A Hero of Her Own by Carla Cassidy

Author:Carla Cassidy [Cassidy, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, General, Man-Woman Relationships, Suspense, Contemporary, Veterinarians, Women Psychologists
ISBN: 9780373276189
Google: BOpFPgqHZOIC
Amazon: 0373276184
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-02-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Jewel awakened to early morning sunlight filtering in through the curtains at her window. Her first thought was that there had been no dreams, no ghostly cries from the beyond. She had slept deeper and longer than she had since the death of Andrew and their unborn child.

Her second thought was of Quinn. She turned over in the bed and found herself alone. He must have crept out earlier and she was almost grateful. She would not have to explain to Jeff or Cheryl and the children why the handsome vet was in the house before breakfast.

Rolling over on her back to stare up at the ceiling fan, her head filled with visions of the night she’d shared with him. Just the memory caused her to tingle from head to toe.

He’d been a wonderful lover, both gentle and commanding and it frightened her more than a little how much she would love to repeat the experience.

But she couldn’t. She’d already been unfair to him by allowing last night to happen. She knew Quinn wasn’t the kind of man to take his relationships lightly and that would make everything more difficult.

She couldn’t date Quinn knowing that she would never, could never fully commit to him. It wouldn’t be fair to him and ultimately her.

Time to distance herself, she thought as she got out of bed and padded into the bathroom, then got into the shower. Even though she had slept dreamlessly last night in his arms, that didn’t mean that she would no longer be haunted by Andrew and the baby she had lost.

It wouldn’t bother her so much if she only heard Andrew softly calling her name and the baby crying in her dreams, but there had been far too many nights when she’d been wide-awake and had heard them.

And that’s when the true haunting began, when she remembered her last visit with her mother in the mental ward. Patsy had been lost to the world, muttering incoherently and laughing inappropriately, hearing voices that weren’t there, answering questions that nobody had asked.

As Jewel dressed she heard the sound of the children in the kitchen getting ready for breakfast. They were louder this morning, their voices filled with first day of school jitters.

Initially, Jewel had considered having her kids homeschooled, but ultimately she’d decided that interacting with the kids in town would be far healthier for them than isolation and the feeling that they were different. Besides, she wanted the town residents, who had harbored reservations about a ranch for troubled kids, to see that these kids weren’t a threat.

An hour later she stood by the road that ran in front of the Hopechest Ranch, waiting for the school bus to appear. The sun overhead was brutal even at this time of the morning. The morning weather report had indicated that for the next week or two the temperatures were supposed to be well above normal.

“And the bus will bring us right back here after school, right?” Barry asked for the fourth time.

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