No Regrets (A Second Chance Romance)

by Vivian Ward

  No Regrets

  A Second Chance Romance

  Vivian Ward

  Contents

  Vivian Ward Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Vivian Ward Newsletter

  About the Author

  Also by Vivian Ward

  Copyright © 2016 by Vivian Ward

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This title was previously published under a different pen name. All rights have been transferred.

  For my family whom I love dearly

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  Chapter 1

  Stephanie

  Pure adrenaline pumped through my veins as I crawled across my bedroom floor with a thick cloud of smoke swirling above my head. The echo of the crackling and popping from the scorching fire made it near impossible for me to hear Drew. I would normally put him in his toddler bed, but with his head cold, I left him on the couch where he fell asleep. Coughing and choking on the limited air supply in our two-bedroom apartment, I frantically searched for him as I felt with my hands, arms, feet, and legs. Everything was so dark that I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me.

  “Drew!” My army crawl slowed as I got near the couch and began feeling for him with my hands. “Andrew! Answer mommy!”

  Flames were everywhere I looked, and I became terrified that maybe he was hiding someplace to escape the fire. My heart dropped as I thought about all the hiding places that he could be in. He could be in a closet, one of his two toy chests, under the couch, in a corner, in a cabinet—the possibilities were endless. I was beginning to think that I might not find him in time.

  “Andrew!” I kept crawling and feeling around. “Come on, Drew! Where are you?” I already knew that once I found him, I was going to have to figure out how to escape from our second-story window. “Mommy needs you! We have to get out of the fire!”

  The thick smoke was choking me, threatening to deplete any molecule of oxygen that may be near me. It was so hard to call out to him since I could hardly breathe. I knew he had to be just as scared as I was. What three-year-old wouldn’t be? At that moment—probably the only moment ever—I was glad that our apartment was tiny. The only rooms left to search were the bathroom and kitchen; I opted to check the bathroom first. I continued calling his name as I crawled on the floor, hoping he was lying low, too.

  “Mommy’s looking for you, baby! Please, come out!” I wanted to cry, but I knew that would only make matters worse. Keep calm, Stephanie. You can’t let him see you get upset because it will only scare him. I stretched my arm out in front of me and felt for the bathroom door.

  After waving my hand around a few times, I felt the wood door and pushed it open. “Drew, are you in here?”

  A booming crash prevented me from hearing him if he did answer. “Drew! Answer me!” I hope he didn’t run out the front door and go into the main hall between the apartments.

  “Mommy!” I heard him cry. For a split second, I was relieved that I found him in the apartment with me, but we still had to get out.

  Fanning the smoke from in front of my face, I squinted my eyes as I tried to see where he was. “Where are you, Drew?”

  “Over here,” he shrieked. His shaky voice melted my heart. I knew how scared he was.

  Feeling around, I located the sink, toilet, and clothes basket without running into him. He must be in the bath tub. “Are you in the tub?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I raised up and sat on my knees in front of the warm, porcelain bath tub and waved my arms around until I felt the trunk of his body. “Is this your arm?” I asked as I grabbed what I thought felt like his arm. The instant I touched him, I lost it. I was so relieved to have my hands on him that I began to sob. I knew that making it to him was only half the battle. His tiny life was in my hands, and it was up to me to get us out of there. He tightly wrapped his arms around my neck and held onto me for dear life. If the smoke wasn’t going to choke me to death, he would. “Drew, loosen up your arms, baby. Mommy can’t breathe.”

  Once he loosened his death grip on me, I positioned him on my back as I began crawling out of the bathroom. Half-way across the living room floor, a ceiling beam fell and nearly missed our heads by inches. Andrew began crying as he tightened his grip around my neck again. Tapping his arm, I told him to loosen his arms as I continued my army crawl towards the front door. It was our only hope of escape, and I was praying that the stairwell would still be intact so that we could make it down them. Please, God. Don’t let us get trapped. I don’t want my baby or me to die.

  Crawling past the center of the couch, I heard a loud explosion. It was the window to my apartment shattering. I flipped Andrew off my back and onto the floor, covering him with my body to shield him from the shards of glass that were flying through the air. My lungs were on fire from the heat, and the lack of oxygen made it impossible to communicate with him any longer. All I could do was try to keep moving forward while protecting him from falling objects and flying glass. The heat was so hot that everything around me was beginning to ignite spontaneously. His grip on me was beginning to get weaker; he was running out of oxygen, as was I. Everything was beginning to look disoriented, and I lost track of what part of the living room I was in.

  “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  I heard a man’s voice. Did I imagine this? “Hello?” I responded.

  “Did you hear that? I heard a woman,” a different voice said. “Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

  “Help!” I yelled while choking on the heavy smoke which was lingering a few feet above the floor.

