Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Get your heart pumping at Quinn’s Fitness Center, where Ethan and Natalie give as good as they get, all while…frustrations are building up.
He was perfect at first. I was ready to name my firstborn after my personal trainer. I mean, he was saying all the right things! He was making sense. He didn’t define health by a certain weight or push me to become someone else. He was only interested in helping me find my happy medium.
Then I started getting to know the real Ethan Quinn. Away from clients, away from work, he was pompous, arrogant, and such a snob. One day, he literally told me he was everyone’s type.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. We’d promised each other honesty, so yeah. Screw it.
But…there was something about him. I got the feeling he was hiding a part of himself—or he was in the middle of figuring himself out—so I kept going back to his gym. I kept wanting to talk to him, to spend time with him…
Aw, crap.
This story takes place in Cara Dee’s Camassia Cove Universe, a fictional town where all books stand on their own, unless otherwise stated, and the reader can jump in wherever they want
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Natalie Nolan
“Have I mentioned I’m glad you came to your senses and moved here?”
I grinned into the mug and took a sip of my tea. She’d only mentioned that about a dozen times since I’d arrived a couple weeks ago.
“Yes, but you can tell me again.”
“I’m so, so, so, so glad!” She laid it on thick with a big smile, and she sat down so we shared a corner of her kitchen island. “My baby sister, finally in the same state as me.” She opened her giant messy planner that kept her life organized. It had countless Post-its and colorful tabs sticking out of it. “Now I just gotta find a date we can all get together for dinner.” She slid her pen down the dates of this week, then the next.
She was a busy woman.
Hell, everyone in the family was busy. Chloe ran a bed-and-breakfast, her husband was a successful author, and the kids… They were all grown up now, ’cause Chloe had started early. The twins had a year left in high school, which was freaking nuts. My eldest nephew, Gage, lived in Vancouver and worked all the time, and the second eldest, Gray, had recently turned Chloe into a grandmother. Gray and his boyfriend were in the middle of adopting two boys, and my sister could not be happier.
Actually, her stepdaughter had given birth to twins not too long ago either, so make that four grandchildren.
She had everything up here in rainy Washington.
I was still on the fence. I’d left New York for a tiny town north of Seattle.
Then again, New York hadn’t really suited me either.
“Okay, I give up,” Chloe sighed. “It looks like the next day everyone’s in town is for Jayden’s birthday in September.”
That was okay. “He’s turning nine, right?”
“Nine, goin’ on nineteen—that sweetheart.” My sister was a big fan of the boys, obviously.
When I’d first heard that Gray and Darius were adopting, I’d automatically assumed babies. My nephew had always wanted a big family, not unlike the one he’d grown up in.
I wasn’t what one might call the jealous type, and I would never begrudge Gray all the happiness in the world. That said, when my nephew, at the age of not even twenty-two, suddenly settled down with a nice man and two kids, you could say it’d lit a fire under my ass.
I didn’t care about the nice man, but I wanted children, and my biological clock was ticking like crazy.
At thirty-four, I’d contemplated not having kids at all. I’d been semi-content in my shoebox of a Manhattan apartment, and work stole all my time. And now, just a year later, hello, baby fever.
Maybe I would never get as far as Chloe; she had the big house and the marriage dreams were made of, and that was okay. As long as I could start shopping for baby shoes and onesies soon.
I had a plan.
The smell of the apple pie Chloe had in the oven was not going to help me with that plan.
“When are the twins comin’ home? I need them to eat that pie before I cave,” I said.
Chloe glanced over at the oven then back at me and raised a brow. “One slice won’t kill you, doll.”
Right, but my plan.
I smiled, more than a little excited, and figured now was a good time to break the news. “Here’s the thing. You know how you’ve been on my case about having kids since I was basically in kindergarten? Well, now I’m ready.”
Her eyes widened and brimmed with hope. “No! You’re not jokin’, are you? You can’t joke about that with me, Nat.”
I smirked. “I’m not joking.”
“Oh, this is amazing!” She flew out of her chair and hugged me.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I hugged her back. I’d had a feeling she’d be happy.
“What route are you going to take? I know better than to ask if you’re seein’ someone.” She put her hands on my arms and leaned back, eyeing me in a way that made it clear she was trying to be sure.
“Yeah, no, definitely not seeing anyone,” I confirmed. I wasn’t ready. “I wanna find a donor.”
She pursed her lips and nodded, then sat down again. “You’ll make a wonderful mama. And I’ll be there for every doctor’s appointment, you hear?”
I squeezed her hands in mine, more grateful than I could express. “My problem is, I have to lose some weight first. My doctor said it might be difficult for me to go through a pregnancy at this stage, so…”
Even if I hadn’t planned on becoming a parent, it was time. I couldn’t blame grief anymore. Two years had passed since I’d lost Brad, and I’d lost myself in the process too. I’d gained so much weight.
I’d been bigger my whole life, and it’d been… Eh. We all had our ups and downs. Yeah, sure, I’d doubted myself, thought I was ugly, a big fat cow, all that crap. Then I’d grown up. Acceptance had hit me in waves in my twenties, and I’d even started enjoying looking in the mirror. But the last two years, health-wise, could be summed up as one failure after another. I needed professional help.