Destined to Change

by Harley, Lisa M.

  “Well hello hon’, how are ya feeling? I heard you had a rough night last night,” Cade said in a snarky tone as I walked up to find him talking business with Mr. Davidson.

  “I’m feeling just fine. That thing last night was so insignificant it didn’t have any effect on my day at all, but thanks so much for your concern.”

  “It was definitely my pleasure ma’am. Well, George sounds like we got some more business to talk about, you wanna go grab another drink at the bar?”

  I pushed right in front of Cade. “Mr. Davidson, I was really hoping we could get a chance to talk tonight. I would love to give you some information about Harper Farms. I believe our reputation precedes us.”

  I pushed out my chest so my cleavage would just about pop out of the front of my dress. Cade and Mr. Davidson both noticed immediately. I didn’t know who looked hungrier.

  “Harper Farms, huh? Yes, ma’am. I believe I would like to talk to ya a little more tonight. Why don’t you let me finish my discussion with Mr. Walker, and then I’ll come find ya?”

  “Sounds like a great idea Mr. Davidson, or can I call you George?”

  “Why of course you can, hon, I look forward to seeing ya real soon.”

  Cade glared at me from the bar, but the glare quickly changed. It became more intense, more sultry, just damn hot. Why was he looking at me like that? Didn’t he understand that last night meant nothing, and I would never do that with him again? I thought I really loved Jaxon, I mean I did love Jaxon - but why was I drawn to this arrogant asshole?

  It seemed like this event would never end. We had schmoozed with everyone in the room. We had been pawed. I had at least twenty offers to dance, buy me a drink, or take me up to their room. But the good news was I talked to George, and he had agreed to sell me half of his herd at a great price. Emma was having a good time drinking and dancing and pretending she was single. She would never do more than flirt, but she was really enjoying herself.

  “I am really tired Lor. You about ready to go upstairs?”

  “Why don’t you go ahead Emma, I’m not quite ready to go to sleep yet. I’ll be up soon. I’ll be fine, go get some sleep.”

  “Okay, but if you need anything call me, I’ll leave my phone on.” She then disappeared down the hall.

  Not moments after Emma disappeared I felt warm breath on my neck and then a tongue on my ear. I shuddered all the way down to my toes.

  “Dance with me?” I turned to see Cade looking at me, waiting for my answer.

  “I don’t dance, sorry.”

  “You can just follow my lead.”

  “I don’t think so. Not tonight. I think we did enough last night, don’t you? And besides, I really need to get upstairs to Emma.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the hall. Before I knew what was happening, his tongue was in my mouth, his hand was sliding up my thigh through the slit in my dress. He murmured, “So wet”, when he ran his fingers inside my panties.

  I didn’t know what came over me, but I didn’t stop him. I let him raise my leg up and press his erection against me. I let him kiss me and take over my mouth with his tongue, and then I let him slide his other hand down the back of my dress to cup my bare cheek. I didn’t want him to stop and the only reason he finally did was to say, “I don’t have a condom with me. We need to go to my room, now.”

  In his room, we picked up right where we left off. He had me pressed against the wall with my legs wrapped around his waist as he held me up over his very strained erection that was about to poke right through his pants. I reached between us and unzipped his pants, letting them fall to the ground.

  “Condom,” I said as I pushed his tightie-whities down his legs.

  He carried me over to the nightstand, bent over and opened the drawer. There was a giant box of condoms in there. “Like a good Boy Scout, I’m always prepared.”

  He put me down just long enough to put on the condom, and then he pushed me back up against the wall and held me up to where I was hovering over his erection. Our eyes met and he teased me by inserting just the tip and then he did this amazing thing with his hips and pressed in a little further. His eyes never left mine. Then a moan escaped his lips as he told me, “Hold on, wrap your arms around my neck.”

  I did as I was told and he grabbed my ass and slammed me down on him. I screamed out “Cade - oh my god - Cade,” as I came again and again.

