Sneak Peek…
ANOTHER THREE brEATHES
Ember
“Okay everybody, push up into down-dog, and then hold. Breathe deep, engage your core, you’re doing amazing.” I knew she was trying to be helpful and inspiring and all of that—but truly all I wanted to do was collapse on my mat and cry right now. How many times could we hold down-dog in one class?
After another three breathes, we finally fell back into child’s pose and I was forced to bite back a groan as to not interrupt the quiet class with its pretty classical music that was playing quietly on a loop over the loud-speakers.
This wasn’t my normal class. My regular yoga teacher I went to was off in the Bahamas getting married.
I told myself this would be fine. A new class, a new teacher, something to push me outside of my comfort zone.
Just what the doctor ordered as they said.
However, the doctor was an idiot—clearly, because this was a shit show.
My normal hot yoga class with pump up jams and my favorite instructor who told us ‘ not to be little bitches’ when it got hard, was off getting a glorious tan and having her brains banged out by her new husband who looked like he walked out of a Calvin Klein ad.
Me? I was taking a yoga class in another town to get away from the small town vibes so I could get sweaty in peace, but I wasn’t even sweating.
Why? Because she forgot it was a hot yoga class she was teaching and hadn’t turned on the heat.
It was cold as fuck in this room, which was making my mood somewhat more tumultuous.
We’d finally made it to corpse pose, and I was staring at the ceiling contemplating why I hadn’t just gotten up and left the moment the class had turned out to not be what I signed up for.
Logically, I knew the answer already. It was my inner ‘eldest daughter must please all the people’ syndrome, or whatever the fuck I’d seen it called online while I aimlessly scrolled to avoid deep thoughts such as this.
I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.
That was why I went to another town for yoga, because if someone wanted to stop and talk, I felt as if I had to even when I didn’t want too. Couldn’t disappoint anyone if no one here actually knew me.
I laid on my mat, forcing my eyes closed as I attempted to command my body into relaxation mode—maybe if I could turn my brain off of work for even a few moments I’d be less stressed for a few days. Maybe.
“Have you heard about that new dating app?” a soft voice said from next to me. I knew she wasn’t talking to me though, because she’d been talking to her friend the entirety of the class when the instructor wasn’t telling us to push back into down-dog again.
“Oh my gosh Kara, it isn’t a dating app. It’s a sex app,” the second voice replied.
“Whatever. So you’ve heard of it? They’re taking applications to try it out for the next few months while the company who made it work out all the bugs and shit. Apparently you get a intro discount if they accept you. I want to sign up,” Kara whispered.
On one hand, I was annoyed. Talk about this outside of yoga class.
Please. On the other hand, who the fuck wanted to make an account on a sex app?
Was that even safe? Did they upload naked photos of themselves onto it?
I felt my anxiety spike over the mere thought of information like that getting out about me, but I forced out an indignant breath.
I wasn’t angry with the women next to me, no, I was angry at myself for allowing my personal issues that weren’t even my own fault to cloud my judgement of what others around me deemed okay for their own lives.
That wasn’t me at all, and I refused to allow the dark gloomy cloud of a situation over my life right now to make it me.
“We should totally apply after class. Smoothies?” Kara asked.
“Absolutely.”
I groaned—I couldn’t stop it. It actually escaped my lips. It felt as if everything around me was forcing my brain back to reality and I wanted to scream.
After that, I sort of lost it. I got up to my feet, rolled up my mat without sparing a glance to anyone, and walked out only stopping to grab my sandals before heading out into the bright Colorado sunshine.
It was mid-August, which meant that during the day the sun could appear, forcing everyone in its grasp to deal with a blistering summer heat, and then the same sun could drop and you could freeze to death.
Thankfully I was in a pair of my favorite lilac purple leggings, my white fuzzy slides, and a white off the shoulder crop top that showed off my matching purple bra strap.
I knew my mom would have shit to say about me showing up to lunch in my workout clothes, but honestly I couldn’t be bothered to care today. It was my one and only day off.
