Happy Never After

by Candace Dowds

  “Umm, okay...” dad pauses. “I don’t know where to begin.” my poor dad is now distressed.

  “Let me tell her,” Cole offers as he gently

  takes my hand in his.

  Looking up at him, I begin to full-on panic when I see that he has tears in his eyes. Whatever it is Cole needs to tell me, it’s not good, and I begin to regret that I was demanding answers. “I’m not going to like it,

  am I?” Bile is rising from my gut, I can taste it in the back of my throat.

  Slowly, Cole shakes his head before he fills his chest with air and lets it go. “After the accident you had many, many surgeries to correct everything. Well, they found out you were pregnant. Did you know you were pregnant?” he asks, his hand now under mine, our fingers laced as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  My breath quickens, and I can feel a panic attack coming on. As I begin to gasp for air, I hear my father call the nurse over and as much as she tries to keep me calm, it doesn’t work.

  Finally, I feel a jab in my leg and a minute later, the world around me slows down, and I close my eyes.

  Even though I’m groggy, and my eyes are closed, I search for more answers, and then it hits me and I straighten. “What the hell? Why are you drugging me up while I’m pregnant! It’s not good for the baby.” But I can hear that my voice is slow.

  Cole, who is still by my side asks John, “What the hell do I do?”

  “Tell her the truth.”

  As my eyes open, I see Cole turn back to face me. He then reaches up, cupping my cheeks in his hands, his eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I’m so sorry, but the baby didn’t make it. The doctors did everything they could. Your body couldn’t function for you, let alone for our baby. I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

  “Where is the baby?” my voice is cracking, I’m about to break down.

  Cole

  “I’ve taken care of everything. He’ll be back tomorrow after his cremation. I did try to wait in the hopes that you would wake up, but we ran out of time.” A lump forms in my throat, but I know I need to stay strong. I need to keep my shit together and be here for her.

  “It was a boy?”

  Smiling through the pain in my heart, I tell her, “Yeah, it was a boy.”

  When the shock subsides, her tears began to flow. All I can do is hold her in my arms and try to assure her that everything will be okay

  in time.

  Finally, when her tears begin to calm, she asks, “I can’t believe I didn’t know I was pregnant. Where is he?”

  Pulling away, she gazes into my eyes. “He’s being well taken care of. Your father and I decided that cremation would be the best

  option. We couldn’t wait any longer for you to heal. As much as I fought, in the end, I lost. We also went with cremation so you could have a chance to grieve and hold him. I hope to hell I did the right thing by you,” I whisper.

  Mia

  I can’t bring myself to utter a single word. I’m finding it all so very hard to believe, not that I’m calling Cole or my father liars, I just can’t take it all on board, is all. It’s going to take some time to sink in.

  Over the next few days, I was moved to a share room, with three other people, but it was almost impossible to get any rest at all.

  Two of them snored like freight trains, while the other always had people around her. Yes, Cole hasn’t left my side since I woke up

  from the coma, but at least he has the decency to keep his voice down.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t convince Cole to leave the hospital. He knew I was only moments away from losing my shit if I were left alone.

  The day after I woke from the coma, Cole had Matt go up to the funeral home to pick up our baby’s ashes and bring them back to

  us.

  When the hideous plastic screw top tub is handed to me, I’m livid. Livid at the fact that they’d had the nerve to put my son in a horrendous, oversized, white pill bottle. Holding it in my hands, the tears begin to fall down my cheeks. “What the hell is wrong with people?”

  Cole leans in and rests his head on my shoulder. “I wasn’t too pleased either. I’ve ordered a proper urn. It’s wooden and has teddy bears on the front, but I opted to wait to get it engraved because we haven’t discussed names,” he explains and I cry even harder at the thought of having to find the perfect name for the child we never got to meet, a child that would have been loved beyond belief.

  Cole slips his hand over my stomach and kisses my cheek. “There is no hurry, baby girl. No hurry, at all,” he assures me before he

  goes out of his way to get me a private room, something I’m truly grateful for because I need to grieve in peace, away from prying eyes and ears.

  Cole

  Mia and I stayed snuggled up and peacefully living with one another for a

  good week before new threats began to come through. This time, Sam uses a different phone number to send them from.

  I immediately forward the messages on to my lawyer, who advises me not to call or respond to any messages that are sent to me.

  After the calls to my lawyers are made, I took a seat at the vast dining table, where I pour myself a very large bourbon on the rocks.

  As I sip it, and wonder what the hell I’m going to do next, Mia walks into the room, fresh from the shower. She’s wearing a short, she shoestring strapped, white dress and her wet hair is hanging over her shoulder. She is absolute perfection.

  “Are you okay? You look stressed?” she asks as she takes the seat beside me.

  Pushing my phone towards her, I tell her,

  “Take a look in my messages.” As much as I want to shield her from my psycho ex, I also know I need to not keep something so important from her if I want to be a part of her life, and I do. I do, more than anything.

  While Mia scrolls through my phone, I gulp down the last of my drink before I place the glass back down on the table.

  “Shit. What do we do?” she asks as she looks up at me and lowers the phone.

