It’s harder than you thought.

~You know less about good grammar, spelling, and punctuation than you imagined.

~You realized that plot and structure apply to you as well, even if you don’t want them to.

~Even if you want to break the rules you still have to understand the rules to break them properly.

~It’s necessary to show up every day and put fingers to keys in order to achieve your goals.

Those are all good starting points and NOT reasons to give up.

A novelists_0What do you do now? Save your magnum opus in a computer file and shake your head because who would want to read that? Put it away because you can’t look at it again after working on it for 30 days straight? Or open it to page one today and realize that what you have in your hands is a FIRST DRAFT. It’s not supposed to be perfect.

Oh wait. Did you think it was perfect? *gigglesnort* I refer you to Tymber Dalton’s advice: Go take your meds. Do yourself a favor and go read her own blog post “You Are Not A Special Snowflake”

You may be getting pressure from well meaning friends asking when they can read this creative work of genius they’ve seen you posting progress for on Facebook all month. You may be getting lots of advice about what to do with your masterpiece. All I can say about that is to check the quality of the fruit of the person giving you advice. If they are where you really want to be then by all means skip the rest of this post and do that.

If not, then let me bend your ear (or monopolize your eyes) for a few more moments…

“What do I do with this thing, Heather?”

Many of you are seriously considering self-publishing your NaNo novel. You want to make a successful career out of the writer gig. Awesome. But for the love of all that is inspiring, beautiful, and magical about storytelling…

DO NOT RUSH TO PUBLISH!

You were not “finished” with your book at midnight on November 30th.

Yes, you typed those wonderful words—“The End”—but you were by no means done. This is where the real work begins.

It’s not time to start looking at graphic designers, stock photo sites, or cover artists. That’s one of the last things you need to do.

Revisions. Right now, it’s time to comb through that manuscript and find all those areas of inconsistency in your story. Weed out the content that doesn’t move your story forward. Fine tune your character development.

Are your characters relatable, likable? They don’t have to be perfect but they DO have to be characters your readers will want to root for. Can your readers suspend disbelief to enter your world? Is there a compelling story to keep them in that world?

Correct your typos, grammar, tenses, and punctuation. Yes, a copy editor will also perform this service but don’t think it’s not part of your job, too.

Your readers may be able to suspend disbelief for your world building but if their experience is repeatedly interrupted because you don’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re, or because you’re head-hopping faster than they can keep up, or your heroine’s eyes just changed from blue to green then all that awesome world building isn’t going to carry you.

  • If an editor asked you to tell them about your book in two sentences or less, could you do it?
  • Do you know the rules for the genre you wrote your story in? Do you even know what genre your story is? If it’s supposed to be an erotic romance but you spent more time on the comedy than the love scenes, you might want to dial back on the giggles so your readers can feel the heat.

Perhaps you’re from a creative background and you already have some skills, but if you’re a first timer maybe you’ve drawn another conclusion:

IF I WANT TO MAKE MONEY AT THIS GIG MAYBE I’D BETTER BECOME A STUDENT

A ready-get-set-go-nanowrimo-L-ahAKHWDuring a lull in writing last summer, I read a number of self-published romances, both erotic and not-so-erotic. I’d been getting recommendations from Amazon based on other books I’d been reading, and I’d also had some reader recommendations. What the heck, right?

I learned quickly to always choose samples instead of investing the full price. The reason? While the $2.99 price tag may be tempting, MANY of those books were a waste, not only of my money, but of my time, because of issues that were fixable if they had just taken the time to either fix them or get the advice of a professional.

  • Typos, bad grammar, errors in tense and point of view, head-hopping, improper or missing punctuation. Poor sentence mechanics and structure. Lack of basic description or too much description. Narrative that goes on for pages and pages. Repetition. Choppy, chit-chatty, boring dialogue. All those are bad enough.
  • What’s worse? Unlikable characters. Storylines that were more contorted and convoluted than they needed to be. Inconsistencies within the stories. Lack of showing versus telling. Missed opportunities. Poor timing, especially in love scenes.

1653491_915838241768500_3212485775564198219_nI’ve painted a pretty dismal picture, I know, but that was my experience as a reader. I don’t want to start any wars here but I’ll happily pay ten dollars for a well-written, well-edited story that will satisfy me, whether it was published in New York, or by an indie publisher, or self-published.

So, as the proud owner of a newly completed manuscript, what do you take home from my experience?

