Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Mary B Moore
All rights reserved
ASIN: B01LZ84016
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written expressed permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incident are products of the authors imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.
Cover design: SK Designs
Cover Photograph : R+M Photo
Photographer: Reggie Deanching
Model: BT Urruela
Editor: JDSC, Eve Montelibano and Jane Wells
Formatting: Jaye Cox
The use of actors, artists, movies, TV Shows, and song titles/lyrics throughout this book are done so for storytelling purposes and should in no way be seen as advertisement. Trademark names are used in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for use only, then you should return it to the seller and please purchase your own copy.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1911 and the Copyright Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior express, written consent of the author.
This book is intended for mature adults only and contains consensual sexual content and language that may offend some. Suggested reading audience is 18 years or older. I consider this book as Adult Romance. If this isn’t your type of book, then please don’t purchase it.
This book is covered under the United Kingdom’s Copyright Laws. For more information on the Copyright, please visit:
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Our Cause
Claire Louise Wind 31 July 1977 - 2 November 2005
I met Claire when she went to Leicester University to study History and Archaelogy. She was from Milford Haven, Wales, but had spent a lot of her childhood in the Netherlands. She went on to become a teacher in Guildford, UK, and loved her job and her students hugely. I can genuinely say that I never met anyone who ever hated her. She had the most beautiful heart in the world and I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to have had her in my life for as long as I did.
A couple of years before she passed away, she started to have moments where she felt dizzy and in her words ‘out of it’. These episodes began to get worse throughout 2005 and she was basically dropping, not like a faint but an actual drop. After going through so many tests, the specialist who was treating her diagnosed her condition as “psychosomatic”. We knew that it wasn’t, but he was adamant that the episodes were all in her head. Two weeks before she passed away she was making plans to start the next phase of her life and was excited and looking forward to what was ahead.
A couple of days before she passed away, she started to feel ill and took some time off work. The last time that I spoke to her was on 1st November 2005. It was a typical “us” phone call; regardless of the fact that she didn’t feel well we still laughed and spoke for a while. On 2nd November, her roommate came home and saw the TV on in Claire’s room and assumed that she’d fallen asleep. When she didn’t wake up later, he went in to ask her if she needed anything and sadly, regardless of the work that the paramedics put into resuscitating her, she had passed away. We waited months for the Coroner’s Inquest and verdict to be given, and when it was they confirmed that she had died of SADS - Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, an arrhythmia condition. Had it been diagnosed, with the help of medication she would have still been with us today.
SADS kills thousands of people every year, and currently SADS UK are raising funds to put defibrillators in every school throughout the UK. They are also assisting with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome which now comes under the same category as SADS - Sudden Death Syndrome SDS. The most beautiful thing about SADS UK is that they’re helping SADS organizations all over the world too, it’s not just limited to the UK.
On Claire’s headstone is something that I said to her mother after she passed away
‘She lived her life for those she loved, and those she loved will never forget her’ and they definitely won’t. The day she died, I lost a big sister. Someone who looked after me while my parents were posted overseas, someone who held my hand when I was paralyzed from the waist down, someone who every night would send me a text saying “sleep tasty lady”. Someone who was irreplaceable and it’s left a huge hole in my heart.
I would like to stress that although some of the memories given about Louise, Ebru’s sister, in Until Forever are based on true events, Claire has a family that loved and doted on her. She has amazing parents and a younger brother who loved her dearly. Louise and Ebru’s family life is fictional and not based on Claire’s life.
When I chose the photo of BT Urruela for my cover from R+M Photo, I didn’t actually know who he was. It was the pose and the vulnerability that he showed in the photograph that hit me. Sharing memories of Claire and Trinity Hanrahan revealing her loss too makes us vulnerable too and the photo reflected that. I knew that I wanted the background dulled to reflect the effect of losing a loved one and how a bit of the color and magic goes out of the world when someone you love dies. You show people the colors that you want them to see, but for you the colors are muted. My characters Cole and Ebru have only showed the world the colors that they wanted them to see for years, so it was perfect for them too.
The book was also written in memory of Trinity Hanrahan’s daughter who passed away from SIDS. This condition takes away so many babies and to date there are no definitive answers on a solution to the condition, however there is a lot of research being carried out to try and prevent it. In fact, the British government have set a target to increase funding to SIDS prevention to reduce it by 20% by 2020. All research and answers discovered will be shared internationally. Add that on top of the research that medical bodies all over the world are carrying out on SIDS, we can hope that soon we’ll be able to prevent it happening. Every penny raised through donations or events is so important to help them achieve the dream of SIDS no longer being an issue that parents have to worry about.
