Michelle Brooke became one of Atlanta’s finest surgeons in less than a year. She was a whiz kid with a brain like a computer, a photographic memory, and petite, pretty and unbelievably well liked by all. Compared to her life as a special agent with the Atlanta’s FBI unit, her job was stimulating, rewarding and not nearly as hazardous to her health.
Her husband, Michael Brooke, returned to the FBI unit in Atlanta after a year spent trying to work with his father. He was a special agent, and trying to be anything else didn’t seem to fit. Shelly understood how Mike felt. He managed not to get injured on every assignment, which was something Shelly couldn’t seem to manage. She decided to hang up her guns and pick up the stethoscope. She finished her residency, and she loved her job. It was hard not to miss the excitement and danger of being a special agent, but she couldn’t continue putting her family through the many near-death situations she often faced.
Shell was barely five foot tall. At twenty-six years old, she still looked like a teenager. Shelly had trouble gaining weight and weighed barely ninety pounds, but it was ninety pounds of muscle. She still ran, swam and worked out relentlessly. She was healthy for a change and had not received even a bruise in months. She loved her schedule, and being able to go home to their children at the end of the day told her that she had made the right decision.
It didn’t seem like anything could stop them now. The kids were healthy, Mike was happy, and Shelly decided that being a doctor, a wife and a mama was more than enough. She played the piano and she painted in her leisure time, and they took off to the islands every chance they got.
They had enough bad stuff happen in their short marriage, yet they still managed to survive and stay deeply in love. They had it all. Shell loved Mike more now than the first day at her Aunt Tina’s when the boy became a man in her eyes and she was blindsided. He still had that affect on her. She would stop mid-sentence and stare when he walked across the room. Lord, help her, but the man still made her pant.
One thing that Michelle and Michael didn’t realize was that life wasn’t always fair and that the past can and will come back to haunt you. Life comes back hard and stops both of them in their tracks. Can they go on? Can they survive? What do you do when your life comes to a total stop?
