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What would her daughter want in life? SPLIT DECISIONS


This is an excerpt for a follow up novel to the romantic-suspense bestseller, She Belongs to Me. Though there aren’t really any spoilers, you can bypass this sample and read more about the first book here.

If you missed the first excerpts and want to read the full first chapter, click here


Excerpt:

Jaynee bounded down the stairs as she heard Jordan tromping up them. “Jaynee, we’re gonna—”
“Right here…” They’d almost collided on the bend. “You know the problem with turning forty?” she asked while he dragged her in his wake.
He smiled down at her. “Um, yeah, or at least I did five years ago. I think I forgot.” Jordan always joked about memory loss. But she suspected he forgot things when it served him, like school functions and teacher conferences.
She laughed as he opened the door to their F-150, lending her a hand as she hopped up onto the running boards and sank into the leather seat of his lifted four-wheel-drive truck. “It takes twice as long to look half as good.”
“Jaynee,” he said, pausing and resting his hand on her knee, “you look twice as good. You’re One Hot Momma,” he sang the words of the old country song he loved.
He closed her inside the cab next to her twelve-year-old daughter Johanna. Johanna’s twin brother Justin was in the back with his seven-year-old twin siblings Jacob and Jeremy.
They were the six Js. Corny as it was it was still cute. It’d become rather difficult when Jordan yelled at the boys, however. Usually it came out as, “Jus…Jac—I mean, Jeremy”. Jeremy was the problem child. He was always catching his father’s wrath for something he did or didn’t do.
Justin, her only introverted child, was lost in his music. He had about five minutes before Jordan insisted he remove his earphones. Jacob sat in the middle, interested in everything, eager to please his father. And Johanna, well, she had her father wrapped around her finger, along with all the teenaged boys in the neighborhood already chomping at the bit for her to be old enough to date. The problem, Johanna didn’t look twelve. She looked sixteen, even though Jordan insisted she not wear makeup and never allowed her to leave the house in anything too revealing. There was simply no way to mask her curves and beauty. She was also a tomboy. She enjoyed horseback riding and motorbikes, and yet, could be prissy as a princess. In summary, she was identical to Jaynee as a teenager, sans all the horrible circumstances. There would be no reason she shouldn’t accomplish anything she wanted.

What would her daughter want in life? Jaynee wondered. Would she want to marry and settle down, or would she choose a different path?


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Until next time, happy reading!

Carmen DeSousa

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