I rub my fingers against the stubble on his chin. I lean in and give him a soft kiss. “I would love nothing more than to meet your family.” His eyes glass over and he tries to catch his breath, as if I knocked the wind out of him. I can feel his body tense.
“Kate…” he barely says my name. I continue to look at him waiting for the rest of what he needs to say. Minutes pass, but the rest never comes.
“What is it, Luke? You can tell me?”
His lips are barely moving, but no sound is coming through them. “Thank you for this,” he quickly says. I have a feeling that wasn’t what he was originally going to say.
We lay in comfortable silence for a while just watching an HGTV show. I lean up on my elbow. “Luke, will you go with me to Beth’s birthday dinner on Saturday? I want you to meet my best friends and their husbands.”
His hand slides up and down my arm. “Of course, sunshine.” I wrap my body into his, placing my head on his chest. Listening to the drumming sound of his heartbeat, it is loud, fast, and ferocious, as if he is fighting against something.
I have so much to tell him. My head is swimming in a whirlpool. I feel like my emotions are fighting against this rip current. I’m trying to stay focused on the present, to keep swimming parallel against the tide, but I can’t keep up with the current, it’s too strong and I drift further and further into the sea of ‘what may lay ahead’. I’m terrified of being alone in this all over again. I’m scared of being a mother again. I’m delaying the inevitable; I need to take the flipping test. Even though I know I am; I really don’t need two blue lines to tell me. Luke says he wants a family, but what will happen when he finds out it happened so fast, what if he doesn’t want this crazy life with me? Now, he wants me to meet his family. Oh God, what if they hate me? I already know Danika does, maybe she feels I’m taking her father away and shoving my girls on him. I don’t know, I know I need to talk to her. She has got to be scared, just as I am. I will get a test, but I’m not telling Luke until after the following weekend.
“Luke, can I ask you something?” He diverts his attention from the television to me and nods his head for me to continue “Where do you see us…say in a few months…hell even a year from now? I mean is this,” I motion with my finger back and forth between us, “a big commitment? Like, I can tell the girls you are a part of my life and it’s okay to see you around the house more? Or is this just a let’s see where this goes type of thing? Because I care for you immensely, and I want more, Luke.”
Luke throws the covers back and hovers over me. He fierce green eyes take my breath away. “I want nothing more than to be permanently in your life. I’ve waited my whole adult life for you. You and those girls are everything, and more, to me. I would like to aim for infinity with you.” With those words, tears pool in my eyes. I want to tell him right then and there that I love him. That what I truly feel is love. That, even though I’m scared of the ‘what if’s, as long as there is love, we can get through it. But, my body retaliates, my stomach flips and the pressure in my chest hits me at warp speed. “Oh God!” I moan out. He leans in for a kiss. I place my hand on his mouth and try to push him away. “Get up, Luke…now!” I yell as I place my hand over my mouth. He jumps off of me and helps me out of the bed. I run for the bathroom and make it just in time to the toilet. Yep, it’s official: morning sickness.
Once I am done hurling, I get up from the floor to see Luke dressed and leaning against the counter with a glass of water. “Where are you going?” I ask as I drink the water.
“I’m going to the store to get you something for that stomach bug of yours, or do you think it could be something else?” With his eyebrows scrunched together and a tilt of his head, he stares at me; waiting for a response I can’t give him. Shit, does he know? “Get back into bed, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He helps me back to bed after I brush my teeth. With a kiss to the forehead, he leaves me to rattle my brain more with questions and concerns.
I wake up from a peaceful slumber. I feel a hundred times better. Looking at the bedside clock, I see I’ve slept for five hours. SHIT!! My girls. Throwing on a pair of jeans, I glance at myself in the mirror. The dark circles are fading some. I brush my teeth, throw my hair in a messy bun, and grab my phone. Looking at my phone I see multiple texts from Keith. Shit!! Not bothering to answer them, I want to know why Luke didn’t wake me up.
I walk into the living room to see Luke with his head tilted back on the couch with a piece of steak on his eye. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you wake me?” He grabs the steak off his eye and throws it onto a plate on the coffee table. When I see his face, I gasp in horror. “Luke, what the hell happened? Who did that?”
