Forbidden
A Ward Sisters Sisters Novel
Karla Sorensen
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other books by Karla Sorensen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
© 2021- Karla Sorensen
All Rights Reserved
Cover Designer-Najla Qamber Design www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
Cover Photography: ByBraadyn
Interior Design- Indie Girl Promotions
Editor- Jenny Sims, Editing4Indies
Proofreading- Janice Owen, JO’s Book Addiction Proofreading
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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To the person who holds onto their heart tightly.
It’s precious, dear reader, give to it someone who will cherish it.
Prologue
Aiden
Two and a half years earlier
* * *
“Does this mean I’ll get a new mommy?”
Amazing how kids could say the most innocent things and make you feel like you’d just taken a knife to the gut.
Shielding my eyes from the California sun, I glanced up at Anya, sitting at the perch of her slide. When I could breathe enough to form words, I tried to keep my face even. “Why would you get a new mom?”
She kicked her legs, staring at the bank of windows where Beth’s hospital bed was set up—at her request—so she could watch Anya play. “If Mommy is going to heaven soon, does that mean I’ll get a new one?”
I’d learned how to explain a lot to a five-year-old in the past few months.
Cancer.
Why Beth had decided against chemo.
Hospice.
Heaven.
But this … this was new. And I had to pinch my eyes shut to fight the brutal wave of fresh grief as it hit me.
Every day was a new one, despite the reality that we’d been living in for ninety-two days since her diagnosis. And I was convinced every wave was the worst, and the next one might not knock me to my knees until moments like this.
Beth’s cancer had forced me to discover a side of myself I’d never known. A wellspring of patience, of acceptance, of realizing that everything I’d dedicated my life to didn’t really matter very much in the grand scheme of things. Being good at something didn’t automatically make it vital.
Fighting used to be everything. And now, it was simply something I used to do, and in no way did it prepare me to bury my wife before we both turned thirty-five.
Nor did it help me when my daughter asked about a new mommy.
“Maybe we can talk about this later, okay?” I said wearily. Sleep was scarce for me even though Beth was doing more and more of it. Her nurse couldn’t give me an exact timeline, but as her appetite waned and her energy decreased, we knew we were down to weeks. Maybe days.
“Okay, Daddy.” She swooshed down the slide, running back around to the ladder. Instead of stopping on the platform, she hopped nimbly up to the beam stretching across the top of the swing set. “Look!”
I shook my head. “Anya, you know you can’t be up that high.”
My fearless girl, she giggled, moving to stand on the beam. I was on my feet in the next breath, holding my arms out. “Come on, big jump and I’ll catch you.”
If I freaked out, she’d do something even crazier, like trying to land on her feet, and yes, I’d learned that the hard way too. This was the same child who, at the age of three, was found swinging from the dining room light fixture after climbing up on the table.
Anya stood carefully, arms out, tongue trapped between her teeth. “I hope Mommy can see this. I know it’ll make her feel better,” she said.
I smiled. Another knife. Another knock to my lungs. “I’m sure it will, gingersnap.”
“Ready?”
I nodded.
She jumped, and I caught her, swinging her down toward the ground, then back up into the air as she squealed happily.
“You’re so good at that, daddysnap.” She was a little unsteady on her feet when I set her down, and her tipsy expression had me smiling.
“Glad I’m good at something.”
Anya crouched by the grass and plucked a small weed that resembled a white flower. “I’m gonna go bring this to Mommy!” she yelled, hair flying out behind her as she ran into the house.
I sighed heavily, swiping a hand over my mouth as I tried to get my bearings. The nurse aide was still at the house, so I stayed outside doing yard work, letting my muscles heat, my blood flow into something productive. Something I could control. By the time Anya ran back outside, clutching a paper in her hand, I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed.
“Look! I got a list!” She held the paper out to me, beaming excitedly.
“What’s the list for?” My hands were sweaty and dirty, and I showed her. “I don’t think I should mess up your pretty drawing.”
She dropped to the grass and laid the paper out carefully. I tilted my head and tried to make sense of what she’d written. Kindergartners were not known for their spelling skills.
But I could see a cookie.
Flowers.
A woman with long yellow hair and a big red mouth. She was either screaming or laughing, I wasn’t entirely sure. I scratched my head.
“Why don’t you explain it to me, gingersnap?”
Please, dear Lord, explain it.
