by Katie Dowe
“And you have done a tremendous job in giving back to the community in the form of the center.” Matthew told her gently, his hands pushing back the strands from her forehead.
“You, my dear smart and totally hot husband has worked very hard and has contributed a lot to society. I don’t want you feeling guilty about what those people think because it is not on us and I hope you believe that.”
“I am beginning to,” he pulled her into his arms and held her tight. “What would I do without you?”
“I haven’t a clue.” She smiled into his chest.
They stood there in each other’s arms for a moment just savoring being like that together. The children had gone back to school on Monday even though the turnout had been a little scanty but as Matthew had promised Mrs. Morgan, the principal he had helped her to do damage control and had persuaded the parents to send back their kids.
“How about some hot cocoa?” she asked him lifting her head to look at him.
“You are making it?” he asked her softly.
“I am. I want you to take a seat and not think about business or the fact that there are some sick people out there and pretend we are untouchable which we are actually in this place.” She kissed him on the lips, her tongue reaching out to touch his and lingering. He kissed her back, pulling her closer to him. She wrapped her hands around his neck as she melted into his arms.
*****
Marissa finally roused herself to sort out John’s stuff. She had been putting it off ever since the funeral and everything had been finalized but tonight after she had settled Denzel in bed and made sure he was asleep, she had poured herself a glass of red wine and turned into the bedroom and into the closet and started the unpleasant task of clearing out his clothes. It had been almost three weeks since the funeral and she needed to let go and move on somehow. She had been coming into the closet everyday and touching his things and reliving the times he had worn this outfit or that one and she realized that there was no way it was healthy. So she had taken the bull by the horns and was now going to do what needed to be done. She took down the jackets which were numerous and placed them on shelves. The helper had asked her for some of the clothes and she was going to give her a package and the rest she was going to be donating to some thrift stores.
She had been making a good headway when she took down a dark blue cashmere sweater and felt something heavy in one of the pockets. With a frown she reached inside and her eyes widened as she took out a flat square box and opened it. She gasped and her hand went to her throat when she realized that it was a ruby necklace with eight beautiful stones and one large one in the middle and there was a note.
“My dearest Mar,” her eyes watered as she read the name he called her. “I doubt I am going to make it to Valentine’s Day so I hope when you are clearing out my things you will find this and not give the sweater to some homeless guy who would not know what to do with a necklace like this (smile). I want you to know that I loved being married to you and you have made the last years of my life extremely happy. I want you to go out and enjoy yourself and if there is someone you love then go ahead and marry him, I don’t want you to be alone and grieve for long. I want you to be happy because I was and I want you and Denzel to go everywhere because I have made that possible. That night when you surprised me with what you did was the happiest moment of my life and I want to say a big thank you! I love you my dear and all the best. Your husband John.”
Marissa read the letter two more times and then she sat on the carpeted floor of the closet and burying her head into her lap, she cried.
Chapter 7
“I am going on a cruise as soon as Denzel is out of school for spring break.” Marissa announced as she helped to sort out the packages that had just arrived. The snow had melted and the time had started getting warmer with the blades of grass showing and the flowers blooming.
“Good for you.” Christine said approvingly. “You look better too.”
“So where are you going?” Jeanette asked her curiously.
“To the Caribbean. The Bahamas, Bermuda, Grenada and of course Jamaica.” Marissa said with a smile.
“Sounds like fun and the perfect places to get healing.” Cara told her with a smile. “You will be gone for two weeks?”
“Two full weeks.” She said with a sigh. “Denzel is so excited.” She turned to Cara and Christine. “Remember we said we were going back to the farm for spring vacation and the children are going to try riding the horses and things like that?”
“It’s okay honey we can do it in the summer.” Cara assured her.
“No no!” she said hastily. “I want you to plan a day of fun and activities for the kids, not only your kids but the kids here as well. All expenses on me. I want to give back some of the tremendous blessings I have received from John Coulter. There could be a milking competition, apple eating contest and some sort of racing. There are other things that could be planned as well. The place will be at your disposal and the land is large enough for a cookout. I just have to tell the household help and the farm hands when to expect everyone.” She added her dark brown eyes shining in excitement.
“Honey are you sure?” Cara asked her. She was beginning to think that it was a very good idea.
“I am positive. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea.” Jeanette said with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “We will just have to find a way to transport the kids.”
“That’s where my husband Bobby comes in.” Christine spoke up. “I will let him know so that he can transport them to and from the farm for that day.”
“It’s settled then,” Marissa said with satisfaction. “And Cara I don’t want to hear anything about you or your husband funding any of it. It is my contribution to what you are doing here now.”
