Becky was mortified. She didn’t have to see her sister’s face to know she was truly shocked.
Katy cleared her throat. “You know what? I think I’m going to go help Mom with dinner, see if…”
Becky couldn’t take her eyes off Tom as he leveled his shrewd gaze on her. It was filled with passion and fire, and he was calling her out completely. She knew Katy had slipped out of the room, and that left just her and Tom and this unbearable tension.
“You accused me of deliberately getting you pregnant, and you left. You packed up leaving a note and hopped on a plane. How do you think that made me feel? We’re married, and instead of talking, you run.”
Boy, maybe she really did deserve that. She heard the floor creak and spotted her dad, who stared in at her and then shook his head and walked away. Okay, so he likely had a thing or two to say to her about how badly she’d handled this.
“I’m sorry my dad hit you,” she said.
Tom didn’t pull his gaze from her. “And you always change the subject when you don’t want to talk about something. But you’re pregnant, and we’re going to have a baby whether you like it or not—or is it that you don’t want to?”
She swallowed and took him in. She should say something, anything to make this right, but what could she say to him about a situation she didn’t want to deal with? She didn’t want to be pregnant. She didn’t want to have a baby. She didn’t want to be a mother, because then she would have the kind of life that she’d never wanted. How was she going to make Tom understand?
20
“A penny for your thoughts?” Katy said as she stepped out of the house, taking in Becky sitting on the wooden porch swing, staring off into the distance.
Trevor was at Neil’s doing woodworking, Jasmine was at home with her mom still, the boys were at school, Steven was out back with her dad and Tom, working on the cabin, and her mom had been in the house on the phone, talking to her aunt Candy, she thought.
Becky only tossed her a brief glance. She’d basically avoided everyone the previous night, just moved into the spare room, closed the door, and crawled into bed. “Are you going to lecture me?” she said. “Because I have a husband who’s barely talking to me, and Mom and Dad are giving me the stink eye. I know they’re just waiting to tell me how disappointed they are in me and what an awful person I’m being and to grow up and deal with it.”
Boy, she really was in a mood.
“Not my place to lecture anyone,” Katy said, “Hey, I’ve made my share of mistakes and fuck-ups, and they’re on me, so I’m not about to sit here and tell you how to think or make you feel worse. Besides, I’m kind of glad you’re here. I missed you, and it was getting kind of boring around here. You sure have livened things up a bit.”
Becky looked shocked.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” Katy said. She took the wicker chair by the swing and reached over to pat her sister’s leg. “Come on, lighten up. If you think about it, in a decade or two, I’m sure you and Tom will both think back on all this and laugh, especially about when Dad punched him. I’ve never seen him do that…”
“Okay, stop.” Becky laughed. “You are so bad.”
Well, at least she wasn’t moping. She’d managed to get a smile out of her.
“So are you going to tell me to suck it up, that having a baby is going to be wonderful and that as soon as I see my baby, I’ll fall in love with it and decide that being a mother is everything I should want? You’re going to say it will be okay, and life will be terrific, and I’m just freaking out because I’m scared? That motherhood is something every woman secretly wants, and that I come from a family that’s all about family, and Mom and Dad are excited about another grandchild, so I just have to be okay with all this?”
Her sister lifted her hands, and Katy could see how conflicted she was. She’d always known Becky craved excitement, a life away from the ranch. She could never be happy with the kind of life their mom and dad had.
“Becky, no one is saying that, and I certainly wouldn’t. Being a mother isn’t for everyone, and if we’re being honest about it, it’s the hardest job in the world. Look at me. I totally sucked at it for so long that Mom and Dad had to take Fletcher and raise him for me because I wasn’t emotionally in a place to handle it. Becky, you need to do what’s going to work for you. Did Tom tell you…?”
Becky shook her head, and Katy took in the tired and annoyed expression on her face and stopped talking. “No, he’s never said that.” She ran her hand over her hair. She was wearing that same gray sweater over black sweatpants, and her bare feet were propped on the swing. Her toenails were painted red. “I hate my job,” she said, then turned and pressed her feet to the ground.
There was a creak on the stairs, and Katy turned to see her dad coming up the steps. She hadn’t heard him come around the house. She wasn’t sure what to make of his expression. His hair held bits of sawdust, and his blue shirt was covered with grime. He walked toward them, taking in her and then Becky, who stared up at him with a look as though she was just waiting for the lecture that would be coming.
“So is it about your job or being pregnant?” Brad said as he leaned against the rail. Then he took a seat on the swing beside Becky. “Because I’ve never in my life had to grovel to a man the way I have your husband. You lied to me, Becky, and I don’t remember a time in your life that you ever have. Saying he cheated on you when he didn’t is so wrong, and it’s nothing I would have expected you could ever do.”
“I’m sorry, Dad…”
“Let me finish.” Her dad sounded rather calm as he cut Becky off. “You’re pregnant, it happens. You have a husband who hasn’t cheated on you. Do you love him still?”
