Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (38 page)

Life has taught Miska Tomlinson that there are no honorable men. Her womanizing brothers, her absentee father, and Mark, the married baseball player who claims to love her—all have proven undependable. But Miska has life under control. She runs her editing business from her luxury condo, stays fit with daily jogs along Chicago's lakefront, and in her free time blogs anonymously about life as a kept woman.

Enter new neighbor Dillan Foster. Between his unexpected friendship and her father’s sudden reappearance, Miska loses control of her orderly life. Her relationship with Mark deteriorates, and Miska can’t help comparing him to Dillan. His religious views are so foreign, yet the way he treats her is something she’s longed for. But Dillan discovers exactly who she is and what she has done. Too late she finds herself longing for a man who is determined to never look her way again.

When her blog receives unexpected national press, Miska realizes that her anonymity was an illusion. Caught in a scandal about to break across the nation, Miska wonders if the God Dillan talks about would bother with a woman like her—a woman who’s gone too far and done too much.

“Filled with relevant issues that are handled with delicate poignancy,
Kept
is a refreshing change to the normal Christian fare. I urge every woman to read this book… One of the most surprising and best books I’ve read this year.” —MaryLu Tyndall, best-selling author of Legacy of the King’s Pirates series

“Gutsy and fast-paced,
Kept
sweeps the reader in and doesn’t let go until the final, riveting page. With keen insight into human nature and the tangled relationships of our times, author and pastor’s wife Sally Bradley explores romance against the backdrop of God’s infinite, redeeming grace.” —Laura Frantz, author of
Love’s Reckoning

Taken
, a Kept novella

Cam Winters is known as the guy who always dates the new women at church—and then ends the relationship quickly. He’s never talked about his past, about his life before he became a Christian, but Jordan Foster has learned to look past the unknown part of him. To her, he's a strong, caring man—a man she can see herself with.

He’s also a man who refuses to ask her out for fear of what her brother, one of his closest friends, might say.

So Jordan takes things into her own hands.

When Cam admits to sharing her feelings, the two quickly fall in love—just as that past that Cam won’t talk about returns for him and those he loves… a group which now includes Jordan.

This is a book that’s been a long time coming. Back in the last century—millennium?—I wrote my first contemporary adult fiction scene, the one where Mike autographs Terrell’s baseball.

Meg and Mike are special to me because they spent a lot of time with me while I had two kids, figured out sleeping schedules (only to see it change the next week, right?), and endured the joys of teething and potty training. But even after the book was done, for the fifteenth time, and an agent had shopped it, no publisher gave my two favorite characters a home.

So getting back to this book all these years later, going over Mike and Meg’s journey, updating and revising and making things just a little harder for them has been very, very sweet. Thank you, my reader friends, for welcoming these two into your world.

Two women were huge in the development of this book. Kerri Knox, Christian fiction reader extraordinaire, was as patient as any reader friend could be. Kerri, I think you read this thing about five or six times, right? You saw a number of variations on the story, and your feedback helped me get this book to where it is today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Life has moved us away from each other, but I’m so grateful for all of your support, encouragement, and honesty.

Elizabeth Kramer became a friend while I was writing this and finally read it based on something Kerri said. But what Elizabeth got from reading it was all the “murder and mayhem” this seemingly quiet, normal, redheaded pastor’s wife was writing. She gave me grief about that—and always in public! I’m sure you did it just to make me look tougher, right, Elizabeth? Thank you for sharing your medical knowledge as I worked to injure Mike in the right way. You’ve given me lots of feedback on medical situations in other projects, and I’m pretty certain there’s more in our future. Thank you so much for your friendship outside of my writing.

I have to give a big thanks to Christina Tarabochia for her mad editing skills. One of the risks of editing for an indie author is that the author has the final say—because the author
is
the publisher. So any mistakes in the book belong to me alone. Christina, you’re such a joy to work with, even though our conversations have just been via email so far. I always look forward to hearing your thoughts on the story, particularly your little side comments as you discover what happens. Those are, hands down, my favorite. Even above all those fun comma and paragraph break discussions. Thank you for all you’ve done to help my books look more professional.

This book caught me at a very hectic stage of life. I’m thankful for my husband and kids who put up with my getting lost in a book—it was the deadline’s fault, honest—and love me enough to listen to my updates and even bravely ask on their own how the book is going. Steve, Ty, Alison, Luke—you guys are everything to me.

One more thing—this book debuted in the Whispers of Love box set along with eleven other authors. And we were blessed to see that set end up at #79 on the
USA Today
bestseller list! Much thanks goes out to Kimberly Rae Jordan, Leah Atwood, Valerie Comer, Christina Coryell, JoAnn Durgin, Autumn Macarthur, Lesley Ann McDaniel, Carol Moncado, Staci Stallings, Jan Thompson (our fearless leader) and Marion Ueckermann. Ladies, I learned a lot from you!

Lastly, thank you, God, for keeping this book on my computer and off the bookshelves so many years ago. The time gave me a chance to grow as a writer and create a stronger story than I ever could have then. And to see this book that filled so many years of my life now find readers and great success… well, I couldn’t have even dreamed of that way back then. Thank you.

Sally Bradley has been a fiction lover for as long as she can remember—and has been fascinated by all things Chicago (except for the crime, politics, and traffic) for almost as long. A Chicagoan since age five, she now lives in the Kansas City area with her pastor/cop husband and their three children, but she and her family get back to Chicago when they can for good pizza and a White Sox game. A freelance editor and former president of her local writing chapter, Sally has won a handful of awards for her first book,
Kept,
and another, soon-to-be-released
Shelf Life
. Visit her online at
sallybradley.com
.