The Marine's Embrace by Beth Andrews

Author:Beth Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE AUDIOBOOK PLAYED through her earbuds as Fay walked on the treadmill, the author-narrator explaining how to overcome all personal obstacles with a little bit of hard work and a whole lot of faith. Which sounded great. Fay wasn’t afraid of hard work, though she hadn’t had much experience with it. But she was willing to try.

It was the faith part that tripped her up. Because while she believed in a greater power, the author of The Best Is Yet to Come! was preaching faith in oneself.

And Fay had no idea how to do that.

Which meant that in her quest for self-improvement and self-empowerment, she was stuck at the beginning.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She had made some fairly decent progress the past five days. Progress including, but not limited to, not calling Shane.

And she refused to feel guilty because she’d wanted to. Or berate herself for picking up her phone to do so more times than she could count and, during a weak moment Saturday morning, dialing his number.

The amount of willpower it had taken for her to disconnect before the call had rung through was astronomical. But she’d done it. She also hadn’t contacted Maddie.

She wasn’t backing down. Not this time. Maddie had put the rules on their friendship. Had given that ultimatum, forcing Fay to choose between trying to get her family back or keeping Maddie and Bree in her life. Now Maddie could be the one to make amends. To apologize.

Fay had done enough apologizing and taking the blame to last a lifetime.

So, maybe she was getting somewhere. Figuratively speaking.

The treadmill’s belt moved steadily under her feet. Literally, though, she was going nowhere fast. Or slow. The pace seemed quick enough, but then, other than a casual stroll around the block or playing in the yard with her boys, she hadn’t exercised since high school gym class.

And as this was the first time she’d used the B&B’s fitness room, she would cut herself some slack. Be compassionate with herself.

Another first. And one the author of The Best Is Yet to Come! highly recommended.

The narrator droned on. The belt hummed. This exercising thing wasn’t so bad, Fay decided. It wasn’t so wonderful, either. Mostly it was just...boring. At least she had the entire fitness room to herself. They only had three guests: a lovely elderly couple from Louisiana visiting the woman’s sister, and Zach Castro.

Fay exhaled heavily—more to ease the tension tightening her neck and shoulders than from exertion—and concentrated on the toothy morning news anchor on one of the wall-mounted televisions, the sound muted. A news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen and the show switched to the weather forecast, which showed rain, rain and more rain.

This wasn’t the first time she’d thought of Zach. As the B&B’s manager, it was her job to think of him. Of his comfort. A task she’d been able to do by proxy, asking Gracie Weaver, a high school senior who worked at Bradford House part-time, to make sure Zach had everything he needed.

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