Looking back, I should have seen it coming.
Paige didn’t like that I went so far away to university. But it was
going to only be for two years. She'd join me after she did her two
years at community college. I thought we could swing that no problem.
We were solid.
But she hated the distance. She hated not seeing me every day. She
complained that I didn’t come home enough. She hated that for months
on end, texting and phone calls were our only form of communication.
It wasn’t enough.
She'd ask about the girls on campus. She’d gotten it into her head
that girls were always making a play for me. I laughed and told her,
even if that were true, I’d never cheat on her. She didn't seem
completely reassured by that.
The bottom line is, Paige thought she was losing me. She wanted me
home with her. But I could never imagine the level she'd sink to—the
trap she’d set to make that happen.
And like an idiot I walked right into it.
The second Mitch comes back, I don’t sense something’s wrong, I know
it. When he walks over to the bed and hands me the plate of crackers,
his expression is carefully blank. Accompanying his return and
clinging to him like a second skin is a draft of wintery
air.
Wholly unnerved, I accept the plate slowly and watch him with mounting
apprehension. Instead of resuming his seat on the bed, with a fleeting
glance at me, he moves and stations himself in front of the window.
There he shoves his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and peers
through the vertical blinds out into the backyard. There’s not much to
see back there but a square, concrete patio and a small lawn that my
mom’s boyfriend, Randy, insisted on mowing last week.
“What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, just keeps staring out the window but it’s obvious
he’s not looking at anything in particular. Plus his jaw is tight and
his shoulders are bunched, which is the way he gets when he’s
tense.
“Mitch?” I prompt, my anxiety climbing at double-digit increments.
“Are you still on birth control?”
My heart jumps at the question. My stomach promptly sinks at the cold
flatness of his tone.
He knows.
Beverley discovered her love of books while growing up in, the then,
small city of Barrie, Ontario Canada. With her love of books and
romance, she always wished that everyone would find their happily ever
after. She currently writes sexy historical, new adult, and
contemporary romances.
As the mother of one too bright and mischievous young boy, she pulls
full-time duty on all fronts. When she's not writing full-time,
raising her son or running The Season review website, she's probably
reading or daydreaming of a time when she'll have time for her
favourite hobbies: knitting, crocheting and sewing.
Beverley has lived on two continents, in three countries, two
provinces, and four states. She stopped her nomadic existence and
settled in the southeast. All things artistic feed her creative
passion, but none more than writing. Readers can visit her at:beverleykendall.com.
Mark your calendars
Releasing July 7, 2014
My life has turned out to be such a cliché. And not in a good way.
It’s not exactly Sixteen and Pregnant, but at eighteen my only
advantage is a high school diploma. And if that’s not enough, the
father—and I use that term loosely—couldn’t have hightailed it out of
my life fast enough.
I thought I really knew him. Unfortunately, my boyfriend of three
years transformed from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde once he realized his
carefree, childless days would be coming to an end.
I’m over him now though. The real love of my life is chubby, has more
gum than teeth, and stands a little over two feet tall. She may not
have been planned, but I’ve never regretted having her. She is the
center of my world.
A world that’s turned upside down when Mitch returns ready to earn the
love and trust of the child he'd abandoned before birth.
Letting him into my daughter’s life is one thing but letting him back
into mine isn't going to happen. Ever.
Now if only I can get my heart to heed the lessons of the past.
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