Wednesday was the only day of the week I closed down my bakery—Buns of Delight.
I could hire help and have someone come in and help me, keeping it open all week, but I just couldn’t seem to let go of the control I ached to have at all times.
Mom called me a workaholic, but truly my little bakery in the heart of Raven Creek was my entire life.
When my grandfather passed away a few years ago, he left my two brothers and I each fifty thousand dollars each.
I had no idea what my brothers had done with theirs, but I dumped mine into my business.
I spent half putting a down payment on the building I now owned, and the other half into the business itself.
I spent the first year sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the apartment above the bakery, and in the last two years I’d manage to furnish it and make it a fully functioning apartment.
Three years total that Buns of Delight had been in business and I was finally fully in the green.
It was truly because I had worked every single day to make it happen.
I knew many people thought the idea of a twenty-one year old starting a business was nuts, but now at twenty-four, I was the one laughing because I had done the damn thing.
Was it stressful as hell? Yes. Did it take up most of my time every single day?
Yes. Did I have any social life at all? Absolutely not.
But I didn’t care, I knew Grandpa Joe would be proud as fuck if he were here to see it in action, and that was what mattered to me. Not what anyone else thought.
I shook off the small pain I felt in my heart whenever I thought about my grandfather and opened the door to the small cafe I was meeting my mom at. It was a few blocks down from the yoga studio I went too, and in the same town my mom lived in now.
I’d grown up in Raven Creek, but after Grandpa Joe passed, he left my mom the house which she immediately sold and moved to the next town over—Pine Shallows.
She said she couldn’t stand to be the town’s gossip for one more moment and there was apparently nothing holding her there anymore, so she left.
Twenty miles over the county lines truly did wonders for her mental health—at least that was what she told me—so who I was to judge?
I spotted her quickly when she nodded her head at me, her dark strawberry blond hair in bouncy curls today.
She was in a pretty white sundress and strappy white heels.
Lori Dunagan was the type of woman who had a twenty-two step skincare routine and never left her bedroom without her hair and makeup done, just in case she met the love of her life while she was at the grocery store that day.
She used to tell me that at any moment she could meet the doctor of her dreams while picking out a honeydew melon. My brothers found it hilarious and I just rolled my eyes. I’d never been interested in finding Mr. Right. I didn’t need to be when my mom was interested enough for the both of us.
I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table across from her.
Her gaze flicked from my messy bun, down to my top that showed off a peek of the tattoo along my hip, and then back up to my face, which sported not a singular speck of makeup today, or ever really.
The most that ever felt necessary was maybe a bit of lipstick or mascara.
“Hello, darling. Would you care for some tea? Sandwich?” Mom asked, her gaze dropping for a brief moment before returning back to my face. “Maybe some more…clothing,” her voice fading out at the end.
It took all of my energy not to answer her with an eye roll. I knew that would just enrage her, and I once again, didn’t have the energy today.
“Thank you for the offer Mom. I think I will have some tea and maybe a muffin,” I replied, committed to ignoring her other comment completely.
Mom waved a waitress over and we put our order in, only to end up staring at each other once the waitress left the side of the table.
This was how our weekly lunches always went.
We’d order, stared awkwardly, before making small chat that I ignored half of because it was thinly veiled insults, and then we’d go our separate ways only to do it again the following week.
Was it healthy? Probably not. But it was the only motherly relationship I’d ever had.
I’d been telling myself for years that one day I was going to be honest. I was going to tell her how I felt and we were going to mend this broken thing we called our relationship.
It would get better, healthier, and we’d actually talk like two human beings.
However, that didn’t seem to be happening today. Maybe I’d pick a day when I was wearing more ‘appropriate’ clothing for our lunch date.
“So Mom, how’s your week been?” I asked in an effort to fill the silence.
She fiddled with the napkin in her lap for a moment before placing her hands gently in her lap.
“It was fine. I had dinner with your brothers last night. They’re working a new job that they seem to love, although I don’t have enough information to know if I fully approve of it or not.
