In This Life

by Cora Brent

  Nash’s smile lit up his face. “That’s fantastic, Kat.”

  I bit my lip. “You don’t think I’m a fool for abandoning my accounting career?”

  “No. I think you’re following your dreams.”

  Nash had been supportive ever since I brought up the idea of enrolling in Hawk Valley College to finally finish my philosophy degree. When I was a kid I would have balked in horror at the concept of attending the tiny liberal arts college right here in my hometown. Frankly, I would have balked at the idea that I’d end up in Hawk Valley at all. It was funny how things turned out. Life was full of surprises.

  Just like how once upon a time Nash Ryan had been an object of my fantasies. Unattainable. A dream.

  I held out my left hand so that the sunlight caught the diamond on my fourth finger. “I think I have followed my dreams, Nash Ryan.”

  He picked up my hand and kissed it. “We still need to set a date.”

  “Any date will do. I’d marry you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow it is.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I was thinking about Valentine’s Day. It’ll be too cold for an outdoor ceremony but I was thinking maybe we could have it here at the inn. We were planning on a small wedding anyway and I noticed they have a good sized party room.”

  Nash liked the idea. “I’ll make it happen. Before you change your mind.”

  I rolled my eyes. “As if that’s a possibility.” I nudged him. “You’re stuck with me now. We’re a family.”

  Nash stared into my eyes and I felt the electricity crackle between us.

  Then Colin face planted into the flowers and Emma shrieked. Nash was up like a shot.

  “I got him,” he said and ran over to rescue Colin from the flowers.

  Nash picked him up and Colin’s face was red and crumpled, as if he was still deciding whether or not this event was worth a few tears. Nash brushed some flower petals out of his hair and spun him around. Colin forgot his tears and let out a scream of laughter.

  “Me too!” Emma begged, holding her arms up. “Spin me too!”

  Nash picked her up in his other arm and spun them both around and around while the children howled with delight.

  “Mommy,” my daughter called to me, laughing. “Take a picture. Don’t you see us?”

  “We’re a family.”

  Families are beautiful. They are always intricate and unique. They are created in different ways by different events for different reasons. Yet all are cemented together with one precious and irreplaceable thing.

  Love.

  And there’s nothing more valuable.

  Not in this life.

  “I see you,” I called back and lifted my phone to capture the priceless image.

  THE END….

  (But please don’t leave yet! Keep going for book news and excerpts.)

  THANK YOU for choosing to read IN THIS LIFE!

  This story has meant so much to me and I was almost sorry to end it.

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  Anyone remember the Gentry Boys?

  Check out this blast from the past in an excerpt from the USA Today and NYT Bestseller that started it all.

  Then see the note at the end to find out what’s coming up in the Gentry world…

  DRAW

  The Gentry Boys

  Book 1

  EXCERPT FROM DRAW

  CHAPTER ONE

  Saylor

  We weren’t friends.

  That’s the first truth to be acknowledged if anything can be understood about the chaotic passion that came later. Cord Gentry wasn’t my friend and he sure as hell wasn’t in my thoughts as I careened through the inky expanse of Death Valley in a dying Civic with my jaw still stinging painfully.

  Night in the desert is otherworldly, preternatural. I breathed in the sweet perfume of it and reveled in the force of the hot wind on my face. All the windows of the car were wide open because the air conditioning had broken the summer after my freshman year at Oxy. Devin, in one of his falsely tender moments, had offered to foot the bill to get it fixed but I had learned to be wary of his offers.

  Gingerly, almost without thinking about it, I brought my fingertips to my swollen face. He’d gotten me square on the curve of my lower right jawline. It was swollen. It would show a bruise tomorrow. I knew that because my fair skin was afflicted with a special sensitivity that marked easily. I also knew because it’s what had happened before. The memory of it all brought a surge of rage over something I’d once thought of as love.

  Until I knew it was the opposite.

  The worst part was how I had fooled myself. At first he would just wrestle a little too hard. Devin would squeeze my wrist with a small, wicked smile until I yelped and then he would pull back, innocently insisting he didn’t know he’d been hurting me.