“I asked Mommy about my new mommy someday.” She grinned up at me. My heart stopped. Just stopped. No beating. So did my lungs. Anya started pointing at the paper while I simply tried to breathe. “She told me that she’d be sweet and funny and make you laugh.” She tapped the paper. “See? She’s laughing.”
Her finger moved to the cookie.
“And she’d make really good cookies, just like Mommy, because Mommy said you suck at measuring and will need someone to do it.”
My eyes blurred, and I crouched carefully next to my daughter, laying my hand on her back as I stared at the horrifying picture that she worked so hard on. I wanted to rip it up. I wanted to burn it.
Anya pointed at the stick figure. “And Mommy said she’d
be soft where you’re hard, and I didn’t know how to draw that, but anyone who’d be a good mommy might already have kids and know how to hold me when I’m scared and sing me to sleep. And I just added the flower because I like drawing them.”
I rubbed the back of my hand over my cheek so Anya didn’t see. “You did really good on your picture, gingersnap,” I said in a choked voice.
She ran her fingers over the jumbled letters that must’ve made sense to her. “I didn’t want to forget. This way you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Then Anya carefully folded the paper and handed it to me. “You can keep it, Daddy. So you’ll know who to look for.”
I licked my lips, taking the piece of paper like it was a bomb set to explode. But I smiled at my daughter. “Thank you.”
She flung herself at me in a tight hug, and I stared up at the sky.
When Anya ran back into the house, I stood slowly, paper in hand, and made my way to Beth’s bed.
Her eyes were closed, her chest moving with shallow breaths.
I took the chair next to her, and as I slid her bony fingers into mine, her eyes opened.
“Why’d you do that?” I whispered.
She smiled faintly. “I knew you’d be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad,” I told her. “I’m …” My voice trailed off when I didn’t have any words. This time, I let a tear fall unchecked, and Beth watched it with a sad expression on her face. “I just hate that she asked you.”
My wife—my funny, outgoing, loud, passionate wife who could no longer muster the energy to get out of bed—tightened her fingers around mine. “She’s worried, Aiden. I just wanted her to …” She made a small shrugging motion. “I wanted to make her feel better.”
“I know.” I sniffed.
“Promise me something, though,” Beth whispered.
Immediately, I was shaking my head.
“Promise me that, if you find someone like that, you won’t ignore it.” Her voice wavered, and I wanted to rage. Scream. Break something.
I sighed, finally meeting her eyes. “All I got out of that picture was that she has a mouth the size of my face and likes cookies.”
Beth breathed out a laugh. “That’s a gross oversimplification of what I said.”
“What did you say?” I asked quietly. “Who’d you conjure up for me, Beth? Because they won’t be you.” I shook my head again. “I don’t care what list you just gave her. They won’t be you.”
My wife ignored my attitude. She’d known me too long, knew it was easier to brush past it. She’d learned that lesson when we were eighteen, and she kissed me for the first time when she got sick of waiting for me to do it.
“I told Anya that hopefully someday you’d find someone kind and funny, someone who smiles and laughs easily because we both know you don’t.” I held her eyes, unable to argue. “Someone soft where you’re hard, someone who will know how to handle all the things that Anya will need help with. Someone who can bake cookies for her, and sing her to sleep, and teach you how to handle all her big emotions because I know they scare the shit out of you, Aiden.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear any of this, but like any conversation I had with Beth these days, I forced myself to soak up every word. Every nuance. Every second.
“And for fuck’s sake, don’t fall for the first tight-bodied fangirl who fawns over you,” she teased. “I’d haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Somehow, I managed a smile. “Would you?”
“I’d make a bitch of a ghost.” Her frame was wracked with a rib-rattling cough.
Lifting her featherlight hand up to my mouth, I kissed her knuckles. She smelled like medicine. Her fingers were cold against my mouth, and all I wanted to do was warm her. Fix her.
And I couldn’t.
The helplessness had me wanting to wreck everything. Especially when she kept talking. Her words were so much worse than the knife; it was like a hundred of them. The girl next door, who I’d known for more than half my life, who’d had my heart for almost a decade was going to leave a gaping hole, and I didn’t want to think about the fact that I couldn’t fill it.
“You have excellent taste, Aiden Hennessy,” she said quietly. “You must if you chose me.”
I gave her a look. “I think it was you who did the choosing. The way I remember it, at least.”
