Daisys decision, p.1
Daisy's Decision, page 1
Dixon Brothers Book 4
a Novel by
Published by
Olivia Kimbrell Press™
Fort Knox, Kentucky 40121
Copyright Notice
Daisy’s Decision: Dixon Brothers Series Book 4, by Hallee Bridgeman, Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording—without express written permission by the author and publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed or broadcasted articles and reviews.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or intended to be used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, places, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental and beyond the intention of either the author or the publisher. The characters are products of the authors’ imaginations and are used fictitiously.
PUBLISHED BY: Olivia Kimbrell Press™*, P.O. Box 470, Fort Knox, KY 40121-0470. The Olivia Kimbrell Press™ colophon and open book logo are trademarks of Olivia Kimbrell Press™.
*Olivia Kimbrell Press™ is a publisher offering true to life, meaningful fiction from a Christian worldview intended to uplift the heart and engage the mind.
Some scripture quotations courtesy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Some scripture quotations courtesy of the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas-Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Original Cover Art by Amanda Gail Smith (amandagailstudio.com).
Library Cataloging Data
Names: Bridgeman, Hallee (Bridgeman Hallee) 1972-
Title: Alexandra’s Appeal; The Dixon Brothers Series book 3 / Hallee Bridgeman
416 p. 5 in. × 8 in. (12.70 cm × 20.32 cm)
Description: Olivia Kimbrell Press™ digital eBook edition | Olivia Kimbrell Press™ Trade paperback edition | Kentucky: Olivia Kimbrell Press™, 2020.
Summary: Daisy has had a crush on Ken since high school, so going out on just one date with him can’t possibly hurt, can it? Even if the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with just been painfully dumped her, and whose unborn baby she carries? Just one little date?
Identifiers: Library of Congress Control Number: 2020952841 | ISBN-13: 978-1-68190-182-4 (ebk.) | 978-1-68190-183-1 (POD) | 978-1-68190-184-8 (trade) | 978-1-68190-185-5 (hardcover)
1. clean romance love story 2. women’s inspirational 3. pregnancy 4. messianic Christianity 5. emotional abuse 6. forgiveness redemption 7. secrets and lies
Daisy’s Decision Copyright Notice
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Acknowledgments
Excerpt: A Change of A Dress
Reader’s Guide Discussion Questions
Recipe Menu
More Great Books
The Dixon Brothers Series
About the Author
Find Hallee Online
Hallee’s Happenings
Rare moments in life, we stand at the very top of the mountain. Looking all around in every direction from that lofty height, glorious beauty fills our eyes. The clouds look like a white ocean at our feet. Our hearts race. A light-headed feeling overtakes our senses from the thin air, the chill, the silence. We barely notice our shadows as pure golden sunlight, unfiltered by the clouds below, bathes our bodies like a halo. Even so, our skin turns to gooseflesh. Though exceptionally uncommon, these mountaintop moments do happen and—if we allow them to—overshadow the bulk of the time we exist down in the terrestrial valleys.
Sleeping, waking, showering, sipping our morning cup, eating, taking in the news, cleaning up after ourselves, commuting, working, pondering, planning, teaching, learning; these make up just a few items in the long list of daily mundane tasks we perform while living down on the surface of planet earth. Then, suddenly—and very rarely—utter astonishment coupled with the tiniest sliver of anxious exhilaration completely overtakes us when life suddenly flings us out of our prosaic workaday experience, hurtling us all the way to the mountain’s peak in a single rush. Our middles become a flock of butterflies, and our knees turn to water. We barely notice even the most important everyday item from the low valley below as the astounding beauty of that moment cuts to the front of the line of our priorities. Life transports us to the mountaintop in that single heartbeat when we first lay eyes on that one person, that one who God has made especially for us.
For Daisy Ruiz, she first found herself on the mountaintop at the tender age of twelve.
Kenneth Dixon—who went by Ken and never Kenny—and his two brothers joined their youth group. She learned Ken’s name just as soon as possible and later learned that his brothers went by Jon and Brad. So-called identical triplets, she had to admit she often had trouble telling Brad from Jon or Jon from Brad. However, she never once had any problem identifying Ken.
Something about the way Ken moved, or how he sounded when he spoke or laughed, or the way he smelled always differentiated Ken from his look-alike brothers. Even at fifteen, his arms and chest rippled with muscles beneath his preferred polo style shirts. As far as identical, at least in Daisy’s opinion, Ken looked much more handsome than either of his ordinary-looking brothers.
Her father led the youth group and hosted the high school class each week on Wednesday nights in their home. By the second week, Daisy had enveloped the inside cover of her science notebook with variations of “Daisy Dixon,” and she very, very much wanted to feel those muscular arms embracing her while those incredible eyes stared deeply into hers.
The problem, as Daisy saw it, was that Ken Dixon barely noticed her. He was so much older at fifteen, a Sophomore in High School already, and surely just viewed her as a little girl in middle school.
