The Life Gift (Last Heartbeat Series #2)

By T R Lykins

**** This is a companion novel to Last Heartbeat ****

Kristen believed her parents were truly happy and wanted a marriage like theirs. She really didn’t know anything about their relationship until she was leaving for college. That’s when they dropped a heartbreaking bombshell on her.

They only stayed together to make her happy. Now, she thinks she is the reason for their unhappiness, can she trust love?

Does love even last anymore?

Her new college roommate, Alexia, changes her mind about love. Seeing how fast Alexia falls for her dreamy guy Phillip, and how fast that dreamy guy falls for Alexia, she then realizes that maybe love could happen in her life!

Now, Kristen has to change her ways and open her heart up for love. Can Kristen do that after watching her parents live a lie for so many years? Hoping she can find her true love and not get hurt, Kristen thinks she can find him out there somewhere, but where?

One tragic moment happens to her friend and it makes her realize that life could end in a blink of an eye. Kristen makes a life decision that affects her and her friends.

Can she go through it?

This gift is the greatest gift she can give to her best friend, Alexia. Nine months of her life is a long time to give up for your friend.
Will this sacrifice be truly appreciated and will Alexia be able to take care of her precious gift?

• Language: English
• Publisher: T R Lykins
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311181671

T R Lykins

Tina Stewart formerly writing as T R Lykins is an author who enjoys writing her unique stories to share for readers all over the world. When she isn't writing, her husband and sons keep her on her toes. She loves reading and loves most genres. The love of these books spiked her interest to learn more about the book world and the process it took to become an author. Learning as much as she could about the wonderful world of writing, she had to write her stories. The learning process has also made her appreciate, what all these authors have accomplished and all the hard work they put in. Her novels are Clean New Adult/Young Adult Romance. Why did she write a clean romance novel? She wanted to share her stories with everyone and focus more on the storyline. As a mother, she needed to know what that her children would be proud of and not be afraid to let them read and be apart of her journey as an author. Now she is proud that she can share her stories with anyone at any age group. Adults and teenagers alike can read her stories and be proud to have kept it clean for everyone to read. Thank you for being apart of her world and taking a chance on reading her stories. You can follow Tina Stewart formerly T R Lykins progress on her website: http://authortrlykins.com. This also has many different links to all her social media pages to help find out what is coming up next with her future books.

Book preview

The Life Gift

T. R. Lykins

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 T.R. Lykins

Editor: Karen Mills-Tribble

Cover Design by Juliana Cabrera @ Jersey Girl Graphics

eBook layout and design by Marcy Rachel of Backstrip Publishing

Cover Photographer: Donna Dailey Hunter

Cover Model: Shawna Hunter

License Notes:

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, establishments, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously to give a sense of authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is also available in print at most online retailers.

Dedication

Prologue

One: Five Years Earlier

Two: The Proposal

Three: Wedding Plans

Four: Wedding

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Epilogue: Five Years Later

Acknowledgements

To all the mothers in this world for all of the hard work that you do.

Each mother is special in every way.

Love my mother!

Why in the world, did I say that I would put my body through this torture? I must have been insane, when I even asked to do this. Who in their right mind, would go through this pain, and not keep what I am about to giveaway. My husband, at first, didn’t want me to do it, but when I told him why I wanted to do this and showed him my research for it, he finally agreed. I know what I am doing is giving a life gift to my friends, who wouldn’t be able to have this precious gift. That is what has gotten me through this pain I am enduring right now. The pain is getting worse and hopefully it will be over soon!

The doctor comes in and checks me out to see how far I am coming along. He tells me it shouldn’t be long now. That I am doing great. Yeah! I just might have to kill him before this pain stops! The nurses keep taking my vitals and making sure I am comfortable. How can I be comfortable while feeling like, I am about to explode?

Oh no! Here comes another one and I believe it will soon be over now. I yell at the nurses and they hurry over to me. They check me and say, yes, it is time to start pushing. The nurses tell me to wait until the doctor gets back before I do push. What! How can I wait? It is coming now! I have no control over it so, I yell. Everyone rushes to my side and the doctor comes running in the door.

Right behind him comes in the reason I am here today, doing this. She makes me calm as soon as I see her. She comes over and holds my hand then smiles down at me. I know I can do this now with her beside me. Yes, she is the reason I want to give this life gift to her. She has showed me what love is all about so I am sacrificing my time and body for her. She would do the same for me if she could, because that is what best friends do. Giving her this life gift she deserves. Now I must bear this pain just for a little longer and I can do this. Maybe!!!

It happened just as fast to me, as these two people who are getting married today. They fell in love when they first met. When I saw how much they loved each other, I decided to change my ways. I knew, I wanted someone to love me the way my best friend was loved and I deserved to be loved that way too. I use to go out with random guys and would hook up with them. Now, I know how wrong I was to do that. Hooking up with all those guys made me feel bad about myself afterwards. No one knew this, because I always kept it to myself and never told anyone. When I saw the love and dedication between Alexia and Phillip, I knew, I had to quit putting myself through that pain. I deserved to be happy and no longer torture myself with one-night stands.