All funds raised during Hearts and Halo’s 2016 and from all of the pre-orders, purchases and Kindle Unlimited reads of this book will be donated to the following charities:
http://sadsuk.org.uk
http://www.firstcandle.org
Should you wish to make a donation to these charities, you can access their onsite donations page on these websites.
Thank you all so much for your support. Trinity and I have been absolutely blown away by the support that we received for our Hearts and Halos 2016 event and also for sharing our stories.
Sleep tasty Clairebear. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again! I love you to the moon and back Lady xoxoxo
Baby Lexy
The book is also written in memory of baby Alexis Lee Joyner who came into the world on 26 March 2004 and became a beautiful twinkling star way too early on 24 May 2004. Gone from our arms, but forever in our he
arts.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Our Cause
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bonus Scene
Acknowledgments
Books available and coming soon from other authors
Dedication
Clairebear and Lexy
Forever in our hearts
Forever on our minds
And always the brightest stars
Shining in the sky
Twinkle brightly our beautiful stars
To all of the stars in the sky who were victims of SADS and SIDS, and to all of the loved ones left behind - this book is for all of you.
M xoxo
Chapter One
Why the hell was I so cold? And fuck me, would those birds shut the fuck up. I turned to find my comforter and realized - I was outside, and naked!
Rolling over, I cracked an eye open to have a look around where I was, and it all came back to me. Yesterday was the day of the year that I dreaded, and I’d come to the lake to numb myself with alcohol, but apparently I’d ended up giving myself frostbite. Fuck, what if my dick fell off?
Sitting up, I looked around trying to find my clothes and then the burning feeling all over my back started to come through the post-alcohol haze. What the hell had I done last night? It felt like I’d poured acid over my back and…
“Motherfucker!” Thank shit no one was around to see me; my balls were on fire, and it was like the time Layla had put Bengay in my jockey shorts. I didn’t know whether to itch, scream or roll around trying to put the fire out.
Running over to my clothes, I started putting them on, but the feeling of even my tee rubbing against my back was driving me insane. When I put the boxers on, I gave in and finally screamed and tore them back off. How the hell was I gonna drive back?
“Uh, Cole,” the sound of someone clearing their throat behind me had me spinning around to beg for help. “I think you might need some medical help,” Landon, one of Coleman’s men said looking everywhere but at me. I didn’t give a fuck; I was about to throw up it was that painful.
“Let’s go,” I walked past him like a cowboy out of the Wild West who’d been riding on his horse for five days straight. I couldn’t let my thighs even brush against my balls.
I swear I heard the shit stain chuckle, but right now I had other priorities, mainly the fact my balls were about to explode like an egg in a microwave.
Brett
“Sir, we have a situation,” Coleman’s man said down the phone, and my heart sank. What the fuck had happened now? Was she ok?
“Tell me,” I could hear groaning and high pitched squeals in the background now, so it couldn’t be her.
“Your brother was at the lake all night. He was drunk and passed out on the grass.”
“He’s been known to do that,” I was brusque but come the crap on, this wasn’t a problem.
“Sir, he has bites all over his back and is reacting to them. In addition to that,” he swallowed audibly in my ear, and I swear he was trying not to laugh. “He has them on his…testicles.”
I stared at the wall in front of me and blinked. “So, he has a bite on his balls? Why is this an issue?”
“It’s unknown what he was bitten by, but he was found near some ant hills.” I winced because those fuckers were evil, and if he got a bite on his balls that would be agony, albeit hilarious, though. “He requires medical attention, Mr. Townsend. The reaction is severe, and the bites cover almost all of the skin on his back, buttocks, the backs of his legs and of course his testicles.”
I couldn’t stop the roar of laughter that came out of me; it could only happen to Cole. “Where…” I wheezed, “are you at?”
“Just entering the ranch, Sir. We’ll be at your Mother's in one minute. Could you ask her to be ready to assist, please?” He was definitely trying not to laugh.
“Ma!” I hung up the phone and yelled at the top of my voice. “You’re needed!”
She walked out of the kitchen towards me, and I filled her in on what I’d been told just as we heard a horn sound outside the front door. Rolling her eyes, Mom went out to the car and opened the back door.