He acted like a perfect gentleman with her parents and mostly stayed quiet in the group. Fairness forced her to admit that Ken handed out this trademark introspective silence pretty equally. He didn’t really reserve his reticence for her exclusively. Occasionally, he did have an interesting way of filling in the silences with a baritone word here or there whenever one or the other of his brothers paused while speaking. His brothers would do the same to him, so Daisy rightly assumed this syncopated synchronized speech pattern had something to do with them being triplets.
That first summer, the brothers went on a mission trip to Egypt and spent five whole weeks building a school. Daisy took that time to study. She read a lot and watched a lot of videos trying to get some ideas about how to get Ken to notice her. Brad or Jon—she was never exactly sure which—often included her in their discussions. As a rule, unless she spoke to him first, Ken never even spoke to her after she greeted the brothers at the door. In seven months, Ken never once initiated a conversation with her.
Knowing Ken would return to Bible Study in her home just before school started, Daisy began to pray. She prayed that God would give her some inspiration, like He had Ruth. If not, Daisy prayed that God would at least ease the ache she felt in her heart every single time Ken failed to notice her new hairstyle, or her new dress, or her attempts at makeup.
School kicked off, and Daisy consulted with friends, never naming her crush, always trying to understand exactly how they got boys to notice them. Her mother caught her looking mopey and angsty, and Daisy nearly confessed the name of her heart’s desire, but she feared that her parents would keep them apart, so she kept it secret. However, she interrogated her mother about how she knew her father was “the one,” how she got him to notice her, and a thousand other questions.
At Christmas that year, though she nearly chickened out a hundred times, Daisy handed Ken a simple Christmas card right after the Cantata at their church. He stared at the card, puzzled, then said, “Oh. Thanks. You guys got the card Mom and Dad sent, right?”
“Yes. Yes, we did.” Daisy felt her smile falter just a little bit. His gray eyes had trapped hers, somehow, and she wanted to touch him, hold his hand, something. He just stood there looking down into her eyes, and she took a breath and bravely carried on. “I actually got this card for you. It’s from me.” After what she instinctively knew was a slightly too long pause, she concluded, “Ken.”
Oh, my, how she liked saying his name while he looked into her eyes. She longed for him to say her name, to hear it pronounced with that slight Atlanta southern drawl in that very baritone voice of his.
“Oh.” His eyes left hers to look down at the sealed envelope, and suddenly she could breathe again. “Okay, well, Merry Christmas. See you guys after the New Year.”
The brothers went on a two-month-long mission trip that summer, once more, leaving Daisy alone with her thoughts and hopes and dreams for the future. By the end of the summer, Daisy had convinced herself that t
She convinced herself with the unshakable certainty of every fourteen-year-old girl who has ever lived that the next time she laid eyes on Ken Dixon, her heart rate would stay steady, she would not feel dizzy, she would not feel tongue-tied, and she would have the ability to look away from him at will. He refused to even notice her? She wouldn’t even notice him. Ken Dixon was simply not worth her attention.
The first youth group meeting after the Dixon brothers returned from their mission trip, it just so happened that her mother was out of town looking in on a sick cousin. Daisy made sure she had things to do in the kitchen. That way, she didn’t even answer the door when they arrived. Her father happily greeted and seated all of their guests. The group had grown and split a time or two to keep the size manageable.
Just before youth group service began, Daisy carried in the last tray of snacks. She nearly dropped it when she saw Ken purposefully walking toward her with an elaborately wrapped gift in his hands.
He had grown at least another few inches. His skin looked evenly tan, making his teeth look whiter and his stubble look darker. She could swear he had more muscles on his shoulders, arms, and chest.
Daisy set the tray down, her heart beating against her ribs like a machine gun as Ken stepped closer. He stood right there in front of her on the mountaintop for a breath or two, smiling, looking her dead in the eye. She wanted that moment to last forever—just the two of them above the clouds with a beam of sunlight spotlighting them and them alone.
“Hey,” he greeted.
Her mouth went dry. She swallowed, hoping her voice sounded feminine and mature, not childish and tomboyish. Daisy no longer wore braces, and her teeth looked straight and white now. She remembered to smile before she spoke. “Ola, Ken.”
“So, the people in Honduras, they make these really incredible baskets. They make them out of all kinds of things like wicker, palm—heck—even pine needles. Anyway, they are really beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like them. So, anyway, here.” He handed her the elaborately wrapped box with the perfect bow on top.
Daisy’s mind, body, and soul froze as she accepted the gift. She dared not hope. She dared not speak. She just spun on the mountaintop like Julie Andrews spinning her way across the Alps, and her mind swayed to glorious music as her skin felt hot and chilled all at once.
“Can you get that to your mom when she gets back?” Ken explained.
Daisy tried her best not to let Ken see her heart explode. He might not have seen it, but she could not understand how he didn’t hear the thunderclap sound it made. “Sure.” She nodded, exercising incredible poise so as not to make her smile look somewhat creepy. “I’m sure she’ll love it, Ken.”
