Finding Joy (The Joy Series) (Volume 2) Read Online Free PDF

concerns, and I had voiced only one of them this afternoon. Honestly, the only child thing was the least of my worries. I’d spent the past 10 years oscillating between being an emotional void and an emotional train wreck. I was healing now. I could feel it. Adam was healing me from the inside out. But even if I could successfully forgive myself and allow him to forgive me, I wondered if I would ever truly be a whole person. If not, did I really have any business trying to raise one?
    And, when it came down to it, I was worried he would make me choose. If I decided that I really wanted this baby, how could I choose between the two of them? If I chose him, I’d be giving up a dream that had seemed impossible until two months ago, but now consumed my every waking thought.
    But I couldn’t not choose him either. Loving and being loved by Adam was also a dream. Only it wasn’t a what-if scenario. I was living it. His fierce love, his ability to dismiss years of well-deserved hatred, his desire to protect me from myself and anyone who might hurt me … it all left me breathless. I’d never imagined loving someone or being loved so completely. When I’d been a child, my grandmother had a throw pillow cross-stitched with the saying, ‘I love you more than yesterday, less than tomorrow, forever.’ I had never known what it meant. Until Adam.
    I would never be able to give up one dream for another.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 3
     
     
    Adam
     
    I shut the door behind me and headed straight for the shower. The temperature outside had dropped steadily the past few days, but my trek up the east side of the park and back had worked up a good sweat. I had to clean up before I could start dinner.
    Allie would be back soon from her afternoon with Lizzie. I knew what would be on her mind. However, knowing what she was thinking and getting her to talk about it were two different things. When it came to the hard stuff, she was a vault.
    To be honest, I didn’t think I wanted to crack that code anyway.
    Why couldn’t things just stay the way they were? Things were pretty damn good.
    I was still waiting for the water to warm up and planning my Allie attack when I heard a crash from the other end of the apartment. In one swooping motion, I had the water shut off and a towel wrapped around my waist. As I walked through the living room, I grabbed an umbrella, readying myself to do some serious damage. Rubber Cat hunkered down on the couch and hissed in the general direction of the kitchen as I passed.
    Even with the cat’s warning, I wasn’t prepared for what I found, which was the equivalent of watching pigs fly.
     
     
    Alexis
     
    I cranked up the speed on the shiny new KitchenAid mixer, and a cloud of dust shot out of the bowl. The powder settled around me, coating every surface in our small kitchen. My new acquisition wasn’t working like I’d hoped.
    Adam came wheeling into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a towel and wielding an umbrella. He came to an abrupt halt, and the fierce expression on his face was replaced with disbelief.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “What’s it look like I’m doing?” I asked haughtily. “Obviously, I’m making cookies.”
    “You’re making cookies. Why?”
    “Because that’s what women do. We make cookies. We make jaw-dropping cookies. And that’s what I’m doing. Right now. These cookies … are going to make your jaw drop.”
    I peered into the mixing bowl. I had serious doubts about the jaw-dropping quality of the mixture. Serious, serious doubts. I was good at selecting desserts. I was excellent at paying for them, and I excelled above all others at eating them. However, I’d never actually prepared one.
    Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There had been the one time that I’d made cakeballs at Dawn’s birthday party. But that had been under the instruction and watchful eye of the bakery owner. If I was honest, this kitchen had never seen my culinary skills …