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Chapter 8

7 years later

Tris' POV

I take a deep breath as I stir in the sugar for my coffee. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I enjoy the quiet this time in the morning. It feels like the whole world is still sleeping. One thing for sure… Baker's hours have their perks. I glance at the clock, noticing the time slipping away so fast. I get to work making the kids lunches for school. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the crust cut off of Emily's, but not Will Jr's, along with a few snacks and drinks. I place both lunch boxes on the counter, in plain sight for Christina for when they all wake up. I grab my coffee on the way, turning the lights off as I make my way out. I lock the door behind me, securing the house.

I pull into the back of "Sweet Treats Bakery," within twenty minutes. The non busy streets at this time in the morning make commuting to the bakery another perk of this job. I let myself in, locking the door behind me as I turned on all the lights. I exhale as I do every morning that I come in.

Christina and I came up with this crazy idea for the bakery six years ago on a whim. Christina had just begun working at a financial firm and hated her job. I, on the other hand, hated working for a local grocery store in the bakery department. I felt like a fraud, thawing out dough that was already made pastries and cookies and popping that into the oven and announcing that they were freshly made. Alone we both knew there would be no hope of creating something on our own, but together…. We knew we had something. I had the knowledge of baking and she had the know-how of running the numbers of a business. Within a week we had the menu ideas, a name for the bakery and a place that would be ideal for customers. All we needed was how we were going to fund it all.

Christina's half was easy. Using her inheritance that her parents left her, combined with Will's life insurance. She received it when he was killed by a drunk driver…. We were all devastated when we got the call from Christina in the middle of the night. It was the night after Will Jr's first birthday. Will was working later than normal that night. The reports said it wasn't his fault. That the driver in the oncoming car that hit him was drunk. The worthless piece of scum didn't even have a scratch on him and he didn't have the slightest idea of what had happened.

It was a tragedy that you often heard about in the news, but hoped that it would never happen to someone that you loved. Chris and Will hadn't been married even close to two years before he passed away. They married the week after high school graduation, finding out that Chris was indeed expecting Jr. Will couldn't have been happier. He wanted the house, the kids, and the wife from even when we were all kids. It took a little longer for Chris to warm up to the idea of being not only a mother, but a wife. Memories of me in labor probably didn't help her either.

Christina called me first that night… I just about jumped out of bed, rushed as fast as I could to the hospital, leaving Em with my parents. He died while in surgery, his heart failed as there was too much damage to his body. Christina was devastated. She could barely get out of bed. Em and I stayed with her and Jr for what we thought would be a few days that easily turned into a few weeks and now a few years. Chris' parents stayed for as long as they could, but they eventually needed to get back home, seeing that they moved when Chris and Will were married. But she and I didn't mind living together, together we figured it all out and made this single motherhood thing work for the both of us. She gets the morning shift with the kids, as I take the afternoon shifts. Nights are for the both of us to spend a little quality bonding time with the kids.

Chris knew from the start that having that kind of money in her reach was dangerous.

She knew it just wouldn't last long with her shopaholic addiction and Jr. just being a little more than a year old at the time Will had passed. She figured she would rather take a chance and do something with it than nothing at all.

I, on the other hand, had a little harder time trying to come up with my half of the money. I had no savings at the time, every dime I earned went to daycare and whatever Em needed at the time like diapers, clothes and other baby essentials. My parents were generous for allowing Em and I to stay with them, but I knew that couldn't last forever, eventually we would need to get our own place. I hated the thought of using that bastard Marcus Eaton's money for anything that Em and I needed. I would have rather worked myself to the bone than to use it, but I knew I had no choice. With no savings, no equity for a loan and my parents were struggling as it was…. I felt defeated. It took forever for my father to convince me to use the silence money from Marcus Eaton. Up till that moment I never touched it… not even one dime. It didn't matter what I had to go without, as long as Em was taken care of, that's all that mattered to me. It felt wrong touching the money. The thought of doing so for my own selfish reasons felt even worse.

I don't know if Tobias ever found out about me and our daughter. Every lead Zeke and I tried to track him down came up empty. It was like he vanished out of thin air. Other than the letter he left behind, it was like he never existed. Even Marcus had all traces of Tobias removed from his home. Zeke and I even both tried talking to Amar a few times, other than the generic "he is alive" or he wants to be left alone… It's all we got out of him.

The DNA test was enough for Marcus Eaton to have to swallow his tongue about the biology of my daughter. Although thankfully, he has never tried nor requested to see Emily, one thing for sure, Marcus Eaton knows how to put his money where his mouth is. The very next day that we got the results of our paternity test, I received a certified letter with a very large check inside of it. That same check came every month like clockwork. I cashed all of them of course, placing every dime into a savings account for a rainy day or at the most for Em's future… That was until I invested it into Sweet Treats Bakery. Little by little ever since then I have been paying the account back… trying to ease the guilt with the thought of it being a loan versus the selfish way I went about paying my half of the bakery.

It also helped having lots of wonderful friends around me though. Chris and I are very fortunate to have each and every one of them. Chris and I make things work between the kids' schedule, maintaining the house and the business needs, but there are always those unexpected times when one or both of the kids would get sick and we would be spread so thin. Without our friends we wouldn't know what we would have done. Not to mention that each and everyone of them have different talents, so to speak, that come into play in our lives. Uriah loves being the guinea pig when it comes to trying out my new recipes at the bakery, while Marlene loves to paint new seasonal murals on the walls of the lobby in the bakery. Zeke is our fix it guy and Shauna is always our positive thinker. All together, we make a great team that has made this crazy idea that we had one night into a reality.

I move across the bakery with ease. Placing my purse into the back office and my lunch into the fridge in the break room. I continue on, turning on the lights and grabbing my apron to begin the morning dough.


A/N

Just a little glimpse of what Tris has had to go through…. Let me know your thoughts. What did you hate? The part you loved? Whose character do you think grew the most?

Revised by: FDFobsessed

Like always, happy reading everyone, be safe and stay healthy,

Trini