Baby Mine (Hunter & Lennon duet Book 1)
Page 29
Following him, Hunter opens the door, and my heart stops when I see it’s the girl who spent the weekend with him before Brandon died. The one who wore my damn shirt. Ugh.
“Jenna.” Hunter’s tone implies he’s just as surprised to see her as I am. “What’re you doing here?”
The girl has the nerve to look over at me and scowl. This bitch can take a fucking hike.
“You left me no choice, Hunter. I’ve been calling and texting you for weeks with no answer,” she says accusingly, and my mind goes back to those few times I saw him declining her calls. “We need to talk. Privately.” Her eyes flick to mine for a second before going back to Hunter.
He crosses his arms over his chest, not budging. “I don’t have time for this. We’re just about to leave.”
“It’ll take two minutes,” she persists. “Alone.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” he snaps. “Whatever you need to say just say it because we really have to go.”
“Alright, suit yourself.” She shrugs, shifting her body to just the right angle where I notice how tight her shirt fits.
Oh my God.
I feel my breakfast rising as I see her swollen stomach.
“I’m pregnant.”
All the blood drains from my face as I stare at her bump that looks to be as big as mine. Hunter just called us a family, and now…he’s having a baby. With her.
Coming next
BABY YOURS is coming May 23rd!
You can preorder on Amazon now!
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Find more info here!
Baby Mine Playlist
Here are some songs from our playlist, but if you’d like to listen to the whole thing on Spotify, you can find it here!
Malibu Nights | LANY
Lay by Me | Ruben
Baby Mine | Alison Krauss
Goddess | Cobi
Be Alright | Dean Lewis
You Are The Reason | Calum Scott
See You Again | Wiz Khalifa, Chalie Puth
Sucker | Jonas Brothers
Should Have Been Us | Travis Atreo
Brooke Cumberland and Lyra Parish are a duo of romance authors who teamed up under the USA Today pseudonym, Kennedy Fox. They share a love of You’ve Got Mail and The Holiday. When they aren’t bonding over romantic comedies, they like to brainstorm new book ideas. One day, they decided to collaborate under a pseudonym and have some fun creating new characters that’ll make you blush and your heart melt. If you enjoy romance stories with sexy, tattooed alpha males and smart, quirky, independent women, then a Kennedy Fox book is for you! They’re looking forward to bringing you many more stories to fall in love with!
Find us on our website:
kennedyfoxbooks.com
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TRAVIS & VIOLA DUET
Checkmate: This is War
Checkmate: This is Love
DREW & COURTNEY DUET
Checkmate: This is Reckless
Checkmate: This is Effortless
LOGAN & KAYLA DUET
Checkmate: This is Dangerous
Checkmate: This is Beautiful
BISHOP BROTHERS SERIES
Taming Him
Needing Him
Chasing Him
Keeping Him
BEDTIME READS SERIES
Falling for the Bad Boy
Falling for the Playboy
Falling for the Cowboy
HUNTER & LENNON DUET
Baby Mine
Baby Yours
MASON & SOPHIE DUET - Coming in 2019
Truly Mine
Truly Yours
LIAM & MADELYN DUET - Coming in 2019
Always Mine
Always Yours
Free Book!
FOREVER MINE is a second chance romance about two high school sweethearts who run into each other after 10 years!
It’s been ten years.
He hasn’t stopped loving her for one second.
Seeing the woman who broke my heart a decade ago is something I’m not prepared for. Though I’ve forgiven Savannah, I’ve never forgotten what she did.
Now it’s time to confront the secret she’s kept from me. Though it won’t be easy, I’m determined to make things right between us.
One night together is all it takes for our feelings to come rushing back. As memories of us flood in, truths are finally revealed. When the present collides with our past, I’ll do anything to win her back, even when Savannah tries to run again.
This time, I’ll stop at nothing for a second chance.
Grab it FREE from Amazon here!
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A Note from the Author
Hey guys, Brooke here!
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Thank you so much for starting this journey with us and reading Hunter & Lennon’s story! We had such great feedback on early reviews and we can’t tell you how excited we are to bring you the rest of their story very soon!
I wanted to give you some insight on what writing this story meant to me. You might hear a lot of authors talk about what inspires them and how therapeutic it is. I can definitely tell you that it was an emotional journey for me—as I hope it was for you too—and how it helped me work through some tough personal issues.
My husband was in a terrible motorcycle accident eight years ago. It rocked my world and my family’s, as you can probably imagine. He barely made it out alive and ended up needing his right leg amputated. To this day, he suffers with chronic phantom pain and has been unable to return to work. We have an eight year old daughter together and even though he can’t be physically active, he’s still very present in our lives, and I’m so grateful for the medical hospital that saved his life.
With that being said, I avoided books with motorcycles for years. I couldn’t bare to think about it in my fictional life when it’s my reality. When Lyra and I talked about this story and the events that would take place, I bravely suggested Brandon should die in a motorcycle accident. I knew it was time; time to stop letting the pain and fear control those feelings. I knew the only way to do that would be to do what I know best—writing. I needed to write those chapters, pour those feelings and anxiety out of me in a fictional world so they would stop burdening me in the real world.
Brandon’s accident happened similar to my husband’s except his life was spared. My husband was hit by a large work truck who didn’t see him, he flew off the bike, and landed in a ditch. He was wearing his helmet, he’s six foot, nine inches tall (a big dude, yes) and the right side of his body took the brunt of the hit. He would’ve bled out to death had a woman who was a nurse didn’t stop and apply pressure to his open neck wound. His leg was bleeding out, his ankle severed on contact, and he was in shock—trying to insist he could get up and walk and was fine. (Shock is a funny thing like that).
