Our introduction to San Diego wasn’t off to a good start.
The next day, we drove to a resort in Mission Beach. We stayed in a room that was mere feet from the beach. The children went wild with excitement. Later, when asked what their favorite part of the trip was, they would respond, the beach.
We went to Point Loma and peered out at the ocean. We hiked trails along La Jolla’s cliffs. The kids spent all day at Belmont Park, riding rides and eating oversized ice cream cones. They spent every evening playing in the sand on their own personal beach.
We stayed two weeks in San Diego, enjoying everything the city had to offer. At the end of it all, I asked the question.
“Do you think you’d want to live here?”
Her response was immediate.
“No.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t like the traffic. It gives me anxiety.”
We returned home from the month-long trip with the children elated, Jessica exhausted, and me feeling slightly disappointed.
That disappointment, however, didn’t last long. Four weeks, to be exact.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Filled with anxious energy, I watched as the doctor rubbed the jelly-like substance on Jessica’s stomach. After untangling the cord to the hand-held scanner, she glanced at the monitor.
“Are you ready?”
“I’ve got questions,” I said.
The doctor paused. “Yes?”
I folded my hands in my lap and gave her an intent look. “What are the chances this thing doesn’t work?”
“The equipment?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “The test.”
She looked at me like I’d asked her to kick-start a Harley. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“You’re going to look at the monitor, and then tell us your belief regarding this baby’s sex. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“Is it an opinion, or is it fact?”
“Scott,” Jessica said, drawing my name out for three seconds longer that it normally took to pronounce it.
I glanced at Jess and then met the doctor’s gaze. “Let her answer the question, Jess.”
“It would be the opinion of a trained medical professional.”
“An opinion. Not fact?”
“That is correct.”
“I don’t want an opinion, Doc. I want facts.”
“Scott,” Jessica repeated.
“Let me take a look, and we’ll go from there,” the doctor said. “How’s that?”
“If you know, say something. If you don’t, just keep your mouth shut.”
She looked at Jess. “Is he always like this?”
“I’m afraid so,” Jess responded.
A few minutes later the image of a perfectly healthy-looking baby was on the screen. I counted the fingers. Ten. The toes. Ten. From my vantage point, everything seemed to be perfect.
The doctor grinned. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Jess nodded eagerly.
“Only if you’re spewing facts, Doc,” I said.
“You’re going to have a little girl.”
I leaped from my seat and thrust my hand in the air. “Yes!”
Jess nearly jumped from the examination table. “Be quiet, Scott. We’re in a doctor’s office.”
“It’s not a library.” I looked at the doctor. “Are you sure.”
“Positive.” She lifted her brows. “I’m guessing you wanted a girl?”
“I want two of them. Any chance there’s twins in there?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
I had a gut feeling we were going to have twins, and so far, my gut feelings were one hundred percent accurate.
“Bullshit,” I said. “I want a second opinion.”
“Does he ever stop?” The doctor asked.
“When he goes to sleep,” Jess responded.
I was on cloud nine. We were over halfway to the finish line, and everyone was healthy. The baby’s size was above average. Jessica’s weight was exactly where they wanted it to be. Other than Jess’ constant craving for ice cream bars and grilled cheese sandwiches, everything about her was normal.
As normal as an estrogen-filled pregnant woman could be, that is.
We announced to our family, and to my followers that the baby was a girl. A few days later, as I worked on the next installment in the Selected Sinners MC Romance series, Otis, a knock came at the door.
BAM!
It wasn’t a cop, I knew that much.
Jess answered the door.
“Who was it?”
The UPS man.
“What’d he bring?” I asked over my shoulder.
She lifted a cardboard box and raised her eyebrows at the same time. “I don’t know.”
We opened the box and found a quilt inside that one of my readers had hand-fashioned. Thrilled at the thought of a fan sending a gift for our baby, we thanked her in a private message, and then posted a photo of the gorgeous gift.
Two days later, the same knock came at the door.
Two more boxes arrived.
A knit monkey cap, and a sweater.
The next day, another box. The day after that, three or four more. Over the next three months, we received no less that one delivery a day, five days a week, that were gifts for our baby.
All from people who had befriended us on Facebook.
Clothes, hats, dresses, skirts, diapers, mittens, boots, shoes, blankets, rattles, pacifiers, silverware, cups, mobiles, toys. If we were going to need it, it eventually arrived.
I released Otis. The character was modeled after Big O. He and his respective other fell in love in high school. After he expressed his desire to maintain a single life, she left him and moved to another state. Ten years later, she returned for a funeral, and their relationship was immediately rekindled.
The book outsold every book I’d written to date. At the time, I’d written roughly a dozen. The book broke through the top one hundred books on Amazon, regardless of genre, and it didn’t stop there. After breaking into the top fifty, the literary agent I’d spoken to on numerous occasions called.
