Sunset Over Misty Lake Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Thank You

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Review Request

  Misty Lake Books

  Author Bio

  Sunset Over Misty Lake

  Margaret Standafer

  SUNSET OVER MISTY LAKE

  By Margaret Standafer

  Copyright © 2019 by Margaret Standafer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright holder except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-13: 978-1986381468

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Special Note:

  If you happen to be related to me, and if your name happens to be Dave, and if you think some things seem a bit familiar, remember…you get what you ask for, even if you ask when we’re at a Mexican restaurant and there’s tequila involved.

  But really, assuming I based anything I wrote on anyone I know, rest assured, only the good parts came from that person. The rest, well, see above.

  FOR YOU

  For all of you who have read my books, who have taken the time to email me, to leave a review, to recommend my books to friends, I thank you. If you’ve laughed, if you’ve shed a tear, if you’ve been sure you knew what was going to happen only to be surprised, if you’ve turned the last page and felt as though you’re saying goodbye to friends, I’ve done my job. Thank you for letting me work at a job I love.

  A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU TO:

  My dad, for the title, Sunset Over Misty Lake. It’s the perfect title to end the series.

  Phil, for the ideas, the encouragement, and, of course, the formatting help.

  Rock star cover designer, Kristin. You amaze me time and again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “HANG IN THERE, baby, you’re almost there.”

  “Hang in there? Like I have a choice?”

  Karen barked the words. Joe didn’t deserve it, but she couldn’t help herself. It hurt. It hurt so much. Somehow, she’d convinced herself it wouldn’t be as bad this time, that after having done it once, the second time would be easier.

  She’d been a fool.

  “You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I can’t do this. Make them give me something. Anything.”

  “Oh, honey, it’s too late. The doctor told you that, remember? We’re almost there. Just a little longer.”

  She knew, but she needed to ask. She needed something to take away the pain. Deep down, though, she knew nothing the doctor gave her could take away the real pain. The real fear.

  She looked at Joe. He was as scared as she was, but for such different reasons. His eyes darted from her to the doctor to the various buzzing and whirring machines they’d hooked to her. She knew he’d gladly take the pain for her given the chance. She loved him so much, and that hurt more than any of it.

  “You should go. This is going to get ugly. Ow!” She writhed with the contraction that wanted to turn her inside out.

  “Go? I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here beside you. Is there anything I can do?”

  He was desperate to help. The emotional pain on his face was real, as real as her physical pain. She’d never meant to hurt him, had never wanted to do anything that could hurt him.

  “No, there’s nothing you can do.” Karen twisted again as the pain shot from her belly to every nerve ending in her body. “Wait outside. Let me get through this. You can come back when it’s over.”

  “When it’s over? But I want to be here. Why would I leave? I love you. I love our family. We’re doing this together.”

  “You’re not doing anything except bugging me,” Karen snapped. Maybe if she hurt him enough, he’d leave. She simply didn’t see how she’d get through it with him in the room.

  “I’m sorry, baby, I know. I’m sorry. Should I stand by the window for now? Give you some space?”

  “Leave, Joe, just leave. Please.”

  “But we did the classes, we read the books, we—”

  “Ahhhh!”

  Joe wiped a cloth on her forehead. She wanted to bat it away but couldn’t move.

  “Go,” she rasped.

  “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere,” the doctor said. “Are you ready, Karen? I want you to sit up. When the next contraction comes, I want you to push.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You’ve done this before. You know you can do it. Breathe.”

  “I can’t, Annie, I can’t.” Karen panted and swung her knees side to side searching in vain for relief.

  “Come on, sit up. Joe, help her up.”

  “No.” Karen held her breath against the pain, forgetting to breathe and forgetting everything else she’d ever heard, seen, or read. At that moment, nothing mattered but the searing, ripping agony that was surely going to be the death of her.

  Annie leaned close. “Karen, look at me. You’re going to sit up and you’re going to deliver this baby. You are one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. I know it hurts like the devil now, but we both know that in just a short time, you’ll forget all about it. Think about Dylan. Think about how much that hurt, how you thought you wouldn’t make it, but then think about how you felt when I put him in your arms. Do it again. It’s time.”

  Karen managed a weak nod.

  A pain worse than anything she could have imagined, certainly worse than anything she remembered, ripped through her. She heard screaming but wasn’t sure where it came from. Time stood still as she strained and blinked through blinding tears.

  “Almost there, you’re doing great,” Annie encouraged.

  Karen sucked in deep gulps of air during a momentary break in the pain. She let her head drop back and stared at the ceiling. “Please, God, please,” she whispered.

  “Now, Karen, push. One more big push.”

