Halfway to Forever Read Free Page A

many girls I have.” Hannah wiped at her tears again. “I’ll always tell them three. Two who live here with me … and one who lives in heaven.”

Two
     
    T he day had been nothing but salty sea breeze and endless blue skies. Matt and Hannah were gathered on the back deck of their beach home, their picnic with the Eastmans in full swing. They sat there, eating, overlooking the surf and a blazing sunset, and Matt reached for Hannah’s hand. He set his burger down on the paper plate and looked around the picnic table at the others—their own precious eighteen-year-old Jenny, and Jade and Tanner Eastman and their thirteen-year-old son, Ty.
    “We have something to tell you.” He smiled at Hannah, and his presence soothed her soul the way it had since the first day they met. She leaned against him. They had already told Jenny their plans, and Hannah thought her response had been positive. Guarded maybe, but good all the same.
    Matt went on. “We contacted our social worker yesterday … and gave her the green light.”
    Jade’s eyes lit up and she clasped her hands together as she caught Hannah’s gaze. “Are you serious? You’ve decided to—”
    “Yes.” Hannah smiled, and the accomplishment in that one single word hung like a gold medal around her neck. How far she’d come since that awful August day four years ago, how greatly God had blessed them. And suddenly—surrounded by the people she loved, enjoying a barbecue on the deck of the beach-side home she and Matt and Jenny shared—the sum of all they’d been and all they were … all they were about to be … was almost overwhelming. “Yes,” she said again. “We’re ready to adopt.”
    Tanner’s face broke into a grin and he reached across the table to shake Matt’s hand. “Congratulations.”
    There was a brief flicker of sadness in Tanner’s eyes, and Hannah understood. Tanner and Jade wanted more children, but since marrying more than a year ago, Jade had miscarried once and been unable to get pregnant since then. Hannah’s heart went out to her friends, and though neither of them mentioned their own situation, she knew what they had to be feeling.
    Tanner swung his arm over Jade’s shoulders. “So, the world’s best business partner is going to have a little one running around, huh?” He leaned back in his chair. “Okay, don’t keep us waiting.” He took a bite of his burger, and a blob of ketchup landed squarely on his khaki button-down shirt. “Give us the—”
    Hannah and Jade exchanged a look, and they both giggled.
    Tanner finished chewing. “What?” He looked around the table.
    Matt smothered a grin with his hand, and Jenny and Ty laughed into their napkins.
    Jade was the first to rescue her husband. She pointed to his shirt, and Tanner glanced down. He chuckled and shook his head. “That settles it. Someone else will have to teach the Bronzans’ new little girl how to eat.”
    Hannah and Jade locked eyes again and burst out laughing. How often had their good-looking, powerful husbands spilled a drink or stained a shirt or broken a chair at their legendary get-togethers? Matt and Tanner might run the nation’s most powerful religious freedom law firm, but at home they were often little more than oversized boys.
    Matt loosed his grip on Hannah’s hand, and his dimpled grin lit up Hannah’s heart. “Well, Tanner, I, for one, am appalled at your manners.”
    Tanner nodded, his expression playful. “That’s what I get for hanging out with you.”
    Amid the laughter, Jade dabbed a wet napkin at Tanner’s shirt, giggling so hard her shoulders shook.
    Hannah studied her friends through smiling eyes. It was good to see Jade laugh. She’d been dragging for several weeks lately, tired, achy. Jade blamed it on a lingering cold, but after all she and Tanner had been through, Hannah hated to see her sick.
    The conversation shifted back to Matt and Hannah’s adoption plans. As the evening wore on, Jenny took Ty to a