Free to Breathe
Page 28
Rudi and Molly immediately hugged each other in a show of mutual excitement and Noah chuckled, looked at me, and wrinkled his nose in a tell of how their togetherness affected him. Walking toward the train, Kathleen took Molly and Rudi’s hands and Noah picked George up into his arms. The guard helped Kathleen lift the kids onto the train. Once on board, two young girls in period costume stood to escort the children down the long, carpeted corridor.
Surrounded by the luxurious wooden paneled interior and rich tapestry drapes, class oozed from every inch of the train carriage. Noah smiled warmly, looking delighted he’d got us all there in one piece and passed George to Kathleen. As they walked away from us, Noah pulled me back by my forearm and turned me to face him. When he took a step forward, I had to take a step in the other direction and my back hit the wall.
“Hold on, baby. I want to ask you something,” he said. He looked nervous, and I searched his face as I tried to figure out what was so important he’d allow the kids to walk on ahead without us?
“Yeah?” I said as my eyes searched for the kids who were almost out of sight.
“Don’t you think it’s time we got married? You’re the only one without my name in the family now.”
“Can we talk about this later, Noah? The kids have gone on ahead.”
“It’s okay, they’re being well taken care of,” he said and smiled as slid his hand around my waist and kissed me slowly.
“So?”
“Is this your way of wearing me down, Noah?”
“Only if it’s working,” he replied and snickered as he peppered kisses around my neck.
“Keep going, I’m thinking,” I teased as a broad smile spread on my lips with the thrill of his ministrations.
“Are you close?” he asked, sliding his hands to my butt as he pulled me closer.
“Mm-hm,” I replied as shivers ran down my spine and my core clenched with want.
“Is that a yes?” he probed.
“I’d be a fool to pass up a man who asked questions like this,” I whispered and grinned wider.
“So… that’s a yes?” He asked, pulling back as he regarded me with wide eyes.
“I’ve said yes, before… absolutely—”
Before I could say anything else he stepped back, grabbed my hand, and began running down the corridor of the train pulling me behind him as he shouted, “We’re on.”
He turned to look over his shoulder and chuckled again at the look of what must have been pure confusion on my face because I had no clue what the hell was happening.
Two carriages later we stood in the stateroom of the train surrounded by his brothers, their girls, and his parents. My eyes flitted around the room in a stunned confusion and then I saw his parent’s pastor who I’d met once at a family barbeque.
“You meant now?” I asked in an incredulous tone.
“Did you need someone else here?” he asked knowing there wasn’t anyone other than Mrs. Richie who was important to me. I glanced around again and noticed her sitting in the corner of the room nodding with a smile of delight on her face.
Glancing to the kids I saw Molly had changed into her Disney Belle dress from home and Rudi was dressed as Woody from Toy Story, then I looked down at myself dressed in the woolen pant suit I’d pulled on for a day crawling around on a train.
“There’s a bridal store shopper next door with an assortment of dresses in your size. Mom helped me with that, and there’s a beautician for hair and nails and—”
I got it—Noah wanted this to be completely private. It was partly my fault because I’d once joked when he pressed for us to get married during a date that he should just surprise me to make it happen—so he had.
Looking at Molly, Rudi, and George, I knew we had all that mattered; being married wasn’t about fancy dresses and immaculate hair, it was about the joining together of two people who wanted to share the rest of their lives together.
“No… I think I’m dressed perfectly for this… let’s do it,” I replied and smiled affectionately at my family.
Noah’s eyes widened, and he looked suddenly hesitant, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m ready. I don’t need to put on a dress to make today the best one of my life. All I need is right here. The people who are important to us.”
It was sudden but entirely appropriate that Noah had managed to keep the most important day of our lives away from the press. Afterward he told me even the staff of the train and the bridal shop people had no idea who they were attending that day. Everyone had to leave their mobile phones in special boxes before boarding the train to ensure nothing was leaked about our event.
I surprised everyone when I cried as Noah read me his vows and I was so choked the only sentence I croaked out was, “Everything you said, and I love you more every day,” then I sobbed into his arms. I had wanted to marry Noah from the moment he asked me, it was only that on every occasion he’d suggested it I felt the timing was off.
To me, the stability for the children and Noah’s recovery came first, but when the opportunity presented itself it didn’t matter to me where we were or the fact I wasn’t in some fancy assed dress. It was knowing the lengths that Noah had gone to, to ensure our day was about us, and how determined he was to make me his that were the most important factors of the day.
Besides, wedding dresses were two-a-penny, but how many brides would be able to say they got married in a black woolen momsy-looking suit attended by Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and Woody from Toy Story?
When I thought back to my darkest day when I saw Noah on the plane, I felt ashamed at how I regarded him then, because my feelings were borne out of ignorance, hatred, grief, pain, and his maligned reputation. Recalling how I felt without knowing all the facts made me as guilty as the media who demonized him. It was amazing how far we had come together.
I believed wholeheartedly Noah did what he had to do to give himself space to breathe, space to recover from the hurt that almost destroyed him, and he took the only decision he could that would enable him to live his life free from those who were ever ready to use hearsay and fabrication to tear him down.
There’s a truth to what they say, “The bigger they are the harder they fall,” because Noah’s management used the power of the press to build him up as one of the biggest, most prominent hellraising rock stars on the scene at that time, and the very same people that made him almost destroyed him.
I guess what they never figured on was Noah’s sense of self, that inner voice that told him enough was enough, and led to him ultimately shocking them by quitting as an impact of all their stalking and lies. From rock star to rock bottom, Noah’s journey took his drive, his desire to perform live music, and most importantly to his fans—his talent—away from the public eye.
Fortunately, through the support of the people who loved him, Noah found happiness in a quieter life and a way of taking control of his own future. Due to his true talent he was able to resurrect his passion for music in a way that he could create and share it with the world without being constantly targeted as a sensational front-page splash.
His experience taught me to look twice when we, as the public, were given a glimpse into the celebrity world of a rock star because I knew firsthand we’re often fed the most sensational titbits syphoned out of a much bigger picture and twisted to fit a particular trend the journalist wants us to accept as truths.
They usually covered the excesses of extravagant wealthy lifestyles, the salacious parts of a sexual relationship, or other sensational stories that shifted tabloids and magazines off shelves and newsstands, created material for TV shows, and trended further on social media.
What we miss is the rest of that story or how the subject of the story has been manipulated or mistreated—they never show the unhealthy lifestyles those bands endured, such as the sleepless nights, long distance flights, pack up meals, vitamin injections or sometimes worse, just to keep them on their feet to perform their roles. I’d considered how th
at would have felt if I went to sleep in one country and woke up in another every few days… and was still expected to look and feel my best.
After witnessing the muted shift in attitude of the journalists from the moment when Noah told them he wasn’t Molly’s biological father, it demonstrated their unwillingness to accept responsibility for the story they had wrongly reported because instead of a page one retraction to follow up the next day there was only a tiny boxed withdrawal apology to Noah on the lower left-hand corner on page thirteen. It would have been missed had I not looked for it.
No one challenged the lies of a dead girl or her friend who had brought the whole sorry story to the world. And I would always hold some anger in my heart toward Shona for refusing to tell me who Molly’s father was.
For years Noah was newsworthy, and his management left them to run with it. Noah said if he could go back to before he was in the band he’d have turned out differently. Then again, perhaps he was as great as he was after what had happened to him.
No one knows what the future holds. We don’t have a crystal ball, but I do know one thing for sure, Noah will never trust a journalist so long as he lives after the agonizing personal pain some of them put him through. Not one of them recognized Noah’s vulnerability as a young impressionable man during those years.
It took the death of my sister and the malicious lies that followed before Noah’s tolerance limits were reached and he took a stand against them in the most dramatic of ways. Since then he had challenged every article and won each one like some small battle in the war he’d waged against them.
Music is still important to him and he’s fortunate to have found his new niche, but he told me that even if his new career died a death tomorrow, it’s me and his children that matter the most to him. The only grey cloud that hangs there for him is how Molly’s happiness could be tainted when the question arises as to who her biological father is, and she reads the reports of what happened around her mom.
My reply when he said this was, “You’re her dad, Noah. The only one she’s ever known. Anyone can become a biological father in minutes, but to Molly, her dad will always be the loving man she knows would give his heart to make hers happy.
By that time Noah will be the man who has guided and protected her, the one who took the time to teach her, praise her, and one who has built a lifetime of memories in her mind. You’ll be able to tell Molly the truth; that you were ready to accept her as your child whether or not she shared your blood and how the DNA test affected you when it came back.”
Noah has insisted that working with Molly as she grows, will help minimize any negative impact for her in the future. In my view this the mark of a man who will go to any lengths to protect and preserve her happiness. In a way I’m happy there is no competition to challenge Noah’s position because biologically connected or not, it’s already plain to see, Noah will always be the father she adores.
The End
Other Titles by K.L. Shandwick
The Everything Trilogy
Enough Isn’t Everything
Everything She Needs
Everything I Want
Love With Every Beat
just Jack
Everything Is Yours
Last Score Series
Gibson’s Legacy
Trusting Gibson
Gibson’s Melody
Ready for Flynn Series
Ready For Flynn, Part 1
Ready For Flynn, Part 2
Ready For Flynn, Part 3
Other novels
Missing Beats
Notes on Love
About the Author
K. L. Shandwick lives on the outskirts of York, UK. She started writing after a challenge by a friend when she commented on a book she read. The result of this was ‘The Everything Trilogy’. Her background has been mainly in the health and social care sector in the U.K. Her books tend to focus on the relationships of the main characters. Writing is a form of escapism for her and she is just as excited to find out where her characters take her as she is when she reads another author’s work.
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