The Cabin

by Alice Ward

  Zoe rolled her eyes, looking up with a mixture of exhaustion and love. It had been a hard eight hours, but she had been a trooper.

  The nurse edged closer, and I kissed the baby’s dark hair before very carefully handing her over. Sitting on the side of the bed, I took Zoe’s hand in mine.

  “I love you.”

  She smiled, her eyes slowly opening. “I love you too.”

  Then I watched her sleep, the four-leaf clover rising and falling on her chest.

  Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.

  Indeed.

  Zoe

  Happy ever afters aren’t just for romance novels and fairy tales after all.

  They were possible. I was proof.

  My wedding day was part of that evidence and had culminated into a day that I would always remember. There had been nothing fancy about the small affair, just me and Gray, Leslie, and a few of our closest friends. Which weren’t that many. It was perfect.

  I’d never forget the way Gray looked at me as I appeared in my flowing dress of organza and silk, holding onto the arm of Leslie’s uncle, Stan. Every woman deserved to have a man look at her the way Gray had looked at me.

  “Goddess Zoe, queen of my heart,” he had murmured after Stanley released me into his care.

  I’d laughed, which made the day even more perfect. When two people were joined together in the holy bonds of matrimony, laughter should be the sound that filled their ears.

  After our honeymoon, we’d shopped for homes in Los Angeles, finding one with a view from the ocean that took my breath. In my best British accent, I declared it my “city home” while the cabin was our “country dwelling.”

  Yeah, I was corny, but I’d say or do anything to make my husband smile.

  To my great pleasure, he smiled a lot, that little gap between his front teeth always tugging at my heart.

  The only time he had stopped smiling was when I peed on a little white stick, him standing in the bathroom doorway while I did.

  “Are you afraid I won’t do it right?” I’d asked with a roll of my eyes. I’d peed in front of him many times as our comfort level around each other continued to increase by degrees. But it had been hard to pee that time, being fully observed as I was.

  Or maybe it was because he hadn’t been smiling, even with my attempt at humor. He looked tense. Stressed. Distressed.

  Considering that we had used zero birth control ever, my condition couldn’t have come as that much of a surprise. I’d suspected a week ago, when I missed my period. We’d been married for three months by then, and as many times as we’d had sex, my only surprise was that it had taken that long.

  As soon as I told him that I thought I might be pregnant, he’d hauled me into his truck and we’d driven down the mountain to Pop’s to buy a test.

  Mrs. Pops couldn’t have looked more pleased as she rang it up. “Don’t you be making me wait too long to learn the answer,” she’d admonished into my ear as she hugged me extra tight. “Been too long since we had a baby around here. I’ll have to stock up that aisle if that little stick turns pink.”

  It did turn pink.

  As Gray and I waited the full three minutes, I’d already known the answer. When it was confirmed, he hugged me, holding me tight in his arms. “Are you happy?” I asked, because I honestly couldn’t tell.

  “Yes.” The word was raw.

  I pulled away, looked up into his face. “It will be okay. This isn’t… before.”

  Oh, the pain on his face was gut wrenchingly hard to witness. He’d dropped to his knees, pressing his lips to my belly. “I’ll protect you, little one. I won’t mess up this time, I promise.”

  From that moment on, Gray did everything but Bubble Wrap me. You’d have thought I was the first woman to have fallen pregnant from the way he hovered around me. He held my hand if I walked up or down steps. It was annoying. Especially when he refused to have sex.

  I’d practically had to hold him down and jump on his dick to make him realize that he wasn’t going to hurt me or the baby. He’d known that already. Heck, he’d already gone through this part of pregnancy with his first wife, but the fear of loss hadn’t been there before.

  I loved being pregnant. Loved feeling the baby move, loved watching the little feet and hands poke up. By my fortieth week, I was a little less enamored with the experience. Maybe it was the inability to breathe that took the shine off.

