Fragile Hearts (13 page)

Lucy

Sitting in the bleachers, I watch Morgan swim
her last lap in the Paralympics tryouts. She's closing in on third place. As
she gains on her opponent, I jump up and cheer her on. Tyce, on one side of me,
and Kaylee on the other, also jump up and shout encouragement. On the bleacher
below us, Morgan's parents, Tyce's mom, and my Mom are yelling like crazy.

Morgan reaches the finish line. She's only
seconds behind the third place winner. She takes fourth place.

Immediately, she glances at the board to see her
placement. Lifting four fingers, she circles her hand above her head and
glances to where we're sitting. Her grin is huge. I give her a thumbs up, Kaylee
does a happy dance, and Tyce blows her kisses. Leaning over he says to me,
"That woman owns me body, soul, and spirit."

At
the end of a book, I always like to include an excerpt from one or two of my
other books. Because this is my first YA novel, I don't have any of that genre
to choose from. So I considered what stories would be appropriate to post
excerpts from. There are two books that came to mind and both have teenagers as
part of the storyline. Both books are also from the same series,
Romance on
the Ranch.
They are books four and five:
Candy Kisses
and
Christmas
Kisses.

This
series is one of my favorites and I hope you agree. I love hearing from readers
so don't be shy.

Website:
http://www.vernaclay.com

Email:
[email protected]

Candy
Kisses (excerpt)
Romance on the Ranch #4
Chapter 1:  Speak of the Devil

Tooty admonished her boys as they piled out of
the van, "Morgan, stop tormenting your brother! Harris, make sure Morgan
and Eli are careful when they climb the ladder. And when I call you for lunch,
I don't want you dallying around." She grinned. "Oh, and one more
thing—have fun!"

Harris, Eli, and Morgan yelled thanks to their
mom and then shouted for joy as they raced across the drive on a perfect spring
Saturday.

Six months pregnant and with her youngest son,
two year old Austin on her hip, Tooty waited until her boys had reached the
tree house Sage Tanner and Jackson Martinez had just finished building a week
earlier, before climbing her porch steps next to the wheelchair ramp for her
husband.

"I wanna pway wid brothers," Austin
pouted.

"Honey, after I let daddy know we're home
I'll take you to play."

"Otay, Mommy."

On the porch Tooty set Austin down and juggled
the grocery sack so she could open the front door. Glancing around, she made a
mental note to water the bulbs in her window boxes and sweep the debris that
had blown across the porch. Although Miles insisted that she hire help for the
innumerable chores necessary for their family of six—soon to be seven, she
enjoyed working around the home she had inherited before marrying Miles, and
which they had expanded upon by adding three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a family
room, an office, and modernizing the kitchen. The additions were larger than
the original house.

"Miles! I'm home!" Tooty called as
Austin ran to find his daddy. "I ordered the new blinds for our bedroom. I
can't wait 'til they arrive." She entered the kitchen.

Austin had already climbed onto his father's lap
and was grinning from ear-to-ear as he reached for a cookie on a platter in the
center of the table. The strange expression on Miles' face while he talked on
his cell phone alerted Tooty to the fact that something was wrong. Her heart
dropped. Had someone been hurt? Lifting Austin off his lap, she carried him and
his cookie to the family room to play with the myriad of toys always scattered
about.

When she returned, Miles was saying into his
phone, "Hmm. The guy's a rat. Are you going to pursue legal action if you
find him?"

Tooty walked to the sink, poured herself a glass
of water, and then sat across from Miles.

He glanced at her, shook his head and said,
"Monica, let me think about your situation and then I'll call you
back."

Tooty's eyes rounded.
Monica!
She jerked
her hand to her mouth in surprise.

Miles watched her reaction and slowly nodded
that it was the same person Tooty suspected.

Snotty Monica, my husband's ex-girlfriend is
calling him!

Miles said, "Don't cry. Everything will
work out." He listened and finished with, "Try not to worry. I'll
talk to you soon." He touched the screen of his cell phone to disconnect
and shook his head again. "I can't believe it."

Tooty, on pins and needles, waited for him to
spill the beans.

"Give me just a minute," he said, and
rolled his wheelchair to the counter to pour a cup of coffee. After opening the
fridge and dousing a healthy dose of cream into his cup, he returned to the
table and sipped.