I run over to the couch and sit next to him. His eye is swollen, purple and red. “Keith brought the girls home, and when he saw me, he wasn’t too impressed. When the girls came running to me, and I picked them up, he was even more pissed. He told the girls to get back into his car. He said he wasn’t leaving the girls with me, even though I informed him you were here, just sleeping because you didn’t feel well.”
“Did he do this in front of my daughters?”
“He wanted to prove a point, wanted to show who was more Alpha. I don’t know if the girls saw it or not, they were upset about having to get back in his car. I didn’t touch him. I think he was hoping I would. Kate, I’m so sorry. I wanted you to rest, you were so sick. I didn’t think he would pull this,” he explains, as he points to his eye.
I jump up from the couch and head for the back door. “Where are you going?” he demands, close on my heels.
I spin around and place my hand on his chest. “Luke, there is nothing I can’t handle. My daughters come first, no matter what condition I am in. Yes, you should have woken me up. Right now, I have to go kick my ex-husband’s ass.” I grab my keys and head for my truck.
He grabs my arm as I’m about to turn the knob. “You’re not going alone.”
“Yes, I am. He won’t give me the girls unless I do this alone. I’m a big girl and can handle him. I’ve handled his shit for five years. Five more minutes won’t hurt me.” With those words said, I walk to the truck, hop in, and peel out down the driveway. I am so pissed. I’m more pissed at the fact Keith pulled this in front of our daughters. They don’t need to see the adults they depend on acting like fucking toddlers.
I pull into Keith’s condo complex. I run up the stairs and bang on his door. Keith answers the door in just a pair of jeans. When the door is opened more, I can hear my girls laughing, and I notice some red head sitting on the couch. “You get your ass out here, now. I need a word with you.” I seethed the words to him.
He gives me his shit-eating grin. “What’s the matter, Katie? Did your big man come crying to you?”
“Keith, I don’t need to prove to myself, or anyone else that you are a bastard. Yet, the two people who don’t need to know, or see the ass hat capabilities you have, are our daughters. What the fuck were you thinking? I was home; you should have left them. You didn’t need to pull this stupid high and mighty shit in front of our daughters. They like Luke, you can’t do this to them. They are four years old, for Christ sake!”
Keith is fuming, his dark brown eyes have turned black, and his curly dirty blond hair is tussled from running his fingers through it. “Let’s get something straight here, Katie. No man will be in my daughters’ life except me. I refuse to have my girls around that man. You want to be his whore, so be it, but you will do it without our daughters present.”
He’s so close I can smell the beer on his breath. I have no idea what overcomes me, but I slap him, hard. He stands back and rubs his hand across his cheek. He grabs my arm, swings me around, and pushes me up against the stucco wall. He’s bending my arm and pulling it up against my back. The pain in my arm is brutal and intense. Tears start to pool in my eyes; the sharp edges of the stucco wall are scratching my face. “So my little kitten pulls her claws out and wants to play rough. Listen, bitch, and listen wel
l, I will win. I will win every damn time; so don’t fuck with me. If I find out Luke is around my daughters, I will fight for sole custody.”
I buck my ass up against him and turn around and slap at him. “You fucking asshole, how come you can have every damn tramp in the presence of our daughters, but the one real, true good man in their life can’t be? What’s wrong, Keith, you jealous of Luke? Jealous he can be a better role model to your daughters than you can? Open that fucking door and get my daughters now, or so help me God, I will scream bloody murder in front of all of your neighbors! You think you can scare me? Well, try again. You are nothing more than a pathetic pussy to me!”
The pain I feel across my face is indescribable. Even once his hand is gone the pain radiates and pulses through my cheekbone. The asshole slapped me. I go bat shit crazy on him, and knee him straight in the groin. He keels over and laughs; the man has such an evil laugh.
I walk to his front door, open it, and call for my daughters. They come running for me. Giving the red head a disgusted look, I grab their hands and tell them to say goodbye to their daddy.
He is sitting in a squat position. He opens his arms for our daughters to come give him hugs. “I love you, both,” he whispers into their ears.
“Come on girls, let’s go home.” Walking down the stairs with my girls, I fight the tears. I refuse to cry in front of my girls because of what their father has done. Once the girls are buckled in their seats, I look at my face in the rearview mirror and wince from the sight of my face. “Momma, what happened to your face, you got a big booboo?” Turning around to my girls, I give them the biggest fake smile and tell them mommy wasn’t paying attention and walked into the wall.
