by J. L. Berg
Until the day I had woken up with blood on the sheets and had to be rushed to the hospital.
The word miscarriage had hung in the air as Taylor and I waited for the tech to find a viable heartbeat for the baby we’d both fallen so hopelessly in love with. When that first little thump-thump had filled the room, I hadn’t thought I’d ever hear anything sweeter in my whole life.
From that moment on, my activity level had been restricted to desk work, and the pressure for Taylor to finish the hotel had only doubled. He’d worked endlessly, giving fishing tours during the day and putting up drywall at night.
And, somehow, in the middle of all that hard work, he’d still managed to get down on one of those tired knees and ask me to marry him.
Of course I’d said yes.
We had gotten married just days before baby Matthew was born. We’d stood on the beach, barefoot, surrounded by family and friends, as our unborn son kicked his approval deep in my womb. Taylor had cupped my cheek and vowed to be my lifelong partner, promising to always make me laugh and never make me cry.
I’d vowed to be the best wife and mother I could.
It was a promise I held dearly to my heart.
I hadn’t come to Ocracoke looking for a family or a home, but that is exactly what I’d found.
“Hey, Aunt Lani?” Lizzie called out, peeking her head into the freshly painted doors of the hotel lobby.
I’d been hiding in here for the last several minutes, trying to calm the last bit of my nerves, but it seemed my smart little niece had found me.
Although, at a whopping nine years old, she wasn’t looking so little anymore.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” I said. “Over here!”
She found me standing by the large window that overlooked the bay. It was the one major change we’d made to the lobby, knowing it would make a huge visual statement to the guests upon their arrival.
“Hey,” she said with a big smile, giving me a hug in the process. “There is a man here to see you.”
“Okay.” I grinned, loving the yin and yang of this girl.
One minute, she could be lecturing you on quantum physics, and the next, she’d be a perfectly normal kid, complaining about video game levels and how lame it was that she wasn’t allowed to be on Snapchat yet.
“Do you know what his name is? Or what he might need? There are a lot of people here today and—”
“Hello, Leilani.”
The deep, familiar voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
It’d been a solid year since I heard from the man I called father by name only. The last correspondence we’d had was a formal letter I’d sent him, letting him know I no longer needed his trust fund or the job he’d so benevolently blessed me with.
Since then, I’d heard through the grapevine that his wedding to Becky had been the talk of the company, although no one had actually been invited. And, although Piper was now out on her own, having started an up-and-coming interior design business six months ago, she regularly supplied me with Hart gossip from Hawaii.
Unfortunately, she’d failed to catch this little detail.
It would have been nice to have a heads-up that my father was coming.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, feeling suddenly frozen in place.
Lizzie’s hands patted my waist, and it was then that I realized she was still here.
“Why don’t you go find Taylor and see if he needs any last-minute help with setting up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony?”
She nodded before hopping off toward the door.
Silence settled around the two of us after her departure as my father began to take a slow stroll around the lobby. With his hands neatly tucked behind his back, he checked out every detail—from the beautifully polished floor to the subtle color palette that offset the dark wood tones and vibrant green plants.
“You’ve done a good job here,” he finally announced, giving me an approving nod.
It was the first compliment he’d ever given me.
I would feel proud of myself if I wasn’t already.
“Thank you,” I answered.
He continued his perusal of the room, ending in front of the large window, his eyes steady on the gentle waves rolling up to the shore.
“Why are you here?” I asked, walking up to stand next to him.
His gaze turned sideways. “I’d like to re-offer your job to you.”
I sputtered out something between a laugh and a cough. Matthew had made the same sort of noise this morning, right before he upchucked breast milk all over me.
“What?” I said. “Are you kidding? Dad, I have a family now. Or did you not get the memo briefing from your robot assistant?”
I saw a brief hesitancy in his eyes. Was that remorse?
“I know, Leilani. I’m not asking you to move. You can stay here.” He swallowed hard before continuing, “I want you to take the role you were supposed to have in our company. Come back. It’s where you belong.”
“And how does Becky feel about this?” I couldn’t resist the jab. Honestly, I couldn’t.
“I don’t want to leave our family legacy to my wife,” he said. “I want to leave it to my daughter.”
I turned away, my heart racing.
It was everything I’d wanted…once upon a time.
My father’s approval.
The birthright I’d been denied.
All I had to do was say yes.
“No,” I answered fiercely.
Turning back around, I met his disappointed gaze.
“No?” he echoed.
“You want a daughter to leave your company to, but ever since I can remember, Dad, all I ever really wanted from you was a father.”
“Maybe we can both get what we want?”
I forced a smile, sadness tugging at the corners of my lips, disappointed he was still willing to make a deal when it came to our relationship. “I already have everything I want right here, Dad.”