  When the first contraction hit, I thought I’d been ready. But nothing in the world could prepared a person for something like that. The pain. Over and over and over, not turning off. Not going away.

  Gray had been my rock through the labor. His face had been deathly pale, but he’d been right there, front and center. He held my leg while I pushed, bearing down with all my might. He reached down and touched the baby’s head when it first appeared out of me.

  He encouraged as I pushed out the shoulders, screaming through the pain. Then he held his breath, his hand a death grip on me as the doctor suctioned her nose, her mouth.

  And when she cried, he nearly sagged to the floor, his relief had been so great.

  That had been yesterday, and today little Aspen Cynthia Meadows was going home.

  During the pregnancy, Gray, when he wasn’t hovering over me, had been busy. He’d hired contractors to build an addition onto the cabin, giving us plenty of room for our growing family. He cleaned out the extra bedroom, giving everything but the pictures and a few mementos away to charity.

  I hadn’t wanted him to do that, but he insisted, thinking it was time. And he had looked peaceful as the charity truck took it away, so I thought he was right. It was time.

  Possessions didn’t keep a person’s memory alive. Love did. And I knew that the love he’d had for her had a special place in his heart. Just like I did. Just as his first daughter did. And now Aspen.

  Walking into the cabin for the first time with our daughter was another reason I knew happy ever afters could be true. She was adorable in her gown and headband from her Aunt Leslie. The pink and green was a perfect complement to the elegant gray I’d chosen for the nursery.

  After giving Maggie and Go plenty of time to sniff and welcome our new addition, I’d carried Aspen to her new room.

  “Daddy built this just for you,” I told her, gazing into her beautiful blue eyes.

  Gray kissed her hair. “Nothing but the best for my little girl.”

  That was when I saw it. Something that hadn’t been there before was hanging on the wall.

  A four-leaf clover made out of wood. In each leaf was carved my mantra.

  Own luck.

  Own love.

  Own life.

  Own legacy.

  “Oh, Gray. It’s so beautiful.”

  He kissed my forehead. “I went down the mountain and cut out a section of the Aspen tree that saved you.”

  Lifting my hand, I touched the wood, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. “This is it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t sure who or what I was thanking the most. Gray, for this special gift. Or the tree, for giving its own life to save mine.

  Maybe I was just thanking the universe. Fate. God. Whatever it was that was giving me this moment to forever cherish.

  It didn’t matter, because as Gray took me into his arms, our daughter nestled between us, I promised to be grateful every day.

  For the gift of life.

  THE END

  Doesn't everyone deserve a best friend like Leslie? We thought so too. And we also thought she deserved a little something something. Okay, she deserved a BIG something something. Then enjoy this complimentary short story where you’ll find out all about Leslie. Simply CLICK HERE to Download it Now for FREE!

  Continue on to read the first of two FREE BONUSES that are included in this copy!

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Thank you for reading The Cabin. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, may I ask you to please write a re
view HERE? It would mean the world to me. Reviews are very important and allow me to keep writing the books that you love to read!

  In fact, if you liked this book, you can also check out my full Amazon Book Catalog HERE.

  I’d also like to invite you to connect with me on all my social media channels. I love hearing from my readers and sharing my thoughts and writing progress.

  Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Bookbub | My Official Website

  Come say hello in our exclusive Fan Group on Facebook! My fans and I have so much fun in there!

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/BabesAndBadDecisions

  Continue on to read another of my books, included here as a special treat just for you, The Hunt.

  Thank you for allowing me to keep doing what I love!

  Alice Ward

  A Bonus Novel

  THE HUNT

  Alice Ward

  CHAPTER ONE

  Caitlyn

  Sundays were pretty lazy days compared to the rest of the week, when I juggled my jobs at the community arts center and Ma’s Diner, took care of my grandma, and worked on various paintings.

  On Sunday mornings, I took my gran to brunch in town where she always ordered the same thing — pancakes with strawberries, black coffee, and a glass of water. She’d eat exactly one and one-half pancakes and all the strawberries, slathered in syrup and whipped cream.