*****
Martin Wray felt like he was being called into the principal’s office at school. He had been on edge for the past three weeks because he just felt as if something was wrong. He was in over his head and he knew that he was going to lose his job. He had not wanted to do like the others were doing because he figured he was a father now and he needed to be an example to his kids. His wife Marion had had to stop working because of complications during the pregnancy so everything was on him and he had found the bills piling up even though he kept assuring her that everything was cool. He used the handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his chocolate brown forehead. How were they were going to manage if he was put away?
He sat there in the secretary’s office waiting for his turn to go into the man’s office, his hands twisting nervously. He had been waiting for a few minute but it felt like eternity and he could not stand another minute of it.
“Mr. Wray you may go in now.” He jumped at the secretary’s voice and nodded getting to his feet and walking woodenly to the door. He hesitated a moment before pushing the door open and going in.
“Have a seat Mr. Wray.” Matthew Loan’s voice was formal and he felt the foreboding deep in his gut. He had never met the man formally but he had seen him at the meeting when he was taking over the internet company where he worked and of course he was always in the financial section of the papers. He had also seen him and his family in the celebrity rags and had thought to himself how lucky the man was.
“I see you have a baby on the way,” he began the conversation.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.” He repeated in a stronger voice not knowing if the man had heard him.
“Do you have any idea what the sex is?”
Martin stared at the man in front of him wondering why the questions about his baby. “Not yet.”
“You have been caught in the act Mr. Wray and I must say I am surprised. I have children myself and I want them to think that I am a saint. What example are you showing them?” Matthew asked him mildly.
Martin looked down at his hands that were clasped tightly between his legs. “I love my kids.” He whispered hoarsely feeling the despair closing ove
r him.
“I am sure you do.” Matthew leaned forward and stared at him. “I understand that you were reluctant to join in the wrongdoing in the first place but you gave in and now you are in big trouble.”
Martin trembled and leaned forward. “Mr. Logan, please sir, I have a family to support. I will pay back what I owe if you only give me another chance. It has been pretty rough on us as a family and I know that is no excuse for me to do what I did but I promise you that it will never happen again.”
Matthew sat there and listened to him in silence. Before he came in to see him he had been prepared to let him go. The company was steadily losing money and he was getting frustrated and wondering if he had done the right thing in buying out the company. The board had been on him to get rid of them but he had seen where, if properly streamlined, it could start to make a profit.
“I am going to give you three months to prove to me that you can step up to the plate and prove to me that you have changed then I will reconsider.” Matthew told him slowly.
His eyes drifted to where there were several framed pictures on his desk. There was one with the entire family and had been a family portrait taken two Christmases ago. Another one with his three children in different poses smiling for the camera with Janice playing center role as usual. There was a large one with his wife in a blue and white dress that clung to every curve of her body and her hair loose around her lovely face. There was a wide smile on her face and her dark brown eyes filled with light. They were the most important part of his life and if he was not able to take care of them he would not feel like a man.
“Don’t let me regret doing this Mr. Wray,” he told the nervous man seated in front of the desk.
“I won’t,” he vowed before getting up to leave. “I have too much to live for.”
*****
He got home at a quarter to seven to find all the children in their beds.
“Daddy!” they chorused as soon as he came into the room. Jennifer had been downstairs and had told him that there was dinner warming in the kitchen but he had told her he was not hungry as he had eaten already.
“They decided that they wanted to stay up and wait for you.” Cara told him as he approached the bed. He had taken off his suit jacket and put it on the bed post.
“This is the best homecoming a man could ever hope for,” he told them with a smile.
“We did not want to go to sleep without seeing you first,” Joel told him solemnly as he joined them on the bed.
“Daddy why do you work so hard?” Jeremy asked him.
“Because he has to have a lot of money to take care of us silly,” Janice chided him and brought a smile to her parent’s face.
“That’s partly it,” Matthew explained to them gently. They had left their mother and had crawled onto him as he sat there propped against the pillows. “I run a company and I make a lot of decisions and lots of people depend on me.” He passed his hand over his daughter’s curls and then touched his two sons briefly before continuing. “But my family means more to me than any company and if it means that I have to cut back on my hours then I will do so.”
“We get to see you every night when you get home and besides we are at school during the day anyway.” Janice said with a shrug. “We don’t mind you working.”
“You don’t?” he looked at her in amusement, wondering how on earth she had become so grown up.
“A girl at our school by the name of Michaela tells me that she does not get to see her daddy until in the summer because her parents are divorced,” she continued soberly. “I could not bear to get to see you only in the summer, I would be crying every single day.”
“And you read us stories when you get home no matter how tired you are.” Jeremy said.
“We are glad you are our parents,” Joel said his green gaze encompassing both parents.
“And we could never ask for better children,” Cara said finally making a contribution to the conversation.