  “Over there,” he said to his partner. “Ma’am, this is the Memphis Fire Department. We are here to rescue you, and need you to stay where you are while we locate you.”

  I froze in place with Drew barely clinging to me. “I’m by the couch, and I have my son.” I kept trying to talk so they could follow my voice. “He’s only three, and he needs air.”

  The fireman grabbed a hold of my ankle. “Ma’am, is this your leg?” His thick gloves squeezed the bare skin of my leg.

  “It’s my ankle, but yes. My son is on the floor beneath me. Please, help him!” Drew’s petite body had gone limp, and he was no longer able to hold onto me. “Drew!” When he didn’t respond, I knew he was unconscious.

  The fireman grabbed my leg and dragged me backwards, towards
him. “Ma’am, I’m going to pull you to me, and then my partner and I will carry the two of you down the ladder.”

  “Down the ladder?” I had asked on the final tug before I bumped into him.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He handed me off to his partner as he took Andrew out of my arms. “I’ve got your son. You can go with my partner.”

  The other fireman grabbed my arm and draped it around his neck as he helped me walk to the window. The heavy could of smoke billowing out of the busted window made it impossible to see the ladder that we were supposed to make our descent on. The man who took my son made their way out first since Drew was unresponsive. My heart sank as I watched his limp body bounce on the shoulder of the fireman while he climbed down the ladder with him.

  “Do you need help going down?” the fireman who was still in my burning apartment asked me.

  “No, I think I can do it.” I quickly tried to glance around my apartment. I know it should probably be the furthest thing from my mind, but I became embarrassed when I looked down at the crowd of people who were spectating from the street. I was wearing nothing but a white slip. I had never changed out of it after I got home from my women’s support group meeting at church.

  “You won’t be able to take anything with you. We need to get going,” he pulled me closer to the window. Even though I knew he was right—I didn’t have time to grab anything—I still struggled with the idea of going out into the crowd in my undergarments. “Ma’am,” his padded glove pressed against my back, “now.”

  I looked down the ladder and saw Drew draped over the fireman’s shoulder as he neared the street. It didn’t matter what I had on, I needed to be with my baby. Taking the fireman’s hand in mine, he helped me onto the ladder, and I climbed down one rung at a time. When I finally reached the ground, I started running over to the stretcher that Andrew was lying on. Within a few feet of it, I saw that they had him on oxygen, and they were trying to speak to him.

  “Drew, mommy’s here,” his eyes were glazed over, dopey looking. “Baby, can you hear me?” I shook his arm.

  “You’re his mother?” the paramedic asked me. I nodded in response to her question. “What is his name?”

  “Andrew. His name is Andrew—”

  “Stephanie Frost,” the fireman who carried him down the ladder interrupted my sentence, pulling his helmet off of his head.

  My jaw dropped as my mind went blank. Matt? Matt Porter? What is he doing here? Why is he a fireman?

  “His name is Andrew Smith. He’s only three years old. Is he going to be okay?” I stroked his hair as I glimpsed at Matt from the corner of my eye. I never thought I would see him again—not after the way things ended.

  “With the way his vitals are, we are going to have to transport him to Children’s Hospital for overnight observation. You can ride with him if you’d like, or you can follow the ambulance in your vehicle.” She started loading him into the back of the ambulance as they continued to administer oxygen to his tiny body.

  “I’ll have to ride with him. My keys are in my purse, which is probably melted,” I nodded towards the second story of what was my home only a half an hour ago. There wasn’t much left to it now, though. Everything was black, smoky and wet.

  Sitting on the bench next to Drew’s stretcher, I peered out the window of the ambulance. Standing at the edge of the sidewalk is Matt staring at us. We locked eyes, and every memory of pain and happiness flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning. I couldn’t stop looking at him; the corners of his lips were turned downward, as were his eyes and his shoulders appeared slumped forward. He looked sad, defeated. The old Matt that I knew stood tall, proud, smiled and had a special twinkle in his eye that could stir the butterflies in the pit of any girl’s stomach.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked the paramedic, the fiery scene fading behind us as we drive away.

  “We’ll need to take him for observation,” she said as she filled out a chart, noting all of his injuries.

  Chapter 2

  Matt

  I never dreamed that I would run into her—not after all these years. What’s it been? Eight years. Yeah, I’d say it was eight years ago that I had my whole life in front of me. Stephanie and I were in love, inseparable, and happy. We had plans that I would finish school, we would start a family, and she would be a stay-at-home mom while I earned a living. It shouldn’t surprise me that she has a little boy; she always said how badly she wanted to have children.

