Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Liberty
Thing is, my Mama D never had a one-night stand with an older man who never told her his last name and left behind a souvenir that was gonna be life changing – but I had.
My life had started as a fairytale, then morphed into a nightmare by the time I was ten years old. From the moment I’d been kicked out at eighteen, I had found a way to survive. Anything was better than the home I’d left behind. At some point, everyone gets a break, right? You would think so, but fate keeps tossing things at me, trying to see how much I can take.
Looks like it won because I’m stuck right back where I started. Living in my sister’s house, who hates me, with the clock ticking until I’m homeless again.
Liam
It was time I settled down. Found a woman I could grow old with because, let’s face it, I was so close to fifty I could reach out and touch it. The daughter I hadn’t got to raise was now in my life. Grown, married, with two little boys. I wanted to be someone she could be proud of and respect. I recently started dating a doctor, she was gorgeous, smart, and independent. It all looked good when you checked off the list. My daughter couldn’t wait to meet her. I wished like hell I felt something for her. A spark, a pull, anything at this point would do.
Then, one night, when I’m leaving her bedroom, I see a familiar face looking back at me from the other end of the hallway. The sexy bartender I should have left alone six weeks ago and couldn’t get out of my head shouldn’t be here. But she is. Which means she’s the doctor’s spoiled, selfish brat of a younger sister. This was not going to end well.
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Prologue
Liberty
Eleven Years Old
Think about Charleston, think about Mama D’s fried pies, think about summer afternoons at the creek behind Dillard Holler.
Keeping my eyes closed tightly, I tried to focus on all the good things that had once been part of my life. Remembering what I’d had was better than facing what my life was now.
The pain never got easier. How many times had someone told me that time would heal the pain of loss or something dumb like that? I hadn’t believed them five years ago after my grandmother, Mama D took her last breath; or seven months after that, when I’d clung to the side of my momma’s casket; or six months ago, when my dad had been lowered into the ground. They had all been wrong or just lying because they didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t care if my dad was in a better place. He was supposed to be here with me. He was all I’d had left.
My eyes began to sting—an all-too-familiar reaction. I was so tired of crying. I’d done too much of it in the past five years. I tried once again to think about my life before we left our home in Charleston. The pretty yellow two-story house where I’d lived happily for the first seven years of my life. My Mama D’s house sat right across the street. The day we had driven away with all our things in a moving truck, I’d felt like I was losing my mom and Mama D all over again.
That had been four years ago. Dad had promised me that day, as we drove south to Ocala, Florida, that I’d find happiness again. I’d have a new home with new memories. Our family would look different, but there would be love. He thought we couldn’t move on if we stayed with the ghosts of what had once been. I disagreed, but then I hadn’t wanted to move on. I had wanted to cling to what was left.
I’d lost Mama D and then Momma seven months later. It was the hardest year of my life. Dad held me, promising me he’d never leave. We would survive this. One day, we would have a fond memory and smile when we thought of them. He said it was us against the world. And I believed him. Until … he’d moved us.
Opening my eyes, I wiped at the tears that I hadn’t been able to stop and stared at the bedroom that had become mine the week after Dad’s heart attack. It had been my stepmother, Abilene’s, crafting room and the only finished space in the basement of our home in Ocala. Dad had planned to finish the rest, adding a game room and a proper laundry room instead of the washer and dryer that currently sat in the open space across from my room.