by Jewel E. Ann
I like Cora. I don’t see what Elle’s issue is with her.
“No. They’re going out.” Jon winks at Cora.
“Oh! Yes. We’re watching the kids while you two have a night out alone.”
“Alone?” I raise a brow. “What’s that?”
Elle can’t hide her smile. She knows it’s true.
“Flint, come with me.” My dad nods toward the master bedroom.
“And you come with me.” Cora grabs Elle’s arm and drags her upstairs.
*
Ellen
“WHAT DO YOU think?” Cora opens the bedroom door.
There’s a dress draped across the bed. It was my mom’s. A simple strapless black dress with a delicate cream ribbon tied around the waist. I remember trying it on when I turned eighteen, but my mom was bustier than me. It’s always been a timeless dress. And I haven’t seen it in years, but it’s still my favorite.
“Your dad went through some of your mom’s stuff that was packed away in the attic. He said you always loved this, but it was a little too big. I told him he should alter it for you. He didn’t have your measurements, but I think it might fit okay now. Do you want to try it on?”
I feather my fingers along the silk ribbon. “Yes,” I murmur.
“Wonderful! I’ll plug in my curling iron and do your hair and makeup.”
I take Issac and feed him while Cora grabs my bags from the car. Then Aria plays with him on the bedroom floor while Cora makes me feel like a princess.
“You’re good at this.”
She smiles. “I worked at a salon for ten years. There.” She gives my curls a light misting of hair spray. “Let’s get you into the dress.”
I step into it and she zips the back. It hugs my curves perfectly. I close my eyes and remember how my mom looked in it—how my dad looked at her when she wore it.
“Beautiful.” Cora presses her hand to her chest.
“Thank you,” I say. And I mean it sincerely. Maybe she’s exactly what my dad needs in his life right now. Cora doesn’t have to be my mom. I’m not Heidi.
“You’re welcome.” She picks up Isaac.
“There’s a bottle in the diaper bag.”
She nods. “I already put it in the fridge.”
“Mommy beautiful.”
I look down at Aria. “Thank you, sweetie.”
I like this life. A lot.
“Coming?” My dad calls from downstairs.
I ease my way down the stairs in the heels Cora got for me that are a good inch higher than what I usually wear.
Flint’s jaw unhinges as he takes a few steps backward like he’s losing his balance. “Leaving me speechless, Elle.”
I grin. We didn’t have a wedding. Neither one of us wanted it. We both did the wedding thing the first time. Instead, I slid on his ring and I took his last name in front of a judge.
But right now I feel like a bride walking down the aisle.
“On a scale of one to ten, how speechless?”
He takes my hands and brings them to his shoulders and slides his hands around my waist. “Infinity. Just like my love for you.”
I step back just enough to admire his new three-piece suit, much like the one he wore when we got married. A Jonathan Samuel Anderson original. But my dad used a different material this time, maybe more silk with fine pinstripes—and a sexy red tie.
I yank that tie several times until he smiles so big my heart wants to burst because … this life … it’s mine.
After I deem the knot to look as perfect as my man, I grab his lapels and pull him a little closer.
“Flint Hopkins, you sure do look the part.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad smile. It’s a lot of joy with a sliver of sadness.
“What part is that, my beautiful wife?”
“My husband, of course.”
The End
Acknowledgments
A heartfelt thank you to the usual suspects …
Tim, Logan, Carter, and Asher—my favorite guys.
Leslie, Kambra, Sherri, and Shauna—my unicorns.
Max—my smart-ass editor. ; )
Monique, Kambra, Leslie, Shauna, Allison—the polishing crew, aka proofreaders.
Jenn Beach—personal assistant, graphics genius, and gatekeeper to my sanity.
Jenn and Sarah with Social Butterfly PR—My best find of 2017. You both rock!
Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations—book cover guru.
Regina Wamba, MaeIDesign & Photography—It’s like you read my mind when you took the cover photo!
Paul with BB eBooks—I don’t know how you do it so well and so quickly, but you are amazing!
Readers—author friends, bloggers, Jonesies, and every single person who reads my words.