Driving the girls to my mom’s, I call her and let her know what happened in the briefest of details because I have little ears in the backseat. I ask if they can sleep over, and if she can take them to school in the morning. The girls are thrilled to see their Gamma. When my mom sees my face she starts to cry. “Mom, please, you have no idea how hard it was for me to not cry in front of them. Please, don’t do it now. I’m fine. I just need to do something and I can’t have the girls around.” She wipes the tears from her face and places the fake smile on her face, just like me. I bend down and give the girls a hug goodbye and tell them I will pick them up from school.
As soon as I get into the truck, I start to hysterically sob. I cry so much, I have to pull over and spill more of the contents of my stomach out on the side of the road. Once I stop hyperventilating, I call Beth and tell her to meet me at the police station. She doesn’t ask questions, she tells me she’s on the way and hangs up. Then I call Luke. “Kate, where are you?” I know he can hear me crying. “Kate, dammit, what’s wrong? Where are you?”
“I’ll explain everything once you meet me at the police station. Please, Luke, I’m barely holding it together; just meet me there. I’m on my way now.”
“Alright, baby. I’m on my way. I want you to stay on the line with me; you don’t have to talk. I just want you to know I’m here.” I place my phone on speaker and lay it on the console. He tells me where he is, and how fast he is driving. He asks if I have the girls. He keeps asking if I am all right. I want to cry and tell him, no, I’m not. Keith is going to make my life hell, make both our lives hell. I so wish he wasn’t a cop. I tell Luke the girls are at my mom’s, and that what went down at Keith’s wasn’t good and they didn’t need to be a part of what I had to do now.
I disconnect with Luke once I pull into the police station. I receive a text from Beth letting me know she is already inside and waiting. We both walk to the station desk and talk to an officer. I inform her I want to file domestic violence charges, that my ex-husband did the damage to my face. I tell them what he did to my arm and the actions that took place. The officer leads me into a room, where she asks if I can take my shirt off to see any more marks, so she could take pictures. Pulling my long sleeve shirt off, Beth gasps at the bruising on my arm. The female officer takes pictures and writes down more notes. My phone is ringing. I ask Beth to answer it as I put my shirt back on.
“It’s Luke,” she says. I tell her to tell him where we are. Minutes later, Luke walks into the room and is paralyzed by what he sees. He looks at me and then at Beth. I’m sitting in a chair with an ice pack on my face. He strides over to me and scoops me up into his arms. Gently I rub my fingers over his swollen eye. I tell the police officer Keith is also responsible for the marks on Luke’s face from earlier in the day.
Beth is pacing back and forth. I don’t know if she is in lawyer mode, or just freaking out seeing her best friend beaten. “Kate, I’m going to fight for supervised visits with Keith. This is bullshit. I want these pictures. He will not get away with this.” She points to the file for the police officer.
“You look so familiar.” Are the first words I hear from my man. Looking at Beth, he is questioning where he has seen her.
Beth walks over and holds her hand out to shake his. “Elizabeth Alexander, it’s nice to finally meet you,” she says, shaking his hand.
I look at Luke, and he’s thinking hard on how he recognizes Beth, “I don’t think you’ve slept with her, if that’s what you’re trying to remember,” I whisper into his ear.
He gives me a sly grin. “No, but I swear I have seen her before. You can’t forget that red hair and those green eyes,” he says as he rubs my back.
“Luke, I’m a lawyer, I’ve been on the news before. However, it’s funny you mention this because I swear I know the last name Ashton from somewhere. Your family hasn’t had legal issues have they?” She giggles.
“Excuse me, but I really would like to ask Mr. Ashton some questions,” the officer says. She asks Luke the same questions.
Luke becomes very quiet when answering the questions. His demeanor and facial expressions start to change. I grab his face and pull our foreheads together. “Stay with me, baby. Don’t go off into that dark place. I’m okay, and we’ll fix this. Just don’t leave me.”