  • You need a professional editor for both content (storyline and character development) and copy editing. Hire a professional who edits in the genre you’ve written in and pay them. (If you ask them and they have no clue what to charge you, they are not a professional.) And don’t expect them to do the work for you. You’re the writer. They’re your edits to work through. The benefit is that way you will learn, by doing, what not to do.
  • You need a professionally done cover. You’ve been on Amazon. You know what I’m talking about and I don’t need to say anything else, because…damn.
  • Don’t set a release date and then kill yourself reaching it, only to discover that you have major screw-ups in a manuscript that is now accessible to millions. Your name is your brand and the last thing you want is for readers to feel cheated.
  • Take your time and put only the best into your readers’ hands every time. No, that is not an unreasonable goal. I’m not talking about perfection. I’m talking about being a professional.

“Heather, I can’t afford to pay an editor, or have that kind of time! I have a day job and bills.”

That’s okay. This is a marathon, not a sprint. The more you write the more you hone your skills, provided you’re educating yourself in the process.

A Chris Pine writingKeep writing. You could be another blockbuster author who writes for the sheer love of it and winds up with a big Rubbermaid tub of manuscripts or a cloud drive full of completed stories. If your goal is to become an awesome writer, one day your opportunity will present itself and you could wind up a millionaire with readers worldwide who adore you. It could happen. It has happened.

Keep honing your craft. Read everything you can on the craft of writing. Subscribe to writer’s and editor’s blogs. Most of what I’ve learned about craft I learned online by asking questions and doing Google searches. The answers are out there. Read bestselling books in the genre you want to write. Dissect them, outline them, (just don’t plagiarize them!) and discover what works about them…and what doesn’t..facebook_1410934681774

Befriend authors online. Observe what works and what makes you come back to them. And learn what the turn-offs are and promise yourself to never air your dirty laundry, political or religious views, or rants over reviews online. Never. Just don’t.

Don’t go for promo gimmicks. Building a following that lasts is a time-consuming process. If you’re doing this to get rich quick, it’s highly likely you will be disappointed in the long-term results. And value the people in your life who will tell you what you need to hear, even if you have to pay them to do it.

The other benefit of taking your time is that it allows you to develop subsequent stories that can dovetail into previous ones. The fact that I’m able to do that in my series is borne completely from the fact that releasing a submitted book takes two months and in that time, story elements from future books can be woven in to previous ones (with care).

I apologize for popping your bubble if you wanted to get rich quick with your NaNo novel. The writing is the fun part. December 1st, the work will have only just begun.

  • Make the investment in professional editing, formatting, and cover design.
  • Do the work.
  • Have it edited again.

.facebook_1414207362932Then worry about unleashing that masterpiece on the millions who will love it. That way, when your work stands out, it won’t be because it’s a train wreck, it’ll be because you are the cream rising to the surface in an industry that is increasingly difficult to be seen in.

This post was primarily geared toward those NaNoWriMo survivors who are considering self-publishing. It’s important that you get references for all professionals that you hire. And if someone approaches you wanting to publish your book “for you” if you’ll just pay them a fee, don’t walk, run the other way. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Yes, if you want to self-publish you’ll have to pay your team of professionals for services at the time they’re rendered, but in publishing, the royalties should flow to the author not away from them, assuming you want to make money. 🙂

10297569_1551280418346272_5825404518159253846_nNote before anyone throws a fireball at my head: My thoughts about self-published books are based on my experience as a paying reader. And yes, there have been a few that have been worth the money I paid. My intent is not to denigrate self-published works, but merely to emphasize that self-published authors have to serve as their own gatekeepers.

My professional experience is as an author writing for an independent publisher. I don’t have to worry about paying an editor, a formatter, a cover artist, or a printer for paperbacks, and I don’t have to deal with distributors. They handle all that for me. That means I can do what I’m best at.

Rather than ask for comments about self-published train wrecks you may have read and regretted, or self-pubbed works that you thought were more than up to snuff, I want to open comments up to NaNoWriMo pre-published authors, and those who would encourage them.

Tell us in fifty words or less about your book.

Hook us. Make us salivate for your story. What were some of the challenges you experienced along the way? You’re welcome to comment whether you met the 50,000 word count goal or not. It’s about the journey.

Comments are moderated for first time commenters and posts shaming any author by name will be deleted.