Sneak Peek of Transcend
Chapter One
NEVAEH. IT’S HEAVEN spelled backwards and the name of the girl to my right with her finger five stories up her nose. I grimace while readjusting in my chair. It has nothing to do with her disgusting habit. One of the wings to my pad is stuck to my pubic hair. Mom worries about tampons and toxic shock syndrome. It can’t be more painful than this.
The receptionist keeps glancing at us through her owlish glasses, tapping the end of her pen on her chin. “Nevaeh, do you need a tissue?” she asks.
My parents are not the weirdest parents in the world after all. Lucky me.
Roy.
Doris.
Cherish.
Wayne.
With over ten thousand baby names in the average name book, how does one settle on such horrible names?
Backwards Heaven glances over at me as if I have the answer to the receptionist’s question. I’m not the tip of her finger. How am I supposed to know what it feels like up there? After inspecting her size—smaller than me—and her yellow hair in a hundred different lengths that looks like something my mom calls a DIY, I give the receptionist a small nod.
Without moving her finger, because it might be stuck, she mimics my nod. The receptionist holds out a box of tissues. They both stare at me. When did I get put on booger duty?
“Swayze, do you need to go potty before we leave?” Mom asks, coming out of the office where I took my tests.
Swayze. That’s me. Worst name ever—until five minutes ago when Nevaeh introduced herself and offered me a gluten-free, peanut-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, taste-free snack from her BPA-free backpack. My uncle thinks the millennials are going to ruin the world because they have no common sense, and all of their knowledge comes from the internet. He may be right, only time will tell, but then what’s my parents’ excuse? Or Nevaeh’s parents’ excuse? Common sense says you give your child a good solid name. Kids don’t want to be unique. It’s true. We just want to fit in.
I grab the box of tissues and toss it on my empty chair, turning before Nevaeh’s finger slides out. Some things I don’t need to know, like why it smells like cherry vomit in the waiting room, why there is a water dispenser but no cups, and what’s up Nevaeh’s right nostril.
“Restroom,” I mumble, tracing the toe of my shoe over the red and white geometric patterns of the carpet.
“We can’t hear you when you talk to your feet, Swayze,” Dad says like he’s said it a million times. Maybe he has.
I lift my head up. “No, I don’t need to use the restroom! Or potty. Do I still look four to you?”
His blue eyes, which match mine, ping-pong around the room before landing on me. “Shh … you don’t need to be so loud.” He smooths his hand over the top of his mostly bald head, like I ruffled his feathers, what few he has left.
“Let’s just go, dear.” My mom reaches for my hand.
I jerk away.
“Swayze.”
As if giving me such a stupid name wasn’t enough, she has to draw it out. “Swaaayzeee.” Who wants a name that rhymes with lazy and crazy?
“Well, you said you can’t hear me when I talk to my feet. Can you hear me now?!”
They hear
me. The guy who tested me peeks his head out the door, squinting at me. He hears me too. I can’t find my inside voice. Something has tripped my volume and it’s stuck on playground voice.
“Potty is what toddlers do. I’m not a toddler! I’m eleven. And I know stuff that other eleven-year-olds don’t know. So what? That doesn’t mean something is wrong with me. You keep bringing me to places like this to take stupid tests and sit in stinky waiting rooms with weird kids who have crazy names and like to chant unsolvable riddles, pull their hair, and pick their noses!”
Balling my hands, I resist the rare urge to pull my own hair. My parents each take one of my arms and drag me out of the office. Just before we reach the door, I give Nevaeh a small grimace of apology. She slides her finger back into her nose.
“Am I a genius yet?” I ask in a much calmer voice as my parents rush me to the elevator and down fifteen stories like someone’s trying to kill the president. Next to our blue hybrid car is a red convertible. Maybe it belongs to Nevaeh’s parents. Then again, that car is a little too cool for people who would name their child Heaven backwards. Heaven in the opposite direction … wouldn’t that be Hell?
After checking my seatbelt, as if an eleven-year-old can’t be trusted to listen for the click and give it a tug, my dad glares at me, jaw clenched. He’s too mad to talk. That’s fine. I know when he’s ready to talk; his first demand will be an explanation. There really isn’t anything more I can say. My words, although louder than necessary, were self-explanatory.