  “I called my lawyer the minute I got them,

  when you were in the shower. He’s asked me not to respond and that I forward anything that comes in to him. I’ll place a call through to my PI and have her followed. I had considered doing it when you were still in hospital, but now I think it’s the best bet. Fortunately, she has no idea where I am.” It’s all I can think to do.

  Looking over at her, I give her a smile. “Since we’re safe out here, how would you feel about heading into town and grabbing a Chicken Parma for dinner at the pub? I’m feeling a little claustrophobic and need to get out, even if it’s only for an hour.”

  Her eyes light up. “You know I could never say no to a Parma. I should go and put something more appropriate on, I guess,” she says as she looks down at her dress.

  Reaching up, I rest my hand on her shoulder

  and her eyes meet mine. “You look perfect. There’s no need to change, but you may want to grab a coat, just in case it gets cold later.”

  “You really think I look okay? Because I just looked in the mirror and I sure didn’t like what I saw. I have scars everywhere now. My legs, my arm, and the gash on my forehead. It’s going to take me an hour just to get my makeup right. I’m going to have to make an appointment with a plastic surgeon soon, just to see if they’ll be able to

  get rid of them.” She looks down at the scar from her broken arm, and as she does, I carefully reach out, taking her hand in mine. When I do, she looks up at me.

  “You needn’t worry about any of that, Mia, you’re perfect. You’ve always been a stunning natural beauty. You’ve never been a woman who’s needed to cake on makeup or wear the current trend. You’re gorgeous just as you are, and these scars only add to your beauty.” I lean in and press a kiss to her cheek.

  As I pull away, she tells me, “You must be blind.” She then goes to stand. “I’m going to go and put on that pile of makeup I do need.” She chuckl
es as she walks away from me, her hand slipping out of mine.

  As we drive up the windy road, suddenly, Mia reaches out and grabs a hold of my forearm. “Stop the car,” she demands.

  “Wait, what?” I have no idea what she’s going on about. Why would we need to stop here, of all places?

  “Just pull over!”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll pull over.” The very instant I’ve steered the car on the tight shoulder and brought it to a stop, Mia opens the car door before slamming it behind her as she gets out.

  Needing to find out what the hell is going on, as soon as I’m out, I look around, and that’s when I see her looking over the edge of the mountain. “Mia, what are you doing?” I make my way around the car until I’m standing beside her.

  “This is where that asshole came into my lane. Look, everything is burned up, and I can see the side mirror from the Commodore,” she tells me as she points to where the shiny piece of metal rests between two trees.

  My mind begins to wander. Shit, she came so close to death, I can barely believe she managed to survive.

  Without thinking, my hand slips around her

  waist and I use it to bring her as close as possible to me. “I should be dead,” she whispers and her voice breaks.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. Being a stubborn pain in the ass worked to your advantage this time.” I chuckle. I feel her chest rise and fall as she chuckles, too.

  Raising her head, she smiles. “I’m so fucking glad I told death to piss off. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. Shall we go to dinner?”

  “Whatever you wish.”

  Once we’d arrived at the pub, we took our seats by the window that overlooked the mountains and ordered our meals. I then had the waitress fill our wine glasses.

  I knew I had to savour every moment I had with Mia, so I took a moment to sit back and really look at her, at how much she she hadn’t aged, and thought about how much I wanted to get down on one knee and ask her if she’d spend the rest of her life with me. Right here and right now. I know she’d most likely laugh at me if I did, but the day will come, sooner rather than later.

  She catches me staring at her and asks, “What’s that look for!”

  Shaking my head, I tell her, “I’ve missed

  you.”

  “How can you have missed me? You’ve been by my side for weeks?” She chuckles.

  “I mean, I’ve missed six years of this. Six years passed me by and I don’t know how I survived.” The only thing I could do was take it day by day, but it had felt like an eternity.

  “I must admit, I missed you, too. It’s why I worked so much, and for so many hours a day. I didn’t, and still haven’t got a social life. The only time I’d take for myself was when I’d go hunting.”

  My brows bunch. “Hunting?” I know Mia can be a badass, but I never would have

  guessed she’d go out to specifically hunt down animals, not when she loves them so much.

  “Yeah, my dad and I keep rifles locked up in our houses for when the foxes try to come and kill our chickens and ducks. When it’s warm, we go up in the blind at night and we wait. As much as I love all living creatures, I also like to protect those who can’t help themselves. And then there’s the asshole poachers. The city assholes that come up to camp for the weekend try to get a few months’ worth of meat for their freezers while they’re here. No one is going to hurt my cows. No one. We don’t raise them to sell off, we raise them because we love having

  them around. Each and every one of them has a name, and I can call them by their names and they willingly come for a pat.” She shrugs.

  “I love it. You’ll have to take me out to meet them.” Her life is picture perfect, I only hope she can make room in it for me, too.

  “I absolutely will. I just know you’ll fall in love with Dexter. Dexter is a girl, but I was on a roll with serial killer names after I ran out of smart-ass names,” she chuckles and so do I.

  “Only you would name a bunch of cows after serial killers, I can’t wait to meet them.”

