Tossing It Read online

  Table of Contents

  Tossing it

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Other Titles by International Bestselling Author, Rachel Robinson

  Copyright © 2018 Rachel Robinson

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Allison Martin at MakeReady Designs

  Cover Images by Lindee Robinson Photography

  Cover Models: Jeff Kline & Angel LaCoursiere

  Edited by J. Wells

  Proofread by Ellie McLove at Gray Ink

  Formatted by C.P. Smith

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  For anyone who has ever kept a secret.

  Prologue

  Malena

  Present day . . .

  Even though they sell them at the General Store, you can’t really buy them there. No one does. You’d be the talk of the town. The last time I glanced at the fully stocked shelf was when I dusted the boxes during a bi-annual store cleaning. Instead, like all of the terrified women that came before me, I sit on this table. The cold metal brushing my bare calves, the crumpled paper gown rustling anytime I move my arms, waiting for Doc Taylor. He is one of the only people bound to secrecy in Bronze Bay—the solitary resident who has never spoken a sordid secret, or passed gossip like it’s his job. Probably because it’s against the law. Thank God.

  The old wooden door creaks open, and I hold my breath. Doc pushes his reading glasses up his nose using the manila file folder that contains my fate. His face gives nothing away, a practiced stoicism that comes from doing this hundreds, hell, probably even thousands of times before. The paper wrapping my body makes a crunching noise, and I stifle the irritation. This is part of the experience, Malena, I remind myself. You deal with it.

  “Ms. Winterset,” he croaks, the deep wrinkles on his forehead creasing further. “Looks like I have some news for you.”

  Sweating is normal in Florida. It’s hot as hell, and it’s just like breathing. There’s a vent blowing air conditioning right on me, and I’m naked under this paper “gown,” so I blame the puddles in my armpits and behind my knees on pure, unfiltered stress. “Yes. Good or bad, Doc. Don’t keep me waiting here. I’m dying. You’re killing me.”

  He chuckles, the throaty noise easing my nerves a touch. Wait. I bet that’s another skill in his arsenal. I clear my throat as he sits on the round stool in the corner, propping one elbow on the desk beside him. “Malena, you already know what this file says. You marked down on the paperwork that your monthly cycle is two months late,” Doc says calmly, then he smiles. “You’re pregnant!”

  My heart sinks. I’m not stupid, no, don’t assume that. I am a woman who can’t possibly be with child. I recall all of the negative pregnancy tests over the course of our marriage and shake my head again. All of that time trying to have a baby and not being able to give him what he wanted. While I know my period is late, I still held out hope my cycle was off and it had forced me to skip a period…or two. I hang my head as hot shame and disbelief wash over my body like a hoard of fire ants. I can’t pass on my genes, her genes, to anyone. I definitely can’t do it alone. My breaths come quicker as I conclude my initial reaction. Terrifying, horrified, panic. “No. No. This can’t be happening. How sure are you? This isn’t in my plan. Remember? They said I was unable to conceive. My uterus. The hormones. You have the paperwork. Look at it,” I say, pointing to my thick file.

  Doc taps the front of the file with his knuckles. “They can make mistakes. It wasn’t a solid diagnosis, either. It was an educated guess.” He shrugs. I flounder with my thoughts. My past. “I made you keep on that gown so we could sneak a little ultrasound in today. I had reception clear my schedule for the next hour. You’re twelve weeks pregnant. We can do an ultrasound. Would you like to see your baby?” He perceives the panic on my face, and wheels his stool closer and stands next to me. “It’s going to be okay, Ms. Winterset. You’re not the first woman to get pregnant outside of wedlock in Bronze Bay, and you won’t be the last. Let’s have a look, shall we?” If it were only that simple. If the man who impregnated me by some miraculous deed wasn’t adamantly against family and babies.

  I feel full at the new knowledge and I press both hands against my lower stomach as the gown makes another awful crinkling sound. “I can’t take care of a baby. I can’t do it. What can we do if I can’t do this? If I can’t have this baby?” It’s impossible to meet his eyes as I plead for options. I’ve known him since I moved to Bronze Bay as a small child. I see him at town functions and every time I have a bad cold or twisted ankle. He’s watched me grow up. This man treated my mom for years before her case of dementia became too much for a small town general practitioner to handle. Eventually, she saw doctors who make house calls because taking her out of the house became too much of a risk. She forgets where she’s at and who I am. She forgets that my father abandoned us a decade ago and starts screaming for him, like I’ve stolen her from some ideal life. My stomach flips. “If I can’t do it?” I ask again.

  Doc pretends he doesn’t hear me. I’m not sure if that’s his response to my harried plea, or if it’s his way of deterring me from saying anything further on the subject. He tells me to lay back, and I do, sniffling a bit as I go. The silence as he readies the small machine tells me he’s thinking about Betty Winterset. “How is your mama doing?” he asks.