She could see how still her sister went, and her dad didn’t pull that shrewd gaze from her.
“Well, yes, of course I do,” Becky said, appearing confused. “That isn’t the issue.”
Her dad made a rude sound. “Oh, that’s everything. You’re pregnant, an accident, but you need to be a big girl and deal with it. You handled it badly. Then there’s your job—which I thought you loved?”
So had Katy, but the way Becky stiffened, she realized she really wasn’t happy.
“I hate it. Is that what you want to hear? I went to Oxford, got this big fancy degree, and I hate everything about the finance world that I thought would excite me. I stuck it out because I didn’t know how to tell Tom that all the money he spent for my tuition, so I could be happy, was all a waste. I really am a horrible person…”
“No, you’re not,” Tom said.
Katy looked up to spot him walking around the house, and she sat up to see if there was anyone else who could catch them by surprise, too.
Tom strode up the steps in a pair of faded jeans and a Lakers T-shirt he’d borrowed from her husband. “So why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
Katy wondered if she could slip away, but he was standing right there, blocking her way.
Becky said nothing for a minute. “Because I didn’t want you to be angry with me because I screwed up. I still don’t know what I really want to do, but I can tell you doing what I’m doing in that brokerage, handling all that money for the wealthy and investing it, is exactly what I do not want to do.”
Tom made a rude noise and then let out a rough laugh. She didn’t know if he was angry or what, because she really didn’t know him.
“Then quit,” he said. Katy took in the shock on her sister’s face.
“I can’t quit! Are you crazy? Do you know how much money I get paid there?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re not happy,” he said, cutting her off.
“Tom is right, Becky,” Brad said. “If this isn’t what you want to do, you shouldn’t be doing it. Besides, you have other things on your plate.” Her dad patted her leg and then stood up, gesturing to the seat he’d left for Tom. “You have a baby on the way, whether you like it or not.”
Then Brad gestured to Katy. She stood up, and he looped his
arm over her shoulder, and they went into the house. She couldn’t make out what Tom was saying to her sister, but he slid his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned her head against his chest. It was a moment, their private moment, and she hoped they would resolve this rift and this confusion that her sister had found herself in.
21
Katy had seen her sister just the day before, just past the thirty-six-week mark. Becky had seemed big and uncomfortable in the four-bedroom, three-bath house Tom had bought in Hoquiam after relocating them from London. Yes, her sister had quit her job, and Tom had accepted a position on the trauma team at Grays Harbor.
It was a step down, but that was the promise he’d made to Becky: They’d move back, have the baby, and decide from there where to go. The world was their oyster, he’d said, and baby or no baby, that didn’t mean Becky would have to join a PTA and suddenly drive a minivan. They could live anywhere they chose, and that seemed to be all her sister needed. She wasn’t sure, but Becky had a fear of being ordinary.
She was anything but.
“Did you see her?” Tom said. He was wearing scrubs and a day-old beard, and he joined Katy at the window of the nursery in the hospital. Becky had just given birth to her niece, seven pounds, three ounces, after only six hours and twelve minutes of labor.
“She’s gorgeous. Where are my mom and dad?” she asked.
Tom grinned. “In with Becky. I think, deep down, she secretly likes having your mom fuss over her. She’ll never admit it, but being back here, close to you, all her family, was something she missed more than anything.”
Tom rested his arm on the glass over his head and stared in at his daughter, who was in the nursery with six other newborns. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but she knew there wasn’t any other man for her sister. Becky wasn’t just complicated—she was her sister, and she loved her, but she silently wished Tom all the help he needed in dealing with her. She was a handful, and he seemed to be ready to hold on with both hands.
“So do you think you’ll be sticking around?” Katy said.
He smiled and made an odd sound, tired, amused, something, then glanced her way as he widened his eyes in exasperation. “She’s the love of my life,” he said. “For now, but this is Becky. She craves adventure, a life that fills her with excitement. So whatever it takes.”
She saw something there in the man who had married her sister. She knew he would do anything for her and more. Then she spotted Jasmine and Trevor walking their way, holding hands. She tapped Tom’s shoulder and gestured. “I never thought Trevor would get her here.”
Tom turned and took them in as they walked their way. Trevor was happy, smiling. “Small steps, Katy,” he said.
Trevor and Jasmine approached them and spotted the babies behind the glass.
“Oh, nope, I don’t like babies,” Trevor said, but Tom slipped his arm around his shoulder and steered them into the room where Becky was.
As Katy glanced back to her niece with no name, she was struck by the love they all shared. They were a family, misfits and all, with their quirks and personalities—and she loved each and every one of them.
Please Leave a Review
A Reason to Breathe is Trevor Friessen’s story, and he is the little boy you first met in The Forgotten Child who is now all grown up, a young man with Autism. There are still many families and caregivers who believe that a person with Autism and on the spectrum isn’t capable of finding love. When that is completely false. They may have so much trouble interpreting and understanding what we find so easy and comes naturally to each one of us, but regardless they do have the capacity to love, it just may not be in a way you expect or understand. When you ask someone on the spectrum if they know what love is, you may be surprised they don’t understand the word, the concept, because it is abstract.