 

 

 

Being Thankful

I’ve seen lots of friends posting their days of thankfulness or gratitude on Facebook lately and many of them get me smiling. Facebook sometimes seems flooded with negativity and those bright spots do make it a better place.

One reader is a teacher who shares the occasional random thought from one of her anonymous teenaged male students. What harnesses the mind of a teenaged boy is oftentimes hilarious. But she’s also grateful for her kids, and not just the ones she corrals at home. It’s hard to be a teacher in our culture and the fact that she actively searches for something to smile about makes me thankful.

Another reader comes from a totally different culture from me. We live in the same state but the part of the state she’s from might as well be another country. She’s liberal, I’m conservative. She’s a little woo-woo but she’s okay with the fact that I’m not, but since I kinda get where she’s coming from, doesn’t that make me a little woo-woo, too? I don’t know but I’m okay with her articles about auras and Mother Earth.

A friend of mine is perpetually angry on Facebook. A lot of what she’s angry about is justifiable, and sometimes I get the feeling that she’s right in a lot of what she’s angry about. Yeah, I could unfollow her, but there’s always a silver lining to being her friend because she also genuinely cares for others, so I’m thankful for her.

Then there’s that reader who recently lost a loved one, and if there was any way I could do it, I’d fly to her just to give her a hug. She’s dealing with that pain and the resulting depression the best way she can, and keeps positive, and for that I respect her even more. She faces her pain regularly and doesn’t dump on people in the process. No, instead, she edifies others, lifting them up and making them the focus. That is a gift.

I’ve also been watching several author friends participating in NaNoWriMo this month. For the uninitiated, that stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is for writers to pen 50,000 words in the thirty days of November each year.  Time is wearing thin in November and some have kept pushing while others have thrown up their hands. To me, it almost seems unfair to do this in a holiday month when there are so many distractions, but it’s also a time when aspiring authors learn if they have what it takes to write that many words in a month. It gives them a taste for striving with a deadline, but it’s only a drop in the bucket for what’s required to have staying power in this industry. Despite the struggles, I love what I do for a living, and respect the fact that they at least try. And no, is not as easy as it looks, is it?

In this month alone, I’ve watched authors behaving badly, and reviewers getting stalked, seen books being pirated and plagiarized by people who think that’s okay. So when I see authors acting classy, behaving well, having fun and making it look easy, I’m thankful. So very thankful.

We had plans set in place for Thanksgiving, but like all well made plans, they can change in a moment’s notice. This change in plans led to me being thankful. Thankful for my kids.

We parents raise them up, hoping they turn out responsible, self-disciplined, and others-oriented. We hope they don’t wind up being burdens on society.

I have two, and what I see most often are the squabbles, the chore-ignoring, and inconsiderate behavior they show toward each other, and sometimes toward their parents. They’re 12 and 15 and before I know it they’ll be out from under our roof.

My worries were given a moment’s peace yesterday when this change in Thanksgiving plans happened. I don’t want to give too much detail but it involves a pre-school great nephew who became unresponsive yesterday and was showing classic symptoms for stroke. We still haven’t heard what the issue is so I appreciate everyone’s prayers and healing thoughts.

This nephew has a younger sibling and his parents are expecting their third child early next year so the mom is pulled between being at the hospital, being needed by the younger child, heavily pregnant, and dealing with her own stress as well as her husband’s. Not a place where I’d want to send extra kids.

Since she already had her with her, my sister-in-law asked if she could take our daughter with them out of town to help out. Juliet, as she is known online, is extraordinarily gifted in dealing with young children and her help was an asset to them. Our initial reaction was to not want to send more children into an already chaotic situation but they insisted she would be an asset.

Although I obviously am not thankful that my four year old great nephew is in the hospital with a potentially serious condition, I am thankful for the revelation that my daughter’s hands were needed, and also that she dropped her own plans for a relaxing holiday to help out where needed.

But there is another added blessing. It’s the burden of “Number Two” children, and those beyond, that they never really have a chance to enjoy having their parents all to themselves, especially on a holiday. As I write this, Brattley, as he is known online, is on his way home with his dad, and it looks like we are spending the holiday with just the three of us. He’s always made a point of speaking his gratitude for moments where it’s just him and us so I know it will be meaningful to him. And MAYBE it’ll give him a chance to miss his sister and appreciate her just a little. Asking too much? Let a mother have her delusions dreams, damn it. 😀

That’s my Thanksgiving blog post, in all it’s randomness and gratitude. I’m thankful for every one of you and hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

 

On Making Readers Cry

Portrait of the beautiful sweet womanSo much can happen in a year. Sometimes it’s good to revisit past moments, mental snapshots we take and swear we’ll never forget. But we’re human, and we do. I’m republishing one of the Divine Tease Blog posts that was lost in the changeover last spring. Not because I’m lazy, although I am.  🙂 But because it is relevant once again.