  Karen’s vision narrowed to a tiny pinprick of light. She grabbed the bed rails to stop the room from spinning. Her teeth ground together as she pushed with every bit of strength she had left until she fell back, dizzy and unable to move.

  From somewhere far away Karen heard Annie’s voice. “And here he is!”

  Karen clawed at the sheet trying to pull herself up. She had to see the baby, had to see him before J
oe did.

  “Let me see! Where is he?”

  Joe stroked a gentle hand over her hair. “Relax, baby, you did it. You were amazing. Give the nurses a minute.”

  The room, packed with people, bustled from one corner to the other. Had they been there all along? She had no idea. There were whispers and shuffles as equipment was passed from one hand to the next. Someone was poking and prodding at her, but she ignored it.

  “Where is he? Where’s my baby?”

  She was nearly frantic now, her sweaty hands slipping on the metal bed rail as she pulled, trying to sit up enough to find him. She had to see him. Had to make sure.

  “Karen.”

  A stern voice got her attention. Annie’s face was inches from hers.

  “I need you to calm down. The baby is fine. He’s small, we expected that, so there are a few extra precautions. You’ll be able to hold him soon. Right now, I need you to lie back and rest. You only have a few minutes until we do it all again.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWO WEEKS SEEMED far too soon to be sending the twins home, but Joe wasn’t about to say so. He’d learned to tread lightly. Since the delivery, Karen had been strangely withdrawn, barely speaking to him about the necessary day-to-day things, and certainly not about anything as critical as whether they were at all prepared for what awaited them once the babies were home. Whether she agreed with the pediatrician’s decision remained a mystery.

  At least the house was ready. At Karen’s insistence, they hadn’t told a soul they were expecting twins. That meant when he wasn’t at the hospital, at work, or tending to Dylan, he’d been frantically assembling a second crib, installing a second car seat, and doubling up on diapers, wipes, swaddling blankets, onesies, and sleepers. One set in pink.

  A daughter. It still floored him. Karen had agreed to just one ultrasound during the pregnancy, and while the technician had told them his best guess was a boy and a girl, Joe had repeatedly told himself that it wasn’t a certainty. He had convinced himself they’d have twin boys. Not because that was his wish, more so because he was afraid to let himself believe he’d have a daughter. When the second one had been born and Annie had announced, ‘It’s a girl,’ he’d let fly with a whoop that had startled everyone in the delivery room.

  Now, though, the reality of bringing home sweet, beautiful, tiny Julia and her equally sweet, beautiful, and only slightly less tiny brother, Evan, was daunting.

  There were days when he felt they barely hung on managing their careers, the house, and one child. But three? He rued the sleepless nights of the past two weeks. All the while he’d stared at the ceiling, sleep a far-off, unattainable fantasy, and fretted what was to come, he’d known he should be relishing the chance to sleep, uninterrupted, while he could. Knowing hadn’t meant he managed it.

  Joe glanced at the clock on the wall of the immaculate kitchen. Time to go. Karen had spent another night at the hospital, the staff pulling strings and making it possible for one of their own to be there as often as she wanted. Joe had spent the night vacuuming, dusting, and scrubbing every surface, every nook, and every cranny of their house. The house was ready. He prayed he was.

  With a deep breath, he turned and hoisted Dylan from his high chair.

  “Ready to go get Mommy and the babies?”

  “Mommy! Baby!” Dylan shouted as he bounced in Joe’s arms.

  “Oh, kiddo, you have no idea what’s headed your way.”

  Two hours later, Joe steered Dylan back into the house as he juggled two car seats and an overstuffed diaper bag. Karen walked alongside, nervously tapping the stack of hospital discharge papers and the seemingly endless supply of information on preemie care she carried, her eyes flitting from baby to baby to Dylan and back again.

  “Here we are. Evan, Julia, welcome home,” Joe said as they crossed the threshold and the entire family was, for the first time, together in their home.

  As if on cue, Evan started to wail. Not wanting to be left out, his sister joined him. Dylan, shocked into a wide-eyed silence, stared at his new siblings. But only for a moment. Then he, too, started screaming.

  Joe was afraid to look at Karen, afraid she’d dissolve into a puddle of tears, but she just laughed and shrugged.

  “Welcome to our life. Which one, or ones, do you want?”

  Joe’s relief was palpable. “Help me get these two in my arms—I still haven’t quite mastered picking up one when I’m already holding one—then take Dylan. He needs some mommy time.”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes bored into him with an intensity that was almost frightening. “I love you. Please remember that.”

  It was two a.m. when they sat at the foot of their bed, then both fell back to stare at the ceiling. Five minutes passed before either spoke.

