To Celebrate her 3 years of publishing, author Lori King
is giving her readers a FREE story.
Crawley
Creek Series
By: Lori King
a Cowboy Romance
a Cowboy Romance
In a
small town in North Dakota there resides a family of misfits on the Crawley
Creek Ranch. Brought together by hardship, and heartache they’ve bonded without
blood ties, and seek to help others. Four brothers who’ve walked both sides of
the line, and come out stronger for it, but will they survive love, loss, and
the law?
Beginnings
(Prequel)
Forget Me Knot
(Book 1)
Rough Ride
Romeo (Book 2)
Claiming His
Cowgirl (Book 3)
Beginnings
Crawley Creek Prequel
Abraham and Seraphina Crawley have
loved each other since they were fifteen years old. Abe has never doubted the
strength of their bond, and together they’ve planted roots and built a
successful ranch. But when Seraphina receives disturbing news that will impact
the rest of their lives, she finds herself unable to tell the man she loves.
Their decade-long marriage has been blighted by their lack of children, and now
secrets could tear this couple apart. Follow their journey from heartbroken to
houseful, and experience how Crawley Creek Ranch became a refuge for those who
needed a place to plant roots. Second chances and new beginnings are a way of
life at Crawley Creek. Everyone is welcome.
*Note from the author: This is a short prequel to the Crawley Creek
Series. It can be read as a standalone, but you will enjoy it more if you read
the other books in the series as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1
“I’m
sorry Mrs. Crawley, but the news isn’t good.” The doctor’s kind face had deep-set
wrinkles bracketing his thin lips and framed a smile, but today they made his
tipped frown seem pitifully sad. “It seems you have a hostile uterus.”
Sera
stared at him trying to absorb his words, but all she heard was “hostile”.
“Hostile?”
“Yes.
Basically your womb isn’t an ideal place for the implantation of a fertilized
embryo. The likelihood of you ever conceiving is slim, and even if you did
conceive, the chances that the pregnancy would be supported longer than the
first trimester are extremely improbable. I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you
were hoping to hear—”
“Not
what I was hoping to hear?” She knew she was in shock, and that made it all the
easier to blast her disappointment with anger. “I think that’s putting it
rather mildly Martin, don’t you? And why are you calling me Mrs. Crawley? My
name is Sera, and I’ve been coming to you for almost fifteen years. You know
everything there is to know about my physical health, and you’ve never once
mentioned that I had a hostile womb.”
“Seraphina
it’s not something I could have known based on the standard pelvic tests we do
annually. The fertility testing you had in Grand Forks highlighted some
disturbing inconsistencies. As you know fertility science is still in its
infancy. We only know so much about why the female reproductive organs are
sometimes lacking. I’ve reviewed your tests extensively, and I even had a
colleague of mine review them for a second opinion. Unfortunately, he agreed
with my results. You’re barren.” Martin Warburg took off his glasses and set
them on the desk in front of him, his gaze sympathetic. After several moments
of tense silence, he sighed and gestured to the phone on his desk. “Would you
like me to call Abe for you?”
Abe.
Her husband. The man who’d loved her for the last fifteen years
unconditionally. The sweetest, kindest soul on the planet. He’d supported her through
month after month of negative pregnancy tests, and ten years of disappointment.
Now she had to tell him that she was a defective wife. Unable to give him the
children he so badly wanted. The family they’d dreamed of creating together.
“No.
Thank you, but I need some time to...um...digest this information. I’ll talk to
him soon.” Rising from the hard wooden chair where all of her dreams had been
dashed, Seraphina Crawley brushed her braid behind her shoulder, and picked up
her pocketbook. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Martin
rose to his feet quickly, and began to move her way. “Sera, you shouldn’t be
alone to process this news. Let me call Abe and have him come collect you. Your
car will be fine here in the lot.”
“I
said, no thank you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and all the time
you’ve devoted to this, but now that we know how futile it is... Well, I
suppose it’s best to just let the things that are out of our control, go. Tell
Lenora that I said hello.” Reaching for the handle on the door, she hurried to
put as much distance as possible between herself and the terrible news.
The
sunshine was dimmer, and the day seemed significantly drearier as she stepped
out of the office onto the sidewalk. Montford was a very small town, so there
was no one on the street to see her sorrow as tears began to fall from her
eyes. By the time she’d settled in behind the wheel of her car, she was gasping
for air around the sobs of pain that echoed around her. Logically, she knew
they were from her own throat, but somehow it seemed she was completely
separate from the emotional response. She could feel herself trembling, hear
the sniffles, and taste the vomit on the back of her tongue, but she still
wasn’t ready to accept it was real. No matter what she did, or how healthy she
lived her life, she’d never be a mother.
She’d
known instinctively for a while that something was wrong. She was an only
child, but not for lack of trying. Her parents had always wanted more children,
but medical science wasn’t as good in the forties and fifties. Nowadays they
were able to give women more of an idea of what was wrong…in most cases.
Struggling
to calm her raging emotions, she closed her eyes and focused her energies on
slowing the tears. Once her breathing eased back to a normal rhythm, she
reached for the keys and shoved them into the ignition with a silent prayer
that her old clunker would start today. The last thing she needed was more to
deal with. Between Montford and Crawley Creek she would have twenty minutes to
figure out how she was going to tell her husband the bad news.
At
thirty years old, she felt like her life had just ended.
Lori’s Bio
Best-selling author, Lori
King, is also a full-time wife and mother of three boys. Although she rarely
has time to just enjoy feminine pursuits; at heart she is a hopeless romantic.
She spends her days dreaming up Alpha men, and her nights telling their
stories. An admitted TV and book junkie, she can be found relaxing with a
steamy story, or binging in an entire season of some show online. She gives her
parents all the credit for her unique sense of humor and acceptance of all
forms of love. There are no two loves alike, but you can love more than one
with your whole heart.
With the motto: Live, Laugh,
and Love like today is your only chance, she will continue to write as long as
you continue to read. Thank you for taking the time to indulge in a good
Happily Ever After with her. Find out more about her current projects at http://lorikingbooks.com,
Congrats Lori!
ReplyDeleteOops Teriyeckl@gmail.com. Thanks
ReplyDelete