From Ashes

“Sweetheart, you’ll have my mom, Amanda, Nikki, Emily, Aria, Jackie, and Dana here. I’m sure one of them is bound to check on the food if you’re not in there. I just need a few more minutes with you,” I whispered, and reached into my nightstand and dug around in the back ’til my hand hit the velvet box. Bringing it up around her, I set it on her belly and kissed her neck. “Merry Christmas, darlin’.”

“Oh, honey,” she whispered, and covered her mouth when she opened it. It was a set of three white-gold bands soldered together, each with a large birthstone on it, the birthstones going in a diagonal. The top had a ruby between Asher and July 15, 2013; the middle had an amethyst between Jax and Feb. 1, 2015; the bottom had a garnet and was blank on each side.

“As soon as Emma’s born, I’ll get the bottom engraved.” I wasn’t worried about Emma going into February; if she didn’t come early, Cassidy and her doctor had already decided she would be induced January twentieth. If she came sometime in the next week, which I doubted, then I’d just get the gem changed. “I know this is more of a Mother’s Day gift, but I bought it for this last Mother’s Day, and we found out about Emma right before I could give it to you. So I took it back and had them add on another ring when we found out the due date, and I’m not about to wait another seven months to give it to you.”

“Thank you so much, Gage.” She turned her head and cupped her hand around the back of mine to kiss me thoroughly.

When she turned back and took the ring from the box to put on her finger, I fingered the necklace under my pillow and draped it onto her chest, co

Her hand flew up to the long necklace and she brought the pendant up to study it. It was a white-gold phoenix, with a diamond on each wing and yellow gold coming from the bottom of its tail. I’d seen it in passing one day and bought it immediately. Cassidy had learned from her mom and Co

I’d thought I was going to lose her from the scorpion sting, but it’d given us Asher. She’d gone through a rough pregnancy, and God had taken Jax from us momentarily and almost taken Cassidy, just to bring them back, and now Jax was a happy, healthy, and amazing kid. And it was hard knowing she wouldn’t have more kids, but it made the surprise of Emma that much sweeter. The phoenix was everywhere in our lives now. From Asher’s name and Cassidy’s second horse, which she’d named Phoenix, to the only tattoo I’ve gotten or would ever get: the same one she had on her back. It was our symbol, and her mother’s words were now our motto. During hard times, we whispered them to each other to remind ourselves that we would get through whatever was happening and would come out stronger, and when God blessed us with gifts, it was said as a prayer.

Her hand closed tightly around the pendant and she looked up at me; her wide honey eyes were filled with tears. “From ashes?” she asked with my soft smile.

“From ashes,” I confirmed.

Acknowledgments

A big thank-you to my husband for always supporting me and helping me around the house more than I could begin to explain. I love you, Cory!

More thanks to my Beta readers: Amanda, Nikki, Robin, and Teresa! Y’all are amazing and helped give me so much confidence in my writing. I am so lucky to have women like you supporting me and giving me honest feedback about my work!

Thank you to Tessa, my editor; I love working with you and honestly have no idea how I ever did a book without you! And to Kevan, my agent, you have been more than amazing, and I love that both of you are just as excited about this book as I am!

About the Author

MOLLY McADAMS grew up in California but now lives in the oh-so-amazing state of Texas with her husband and furry daughter. Her hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, traveling, and taking long walks on the beach—which roughly translates to being a homebody with her hubby and dishing out movie quotes. When she’s not at work, she can be found hiding out in her bedroom surrounded by her laptop, cell phone, and Kindle, and fighting over the TV remote. She has a weakness for crude-humored movies and fried pickles, and she loves curling up in a fluffy comforter during a thunderstorm . . . or under one in a bathtub if there are tornados. That way she can pretend they aren’t really happening.

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Also by Molly McAdams

Taking Chances

From Ashes

Credits

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FROM ASHES. Copyright © 2012 by Molly Jester. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition December 2012 ISBN 9780062267719