Taking Lives (ePub)

The lives of twelve-year-old Shelton and ten-year-old Buck Mitchellson are irreparably changed when their parents die within an hour of each other. When it becomes apparent that there are no family members for the boys to turn to, Office Wash Roberts makes one of the most important decisions of his life: a commitment to guiding them and providing them with a stable substitute family.

When the boys reach adulthood, their lives diverge: Buck joins the Army and Shelton becomes the farmer he always wanted to be.

When Buck returns to Mississippi after leaving the Army, he and his wife begin to build a life in the same town where Shelton and his family live. With wonderful, loving families, a solid and caring community, and friends the likes of which are rarely found, the brothers have never been happier.

While their lives changed in innumerable ways through the years, the one thing that never changed was the profound love each had for each other. But when a tragedy of immeasurable proportion strikes the brothers, that love is put to a test, one with far reaching consequences, not only them, but for their families. Will the brothers and their families choose moving forward or staying in a heartbreaking past?

"Everybody takes a life. It's just how it's taken. You can take it and make it into something you can be proud of or you can take it and destroy it," Shelton always said. What way will the Mitchellsons choose?