After long minutes of some self-imposed timeout on himself, my dad looks at my mom and nods.
“Swayze?” She glances over her shoulder at me, curling her dark hair behind her ear. I don’t detect any anger in her voice. It’s sweet and juicy like the Starburst candy I get at the movies.
I fear her words will feel like the cavities I get from eating too much sugar.
“How would you feel about trying a new school?”
Yep. She’s drilling without numbing anything first. I’ve attended four different schools. Every educational psychologist and child development expert in a fifty-mile radius has evaluated me. They figured out I’m gifted, but not in a typical way. Smart. But not necessarily a genius.
My random recollections of historical events, that are not at all noteworthy, are most puzzling. I’m not playing Chopin or speaking fluent Spanish. I enjoy talking with adults, but I fit in just fine with my peers as well. I can’t name that many famous war generals. Even naming the presidents in order is a challenge. But random things that happened in Madison, Wisconsin, a few years before I was born seems to be my specialty.
“Move? Again?” I sigh as we pass the UW-Madison Arboretum, one of the places I like to go in the summer.
“We just want to find a good fit for you.”
“I fit fine where I’m at.”
“But they’re not challenging you enough.”
I shrug. “What does it matter? If I already know what they’re telling me, then I don’t have to do as much homework as my friends.”
“It’s wasted potential.” Dad shoots me a quick look in the rearview mirror. He, too, has lost his fight over my outburst.
“Potential means—” Mom starts to explain.
“Possibilities, prospects, future success. I get it.” I’m fairly certain other eleven-year-old kids in sixth grade have heard the word potential before. It’s not exactly a word I’d see on my word of the day calendar.
“You know, Swayze, the Gibsons are sending Boomer to a private school only an hour from our house. If we send you there, you’d already have one friend.”
Boomer. Another hideous name. Sounds like a Rottweiler. Nice boy though. I like him, but not the way he likes me. At least I don’t think so. He carries my backpack to the bus for me after school, but he also snaps my bra in class. The bra I don’t need. My mom pressured me into getting one after several of my friends got them. I don’t have breasts. Nope. Nothing there yet. Still, I wear it to feel like all of the other girls, and apparently Boomer’s need to snap it during literacy every day means he likes me. At least that’s the story my mom tries to sell.
Not buying it.
“I like my school.” I twist my blond hair around my finger then slide it through my lips curled between my teeth.
Mom frowns. She has a thing about hair near the mouth. A hair in her food triggers her gag reflex to the point of vomiting, and then she can’t eat that type of food for months. Dad always threatens to plant a hair in the ice cream she likes to sneak—his ice cream.
“You’ll be in middle school next year. It’s a good time for a change. The transition will be easier.” Dad nods as if he only needs to convince himself and my mom.
“I like my friends.”
“You’ll make new friends,” Mom says, shaking her head and scowling at the hair in my mouth.
I pull it out and flip it over my shoulder. “Why can’t you be happy with a normal child?”
“Swayze, if you just give this a try, I promise we won’t ask you to switch schools again, even if it doesn’t work out.” Mom flinches like something’s caught in her throat, probably bile from seeing hair in my mouth.
One last move. One last school. I’ll do it. But I won’t believe it’s truly the last.
For more on Transcend
Also by Jewel E. Ann
Jack & Jill Series
End of Day
Middle of Knight
Dawn of Forever
Holding You Series
Holding You
Releasing Me
Standalone Novels
Idle Bloom
Only Trick
Undeniably You
One
Scarlet Stone
When Life Happened
jeweleann.com
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About the Author
Jewel is a free-spirited romance junkie with a quirky sense of humor.
With 10 years of flossing lectures under her belt, she took early retirement from her dental hygiene career to stay home with her three awesome boys and manage the family business.
After her best friend of nearly 30 years suggested a few books from the Contemporary Romance genre, Jewel was hooked. Devouring two and three books a week but still craving more, she decided to practice sustainable reading, AKA writing.
When she’s not donning her cape and saving the planet one tree at a time, she enjoys yoga with friends, good food with family, rock climbing with her kids, watching How I Met Your Mother reruns, and of course…heart-wrenching, tear-jerking, panty-scorching novels.