Country Wishes

by RaeAnne Hadley

  Apart from her family and friends, writing is her passion.

  Margaret is married with three grown up sons and two gorgeous little granddaughters.

  Other Books by Margaret

  Western Historical Romance

  Logan – Bachelors and Babies – Series - (Book

  2)

  Lily – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 1

  Freddie – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 2

  Alfie – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 3

  Alex – Guilford Crossing Brides – Book 4

  Beltane Bride

  Edwina, Bride of Connecticut (American Mail-Order Brides Series)

  Cowboy Christmas

  The Sheriff’s Outcast Bride

  The Cowboy and The Quaker

  Savage Possession

  His Brother’s Wife

  Fiery Possession

  Gunslinger’s daughter

  Claire, Tess, Flame, Jessica, Scarlett, Sophie (Women Betrayed Series)

  Historical Romance

  Pearl Harbor and More Anthology

  A Rose in No Man’s Land

  Reluctant Father

  We Never Said I Love You

  Daring Masquerade

  Allison’s War

  Rich Man’s Folly (Sequel to Allison’s War)

  Lauren’s Dilemma

  Falsely Accused

  Contemporary Romance

  Baby Maker

  Haunted Hearts

  Hindsight

  Wishes

  RaeAnne Hadley

  LIFE

  Looking out her living room window, she wondered how she actually got here; at this point in her life. It wasn’t what she had thought or planned. In fact, it didn’t even resemble anything she’d ever dreamt of. She didn’t think it was her husband’s plans either but they hardly talked anymore.

  After twenty years of being married and having raised three children who were now out in the world making their own way, her and Bryant’s conversations were narrowed down to “What’s for dinner” or “Did you hear from the kids today.” Occasionally he would throw in a little jab about the house or did she have a good day eating bonbons on the couch while he worked a real job. Normally she would let them roll off her back but sometimes it just built up and she would blow. Not her proudest moments but she was getting sick of feeling like she was a waste of skin. It wasn’t her fault that she had chosen a career where she could work from home and he had chosen construction.

  It wasn’t all bad which is why she stayed. There were glimpses of who they used to be; playful, flirtatious, loving. It was during those times that she remembered why she married Bryant and why she stayed with him.

  She sighed, still not understanding how her life had slowly twisted into this day-by-day rut. Getting up and heading towards her office, she tried to push down the despair that rested like a weighted stone on her chest. She still had a deadline to meet if she wanted that paycheck.

  Sitting down at her computer, she started streaming her favorite music station, turned on her small, desk lamp and began to type. She had been a historical romance writer for Avon the past fifteen years and was working on her eighty-second book. Her dreams of becoming a world-famous author like Nora Roberts or Danielle Steele disappeared years ago. Her royalties allowed her to continue writing the genre she loved so much but it wasn’t enough for the lavish lifestyle they’d dreamt of.

  Sighing again, she picked up on her story and got lost in the past world of her characters; her words flowing as she imagined it was herself living that life.

  Six hours later, she saved her file and shut down her computer. It was time to start supper and while it was slightly easier making smaller meals since it was the two of them, she found her culinary creativity severely lacking.

  She whipped up spaghetti and meatballs and was finishing up toasting the garlic bread when the door opened.

  “Hey, how was your day?” she asked, hoping his day had gone smoothly.

  “I work with a bunch of idiots. It’s exhausting.” He walked over and pecked her on the cheek. “How was your day relaxing?”

  She was glad her back was turned to him as she rolled her eyes. Great. One of those moods. She decided she was going to play it off. “Oh, well, you know, difficult characters and all. My heroine is struggling with the hero.”

  He only grunted and she held her breath, waiting for his next words. That would determine they type of night she was in store for.

  “Spaghetti again?”

  She set the spoon down on the drip plate and turned around. “Yes. Spaghetti again. I couldn’t think of something new and since you haven’t contributed to ideas of what you would like for supper, I did spaghetti, again.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Damn, calm down, Emmalyn. I was just asking.”

  “And I was just telling.”

  She went back to finishing up supper. The sooner she got it prepared, cleaned up the kitchen and made coffee for the next day, the sooner she could retire to her room. Maybe she’d even get some more writing done.

  She set everything on the table and called to Bryant. “Supper is ready and on the table.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “No. I have work to do. I have a deadline coming up.”

  She was thankful he didn’t say anything as she left the room. She wasn’t sure if she was up for a fight tonight.

  She slipped into her bedroom and shut the door. They had agreed on separate rooms a few years back when Bryant’s CPAP machine kept her from sleeping.

  She pulled out her small laptop and opened the Dropbox file for her book. She’d already gone through the conflict part of her tale and was now having to bring her characters together for their happily-ever-after. Normally this was the favorite part of her story but she was struggling with it this time. Too many things in her personal life had tarnished her rose-colored glasses.

  The bedside phone rang and she glanced at the clock. Six o’clock. None of her friends would be calling at this time. They would be sitting down for dinner, just as she normally would be. Probably those damn solicitors or scammers. She didn’t know which was worse. She picked it up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Mom. What are you doing?”

