Sam flinched, and Isa reached for him, holding his face between her palms.
‘And he failed.’
‘He nearly succeeded. Look at you.’
Isa glanced down at the heavy bandaging around her abdomen. ‘I’m fine. How’s Louisa doing?’
‘Better. She’s already up and walking around.’
‘I’m so glad. God, when I think of what Cal did to her.’
‘I know. That’s how I felt when I saw you in that basement. I never want to see that again.’
‘You never will. It’s me and you now, for always.’
Sam stroked her face. ‘Do you want to go back to that house? I understand if you don’t.’
Isa’s face was fixed. ‘I do want to go back to our home. He doesn’t get to spoil that too. It’s perfect for us. Really, Sam, we need to remember – we survived him, so we get to win.’
‘Marry me.’ He said again, and she kissed him.
‘Yes, Samuel Levy, I will marry you.’
A while later, the nurse looked into the room and smiled. Both asleep, the young man was curved around the girl, holding her like he’d never let go. The nurse shut off the light and closed the door. She grinned at the other nurse at the station outside the room.
‘You ever see love like that?’
Her friend smiled back. ‘I wish.’
Epilogue
Three years later
‘Stop being a nag, I’ll do it,’ Isa grumbled, as Sam held her waist. She was standing on a chair trying to push the star on top of their Christmas tree.
‘You realize I can reach that without a chair?’
‘It’s my turn,’ Isa grumbled, ‘You did it last year.’
‘Yup, but I’m not the one who is eight months pregnant, am I?’
Isa placed the star and Sam lifted her from the chair and stood her on her feet. She grinned up at him.
‘Superhuman strength, Mr. Levy.’
They studied the tree. ‘It’s kind of lop-sided,’ Isa said, her head on one side.
‘Such problems,’ Sam muttered, and Isa poked him with her elbow, grinning.
‘Nice to have such problems,’ she said softly. Sam ran his hand down her silky hair.
‘You want me to go get another tree?’
‘Nah, I like it like that. Life is lop-sided. Ours, for sure. But at least we’re on the good side now. Oh...’ She put a hand on her belly. ‘He’s kicking again, the little slugger.’
Sam laughed, and she guided his hand to where his son was kicking him. Sam pulled her closer. ‘There was a time,’ he whispered, his face in her hair, ‘when I never thought we would get here.’
‘I know, me too,’ she said, ‘but we did, baby. We did.’
Later, Zoe and Louisa came over from the city. The two women had bonded during Louisa’s recovery, and Isa could see Zoe going into her ‘mom’ mode- just had she had for Isa all those years ago. Isa was delighted for them both – she adored Louisa, and they too had spent a long time together while they both recovered from Cal’s violence.
It was Christmas Eve and Sam and Isa were hosting a small party for their friends and neighbors. They had settled into the island community with ease – and even bought a rescue dog home with them, who was a much part of their family now as anyone. Bill and his wife Marilyn came over from the school; John Halsey came with his partner, Ryan. The detective had made Cal’s death look like a suicide - Sam would never know how he did it but he was eternally grateful.
Later, Zoe came to find Sam and led him outside onto the terrace to talk privately. She turned to him with concern in her eyes.
‘Sam, we need to talk. I know, this probably isn’t the right day, but in a way, it is. So near to the birth, and all I can think about is Isa and the baby and how wonderful this all is.’ She conceded when he grinned. ‘But I can’t stop thinking about Cal.’
Sam hugged her. ‘Zoe, he’s gone, he’s dead. He can’t hurt us anymore.’
‘Then why do I feel like this?’
Sam was silent for a moment.
‘Did you know that ghosts can't cross water? I didn’t. Isa told me that one night, another one of her useless factoids she’s gleaned from God knows where.’ He laughed, shook his head. ‘Ghosts can’t cross water.’ He looked inside to Isa, who was laughing with Bill and smiled at his sister. ‘Cal is dead, Zoe, and no-one will ever change that. He’s gone.’
‘And you killed him.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she doesn’t know.’
Sam shook his head. ‘No. There’s no reason to tell her.’
‘How can you live your life like that?’
‘I can live like that for her.’
‘But you’re starting your new life off with a lie.’
‘It’s a lie worth telling, don’t you think?’
Sam grinned at her, but Zoe was serious.
‘You can’t keep this from her, Sam. She trusts you completely. Again. At last. If she found out…’
‘She won’t.’
‘Isa’s smart.’
‘Yes.’
Zoe just shook her head at her brother. ‘I don’t even want to think about what would happen if she found out. What it would do to the both of you.’
‘She won’t. And is it worse than a life lived in fear?’
‘But you have to live like that.’ Zoe whispered to him, her eyes filled with worry. ‘Not knowing if they find Cal’s body if they’ll come for you.’
Sam smiled and shook his head. ‘No. I know what my life will be. That gorgeous girl over there, my darling love with my son growing in her belly. Building a life with her. A family. You. You and Louisa with any luck. This island. Cal doesn’t even figure into it. He’s a dead man. Ghosts can’t cross water. Now, let’s get to enjoying Christmas, Grandma.’