Brokenhearted Beauty received reader acclaim that made me blush. To hear that readers love my books and my characters and wish they could move to Divine makes me giddy with pleasure and burn with motivation to write them more erotic romances set there.

But Brokenhearted Beauty also made readers cry. It made me cry when I wrote it and as I edited it. It wasn’t the hardest book I’ve ever written but it was an emotional rollercoaster and I knew it would be for readers as well.

There’s catharsis in tears, if the reader is willing. Many called it an “ugly cry” kind of book, soaking Kleenex, towels, slinging snot, setting the book down to take a break because it got to them so much. But for every tear I hope there was also a laugh or a sigh. After all, it’s still a love story with a happily ever after.Fashion portrait of a very muscular sexy man

I was searching for something else and happened upon the blog post I wrote in October of 2013 and wanted to share once again, the deeper inspiration behind Patterson Elder’s character, and my future hero, Noah Cassidy. I’ve yammered on enough, so here it is…


I Once Knew this Kid

My first conversation with him occurred when he was in sixth grade. I was a new parent at the school he attended, where my firstborn was a kindergartner. In an attempt to fight off lingering post-partum depression, I’d volunteered to work in the school office each Friday. It was a difficult task for an introvert like me, but I greeted the kids every Friday and got to know all their parents for many years to come.

He was an extrovert, and that’s all I knew about him until the day my son and I encountered him in Wal-Mart one weekend. He was all banged up, face cut, bruised, and limping, but he was exuberant. You see, the day before, he and his dad had been involved in an ultra-light aircraft crash, and they’d both made it through with just cuts and bruises. The very thought terrified me, but as he described what happened, the only word I can think of to describe his reaction to the experience was exuberance. His eyes positively glowed as he told me about it, and I was a mom he barely knew.

Like many young men, the middle school years were difficult. He was short for his age but he made up for it with a tendency to be aggressive. He was out-spoken, and at times a bit of an ass. I once personally had a run in with him for bullying a student who had social difficulties with underlying medical causes. He bullied this student in my presence and he and I had some face to face time over it. That may shock you but what is even more shocking is that he showed me respect, he backed down, and he apologized. He went through a phase where every word out of his mouth seemed to get him into trouble. But through it all, he was still the same exuberant, extroverted kid.

I’m ashamed now to say that at the end of his freshman year, when I found out he wouldn’t be returning to our school, having chosen to go to the local public high school, I was glad. I thought him to be prideful, disruptive, and at times hurtful to those around him. He discovered in our local high school what many students and parents discover when they seek greener pastures, and he petitioned to come back the following year, for eleventh grade. At that time, I wasn’t happy but I hoped the experience had humbled him.

Instead, he humbled me. Because the young man returning to our school was the same energetic, extroverted leader I knew he would be…only now he was on fire. I was worried at first until I shared a few conversations with him and began to realize he’d changed. I was thankful for the change because by this point my son was a student at this school…and he idolized this young man. All the little kids did, because he made time for every one of them. If they approached him in the hallway, he always got down on their level and give them high fives and encouraged them. Each summer, he helped with football camp and basketball camp, and my son’s admiration for him only grew.

His senior year, I felt blessed to have seen the transformation this young man experienced. He’d managed to grow beyond the uncomfortable, awkward, stinky, hormonally-out-of-control kid I’d always known into a young man with true potential.

I will never forget the morning I pulled up on a Friday morning with the kids in tow, probably running late as usual. He parked behind me with his radio blasting, cut the ignition, got out and sang, at the top of his lungs, “That how country boys roll!” I’m a Billy Currington fan, and he and I shared a laugh over that. The kids were awed.

He was a musician, and an athlete, and a drama student, and he excelled at all three. He and his buddies took a very harsh beating at the state football championships when they were freshman against a team of corn-fed boys who were built like men. I mean they didn’t just beat them, they HURT them.

His best friend told him, “When we’re seniors we’re going to beat the $#!& out of those &*$%@#-&*)*@#$!!”

And you know what?

They did.