  Once our meals have been delivered to the table, I can’t help but chuckle as Mia

  demolishes the entire plate of Chicken Parmigiana and mashed potatoes. As she sat back holding her stomach, she looks to me and her eyes are now slits, in mock anger. “What’s do damn funny?”

  “I can’t get over the fact that you eat like a grown man, yet you remain so trim.” It’s always baffled me, because if any other woman were to eat as much as she does, they’d be the size of a house.

  Her expression calms. “That’s something I inherited from my dad’s side. No matter how much we eat, we never gain an ounce.” She shrugs as she reaches up and brushes her long hair off her shoulder.

  On the drive back to the house, Mia is the one to move her hand over the console, taking mine, and our fingers thread with one another’s. It gives me hope, hope that this will become a regular occurrence.

  “I was thinking of asking Matt and Leah to come up to the farm for a few days. I miss them. Would that be okay with you?” She asks, looking over, and as she does, I find myself feeling confused. “Why are you asking for my approval? It’s your house, you can do whatever you like, baby girl.” I then shift my focus back to the road that stretching out before us.

  “Of course, I need to run it by you. You’re staying with me indefinitely, so you have a say in the matter, too. Hell, it could take months to get your ex out of the picture, and I don’t want you going back to the city until the bitch is dealt with. I know I can’t force you to stay, but I know I’d feel better knowing you weren’t in any imminent danger.”

  Indefinitely? I like the sound of that. “I’d love to see them. And I want to thank you for allowing me to hide out at your place. I do feel much safer being out here, and seeing you each day is a huge bonus.”

  “I like you being here, too.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mia

  The next Friday afternoon, my phone rang. When I pick it up, I smile when I see Leah’s number.

  Hitting accept, I place the phone to my ear. “Hey, sweetheart,” I answer.

  “We’re at the gate. Can you hit the buzzer?” she asks.

  After I make my way into the kitchen, I pick up the remote and hit the button. “Is it opening, hun?”

  “Sure is. See you in a minute.”

  “Will do.” I hang up the phone and rush outside, overly excited by the fact that my best friends are here.

  As I descend the outside porch steps, I see Matt’s White, VF Holden Commodore come up the drive.

  He parks his car behind Cole’s and before Matt has the chance to kill the engine, Leah has her seatbelt off, her door open, and she’s racing towards me.

  Bracing myself so I don’t get bowled over, I hold out my arms for her. When she gets to me, she manages to rein in a tiny bit of her excitement, worried she’ll hurt me. “I’m so

  happy to see you,” she cries as she bear-hugs me, squeezing the wind out of my chest.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I whisper as my own tears begin to fall.

  As we continue to hold onto one another for dear life, I hear another car approach. Looking over Leah’s shoulder, my eyes squint to try and see who’s driving because it isn’t a car I recognise..

  “Who is that?” I hear Cole ask from behind me.

  “I have no idea, but it’s racing.”

  All of a sudden, Cole screams, “Everyone inside, now! Matt, call the cops.”

  In a split second, I feel two arms wrap around me, and they lift me off the ground. “What are you doing?” I yell.

  “That’s Sam. I need to get you somewhere safe, now!” Fuck!

  When we’re all safely in the house, and Matt is on the phone, I tell Cole to put me down. The second he does, I race to the hall cupboard where the gun safe is and type in the combination. Turning the handle, the door opens and retrieve the already loaded guns. I know it’s against the law to keep bullets in them, but I’ve alwa
ys found it frustrating when I have to pull one of my rifles out and load it in a hurry.

  “What are you doing, Mia?” Cole calls out

  to me.

  “I’m getting the guns. We can’t be too safe,” I call in return as I pull all three out and make my way back to the living room, where I hand one to Cole and the other to Matt, who’s still on the phone with the police.

  “Shit! She has lackeys and all four of them, including the woman, are carrying. Tell those cops to get out here, now!” Leah yells as she sneakily looks through a tiny opening in the curtains.

  “They have guns! The bitch is a stalker! We need help, now!” Matt screams at the police on the other end of the call.

  “They’re coming up the stairs!” Leah informs us.

  “Leah, go and take shelter in the back bedroom. Get under the bed,” I demand.

  “You need to do the same thing,” Cole warns me.

  “Oh, hell no! I’m not leaving you a man down. I know how to use a gun way better than you ever could,” I mock.

  Just then, someone beats down on the door. “Come out, you chicken shit and face your wife. If you don’t, then we will let ourselves in, you coward,” a man’s voice

  calls.

  “Get the fuck off my property!” I scream at

  the very top of my lungs.

  “Shut up, you home-wrecking whore!” Sam calls back.

  “Oh, hell no!” This bitch is going to have to face me.

  As I walk towards the front door, Cole stands in my way. “You can’t go out there. We don’t know what they’re capable of, Mia.”

  “No guns! And get off my porch!” I yell to those waiting outside, and I hand mine to Cole.

  “Fine. No guns, and we’ll get off the porch,” Sam calls in return.

  Taking a step forward, again, Cole tries to stop me. “Mia, this is my fight, not yours. Let me go out there.”