  But every violent ending has to begin somewhere.

  “Look what you did, you asshole,” I told him indignantly the first time my arm bore the distinct imprint of his crushing hand.

  Devin was dismayed, or rather playing at it. “Oh, sweetheart,” he’d said, kissing it and then slowly undressing me. He figured out early on how to sucker me in and I melted under his touch, squashing my own doubts. There was nothing bad about this, I told myself. Devin loved me. He said so. I’d always had so much disdain for certain other women, women like the ones I had seen lurching around back in my hometown of Emblem, the ones who would endure one terrible thing after another until it just seemed like that’s the way things were supposed to be. But I wasn’t like them. I could handle Devin.

  The next time it happened he whined, “I’m sorry, Saylor,” with the crumpled face of a boy as he held me tight, too tight.

  Then, after he slapped me hard because I’d disagreed with his assessment of the MLB draft picks, it was “Aw Say, I just love you so fucking much.”

  I was angry. I held my face and called him a lousy prick as he wheedled his way back in, murmuring things he knew would break my stony silence.

  “Say,” he whispered, running his lips over my neckline and up to the place where his hand had done damage. “I love you.”

  I remained furious but still I let him bend me over and ride me how he liked even though I couldn’t come that way. He was rough and I was dry, unready, but I took it just the same. As Devin grunted his claim on my body, I stared at the beige-colored wall two inches from my nose and bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself distracted. That moment was exactly when it occurred to me there was something very wrong with it all.

  Devin Berlin was absurdly hot. He was rich. His father was a Silicon Valley overlord who’d invented one of the backbones of personal technology; motherboards or modems or something. I always forgot the specifics. Devin’s arrogant grin landed on me one classically sunny southern California day when I carried a latte to the table where he sat alone.

  It had been a desolate semester, nothing but studying and waitressing. My mouth ran dry and I tried to fend off my own nerves as his smile lingered on me. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Some company,” he’d said, sipping his latte and pulling a chair to his side, secure in the knowledge that I would sink right into it.

  Devin spent a lot of time building the features of his suntanned body. He knew the effect was as addictive as sugar. I’d seen him around campus, full of conceit and muscle. It was a little sick really, to think I’d grown into the kind of woman who got so wet over the combination she didn’t care about anything else.

  That finally changed when he broke my nose.

  It happened on Valentine’s Day. Jesus, you could piss yourself over the irony; the imaginary holiday of love and chocolate topped off by a swift blow to
crack your face in half. I don’t even remember why. An argument in the car, something mundane and silly like couples clash over and then forget about.

  “Holy fuck,” he’d whimpered as I held my face in stunned agony, feeling the blood drip between my fingers. “Saylor, I’m a monster. I can’t even fucking believe I just did that to you. I’m going to drive you to the police station, baby. You need to file a report on me. Oh, honey. Sweet Say. I ought to be put in jail for what I just did to you.”

  But through the pain I just shook my head. The only thing worse than the pulpy mess that was now my nose would be telling a roomful of people about it. Besides, I knew he had no intention of allowing me to press charges against him. “No. But you’ll damn well never do that to me again, Devin. I mean it this time. That’s it.”

  He’d started to cry. “No, shit, never. Saylor, I love you. You know I love you.”

  The car rolled to a stop at the next light. Devin reached over and put his hand under my skirt, snaking between my legs. I didn’t stop him. I looked out the window. It wasn’t quite dark yet and the low rider beside us held a quartet of men who peered curiously at my bleeding face. They were rough men, gangbangers by the grim, tattooed look of them. I wondered if they hit their women too.

  We lived in a posh beachfront condo financed by Devin’s father and by the time we got there he was fully immersed in the role of loving boyfriend. He cleaned me up, helped me into a robe and then let me know how hard he was. Even as I cursed the betrayal of my body I let it happen; I let him ease me onto the bed and spread my legs as he rolled on a condom. I watched his face as he grimaced through his orgasm and felt nothing. Finally, my heart had begun to harden. I welcomed the detachment.

