Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“It’s Steph and Brody’s turn,” she said firmly. “You know how much it killed them that they couldn’t get here until today.”
Steph’s clinic in Sierra Leone had grown. She ran it with Faith Smith, and they’d recently opened a women’s wing. Steph had been caught in a bureaucratic tangle when Daisy had gone into labor two weeks early. They’d only been able to arrange their travel in the last few days. They lived a block away when they were in Dallas, but Steph liked to be hands-on at the clinic several months out of the year.
He gave her one last kiss and stepped back. “Well, I suppose I can share. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Billie’s asleep in the bed in the nursery. Nate snores, and I won’t have him waking my sweet granddaughter.”
He winked and walked out.
The man never learned. Billie was already a saint of a girl. Just like her mother. She was fairly certain her granddaughter would end up as wild as Daisy. As troublesome as her grandfather. Trouble in the best way.
She heard him drive away, and then there was a chiming sound. Avery rushed to the front door because her husband was right. Daisy and Nate needed sleep.
She threw open the door and Steph stood there.
For a moment she saw another Stephanie. A teenaged Stephanie Gibson who’d shown up at Avery’s hospital bed, skinny because she hadn’t eaten, wracked with guilt. She’d only met with the girl because Steph’s mother had begged her. Stephanie had been driving the other car, the one that had plowed into hers. The one that had taken her first husband, Brandon, and her little baby, Madison, away from her. She’d been planning on telling Stephanie Gibson to go to hell.
She was transported to the moment when she’d looked at the girl who’d wronged her and known she had to make a choice.
A choice that brought her here. A life-changing choice.
“Hello, old friend,” Avery said, her heart filled with love for this woman.
Tears streamed down Steph’s cheeks. “I sent Brody to pick up some stuff from our place because I needed this moment with you. You feel it, too. I knew you would.”
Avery held out a hand. “Of course I do.”
They’d made a bargain once. Avery had told Steph she owed her a life. Two, really. Avery had used her inheritance money to get Steph through medical school, and Steph had tried to save the world. Over the years, she’d come to realize the life she’d demanded had been more than some singular debt. It hadn’t been a debt at all. It had been a decision. To live. For Avery. For Steph.
For them all.
Steph moved inside, taking her hand. “Sometimes I still feel like this is a dream and I’m going to wake up and you don’t forgive me.”
She shut the door and pulled her friend in. “Never.”
Steph hugged her close. “You are a miracle, Avery O’Donnell.”
Avery stepped back and wiped away her tears. “Nope. Just me. But let me show you a real miracle.”
Steph set down her bag and followed her through Daisy’s house. Over the years she and Nate had fixed it up, laying hardwood floors and painting and building a home together. Her daughter was happy.
Because she’d made the choice to forgive so long ago. When she’d chosen to forgive Stephanie Gibson, she’d chosen to live, too. What she hadn’t known at the time was she was choosing Liam. And Aidan and Daisy. She’d been choosing her friends. She’d been choosing an amazing career working with a woman she admired. She’d been choosing Billie.
She led Steph to the sweetly decorated nursery. Kangaroos were the theme, a nod to her father’s homeland. “Meet your grandchild, Stephanie.”
Steph put a hand to her heart, the tears flowing freely now. “She’s so beautiful.”
“She’s got her mom’s eyes and her father’s smile.” Billie was a unique mix of her parents. Like Aidan and Daisy were of her and Liam. Like Nate and Elodie of Steph and Brody.
A whole new generation. Beloved. They would grow in the shadow of their parents’ love, learning from the generations before. They would make their own mistakes. Live their own magnificent lives.
Steph turned to her. “You said I owed you a life. I owe you so much more, Avery. This…this doesn’t happen without you.”
“We don’t know that,” Avery replied.
Steph nodded. “I do. I know what I was going to do. I had planned it. It seems so far away most of the time. Like it happened in a different life, but I feel it so strongly today because Nate wouldn’t have been born. Billie wouldn’t have been born.”
“And Liam would have died without you,” Avery pointed out. “Our lives entangled one night in a terrible way, and look at what we made. Look at her, Steph. I said you owed me a life, but what you gave us all was a future.”