Along the Shore

by Maggie Jane Schuler

Genres: Family Life; Marriage & Divorce; Literary Fiction; Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance; Second Chance Romance

Synopsis

Eva

The world dulled when you decided the fate of my future. Our son speaks of you as a
superhero, and I grapple with the idea I wasn't good enough to keep you here, safe—with us. I spend my days working to support our son, and my nights turn into one endless string of reckless decisions because reality provides no comfort. The truth of the situation buried deep down, since you're gone, and I stand drowning in my own grief.

Reece

Along the shore, there's a lady whose torment captured me the first time her aura caught my eye. Her beauty holds steady behind the mask she wears every morning. Something about her piques my interest as the days go by, and I know deep inside my mission beckons to uncover her secret and bring her back among the living. Written in her body language, speaks a familiar road I traveled. A road of sorrow nobody deserves stranded alone in its strangled web.

Release date: August 13, 2019

Publisher: Maggie Jane Schuler

Print pages: 451

Sample

“Ugh,” I utter as the muffled ringtone of my cell breaks the silence of peaceful sleep. Not ready to face the day, I stretch my arm down to pull up the covers.

“Good morning.” 

My eyes pop open as the warm body behind me snuggles his morning wood against my ass. Oh shit! Last night— 

“I’m glad you decided to come home with me. Why don’t we take this to the shower? Perhaps breakfast?” the stranger with the gruff morning tone whispers in my ear as he snakes a hand around my waist and pulls me in closer.

Tequila, you and I need to talk.

“You know. That’s awful sweet, but I think I better get going.” Pulling away from his wandering hands, my feet shake the sheet away, and the scavenger hunt for my clothes commences.

“Can I get your name, honey? Last night was fantastic.” He lays on the bed with his erection tenting beneath the sheet, and his hand propping his head on the pillow. I avoid eye contact, picking up my G-string and sundress with my free hand while covering my chest with the other.

What the hell did I do last night?

“There’s an extra toothbrush in the top drawer. You sure I can’t interest you in a little more of last night?”

The squeak of the bed moves my feet faster to the bathroom, which is conveniently right across from the bed. I shut and lock the door. My fingers fumble on the wall in search of the light switch. With one flip of my finger, the lights hum to life. My eyes burn with the contrast, and I catch a glimpse of the rat’s nest of hair and smudged eyeliner running down my face. Without hesitation, I slap the switch off, deciding the natural sunrise provides enough accent for me to dress and get the hell out of here.

Which is where, I wonder?

I dress quickly, listening for sounds of my one-night stand every few seconds. With a splash of water, and my hair finger combed, I open the door, holding a deep breath down deep in my chest, and peer around the doorframe to an empty bedroom. There’s a nice view of the Pacific Ocean out the sliding glass door beyond the bed. My purse rests on the dresser.

Yes, an escape route!

Tiptoeing across the stone floor, I snatch my purse off the deep-stained, oak vanity and sneak a peek at the red numbers on the bedside table. Five-forty am stares me in the face. With the flip of a lock, I slide out into the damp beach air leaving regret behind. I unlock my phone and dial for an Uber to take me back to my car. The one I left at the bar last night.

At least I hope it’s at the bar, I tell myself as I rush away from the house.

Finally, I see the car that matches the description on my App. Nestled in the back of the Prius, I search my purse for sunglasses while asking the Uber to drop me off at Coyote Grill. It’s the kind of bar that’s far enough away from home but where the patrons remain safe as strangers—not neighbors. My head throbs a bit as I mentally checklist the last things I remember. The waves roll in and out along the shoreline to my right, and the sun rises over the coastal mountains on my left. Wisps of foggy layers clear with the memory of me sipping a nice glass of cabernet—beer is not my thing—before the tequila started flowing. The sexy over sharer of innuendo enters the clearing and bingo, the man I woke up next to, sidled himself next to me at the bar.

“Fuck,” escapes my lips a little louder than intended.

“You gonna get sick?” My Uber driver glares into his rearview mirror.

“No.” I sink down with regret and dismay sneering at me from over each shoulder.

My recent string of questionable decisions hits me as the sunlight shifts over the mountain peaks, shining through my dark glasses. Each ray mocks me the closer we get to the bar. 

However, like the last six months, I shut off the distaste of the naysayers. Nobody understands the last two years. The ugly situation continually lurks in the background of my thoughts.

This plan life paved for me isn’t quite the one I intentionally designed. Somehow, I went from stubbornness and guilt to lust and gluttony in a matter of eighteen months. My slow retreat into a level of purgatory chaining my heart right where Byron left it. His choice let him leave this world yet stuck me in the ebb and flows between open my bleeding heart daily and for brief periods it scabs over the deep-seated wound he left behind.

