Tainted Love: contemporary womens fiction love story and family saga (Behind Closed Doors Book 1) by Erin Cawood Read Free Book Online Page A

least waited to tell me to my face? Tell me at home?” His voice had gone up an octave and his breathing was heavier. “How could you do this to me? When did you find time to have an affair? No, not one affair, but two,” he shrieked.
    “Cal, we don’t have a window cleaner or a milkman.” I sighed, trying not to laugh. “You weren’t listening. I’m so bored! It’s only eleven o’clock.”
    “I very nearly came home and locked you up for safe keeping, you know that, right?” I laughed. He wasn’t serious about that, but at least I knew how he felt about the idea of me running off with another man. “So… you’re not the very first mom to stay at home, do what the other moms do,” Cal said.
    “I don’t know what they do. I guess they have hobbies, maybe. They go shopping, or play squash, or tend to the roses.”
    “There you go. Stop fantasizing about milkmen and window cleaners, because I’m not into role playing. Take up knitting or something.”
    Knitting’s not that easy. I tried to learn once before and squash is a lethal game! I ended up with a black eye and Cal wouldn’t let me play again, so I had to try something else. He started getting fussy over the money I was spending, so I curtailed my shopping habits pretty quickly.
    I suggested that maybe I could go back into nursing, but he didn’t like the idea I wouldn’t be at home for the children if anything happened. He used the same excuse for any other part time jobs I suggested. The practice was doing well. Cal was in talks with the other psychiatrists and opening a second McKenzie Medical Center. The reasons he had before when I was going back to work no longer applied. He wanted me to stay at home and take care of our children.
    So I was still at a loss as to what to do when I found Mom’s old gardening books in the study. I’d run out of things to read, and yes, I was so bored I’d read just about everything, but they were fascinating. Mom made handwritten notes where she’d learned something new. I leafed through the book and saw sketches and plans she’d drawn up. The entire corner plot was all Mom’s work. I felt terrible we’d neglected it for so many years. So I studied the plans and the books and set about restoring Mom’s garden.
    I was in the garden the day Georgia fell in her roller skates and I saw the whole thing. I knew the moment she went down that her arm was broken. The noise she made pierced through every cell within my skin. At eight years old, she hadn’t cried like that in years. But she sobbed and she sobbed for Cal. I tried to comfort her. At fourteen, you tried your best to make her laugh, too. But when that didn’t work you took it on yourself to take care of Caleb, who was heartbroken that Georgia was hurt and we had to take her to the hospital to have an x-ray. I thought her arm might be broken.
    “But Daddy is a doctor,” she sniffled. “He can fix my arm.”
    “Dad isn’t that kind of doctor, Georgia.” I smiled. “He fixes peoples’ minds.”
    “You’re not a doctor.” She started crying again. “You don’t know anything.”
    “I was a nurse before I met Dad.” Georgia looked at me with suspicion. “We met at the hospital. Baby girl, I’m telling you. You need to have your arm x-rayed.”
    I called Cal before we left the house. He was at the emergency room before we were. The second we saw him, Georgia started to sob again. He swept her into his arms. “Why weren’t you watching her?”
    “I — I was…”
    “Was too busy pruning roses.”
    “No, I told her to be —”
    “Take the boys home, Faith. This is an ER.” You know, I could have left Caleb with you that night, but nothing like this had ever happened to us. I was barely keeping it together for Georgia’s sake. So I knew exactly where Cal’s mind was at that moment. “It’s not a day care.”
    Of course, he apologized after he’d put her to bed, said he’d freaked out, that seeing her so upset had only made