The Dirty Dozen: Alpha Edition

by Kay Maree

  “Thank you for lunch, Sam,” she spoke quietly near my ear, seeming to linger.

  “No, thank you for coming over.” I still couldn’t quite believe that I’d asked her, or that she’d accepted.

  “I’ll text you later, okay?” Just as I was about to give her my number she continued. “Don’t worry, I can get your number from your file at work.” She kissed me again lightly, then stood up and straightened her skirt.

  I quickly took her closest hand in mine and looked up into her face. “Have a good afternoon. I’ll look forward to hearing from you, and seeing you later in the week.”

  “You sure will,” she replied. Her smile lit up her face and I saw a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.

  “What are you thinking? I can see something in your eyes.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll hold onto that thought for a little longer, Sam. I mean a girl has to have a few secrets.” With that, she gave my hand a quick squeeze, winked as she lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, then turned on her heel to leave. I watched her walk away, already keen to exchange messages with her later in the day, but also looking forward to seeing her again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  With my decision to go with it, I gave myself the freedom to relax and get to know Rachelle. I didn’t have a game plan and certainly hadn’t planned on rushing into anything, wanting to just go with it and see what happened. What happened took me completely by surprise.

  As I sat on her lounge and prepared myself to tell this gorgeous woman, ten years my junior, my story about how I’d come to be the single parent of an eight-year-old boy after dinner that first Saturday night, I’d fully expected her to politely thank me for sharing my story, then figuratively run for the hills. Yes, she thanked me for sharing my past with her, but instead of asking me to leave, she’d moved closer and put her arms around me. After holding me gently for a couple minutes she pulled her head back a little so she could look into my face. “You’ve been fighting all those battles for a long time now, Sam, especially the shock and grief over losing Liz in such a traumatic way, but I think it might be time for you to allow yourself to live again,” she spoke carefully.

  “Have you been talking to my mother?” I asked, trying not to chuckle.

  “No. Should I?”

  “That just sounds like something she’s been saying for a while, that’s all.” I smiled. “Actually, the last time she said that was the morning I met you… mmm, seems like a bit of a coincidence to me.”

  “Maybe… but I think she sounds like a very wise woman. I think I’m going to like her.”

  “I’m sure you will.” I smiled to myself, imagining the conversation I’d had with my mother yesterday when I told her I was having dinner with Rachelle. If it wasn’t her weekend to have Caleb, I was sure she’d have been stalking around town trying to get a glimpse of us together. “Knowing my mum, you won’t be able to hide from her after tonight.”

  “Really?” Rachelle sounded shocked.

  “Really, really,” I replied, then realised I sounded like Shrek on one of Caleb’s favourite DVDs. We both laughed a little. “Yeah, don’t be surprised if she turns up at the bank on Monday morning needing some sort of advice on her accounts.”

  “Would it totally surprise you if I told you she came in just before closing time yesterday?”

  “Oh my God, you’ve got to be kidding. Please, tell me you’re kidding?” I was beyond embarrassed. “I expressly told her to stay away until we got to know each other better.”

  “It was fine, Sam. Really,” she tried to reassure me.

  A thought flashed across my mind and I burst out, “Please, tell me she didn’t have Caleb with her.” The idea of Mum waltzing into Rachelle’s workplace was shocking enough to me, but the thought of her taking Caleb along on her fact-finding mission freaked me out.

  “No, she didn’t bring him into the bank. He sat patiently at one of the tables outside the ice creamery next door and enjoyed his soft serve cone while she popped in to get some cash out for the weekend. Apparently, that’s part of their routine when he comes for his sleepover weekends.” She looked at me with a question in her eyes. “It wasn’t awkward at all, Sam, honestly. I just happened to be serving and she just happened to be the next in line; it wasn’t like she’d come in to suss me out. We laughed and decided it was a happy coincidence.”

  “As long as she didn’t give you the whole twenty question interrogation.”

  “No, honestly, it was fine. It’s a small town, Sam, and you’ve been a big part of it all your life. I’m going to meet lots of your friends and acquaintances as part of my job… I’m not worried about that and neither should you be.”

  “Okay. I just thought I’d have a bit longer before I had to share you with everyone else.” That didn’t sound exactly how I meant it to, but I couldn’t change it now.

  “Sam,” she spoke with mock seriousness laced through her voice.

  “Sorry. I guess I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but I wanted us to get to know each other a bit better before my mother and the rest of the town got involved.” I got the feeling I was digging myself a rather large hole and that I was at risk of falling into it.

  “Sam.” Her amusement at my discomfort was starting to seep through.

  “You know what I mean, don’t you? Please say that you understand what I’m talking about.” I sounded like I was begging her to understand me. “Like you said, this is a small town. The gossip mongers will be having a field day at your expense before you know it.”