  It’d been a long time since I’d had a drink, but I felt like I could use one. A neat scotch. I could taste it on the tip of my tongue—just like her. Her pale, creamy skin looked so soft against the blue, elegant nightgown she was wearing. I still remember how sweet it tasted to kiss her moist, dewy skin. She tasted like the nectar of the gods. My tongue used to run against her satin skin, and her perky nipples. How could I forget them? When soft, they were about the size of the tip of my pinky, but after I teased them and sucked on them, they grew into perfect points; similar to the tip of a crayon. They were the perfect size for her breasts.

  I could feel my manhood being stifled by the cloth of my blue jeans. It was a damned good thing I had the night off. There was no way in hell I could focus on work and saving lives—not while she was occupying every open space in my mind. I drove to my favorite bar—Squiggy’s—on the other side of town. During the trip, I told myself that I shouldn’t go back to my old ways, but it didn’t stop me from making a beeline right to it. I needed this. I had wanted it for so long. And seeing Stephanie? It was the perfect excuse.

  I pulled up in front of the bar and threw my pickup into park before I got out and kicked the door shut. The place looked rougher than I had remembered it. I haven’t been to a bar since I got sober. The front of it was weathered, and one of the windows was covered with a piece of cardboard. My guess was there had to have been a bar fight and someone got tossed out the window.

  That’s pretty typical for this part of Memphis, though, and it’s one of the oldest bars around. Rumor has it that this bar has been around for more than a hundred years though it’s been sold more times than you could count. I walked around the front of my truck and stepped up on the sidewalk. Taking in a deep breath, I could already smell the booze in the air. The thick hops filled my senses as the breeze blew through my hair when I crossed the sidewalk.

  The inside of the bar smelled familiar, welcoming. I looked around and noticed that I didn’t know a single soul in the whole place. When I used to go there, I knew everyone. The bartender knew me by name and could pour me the perfect drink based on the expression I wore on my face when I walked through the doors. I opted for a seat at the end of the bar, near a dark corner. I didn’t want anyone to see me break my sobriety.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked, wiping out a shot glass with a stained bar towel.

  “A neat Scotch.”

  I looked around and noticed that the old jukebox was gone. That thing used to keep me so much company that I almost felt sad as I stared at the empty wall.

  “Four bucks.”

  I pulled a five out of my wallet and laid it across the old, dark-stained wood counter. It had more scratches in it than a headboard at the Bunny Ranch. I’ve always thought that the wooden bar was the original counter top since the place first opened. The bartender took the money off the counter and stuffed it inside the register, offering me the change. I held my hand up and nodded towards the glass beer stein on the counter.

  My hands shook as sweat beaded on my upper lip.

  I should call Mick. God damn, Matt. What are you doing? Five years of sobriety and you’re gonna throw it all away on this shit? But it looks so good, and it smells fucking delicious. One drink. What’s it going to hurt? Could it really do that much damage?

  The truth? Yes, it could do that much damage. I’ve never been able to stop at one drink, especially when it comes to thinking about her. She was the sole reason I was in Alcoholics Anonymous. I hadn’t been to an AA meet
ing in years, but Mick has always been just a phone call away. I picked up the glass and eyeballed it. The amber liquid sloshed around as the glass shook in my hand. I sat it back down on the scratched up wooden bar and took a deep breath, letting the air blow out of my puffy cheeks.

  “Everything all right?” the bartender asked.

  I still hadn’t drunk it, not a single drop.

  “Yeah.” I stood up and kicked the barstool to my left. “Just need to take a leak.”

  It was a lie. What was I supposed to say? That I was pussin’ out and couldn’t drink a little scotch? I walked into the bathroom. Stale piss filled my nostrils and made my stomach turn as I leaned over the dirty sink and splashed water on my face.

  Come on, Matt. One drink. You can have a drink. After seeing her, you deserve it. I looked at myself. My eyes looked weary, tired. No, I can’t fuck this up. What if I never stop again? What if it’s like last time? God. Last time.

  I walked back out to the bar and sat in front of the drink I had ordered. I fished my phone out of my pocket and brought it up to my face. As I pressed the power button on my phone to call him, nothing happened.

  No. No. No. Not now. Come on. I pressed the button again. The phone remained dark. That’s when I remembered that I had forgotten to charge it yesterday, and last night I was busy thinking about pulling Stephanie and her kid out of the fire that I didn’t think to charge it before I went to bed.

  Fuck. Seriously? Why does this always happen to me? Is this a sign? Maybe a higher power is testing me. Maybe this is all a test. I looked back down at the glass of Scotch.

  “Hey, man,” the bartender leaned across the counter. “You feelin’ okay? You’re sweating like a stuck pig and don’t look so hot.”

  Slowly, my eyes met his. “You gotta phone I can borrow?”