Tooty said, "Miles, if you keep me in
suspense much longer, I'm going to scream."

Her husband set his cup down. "Monica is broke,
homeless, and…three months pregnant."

"What!" Tooty's eyes rounded like
saucers.

"Seems she got involved with some smooth
talker who convinced her that he was an investment banker, and after they'd
lived together for some months, she invested all of her funds in what she
thought was a high yielding account. A few days later the scumbag left her high
and dry and the authorities think he skipped the country. Then, within the same
week, her company downsized and laid her off." Miles wasn't finished,
"And the next week she discovered she was pregnant after she got an
eviction notice because 'scum bag' hadn't paid the rent like he'd said."

Tooty held her hands to her cheeks in shock.
"What's she going to do…about the baby, I mean?"

Miles smiled and chuckled. "She surprised
me there. She said she's going to keep this baby no matter what. She said if I
could survive having so many children, she could survive having just one."

Still shocked, Tooty asked, "Why is she
calling you? Does she want to borrow money?"

"Actually, no. I offered to give her a
loan, but she refused. She said the reason she'd called, other than having a
shoulder to cry on, was to ask if I had any connections for a new job. She said
she's been applying for positions for a month, with no luck, and I was the only
friend she could think to call."

"Well, that doesn't surprise me. Her not
having friends, I mean. So she hasn't contacted your mom or dad?"

"No. She said she hasn't spoken with them
in over a year and now she's too mortified to do so."

"Well, as you know, she's not on my list of
favorite people after that stunt she pulled in New York. She wanted me to feel
like a hick at that fancy restaurant, and I sure did, but I'm not so vindictive
as to not want things to turn out well for her. I know what it's like to be
alone, pregnant, and rejected by the father of your child."

Miles reached his hand across the small table
and clasped hers. "But I'm eternally grateful that Harris' father turned
out to be such a lowlife. I love you, Tooty, and I love Harris like my own
son."

Tooty
lifted the hand of the father of Eli, Morgan, and Austin and their teeny bun
still in the oven, and kissed it.

Christmas Kisses (excerpt)
Romance on the Ranch #5
Chapter One:  Third Person

Cecelia Brightman sighed and glanced out the
window of her high-rise office in one of the choicest locations in Manhattan.
As coordinator for Charity Disbursements, Inc., she had the fortunate, and
sometimes unfortunate, job of deciding which charities making application for
fund raising events would be accepted for review by the board of directors, and
which would be gently refused.

Shuffling the papers on her desk, she lifted
another application, but her mind was elsewhere. In one week she would be in
Colorado visiting her brother and sister-in-law for a much needed vacation.
Sometimes her workdays ran as long as ten hours. Of course, that was by her own
choice. She had no husband or children to care for and the older she became,
the less she looked forward to nights spent alone in her penthouse. Since the
age of twenty-five, after graduating from exclusive, Barnard College, she had
devoted her life to helping others through charity work. Now, at the age of
forty-two, she was beginning to wonder if she had made a big mistake in not actively
seeking a husband and having children in her twenties and early thirties. The
more she was around her brother and sister-in-law, Miles and Tooty, and their
five children: Harris, Eli, Morgan, Austin, and now eighteen-month old Sunny
Beatrice; the more melancholy she became.

Whenever she'd had doubts about the direction of
her life before, she'd just worked harder, and soon new projects consumed her
every waking minute.

That strategy wasn't working now.

And that was the reason for her visit to
Colorado. She needed to be with family, not charities. Of course, her mother
and father lived nearby in their own posh penthouse and she visited them often,
but she'd always felt somewhat estranged from them. They were well known
amongst their elite community and interested in country clubs and the
rich-and-famous lifestyle.

Of course, much of their fame came from being
the parents of Maxwell Henry, the pen name of their famous son turned author.
Although they loved Miles dearly, and had agonized after a car accident
rendered him a paraplegic as a teenager, they still capitalized on his
notoriety. Cecelia knew that spending time with her parents was not the answer
to her increasing loneliness.

A tap on her door interrupted her musings and
through the glass she saw Charles Wilson, her assistant, waiting for her
response to his knock. She motioned him in. Usually reserved, Charles fairly
oozed excitement and Cecelia thought she knew why. "Is it here?"