  “About the same. They have her stabilized at Garden Breeze. It’s good for her. She seems very happy,” I reply. A nurse slips into the room and tries to keep her gaze away from mine, watching the doctor squirt some sort of warm gel on my stomach. The thought of my mother distracts me, and I think that’s what he wanted to accomplish. It became too much for me and her nurse, the woman who was there any time I wasn’t because she couldn’t be by herself. My mom requires a full-time caretaker. It was hard to watch her slip away a little at a time. It must have been even harder on my father, because that bastard took off as soon as her diagnosis rendered her useless.

  A baby? I can’t handle that. The bravest person on the planet would balk at this, I’m sure of it. I saw what happens when a family is torn apart, and I’m not willing to force any children into my messed-up life.

  Doc is talking about her condition as his hand with the small wand moves over my lower stomach. When he presses harder, and pauses, I look at the fuzzy black and white screen. I know what it is immediately. I see the goblin looking head and the slip of a body. It moves around on the oblong shape, directly in the middle. It shimmies and bobs as if it’s taunting me.

  “Oh, my God,” I gasp, tears welling in my eyes. Some moments will always be singed in your mind regardless if they ar
e good or bad. The view of the wiggly tadpole body that currently resides in my supposedly barren uterus is a moment I’ll never forget. I close my eyes, but the image is burned on the insides of my eyelids.

  “It’s a beautiful miracle,” Doc says. “Now shush,” he chides. The faint ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum echoes in the room. “That’s the heartbeat.” He points out the heart as he ups the volume on the whooshing noise. Years ago, I would have sold my soul to have this moment with Dylan sitting next to me, his hand in mine, both of our eyes transfixed by what we made. What he wanted so desperately. Love isn’t enough sometimes. Dylan left at my insistence and God knows where he’s at now, or why I’m rehashing old wounds in my time of crisis. He wanted kids and I couldn’t give them to him. Now I’m carrying the child of a man who rejoiced at the idea of my inability to start a family.

  My gaze strays from the screen to the nurse. Her eyes lock on mine. “Your boyfriend will be so happy,” she says, a comforting smile on her lips. Doc Taylor’s wife has been his nurse the entire time his practice has been open. I know she means comfort in her words, but fear is all that is bubbling out of me at this moment. I try to return her smile in equal measure but know that I fall woefully short.

  I look away from her and focus on the monitor and the constant noise coming from it. I cling to that noise and know what I must do. Doc is taking measurements and reassuring me of a healthy pregnancy even though I’ve yet to receive prenatal care. He mentions the OB in the next town over and tells his wife to schedule me an appointment and directs her to order some bloodwork before the appointment.

  “I’ll print this photo out for you to show the proud daddy.”

  I haven’t felt sick for twelve weeks, but for the first time, I feel like I might vomit. The contents of my stomach swirling as the nausea hits. I snatch the photo from his hands as I sit up.

  Hanging my head, I try to control the knots welling in my stomach, the black and white photo clenched in one hand. “I can’t believe this,” I mutter. This is what it feels like to lose control over your life. This. Right here and now.

  “Malena,” Doc says, breaking the professional atmosphere. “It is going to be okay. No one is ever truly ready for parenthood. You just do it. You have changed and adapted to far harder things.” He nods. “You’ll be a fantastic mother.”

  Shaking my head, a tremor of a chill shoots up my spine. “That’s the difference between everyone else and me. I can’t do it. Not well,” I say. Doc nods sweetly at his wife and she leaves the room, taking my dirty secret with her.

  “You can do it well. It’s a shock. A blessing. I’ll be here for you,” he says. “Bronze Bay will be here for you. You aren’t alone.” Doc assumes my hesitance is because of the father of my baby, or the lack thereof. Well, obviously, Leif doesn’t want anything to do with the predicament I’m in, but surely he’ll be there for me in whatever form that means for him. He is a kind man to the core. A generous, beautiful man. The only reason my mother is in a top-notch facility. A monthly support check? A pop in once a year for a birthday party? Doc Taylor goes on trying to assure me, and comfort me. He tells me a story about when his son was a baby and I know I’m supposed to smile or laugh, but I can’t. Now I’m thinking about Leif. And that’s a heartache that brings me to my knees.

  My baby isn’t being born into a loving family. It would arrive right smack dab in the middle of a nightmare. I thank the doctor and he leaves so I can dress and collect my purse from a chair across the room.

  I fix my hair in the mirror above the small sink and slick a coat of lip gloss along my bottom lip and rub my top lip against it. I school the tears threatening to break free, and exit the room, accept the appointment card thrust into my hand, and step into the salty breeze of a Bronze Bay afternoon. I start up my car, check my emails on my phone, and head to my mother. If nothing else, her presence will bring me comfort.

  I tilt my chin up and drive toward the ocean, my mind on the percentages of false infertility diagnoses. And the decision I just made about my future. About our future.

  Chapter One

  Leif

  Sweat drips off my chin. I pump the bar up and down once more—my arms shaking from exertion. Sutter throws down weight next to me and grunts. I do one more bench press, lock the bar in place, and then hop to my feet. With my hands on my hips, I suck in several large gulps of air while my friend does the same. “What’s on the agenda today?” Sutter asks.