  These days were great because, apart from being together and doing stuff that didn’t include pill cutters and measuring spoons, we were rebels. If her doctor knew how much sugar she ate on Sundays, he would kill her. Or me. Probably both of us.

  Sundays were “FU” doctor and “screw you” mortality days. We used to go to church, but Gran got kicked out for disagreeing with the minister… loudly. She was a feisty, kindhearted eighty-seven-year old.

  After brunch, we visited some of her friends at Whispering Pines Home for the Aged. She’d bring flowers and scandalous romance novels, sugar-coated contraband, and her loud, effusive personality. Everyone knew when Eula Darning was in the house. Once, she even started a food fight. I thought we’d be forever forbidden entrance to the hallowed halls of the aged, but it was the most fun any of them’d had in years. In fact, Marcie Grandiere, the meanest of the meanies, died a week later, swearing it was the best time of her life.

  My least favorite person at Whispering Pines was Ed, whose dementia was pitiful but also made him a bit scary to be around. Eula and Ed had been an item once when they were in their fifties, but it didn’t last long. He never remembered who we were when we came and always showed us his ass, then called Gran a whore… which made us laugh. His obscenity never offended Gran because she was a hoot and actually loved the raunch. She wasn’t your typical retiring old lady with outdated morals. She had a little black book full of lovelorn suitors who she had laid to waste in the wake of her “livelier days.”

  “Honey,” she would say, her fists planted on her hips as her gray-blue eyes twinkled, “I’m not a whore. I was never paid a dime.”

  I honestly never knew exactly what to say to that. She was the one who encouraged my painting and pursuit of the arts, even though my teachers thought it a waste of intellect.

  I moved in with Gran the day my mom was murdered by my dad. I was five. I couldn’t remember many details other than stark images from that day, so I went mostly by what I was told and the haunting dreamlike memories that randomly poked me in my sleep. A shrink helped me make peace with the horror that often invaded my psyche. Painting helped, and Gran kept me doing things that were batshit crazy. She’d get these ideas in her head, like “wouldn’t it be great if we gave peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the homeless,” which we did. She once ran for mayor, for the hell of it. She campaigned seriously for about a week then gave it up to plant a survival garden in laundry buckets on her screen porch in case of a zombie apocalypse. She also liked to shop QVC. I was constantly sneaking into her QVC account and canceling orders she thought she’d gotten away with purchasing behind my back. She would buy the most random and useless stuff. She had actually become a post office conspiracy theorist because so much of her mail had been “stolen.” She kept me busy, and, my life constantly teetered between mundanity and insanity.

  My artwork was all over Gran’s modest ranch style home. I hated to use the word cluttered, but she insisted on displaying all my “masterpieces,” as she would call them. The few she didn’t have mounted on every visible inch of wall space were the ones I happened to sell at the small art gallery in town. While she was slowing down in her old age, her sharp mind had never dulled. She always managed to mention something profound about at least one of the paintings each day.

  “Now, this one reminds me of 1939, when my mom took me to the circus. I was afraid of the clowns.” She shivered, the movement causing her short, wispy white hair to flutter around her face. “Who isn’t afraid of those evil little bastards, but I loved the elephants. They seemed so sad and majestic. This reminds me of the elephants at the circus.”

  “It’s a waterfall, Gran,” I would gently say, so as not to ruin her moment.

  “It’s like the elephant’s sad face,” she would add kindly, making me look at the painting again. Sure enough, you could see an elephant’s face in the flow of blue, gray, and white colors composing the water.

  Damn, Gran was a genius at times.

  When we returned home from our jaunt around town, she and I would hunker down on the porch and read our respective books, noting this and that about something we read from time to time. After an early dinner, I left her with her Hulu — usually old horror movies — and headed into my late-night shift at the diner.