She swatted his butt. ‘Less of the Grandma – not yet I’m not.’
Isa and Louisa were waiting for them in the kitchen, and as Sam put his arm around his pregnant wife, he put his mouth to her ear. ‘I love you.’
Isa grinned up at him. ‘Right back at ya, big guy.’
‘Forever?’ He asked, and she chuckled and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him.
‘I promise,’ she said, ‘forever…’
The End.
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BILLIONAIRE’S QUARRY COMPLETE SERIES
A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Romance
By Michelle Love
Jude Hurst is a thirty-year-old billionaire, living in Dallas, Texas. Born into money, as his family has made their money off of oil in Texas for three generations, he’s spoiled rotten and used to getting anything he wants.
Mercy Noland is a twenty-six-year-old Spa manager in Dallas, Texas. She’s a no nonsense, has to work hard for her money kind of woman and strong to her core.
Mercy’s parents and older sister and her sister’s husband died in an auto accident two years prior. She’d been babysitting her sister and brother-in-law’s six-month-old daughter and two-year-old son when the tragedy happened and since their death, she’s taken them on to raise as her own. Now the kids are two and a half and four and real handfuls.
Part 1 The Pray
A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Romance
By Michelle Love
Chapter 1
MERCY
When a two and a half-year-old little girl gets pissed everyone knows it. She makes sure of it. I inherited my niece and nephew two years ago when their parents, their mom was my sister, and my parents were going out for a night on the town while I stayed home to babysit the two little ones. A terrible auto accident claimed all four lives that were in my father’s car that night. The accident changed me from the fun aunt to the responsible mother in the blink of an eye.
I’ve taken to it well, I think. It made me hurry up
and figure out what’s real in this life. I was twenty-four when that happened. Still young and free, single and alone. With the responsibility of the kids, I grew up overnight.
It became apparent that I needed to start making money. I had my business degree and had done nothing with it at that time. With a few interviews I managed to gain a managerial position at a Dallas luxury spa and I’ve done well in that position.
I have to say the hardest part of being a parent is dropping the kids off at daycare. They just never seem to want to go. I suppose because it’s so early and they’d much rather be sleeping. I know I would.
I have to get up an extra hour early every day to get them to their daycare so I can get to work. At times I do wish I had help. A man to even out some of the chores that come along with taking care of a feisty four-year-old boy and a two and a half-year-old girl might be nice. But then again he might just get in my way.
Mia holds on tight to the car door as Carter stands in a sleepy daze, waiting for me to drag his sister away from the car and into the little building which they call home every Monday through Friday, from six in the morning until six at night.
I wish there was another way but so far I haven’t found it.
“Mia, Baby, please come on. Let go of the door, Honey. You’re going to have fun. You always do,” I beg her.
“No! I want to go with you!” she screams at the top of her lungs.
Another mother passes by as she takes her sleeping kids past us as quickly as she can. One crying kid can set off a chain reaction. No one wants that!
She gives me the stink eye and I duck my head with feelings of inadequacy and continue to beg my niece to stop being a drama queen. “Mia, how about we make a deal? I promise to take you kids to the pizza place when I pick you up. You can play in the ball pit and I’ll give you all the tokens you want. Please!”
“Do it, Mia,” Carter says with an air of authority in his four-year-old southern drawl with a slight lisp.
Miraculously, she stops crying and screaming and says, “K.” Her hands release the car door and she turns to hang onto me, slipping her arms around my neck. “I wuv you, Aunt Mercy.”
Running my hand over her disheveled blonde locks, I try to tame them a little. With her tantrum, one would never know I not only brushed her hair but ran my straightener through it too to calm her unruly curls into some type of submission. Now they’re everywhere like a wild child’s.
Carter slips his hand into mine as we finally make our way up the sidewalk to the front door of the yellow building with a red roof. That’s how I initially got the kids to come inside of the building when we first came here, two years ago. It resembled a McDonald’s, and they didn’t cry one bit. Until I left them here that is.
The kids suffer a bit from separation anxiety. We’ve been in counseling to help with that. When one’s parents walk out the door with a kiss and a hug and a promise to return but never do, it can leave a scar on your brain and your soul.
Since I lost my mother, father, and only other sibling in the accident, I can empathize with the kids. It’s not easy to take each day as it comes. Sometimes you just want to kick something or someone because life doesn’t seem fair.
Life is hard and you have to become hard to deal with it. I try not to let that philosophy of mine rub off on the kids. Mostly because our therapist told me not to. She’s pretty strict with me. She lets me know that I can grieve and feel somewhat sorry for myself now and then, but my main responsibility to the children my sister left behind is bigger than anything else.
She’s right and I know that. My sister, Hope, and I were only two years apart. She was the oldest, and I was the baby, though not treated very much like one. We were treated like twins. She and I looked a lot alike. And we wore the same size. I inherited her wardrobe as well as her kids so that was a plus as her husband kept her in the latest styles, a thing I couldn’t afford on a part-time salary as a waitress at that time.