Charles tapped his chin and grinned so big his
perfectly capped teeth took center stage in his perfectly tanned, perfectly
handsome face. Years ago, he'd hinted that maybe there could be something
between them, but Cecelia had never viewed him in that light. After a few more
hints, she'd made it clear with her own hints, that she wasn't interested. He'd
grinned, said, "I hear you loud and clear," and never broached the
subject again. About a year later, he'd met a barista that he claimed made Café
Mochas to die for and married her six months later. They now had three children
and couldn't have been more opposite than a cat and dog. Charles was gorgeous;
his wife, Betty Sue, looked like a throwback from the hippie heydays of the
sixties. He wore Armani suits; she wore swirling linen skirts and peasant tops.
He worked out in the gym faithfully; she refused to set foot in one and
insisted she got all the exercise needed chasing their three children, ages
five, six, and seven. He loved caviar; she loved burritos. He came from Boston
wealth; she came from Shreveport poverty. However, the two of them had been
going strong for years and their antics laughed at by coworkers. Someone was
always saying, "Wait 'til you hear what Betty Sue has Charles doing
now;" the latest being spending time at a retreat that didn't allow talking.
When Charles returned, he'd had the office in stitches recalling his vacation
that left him "speechless," literally.

Cecelia pushed thoughts aside and waited with
anticipation for Charles' reply.

"It is. And, my God, I've never seen
anything like it."

She jumped to her feet. "I can't
wait." She followed Charles to the Donations Art Room, and marveled that
the famous artist, Connor MacKenzie, had actually responded to the letter she'd
sent three months previous and agreed to donate a painting for their annual
Christmas charity auction, the proceeds of which were going to an organization
selected by vote of the board of trustees. Even though it was only June, the
auction required months of planning. The charity receiving the proceeds had yet
to be made public, but Cecelia, in her letter, had revealed that it was a small
non-profit organization named Loving Arms Adoption Agency, and that they found
homes for children who had unexpectedly lost their parents; orphans who had
once had a family, but now, either had no relatives to take them in, or
relatives that couldn't or wouldn't raise them. Rather than send them through
the foster care system, they housed the children until suitable adoptive
families were found. They had a ninety-eight percent success rate and Cecelia had
been pitching them to the board of trustees for years. Finally, they had been
selected.

Charles walked to a large picture on a tripod.
He'd draped it, and he now said dramatically, "Come no closer."

Cecelia halted and her heart hammered. She loved
the paintings by reclusive artist Connor MacKenzie, and, in fact, had recently
snagged two of them at a local gallery because she'd been invited to a
pre-showing. She now owned five works by this genius of light, shadow, and
color.

With a flourish, Charles swept the drape away.

Cecelia gasped and covered her mouth with her
palm. She was speechless. Never had she seen a more beautiful painting. The
artist, renowned for mystical renderings, had created a scene straight out of a
magical forest. Known for his muted colors and lighting, the gray mist blended
so perfectly with the green pines that the viewer could not distinguish where
one ended and the other began. Filtered light penetrated the mist to barely
reveal several deer beside a stream. The painting was about four feet high and
five feet in length and the pines stretched all the way to the top while the
stream ran the width.

Such was the beauty of the artistry that Cecelia
felt tears welling up. She stepped closer and looked for the painter's
trademark. She scanned for a long time.

Charles said, "It took me awhile, but I
finally located them."

Stepping until she was close enough to touch the
painting, she eyed it inch by inch. Her eyes lit and she lifted her gaze to
Charles.

"Ah-hah, you've found it. Tell me what you
see?"

"I see the man and the woman in the far
left corner. Hmm, something seems odd." She gave Charles a startled look.

He responded. "Exactly. This painting is
going to sell for tens of thousands. As far as I know, this is the first one
he's done with a third person painted."

With wonder, Cecelia said, "And it's a
child. There's a child between the man and woman holding their hands. How
perfect for the charity it's going to benefit." The tears Cecelia had been
sniffing back, now dripped down her cheeks.

Charles said, "Aw, honey. I think you need
to come to dinner with me and Betty Sue and my gang tonight. You've been way
too sad lately. My wife and kids will have you rolling on the floor laughing.

Before responding to his invitation, Cecelia
said, "If it wasn't against the rules, I'd bid whatever the cost for this
painting."