” She shrugged and looked out the cafe window as a few people moseyed by.
“What are they doing?” Evan and Elliot were my younger brothers.
They were only nine months apart, Irish twins people called them, but they were twenty-two, Evan being the oldest of them.
Because they were so close in age though, they’d been causing trouble together since they left the womb and could hold their heads up on their own.
I loved them dearly, but it was always something—none of which was holding down a job sadly.
When Elliot wanted to leave, Evan followed.
Mom cleared her throat before looking back at me. “They’re working on a ranch with your Uncle.”
I sat across from her, mouth slightly ajar, unsure what to say. Thankfully the waitress chose that moment to bring us our muffins and teas.
My father, Bennett Dunagan, was a known gambler and basically a con-artist. He’d been in and out of our lives for years.
He’d run some sort of scheme and then disappear from the face of the planet while life cooled down and then pop back up.
My mother never put her foot down over it because apparently love made you do stupid shit—like love, marry, and have three kids with a crook.
His brother, Howard or Uncle Howie as we’d called him as children, would hear none of it.
When Mom refused to cut off Bennett, Uncle Howie cut us all off.
He wanted nothing to do with his brother and their ongoing feud over the family land or something of the sort.
We hadn’t spoken since I was around ten years old, and the boys would’ve been seven or eight.
I couldn’t seem to stop the concern and confusion though. I knew my mother wanted to just let it go, but that wasn’t my style. “What exactly are they doing with Uncle Howie? When, or even how did that happen?”
She rolled her eyes, a practiced mannerism she had perfected over the years, before pursing her lips at me.
“I don’t know Ember. Why don’t you call and ask?
He apparently bought the family ranch from your grandfather years ago and he’s been running it ever since.
Your brothers are helping him there with farm work, or whatever in the Heavens they do with those dirty animals. ”
I chuckled, I couldn’t help it. The Dunagan family had been a ranching family for years and years.
Grandpa Joe used to tell me that we still had some of the biggest property in Colorado, but he’d sold some of it off the a few ranchers around him, and then my mom sold off the small bit that his house was on.
But Uncle Howie had been working that ranch my entire life as far as I knew.
When my parents met, my dad still lived and worked out there, but my mother made it clear she’d never step foot on the ranch once they were married. Apparently she thought the ‘ ranch air ’ and ‘ muck ’ was not pleasant on her skin.
“Oh, well good for them. That’s awesome,” I said instead of every other random thing I wanted to say—like that fact that my brothers were working hard was a good thing. Maybe they’d get some structure and positive influence in their lives.
“I’m just glad they’re out there experiencing life. Maybe they can throw you some pointers. Evan has a new girlfriend too,” Mom said with a shrug.
I groaned internally—here we go. “Oh thank the gods above for that,” I muttered, more to myself as I ate some more of my blueberry muffin. Hoping if my mouth stayed busy chewing up the pastry, I couldn’t say anything else to her.
“I’m just saying, Ember Rae, you aren’t getting any younger and you work all the time. How will you ever meet your match if you never take a step outside more than to go to yoga and suffer through lunch with me once a week?”
She looked so serious that I couldn’t hold back the laugh.
“Who knows Mom, maybe I’ll try online dating.
Put all my qualifications out here and see if I can find someone to match my freak.
” The stupid sex app the girls from earlier were talking about immediately came to mind and I quickly pushed that shit right back down.
I was not joining a sex app to find ‘ the love of my life ’, as my mother called it.
“Oh! I could get a cat! Actually, that isn’t a horrible idea.
I may go to the pound and see who’s there. ”
Mom stared at me, slack jawed and clearly shocked. “I…I just don’t know where I went wrong with you.” She shook her head and finished her tea.
We chatted for a few more minutes before I called it quits. Kissing her goodbye, we parted ways at the door and I couldn’t wait to be back in my own space. Maybe with a cat, because I didn’t need a damn man.
Find our more about Ember’s reluctant and unhinged journey to love in the next book of the Raven Creek series,
coming out February 2026.