  He was relentless; he didn’t stop pounding into me. It hurt, but in such a good way. Nothing like my time with Declan that was so sweet or my time with Jaxon that was so loving. This was just hard, rough sex. I really never thought I would enjoy that. When I had fantasized about sex, it was always gentle, but Cade was anything but gentle.

  After he had given me too many orgasms to count, he let go and when he did he howled - wow, I guess I didn’t imagine that after all.

  The next morning the light was so bright coming through the windows. I felt his warm body pressed up against mine, and the realization of what had happened yesterday hit me. I had lost Jaxon forever. He hated me. I couldn’t blame anyone for this. It was all my fault.

  The thought of laying there with Cade was literally making me nauseous. I needed to get out of this room and get back to Emma. I needed to call the kids and I really needed to talk to Jaxon. First things first, I had to get away from Cade.

  I tried to pull out from under his big, muscular arm, but the more I tried to wiggle out from under it, the closer Cade pulled me back.

  “Where ya tryin’ to rush off to, hon?” Cade whispered in my ear.

  “I need to get back to my room. Emma will be worried sick, and I have to call and check up on my kids.”

  “Kids? As in ‘more than one’?”

  “Yes, Cade, I have nine year old twins.”

  Cade looked like I had surprised the hell out of him. “But you’re too young to have kids that old, aren’t ya?”

  “Obviously, I’m not that young, because I do have kids that old. I’m twenty-six.”

  “Started young, huh?” he laughed as he kissed my shoulder.

  There was no way I was going to go into the details of my life with this man. I didn’t plan on ever seeing him again, of course I didn’t plan on last night either.

  I sat up and decided it was time to be honest with Cade. “This can never happen again, Cade. I am only in town one more day and then I will be heading back home to my kids and….” Cade interrupted me, “Asshat?”

  Then it hit me - Jaxon, what I was going to do about Jaxon? He hated me now, we both said some horrible things yesterday and then I did the one thing that I knew would break his heart - again.

  How could I sleep with Cade again? What had come over me? I knew that he was sexy and he made me feel like a completely different person, but how could I want to be with him? I didn’t understand why I wanted him, when I was in love with Jaxon. But was I in love with Jaxon? Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I just thought it was love. Right now all I could think about was my need to get home. I needed to figure out what was going to happen with Jaxon. But most of all I just needed to get the hell away from Cade.

  Chapter 8

  Jaxon – 17 years old

  “Son, its time for you to make some difficult life choices. You’ve been in front of me on more than a couple occasions. I’ve watched you get a little more lost each time you’re brought in. I know you haven’t had the best lot in life, but when a boy gets to a certain age he has to decide what kind of man he wants to be, and son, you need to be making that decision soon.”

  I knew Judge Powell was right. If I didn’t make some changes I was going to end up in prison or in the ground. This was a fact - true history - as my mom would call it, but I just couldn’t get my life straightened out. I didn’t care what happened to me. I never had really.

  I grew up in Richmond, California. My mom, Sue, tried to raise me right, but my dad left when I was a baby so everything was much harder for her. My mom was born and raised in a small town in Missouri.
She met my dad, Jack, when she visited Camp Pendelton for a cousin’s bootcamp graduation ceremony. He was a contractor who worked on the base there. They had a whirlwind week long romance.

  When she got back to Missouri and found out she was pregnant, she contacted my dad. He apparently wasn’t real excited about being a dad, but he told her if she would move to Richmond with him he would marry her and raise me. That marriage lasted until I was two months old. Then he took off and that was that.

  Life was hard for my mom and me. After my dad left, mom had to work three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I loved her with all of my heart. She was the most amazing woman ever, but after my dad took off on her, she was never really the same, or so I’d heard.

  She could’ve moved back to Missouri and lived around family, but she was embarrassed and ashamed of what had happened with my dad. So we stayed in California and she tried her best to raise me right. I did not help her with that at all.

