Authors: Breaking Free
Lauraine Snelling (34 page)
Maggie’s eyes opened wide. “What did you say?”
Gil leaned closer. “That I love you.” His voice deepened. “Please say that you love me back.”
Maggie cut another bite of her cake and held it out to him. “Do I need to make a confession too?” Her voice took on a slow, rather sultry resonance.
“No, a profession would be fine.” He held out a forkful of his cake.
She took it and licked a bit of frosting off her lower lip. “That I love you?”
He set his cake down and leaned forward to share their first kiss. When their lips touched, he tasted a sweetness of cake, and another that could only be Maggie. When he pulled back he smiled. “What do you say?”
“I say yes.”
“Yes, to . . .” He nodded to encourage her.
“Yes to I love you. I wasn’t sure until the wedding today.”
“Me too. Eddie told me to hurry up and ask you before you got away.”
“So he approves?”
“Oh my yes. The look he gave me said, ‘What took you so long, Dad?’”
“Good.” Maggie kissed him this time. “Will it be another breaking free kind of day?”
“But first a coming together kind of day.” He set their half eaten cake out of the way and stood, pulling her into his arms. “Guess we better go get two more Thoroughbreds. Good thing I bought a four-horse trailer.”
“And maybe rescue another basset too?”
“We’ll be known as Rescue Acres.” He kissed her again.
And so they three became a family along with Breaking Free, Saturday’s Song, Diamond in the Rough, Bonnie, and Sampson—better known as Sammy, or Down Boy.
1. What causes Maggie to agree to participate in the Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Program?
2. Mr. James says that “working with horses reveals who we are. No matter how hard we try to hide it.” How does the program and working with Breaking Free help Maggie? In what ways do you see it helps the inmates?
3. Why is Maggie afraid of being vulnerable? How does this help or hurt her while she is in prison?
4. How has the lack of forgiveness for her own mistakes affected Maggie’s life while in prison?
5. What parallels do you see in Maggie’s and Breaking Free’s struggles and recovery?
6. What lessons of forgiveness and second chances does Maggie learn by taking care of and rehabilitating Freebee?
7. How does DC’s bullying help Maggie learn to fight for herself?
8. Compare Carly’s, DC’s, Kool Kat’s, and Maggie’s approaches to life. Who do you find yourself identifying with most?
9. What lessons does Maggie learn about God’s grace in meeting Gil and starting over?
10. How is Maggie’s presence in Gil’s and Eddie’s life good for each of them?
11. How does Maggie’s life experience challenge Gil’s role as a father to Eddie?
12. How does Maggie’s and Breaking Free’s brokenness help each of them to heal? Can brokenness be beautiful?
Award-winning and bestselling author Lauraine Snelling began living her dream to be a writer with her first published book for young adult readers,
Tragedy on the Toutle
, in 1982. She has since continued writing more horse books for young girls, adding historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers to her repertoire. All told, she has up to sixty books published.
Shown in her contemporary romances and women’s fiction, a hallmark of Lauraine’s style is writing about real issues of forgiveness, loss, domestic violence, and cancer within a compelling story. Her work has been translated into Norwegian, Danish, and German, and she has won the Silver Angel Award for
An Untamed Land
and a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart for
Song of Laughter
.
Lauraine helps others reach their writing dreams by teaching at writer’s conferences across the country. Her readers clamor for more books more often, and Lauraine would like to comply, if only her ever-growing flower gardens didn’t call quite so loudly.
Lauraine and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, and live in the Tehachapi Mountains with a cockatiel named Bidley, and a watchdog Bassett named Chewy. They love to travel, most especially in their forty-foot motor coach, which they affectionately deem as a work in progress.