“I know.” His voice was right behind her, but he didn’t touch her. “But they’re not getting married until she graduates.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She pressed her hand to her mouth, hating her weakness. “The worst part is this isn’t empty nest. It’s—” she choked on the word, “—it’s jealousy.”
“Ah, babe.” Tyler turned her and pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay.”
“She’s getting everything I wanted for her.” But it was everything she’d wanted for herself, too. She closed her eyes against the guilt. How could she be jealous of her own child?
“She’s getting it because you made it possible for her to have it.” Tyler rubbed his hands up and down her back, and the tension ebbed away again. “You just need to figure out what you want now. You’re so young, Regan, you have as much life ahead of you as she does, even if you don’t feel it.”
She hadn’t thought about it like that. Suddenly, everything looked different. “I could go back to school.”
“Yep.”
She had no idea what she would study, what she wanted to do, but hell, she had time, didn’t she? Something loosened inside her, relief unfurling like a baby fern. She leaned back and smiled up at Tyler. “Thank you.”
He returned the smiled, but it looked sad. “You’d have figured it out.”
“What?” She touched the corner of his mouth. “What’s wrong?”
“I just—I’m afraid—shit.” He dropped his arms and moved away.
“What?” she asked again.
“I’m part of the old life. What if there’s no place for me in the new one?”
“Are you kidding me?” Regan grabbed the edges of his shirt and pulled him back to her. “Tyler, I’ve spent nineteen years being afraid. I lost my parents, Scott, my future. As long as I can remember, I was afraid of losing Kelsey, the only thing in my life I loved. So determined to never love anything else I’d have to leave behind. That’s over now.” She kissed him, trying to tell him physically what she wasn’t sure was coming out right verbally. He wrapped himself around her, devouring her mouth, and they poured their love into the kiss, the power of it taking over all her senses so that she actually felt the shift. The transition. The past was over, its hold no longer active.
The fear was gone. She was ready to live.
About the Author
Natalie J. Damschroder became a writer the hard way—by avoiding it. Though she wrote her first book at age six (My Very Own Reading Book) and received accolades for her academic writing, she hated doing it. Colonial food and the habits of the European Starling just weren’t her thing. Shortly after graduating from college, however, she found her niche—romantic fiction. So instead of using her Ohio Wesleyan University degree in geography and environmental studies, she became a novelist. She has had seven novels and nearly two dozen short stories and novellas published in ebook and print since 2000, to almost universally positive reviews. The first book in her Brook Hollow trilogy, Kira’s Best Friend, placed second in the 2006 More Than Magic contest.
When not writing, Natalie works as a therapy chiropractic assistant and freelance editor, as well as mother of two awesome daughters (the oldest has been dubbed “the anti-teenager”) and wife of the most patient husband in the world. Her three cats remind her when it’s time to stop working and feed them—otherwise, she might never leave the computer (until Supernatural comes on TV). You can find her online at www.nataliedamschroder.com, www.gabwagon.com, or http://supernaturalsisters.blogspot.com.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9142-7
Copyright © 2011 by Natalie J. Damschroder
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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