She explained how my writing – and stories – had improved since Jessica and I began our relationship. I told her Jessica was all the inspiration I needed to write meaningful love stories.
She asked that I write a mafia book for an editor at Random House who had been nagging at her for one. She explained how going mainstream with my work would benefit me in the long run.
I agreed to do it. A few weeks later, we signed a contract.
I was officially represented by an agent.
Two weeks later, while I was at Alec’s football game, she called. Amazon wanted to buy the audio rights to the entire Selected Sinners MC Romance Series.
Two weeks after that, we agreed on a price. After reaching the agreement, Jess and I had a talk. It was time for us to move out of the loft, and into a home. A place where the kids could play. A place where our new daughter could grow up with a bicycle, a scooter, and the ability to go outside and play in the grass.
If Jessica wasn’t willing to move to Southern California, a home in Kansas would suffice, I decided. We enrolled Landon in a magnet school, and he was accepted. Then, we decided to move into the district where the school was located.
All we needed to do was find the perfect place.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Despite appearing to be an idiot on the surface, Teddy was an intelligent man. Extremely intelligent. He simply didn’t speak much to anyone other than me, and most mistook his quiet nature as idiocy.
They were wrong.
He attended a private Christian school as a child and continued attending such schools through high school. During middle school, he fell hard and fast for a yellow-haired girl who rode the bus with him. They played together, giggled as pre-teens often do, and eventually shared a seat on the daily bus ride to school.
She would be the f
irst female he would ever buy a flower for.
In time, the puppy love turned to adoration. The adoration matured as they grew older, and they eventually fell in love with one another.
Head over heels for the girl with the golden locks, Teddy’s days and nights were filled with thoughts of growing old with her, and of having a life that mirrored that of his parents.
His parents were as old-school as old-school could be. Sunday dinners of chicken-fried steak and potatoes, church service, and speeches declaring the value of the almighty dollar were commonplace in the home Teddy grew up in.
Being a single child, he got his fair share of each parent’s attention. He ended up with his mother’s empathy and compassion, and his father’s work ethic. His frugality was self-taught.
What he didn’t, however, end up with was the yellow-haired girl.
One day, on the bus ride to school, Teddy rode alone. Heartbroken, he simply waited for the next day, knowing the love of his life would return. But, she never did. Teddy would find out years later what happened – but talk around the school was that her parents moved away on a moment’s notice.
She may have been gone, but Teddy’s love for her remained. The depth of that love allowed him to live through each day without succumbing to the offers from the women who found him to be the sweet and respectful young man that his mother so proudly taught him to be.
We peered out the window of the loft, knowing it would be our last summer in the downtown area. The street was lined with modified cars, hotrods, custom show bikes, and vintage junk. Wichita’s summer car show, Automobilia, attracted tens of thousands of people, and hundreds upon hundreds of cars.
Teddy, in addition to being an authority on motorcycles, was a walking, talking encyclopedia on all things cars.
“Let’s go have a look,” he said. “Last time we’ll have a chance to walk down there.”
The show dragged on for miles in three directions. The street beneath the loft was only the beginning. To walk the show, entirely. would take hours. With slight reluctance, I agreed.
We got on the elevator and rode down to the first floor. Side by side, we walked to the front door. As soon as I opened it, Teddy’s jaw flopped open.
He took his glasses off, wiped them, and then put them back on. “Heather?” he said, his voice laced with a hint of hope.
A yellow-haired girl stood on the center of the sidewalk admiring an old pickup truck. She wore pigtails, and a sleeveless sweater. Upon hearing Teddy’s voice, she spun in a half-circle. When her eyes met Teddy’s, they went as wide as the saucers Teddy’s mother served him dinner with.
She took long strides toward Teddy with open arms. Teddy, in turn, did the same. They met fifteen feet from where I stood, all but knocking each other down when they made contact.
He lifted her from her feet and twirled her in a circle.
She babbled an explanation of years ago, when her mother pulled her from school, and how she yearned to one day find Teddy, but that she couldn’t due to circumstances that prevented her from it.
Back then, there weren’t cell phones. In the absence of the internet and Google, a phone book was the only way to find someone’s telephone number. Some people preferred privacy and had numbers that weren’t listed in such books.
Teddy’s parents were such people.
Fate, on that day, brought Teddy back together with the girl he bought the flower for.
I learned that night that she still had the flower. She kept it for over twenty years, pressed in a book filled with her life’s hope and dreams.
My opinion on fate changed that night. I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t simply blind luck that brought those two lost souls back together.
When the night ended, Teddy confirmed his thoughts mirrored mine. The man of few words that he was, he simply looked at me and grinned a cheesy grin while he unknowingly stroked his beard. Then, he spoke.
“God provides to those who wait.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
The last load of furniture was on its way to the new home. I peered into the empty loft. I’d lived there for six years. It was my belief that the unique housing situation shielded me from the government’s watchful eye and provided me tremendous comfort.