It was getting late, and I had a ribbon to cut. Turning toward the door, I left him standing there, watching the waves tumble in. But, before I left, I offered him one last breadcrumb of hope.
He was my father after all.
“When you decide you want more than an heir and you find yourself wanting a family instead, you know where to find me. I love you, Daddy.”
Stepping out into the gorgeous autumn day, I felt a wide grin spread across my face as my husband and infant son came up the walkway.
“You look happy,” Taylor said. “Lizzie said someone came to visit you?”
I nodded, giving each of them a kiss on the cheek. “Yeah, but I took care of it.”
I’d fill him in on my father’s offer later.
And my refusal.
No need to send my overprotective husband on a full-blown manhunt now. Not when we had more important things to do.
“Ready?” he asked, as he handed our son to his mother, who was beaming up at both of us with pride.
He reached down to pick up the largest, most ridiculous pair of scissors I’d ever seen. Looking out at the crowd that had gathered, a crowd filled with our family and friends, I nodded, my excitement building. We stepped up to the podium, excited to start the next big adventures in our lives.
“Let’s do this!”
Thank you for reading The Mistakes I’ve Made! If Lani and Taylor’s mysterious meeting with Officer Macon left you wanting more, be sure to check out The Secrets I Keep! (Coming January 2019)
I know everything about you…
As the town cop, I know all the dirty laundry no one wants to share. But, all that gossip is nothing compared to the secret I’m keeping. When outsider Marin O’Malley shows up, intent on solving an unsolved tragedy from years past, I must find a way to keep her off the trail and out of my bed before she destroys us both.
If you enjoyed The Mistakes I’ve Made you’ll love When You’re Ready, an emotional, second chance romance about a widowed young mother who finds love with an ER doctor intent on men
ding her broken heart.
Also, check out fan favorite Within These Walls that will certainly tug at your heartstrings with its super swoony hero and sweeping romance!
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Turn the page for an excerpt of Within These Walls…
WITHIN THESE WALLS
WITHIN THESE WALLS, he became my solace, my sanctuary, and my strength.
Like a white knight, he saved me from a life of gray and showed me a world full of color.
Within these walls, I gave myself to a man who said he would always fight for me and love me until the end of time.
But sometimes, not even love was enough when life got in the way.
When your heart was already damaged beyond repair, what was left to break?
Within these walls, I gave my less than perfect heart to the man I loved.
And then…he walked away.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…
Ever so slowly, I began to register my surroundings. My ears kicked in first as my sluggish, tired body came awake. I heard the sound of the pulse oximetry monitor as it beeped away in the background, tugging me out of dreamland. Like most days, before I even managed to crack open my eyelids, I’d take account of my surroundings, listening to the world around me and mentally checking off the things I could hear to determine where I was.
Someone wheeled a rickety cart down the hallway, its wheels spinning and squeaking, as she pushed it to its final destination. Across the hall, someone chatted outside a room. Close to me, the ever-present sounds of the equipment beeped and buzzed while monitoring my oxygen and heart rhythm.
All these sounds together could only mean one thing.
I was in the hospital—still.
Most kids had a favorite grandmother’s house, or a special friend they couldn’t get enough of—I had Memorial Regional. It had been my home away from home since I was an infant.
It was definitely not the same.
Home was quiet and warm.
The hospital bustled with noise at every God-given hour of the day, regardless of whether the sun or the moon was currently occupying the sky.
Staying here also felt like spending a night in a meat locker. I’d learned through my many years here that heat bred infection, which is why nurses buried patients in blankets rather than cranked up the furnace. Standing barely five and a half feet on my tiptoes, I weighed a little over a hundred pounds. No amounts of blankets could ever keep me warm. I seriously loved heaters.
I rubbed my chest as I took a labored breath though my lungs. It crackled slightly as I exhaled. Biting down on my lip, I tried to ignore it, focusing on my one and only goal for the day.
Going home today. I’m going home today, I chanted.
My eyelids reluctantly lifted, my vision blurry at first until the room came into view. Nothing had changed since I fell asleep last night. I saw the same boring, lackluster eggshell-colored walls and the same white board listing my nurse on shift with a little happy face drawn next to her name.
Grace was working this morning. She was young, around my age, and she’d just recently graduated with her nursing degree. She loved happy faces, hearts, and anything else she could draw with a dry-erase marker. She reminded me of a Disney princess. Even in scrubs, she was over-the-top girlie. I swore, one of these days, she was going to break out into song, summon an entire forest full of small animals, and perform a musical, complete with dancing squirrels and singing larks.
But all that would have to wait for another day because I was leaving—today.
What was supposed to be an in-and-out routine procedure had turned out to be another prolonged hospital stay. I was more than ready to get home to my own bed. I hated hospital beds. They were uncomfortable, hard, and never felt right.
Seriously, who makes these things? Do they actually test the beds out? I know the beds are supposed to be functional, but really, they could add some padding.