I can hear his breathing get deeper. “Kate, look what he did to you…he fucking touched you, and I wasn’t there to protect you. I told you I should have come. I’m not in my dark place. I’m pissed beyond belief a man did this to you. Pissed that there isn’t a Goddamn thing I can do about it. Kate…he fucking touched you.” I rub my hands against his cheekbone and the tears fall down my face.
“He might have touched me, but he didn’t break me, Luke. I have a ton of fight in me, and I refuse to let him win.” Luke just holds onto me and we sit in silence as we wait for the officer to return. Beth is taping away at her tablet. I’m very content in his arms, listening to him breathe. An hour later the officer returns with forms for me to sign. She informs me they are sending an officer out to his place to arrest him, and they will be in touch. Beth lets out a sigh of relief. She packs up her things and thanks the officer.
The three of us walk out to the parking lot. Beth gives me a hug and tells me she will move mountains to get my case looked at. I hug her tight and thank her for what she is doing. Luke walks me to my truck and buckles me in. “I’ll be right behind you. Do you want to get Julia and Nicole?” he asks as he shuts my door.
I roll the window down and shake my head no. “I just want to go home and go to bed,” I say as I rub my hand against his chest.
“Alright, I’ll see you at home.”
HELL IS A mild way to describe the past week. We were in court by Thursday. The judge finally declared Keith needed to have supervised visits until the custody hearing he surprised me with. We have a court date in January. What a way to start off the New Year. Beth has worked her magic this week, and I can’t thank her enough. I dread January, but Beth has faith no judge will grant Keith sole custody, especially with his actions lately.
Tonight we’re all going out for Beth’s thirty-second birthday. I’m really nervous about dinner. I pray my stomach doesn’t revolt over the food. I took a test, and I’m indeed pregnant. I called my OB and have an appointment ne
xt week. I’ll tell Luke tomorrow, so he can come with me, if he still wants the baby and me. I feel like somehow my life took a serious U-turn in a seriously deranged soap opera, almost bordering for Jerry Springer. This week, I had to sit my daughters down and tell them why a lady will be visiting them on their visits with their daddy. As much as I can’t stand Keith right now, I can’t have my influences fall onto my children. They didn’t ask for this fucked up mess their parents created for them. I’m so exhausted, with the effects of the pregnancy, the shit Keith is pulling us into, and my working hours. It feels so hard to breath sometimes. I had to hire Jeremy and Chad back to help me with the boarding. I can’t do it anymore, besides the smell makes me hurl and I can’t ride the horses for exercise. At least this way, I get a break from that task.
I’m just getting out of the shower when I hear the girls squeal that Luke is here. Shit, I’m running late. The shower felt like heaven, I must have stayed in there longer than I thought. Wrapping the towel around me, I walk into my room. The girls are running out of their room down the hallway to mine. “Momma, Luke is here!” Nicole jumps up and down in excitement. She’s my introverted child. She hides a lot behind Julia. But I love to see how Luke brings out the excitement in her.
“Well, go let him in. Tell him I will be ready soon.” I watch the girls rush down the stairs to let Luke in.
I walk into my closet and I know what I want to wear. I want to wear my red, strapless, clingy dress. I haven’t dressed up since our first date. I want to feel sexy one last time, since who knows when I’ll be able to wear this kind of dress again. Laying it on the bed, I head for my dresser to pull out a lacey black strapless bra and matching thong, figuring it might be the last time to be sexy with Luke. I slide the thong up and snap the bra on. I eagerly remove the red dress from the hanger and glide the dress over my head and down to my mid thighs. I’m feeling sexy and hot, until I look into the full-length mirror. Aw, shit!! What the…? I have a bulge in my lower belly. Not just a little, like I ate too much. No, a bulge like I’m two months or more pregnant, bulge. UGH! There goes my sexy dress. I can’t wear it. Then I remember I bought a pair of Spanx. Ah ha!! I’ll just slide those babies on and it will smooth it out. I don’t know whom I’m kidding here, it’s not a bulge of fat, it’s a flipping baby. Won’t hurt to try, right? So I yank the dress off, tug the thong off, and step into the Spanx. I pull, tug, and roll the Spanx up my thighs. I’m starting to sweat just trying to pull these suckers past my knees. I pull up one leg at a time. The towel on my head falls off, my wet hair is flying all over my face and neck. They’re not even to my hips yet.
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