  The next day I peered soberly at the raccoon-like bruising under the garish light of the bathroom vanity and balled both hands into fists. Couples fought all the time. I remembered the howling battles between my parents. It was a vicious back and forth of verbal stabs that was painful to hear. It did not surprise me when they separated. But there were no sounds of fists hitting flesh. There were no bruises the next day.

  My eyes narrowed in disgust at my own reflection. How the hell could I allow this and still look myself in the eye every day?

  “Skateboarding,” I explained with a ridiculous laugh to anyone who asked. “Rolling full speed through a parking garage after four Jello shots.” Then I laughed again, a moronic giggle that sounded repulsive even to me. Then whoever had cared to ask in the first place would smile with polite doubt and turn away.

  The truth was too humiliating. I worried more about what those bruises said about me than what they said about Devin. Only Brayden knew. But my cousin and lifelong best friend was nearly three hundred miles away in Arizona. He repeatedly threatened to drive out and confront Devin but that sounded like a nuclear-level disaster. Devin worked every day at being strong. Brayden hadn’t thrown a punch since he was pummeled on the school playground by one of the Gentry brothers. I begged my cousin not to come.

  “Saylor,” he pleaded and I could hear it in his voice; the fear, the resignation, the disgust. I couldn’t blame him. No one was more disappointed in Saylor McCann than Saylor McCann. I made Brayden swear that he wouldn’t tell my parents. They knew nothing. They were still living their separate lives in Emblem and working at the prison.

  “You deserve better,” he coughed. He ended the call before I could answer.

  Really, I had no answer. Not for Brayden, not for myself. ‘Better’ had proven to be an elusive concept where the male factor was concerned, starting with the high school scumbag who’d sweet talked his way into my pants and through my virginity. There was a reason for it, a reason far worse than sixteen year old hormones. Cord Gentry had made a bet. And then what did that son of a bitch do? He laughed about it uproariously and all the people I’d known my whole life bent themselves in half trying to be first to sit on the gossip train.

  I suppose everyone has a pivotal story of painful adolescence and that was mine. I’d known what the Gentry brothers were. A set of fraternal triplets born to a depraved family, they were rough, sexy and wild as wolves. Together they comprised a powerful triumvirate that ruled the youth of Emblem. I tried not to be among the girls who fell unreservedly for their golden good looks and broad shoulders. Until Cord Gentry noticed me one day and crooked a finger with a sly smile. It didn’t take much at all for me to unlock my knees and lie down on the floor of a dirty garage for him. I’d felt awful enough about it two seconds after it was done. Then it got worse. It turned out to be all a game, some sort of sick Gentry boys challenge to see who could pop the nerdy McCann chick.

  That was a bad time. Through it all I only had Brayden to hand me box after box of tissues as we hunkered down on the floor of my lilac bedroom and played grunge music from the early nineties with religious intensity. My cousin, a sweet kid who endured high school hells of his own, wiped away the snot-encrusted tendrils of my brown hair and gazed at me sadly. He said the same thing he would sigh into the phone six years later.

  “You deserve better.”

  As soon as Devin walked through the door tonight I knew he was drunk. I also knew the violence was in him again. He’d been tiptoeing around me since the Valentine’s Day punch but I often sensed he was biding his time, like a cat. I was graduating in two days and already looking for an apartment. It would have been nice to find a good job to go with it. Waitressing didn’t pay well and, shockingly, it turned out employers weren’t clamoring for English majors with a concentration in creative writing. But I knew I had to get out. Soon, before he pounced again. He would, I was sure of it.

  When Devin spotted me sitting on the couch with my laptop he smiled. My heart stopped. Oh, that sounds so cliché, and I dearly loathe clichés but there is no more appropriate term. When you meet danger eye to eye, your heart really does stop. And then it resumes beating again, furiously.

  “Who the hell you talkin’ to?” he slurred.