I’d arrived at the hospital two weeks ago, expecting to stay a couple of days, to switch out the battery in my pacemaker, but as always, things hadn’t gone as planned, and I’d ended up in the hospital—again.
Story of my life.
But not today. Today, I was free—well, as free as my life would allow.
I was born with a heart defect. Basically, my heart was larger than it was supposed to be. It made breathing and mostly everything else difficult because my heart had to work ten times harder than normal. In a nutshell, this little defect controlled my entire life.
It was also slowly killing me, which was why I couldn’t wait to break free of this prison. When you were living your life on borrowed time, every second you had to spend watching the days pass by through a hospital room window was one moment less you had to be doing something meaningful.
In my sheltered life, my idea of meaningful might be defined as something completely lackluster and conventional, but at least it wouldn’t be spent here.
I slowly exhaled another wheezy breath out through my mouth at the exact moment Grace decided to walk through the door.
“Good morning!” she nearly sang.
She gave me her dazzling white smile that was entirely too perky for the ungodly early hour. Her dark curls bobbed behind her as she bounced over to the computer terminal and began her morning ritual.
“Morning, Grace. How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fantastic! The sun is shining, and the birds are singing! My favorite patient is being discharged today! It’s a fantastic day!”
Wow, two fantastics in one breath.
The corner of my mouth curved into a smile, mimicking hers. “You’re extra chipper today. Any particular reason?” I inquired, knowing she had mentioned going on a special date with her boyfriend last night.
They’d been dating for two years, and she’d been hinting at an engagement for a while. My guess was her boyfriend finally caught on.
Grace played dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She held her left hand up to her cheek as she shook her head back and forth.
There, on her ring finger, was a perfect, dazzling white diamond ring that matched her sparkling eyes.
“You got engaged! What a surprise!” I exclaimed.
It wasn’t a surprise though. She’d been talking about it since I had arrived.
I really want to be happy for her—no, scratch that. I am happy for her. She deserves all the happiness in the world.
My life is not horrible. It’s just different, I reminded myself.
“Thank you! It was so sweet. He got down on one knee in his suit—on the beach, no less—and told me I was the only woman he’d ever want to share his life with, and then he pulled out this ring. It was so romantic.”
“It sounds beautiful,” I said.
She began to jot down numbers while checking me over. Her brows suddenly furrowed together, causing me to become alarmed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What? Oh, nothing. I don’t think it’s anything serious. Your pulse ox reading is just a little low.” She bent forward with a stethoscope and listened to my lungs for a moment. “Let me just update Dr. Marcus, and he’ll be in to chat with you in a bit.”
I nodded absently as she scooted out quickly, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Looking down at my pointer finger which was attached to the machine that monitored my oxygen levels, I sighed. The reading wasn’t terribly low—at least, not enough to trigger an alarm thankfully. I let out a small groan and slumped my head forward in defeat. I knew what this meant—something wasn’t right, and Grace hadn’t wanted to say anything because it was now above her pay grade.
So, now, I had to just sit here and wait—alone.
> Sitting around in a hospital, day in and day out, was tedious. There was only so much TV I could watch, so many books I could read, before my head felt like it might explode. Sometimes, the craving for human interaction could become so intense that I’d feel physically ill.
My mother had been here every day, and her company meant the world to me, but the desire and need to interact
with someone my own age was overwhelming. I just wanted someone who hadn’t helped me go to the bathroom or didn’t watch my every move with anxiety, afraid my next breath might land me back in the hospital.
The book my mother had been reading—something academic, a text book no doubt—was lying on the cushion of the worn blue chair in the corner, forgotten along with her jacket and a notebook. She must have stayed late and left after I’d fallen asleep. She usually didn’t stay past seven, but she had been desperately trying to finish her syllabus for the next semester so that she’d have it done before I returned home. She would always be so paranoid whenever I was discharged from a hospital stay. She feared I would have some sort of rebound and end up back where I started—laying back in that room waiting for my next escape. Therefore, in her mind, my need for supervision doubled, tripled even. She’d end up almost killing herself, trying to get everything done in preparation for my return.
My mother, Molly Buchanan, was a religious studies professor at the local community college. She was probably one of the most eclectic women on the planet. When I was young, I’d once asked her about why she taught religion, but we didn’t go to church. She’d smiled sweetly and told me that she loved learning about religions so much that she couldn’t pick just one, so she never had. It had made sense to me when I was a naïve child, but now, it just made me laugh. I’d decided years ago after being one of her students that my mom was just overly curious about the behavior of humans and there was no better way to learn the hows and whys of people than through their religions.
I spent what was hopefully going to be my last morning in the hospital eating less than stellar eggs and toast from a tray while I haphazardly flipped through the fourteen channels on TV. After catching up on the news and watching a rerun of Boy Meets World, I decided it was time to pack.