  I raise and lower my shoulders. Fact of the matter is, it’s been slow around our base here at Bronze Bay these days. After the terrorist attacks that spanned our whole world, we opened up smaller SEAL bases outside of the ones in San Diego, Virginia Beach, and Hawaii. Now we are spread out across the United States. We have quicker reaction times when SEALs are needed. When we’re not needed, we’re hitting the gym and practicing the skill sets that make us the most lethal force on planet earth. “Want to go shoot at the range?” I ask. “Tahoe went over to the airport again. Hopefully we’ll be skydiving soon.”

  Sutter nods, wiping the sweat off his face with a towel. “Fuck yeah, man. I want to get up in the air as soon as possible. I’m going to grab lunch at the diner and then meet you at the range after? What do you want to shoot today?” Sutter is a sniper, so he’s going to blow me out of the water no matter what we’re shooting. He knows that and he is only asking to rub it in later that it was my choice and he still shot better.

  “Pick your poison,” I say. Smiling, he leaves the weight room and hits the showers, knowing I’m no competition. My cell phone rings on the bench in front of the mirror and I roll my eyes. It’s a ringer assigned to one of my sisters. The more annoying one. The decision to let voicemail grab it is easy. My sisters made my choice to leave Virginia Beach and move to Bronze Bay uncomplicated. Overbearing, loud, calculating in the name of sibling love, and utterly infuriating are the qualities attached to my sisters, Eva and Celia. My mom used to be able to control them when we were kids, but now all bets are off. They show up at my apartment and overstay their welcome. It doesn’t help matters that I am the baby brother. A grown ass adult male doesn’t want his sisters meddling, but they don’t believe me when I tell them. Like it’s so farfetched, I have to be joking.

  When Eva married a nice, quiet man, I assumed the eldest sibling would be a monkey off my back. I had a vision of her riding into the sunset on horseback, never looking back. In reality, her stallion is a white sedan that sits in front of my house multiple times during the week. That nice quiet man is also a busy man who leaves Eva to her own devices much of the time. He’s also the reason they moved twenty minutes away to take a job so my sister could live next to family. His absence only made less intense by my immediate presence. My meals are cooked and prepped for me every Friday night, and it’s a nice gesture, but I’d much rather starve than have to endure the conversations that accompany the cooking. Eva asks if I’ve had any dates. Celia, who now lives a little farther away than Eva, visits a touch less but wants details—names, and descriptions of the women I’ve seen around town when she is here. When they’re together, they stalk around the quiet town of Bronze Bay to scope out prospects for me. At least twice, they’ve returned with the names and phone numbers of women they’ve met and deemed appropriate for me to take on a date.

  For most of my life, I’ve been wrapped up in war and everything that means. Deployments, training, work up cycles when I’m away more than I’m home, missions to gain Intel, missions to kill bad guys. If it’s in the same vein as war or has anything to do with it, chances are, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in it. Being a SEAL is something that fell into my lap. Unlike a lot of my brothers, it wasn’t something I’d always dreamed of. It was a choice I made because of the climate of our world. Make a difference, my mother said when I was contemplating my future after high school. The military was appealing because I could get away from the tight love-noose my family created. The Navy was even more appealing because they couldn’t follow me into the ocean, right? Becom
ing a SEAL was something I knew would definitely give me an edge. I could make a difference and score chicks whenever I had the chance. With lots of work and a little luck, I made it through training.

  My cell notifies me of a voicemail, and I grunt out of frustration. No one leaves voicemails these days. No one. Not unless it’s a spambot politician call, or my sisters demanding my attention. Scooping up my towel and phone, I hit the shower. A few of my brothers are exiting as I enter, and I nod at them and give them the plans for the day. It’s nice to have such a lax agenda after years of a punishing, demanding schedule that left most of us browbeat. Some of the SEALs that staff this base are here because they need a rest from the breakneck deployment pace, others are here because it’s more conducive to a family life and they need a change to help facilitate that. Some men have been sent here even though they don’t think they need a break. Those are the ones I have to watch out for. They don’t want to be here, and they’ll burn it all to the ground because of it. Sutter went on a sex spree so savage I was hearing about it for a month after. Small towns don’t offer secrecy in any amount.

  Everyone talks. It’s exactly as horrible as you’d expect. The old women click their tongues when we walk by, upset we took over their land, and part of their beach. The local diner is a hotbed of hearsay. Within a few weeks of moving here, I knew more about the residents of Bronze Bay, Florida than I ever knew about my best friends back home; including the fact Irene McAllister’s curtains matched her carpet. The slow pace of life mixed with the location—far away from any large cities, force gossip like the gospel. That’s not something I signed up for when I became a SEAL. Typically, we are a close-knit community with many secrets. This is a whole new experience in every way. One I love and loathe in equal measure. Do I miss the thrill? The heart in my throat feeling when I’m rounding a corner about to fight fire with fire? Yes. Idle hands, idle minds, and all that. This beach town doesn’t provide much thrill, and the monotony of the daily grind wears on me, but I know I’m serving a purpose and one day my reason for residing in Bronze Bay will come to light. If anything, I am a motherfucking team player.