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    Risking Destiny
    Risking Destiny
    Risking Destiny
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Risking Destiny

    By Erin Lee

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    About this ebook

    Gemma

    It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. It was more like I never expected anyone would really make me see it through. I had no idea it would come to this. I mean, what were the odds? One in four hundred and thirty? And only if I got called? That was nothing. I’d never even won with a scratch ticket. Fortunate just wasn’t my gig. Frankly, I did it for the free tote bag and the unlikely—but more likely than this—shot at the $100 raffle prize. I had no idea what I was really signing up for the day I opened my mouth to let them swab at me. Needless to say, here I am. Lucky, lucky me.

    Destiny

    It wasn’t that I didn’t need to go through with it. I mean, what person wants to die before they even turn thirty? I just felt bad about the stranger who’d have to come so far—1,200 miles from my best guess—out of her way to help me. Being helpless just wasn’t my thing. I was the chick who managed to make it to and from chemotherapy treatments for two full rounds before my family even knew what was going on with me. And then, everything changed and the only thing that could save me was marrow from some woman who didn’t even know me. Lucky, lucky her.

    Paul

    It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what was happening with Destiny. I just knew better than to ask too many questions. She was always independent, and a guy like me knows better than to get in a woman’s business; especially when she’s your sister. But when she lost her hair and forty pounds, it would have been strange for me not to step in. I had to ask, even though I already knew the answers. And so, I did what I needed to do to help her fight the battle of her life. Little did I know, that the strange woman from down south who held all the cards for fixing Destiny, could be so complicated.  Silly, silly me.

    ***

    Risking Destiny is the story of Gemma Wade, a woman with a mysterious past and the unique ability to save Destiny’s life. The day the letter arrived from the Bone Marrow Registry was a day that changed everything. Will Gemma give up everything to help a stranger? How desperate will Paul become to ensure she does? Could they, too, be a match? Or, are some things just stacked too far against the odds?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrazy Ink
    Release dateJun 14, 2018
    ISBN9781386844365
    Risking Destiny
    Author

    Erin Lee

    Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

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      Book preview

      Risking Destiny - Erin Lee

      Risking Destiny is the story of Gemma Wade, a woman with a mysterious past and the unique ability to save Destiny’s life. The day the letter arrived from the Bone Marrow Registry was a day that changed everything. Will Gemma give up everything to help a stranger? How desperate will Paul become to ensure she does? Could they, too, be a match? Or, are some things just stacked too far against the odds?

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

      Crazy Ink Publishing

      www.authorerinlee.com

      Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

      RISKING DESTINY/ERIN LEE.—1st ed.

      For anyone who has risked it all for love.

      Also for my match, whose name I’ll never know and life I could not save.

      RIP.

      Acknowledgements

      Special thanks to Nicole Morgan, who first asked me to write this story for the Desperate Measures box set. Always happy to take on a challenge, I enjoyed dipping the pen into the romantic suspense genre once again.

      Thank you to my beta readers and editors along the way, who helped find holes in the story and brought Gemma and Paul to life. Thanks, as always to Mom, my first reader, who picks up on things I’d never spot myself.

      Shout out to Gemma Prince, one of my best supporters whose real name finally made it to my pages. Your kind outlook helps me believe in my own destiny.

      As always, thank you to Kimberly Lee, my PA and left hand in the indie book community. I couldn’t do it without you!

      Thank you to Samantha Talarico, the Thelma to my Louise who is the first to help me brainstorm new ideas and makes the ride interesting. Book world wasn’t the same before I met you!

      Last and most important, thank you to all the members of Erin Lee’s Crazy Inklings, who have voluntarily signed up for this wild ride and manage not to get motion sickness along the way. You are my safe haven in a bumpy indie industry. I’d road trip with you to Jimmie’s Ice Cream Shop any time...

      CHAPTER ONE

      Gemma Wade

      It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. It was more like I never expected anyone would really make me see it through. I had no idea it would come to this. I mean, what were the odds? One in 430? And even then, only if I got called? That was nothing. I’d never even won a scratch ticket. Fortunate just wasn’t my gig. Frankly, I did it for the free tote bag and the unlikely—but more likely than this whole Be the Match thing—shot at the $100 raffle prize. I had no idea what I was really signing up for the day I opened my mouth to let them swab at me. Needless to say, I’m here now all because of a dumb bag I haven’t seen since the day I got it. Lucky, lucky me.

      I CAN’T STOP LOOKING at my watch. At some point, the hands might move. I tell myself if I stare at it long enough either one of two things will happen: Work will be done. Or, I’ll just go blind and be able to leave anyway with that excuse. Whatever gets me away from the chlorine that stings my eyes and that horrible witch I’m supposed to call a boss is good enough for me. Three months of her following me around and training me on how to do it perfectly got old way before the old bag ever learned to pronounce my name right. Is it really that hard? Gem-ma. Apparently, this is hard for her, who twists it on her tongue until it comes out sounding more like Geee-ma or, sometimes, when she says it fast, even Gina.

      I pull a damp, dingy hand towel off my hip slowly. I’ve learned the hard way that if you do it too fast, it’ll tear the apron right off, causing meager tips from the breakfast crew to spill all over the shabby restaurant floor. Like it or not, the crumbs grabby men with pot bellies and balding heads throw at me are pretty much all I’ve got. I can feel Brenda’s eyes on me as I reach over a sticky table and go, first, for the ketchup spot. I’ve never understood parents who let their children eat like animals. If I ever had kid, which I won’t, because I could never handle it, I’d like to think I’d at least have some measure of control. But who am I to judge? Brenda and her husband, Bob, who owns the place, have made it more than clear that I’m merely a part-time waitress and they don’t really need me here. No, they are doing me a favor.

      I’m lucky, they say. I hear it at least a dozen times a shift. Today, it was nineteen times with a little we don’t have to keep you here for extra flavor. Today, my ‘blessings’ included a light breakfast crowd, that today, pancakes weren’t on the specials because syrup is sticky, and that the dish boy actually showed up. That part, they are one hundred percent right about. If Brenda only knew what it took to get Miles out of bed this morning, or that we even shared a bed this morning, I’d be fired on the spot. I can’t see her taking well to her precious son sleeping with the part-time girl with no attention to detail all that well. If they only knew...

      I laugh, remembering how Miles asked, just last night when I invited him over to the tiny trailer I share with my old college roommate, if I wanted to get lucky. The expression on Brenda’s face—all scrunched up and prune-like just like when she thinks I’m standing around too much and not staying busy—would make Miles never showing up again entirely worth it. It’s not like I can’t handle the dish machines too. I’ve been working in kitchens since as long as I can remember, and even then, hanging out in them as a kid watching Momma.

      I REFUSE TO LOOK AT the paperwork on the

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