It was a comfort I no longer needed.
Somehow, the government, prison, and the ATF had become nothing but another of my life’s experiences. An experience I was now grateful to have been exposed to. That series of events, over time, formed me into the man I’d become.
That man stood proud of who he was.
I took one last look, pausing at the massive marble desk where I’d penned over twenty novels. One of the fellas and I built it in place, permanently attaching it to the concrete beneath the wall of windows.
I wondered if I could write anywhere else, or if the magic of my craft was derived through the windows that gave me an unobstructed view of the world below.
I prayed that it was my mind, and not my mind’s location, that provided the inspiration.
On the heels of that prayer, I closed the door one last time.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Landon’s sixth birthday fell on a Thursday that year. We planned a birthday party for the Saturday following his birthday. We knew my parents would have a party for him on Sunday, so the gathering at our home was more for our family to celebrate the occasion. I let the older children know with a text message more as a matter of respect than due to any expectation of them attending.
Erin was a sophomore at Kansas State University. Alec was a freshman, playing basketball on a scholarship. Derek was a senior in high school, preparing for college, and maintaining his perfect GPA.
I prepared myself for the fact that none of them could – or would – attend. Realistically, I couldn’t expect them to.
Eight months pregnant, and looking like she was carrying twins, Jess strung crepe paper streamers over the doorways. Balloons dangling from every archway followed. As Landon and Lily played around the lake that backed up to our new home, Jess waddled to the edge of the dining room and admired her handiwork.
“Looks good, Baby,” I said.
“When should we call them in?” she asked.
I looked at my watch. “One?”
“What time is it?”
“Fifteen ‘till.”
“Okay.”
A knock at the door surprised me. I knew Teddy and Heather would stop by, but we weren’t expecting them until dinnertime. Since being reunited, they hadn’t been away from one another for a single moment.
I looked at Jess, shrugged, and walked to the door. Opening it revealed two extremely tall men, and one smiling woman.
I stepped aside. “Come in.”
My daughter hugged me and then yelled at Jess. “Oh my God. You’re so cute.”
“I’m huge,” Jess complained. “Scott still says twins.”
Derek grinned. “Where’s Landon?”
“They’re down at the lake.”
Alec stepped through the door and patted me on the shoulder. “Afternoon, Pop.”
“Good afternoon, Son.”
He glanced around the house. “Nice digs.”
“Thank you.”
“Kids down at the lake?” he asked.
“They’re playing down there, yeah.”
“Come on, Dee,” Alec said. “Let’s go down there.”
“I uhhm.” The words got stuck in my throat. “I appreciate you guys making it.”
Alec turned to face me. “It’s my little brother’s birthday. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Something as simple as a birthday party shouldn’t have brought out so much emotion. That’s what I told myself. Yet. As Alec and Derek walked down to the lake, I fought back tears. It wasn’t an easy struggle. I had yet to cry since that day when I was twelve, and for whatever reason, it seemed I took pride in realizing it.
After we opened the gifts, Alec and Derek went down to the lake and played with
the remote-controlled boat that Landon got for his birthday.
“I had one of these when I was your age,” Alec said. “Dee and I each had one. We lived not too far from here.”
“Oh really?” Landon asked.
Alec pointed toward the western sky. “Halfway to Starbucks. The house backed up to a lake, just like this.”
It was the home I lived in when I was arrested. The children loved that home, and still talked about it regularly. I desperately tried to forget it. I found it strange that an object could bring such satisfaction to one, while causing another such grief.
The boys played for hours. Alec taught Landon a few tricks with the soccer ball. Football followed. Then, the fall sun set along the western horizon.
After another piece of cake and cup of coffee, the big kids, as Jess called them, announced their need to go.
Erin hugged Jess. “Can’t wait.”
Derek then hugged Jess and grinned. “I still think it’s going to be a boy.”
Alec patted me on the shoulder. “Nice seeing ya, Pop.”
After he hugged me, he looked at Jess.
Jess waved.
He waved in return. “See ya, Jess.”
The day’s events made clear that as a family, we’d made progress. It wasn’t perfection by any means, but we were getting close.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“We don’t want to do a C-Section if we don’t have to,” the doctor said. “I need you to push one last time, Jess. Can you do that for me?”
The doctor decided to induce labor two weeks early. Her expectation, based on Jess’ weight and size, was that the baby may weigh as much as twelve pounds. Still armed with the belief that we were having twins, I loomed over Jessica’s right side while the doctor was wedged between her thighs.
Jess looked at me.
I extended my left hand. She took it in hers, met the doctor’s gaze, and nodded.
The doctor counted down from five to one. “Push, push, push, push. Come on, Jess, you can do it. Push. One last time—”
LOVER COME BACK_An Unbelievable But True Love Story Page 22