  Emmalyn felt her heart drop. Her youngest daughter, Kate, sounded like she had been crying. “What’s wrong, Bug? Why are you crying?”

  “Ohhh, Mom. You can always tell when something is wrong, I never even have to tell you.”

  “Baby girl, I gave birth to you, cleaned your nose and changed your diapers. I know everything about you. What’s wrong, honey?”

  “It’s Mike. I caught him with another tramp. I just don’t know how I can keep doing this.”

  Emmalyn felt her stomach clench and her heart break for her daughter. “I will tell you how you will do this. You will pack up all of your things and come home right now. Tonight.”

  Kate sniffed into the phone. “I can’t. He has me locked out of the apartment and said he won’t give me any of my things back until I talk to him.”

  “Then hop in a taxi and come home. Better yet, I’ll come pick you up right now. Are you still at the apartment complex on Timberline?”

  “No, we couldn’t afford the rent anymore so we moved into Columbine Apartments.”

  Emmalyn frowned. “Over by the railroad tracks? Honey, that’s a really sketchy part of town. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh, Mike said not to bother you with that stuff. He said it would just stress you out and I don’t want to do that. You do so much for us anyway, Mom.”

  “Because I love you, Bug,” she took a deep breath. “Please don’t listen to Mike anymore. It stresses me out more when I don’t know what is going on or where you are.

  “I can head on over now and pick you up. Your room is all ready to go.”

  “No, that’s okay, Mom. Hey, I gotta go, Mike is coming back. I think he wants to apologize. I’ll call you lat
er this week, K?”

  “Bug, please let me come pick you up. I love you and you don’t need to live this way. Just come stay with us until you get back on your feet.”

  “No, Mom. I can’t. I’m a grown woman now and Mike is a good guy. He just gets weak sometimes. I know he loves me and soon he’ll realize just how much. I love you, Mom. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Emmalyn heard the phone click on the other end and closed her eyes. She loved her children so much, but Kate was her youngest and always seemed to need more protection than the others.

  Collin was the oldest and he tried to play the role of big brother the best he could but when Beti decided she could play big sister better than he could play big brother, they tended to clash. Kate was loved and protected by both but Emmalyn saw now that it didn’t help Kate learn how to stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions.

  When she met Mike, the entire family knew he wasn’t going to be good for her. He bossed her around like she was a child and was very disrespectful to the rest of the family. Collin and Beti tried talking to Kate but she wouldn’t listen to them. The longer she dated Mike, the less she came around.

  Emmalyn couldn’t stop the tears from falling. She felt like her life was crumbling to ashes all around her.

  Collin was married to a like-minded career driven woman and neither had plans for children but a slip up with her birth control made them parents recently. Because of their drive for success, she hardly saw them throughout the year, only visiting home at Christmas. Beti was in and out of relationships, her last lover, Cricket as she liked to be called, refused having anything to do with the family because she accused Bryant of being a homophobic. It was the farthest thing from the truth, of course, since he obviously loved and accepted his oldest daughter just as she was. The truth was, she was also a user, just like Mike used Kate, and Bryant had called her out on that last Christmas. A huge argument ensued and that was the last Emmalyn had seen her oldest daughter. They had talked briefly on the phone the past six months but it didn’t sound like they would be coming for Christmas this year. Beti didn’t want to upset Cricket.

  Emmalyn clenched her fists in anger. What about her? Why didn’t anyone care about her feelings or her desires? She was always there for everyone else but when it came time for her needs to be recognized, she was left in the mud. What was the point? Why should she even try anymore?

  Why couldn’t she just go back in time. Live during a simpler time where families were revered and everyone treated each other with dignity and respect.

  She closed her eyes tightly, trying to stop the tears from flowing. She knew she couldn’t keep living this way. She felt worthless, alone and worst of all, invisible. Would anyone really miss her if she disappeared?

  She couldn’t take the pain anymore. She shut down her laptop and quickly got dressed. It had been snowing all day but luckily there had been no December winds to go along with the storm. They were in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, her home town of Hopeful and having weekly snow storms wasn’t anything unusual.

  She quietly opened her bedroom door, not wanting to deal with anymore of Bryant’s digs. She saw his door was closed and she tip-toed past it, hoping the creaking floorboards wouldn’t give her away.

  She slipped on her winter coat at the front door, tugged on her winter Boggs and after doublechecking to make sure she had her house key, snuck out of the house and made her way into town.

  The temperatures hovered near the upper twenties as the cloud cover kept the heat trapped low to the earth. It would take about fifteen minutes to make her way to the edge of town and while she had no idea where she was going, she knew she needed to sort her thoughts. Walking around the downtown park of her hometown brought peace and solace to her soul and if any place could help her find her way, Hopeful could.

  She allowed her thoughts to float like the large snowflakes around her; no particular direction and not in any hurry. Before she knew it she was at City Park downtown. The moon was obscured by the snow clouds but she knew she was getting closer to her favorite bench that sat facing the small pond.