Her Freshman year, she finally attended the same school as the Dixon brothers. Ken and his brothers were the most popular seniors at their High School. At seventeen, the triplets had academically surpassed most of their peers and focused a lot of their attention on college-level classes like engineering and CAD. Ken stayed near the top of the honor roll and didn’t date very much.
The first time she passed him in the hall, he didn’t notice her at all. A few days later, she waved and said, “Hi, Ken.”
He turned his gaze toward her, somewhat startled, then knitted his brows as if trying to place her. When recognition dawned, it looked almost comical. “Daisy. Hey. I heard you were coming here this year. Cool.”
He nodded, then continued heading to his next class as if the exchange never happened. The next seven times she passed him the hall in the weeks that followed, he didn’t seem to notice her.
The fiesta de quince años, also known as a Quinceañera, is a celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday in many traditional Hispanic homes. While Daisy’s parents didn’t consider themselves very traditional in most regards, they wanted her fifteenth birthday party to be very special and chose to honor this tradition.
Hoping Ken would come as well as the rest of the young people in her parent’s youth group, Daisy wanted a dress that would devastate even the most oblivious man. Perhaps something low-cut and with sequins, or a gown that dipped in the back. Daisy’s mother wanted her garb to look more like an opaque ballerina tutu made of pink cotton candy and hoops.
They compromised with the dress being far more modest than what Daisy had in mind but far less fluffy and childish than what her mother had in mind. Daisy spent the better part of the weeks ahead preparing for her entrance, her segue, and her dances. She practiced walking up and down the stairs in high heels while neither touching the handrail nor looking down at her feet. She walked through rooms with a dictionary balanced atop her crown and spun and spun and spun through the den until her father told her to stop.
Mr. and Mrs. Dixon graciously offered their home for the party. They lived in a 20,000 square foot castle with grounds to match. Mrs. Dixon had told her mom that every fifteen-year-old-girl needed to feel like a princess on her birthday.
Daisy thought that Ken would surely notice her then, in his home, dancing across his floor, looking more elegant and beautiful and grown up than she had ever looked before.
The day arrived. Her parents greeted everyone. Her friends chattered about the castle and their envy over her party. A table draped with linen overflowed with gifts. Her grandparents arrived looking joyful and pleased that this tradition had carried on to her generation. Her father removed the low heels from her feet and replaced them with perfect high heels.
The day could have only been more perfect if her parents had not decided to limit the guests outside of family to young men and women age fifteen and under. Granted, she knew every person in attendance from either school or their church, but the Dixon brothers, and one Dixon brother in particular, would never see her in the flesh on this day. However, Mr. and Mrs. Dixon left an amazing gift before taking the triplets out of the home for the evening.
Her grandfather stole a private moment that afternoon. “My beautiful granddaughter looks far too sad for the occasion. Why are you sad, Cariño?”
Daisy considered an excuse but settled on the truth. Grown women told the truth. “A boy, Papa.”
This answer clearly surprised her grandfather. “A boy? Well, boys always disappoint. Bide your time and wait for a man. Eh? Is this boy here? I can talk to him about making you sad, you know.”
She grinned. “He’s not here. That’s why I’m sad.”
Understanding bloomed. “Ah. I see.” He smiled. “You know something, Cariño? I have not danced with you. And tonight, you look exactly as beautiful as your grandmother did the very first time I ever saw her. That deserves a dance.”
They took to the dance floor, and Daisy relished in the smell of her grandfather who always smelled faintly of wool and caramels—and fine cigars he shouldn’t smoke but always managed to sneak. At some point in the dance, he spoke to her very quietly. “I trust your judgment, Daisy. You are very wise for your years. I think you are especially wise in matters of the heart. But if I could offer you some advice, I would say this. I think this boy who isn’t here? I think he wouldn’t want you to be sad on this day on his account. What do you think?”
Daisy thought about it as her grandfather smiled and led her across the dance floor. “What I think is that he doesn’t really think about me at all.”
After a few seconds, her grandfather said, “Well, everyone here thinks about you and loves you. And I tell you something else. If God has made this boy especially for you and made you especially for him, he doesn’t stand a chance. One day, God willing, this boy will think of little else besides you. But it will be in God’s good time. Now you just wait and see.”
The Dixon brothers turned eighteen and made a big deal about registering for the draft. Christmas came and went, then New Year’s, and before anyone could sufficiently brace themselves, Saint Valentine’s Day arrived. The National Honor Society began publishing student rankings, and everyone felt confident Leah Wing would take the Valedictorian spot for the graduating class.
In a Georgia High School, the only thing that moves faster than the track team is the gossip. In no time at all, Daisy heard the news. Naturally, Ken Dixon asked Leah Wing if she would like to go to Prom with him and, just as naturally, Leah accepted.