I remember the day so vividly because it was like any other day. A Sunday to be exact, in mid July. It was a warm, sunny afternoon. I took our eight month old daughter out to lunch with a friend. I remember I told him I loved him—as we always exchanged—before he left for a joy ride. He wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple hours.
It was less than that when the sheriff found me at a restaurant. He had gone to my house and my father was there who told him where I was. My dad sped the entire way with the sheriff on his heels, making sure he didn’t crash on the way to me. We weren’t married at the time, but we were engaged. We’d been together for 2.5 years at this point. I was twenty-three years old.
The sheriff told me, He’s been in a bad motorcycle accident. I don’t know the extensive details as of yet… I simply asked him if he was alive. He replied, He was alive when they took him flight for life. That’s all I know.
I was terrified. Shocked. My entire body went numb.
They were moments away from rushing him into surgery when I arrived. I saw him for less than five seconds, his body brutally attacked. Again, I was in shock. You never think this will happen to you. You never imagine in your life this will be your reality. My dad told me to tell him I loved him, which I did, but I couldn’t get the words out. As soon as I took a breath, the tears poured out, and I told him I loved him before they took him into surgery.
I wouldn’t find anything out for six hours. By then the waiting room was flooded with family members, they all drove 2+ hours in a panic, not knowing. I didn’t have any news to give them, except that they were trying to re-attach his ankle. His neck had a large gash, they were able to stop the bleeding. One of his lungs collapsed, he broke his right scapula, the C3 & L7 vertebres in his back, and they managed to reattached his ankle, but 24 hours later, there was no blood to the foot and we had to make the decision to amputate to prevent any life-threading infections. He was in a medical coma for ten days. It was the longest we’d not been able to speak to each other. We celebrated the baby steps—a hand squeeze, an eye slowly opening, his stats staying steady. And then we cried during the low points—not being able to wear a prosthetic leg, being diagnosed with diabetes, knowing there’s no cure for phantom pain.
As you can see, this was a time in my life that has molded my future. Two years after, I started reading romance again, which brought me to my love of writing. I needed an outlet, something to avoid reality for a little bit. I had always loved to write, often had journals and notebooks filled, but I never tried writing a book before. I suffered with anxiety and depression due to the aftermath of my husband’s life-changing accident. It continues to affect us today, probably forever. It’s all my daughter knows. Her dad doesn’t walk and she’s understood that from a young age.
Though he was one of the lucky ones and survived, I still grieve. We grieve the life we once had, the one we should’ve had, the one we no longer get to live. Grief happens differently for everyone and Hunter & Lennon are no different in how they grieved Brandon’s death. Finding solace in each other and the waves of sadness that hits them.
So why am I pouring all of this out to you? Because I want to thank you for giving me a safe place to create stories, pour parts of myself into them, and for reading them! Thank you for allowing me to use this book as a therapeutic way to tell parts of our story through a fictional character. I know that things could be worse, I know we could’ve lost him for good, and that my daughter would’ve had to grow up without a dad. I’m so thankful for what we do have and that he’s here today. He’s seriously my biggest fan and strongest support team, understanding the long hours, my face constantly glued to the computer screen, and when I can’t start dinner till seven pm.
For any of our readers who ride motorcycles or have family and friends who do, please be safe out there. Too many drivers don’t see you, (he’s had some close calls even before the accident) and I know firsthand how devastating it can be when there’s news of an accident. There have been so many in my community due to drunk car drivers, reckless driving, and blindspots.
Remember to always tell your loved ones you love them. You never know when it could be the last time.
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Thank you for you reading!
-Brooke
Hey y’all!
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It’s Court/Lyra/Fox. See what I did there?
Thank you so much for downloading Baby Mine and taking a chance on us. We are forever grateful. Your support allows us to do what we love most—write. See, Brooke mentioned leaving a note in the back of the book, and honestly, that’s a hard act to follow. LOL. And I always want to make jokes instead of being completely serious...case study 1.
But with that being said, I’m going to 100% honest and tell you this book almost broke me. We planned to write it in October of 2018, which was 6 months ago. We pushed hard to get it done, thought we were ahead of schedule for once, and then had two long weeks of intensive and unexpected rewrites. It was hard work, though writing a book is always hard work, but this story was different. It was special. It was personal. Three years ago, Brooke told me we would never write books with motorcycles. So, when she suggested we write this I agreed, knowing she was ready. It was important to her. To us.
After the accident scene was written, I had to write the funeral scene. There are only two books out of the 20+ I’ve written that’s made me personally cry when writing...this one was the second.
Death and grief is a funny thing. We don’t know when either will happen. None of us will live forever, but you never expect to lose someone who means the world to you. It leaves a hole in your heart and there are times when grief hits you so hard you completely lose it. The funeral scene was hard to write because I recently lost someone I cared about very much and the heart doesn’t forget. To this day, it’s still really hard for me to smell fresh flowers because it reminds me of being in the funeral home. It’s brings back too many memories. There are parts of me that have healed but other parts that are still raw. See, this is the point where I want to start making jokes, but I know we’re being all serious so I won’t. The reality is, as writers, we often write what we don’t know, but there are times when we delve deep and write things that are so personal to us the thought knocks us off our axis. We allow ourselves to bleed on the page and let it all out one word at a time.
Baby Mine has nuggets and full chapters of us, of our struggles, worries, and sadness. And we’re not telling you this for pity, it’s so you have a greater understanding of why those scenes are so powerful to read, why they draw such deep emotion. It’s because it’s personal to us and we’re so grateful you’ve allowed us to share that with you. I can never say thank you enough.
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The girl with too many names,
Court/Lyra