“Honestly Cole, all it’ll take is a…sweet Jesus what the hell did you do to your jewels? Brett, call your father! “
Putting my phone to my ear, I sniggered as I walked up to the back of the car expecting to see just some big bites on his ass. Nothing could have prepared me for what I actually saw, and no amount of therapy would ever get rid of the image that was now firmly embedded in my mind.
“Uh Dad, can you get home? I think Cole needs to go to the ER,” I said, trying not to throw up at the sight in front of me. “I think Cole’s balls are about to explode! Yeah, you need to see this shit!”
Hanging up, I stood staring with my mouth open in horror; this shit was too good to believe. In fact, on that thought…I lifted my phone up.
“Are you taking pictures you cock juggling thunder cu…ahhhh they’re on fire!” Cole had shifted to turn around and glare at me, but apparently, anything touching his balls, that now looked like a baboon’s ass, was torture.
Speaking of asses…”How the fuck did you get bites on your ring man?”
Mom hadn’t said a word up until now; she was just standing there blinking at what I’m sure would now feature in all of my nightmares. Snapping out of her stupor as he whimpered, she walked around to the passenger side and got in next to Landon, who was pinching the bridge of his nose with his shoulders shaking.
“I take it we’re going to the ER,” he asked, turning to Mom.
“What? No! You can’t take me in there like this,” Cole whined as I shut his door. Nodding at Coleman, who had a look on his face like he’d just licked a socket, we got into my vehicle and followed behind them.
“If you don’t get this on video I’m quitting,” he mumbled. Just as well I had a full battery on my cell.
Ebru
The paperwork in front of me was one big blur. I’d been working for fifteen hours straight because we were short staffed. If it had been a quiet night it wouldn’t have been so bad, but last night had been the night from hell with every asshole and their dog turning up for treatment from a splinter in the hand to the tree branch that was through a guy’s ass.
Sighing, I moved the form to the side and reached for the coffee that tasted like what I’d imagine moldy ass would taste like, but it did the job. Maybe if I put my head down on the desk and closed my eyes for five minutes…
The door opened, and I looked up to see my friend Lars standing there with a huge grin on his face. “He’s baaaaaaaaaack!” he singsonged and burst out laughing. Seeing my confused look, he laughed harder. “VIVA EL UNICORN!”
Apparently, me hitting my head on my desk repeatedly made the situation even funnier because he slid down the door frame holding his stomach. I was surrounded by assholes and the biggest one who had condemned me to a lifetime of unicorn bullshit from my colleagues was somewhere in this hospital.
“Oh shit, please tell me they didn’t give him painkillers!”
I stepped over the asshole who was now letting out high pitched whines as he lay
on his side with tears and snot all over his face. My foot hitting him in the gut was an accident, my other foot kicking him up the ass wasn’t.
Chapter Two
Ebru
“So let me get this straight,” I crossed my arms over my chest as I spoke to Parker. We’d become good friends through Luke and he was a freaking awesome Doctor to boot, so working with him was actually pleasant unlike some of the other twats in here. “He’s had an allergic reaction to some bites?”
Parker’s shoulders were shaking as he filled in the chart in front of him. “Yup!”
“What was he bitten by?”
“We think it’s a mixture of ants and mosquitoes,” he turned to look at me and burst out laughing. “You need to go and see for yourself.”
Rolling my eyes, I walked toward the room that the chart said that he was in. I swear this guy was the biggest hypochondriac I’d ever come across.
As I got to his door, I heard Colette’s voice. “Why do you think they turned blue? Cole get back into that bed!”
Coleman was standing at the door with his arms crossed looking up at the ceiling.
“What’s happening?” I asked him and backed away when I saw the look on his face.
“My advice, turn around and don't come back,” he grunted. “There are some things that you never need to see.”
I was even more intrigued now. Just as I was about to ask him some more questions, the big baby’s voice came from deeper inside the room.
“Where’s the doctor?” Well, at least he was conscious this time and not trying to influence the tides with his dick. “Oh my God!”
“Cole, don’t you dare do that. Don’t make me tell you again! Parker was going to get the medication that you need, so just get your butt back in that bed and lie down.”
Walking into the room, I came to an abrupt halt when I saw Cole naked as the day he was born, bent over with his ass against where the door to the bathroom was slightly open. He had his eyes closed and was trying to fight his Mom off as she tried to get him back into bed. Snapping out of my stupor, I walked up to Brett who was recording it on his phone.
Until Forever (Providence Series Book 3) Page 1