  I closed the lid of the laptop. “No one, Dev. I’m writing.”

  He threw his keys on the breakfast bar and held out his hand. “Gimme it.”

  I held my computer against my chest. I was telling the truth. I had rewritten three chapters of my novel but hadn’t saved them yet. “No,” I told him, standing.

  I should have felt inadequately prepared, standing there barefoot in my tank top and shorts while Devin Berlin coiled strength into his considerable muscles. He was drunk, slow, but still dangerous.

  “You think I don’t know,” he growled, “about all the fucks you get on the side, Sweet Say?”

  I closed my eyes. Sweet Say. His nickname for me. Once it had been endearing. Now it only sounded lethal.

  “I haven’t been with anyone but you since we met. You know that, Devin. Now why don’t you go sleep off your liquid paranoia and we’ll talk in the morning.” My voice fought with my nerves, trying to stay casual. Something more than my nose had already broken in me. And as I watched Devin’s mind sorting through the rage of this imaginary betrayal, I realized it would always come back to this. There was no way out but to leave. There was no time other than now.

  I held my computer tighter and tried to smile at my boyfriend. I had no intention of talking to him in the morning. The reason was because I had no intention of even being there in the morning.

  He reached me so quickly I didn’t even have time to flinch. I could smell the mix of smoke and liquor on him. It used to make me hot, just like it used to make me hot when Devin would push his hand crudely between my legs and inside my panties.

  “Tell me a bedtime story first,” he grinned, fingering me rudely and roughly. It wasn’t a request.

  Repulsed, I twisted away. There was nothing erotic about any of this. The feel of his fingers groping inside my body was vile. But as I saw his eyes glaze with fury I knew I had waited too long. I should have left sooner.

  Devin grabbed the laptop out of my arms. I cried out as he held it over his head and slammed it into
the marble floor. It landed with a cracking thud and I lashed out, pushing my palms into his hard chest.

  “Asshole!” I screamed.

  When Devin clocked me in the face he was clumsy. Otherwise it would have been worse. Still, the blow stung and left me off balance so that I toppled face first into the buttery leather sofa. Devin was immediately on top of me, all hands and hot breath as he ripped my shorts off. I struggled mightily but he pinned my arms and I felt him growing hard, pushing relentlessly against the soft flesh of my backside.

  I twisted my head, saying his name, trying to get him to hear me. “Devin. No. Fucking stop it, Devin.”

  “Filthy slut,” he groaned, getting harder as I tried in vain to kick him off. “How many boys you give it to, Sweet Say?”

  I thrashed. I was wild, desperate. The feel of his dick trying to pry me open was revolting. “I hate you. Sick bastard! I hate you! Get the fuck off me!”

  “You love me, Say. Aw shit, you’re tight.”

  My mind screamed. All the times he’d been abusive he’d never done this. I’d realized some time ago how it was all bound together with him, the violence and the sex. But I was always willing. Perhaps if I hadn’t been he would have done this brutal thing sooner. The thought unleased a primal ferocity that coursed through my blood like fire.

  I’d always heard stories of people in extreme circumstances who find themselves, just for a moment, endowed with superior strength. A soccer mom pinned under her overturned SUV. An elderly man fighting off a pack of attacking pit bulls. As I writhed under Devin’s cruel violation I became that surge of adrenaline. I rolled my head into my chest and reared back with a great gasp of power. The back of my hard skull caught him under the chin and he wavered, dazed. One swift elbow in the gut later and he’d fallen on the floor, his dick flopping around idiotically.

  Naked and furiously wronged, I stood and calmly picked up a beach-weathered end table. I’d never been a strong girl and Devin was twice my size. His hideously handsome face held something close to surprise as he watched me raise it above my head. I wasn’t Saylor McCann formed out of a shitty prison town in the desert. I was powerful, a goddess of vengeance. I brought that thing crashing down on top of him with the strength of five angry women. Just then the most satisfying sound in the world was the impact of wood cracking over flesh. As he screeched like a pig I even found myself smiling.