Authors: Erin Cawood
Tainted Love: contemporary womens fiction love story and family saga (Behind Closed Doors Book 1)
Tainted Love
Behind Closed Doors - Book One
Erin Cawood
Find out more about Erin Cawood at
www.erincawood.com
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 Carrie-Anne Wood
Cover art Copyright © 2014 Once Upon a Time Covers. All rights reserved.
Thank you to Annetta Ribken,
http://www.wordwebbing.com
for her editing expertise.
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Dedication
Tainted Love is dedicated to anyone seeking the strength, courage, or self-belief, to go after their dreams or to change their lives.
Part One: Keeping Faith
Chapter One
7
th
October 1999
Dear Little Brother,
You have to promise me something...
Promise me you won't tell a soul what you are about to read? Unless something happens to me, no one needs to know.
My babies, Georgia and Caleb, only need to know what I have told them. I am unhappy. I have been unhappy for a long time. Therefore, I have gone away to heal my heart, my mind, and my spirit. They'll understand, for me, their younger sisters are part of the healing process, and this is why I have taken the girls with me. I have promised to return, and I will. Somehow I'll find another way into Georgia and Caleb’s lives; but...I'll never go back.
I tell myself every day I should be thankful for what I have. Despite my sad situation I have you, my amazing younger brother. You’ve flourished into an all-state star quarterback and earned a scholarship to one of the best medical schools in the country. I have three wonderful daughters who still see fairy tales and dreams, and know how to reach for the sky. The eldest has high grades and a warm heart for children in need. She's taken herself down the path to follow Daddy into the family profession. The younger ones are a delight. Barely walking, already they have flair for drama, song, and dance. I see stars in their eyes and fame on their horizons.
And my son is… well, he’s frustrating. He can whip a top grade out of the bag without studying but his priorities lay elsewhere for so many years. Then, one day he came home with college applications, a volunteering job in the community, and a path he'd chosen on his own. I'm not quite sure when it happened, but it was some divine intervention for which I'll be forever indebted.
We own a five bedroom house in the Hamptons with vast gardens where I spend my days tending to roses and uprooting weeds. If I'm not in my gardens, I partake in coffee mornings, which entail little coffee and lots of shopping. I no longer try anything on in the store; I donate it to charity if it doesn't fit. I have lunch at the tennis club where I no longer play tennis; an injury took me out of the game some years ago.
My husband and I have a regular sitter and spend many evenings at the social clubs of which we're members. We dine on lavish foods, drink the finest wines, and dance past the stroke of midnight. I drive a swift little roadster, top down, through summer, and a tough terrain SUV in the winter. I have a lot to be thankful for... including twenty-two years of marriage.
Oh, how I wish I could tell you this was some mid-life crisis! Or with my oldest children flying the nest, I felt my life half-empty. I'm sure if you ask Calvin, its how he'll explain our sudden departure from his life, but it's quite the opposite in fact.
I know it’s been years since we last spoke, and how angry you were when you left but there are things I need you to know, little brother, and these things I’ve kept hidden from you all.
Chapter Two
Spring 1978
You won't remember when Calvin and I met. I guess, for you, he's always been there. Big Cal, with those strong arms swinging you around in Mom and Dad's garden; tossing you into the air, flipping you up on to his shoulder and flying you around the house like your favorite comic book superhero. I loved to watch him with you. I knew he'd be a wonderful father, even though I also knew there'd be no children for us and we’d never marry.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Me, a student nurse at just twenty, watching a thirty-year-old doctor whom I shouldn't have been having any relations with at all, playing with you and realizing he was ‘the one’.
We met at the hospital. Like Mom, I wanted to specialize in psychiatric nursing, and as you know, Calvin is a psychiatrist. I was captivated by his owl-like burnt orange eyes, so dark yet not quite brown, and far wiser than his years. I always assumed it had something to do with his wife and unborn child's untimely death, in a tragic fall at home. But I learned not to ask about them. It caused him so much pain.
So, in true Romeo and Juliet style, we hid our blossoming romance from the Montague doctors and the Capulet nurses, for our love — one between a doctor and a student nurse — was forbidden. For weeks, we courted. We kissed and held hands as we walked along beaches. Then came the day I watched him in the garden. A giant bear in comparison to you at only four years old. Over dinner, Cal announced he was leaving the hospital to join Dad's private practice, and I thought I knew what that meant...
Happy ever after... right?
That night, we walked along the beach to his favorite spot. As we sat with the waves lapping against the shore and the gulls picking at the remains of the outgoing tide, we talked. About the hospital, about Dad's practice, about the future, about the fact Cal hadn't contemplated even having a future for a long time.
“Faith...” His whisper carried on the early spring breeze.
We weren't touching, but I felt a chill as he pulled away. He blocked off the tiny window I'd found into his soul. You see, men weren't as touchy-feely twenty-odd years ago, so this small amount of emotional real estate carried a lot of value, and had an even higher price to lose.
“I'm falling in love with you,” he admitted.
You'd think the first time a girl hears this from the man she loves, she'd be thrilled. Her heart would sing. She'd fly so high she'd reach outer space; but no. Or at least I didn't feel that way. Head hung low, arms wrapped around his knees, holding a stick and poking holes in the sand, Cal didn't even look at me when he said it. All I received was the pain and despair of knowing the love of my life was still in love with someone else.
“But sometimes it feels like I'm cheating on my wife.”
I knew what this meant. But how could I be angry with him? He was grieving for the woman he loved. For the child he'd lost; for the life so cruelly stolen from him. He needed time. He'd only grow to resent me if he didn't fully heal.
“I understand.” I stood up. I left him to his thoughts. I wanted to keep my pride intact and my tears to myself. “Goodbye, Cal.”
Maybe he was wrestling his demons? Maybe he was tangling with his emotions? Scratching an itch? I don't know. But he let me walk a fair distance before he stopped me.
“Faith!” Big hands wrapped around my tiny wrist, forcing me to turn and tumble on the uneven sand and into a bed of soft golden grains. His heavy body pinned me beneath him, and dry fingers slipped over my wet cheek as he swept the hair from my eyes. “Promise me you'll never walk away from me again.”
His eyes, they locked onto mine. I couldn't find the words I needed, or my voice to speak. The moment was intense and I knew whatever was happening between us at that point, it was going to change the rest of my life. But as I lay there under the intense scrutiny of his bird-of-prey gaze, for the life of me, I had no idea what was about to happen.
“Marry me, Faith?”
Chapter Three
Cal had this ability to make me feel like I was flying. There were times when he looked at me and it felt like I was the rarest of diamonds and he was the poorest of men stumbling upon me. It took my breath away.
There were stolen moments at the hospital; like when I’d have to wake him in the on-call room. His eyelids would flutter open, his lips would curve, and he’d always know just what to say. If I was having a bad shift, he’d reach out and sweep the hair from my eyes and say something really sweet. Or, if I was having a good day, he knew he’d get away with being a little fresh. Then he’d leap up, sweep me into his arms, and pull me back onto the bed.
He used to tell me my eyes revealed my mood. He said if I was sad, they were a dull grey sky. They clouded over when I was mad, but he preferred it best when I was watching him and didn’t think he knew. He said they shone like a bright blue sky on a clear sunny day. So of course, when he asked me to marry him, my answer was yes!
