PRICELESS (Forbidden Men #8)

Author’s Note On September 14, 2013, exactly a month after I pushed publish on my first true self-published book, Price of a Kiss, I received an email that started out a little something like this: Dear Linda, As an avid reader and wife, mother and attorney with severe cerebral palsy, I am begging you to please take the opportunity to write Sarah’s story. I am so tired of reading stereotypical romances where the woman with the disability is bitter, helpless, has no self-esteem and is just waiting to be rescued or miraculously healed. Well, the real world doesn’t work that way (even when it’s prettied up). Real life can be beautiful. I found a wonderful guy that thinks I am the sexiest woman alive despite my wheelchair. This year, we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Our oldest son is 23 and in medical school, and our youngest is nearly 10 and a 4th grader.... Well, this is still one of the most meaningful letters I ever received from a reader along with the scariest, because holy crawfish, how was I supposed to say no to that? But then...eek, how was I supposed to write about a character who lived with something I knew nothing about, and do it any kind of justice? Then I realized, oh yeah, I did that with every story I wrote! LOL. So I replied to Ms. Mary Crawford and told her this was one request I couldn’t refuse. But I knew it was going to take me some time to come up with a suitable story line, a suitable hero for our precious Sarah, and a suitable way to work them into what later became my Forbidden Men series. And now, nearly three years later, I’m hoping and crossing my fingers that I have something to please and honor our very patient Mary. I would also like to note how happy I am for Mary. In the three years it took lazy ol’ me to come up with something for her, I also nudged her into following her own desire to tell stories (yeah, look at me, taking the credit for all her hard work. Ha!), and she now has eight books published! Isn’t she amazing? Everyone, tell Mary how awesome she is! Okay, sorry! Enough of my rambling. Let us now proceed with the story. I The Road So Far Sarah and Brandt’s Long-Ass Prologue