Through the Fire Read Online Free PDF

Your father wants you to marry
    an African American. Good for him. But,
    sweetheart, that is totally not going to happen.
    We’re married. I love you and I’ll be damned if
    I give you up for any man, let alone an African
    American. I hate having to sneak around to see
    my own wife. I can handle anything your family
    brings.”
    “But it wasn’t just that.” Dominique hated
    herself even as she said the words and heard
    Brandon’s short, pained intake of breath.
    Dominique couldn’t tell him that she’d blamed
    herself for the loss of their baby or that
    sometimes she did suspect that her father knew
    something was up with her and Brandon. She
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    couldn’t prove it, but things were just not
    adding up.
    She hadn’t seen it before, because she’d
    been a basket case, literally. No one knew that
    she’d secretly gone to see a therapist. It’d been
    a total waste of her time, but she’d tried. Lord
    knows she’d tried. Dominique had done the
    next best thing in her mind to do…throw
    herself into her work. She worked so much that
    by the time she made it home she was so tired
    that the only thing she could do was fall into
    bed and go to sleep just to awaken the next
    morning to start the process all over again. It
    dulled the pain of her loss. Dominique didn’t
    want to feel anymore. It hurt too much.
    She lay quietly, thinking about the baby
    they’d lost. The nurse’s face, screwed up with
    sympathy, the doctor’s cool, professional voice.
    The crib and the high chair they would never
    use. Somehow, the loss of the baby had
    cemented the secret when it should have blown
    things clean out of the water.
    “She was by baby too, Dominique. You
    never wanted to talk about what happened or
    my feelings.”
    “I didn’t want to talk about it, period. I
    was so upset…” she began, by way of apology.
    Through the Fire
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    Brandon shook his head wonderingly. “So
    was I Dominique. I’d lost a child and by all
    accounts, a wife, and there wasn’t a damn soul I
    could go to for comfort. Not even my own
    family.”
    Dominique sighed deeply, laid her head
    on Brandon’s chest, wrapped her arms around
    him, and hugged him to her. Her body
    trembled.
    “Do you miss me, Dominique?” he asked.
    Dominique
    nodded
    her
    head
    in
    confirmation. “I miss you and our baby. I don’t
    understand what happened. I keep going over it
    in my head and I just can’t make sense of it all,”
    she cried. “The pain just won’t go away.”
    Brandon felt her tremble in his arms. It
    broke his heart. She must not have cried in a
    long time, because the tears were falling even
    harder now, wetting his chest, and she was
    making little hiccupping sounds.
    “Shush, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’ll get
    through this together. Together, Dominique,
    that’s the way it should have been from the
    beginning. We’ll talk about it in the morning. I
    didn’t realize that you were still hurting so
    much.”
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    SERENITY KING
    “I’m sorry, Brandon,” she hiccupped. “I
    just couldn’t deal with it all.” Then she began
    to sob uncontrollably.
    “I know, sweetheart,” Brandon choked
    out, as he tightened his hold on her. He placed
    his hands in her hair and began to remove the
    pins from Dominique’s hairdo, massaging her
    scalp in the process. “Sleep, baby, I have you.”
    The flood of tears had been painful, but
    necessary, like lancing an infected wound and
    watching the pus pour out before the wound
    ran clean blood. Brandon brushed her damp
    hair from her face and placed a kiss atop her
    head.
    “Okay,” she whispered, before giving in to
    the sleep that claimed her.
    “Jeez, what a mess,” Brandon murmured,
    looking down at Dominique’s sleeping form. “I
    won’t let you go again, sweetheart. You can
    count on that. I promise we’ll make more
    beautiful babies together.”
    He didn’t relinquish his hold until he
    heard her breathing even out. He then eased
    himself away from her soft form