“Can we stay a little bit and watch cartoons until we are sleepy? Auntie Jennifer and Mrs. Morgan already read us stories so you don’t have to.” Janice told them.
“Of course sweetie,” Cara said looking over at her husband. “Daddy will go ahead and take his shower and then we will watch something together.”
They fell asleep in the next hour. One minute they were laughing at the antics of the pink panther and the next minute both Matthew and Cara noticed that first Jeremy had fallen off then the twins soon after.
Matthew sat there watching them, their innocent faces and felt the love curling inside him. “Think we should move them?” he asked Cara softly. She was half asleep as well with Joel curled up beside her.
“I think we should allow them to stay just this once,” she yawned and stretched. “The bed is big enough to accommodate all of us.”
“I hate sleeping without my wife beside me,” Matthew said wryly fixing his daughter’s head properly. “But I like watching them sleep.” They were sprawled between them and he decided to let them stay that way. “I am going to have to make do with a kiss,” he murmured stretching over them to kiss her gently on the lips. “Goodnight my love.”
She held on running her fingers through his soft ash blonde hair and touching his warm skin. “Just a little more,” she whispered huskily and deepened the kiss.
Matthew felt his arousal and with a shaky laugh he broke off contact and moved away from her. “If we keep that up I am not going to care that our children are on the bed.”
With a small smile Cara slid down on the pillows and pulled the sheets over her babies and very soon they drifted off to sleep.
*****
“And we slept in Daddy’s and Mommy’s bed,” Jeremy told his aunt in excitement. “All of us did and we were not squished at all.” He dug into his cereal eagerly as he made the report.
“We would not be squished silly; their bed is huge so there is plenty of space.” Janice told him impatiently as she carefully put her spoon of cereal of her lips.
“Don’t call your brother silly Jan,” her aunt told her indulgently as she looked at them all scrubbed and ready for school.
They were all sitting down to breakfast for a change instead of grabbing something from the side board where the maids put the breakfast out for them each morning. “I came to see if you were up this morning and thought my babies had all gone somewhere else.” She teased.
“We would not have gone anywhere in the night auntie!” Joel exclaimed looking at his aunt and shaking his blonde curls. “We fell asleep in their beds and they let us stay. Can we do it again?” he looked at his parents hopefully.
“Maybe, but not right now. Mommy and daddy need their privacy.” Matthew told him with a smile as he sipped his coffee.
He had decided to have a leisurely breakfast with his family instead of rushing off to the office. He had woken up before them this morning and had sat there watching the four of them sleeping and had savored the moment. They had woken up a few minutes later with noise and excitement before he had herded them out of the room and into the nannies cares. He had had a few minutes alone time with his wife before they had to get ready and come downstairs.
“Okay guys it is almost time for you to get to school. Finish eating and let’s get you cleaned up.” Jennifer told them briskly, a smile on her face. They did and hopped from the table to follow her to the bathroom to brush their teeth and get their book bags, leaving Matthew and Cara around the table.
“I missed you last night,” Matthew murmured pushing back his chair and coming around to her. She had just finished her coffee and was reaching for her orange juice. He pulled up a chair beside her and turned her around to face him. “I missed feeling your body against mine when we are sleeping.” His hands cupped her face admiring the flawless makeup and the color of her lipstick.
“So no more having the kids sleep with us?” she asked him teasingly putting away her juice and straightening his tie automatically.
“Not unl
ess I am away on business trips then they can keep you company.” He told her with a grin.
“Sounds good enough.” She reached forward and kissed him gently. “You are going to be late,” she murmured as he deepened the kiss.
“So what?” he murmured pulling her into his arms.
Jennifer pulled back when she saw them in the intimate embrace, her expression a little anguished.
*****
“I have not heard from you in two weeks,” Carolyn accused her as soon as the video call was connected. Jennifer had placed the call as soon as the children, Matthew and Cara had left for the day. She and Carolyn had become fast friends since that time when Carolyn was going through the temporary separation with her husband and had been pregnant with Cara-Lee and the friendship had continued even though Carolyn was all the way in the UK.
“I did not want to bother you with my problems seeing as how you are pregnant and have Cara-Lee to take care of,” Jennifer told her. She had set the maids their duties for the day and sat with Caleb to plan the menu so she had a little free time. The green grocer and supermarket where they bought supplies would be coming over later today with the orders as she had noticed that they were running low on milk and juice boxes for the children so she had all that covered. She had been extremely grateful that Cara as the woman of the household had not taken that away from her and she did her duty as efficiently as she knew how making sure the place was fully stocked and the maids did the jobs they were supposed to do.
“You are offending me right now Jen by thinking you are a bother,” she rebuked her. “What’s wrong?”