She hummed, eyes falling closed. “That’s right. I had excellent taste.” She slid her hand over my cheek and down the line of my jaw. “That’s why you should trust me.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“Good.” Gently, she exerted pressure on my chin until I couldn’t look away. “That’s why I answered Anya’s question. Because you two will be okay, and she needed to know that. You will be happy again, even if I’m not there.”
“Beth.” My voice cracked on her name, eyes burning dangerously. “Please.”
“You will be okay without me,” she repeated, her own gaze clear and strong.
It was like she pulled the knife out—every single one—and everything they’d held in came pouring out in a messy rush. I dropped my head onto the side of the hospital bed, and while my wife stroked the back of my head, I wept.
Chapter One
Aiden
“It’s a little crooked.”
A slow sigh escaped my lips, not that my daughter could hear with the unicorn-covered blankets pulled up past her nose.
Hand on my hips, I stared at the offending item. “I don’t know, gingersnap. It looks like it did last night, right?”
That stumped her for a solid thirty seconds. Her blue eyes stared straight up, unblinking and unwavering, and I could practically see her trying to dig up reasons the hot pink tulle canopy was off center and thereby unacceptable. If it was unacceptable, she wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Her eyes darted toward me, then back up to the pink cloud. “Did Uncle Clark measure it?”
“Uncle Clark measures everything.”
The sound of her giggle was muffled by the mound of blankets. But nonetheless, I heard it, and something eased in my chest. Bedtime had been our biggest struggle in the two years since Beth died. It began about six months after we buried her and with just little things at first.
Daddy, can you move that lamp a little closer to my bed? It’s too far away, and I can’t see it.
Can I have one more blanket over my feet? They’re cold, and I won’t be able to sleep if they’re cold.
Can I get one more stuffed animal from the playroom? Four isn’t enough, and I think I need five to sleep.
Over the next year, the things that bothered her got a little bit bigger and a little bit harder to accommodate. But it faded as we rounded the eighteen-month mark. Her bedroom stayed untouched, and I was able to slip out after reading her a story, saying a prayer, and wishing a good night to each and every plush character that filled the queen-sized bed with her.
Then we moved from California to Washington to be closer to my family so I didn’t have to raise my daughter completely solo. So Anya could have grandparents and her uncles and aunt around. And the first night in our new home—where we’d been for the last two weeks—it began again.
“How about this,” I said slowly. “I’ll go downstairs and see if Uncle Beckham brought his tape measure over, and he can check Uncle Clark’s measuring skills. Sound good?”
She nodded, tufts of white-blond hair sticking up around her head.
Carefully, I bent over and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Love you, gingersnap.”
“Love you more, daddysnap.”
My lips curled into a smile.
“You’re coming back after you talk to Uncle Beckham, right?”
“Yes.”
Anya sighed, slipping the covers down a couple of inches, enough that I could see the gap where her two front teeth used to be when she smiled at me. “Okay.”
The bedtime routine was a dance the two of us had performed countless times on our own, and I could d
o it half-asleep.
Turn on the small lamp on her nightstand.
Adjust the framed picture of her and Beth so that Anya could see it easily.
Adjust the canopy so it enclosed as much of her bed as possible.
Stop just before I left her room, blow her a kiss, which she caught and smacked over her mouth.
But my smile dropped as I descended the stairs down to the main floor, where my brothers Beckham and Deacon waited for me.
They were on the floor of the sprawling family room, assembling something pink and white and covered in glitter.
“What is that?” I asked.
Deacon brought a glittery crown up to his forehead. “I think it’s supposed to be one of those vanity things.”
My eyebrows rose slowly. “Who bought her that?”
“Eloise,” they said in unison.
“Ahh.” Our youngest sibling had taken to purchasing anything Anya could possibly want since we moved here. My parents weren’t much different, given she was the only grandchild—which meant the only niece for my four unmarried siblings. If Anya wasn’t a complete monster by the time she turned ten, it would be a miracle.
With a weariness I felt in every bone and muscle, I sank down onto the couch while they continued to work.
“What was it tonight?” Beckham asked.
I sighed. “The canopy. She wasn’t sure it was centered over her bed.”
His face cracked into a smile as he screwed a leg onto the small white vanity bench. “Clark hung it,” he said by way of answer.
Forbidden: A Ward Sisters Sisters Novel Page 1