Another Way Home: A Chicory Inn Novel - Book 3 - Softcover

Raney, Deborah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1426770456 ISBN 13: 9781426770456

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Grandchildren are not in short supply for Grant and Audrey Whitman, although their middle daughter, Danae, and her husband, Dallas Brooks, after trying for years, have not been able to contribute to the growing family. Danae is open to adoption, but Dallas will not even discuss it. Her despair over never having a family of her own is so deep, it even causes her to question God’s plan for her life. Knowing she must find something to do to fill her lonely days and energize her life, Danae volunteers to work at a newly opened women’s shelter in town. She was only looking for a way to spend her time, but getting to know the hurting women at the shelter fills her heart and she learns to live a life of gratitude once again. But heart-wrenching events on Thanksgiving weekend threaten to pull the entire Whitman clan into turmoil— and leave them all forever changed.

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Deborah Raney's books have won numerous awards including the RITA, National Readers' Choice Award, HOLT Medallion, the Carol Award, and have twice been Christy Award finalists. She and her husband, Ken, recently traded small-town life in Kansas--the setting of many of Deb's novels--for life in the (relatively) big city of Wichita. Visit Deb on the web at DeborahRaney.com.

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Another Way Home

A Chicory Inn Novel

By Deborah Raney

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2015 Deborah Raney
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4267-7045-6

CHAPTER 1

Danae Brooks buttoned her shirt and slipped on her shoes, trying desperately not to get her hopes up. The dressing rooms in her doctor's office were more like something in an upscale spa — heavy fringed drapes curtained private alcoves decorated with framed art prints, and flameless candles flickered on tiny side tables. Soft strains of Mozart wafted through the building. Of course, for the fees her obstetrician charged — or rather, her "reproductive endocrinologist," as his nameplate declared — the luxuries felt well deserved.

She gathered her purse and continued to the window at the nurse's station.

Marilyn — she was on a first-name basis with most of the nurses by now — looked up with a practiced smiled. "You can go on down. Dr. Gwinn will be with you in just a minute."

Danae had quit trying to decipher the nurses' demeanor. So far, month after month, every smile, every quirk of an eyebrow, every wink, had meant the same thing: she wasn't pregnant. Again. Still.

She walked down the hall to the doctor's sparse office and was surprised to find him already sitting behind his desk. She forced herself not to get her hopes up, but she'd always had to wait for a consult before. Sometimes twenty minutes or more. Could it be?

"Come on in, Danae." He looked past her expectantly.

"Oh. Um ... Dallas isn't with me today. He ... couldn't get off work." Of course he could have if he'd really wanted to.

"I understand. No problem. Come on in and have a seat." She took one of the duo of armchairs in front of his desk, feeling a bit adrift without Dallas beside her.

Dr. Gwinn scribbled something on the sheaf of papers in front of him, then slipped them into a folder before looking up at her. She knew immediately that there was no baby.

"Well ..." He pulled a sheet of paper from the folder he'd just closed and slid it across the desk, pointing with his pen at an all-too-familiar graph. "Nothing has changed from last time. Your levels are still not quite where we'd like to see them, but we're getting there. I'm going to adjust the dosage just a bit. Nothing drastic, but you might notice an increase in the side effects you've experienced in the past."

"It hasn't been too bad."

He steepled his fingers in front of him and frowned. "That's good, but don't be surprised if the symptoms are a little more marked with this increase."

Dr. Gwinn wrapped up the consultation quickly and suggested she call his office if she experienced any problems on the new dosage.

For some reason, his warning encouraged her. Maybe this boost in meds would be the thing that finally worked. As quickly as the thought came, she tried to put her hope in check. Almost every week there was something that got her hopes up only to have them dashed again.

But Dr. Gwinn sounded so hopeful this time. Of course, they'd all been hopeful. For more than three years now, a string of clinics had offered endless hope — and had happily accepted their checks for one fertility treatment after another. But despite test after test, a string of doctors in a string of clinics could not seem to find any reason she and Dallas could not have a baby together. "Unexplained infertility" was the frustrating diagnosis. They'd done just about everything but in vitro. Or adoption. And though Dallas was adamant they would not take that route, Danae was beginning to think it might be the answer. The only answer.

At the reception desk, Danae slid her debit card across the counter. Another three hundred dollars. She dreaded Dallas seeing the amount in the check register. She wasn't sure how long they could keep draining their bank account this way before her husband said, "Enough."

The woman handed her a receipt. "We'll see you in two weeks, Mrs. Brooks."

"Thank you." She forced a smile and sent up a prayer that next time she wouldn't have to endure the shots and medication — because she'd be pregnant. But it was getting harder and harder to be optimistic. And she wasn't sure how long she could hold up under repeated disappointment.

She shoved open the door as if shoving away the discouraging thoughts. Or trying to. The late September air finally held a hint of autumn, and she inhaled deeply. As she unlocked the car door, her phone chirped from her purse. Dallas's ring. She fished it out of the side pocket. "Hey, babe."

"Hey yourself. How'd it go?" The caution in his voice made her sad.

"Same ol,' same ol'. But he upped my dosage a little."

An overlong pause. "It's not going to make you bonkers like the last time they did that, is it?"

"No." She hadn't meant to sound so irritated. She'd kind of forgotten the incident Dallas referred to — like the worst PMS in the history of the world according to her husband. Which was funny given she'd never really experienced PMS, so how would he know? It was probably an apt description though. "That wasn't even the same drug I'm on now, Dallas. And even if it was, everything went back to normal as soon as they cut my dosage back again. Remember?"

"I know ... I know." His tone said he was tiptoeing lightly, trying not to start something — and trying too hard to make up for not coming with her to today's appointment. "So, do you want me to pick up something for supper on my way home?"

"No, I'm making something." No sense adding expensive takeout to the financial "discussion" that was likely to happen after he saw the checkbook. "Maybe scalloped potatoes? It actually feels like fall out here today." She held up a hand, as if he could see her testing the crisp air.

"I need to go, Danae. We'll talk tonight, OK? But you did remember I'm going to the gym with Drew after work, right? Can I invite him to eat with us?"

"Dallas ..." She gave a little growl. "It's Tuesday. You know we're going to my folks tonight."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot."

"Did you think we were only having scalloped potatoes for supper?"

"I didn't think about it. Sorry. Well, I'll invite Drew another night then. We can —" A familiar click on the line — the office call waiting signal — clipped his words. "Hey, I've got to take this. See you tonight."

"Sure." She spoke into the silence, feeling dismissed. Sometimes she thought Dallas preferred his brother's company to hers.

She climbed into the car and buckled up, imagining the day when she'd be buckling a precious baby into a car seat first. Please, God. Please. After three years, this shorthand had become the extent of her prayers.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she was tempted to come up with an excuse to get out of going to the inn tonight. She'd almost come to dread these weekly family dinners for fear of all the questions about their quest to have a baby. But the truth was, her family had grown weary of the subject and had mostly quit asking. Maybe that was just as well.

She rarely volunteered information to her parents and her sisters now that it had become obvious they'd run out of encouraging things to say month after month.

For the first year after they'd started seeking medical treatment, Dallas hadn't even wanted to tell anyone. But she convinced him that she needed someone else to confide in. Once tests had confirmed that the fault was hers alone, and that Dallas was fully capable of fathering a child, he had been more willing to talk with friends and family about their issues. Now she sensed...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1426770456
• ISBN 13: 9781426770456
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 286
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland