by H. H. Fowler
When the cheering did not die down, Elder John spoke into the mic and reminded them that they had a long program to execute. The noise gradually simmered down, but Elder John could already see that he would have a serious problem if Drake stayed in Devin’s Cay.
Epilogue
Even after three hours of sitting toward the end of Rev. Henderson’s funeral service, and another forty minutes at the gravesite, many of the parishioners accosted Drake as he tried to exit the grounds. Some simply wished him well, while others were tossing a barrage of questions at him, wanting to know if he would be coming back to El Shaddai Ministries, and if he would succeed Rev. Henderson as the next bishop. It was what Rev. Henderson wanted anyway. They didn’t see any reason why Drake couldn’t lead them. Because they certainly didn’t want Elder John and many of them said as much.
But Drake, being the humble, peaceful man that he was, shied away from the limelight and retreated into the rental car that Kevin had paid for. He allowed his head to connect with the headrest, tired from the emotional roller-coaster, tired from fighting with his regrets.
“You did well in there, kiddo,” Kevin said. “Look at the people; they love you.”
“People are fickle,” Drake said. “In two weeks their emotions will settle and only remember that I abandoned the church for six months.”
Kevin shook his head. “You have a weird way of seeing the world. I hope in two weeks you will see that these people need you –”
“Where do you think Sasha could be?” Drake asked, interrupting his brother. “I was hoping to see her before we head back to Tampa.”
“We? I’m the only one going back home to Tampa, but you, little brother, are staying here in Devin’s Cay to work through your mess.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Drake said. “There’s nothing keeping me here now.”
“So what if you see Sasha and she wants you to stay. Then what?”
Drake didn’t respond, mostly because he didn’t know how to. It’d only been six months, but it felt like ages since he’d talked to Sasha. What would he say? What was he to expect? She probably didn’t want to talk to him anyway.
Drake suddenly lifted his head from the headrest and said, “I have an idea where Sasha might be.”
Kevin took his eyes off the road for a second, glancing at Drake’s profile. “Just give me the directions and we’ll be on our way.”
“Paradise Blvd,” Drake answered. “Hunter Rose lives there – Sasha’s one and only friend.”
****
About ten miles later, the Beckford brothers turned through the affluent gated community of Paradise Blvd. The homes were large and in charge with Spanish finishes and well-kept lawns, which told Kevin that Sasha’s friend must have a pretty decent job to afford such a lifestyle. He eased the rental car in behind a late model Jaguar and as fate would have it, Hunter and Sasha were exiting the Jaguar at the same time.
“Wow!”
“What is it?” Drake asked, clearly annoyed by Kevin’s sudden outburst.
“Sasha’s friend is a hottie,” Kevin said, but because of his strict choice in women, he was quick to suppress his admiration. “But she’s white.”
Drake waved his brother off. “We drove here to see Sasha and I was right…she is staying with Hunter.”
“Good guess, now what are you going to do, Superman?”
Drake shrugged. “I don’t know, but Sasha and I do need to talk.”
Drake exited the rental car and began to tread carefully toward the women. He paused about ten feet from Sasha, who was obviously in shock. She’d allowed her brown hair to grow past her neckline – it was the first time Drake had seen her do so in years. Her heart-shaped face still showed that radiant innocence, and standing in her presence felt just as comforting as the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
However, it was the pain in Sasha’s eyes that kept Drake at bay. It made him realize that maybe he’d been too harsh in his judgment. He saw that he had wounded her deeply. But he was hurting too – not so much from the memory of seeing her kissing Levi, but from the distance he’d put between them. It seemed as if they were staring at each other forever; that is, until Hunter stepped forward to break the silence.
“Sasha, honey, what do you want me to do? I can go inside or I can stay out here with you... your choice. In any event, you and your husband need to talk.”
Sasha blinked back her tears. “Don’t leave, Hunter. This shouldn’t take long.”
Sasha closed in the space between her and Drake, which felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. Her first inclination was to ask Drake why he’d abandoned her, but instead her hand swiftly moved from her side and landed squarely on the left side of Drake’s jaw. She struck him repeatedly until Drake took a hold of her and forced her into a hug.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his heart breaking all over again. “I’m so sorry, Sasha for what I put you through…please forgive me…”
Sasha pushed off from Drake’s chest after a minute of Drake’s pleading. “After six months you try and waltz your way back into my life. Certainly you don’t expect it to be that easy.”
“I wasn’t expecting it to be easy,” Drake said. “I was hoping that we could talk.”
Sasha’s tears were pouring by this time. She took one long look at Drake and then spun away from him. Hunter opened the front door and Sasha marched through it like she was on a mission to break something.
“What are you waiting for?” Hunter called out to Drake. “Get your butt in here and give your woman some love. She is only acting like that because she misses you.”
Drake wasted no time arguing with Hunter; he simply complied. Kevin sat in humor, watching the scene the entire time. His smirk suddenly turned into a full blown grin. This Hunter, whomever she was, seemed to be more than just a white woman. She was a peacemaker and that was the kind of woman that Kevin admired. Maybe he should go in and say hello.
THE END
Below, check out a sneak preview of Book 2 – Second Chances
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Second Chances
(Real Love Series – Book 2)
Chapter One
“Sasha, please, slow down!”
Drake barely caught his wife’s lithe frame turning the corridor, determined to get away from him. He’d finally tracked her down and he was not going to let her get away from him. They had to talk about this situation with Levi. But Drake didn’t get why Sasha was so upset when she was the one who’d cheated on him. He almost felt justified leaving her for those six months because it certainly didn’t compare to what she’d done to him. However, this negative chain of thoughts was not what Drake wanted at the start of their conversation. Because it was such thinking that had kept him from seeking reconciliation with his wife in the first place.
“Sasha,” Drake called, right before she’d slammed one of Hunter’s bedroom doors in his face, “are you going to calm down so that we can talk?”
“So now you wanna talk,” she spat back. “You should have thought about that six months ago when I begged you to tell me what was going on with you. You looked at me with disdain and intentionally said things to hurt my feelings. The next thing I knew, you disappeared without a trace.”
“I didn’t disappear; I went to Tampa and stayed with my brother.”
Sasha pulled the room door open and looked at Drake like he’d lost his mind. “I didn’t know where you were. If you wanted me to find you, you would have said so in the note you left me, which by the way, were some of the most heartless and painful words I’ve ever laid eyes upon. And the thing that hurt me the most was that you never gave me the opportunity to explain my side of the story. That was so selfish of you – to treat me with such blatant disrespect, as if I never mattered to you!”
&nbs
p; “I realize now that I’d made a very immature decision,” Drake tried to explain, “but Sasha, pause for a minute and put yourself in my shoes…”
“I don’t need to put myself in your shoes,” she snapped, “because I would have never done what you did, no matter how hurt I was.”
Sasha spun away from Drake because his handsome face was making it hard for her to enjoy her anger. Those six months he’d been gone, she’d cried herself to sleep almost every night, wishing she didn’t miss him so much. But she did, so much so that she thought she would literally die from the loneliness. Now he was suddenly back in her life and she did not know how to react.
Drake followed Sasha into the room, closing the door behind him. “Can you imagine what it was like for me, seeing you in Levi’s arms, kissing him, and we hadn’t even been married a week? What was I to think – how was I to react – especially when I had an anonymous note in my pocket that said you’d slept with my best friend?”
Sasha kept her back turned toward Drake. “Do you even know who sent that note to you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters… It matters because the note wasn’t true. It matters because Levi was the one who sent it. It matters because you believed it and acted upon it and allowed it to ruin years of trust between us.”
Drake crumpled his forehead in confusion, as his perception of the situation began to disintegrate into a million pieces. “Who told you that Levi sent that note?”
~~~
FROM THE DESK OF H H FOWLER
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