  “I guess we did it,” Joe mumbled. His head felt as if it were floating somewhere above his body, a dizzyingly bizarre feeling he hoped he could attribute to exhaustion and not the brain tumor that had seemed more and more likely over the past few hours.

  “I guess,” Karen said. “You did well today, Joe. I was worried you’d have a hard time with all the crying, all the chaos.”

  “So was I.”

  Joe reached over and took her hand. When she didn’t pull it away, a sense of relief washed over him. He turned to look at his wife and studied her tired eyes, more grey than blue when she was exhausted, noted her blonde hair, usually bouncing on her shoulders, piled up in a knot on top of her head. She wore black yoga pants and a faded, oversized t-shirt celebrating the Misty Lake Marauders football team’s district championship of a few years ago. More than once during the day when she’d caught a glimpse of herself, she’d groaned and commented on how horrible she looked. To him, she’d never looked more beautiful.

  “You were so calm, it kept me calm.”

  “You know it’s not going to last, this quiet. One of them is going to wake up, probably any minute.”

  Joe fought the panic. “Why don’t they sleep? Shouldn’t they sleep more? Don’t babies sleep all the time? Dylan slept more than this, didn’t he?”

  Karen sighed. “They’re little, Joe, littler than Dylan ever was. They need to eat more often. And they’re adjusting to their home.” She spoke evenly, reasonably, but then paused and her voice changed, quickening and rising. “Putting them in the same crib was the right thing to do. I should have thought of that, should have known. Why didn’t I know? I’m their mother, I’m a nurse, I should have known that. Common sense, really. They were together in the hospital whenever possible…heck, they spent over eight months wrapped around one another inside of me. I should have known.”

  The tears started; giant, silent tears that rolled down her cheeks in rivers and within seconds, dampened the comforter behind her head.

  Joe shifted and leaned over her, alarms clanging like gongs in his head. He fought to keep his voice easy. “Karen, please don’t cry. It was such a little thing. A little thing I just happened to suggest before you could.”

  She didn’t answer, instead turned away from him and swiped at her eyes.

  “You’re tired, that’s all. Scoot up and let me tuck you in. If someone cries, I’ll deal with it.”

  “You can’t feed them.”

  “No, but I can fetch the ravenous little monsters and you can stay in bed.”

  He’d hoped it would make her smile, hoped it would at least stem the flood of tears, but Karen didn’t so much as react. Before he could say more, the monitor crackled with the first hungry wails.

  He knew his eyes were bloodshot. He knew he was pale. He didn’t know if he’d lost weight—as if he’d had time to step on a scale—but guessed he had since eating with any regularity had been one of the first things to go. Still, Jake didn’t have to look quite so horrified.

  “Man, I’m glad we had only one.”

  “Thanks for the support. It means a lot.”

  “Sorry, it’s just, I mean you’re…” Jake shook his head. “How’re you doing?”

 
Joe sighed. “Let’s see. I’m exhausted. About a hundred times a day I’m convinced I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel guilty for heading back to work and leaving Karen alone. Oh, and the morning has been brutal. I think I forgot how to teach anyone over the age of two.”

  “Sam’s going over to your place around one. She had a load of food in the fridge I was told to keep my hands off, so I have to assume it’s for you guys. I hear Mom and Dad have Dylan for the day. It should all help.”

  “It will. Thank Sam for me. She was a big help when she stopped by last week. Still, I feel like it’s too soon for me to be heading back to work, like I should be there.”

  “You were there for two weeks after the twins came home. In just over a month you’ll be off for the summer. Karen understands that.”

  “I know.”

  Joe did know, but it didn’t go far toward easing his guilt. Or his unease. Karen was different, had been for months, and he feared it went deeper than the stress of the pregnancy and having newborn twins. They hardly talked; they rarely touched. Mostly, they existed side by side with some sort of force between them. A force he didn’t know how to begin to break down.

  He’d told himself it would get better after the babies came, that she was consumed with the additional risks and worries of being pregnant with twins, but things hadn’t gotten any better. They’d gotten worse. Things they should be figuring out and handling together were left to one or the other to struggle through individually. In all their years together, Joe had never felt more alone.

  “Hey! Earth to Joe.”

  “What?”

  Jake grinned as he snapped his fingers in Joe’s face, but Joe spotted the concern in his brother’s eyes.

  “That was the bell. It may have been a while since I’ve walked these halls, but I think that still means lunch is over and class is starting. Don’t you need to get moving?”

  Joe rubbed his eyes. “I do.” He stood and held out his hand to Jake. “Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for taking time to give your annual prom safety talk. The kids may act like they’re not listening, but they are.”