target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ufedfb024-85ef-5563-962b-cc2060004270">Dear Reader,
Does anyone remember the TV show General Hospital? I used to love soap operas growing up as a kid. There was always that favorite character who “died”...which really meant he or she tried to get a job in a movie or a nighttime TV show. If that didn’t happen, he or she could always miraculously return in dramatic fashion as undead.
That germ was the basis for Max and Eleanor. A couple who truly loved each other, but it wasn’t enough to keep them together. However, when something life changing happens, it’s easy to see how priorities can shift.
I hope you root for this couple as much as I did while writing them.
I love to hear from readers, so you can find me at stephaniedoyle.net.
Stephanie
Contents
Trondheim Research Facility, Norway
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you right now,” Eleanor Harper shouted at her husband even as he walked down the stairs away from her.
“Nor, I’m not going to have this fight,” he said over his shoulder.
“No! No! You are going to have this fight. We are going to have this fight. Max, stop!”
He stopped at the door, his packed duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He turned to her, and she could see it in his expression. Before he even opened his mouth, she knew that he wasn’t going to back down.
That all the yelling and pleading and begging in the world wasn’t going to change this.
He huffed. “Nor! This is who I am. This is what I do. Do you get that? I’m an oceanographer who studies the impact of climate change on the ocean. This planet is dying one damn inch at a time. I have to do this work now. We’ve talked about this before. I thought I had your support.”
That wasn’t fair. This wasn’t about her not supporting his work. “You do have my support. You have all the support a wife should give to her husband, but where is my support? You dragged me to this research facility, and I said fine. I’ll go where you go. No questions asked. Then as soon as we get here you’re turning around and leaving me. For months at a time. I have no friends here, no family.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, Nor, don’t sit there and tell me you’re pining away for your mother.”
“That’s not the point. Like it or not, she’s my mother. I miss my family. My sister. I miss my life back home. And none of that would matter if I had you. But now you tell me you’re leaving me again. Not for three
