Discovering Stella

by K. M. Golland

  Also available from KM Golland

  The Temptation series:

  Temptation (#1)

  Satisfaction (#2)

  Fulfilment (#3)

  Attainment (#3.5)

  Attraction (#4)

  Commitment – Tash’s book (#5) Coming Soon

  Wild Nights series

  Revue

  Surfer (Coming Soon)

  Secret Confessions: Backstage

  Chase (Coming September 2015)

  SEE THE BACK OF THE BOOK FOR LINKS TO THE PLAYLIST OF DISCOVERING STELLA

  International Paperback Edition 2015 ISBN 978-0987497741

  DISCOVERING STELLA

  © 2015 by K.M. Golland

  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

  Only those who are lost can be found.

  P R O L O G U E

  Pain. Physical, or psychological ... which of the two hurts the most? Is it possible for one to hurt more than the other, or are both just as debilitating?

  Physical pain is instant, brutal and uncamouflaged. It’s bold and undeniable, often leaving a visible scar of the damage caused. Psychological pain is one that festers within, unseen, yet just as potent. It is often a wolf in sheep’s clothing, slowly chipping away at a person’s soul, lacking visibility.

  Both forms of pain have the capacity to bring a person to his or her knees, destroy their faith and render them useless. But when the two collide, merge, unite in a common cause, the effects can be catastrophic.

  My body was currently experiencing both forms of pain as I took slow tedious steps across the lawn in the direction of what I had been evading, running from, for the past couple of years.

  I knew this moment would come, at one point or another, for some things are just inescapable. Yet, regardless of the inevitability, that did not mean I wished to welcome it sooner rather than later. In fact, the longer I avoided it, the better. It meant I was able to bury it in an untouched grave, that grave’s location deep within my body.

  The wind lashed my skin with each step I took, leaving an icy sting. And the leaves under my booted feet cried out when I pressed them into the earth. I couldn’t look up. I refused to, instead focussing on the black leather of my boots together with the grass and gravel that filled my vision. My nails dug into the palms of my hands as I clenched my fists, nerves and apprehension blanketing me. The pain of my biting fingernails was welcome, providing a microscopic distraction from what was to come in mere seconds. But it was microscopic — the pounding of my heart overpowering it and reminding me why I’d run, why I’d fled my previous life and why it was so difficult to return. Returning meant facing what had happened, what I’d done ... what I’d suffered.

  Returning meant closure, which, up until six months ago, I’d never thought possible. Six months ago, I’d escaped and reinvented myself. I’d left my previous life and started a new one — one that, unintentionally, included Lawson Drake.

  That man, that infuriating man, not only fixed my stupid car, he fixed my broken and tormented heart. He discovered my almost extinguished light.

  He discoveredStella.

  Six months earlier

  O N E

  Things happen for a reason

  The mind and body have the capacity to go on autopilot, taking you in a direction you may or may not wish to go. As I drove toward Pittstown — my new home for god knows how long — my body and mind were currently doing just that. They were taking me to a place where I wanted to go, although I knew I probably shouldn’t. A conscious part of me said not to run, that the right thing to do was stay, fight and deal with the demons. But there was a part of me that said, ‘Go. Start afresh and forget the demons, for if you don’t feed them they cease to exist.’ I truly wanted to believe that notion, but I knew deep down that it was a fallacy; demons exist whether we want them to or not. We all harbour them within. It’s just that some are greater than others, more destructive and dire. Some demons just won’t be silenced. Not to mention that some of us are better at housing them and keeping them restrained … controlled; I hoped I was one of those people.

  Pittstown was situated on the Victorian side of the Murray River, approximately 246 km north of Melbourne. As far as I knew, it was a shithole; a quiet country town with not much atmosphere due to having a population of only 600 people. It was, however, perfect for starting anew, for forgetting one’s past ... for hiding. It was also the place where my once-upon-a-time stepbrother, Todd, lived.

  Todd Westmore’s mother was married to my father for a period of just under six years, from the time I was aged twelve until the age of eighteen. I liked June Westmore and her son Todd, and I was incredibly sad and confused when the marriage fell apart. However, my father was not one to be tied down for long — three ex-wives were evidence of that.

  Sadly, I hadn’t heard from or seen Todd in years. We had kept in touch for a short time after our parents” divorce, but our social relations ceased when he went travelling overseas, which was not long before I turned twenty-one.

  I was now twenty-six.

  I could only imagine what had been going through poor Todd’s mind since I made contact with him last week after finding him on Facebook. I suppose it is one thing to be contacted by your ex-stepsister after five long years of no communication, and another thing to be contacted by her after she was already on her way to your shoebox of a town for a visit. Little did he know that my visit had no expiration date — my visit could end up being permanent.

  Despite our five-year marathon of silence — and after exchanging phone numbers via Facebook — conversing with Todd had been just like old times. Sure, there was awkwardness at first, but it soon dissipated like fog on a spring morning. It was such a relief.

