Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Lucy had her dream job.
Lucy worked hard to get where she was. And she wasn’t stopping there. The job wasn’t the destination. It was part of the road, and the road kept going. She kept trying to find a place to stop, but life didn’t stop. What if she was looking at it all wrong? What if the job wasn’t the most important thing? What if the road was? The journey itself. What if some power position wasn’t the destination at all, and the place she was looking for all her life was right here in front of her?
“Hey, are you okay?” Lucy put a hand on her arm. “I tried to call you when I figured out who our annoying guest was. I’m sorry he surprised you. He’s an ass, by the way.”
Brooke felt something wet on her cheek and wiped away a tear. Damn men were making her feel too much. “He doesn’t matter but I do want to talk to you. Would you leave the lodge if you decided you wanted to be a nurse?”
The men were talking in the background and the baby goat was braying, but Brooke found herself completely focused on Lucy.
“I love what I do.” Lucy seemed to understand this was serious for Brooke. Her tone gentled, and she gave her friend a squeeze. “But yes, I would if I decided I wanted something else.”
“But you worked so hard. People helped you along the way.”
“And I’ll pay that forward.” Lucy sighed. “Sweetie, you get to change your mind. No matter what the world has given you, you can change course. I know what you’re thinking because we’ve been friends for a long time. You think your brothers will be disappointed.”
“Rye said he was.” She could still see him staring at her.
A gasp came from Nell’s mouth. “He said that? Henry, we’re protesting Rye.”
Henry gave his wife a thumbs-up even as he scrambled with the baby goat. “Sure thing, babe. Are we protesting his business practices?”
“No, his human ones,” Nell replied primly.
Henry nodded. “I’ve got signs for that, too.”
“Don’t protest my brother.” She appreciated the gesture since protesting was definitely Nell’s love language. “He’s trying to catch up. I can see where he might be upset about me abruptly changing what I want from my career. After all, he spent years doing a job he didn’t love so I could have this chance.”
Nell rubbed her lower back as she spoke. “Sweetie, your brother loves you, and whatever he actually said, he is not ashamed of you. No one is. You’re our girl. We watched you grow up. I remember you graduating from high school. The whole town came out.”
Lucy got a little teary. “They did.”
“They always do. For everyone.” Brooke didn’t want Lucy to feel left out.
“Of course they do, and I can’t tell you how much I wished I’d been living here at the time. I didn’t make it to my own graduation. I had to watch my siblings.” Lucy wiped away a tear but there was a smile on her face. “I did for my younger siblings what Rye did for you, and I need you to understand if they decided not to use their degrees or the training classes I paid for, if it turned out they could be happier with something else, I wouldn’t care. I would be thrilled for them. Brooke, are you hurting anyone?”
She hadn’t realized how much she needed this. “No. I think I might be finding myself again. I think I got lost somewhere in trying to be successful.”
Nell was crying, too. Not that it took much these days. “The only real success in life is to love and be loved. It’s to leave this world a better place, to experience the human range of emotions.”
Lucy laughed. “Don’t talk like that around Mel.”
Nell frowned, but it was an amused expression. “Mel knows my stance on interstellar visitors. We should talk to them. The galaxy is our home. Though I do take the beet regularly because beets are an excellent health food.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” Henry called out. “She took extra because Cass told her there’s a group of non-corporeal aliens who sometimes zip into the unborn.”
Nell put a hand to her belly. “Well, one can’t be too careful, but what I’m really saying is the world is a big place and you deciding you want to change your mind about something, well, that’s normal. Open your heart and ask yourself what you truly want.”
That was oddly easy. “I want to work with Cleo for a while and see how I like costume design, but more than that, I want them. I want Bay and Shane, and it’s too early to ask them to follow me. It’s too early for me to give up my career for them and start working at the Stop ’n’ Shop.”