  I started out drinking when I was about twelve. Drinking was an awesome way to get my mind off of what was going on in my life. I got my first piercing when I was thirteen. I was drunk. Some guy at the party I was at took a needle and pierced my eyebrow. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but in a room full of badass kids I sure wasn’t going to show any pain.

  Soon drinking just wasn’t enough, I needed more. My friend Ratz, - his real name was Toby Ratzen - started dealing drugs when we were fourteen. He introduced me to a whole crazy world of hell. I just wanted to get out of my head, but what Ratz got me into almost got me out of this world.

  I woke up and I couldn’t figure out why I was so hot. I was smothering and I couldn’t quit shaking. I felt like I was literally going to shake out of my skin. And it was so fucking bright in that room. I felt like if I tried hard enough I could reach out and touch the sun.

  “Baby, oh God, baby. Please wake up. Please be okay. I can’t live without you Jax, wake up!” Stacy was screaming at me. Stacy and I had been together for two years. We planned to get married and get the hell out of this horrible town as soon as she finished high school. I quit last year, I didn’t need school, I just needed her and my next fix.

  Soon pot wasn’t enough, and I had to start dealing with Ratz so I could feed my own addiction. Stacy was so fucking pure. Like the snow. No matter what I tried to give her, she wouldn’t use drugs. She really loved me and wanted a future with me. Why couldn’t she understand how fucked in the head I was? I never understood why she wanted to be with me. But she did, so I decided I was going to straighten up. I didn’t give a shit about me. I had to do it for her.

  That’s what had started the downward spiral that got me in front of Judge Powell today.

  I tried to open my eyes. Stacy was still screaming, and I could feel something seeping down my face into my eye. My pants were wet. Oh shit, I’d pissed myself. I couldn’t do this to her. I had to get away. She deserved so much better than me and my fucked up life.

  “Jax, please tell me you're okay baby, please. I’m so sorry I was late, I had to take Megan home after school. Mom couldn’t pick her up. I should have been here with you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to help you.” Stacy cried. I finally got my eyes open and the look on her face absolutely broke my fucking heart. The time was now, I knew what I had to do.

  “Get the fuck off me bitch! Get the hell out of here. I don’t want you. I don’t want to ever see your fucking face again. GET OUT!” I didn’t want to do this, and it was breaking my heart, but I couldn’t put that look on her face ever again. She would be so much better off with some nice guy that could give her what she needed. Stacy sobbed and ran out. Mission accomplished.

  After I kicked Stacy out, I went cold turkey. I quit the drinking, I quit the drugs, and I told Ratz that I couldn’t work for him anymore. I’d almost OD’d. I’d fallen and hit my head and was bleeding all over everything, I’d pissed my pants. I’d lost so much weight that I was barely even myself anymore. I was going to become a better man and maybe then I would deserve Stacy. I could beg her to take me back. After everything I said to her, it probably wouldn’t happen, but I had to try.

  The day before I appeared in court, had started off like any other day in my new world. I woke up, took a shower, and headed off to the garage I worked at to start my shift at eight a.m. I got the call at eleven-thirty a.m. Ratz, what the fuck could he want?

  “Uh, man, I need you to do a job for me tonight.”

  “You know I don’t do that shit anymore Ratz, leave me the hell alone!”

  “I need you man, I know you gave it up, but I need you to do this. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret,” Ratz threatened.

  “What the fuck, man? You’re gonna threaten me now. Fuck you!” I screamed and slammed the phone down. What the hell did he think I would do, just drop everything and go do a job for him? I didn’t do that shit anymore and I wasn’t getting back into that life.

  I‘d been clean for six months, trying to work up the courage to go back to Stacy and beg forgiveness. It had been so long since I had seen her, I just needed to make sure I was completely out of the life before I went back to her.