  As I drove along the Murray Valley Highway with ‘What Goes Around … Comes Around’ by Justin Timberlake blaring from my speakers, I could see the surrounding rural Victorian landscape was barren, arid and unproductive, due to the current drought. This only heightened the desolateness of my new location — and desolate was what I wanted

  The ground was brown and the trees were bare and dead, the summer heat depleting them of life. That’s what the sun here in Australia does during the hotter months. It is brutal and all-consuming.

  Lifting the hair off the back of my neck, I gave my sweat-dampened skin a reprieve as it welcomed the kiss of the breeze filtering in through the window of my car. I was roughly fifty kilometres out of town when I looked down and noticed that the needle of the temperature gauge on my newly acquired 2000 model Ford Focus was stationary in the red zone.

  “Shit!” I muttered to myself, knowing there wasn’t much I could do other than pull over. “Shit, shit, shit!” I cursed a little louder.

  Stopping on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere on a sti
nking hot 38° Celsius day was not overly appealing. However, cooking the engine was no better solution. I’d only just bought the stupid car ... as in, yesterday.

  Narrowing my eyes, I noticed a sign in the distance notifying travellers of a rest area five hundred metres ahead. I decided I would stop there in the hope that a short break would cool the engine enough for me to then continue on to Pittstown. As fate would have it though — and as soon as I had made the executive decision to pull over — my course of action was decided for me when steam started billowing from underneath my bonnet.

  “No! No, no, no! Not here. Not now,” I pleaded, immediately pulling over to the shoulder of the road just twenty-odd metres shy of the rest stop.

  Helpless, I could only sit there and watch my car boil like an enormous kettle. And I wasn’t far from adding to that visual by emitting a high-pitched squeal of fury to match. It was no use squealing though; instead, I opted to slump back against my seat and close my eyes as JT sang about things going around and coming back around again. This is just my luck. Just. My. Bloody. Luck! Maybe I’m related to that Murphy guy with his law. What is it that he says? “If it can go wrong, it will” ... or something like that. Stupid guy. Realising I had been sold a lemon instead of a safe and reliable car, my eyes shot open and I slammed my hands down on the steering wheel. “Aargh!” I screamed. “Stupid, sleazy, arsehole con artist of a salesman.”

  I pulled the keys from the ignition, wrenched the car door open and climbed out, slamming the door with force behind me. The sun’s deadly heat caressed my skin almost instantly, asserting its power and dominance over the day. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid car,” I yelled at the royal-blue coloured shit heap.

  I really shouldn’t have been surprised that my lemon on wheels had carked it. I mean, honestly, what had I expected when deliberately buying from a shonky dealer in the hope that it could not be used to trace me? God, I’m such an idiot.

  Kicking the tyre with the underside of my flip-flop, I expelled my built-up rage, soon becoming exhausted and feeling utterly helpless: I was also highly irritated and yelling every obscenity I knew at the tops of my lungs.

  My white singlet top was damp from sweat and clung to my chest like glue, and my denim shorts were like lead weights against the skin of my thighs — the entire situation far from pleasant.

  Realising I had to somehow cool down the engine, I marched like a petulant child to the front of the car where I bent down to unlock the bonnet with the key, shaking my head in frustration at this time-wasting and highly annoying feature of the dumb car.

  I had turned the key to the left and then in the opposite direction, when I was suddenly grabbed from behind and yanked away as the bonnet sprang up, directing plumes of steam and hot water to where I had previously been standing.

  I screamed, shocked at the fact I had been seconds away from possibly melting the skin on my body, but even more terrified at having some unknown person’s arms around my waist in a tight bear hug and hauling me into the air.

  “Let me go!” I yelled, kicking frantically as my legs dangled mere centimetres from the ground. “Let. Me. Go!”

  Panicking, I threw my head back and butted my captor on the nose.

  “Fucking hell!” A low, angry male voice sounded from behind me as he released his grip.

  My feet hit the ground, so I swivelled around and backed away, which was when I spotted said male cupping his bleeding nose with his hands.

  “I think you friggin’ broke it,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah?” I panted, quickly scanning my surroundings and placing my hand at the back of my head where I now had an awful ache. “Well ... good! You grabbed me from behind. What did you expect would happen?”

  “You were about to become a statistic of what not to do when your car overheats. Fuck!” he growled, spitting some blood onto the gravel not far from his feet. “I was just trying to help.”

  “How was I to know that? Look, I’m sorry, but when grabbed from behind, my first instinct is not to ask my grabber if he is actually helping me or not.”

  I rubbed my head and then placed my hands on my hips. My instincts told me the guy meant no harm, his defensive body language, and kind — yet startled — blue eyes affording me a sense of calm. Regardless, I was not naive or brainless, and therefore chose to keep a safe distance for the time being.