Their senior year, they beat that same team for the state championship, transforming our football program for years to come, just because of the belief he and his friends instilled.

During this time, I began writing, pursuing my own fledgling dreams. I was yet unpublished, and I was developing the story for what would eventually become Rosemary’s Double Delight. I was taking a risk with this story because the beginning includes a series of flashbacks from when my characters are young: kindergarten age, middle school age, and high school and college age. My characters were difficult. They didn’t always get along and they hit lots of bumps in the road. As you can probably guess, one character in particular resonated with me, because he reminded me of this young man I knew. He wasn’t perfect but he had a good heart. And that guy somehow wormed his way into my character’s heart. He was so much fun to write.

I watched this guy grow and mature. My career took off, and like with many other friends who have inspired characters, I could never tell him he’d inspired me. It just wasn’t going to happen but I was still grateful to him. He could sing his heart out. He could act the fool on stage with such genius. And he carried the football with honor, heart, and courage.

He graduated from our school and went on to college with a full scholarship with plans to join the military. I hated his new haircut but I was so proud of him. He came back for our home football games and he would smile and wave at everyone. He would talk to everyone. And the kids…oh, the kids adored him, because he remembered them, including my son, who he’d been throwing a football to since he was four years old.

The funny thing about guys like him is that they approach the world head-on with guts and determination, sometimes forgetting they aren’t bullet-proof. Two weeks ago, he got on his motorcycle, without his helmet, and never made it to his destination. A driver failed to yield, and after impact, he flew fifty feet through the air and landed on his head. An emergency worker just happened to be at the scene of the accident and she was there comforting him as his cognitive abilities faded.

The outpouring, the uproar, and the force that is Facebook lit up with the pleas and prayers for this young man. I heard about this secondhand, as I am unable to have a personal Facebook page. But what I heard didn’t surprise me a bit.

At his funeral, which happened in a standing room only crowd, and took two and a half hours because of the stories people shared from his life, I learned something amazing. Because he had signed up to be a tissue and organ donor, with his vital organs, he has already saved the lives of FIVE people. He gave sight to two individuals. His skin, tissues, veins and blood will help between 50-100 people. The donation coordinator was able to go from the operating table where his heart was harvested, to the OR where it was implanted into another person, thus completing the circle of life for an organ donor. One of his vital organs went to his own godfather.

Some people might call it a fluke, the way the accident happened, the fact that he was brain-dead but otherwise uninjured, but I don’t think it was. His funeral was attended by hundreds from the school he grew up attending, from his church, and from his college. His pallbearers were all classmates from high school and fellow athletes. One look at them and it was painfully obvious their hearts were in shreds. His best friend, a sweet, introverted guy, came out of his shell to deliver one of the eulogies to honor him. My heart broke as his mom followed along behind his casket, crying her eyes out.

That day was a hard day. My son sat beside me at the service and all I could think was, don’t smother him with requested promises to wear his helmet if he ever gets a motorcycle, don’t remind him constantly to keep his head up when he’s playing football, and don’t beg him not to text and drive. I had to smile, because I know I’m going to do all those things anyway because I just can’t help myself. He and I went to Wal-Mart today, because he got his first quarter report card and he had all A’s. I promised him a reward for all A’s and he got Pokemon cards. And yeah, he’s a sixth grader, and it makes me wonder who he’s inspiring with his exuberance and extroversion.

Basketball seasons starts soon for our middle-schoolers. On the first game day, my heart will burst with happiness when I see him step aside with a team mate to quietly pray before the game. I’ll thank God, because I know that my son learned by the example of not only his parents, but also from his hero, who stopped to pray before every game. And I’ll think of this guy I knew, who was going to grow up and do great things.

I can’t type his real name here, but you know him as Evan Garner, of Rosemary’s Double Delight, Patterson Elder of Brokenhearted Beauty, and Noah Cassidy…of some book yet to be written in Divine, Texas.


*************ONE VERY IMPORTANT NOTE 😀 This mom feels compelled to share with all of you that my middle school son scored his very first TOUCHDOWN tonight! 😀 High Fives and Hugs to Brattley Rainier!!!***********

If you’ve read Brokenhearted Beauty already, thanks for taking that journey with me. If you haven’t yet, you can find it here. Click on the link to the right and you will find a blurb and preview link for the excerpts.

Today is September 11th. I will never forget.

Everyone have a fantastic day. I think I’m going to go sit in the sun…and just be grateful.

~H