Prolog


Tia’s father grabbed her hand as he laid her bag gently on the ground. She snatched it back, she didn’t want sympathy. In fact she hated it, she was independent even if she did rely on people to help keep her healthy. She had just gotten out of the hospital, she had stayed for two days and one night so they could run some more tests.
“Why don’t you go lay down?” Her father replied gently as they entered the two-story house.
She shot him a glare.
“Daddy I’m fine,” she insisted trying to smile. She was 24 years old and hated being babied.
Tia Lowell had been born with a hole in her heart. She spent a childhood of being rushed in and out of doctor’s offices and hospitals, only to find out that things would never get better, but worse. Later they discovered yet another hole and by the time she was eighteen she had open-heart surgery to fix it. Not until two years later at a routine check up did they discover the hereditary mitro-valve prolapse that clogges the blood, making it too thick to run through the heart as well as all over the body. The condition is one many people live with, accept her. Now another hole in her heart was forming, one that could easily interrupt the prolapse and instantly cut off her bloody supply to the heart. She fainted often, a lot of times body parts fell asleep and sometimes her leg or arm just gave out on her. The blood thinners she’d been taking since the discovery kept her blood from clotting, but the condition was more serious than doctors realized until recently.
She yanked her short sandy hair out of the ponytail holder and put it around her wrist.
“Samson!” She yelled as her German Shepard came charging toward her. She’d missed him a lot.
She always wanted to live by herself, she knew she could, she was independent, reliable, responsible, outgoing, but most of courageous. But her parents feared the worst would happen and she wouldn’t be able to make it to the hospital.
Despite her condition she was a lively young lady. She played sports, had a part time job, helped around the house, walked her dog, went to the gym. She did everything she wanted to as long as she didn’t overdo herself.
“Hey Mama,” she smiled as she kissed her mother’s cheek.
The gray-haired woman stirred the pot of spaghetti and smiled at her with admiring eyes. Tia was the youngest child of a family of five. All had moved out and married long ago.
The phone rang as Tia turned to go answer it.
“Bettcha that’s Donny,” her mother smiled.
Tia rolled her eyes. That was the one thing that she hated more than being sick, Donny Jonesburg. He was the man that her parents wanted her to marry. In fact, she really had no choice, it was almost a given that if she lived past her twenty-fifth birthday she would marry him. Well of course they had set this up years ago before she knew she was sick again. He was gross, and too touchy-feely to her liking. She hated the man and she hated the fact that she had to marry him.
“Now Tia, he’s Don and Maria’s son, you treat your future husband with respect,” her southern accent burned Tia’s ears.
Yeah, but he wasn’t the man she was meant to be with, but was there someone out there that understood what she was going through, that wanted to be with her…that was courageous enough to love her no matter what kind of life she led?


Chapter 1
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