Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
And just like that, I feel a hundred times more at ease with Josie knowing that we share medicine in common. I tap my chest and eagerly tell her, “I’m a nurse.”
“I know,” Josie says with a grin. “Reed told me. Neonatal, right?”
“That’s right.” I beam back at her before picking my cup up.
Josie stares at me a moment, and I feel like she’s calculating something. She looks toward the formal living room, perhaps expecting Reed and Marek to come walking in any moment, and then back to me.
Stepping in closer, she lowers her voice and says somewhat urgently, “Listen…I don’t know how long they’ll be talking. Given that Reed’s ripping Marek a new one right now, I expect it won’t be long. But I want you to know you’ve got a friend here. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for you, getting yanked away from your home and thrown into what I’m betting is a hostile environment.”
A flush of embarrassment courses through me and I murmur somewhat glumly, “Then you know the whole story. Marek stopping the wedding and—”
“Practically kidnapping you and Lilly, dragging you here, and then dumping you both while he goes off gallivanting to the beach? Yeah, I know it all.” Her voice is icy with clear disapproval over Marek’s methods. “That’s why Reed is out there helping him to remove his head from his ass.”
I give a slight shake of my head, the guilt overwhelming me. My eyes drop to the floor. “Marek has every reason to—”
“No,” Josie says adamantly, her voice still low and somewhat hurried. “Whatever the issues that are going on between the two of you for past hurts, that gives him no excuse to abandon you and Lilly. He’ll get that message by the time Reed is through with him.”
I’m not quite sure the emotion I’m feeling. Perhaps gratitude, perhaps vindication, but my eyes get watery as I swallow hard. “Thank you for saying that, Josie. We both have a lot of anger and hurt going on. But when Marek came home last night, he seemed to indicate he wants to have a relationship with Lilly, and we’re going to talk to her today.”
Josie cuts a quick look at Lilly then back to me. “What does she know?”
The sigh I let out is unintended and long-suffering, but totally indicative of how troubling all of this is. “Not much. Just that her mommy isn’t marrying Owen and that she got jerked away from everything she’s ever known to live in a strange house with a strange man she has no clue what he means to her. I told Marek last night that we were leaving, that I couldn’t let this continue on, as it was too confusing to her. That seemed to reach him. At least I think it did.”
Josie nods in sympathy. She takes a sip of coffee and then asks, “I bet it was awful, Marek showing up like that. Giving you no choice in what to do. Reed told me how it all went down and he wasn’t happy with it.”
I stare down at my cup, refusing to look at her as I shamefully admit, “It was a mess. Marek threatening to take Lilly away, giving me no time to consider consequences. You can never imagine the emotional wreckage I left behind, calling the wedding off with Owen. Not being able to really explain things to his parents and my parents. A whole churchful of people I had to confront…”
My words trail off as I remember just how awful that day was. Owen was enraged, and he stormed out of the church once he realized he couldn’t change my mind. I had to walk down that aisle by myself and stand up in front of five hundred people to tell them the wedding had been called off.
As for me, my emotions were all over the place. I wasn’t sure if I’d been saved or not.
Josie doesn’t comment, and when I get the courage to look back at her, her head is tilted as if she’s pondering something. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
I shrug. Why not? She knows most of my baggage.
“Reed told me that Owen was really wealthy. I’m sure he would have helped you fight Marek to keep Lilly with you. So why cancel the wedding? Why give in to Marek and uproot your life like that?”
This time, I don’t blush with embarrassment. Instead, I can feel my skin cool as if all the blood had drained from my face. It’s the one question I don’t want to answer for anyone, and I wasn’t expecting it from her. “Um…well, I just figured…Marek had the right. I’d deprived him of his daughter for so long.”
Josie shakes her head. “No, that’s not it. I mean…I can see that bothers you. You don’t strike me as a particularly spiteful person, and I can hear the regret in your voice, but there’s something else.”