For the last six months the wound remains open without any hint of healing my heart. I hide within myself, leaving good friends and family only to see me with a fake smile plastered upon my face. They don't need to see this torment. In turn, I discovered a way to numb the sorrow and avoid the daily reminders. I now throw myself into a night of too much alcohol and each time I make these less than savory choices, the deeper the wound festers, but if anyone else were in my shoes, their wounds would seep with despair and a lack of faith.

When he pulls into the lot of the bar, I jump out with a mumbled ‘thank you’ and head straight for my car. The rays of the sun now coat the slight change in the leaves on the trees, as the hot summer approaches. I weave my way through the quiet, cookie-cutter neighborhood and pull up onto the driveway. I get out of my car, head swiveling around for any nosy neighbors. But the rest of the world is still sleeping at quarter after six.

Thank my lucky stars!

The front door sticks in place, my black heels clicking on the tile floor. Every step echoes in the foyer of the house I once loved. My heart squeezes tight in my chest with the thought of the light that had once bathed this home only a few years ago, but now it’s cloaked in darkness.

“Where have you been?”

I shudder at the anger lacing Liam’s question.

“Out,” I snip back, setting my purse and keys on the shelf in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I can tell,” his response icy.

I cringe. “What are you doing here anyways?”

“Ed called me last night when he couldn’t reach you.” He continues, glaring at me. The disdain lacing his words pulses deep within my chest. “Hunter had a fever, and Sarah went to help him out. He’s your son, Eva.”

Reality of the mess I’ve made punches me in the gut.

How could I have let myself do this, again? My hands shake with the remainder of the tequila rolling my stomach. I grasp the counter in front of the sink.

I sigh, knowing I’m in the wrong again. “Thanks for handing it.” Both Liam and Sarah had come through for me in ways I could never repay, and here I was, asking them for more than I had a right to. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

“No, there won’t be an encore. Either you straighten up or Hunter will lose both of his parents before too long. I know you’re hurting, Eva.” Liam inhales through his flared nostrils. “We all are. But Hunter needs you, and we’re all here--”

“I understand,” I snap, regret and pain hiding behind the snap of my response. We’ve been down this road of arguing about my life choices too many times over the past six months. Liam and Sarah began treating me like a child after the first handful of times I slid back into my house after a night out, and the rancid aftermath of liquor and sex pouring from my veins. But, this morning something different fills the air between us. The fact Hunter needed me, and I failed him crushes me to my core.

Liam isn’t letting up this time. “You’re out of control and it stops here. Right now. I know how you feel.”

Venom burns in my veins. He knows nothing about what’s eating me alive. “I don’t think you understand an ounce of what I feel. You go home to Sarah with a smile. I sit and wonder what I did wrong every minute of every day. You don't get to choose my path, Liam. I do.”

He pokes his index finger into my shoulder blade. “Even if it lands you without a pulse, and Hunter without a mom?”

I hang my head over the sink, Hunter occupying both my head and the aching in my heart, and whisper, “I don't know how to do this anymore.”

He hands me his phone, his expression unyielding. “Call Dr. Scott. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Two and a half years is a long time to hold all this in, and you’re acting out. Your parents are worried, and Ed, Sarah, me—”

“I get it. Stop lecturing me!” I shout back glaring over my shoulder, having heard it all before and tired of knowing what’s wrong with me and feeling helpless in how to fix it--fix me. “I’ll call her. I know it’s bad.”

“Do you, really, Eva?” Liam’s eyes glare at me. The hard lines on his face soften a bit as the clock ticks in the background, and he looks at me tiredly. He’s just as exhausted as I am. “You’ve said that before, too.”

Guilt, shame, grief, heartache, loneliness--a million emotions and feelings--crash over me like the tide breaking against the shore. I swallow the rock in my throat, turning back over the sink. For the first time, it’s hitting me, all of it.

“I don’t know who I woke up with or how I got there,” I confess, knowing the guy I’d been with was a poor substitution for who I really missed: my husband. I pause, the tears falling down my face. “I miss him, Liam,” I whisper hoarsely. “I hate that I miss him. I hate that Hunter looks like him, and I love it all at the same time.” I take a deep shaky breath, shifting my sluggish feet and meeting Liam’s solemn eyes. “I just don’t know how to make it better...”

Admitting my faults hurts as much as receiving the news of my late husband. My knees weaken, and I fall in a heap of tears and emptiness on the tile floor.

“Shh,” Liam, my late husband’s best friend, whispers as he pulls me into his arms, rocking us both as the dawn breaks through this new day.