  Most Sundays were slow. We had our usual truckers coming from or going to their destinations, a few drunks who needed to eat off their liquid Sunday barbeque binges, and the odd college student pulling an all-nighter on a coffee drip.

  Sometimes, Sunday nights were depressing because, if I looked at my life and was honest, it often felt unfulfilled. Sunday would roll into Monday, and nothing ever changed… the grind just kept grindin’. I didn’t have a boyfriend, nor did I want one. I was working two jobs in order to pay for Parson’s School of Design in New York, which I hoped to attend one day. But after Gran’s medical bills and our living expenses were paid, it never seemed like enough money was left over to make that dream a reality.

  I didn’t dwell on this worry, but it crept in sometimes. I told myself that I was doing good for the kids at the center, who needed someone to teach them a way to express the pent-up shit they held inside. Since most were neglected, they craved loving interactions and fundamental caring, which I also tried to provide. I felt like I was making a difference.

  As for Ma Johnson, who ran the diner where I worked nights, I figured I was doing my part there as well. Despite her rough exterior, I tried to bring a much needed burst of joy into the otherwise gloomy diner off I-95, the route that traversed from Connecticut to New York City. So, while my dreams seemed a world away, I did my best to make my life as fulfilling as I could. And if I had my moments of disappointment… who didn’t?

  This particular Sunday evening started out no differently than the others. I got into work, put on my uniform, and smoothed my hair back into a ponytail. The ponytail wasn’t really my favorite look because I preferred my wild auburn curls to be left free, but that wasn’t the best style for an eating establishment.

  Waving hello to Linda Green, as I did every Sunday — mostly just to piss her off cause I knew she hated it — I got a grunt in return, which wasn’t surprising. In her late forties or early fifties, Linda was a lifer at Ma’s Diner. She started working there in her teens and would be there till her death… or so she would say. Then, every other sentence she uttered was how she was gonna get out of there and marry rich. She had married about six men, but I guessed none of them were rich enough to keep around. She smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds a day, had a teenage son who liked shooting things up and was a relatively unpleasant
person. She was my partner on Sunday nights.

  Ma worked twenty-four-seven, a salty woman in her late seventies. She didn’t do much at the diner but sit around, talk to the customers, and bark orders, yet she was always there. Gran thought she was a vampire or a zombie. I loved Gran for being such a horror fan, strange little woman that she was.

  I was pouring coffee refills at one of the two occupied tables when a shiny black Bentley pulled into the parking lot around midnight. Linda immediately lost her mind.

  “What in hell’s fury is driving into our parking lot?” she inquired, peeking out of the rusted metal blinds and peering into the dark. “Look at that car, will ya?”

  Ma took an immediate interest.

  “Well, that’s quite a ride,” she said, gluttonously impressed, then pointed a finger at me. “Quick, Caity, start wiping down the tables.”

  I did as she asked because I didn’t like being on Ma’s bad side, but who cared if a Bentley pulled up? They probably just needed the bathroom or directions. There wasn’t much else open at this time of night. But Linda and Ma apparently cared because they were glued to the windows while I frantically squirted and wiped.

  After a few minutes, the front door opened, and an extremely well dressed, dashingly handsome man in his early thirties walked in looking confused and disgruntled.

  Yep, lost.

  “Welcome to Ma’s,” Ma gushed in the kindest manner she knew, which still sounded gruff and choppy. “Let me get you a table.”

  The man made a grunting sound, which wasn’t exactly impolite, as he eyed the place. This was comic. Ma’s small, hunched frame lumbered slowly to a table in the corner as she handed him a menu.

  “I’ll have someone come take your order in two shakes,” she barked.

  Linda inflated with excitement. “This is it, pumpkin, my chariot has come,” she whispered as she fixed her hair, straightened her apron, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her uniform. Ma ambled back to her seat.

  “Caitlyn’s gonna take it,” she crowed.

  “What?” Linda went from sexy to steaming in an instant. “That’s my table!”