Abandon: The Unloveable Series Book One Read Online Free PDF

to stay here tonight or not?”
    “I’m going to spend most of the night cleaning, so I probably won’t need the blow up mattress now that I think about it.”
    “I’ll need something to sleep on while I’m…”
    The sheriff popped his head through the door.  “Brooklyn, I need a number where I can reach you if I have any further questions.”
    She absent mindedly twisted a thick strand of hair and cleared her throat before she answered.  “I don’t have one currently.  Mr. Jones doesn’t mind delivering a message to me.  You can call him and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    Gage looked down at his ex-sister in-law.  “Why don’t you have a working phone?  With three young children, you should know better than to…”
    Brooklyn walked away as if he hadn’t been talking to her.
    “I’ll come inside so I can get the phone number from my purse.  Is it alright to let Daniel and Marie bring my children in?”
    Gage threw the old rusted air pump down on the garage floor.  Why does this have to be so damn difficult?  I had such conviction in my hatred of Brook on my way here, but now I’m wavering.  She must have broken Garret’s heart by kicking him out of their lives.  She’s the main reason he’s dead now.  I can’t forget that fact, Gage whispered to himself as he gained control of his thoughts.
    ****
    It was two forty five a.m. and Brooklyn found herself in a familiar spot, sitting on the master bathroom shower floor with her arms wrapped around her bent legs and her head resting on her knees.  Since that miserable night a year ago, she’d found it nearly impossible to get a decent night’s sleep.  Late at night, when everyone was sleeping was always when Brooklyn’s anxiety, depression, loneliness, and often times utter despair reared its ugly head.  The first couple of months the loneliness had been bad.  The third trimester was when the depression kicked in.  But the absolute worst had been after the baby was born.  Taking care of three small children with minimal sleep night after night had triggered a despair so deep Brooklyn thought she’d never crawl out of it.  It was difficult to decide if the change in hormones, Sadie’s colic, or sleep deprivation had been the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did get worse and here she sat once again, sobbing as she held onto herself tightly, her only comfort the hard shower floor.
    There wasn’t time for a pity party.  Tomorrow was Garret’s funeral and if that wasn’t going to be hard enough, the stress and lack of sleep would only compound the issue.  “Suck it up, buttercup.” She repeated the words Garret had always used when she was upset.  For the girl’s sake, get yourself together.  You need to get up, dry off, find a night shirt that isn’t shredded, and crawl into bed so you don’t collapse tomorrow and make a fool of yourself in front of the whole town.   And somehow she found the strength to do just that.

Chapter Three
     
    It rained so seldom in Nacogdoches, Texas, during the summer that usually most everyone welcomed the rain.  But on this particular day, it was just one more pain in the ass for Gage to deal with.
    Gage and Brooklyn worked late into the night meticulously cleaning the floors in the house.  By the time they decided to stop and try to catch a few hours of sleep, it had been well after two in the morning.  His parents had taken the grandbabies home with them in fear one of the three would get injured in all of the debris.  Brook had bedded down on the inflatable mattress in the master bedroom while he’d fashioned a pallet on the family room floor.  He might have stretched out and rested on his makeshift bed in the early hours of the morning, but he hadn’t slept so much as a wink.  Absolutely nothing made sense.  There were too many unanswered questions clouding the situation.  Who killed his brother and what