Kiss of the Goblin Prince by Shona Husk Read Free Book Online Page A

machine gurgled. At least with Brigit watching TV, Amanda would get five minutes to sit and relax.
    “Thank you, Auntie Eliza.” Brigit suck her tongue out at Amanda as she strolled to the living room with her little handbag full of medication over her shoulder. It didn’t matter what she did or what therapies they tried; nothing lessened the effect of the asthma.
    Amanda pretended not to notice and let her go. She wasn’t the best parent after four broken hours of sleep. Just once it would’ve been nice to be able to share the load.
    Eliza placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. “Asthma playing up again?”
    Amanda took a sip and regretted it as it burned the tip of her tongue; the coffee was far too hot.
    “She doesn’t get it. A cold could be fatal.” Brigit had been hospitalized many times because of a cold, or spring pollen, or anything that triggered a severe attack. The asthma wasn’t improving. If anything, the doctors thought Brigit was getting worse. Her lungs were becoming more sensitized and prone to attacks. Six months before, they had warned her there was a strong chance Brigit could die.
    Amanda refused to believe the doctors. So they had started experimenting with new age treatments. Things science couldn’t prove would work. Halotherapy helped for a week, maybe two at a time. The turquoise necklace she’d bought her for her birthday didn’t seem to have made any difference. Nightly oil rubs of cardamom and cedar wood helped her breathe a little easier, but it wouldn’t save her. Brigit needed something stronger, something that would cure her. One of the women in the halotherapy salt room recommended a healer who thought disease was caused by damage to one’s aura. It was a worth a try.
    Eliza bit her lip.
    “Don’t you start,” Amanda warned. Eliza would side with Brigit. It was easy for Eliza to say she was overprotective because she didn’t have kids. She didn’t have a sickly child and no backup for when things went downhill in a couple of trapped breaths.
    “I said nothing.” Eliza filled her own cup. “One day you’ll have to let her grow up.”
    Amanda listened to the banter of the cartoons in the background. She was still so little; she deserved the opportunity to grow up. But if her asthma didn’t improve, or they didn’t find the right medication or a new age cure, even that small dream was under threat.
    “Not yet.” Brigit was all she had.
    She wrapped her hands around the cup, but the heat from the coffee didn’t warm her. Every birthday was a reminder of how many years Matt had been gone. She couldn’t lose Brigit too. Amanda forced a smile and changed the topic. “So when are you going on your honeymoon?”
    “We’re waiting until Steve’s trial is over.”
    “At least the media has cleared off.” They’d been camped on the front lawn for several days after Eliza’s ex-fiancé had been arrested for embezzling funds from the law firm.
    “A footballer’s divorce is much more interesting.”
    “Especially when the wife is caught with the assistant coach.” The scandal was front page news. Football players couldn’t stay out of the headlines for long. Six months before it was drug use and before that drunken, debauched parties.
    “Allegedly.” Eliza waved her finger.
    “You’re still a lawyer at heart.”
    Gunn and Coulter closing was still a sensitive issue. But it was the subject of her new man and marriage that Eliza dodged the most, as if talk of love would upset Amanda, or point out her own lack of romance. Eliza pulled out a box of chocolate chip cookies and offered them to Amanda. Silence spread between them as they drank their coffee.
    She sighed into her coffee cup. Unlike Eliza, she couldn’t drop everything and take a risk on a man she barely knew; she had to think of Brigit too. Amanda wasn’t jealous. She had a lovely daughter—well, she was lovely most of the time—a house, and a job. Everything she needed. She swallowed the