Between Beats (In Between, #2)

Now engaged to Kristine, Mark is captivated by his little one. She stirs in him all his love and passions. He determines to keep their romance holy and innocent until the day he can claim her as his bride. Mark embarks on his journey of preparing for ministry where he meets lifelong friends. His love for God inspires him to be a better man, but often he feels inadequate. His past often torments him, and he aims to rise above the person he had been. He has so many secrets, but out of fear of exposure and Kristine's pity he keeps them to himself hoping for a shadow of her love than none at all. A question reverberates in his mind: will Kristine's love for him tear down the carefully constructed walls he hides himself behind?
Kristine's love for Mark fills her up. She eagerly awaits his kisses and for the day she can call him husband. She knows that Mark is keeping secrets, but she doesn't know how to break through his walls of protection, and there are always these questions: will Mark continue to hide his deepest parts from her, will they become the couple she believes God wants them to be?

When I was a teenager I had two primary dreams. I wanted to write and publish novels that readers would enjoy and find meaning in, and I wanted to be married with four children—two boys and two girls (in that order). I wanted to stay home and not have them go to babysitters like I had to.
I met my husband the second week of my freshman year. I fell instantly into like when I met him and knew we'd be kindred spirits. As our friendship progressed over six months, I fell in love. We were engaged a few months after we started dating. We married two years later.
For my degree I chose English Literature with a minor in technical writing. I chose technical writing because I thought it would be a practical way to have a career as a writer. I didn't think I was any good at writing fiction, and I wasn't. I had no "grand" idea. I was a fair poetry writer. I loved writing about literature, and I enjoyed technical writing. I sort of planned on that being my career when I finished college, but I lived perpetually in the moment.
We married the summer before our senior year. The first five months of our married life was incredibly romantic. We were students, so we were poor. We lived in a small one-bedroom studio apartment. We had no air conditioning, so the summer nights were quite hot and humid in Wisconsin.
Our car didn't work, so we biked and walked everywhere. On summer evenings my husband loved to watch spiders spinning webs. He would stand their fascinated by the intricate patterns. I stood there fascinated with him. For groceries, we pulled a rickety wagon. We found coupons on campus for free two-liters of pop. Every day we redeemed these coupons for a bit more than a month. We had a lot of free pop to drink, which is kind of funny because neither of us are all that into pop. We would bike to a bakery for day-old bread.
The November after our wedding, we became pregnant with my oldest son. I was sick for months. I made it through finals and then through another semester of class. Living perpetually in the moment helped me adjust to the fact I would be an at-home mom and wouldn't start a career as a technical writer. I was thrilled! But being so young as a mom I was ill-prepared to meet the demands of an infant.
I fulfilled one-fourth of my dream. #1
My husband thought I needed more education. He thought English was a degree in the obvious and that I'd never get a decent paying job with only t...