As I stand here today, as Alexia’s maid-of-honor, I am happy to have helped these two find one another again. They have been through so much in the past and deserve happiness. The day I jumped on Phillip for seeing Megan; then finding out he wasn’t because he still loved Alexia, I never knew my life would change too, on that day. I am here to celebrate my friend’s incredibly happy day, but as I look over to Jacob, I catch myself smiling at him and losing my breath when he smiles back at me. Yeah! I need to stop myself from looking at him and try not passing out for not breathing; I must focus on the now and what is going on here today.

I must stop myself before everyone notices how crazy I am. Yes. Jacob and I have been talking ever since we helped Phillip with his plans to woo Alexia back. I haven’t told anyone yet because I know they will think I am one of his many conquests. I know Jacob has a past worse than mine could ever be. He even told me he slept with Megan. Just thinking about that makes me want to run from him. Eew!! Stop it right now, Kristen! You have a past too. You know, ever since you met Jacob, that he has been with you almost every minute. It isn’t like my past or his is even important now, because we have talked and have found out how much we have in common.

After the second day working with Phillip on the sandcastle, Jacob asked me for my cell phone number and that is how all this got started between us. He would text me and I would text him. We do this all the time, every day. It is like for the first time in my life, I enjoy being with a guy. Not just use them to get what I want. We haven’t even done anything in the bedroom, yet. We both want to take this slow because we both feel like this is something worth slowing down for, to get to know each other. Not letting sex interfere with what is really going on between us. Maybe Jacob will be the one.

Now, I must get my mind back to being the maid-of-honor of this wedding. It is a really chilly day to be getting married on the beach, but it is perfect for these two. Alexia is wearing this beautiful long sleeved fitted white gown that hugs her body perfectly and white flip-flops to match. Phillip has on a long sleeve white shirt and khaki pants. He has a red tie to match the colors of the wedding. Yes, I have a long sleeve red dress that almost drags this sandy beach we are now standing on. Both Jacob and Tyler are standing beside Phillip wearing almost the same things. The colors are beautiful and match this December beach wedding perfectly.

When the wedding is over, we all head to the reception room inside the condo building where Alexia and Phillip will be living. Everything is breath taking and this is extraordinary considering how little time their parents had to get this wedding together. They started planning it before Alexia even said yes because they knew she would.

We eat and spend our time together in celebration of these two wonderful people who deserve happiness and to live the fullest of life, everyday. They both have had hard lives in the past and now that they get to be happy for a while, makes me happy for them. I start thinking about the only thing that they won’t be able to have is a baby, because Alexia can’t. Having her heart transplant and being on her medication makes it impossible for her to do so for many reasons. Maybe someone should offer them a gift by being a surrogate? That would be an incredible gift for them and that person has to be a really special to person to even offer. Maybe, I should do this for them. Maybe not! That would be a hard thing to do. Right now I don’t know even if I want kids and I don’t even know what the future holds for me.

While I am in deep thought thinking about this, I didn’t notice Jacob walking toward me. He taps me on my shoulder. Hey, beautiful. What are you thinking so hard about?

I look into his big green eyes that look like green sea glass (if you have never seen green sea glass you should look it up, it is beautiful like Jacob’s eyes). Oh, nothing really. I was thinking how great Alexia and Phillip are together. They look so happy.

Yes. They do. I am happy for them. I knew Phillip fell in love with her fast because he quit hanging out with us at parties. When he invited her to his condo, I knew he was serious about her for sure. That was always something he never did. Enough about them, I came over here to ask you to dance with me. Everyone is dancing, but us. How about a dance, my brown-eyed girl? Jacob reaches his hand out for me to grab and I take it.

He smiles at me as we walk to the dance floor. We begin dancing to a slow song and I am glad it is a slow song, so I can put my arms around him. It feels right to hold on to him. Thank you for asking me to dance. This song is perfect for slow dancing. I gaze into his eyes and see him staring and smiling at me. I have noticed he has different smiles and this one tells me he is up to something. I wonder if it is good or bad.

"I may have requested this song as well as the next one to be slow, so I can hold you close to me. I know you don’t want everyone to know, yet, that we have been talking and going out. I understand your feelings about it and how you are unsure of me because of my past. If I were in your shoes, I would be too. For now, I just have to keep requesting them to play slow songs so I can dance close to you and hold you in my arms." His heart-stopping grin spreads grandly across his face at me.

Well, you did pick one of my favorite songs, so you must be doing something right and sneaky. I do want to take this slowly for right now. No need to rush things. You know, you aren’t the only one with a past right? We both need to get over our former activities, before moving on and not to think about it anymore. Thank you for coming up with these slow dance songs. I tighten my arms around him and pull him closer.

Anything for my Cupcake. I will take what I can get for now and if you want slow, I will give you slow. Take all the time you need because I am not going anywhere. I have stopped doing the dumb things I used to do, since I met you. Now, I know what Phillip was talking about. He would say, Once you find the perfect girl, you will want to stop being a jerk for her. Now I have stopped random hook-ups and even stopped drinking. Drinking leads to no good so I stopped everything for you and you are totally worth it.

Jacob, you have to stop for yourself and not for me, because I don’t want you blaming me for missing out on the parties and the girls. Letting him know he has to do this for himself.

"I did stop for me. I was getting tired of all the stuff I was doing. You are just an addition of the reason I needed to stop drinking and being with every girl, I could. I was really just trying to find what I was missing, but didn’t know what it was, until I met you. Since I saw you that first day on the beach, you are all I think about. You are beautiful in everyway and I want to