  “Sam,” she spoke in a clear tone and placed a finger over my lips. “Shh… I’m a big girl and I’m not afraid of the people in this town noticing us together. From what I understand, you’re a bit of a local hero and everyone loves and respects you. Why would I be worried about being mentioned in the same sentence as you?”

  I chuckled a little. “Well, when you put it like that… Although, I was more worried that you might be worried about being linked with someone so much older than you.” The fact that she appeared to be in her mid-twenties was not lost on me. I didn’t want anyone to think I was taking advantage of her.

  “Oh, shut up!” She swatted me lightly on my chest, then leaned in to initiate our first passionate kiss. I was a little caught off guard, but it didn’t take long for me to catch up. I tightened my arms around her and deepened the kiss, and the sensations that began firing from every part of my body drove me to want more and more. Before I was even aware of what I was doing, I had her lying on the lounge and I was propping myself above her, kissing her with the desperation of a dying man crawling out of a desert and into an oasis.

  The kiss deepened and deepened until I felt like we were becoming one person. I hadn’t expected to get that sort of feeling from just a kiss… especially a first kiss. When we broke apart, we were both breathless, our chests heaving as we tried to catch our breath.

  “Wow!” I blew out a long breath as I moved into a position lying beside her on the lounge

  “Wow, alright.” She kissed me lightly on my lips. “I’ve never had a kiss like that before.”

  “Me either,” I admitted. “I’ve got no idea where that came from –”

  “But I’d like to find out where it was going.” Rachelle finished my thought.

  “I think I’d like that, too.” I put a hand along her jaw and angled her face toward mine, bringing my lips back to hers. The surge of passion which charged through my body as our lips made contact felt like a freight train racing out of control down a track. It was an unstoppable force and I was powerless to resist.

  I don’t think either of us made a conscious decision about what happened next. I mean, we didn’t speak about it, it just sort of happened… which doesn’t sound good for someone my age. Before I was totally conscious of what I was doing, I’d positioned myself above her and had pushed her shirt up, my hands running over her breasts. Admittedly, she had pushed my polo shirt over my head and her hands were doin
g some exploring of their own, but that’s different. I never thought I’d be the sort of man who’d take advantage of a woman… when that thought crashed into my head, I froze. What was I doing? This wasn’t me. I’d never been like this with Liz… so hungry, so desperate… why would I be like this with someone I’d just met a few days ago. It took a moment or two for Rachelle to realise that I’d stopped kissing her and that my hands were now trying to pull her shirt back into position. When she did, she looked up at me with a pained, confused expression on her face.

  “What? What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Oh, God, no. You didn’t do anything wrong… this is all me,” I blurted out. As I attempted to scramble off her, her hands gripped me firmly on my hips, holding me in place.

  “What’s wrong, Sam? Everything was going so well, then suddenly you disconnected… something had to happen.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachelle. This isn’t me… I mean, this isn’t what I do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘This isn’t you?’ What’s not you?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get carried away with you. Please forgive me.” I was getting more and more embarrassed by the moment.

  “Sam… stop thinking like that. Seriously.” She stopped for a moment, placing her hands on either side of my face and forcing me to look at her. She really was beautiful and looking at her now, so closely, I could feel the same urge to touch her begin building up in me again. “If you were getting carried away just now, I was going right along with you.”

  “But –”

  “But nothing,” she cut me off. “We’re grown up adults, remember? We’re here together, in the privacy of my home, because we have a serious case of attraction for one another, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember… how could I forget?” I asked. “Being like this, this close to you, is making me feel things I’ve never felt before.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “I’m not sure if it is or not,” I answered. She was challenging me to re-think my argument for stopping things when I did.

  “Sam, trust me, nothing that you’re feeling is bad, or wrong… It’s just new.”

  “But shouldn’t we wait?” I asked, suddenly feeling like a nervous teenager.

  “Wait for what? For you to find an excuse to put this off until it feels more comfortable?” I asked. “Sam, if we wait for comfortable to kick in, this wave of excitement will be worn off.” She gave my head a little shake, not giving me a chance to back away or focus on anything but her face. “I, for one, want to ride this wave with you… I want to feel what it’s like to be with you when we haven’t planned the whole thing out… I want to be in the moment with you… I want to just go with it.”

  There was that phrase again. In the back of my mind I knew it must be a sign… It was something Liz had often said to me over the years, and it had been popping up in my thoughts and conversations with Rachelle almost constantly over the course of this week.

  “Are you sure? I mean, really, really sure?”

  “Sam, if I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have kissed you first.” As she said those words, she pulled my face down toward hers until our lips met again. “Stop fighting, Sam.” She kissed me again. “It’s time to let yourself live again.”

  “But, what if –”

  “Not tonight, Sam… We’re not going to think about what ifs tonight,” she answered. “Whatever issues you want to struggle with, we’ll think about them tomorrow.”