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Now reviews, reviews, reviews. In order for an authors books to stay front and center we need reviews. So please, if you enjoyed A Reason to Breathe please take a few minutes to write a review, if you are not sure what to write, just a few kind words and what you enjoyed about the book. A Reason to Breathe
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My books have all been edited and proofed, editors, proofreaders, and I are all human. And it surprises me still the countless eyes that may have missed something, it doesn’t happen often, but it happens. If you spot a typo, please email me at [email protected] and let me know. Also, I would like to thank everyone who has emailed and told all their family and friends about my books. If you’d like to know more about my other books, please scroll to the next section or visit my website at www.LorhainneEckhart.com.
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All the best,
Lorhainne Eckhart
What’s coming next in The Friessens
Up and coming hockey rookie Michael Friessen has everything going for him: a future few could hope for, parents who are his everything… He doesn’t want anything more until one weekend before he secures a spot with the Canucks, when he wakes up with a ring on his finger and the hottest, sexiest blonde sound asleep beside him.
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He tries to tell himself it was a mistake, that he isn’t looking for a relationship, and despite everything about her, including the night he’s still trying to remember, he’s determined not to fall for her. But the closer they get, the deeper he falls—until he learns that the night they met may not have been accidental.
Click here to pre-order your copy which is scehduled for release from all retailers March 31, 2019
Other works available
The Parker Sisters, a spinoff of the romance series Married in Montana from a Readers’ Favorite award—winning author and “queen of the family saga” (Aherman)
The Parker Sisters
Thrill of the Chase
The Dating Game
Play Hard to Get
What We Can’t Have
Go Your Own Way
A June Wedding
Thrill of the Chase
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He stopped for an accident and stumbled upon the one woman he’d been looking for all his life.
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From a Readers’ Favorite award-winning author and the “queen of the family saga” (Aherman) comes The Parker Sisters, a new spinoff of the Married in Montana series.
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To everyone who doesn’t know her, dependable EMT Taz Parker is strong, capable, and confident. However, everything about her job terrifies her. She lives in a small Wyoming town, with four sisters, an overprotective father, and no dating prospects on the horizon, considering the lack of available men in the area. That is until one rainy night, while transporting a patient to the next town, she stumbles upon an accident.
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Jerry O’Rourke is only passing through town when he witnesses a roadside accident. When he stops to help at the grisly scene, there’s only so much he can do, so he flags down a passing ambulance. A pretty EMT stops to help, and Jerry is unable to resist her.
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Even though he lives in another state, Jerry seeks out Taz just one more time—but what he encounters is a naive young woman from a big family. Taz is beautiful and innocent, and he wonders where she’s been all his life. When he sets his sights on her, he soon realizes that the strong ties Taz has with her family could make having her far more difficult than he could have ever imagined.
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CLICK HERE to order your copy available from all retailers
Read Excerpt from Thrill of the Chase
Taz wanted a hot bath, a good book, and a slice of Hoover’s Meat Lover’s Paradise, the specialty pizza at the Dog House. In fact, she could see herself wrapped in her fluffy lavender robe, wool socks on her feet, curled up on the sofa, digging into that first slice, which would comfort her after a lousy day at the station. Her workplace was a run-down double wide, all the town of Kaycee could provide for its EMTs, and her arrogant partner from Buffalo was four years her junior.
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sp; Today, she had rushed to a scene only to be turned away by a chauvinistic good ol’ boy who’d rather have died than be rescued by a woman. Taz hadn’t minded the fact that the idiot saw her as a member of the weaker sex or the fact that he’d insisted Bradley Dunlop, a.k.a. her arrogant partner, who was still in training, be the one to administer first aid. It hadn’t been a big deal, even considering the man had had a hatchet sticking out of his back. How he’d managed that feat, she hadn’t a clue.
Even though Bradley looked about twelve and weighed only one twenty, the balding overweight man had insisted he was his guy because, being male, he’d know more about what he was doing. That was laughable, considering Bradley still had to be reminded of some pretty basic rules—for example, that when he stepped out of the ambulance after getting the call, he needed to assess the scene and take a few commonsense steps. Look left, look right, and don’t forget to look up.
She could hear the victim caterwauling and listened to the back and forth as she stood five steps away, that is, after she’d cut down the smoldering tree branch the guy had been sitting under. If Bradley had only looked up and assessed the scene as he was supposed to have done, he’d have seen it was only moments away from falling onto the shirtless idiot, whose fat belly was sticking out over his ripped blue jeans. She took in what she supposed was the barn, or rather a shed with rotted boards, a door hanging from one hinge, and rusty farm implements and piles of black garbage bags scattered everywhere, obviously the source of the rank odor that had hit her as she first stepped out of the rig.
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