  When I got off work, I started for home. I looked over and saw Ratz’s jeep parked across from my garage. I walked over to him ready to knock his head off, when I noticed someone sitting in the front seat. It was Stacy.

  She was completely wasted out of her fucking mind. She was skin and bones, her hair was falling out, she had on an outfit that a hooker wouldn’t wear, and Ratz had his tongue down her throat.

  Ratz had planned this whole thing. He knew how upset I would be about Stacy, and he thought that I would just give in and use. Do whatever he needed me to do. I think I changed his plans a little when I punched through the window, grabbing him by the throat. I pulled him out of the window with my bloody arm and cut the hell out of him and myself. Then I started pounding him. I heard his nose break. His jaw was cracking.

  I wanted to bash his skull in for what he had done. When I got to jail, they told me I almost killed him. He fucking deserved it for what he did to Stacy. My sweet, pure, innocent Stacy.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, son?” Judge Powell asked me.

  “Sir, with all due respect, the bastard deserved it. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but you have no idea what he’s done.”

  I tried to control my anger, but I could feel it raging through my body. My hands were clenched into fists and I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead.

  The judge said, “I know Mr. Ratzen. He has appeared in my court several times, and I believe you when you say he deserved it. I don’t like what you did, but I understand that you were trying to protect Ms. Roberts. I’m going to sentence you to community service and one year probation. I want you to know that Ms. Roberts was taken in and she will be placed in a mandatory rehab program for three months.”

  I was so relieved not only for myself, but that Stacy would get clean. This was all my fault. I had done this to her. I knocked her down with my words and she went to the one thing that would make her forget, just like I had done so many times before.

  I waited thirty days before I visited Stacy in rehab. We talked for hours every day, and I explained to her why I had said such horrible things to her. She told me she understood that I was trying to protect her from that life.

  By the time she got out of rehab we had decided to get an apartment together. Stacy started cosmetology school, and I continued to work at the garage. Within a year we were married and talking about buying a house and having kids. I was so happy to be with her and together we were happy.

  Jaxon- 25 years old

  Stacy and I had been married for almost seven years. For the most part we were really happy. She worked full-time at a beauty salon by our house. I still worked at the garage, but now I was the manager. We had been trying to get pregnant ever since we got married, but it hadn’t happened. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night to Stacy crying in the
bathroom because she started her period. I knew how bad she wanted a baby, and it killed me that I couldn't give her the one thing she wanted more than anything.

  The past couple of months Stacy had been acting weird. She would go out with her girlfriends a few nights a week and I would hardly even see her on the weekends. I decided I should give her some space, because I knew she was so upset about the baby situation. But her behavior was really starting to worry me.

  When I opened the door to our house that night I knew something wasn’t right. I took off early so I could surprise Stacy. I stopped and bought her a dozen red roses and got her a box of her favorite chocolates from the little store on the corner.

  I heard voices when I started for the stairs, and then I heard something I never thought I would hear. I heard Ratz scream out “Stacy” and then a loud moan. I walked into my bedroom and found him on top of her. She was so wasted that she actually reached for me and asked me to join them. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill her, but all I could do was stand there and stare as my life was ruined.

  I turned around and walked out of our house. I got in my car and drove to my moms house across town.

  “Son, is she using drugs again?” My mom asked.

  “I think so. She’s been acting really strange. I wanted this to work so bad. I love her, mom,” I said as I held my head in my hands sitting at the table in my mom’s kitchen.

  “She’s your first love, Jaxon. We all think that our first love is forever, but ninety-percent of the time it isn’t. I’ve been concerned about that girl for awhile. I was wondering how long it would take you to see it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, looking up.

  “You needed to see it for yourself, son. This isn’t something your mom can do for you. You needed to figure it out yourself. And now you need to plan your future. You have to decide if Stacy is going to be part of it.”

  “I honestly don’t know. I thought she was my future, but now I’m not so sure. Can I stay here with you for awhile? Until I work some stuff out.”