  Wiping off the fluffy snow, she sat down and gazed out over the frozen water. How many wonderful winters had she spent ice skating along the smooth surface? Her mind had conjured up images of becoming an ice-skating gold medalist in the Olympics. For hours and hours she would practice, humming to the music in her head of what she wanted played during her performance. When she turned ten and had begged to be sent to a professional trainer in Denver, her parents had told her no. Olympic trainers were over fifty dollars and hour and that was more than they could afford.

  She knew they had felt bad and she pasted on a grateful smile at Christmas time when she opened the box of almost-new figure ice skates. The pain had lingered on and it was the first time in her life she realized that not all dreams come true.

  She worked the family ranch, raising the Highland cattle her fourth great grandparents brought to Hopeful back in the 1800’s. Dreams of becoming someone in the great big world joined the Barbie Dolls and coloring books at the back of the closet, waiting for their departure to the trash or thrift store.

  She graduated high school with good grades and excelling in literature and language arts. She received a scholarship at the local community college and started earning her degree in journalism but when her father had a heart attack, her family needed her back at the ranch full time. She dropped out of school, got a part-time job waitressing to bring in some extra cash when the beef prices dropped and lived day by day the same routine.

  “Wow, I’m living the same, dull routine that I swore I was going to escape from,” she laughed dryly. “I’m doomed to live this prison called life.” She looked up at the sky, allowing the anger to take over again. If she were honest with herself, the anger actually felt good because it felt different. It was something new.

  “Why in the hell didn’t you stand up for yourself Grammers?” She spit out the sentence, allowing the full extent of her anger spread to every cell in her body. “You had dreams, Grandma told me before she passed about how you dreamt of getting out of Hopeful and making a name for yourself.”

  She let the tears fall as she watched the flakes float lazily down and blanket the frozen pond. Guilt seeped into her heart and she shook her head. She didn’t regret the choices she made. If she had gone onto college, she might not have ever met Bryant and had her three beautiful children.

  She chuckled. “Bryant. Oh, weren’t you just a charmer?” She had been at the feedlot sale with her father when Bryant swept her off of her feet…literally. She had been pushing the yearlings down the aisleway towards the auction pen when a pair of arms swiftly lifted her up and placed her on the top rail of the fencing. A second later a large bull came charging down the aisle, swinging his horns at anything that got in his way. Someone hadn’t been paying attention to the gates and let the bull in too early. Bryant had seen the brunette driving the yearlings towards the holding pen, oblivious to the impending danger charging up behind her.

  She smiled when she remembered how he explained it from his point of view.

  “There I was, minding my own business, when I saw this little sprite about to get run over. I thought nothing of lifting you up and plopping you down on the fence but when you turned and those big blue eyes stared into mine, I knew you were the only one for me, Emmy.”

  It had taken her a bit longer to fall for him but he was persistent. Tall and lanky at six-foot-three, he towered over her five-foot-seven frame. He always appeared to show up at the same places that she went to and on the rare occasion she was able to go to a county dance or activity, he was there. What finally made her take her plunge was when her father died. Bryant hadn’t left her side and held her hand quietly when her mom said they needed to sell all of the cattle in order to pay for the mortgage. They had gotten behind and had planned on selling the spring calves to get caught up but between the winter storm that had frozen half of them and the cougar w
ho wiped out almost all of the remaining calves, they had nothing left to sell.

  Emmalyn had sobbed in his arms that night. Feeling lost without her father and knowing they were losing her family’s heritage; she had allowed him to comfort her. He made her feel safe and made promises that she knew he had tried to keep over the years but life had its own ideas of how their life was going to go.

  After they had sold the cattle and paid off the balance of the mortgage, her mother slipped into a deep depression. She passed six months after her husband. Emmalyn and Bryant married in a small chapel, keeping it small and intimate since both of her parents were gone. Only his immediate family were there as witnesses.

  She became pregnant on their wedding night and it was agreed that she would stay home and raise their child. Bryant continued to help his parents with his ranch but he got a daytime job in construction as a framer. It was long hours and hard work but it allowed her to stay home.

  Collin was the first born and the apple of Bryant’s eye. Beti was born right after Collin turned two. Emmalyn and Bryant were happy with the two kids and had decided that they would keep their family a happy foursome but a complication with medication that didn’t mix with Emmalyn’s birth control resulted in Kate’s birth. She was three years younger than Beti and adored by everyone. She was the family’s happy mistake.

  It was sometime after Collin was born that she got back into her writing and after submitting several short stories to her women’s magazines, began writing full length novels. She started submitting her books to Avon and they contracted her fifth book. Heartbreak Husband received modest reviews and sales. They contracted her for a second and then third novel and while the money wasn’t anything to change their lives, it helped pay the bills and relieve some pressure off of Bryant.

  In the beginning he was excited and proud that she was earning income that allowed her to stay at home and raise their children but as his work became harder on his body, he became jealous of her career. It was small little jabs at first but then it was a daily thing. His “joking” as he called it, were constant reminders that he was working hard outside of their home, in all types of weather, while she enjoyed being able to watch the small milestones their children were achieving.