  I got the distinct impression that I would never win any kind of battle with this woman and decided to stop fighting her and the way my body felt about her. Although I felt like I was letting her win, I also knew I wasn’t conceding defeat either… if I was to be honest, I think she was really letting me win.

  Without needing to talk any more, we untangled ourselves from the lounge and moved to her bedroom. With eager eyes we watched each other remove our clothes, a sense of inevitability settling around us. As I took in the sight of her, I felt like the luckiest man on the planet. She was the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen and I could barely contain my eagerness to touch her. The fact that she reached for me first did amazing things for my confidence. I was also pleased that I’d kept myself in shape by working around the farm.

  In the end, making love to Rachelle felt like the most natural thing in the world. We complimented each other well and seemed to be able to anticipate what the other wanted easily. That night stretched out into the next morning’s sunrise, and a realisation that we had been meant to come into each other’s lives. Over the next couple weeks, I was able to introduce her properly to Mum and Caleb, and was convinced with their first few meetings that we could make a new family of our own. It seemed that all my struggles had not been in vain and that my life was now back on track. I was ready to surrender my warrior’s heart to love and see what happened.

  EPILOGUE

  Two years later…

  As I stood on the back veranda and watched Caleb carefully push his baby sister’s pram across the yard, it was hard to believe just how much he’d grown up over the last two years. Most of his young life had been taken up with pain and loss and struggle, but the last two years had seen him blossom. He’d easily accepted Rachelle into our home and when I’d married her last year, he’d stood proudly beside me as my best man. It was one of the most beautiful days of my life, only surpassed last month by the arrival of our daughter, Jayde Elizabeth. Caleb had been a doting big brother from the moment we’d told him we were expecting, and the instant connection between them had been a joy to watch. The first time he’d held her, she seemed to instantly know that she was safe in his arms. She’d stopped fussing and gazed up into his face. Even though all the adults in the room knew her eyes couldn’t clearly see him yet, he was sure she could. He’d introduced himself as her big brother and promised that he would always be her best friend, even if she played with Barbie dolls and had tea parties. Whenever he cuddled her, he kissed her gently on her forehead and told her how much he loved her. When he got home from school each day, he would hurry through his homework so he could spend time taking for walks around the farm when the sun started to drop in the sky and the temperature cooled off.

  This was an extension of the time he’d begun spending with Rachelle each day when she’d first come to live with us. As soon as she got home from the bank, she’d get changed into some home clothes and Caleb had taken her to help him with his chores. His reasoning behind this was that she needed to learn how to be a farm girl, but I thought he might have been secretly trying to have some alone time with her. Whatever the reason, it had become part of their daily routine and had helped build a close relationship between them. I was thankful for the chance to watch them walk and talk, and I often found myself with a tear in my eye as I wondered how he would have been with Liz at this age.

  Now that he’d included Jayde in his afternoon tours of the home yard, I could clearly see the protective side of his nature emerging. He was well on his way to becoming a warrior in his own right, and I was sure he would be a fierce protector of his sister as they grew up and his own family when the time came. In the meantime, it was time for us to take a break from our struggles and battles and enjoy being a family.

  While Caleb seemed to be explaining something about chicken management to his baby sister, Rachelle turned to gaze in my direction. The afternoon sun was kissing her long arms and legs, and she radiated pure love and happiness. I recognised again that I was the luckiest man on the planet, and although I usually let her have this time alone with our children, I made my way out to them. We walked the short distance to the old poinciana tree and sat in the shade for a while on the bench seat that my father had built for my mother when I was a baby. There were so many links to the past littered all over the property, but I was gradually linking them all to our future. With any luck, my only struggle from now until the day I left this earth would be to pro
ve myself worthy of the love of the woman by my side and the children in our arms.

  My days as a warrior were officially over.

  About the Author

  After working in a variety of administrative and educational support roles until my children finished their schooling, our family was met the challenge of relocating to the country in search of post-school support services for our son with profound disabilities. As it turns out, this move sparked a massive transformation for us all.

  Through my isolation from family and friends, and without the business of work, I reconnected with my love of reading. This quickly became an obsession. A chance meeting with a young self-published author at a book-signing for an international author sparked a conversation which has lead me to the place I am now… that of writing my own stories and using my passion for the written word to help other authors to edit their stories ready for publication.

  ‘BROKEN by my past HEALED by my future’ began its journey as an unfinished dream I was having as I was waking one morning. The images from the scenes where Lyndall is waking in the hospital, confused and hurting physically and emotionally, haunted me all that day until I wrote them down. Those visions filled my sleep for a few more nights, before I decided to see where I could go with them.

  What followed was the emotional task of teasing out the backstory which had brought Lyndall to that devastating point, and following her through her process of healing and arriving at her happily ever after.

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