I spot the teacher for my niece’s room and hand her over. Mia is all smiles now as she goes to the older woman. “Hi, Mrs. Jensen. Guess what?”
The woman smiles and tweaks her nose as she holds her on her hip. “What do you have to tell me, Mia?”
With a huge grin, she says, “Aunt Mercy is taking us to get pizza and play games after school today.”
“How nice of her,” she says then puts Mia down and sends her off to put her little backpack, filled with her things, away. “So, being a Friday, have you made any fun weekend plans?”
I shake my head as I watch Carter go to his room down the hallway. “Bye, Carter. See you at six,” I call out after him.
Just before he goes into the door he looks back at me and waves. My heart melts a little as I see he’s smiling as I guess he’s thinking about tonight and how much fun he’s going to have playing the games at the restaurant.
Such little things can make them so happy, it’s amazing!
Mrs. Jensen takes my attention as she says, “You know, Mia, my daughter is taking some childhood development courses. She could use the practice and would babysit for free if you’d like to make some plans anytime. She’s free most every night. It would actually be a help to her as she has to clock a lot of hours with one-on-one time with children of various ages. It would help her a lot if you let her babysit even a couple of weekends a month.”
“The kids already have to spend so much time away from me because of work. I hate to do that to them,” I say as I turn to leave. “But thanks for telling me, anyway.”
“Mia, you need a life, young lady,” she calls out after me.
I wave back at her and walk away. No one knows what it’s like to have so much on your shoulders and be all alone with it. My life is with those kids. I am their life now and there’s really no room for anyone else, anyway.
I suppose this is how spinsters are made!
Chapter 2
JUDE
The shrill sound of Ariel’s voice as she yells at the woman doing her pedicure has me flinching. I look at the phone in my hand as I sit in the chair across from her and try to act as if she’s not with me.
“You’re a fucking moron!” she shouts.
Briefly, I glance up and see the poor woman who has the misfortune of getting Ariel as her client today seems to be upset. Her hands are shaking and her face is pale. I should say something to Ariel about not treating people so harshly but then she might turn that nasty temper on me and I’d rather not deal with that.
Ariel is from a wealthy family just like I am. Rich from birth has us a little less tolerable of people. I can’t explain it. It just is that way.
I’m not as bad as she is, but then again I’m from Texas and she’s from New York. The south demands a certain amount of hospitality and manners whereas the New York socialites don’t seem to care too much about such things.
I live in a monstrous mansion my grandfather had built when they discovered oil on his ranch. Since that time, some sixty years ago, he managed to buy several more properties where oil was discovered and now we are rolling in the dough.
I’ve lived a carefree life full of the things which come along with an endless supply of money. I’ve been to the best schools for reasons I do not know. College is where I met my occasional gal-pal, Ariel, she was an Art major. She nor I do anything with the degrees we’ve earned. I’m never going to do anything but live off the money that goes straight into accounts for me.
My degree is nearly useless. To me it is, anyway. I hold a Masters in Kinesiology. I know every muscle and every way to get them in the best possible shape they can be in. I use the information I have acquired for myself and that’s about it.
I’ve built a home gym others can only dream about. I also have a body most others can only dream about.
Some might call me arrogant, but I think I’m just being honest about my fantastic attributes. I do work hard on making my body this buff after all. Why not be proud of basically the only achievement I’ve ever really made?
I’m the oldest in my family of six. Mom and Dad are still together by some miracle and they had the four of us each three years apart. I just turned thirty a couple of months ago and we all went to Greece for the occasion.
To say I’m spoiled is just a matter of opinion. Do I get anything I ask for?
Well, yes I do. Do I ask for a lot of things?
Again, the answer is yes. I want the latest things just like anyone else does. A robot butler, an expensive drone, expensive watches that I never wear, those are things I like to call eccentric collections.
They’re fun to purchase and mess with now and then. It makes life interesting. Much like Ariel is making the lives of the staff here at the Luxurious Dallas Day Spa interesting on this Friday afternoon.
With another quick glance at the shrieking Ariel, I see another young woman has joined the poor older woman who was doing Ariel’s toes. She seems as upset as the other woman and I don’t see how anyone will be able to calm the mad hen of a woman down.
This is frustrating for me as I had high hopes this little spa day would settle her a bit. She’s had jet lag since she flew in last night and has been unable to satisfy my sexual needs.
I foresee leaving her at the mansion on her own this evening and finding a hot night club full of women who’ve drunk away their inhibitions and are ready to get down and dirty with me. We’ll have to see how this plays out.
“I want to speak to someone in management!” Ariel yells, drawing more little women out of their private little cubicles to see who is causing all this racket. “I will not tolerate being handled like a piece of crap!” She points at the shaking woman in front of her. “You have no business touching anyone’s feet! None, what so ever!”
The Billionaire Bad Boy Plan Page 57