  Continuing to spit blood and mumble expletives while fiddling with his nose, he was also firing me intrigued glances. Guilt surfaced as I watched him struggle, so I relaxed my stance and stepped toward him. “You scared me, that’s all. Here,” I offered, taking another step and stopping just shy of his side. “Let me have a look and see if it’s broken.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me for the slightest of seconds then dropped his hand so I could take a look.

  “Oh,” I whispered, impressed, observing his dark-blond hair, currently pulled back in a ponytail. Holy shit! My eyes disobediently continued to travel his features, finding his light bluey-grey ones curiously studying me as I stared at him. I was surprised to admit it, but the man was not bad at all in the looks department, except for the fact that he had a nice ribbon of blood across his face. “Oops! I’m sorry,” I apologised, breaking out of my unusual gawk. “Hang on a second. Let me get something from my car to help clean the blood.”

  Opening the door, I delved inside, reaching for my handbag and pulling out a travel packet of wet wipes and tissues. I then made my way back to where he was standing and pinching his nose. “Don’t pinch up there,” I scolded, huffing with irritation. “Pinch your nostrils and lean forward just slightly.”

  “What are you, a nurse?” he retorted in a high-pitched, nasal-toned voice.

  I couldn’t help laughing, because he sounded ridiculous, but also because, yes, I was a nurse. Well, I used to be.

  “Here, take these tissues.” I leaned into him. “I’m just going to clean around here. Okay?” I asked, concentrating on wiping his face clean so that I could inspect his nose.

  His eyes widened at my close proximity, which made me pull back just slightly. “Sorry. Here, you do it.”

  “I can’t,” he replied, in his nasal voice. I looked up and tried to suppress my smile. He smiled in return, and this small exchange was all that was needed for me to recommence the cleaning and inspection of his face by tentatively raising my hands toward his nose again. “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head as if to say that he didn’t and let go of his nostrils, so I gently placed my fingers on both sides of his jaw and tilted his head in order to assess the positioning of his nose. I also checked for instant bruising, of which there was none.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I confessed quietly, not meeting his eyes as I inspected the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m not hurt,” he mumbled, gruffly.

  Giving him a sure-you’re-not rise of my eyebrow, I continued my examination, locking eyes with his.

  They say the eyes are the windows to your soul; gateways that reveal your inner self. Yet, for me, they are also the true narrators of our hearts and give an insight to our well-kept secrets — secrets I wanted to remain hidden. And it was due to feeling this way that I broke our stare and focussed on his nose again.

  “So far so good,” I explained, almost breathlessly. “Tell me if this hurts.”

  Trailing my fingers up the stubble on his jaw, until they finally stopped on the bridge of his nose, I applied a gentle pressure in order to feel for any bone deformity. When he didn’t respond, I flicked my eyes back to his and became acutely aware that his gaze was fixed on my mouth — my discovery uncontrollably stirring feelings and sensations that were nice, but forbidden. Forbidden, because I had made it that way. Forbidden, because that’s what I deserved.

  Dropping my hands, I took a quick step back. “It’s fine, but here,” I said, offering him the wet wipe, “you may want to clean the rest of your face when the bleeding finally stops.”

  He nodded and accepted the wipe, which was when I hast
ily made my way to the driver’s seat of my car and sat down, swivelling my back to him in order to create some much-needed distance. Oh my god! What was that? A sudden and overwhelming sense of confusion and shame washed over me, making my cheeks tingle and flush with heat. Yeah, he’s good-looking, but shit ... get a grip, Stella. Closing my eyes briefly, I shook my head, then reluctantly pulled my phone from my handbag and scrolled through my contacts, stopping when I found Todd’s number.

  “What are you doing?” Tall, Blond and Handsome asked from his position by the car door.

  I startled, turning to look up at him while shielding the sun’s rays from my eyes with my hand. “Calling my stepbrother to come pick me up. He lives in Pittstown,” I explained.

  “I live in Pittstown. I can take you there —”

  “Thank you, but I don’t get into cars with strange men.” I pressed dial on my phone.

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, and let out a derisive puff of breath as my call connected.

  Todd answered with a chuckle. “Stel, you lost?”

  “No, worse,” I groaned. “I’ve broken down roughly fifty kilometres south of town.”

  “Shit! You serious?”

  “Yes! Why would I be lying?” I asked with astonishment. All right ... granted, I used to play pranks on him all the time — when I was twelve years old — but that was fourteen years ago, and I’m a mature woman now.

  “Okay, sit tight. I’ll give Lawson a call. He’s the local mechanic. Hopefully he can drive out and pick you up.”

  “Thank you, Todd, but please hurry. If I were an egg, I’d be fried solid right now,” I whined.

  “Stel, it’s not that hot.”

  “Bullshit, it isn’t. It’s hot and sticky. I don’t know how you cope.” I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat. The summer heat on the Victorian border was not the heat I was used to in Melbourne. It was so much more severe and merciless.