Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Sylvan Dean and Hale Galloway have enjoyed wandering their way through life, always in motion. Always searching for the woman who could make their life complete. Living in Bliss made them realize it’s time to settle down. Van’s finally going to college and has a job lined up with his brother when he finishes. That job is in Dallas, and while Hale is happy for Van, he can’t imagine leaving Bliss behind. It feels like everything is coming apart until they meet Elisa. She’s the one they have been searching for, and she is worth the wait.
The future looks bright until the guys’ past comes back to haunt them. Danger lurks in every corner, but it may not be the biggest threat to their happily ever after. The citizens of Bliss know how to handle a killer, but handling Elisa, Van, and Hale might require some cosmic intervention.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Elisa Leal stared in the mirror and wondered when she would feel like herself again. It was odd to have lived in a body for almost thirty-five years, to know it so well, and now to have it changed utterly. She felt like she was looking at someone else.
Someone with more scars than she’d had before. Her chest looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to it.
That skin was outward proof of how she felt inside. Bruised. Battered. Brutalized.
She knew she hadn’t been. The people who had taken care of her had been competent and kind. Well, as kind as she would allow anyone to be to her. There had been no true violence and yet she felt assaulted.
“It won’t take long for you to heal,” a soft voice said.
Her sister, Sabrina, didn’t care that she was standing half naked in front of the big mirror in what used to be their mother’s bedroom. When their mother had died the year before, neither had moved into the large but stark room. Sabrina had stayed in the little apartment over the garage she’d moved into after she’d come home from college years before. Elisa had stayed in the room she’d grown up in. She’d only moved back because her mother had been sick and Sabrina needed help taking care of her.
Then Elisa had been the one who was sick.
When she’d known she was going to have surgery and then a long rehab with radiation and chemo, they’d decided it was easier for Elisa to stay in the large room downstairs no matter how crappy her memories of the place were.
Now she had new crappy memories of this room, so yay her.
She reached for the surgical bra she’d come to hate and gingerly slipped it over her arms and around her shoulders. She couldn’t be out of it for longer than it took to shower and change and stare at the state of her body. She wouldn’t even think about the state of her soul. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
Sabrina set down the tray she was carrying. It looked like she’d made a sandwich and some soup and a big glass of iced tea. “That’s because you, sister dear, are in crisis.”
“In crisis?” She zipped up the bra and wrapped a robe around her torso. She didn’t want to eat, but she would force herself to since Sabrina would worry if she didn’t. “Since when did you become a therapist?”
In her world, a crisis was the house being on fire or an enemy combatant coming for her unit.
Her former unit. That part of her life was over now, too.
“Oh, this is not a professional opinion.” Her sister had more than the tray. She held a large envelope in her hand. Her expression turned distinctly thoughtful. “Or maybe it is. I’m not a professional therapist, but I’m an expert at being in crisis and keeping all that pain shoved way down where Mom thought it should be. You know she’s not around to be a terrible role model when it comes to mental health, right? We’re free to seek healthy ways to deal with stress and change.”
Sabrina was right about one thing. Their mom’s version of dealing with pain was to utterly ignore it.
Toughen up, kid. I’m giving you a lesson in how to survive. Don’t ever admit weakness. Not to anyone. And if you trust a man, you learned nothing from your childhood.
She probably did need therapy, but that would be admitting weakness.
Damn, Sabrina was right. Her mom was kind of still here, still living in her head. “I’m fine. And you’re right. I will heal quickly, and I’ll get used to the new me. According to Dr. Lowell, I’ve now got eighteen-year-old tits. I’m not sure they go with the rest of thirty-five-year-old me.”
“The skin will heal. I’m not worried about that. You’re going to look even more fabulous than before—not that you know it. It’s the inside stuff that concerns me.”
Elisa sat down at the small table they’d set up and took a sip of the tea. It was still strange for it to be the two of them back in this house they’d spent years in. Strange and a little sad because the truth was they’d both tried to be out in the world, to leave this house behind. They’d failed. Elisa had divorced, and Sabrina hadn’t been able to get out from under their mom’s grip. She’d dated a bit but concentrated on her teaching career and taking care of their mom and let her own life pass her by.
“The inside stitches dissolve,” she assured her sister.
Sabrina groaned. “You are so literal. I was talking about your feelings. Note I used an s because you’re supposed to have more than one.”
She had feelings. Anger. Regret. The need for vengeance on her enemies.