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    Love Under Water
    Love Under Water
    Love Under Water
    Ebook68 pages1 hour

    Love Under Water

    By Wendy Dalrymple

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    About this ebook

    Kiera’s dream has always been to become a mermaid and perform on the underwater stage at Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida, but life on land isn’t so easy. Instead of hanging out with friends, Kiera spends her teenage years caring for a sick mother and three little brothers all on her own, leaving her hopes and dreams on the backburner. Then one day, a stranger shows up in her kitchen and opens up a world of possibility, bringing her underwater aspirations a little bit closer. Things seem to be going along swimmingly until Kiera butts heads with Liam, the scuba assistant and a former schoolmate, during mermaid tryouts. Kiera soon learns that Liam isn’t all that he seems, and that swimming to the top means she’ll have to dive deep within. But can she push past emotions that threaten to bubble to the surface, and keep a cool head without closing off her heart for good?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateJul 23, 2020
    ISBN9781094412634
    Author

    Wendy Dalrymple

    Wendy Dalrymple crafts highly consumable, short and sweet romances inspired by everyday people. When she’s not writing happily-ever-afters, you can find her camping with her family, painting (bad) wall art, and trying to grow as many pineapples as possible. Keep up with Wendy at www.wendydalrymple.com!

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    Book preview

    Love Under Water - Wendy Dalrymple

    Chapter One: Deep Dive

    Kiera McCready always wanted to be a mermaid.

    Growing up in Homosassa, FL, there were few exciting options for a girl like Kiera when it came to thinking about the future. She was told by her teachers that she could do anything if she just put her mind to it. She could be a pilot, or a doctor or even the president, if she only tried. But her teachers didn’t know about her mom. Or her brothers. Or where she lived.

    It was a fifth grade field trip to Weeki Wachee Springs that gave Kiera and most of the other girls in her class mermaid fever. The famous roadside attraction and park featured aquatic performers that were the most glamorous women she had ever seen. With their sparkling tails and waterproof makeup, they seemed confident and free gliding through their spring-fed underwater stage. Kiera refused to have her hair cut after that field trip, aspiring to have the same long, kinky, sun-streaked tresses that Daryl Hannah had sported in Splash. Her mother lovingly wove her hair into tiny braids that summer, and even took her back to Weeki Wachee multiple times to see the mermaids perform, setting in motion a lifelong aquatic obsession.

    Kiera soon learned that dreams can only take you so far. After having her mother’s full attention for over a decade, three little brothers came along in quick succession to round out their family. First came Jarrod when she was twelve, followed a year later by Jackson. By the time she was fifteen, baby James had been born. Though their resources were more strained than ever, Kiera loved her little brothers fiercely, as if they were her own.

    Like too many of her classmates, she dropped out by the end of her junior year and signed up for homeschooling. However, Kiera didn’t leave school because she was pregnant or would rather spend the day getting high at the mall; her mother had become ill and unable to cope with three small boys with no extended family nearby to help. Kiera had never met her own father, and her mother’s other boyfriends never seemed to stick around either, so it was up to her to be the default parent. A teenage adult.

    Families like Kiera’s had a way of being invisible. Her mother was especially good at staying under the radar and keeping others out of their family bubble, and had been doing so since Kiera had been born. Checks came in the mail and bills still got paid if you knew how to sign a name and work a computer. Bills could be avoided altogether if you just moved around enough. By the time Kiera was seventeen she was already a pro at dodging questions from well-meaning adults and snoopy neighbors. She made sure her brothers were always clean, well-kept and wore nice clothes. No one paid too much attention as long as everything looked alright from the outside.

    Things took a turn for the worse when her mother started to complain about headaches. The headaches turned into blurred vision, then regular seizures. Kiera watched helplessly as her mother, her best friend— slowed down, became forgetful, and eventually, stopped getting out of bed. Her brain cancer diagnosis was certain and swift.

    A month after Kiera’s eighteenth birthday, she legally adopted her brothers and became her mother’s guardian. For most other new adults, this would seem impossible, but Kiera had already grown up, and fast. She was resourceful. The family lived in a cramped two-room duplex off US-19, not far from the Winn-Dixie, and next to the Twisty Treat. Kiera slept on a futon in the living room, her mother lived in her medical bed in the master and the boys shared the other bedroom.

    Taking charge of her family had more than a few drawbacks for Kiera. One by one, her closest friends dropped away after she acquired her heavy load of responsibilities. Boyfriends weren’t even a consideration … even if she’d had time for one, who would want a girlfriend with three children and a sick mom to take care of? Every once in a while, Kiera felt resentment bubbling to the surface as she made macaroni and cheese or changed her mother’s bed pan for the millionth time, but she knew she could never abandon her family. They were all each other had.

    Section Break

    Even though things were bleak and lonely at times, Kiera’s love for her family kept her going. It crushed her to see her once vibrant mother unable to be fun and active for her siblings like she used to be. They would never get to know their mom in the same way she did.

    During the summer, occasionally a neighbor would sit with their mother long enough for Kiera to take the boys to the nearby community pool. She was determined to teach them how to swim, something her own mother had been adamant about doing with Kiera when she

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