Saving Love (The Piper Anderson Series Book 8)

by Danielle Stewart

  Saving Love

  Danielle Stewart

  Copyright Page

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locals, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  An Original work of Danielle Stewart.

  Saving Love Copyright 2014 by Danielle Stewart

  Books By Danielle Stewart

  Piper Anderson Series:

  Book 1: Chasing Justice

  Book 2: Cutting Ties

  Book 3: Changing Fate

  Book 4: Finding Freedom

  Book 5: Settling Scores

  Book 6: Battling Destiny

  Piper Anderson Extras:

  Choosing Christmas - Holiday Novella - Chris & Sydney's Story

  Betty's Journal - Bonus Material(suggested to be read after Book 4 to avoid spoilers)

  Saving Love - Novella

  The Clover Series:

  Hearts of Clover - Novella & Book 2: (Half My Heart & Change My Heart)

  Book 3: All My Heart

  Book 4: Facing Home

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  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 Fourteen

  Books by Danielle Stewart

  Chris has done everything possible to put his dark past behind him. Along the way he’s fallen in love and built himself a family. His wife Sydney thinks she’s at peace with the man Chris once was. But when his past finally catches up to him his family will hang in the balance. Can you ever really have a second chance? Can Chris and Sydney save their love?

  Prologue

  In just a couple years I’ve gone from Christian, the mob boss with blood on his hands, to Chris, the suburban husband and father whose biggest challenge is deciding what movie to download to make everyone happy. I’d be lying if I said I never missed my old life, but I look over at my wife reading a story with my son and I’m instantly grateful for the second chance I’ve been given in this world. Sydney has stood by me through every bonehead move I’ve made. She’s helped my brother muddle his way through successes and failures in rehab. Seamlessly, she’s become a mother to my son, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not shocked by the fact she loves me.

  The frightening thing about having so much in my life now is the burden of knowing how quickly it can all be snatched away. Sydney has shown nothing short of unwavering support for me, but if ever given a front row seat to the pursuits of my past, would she run for the hills? I’m about to find out.

  Chapter One

  “I met the nicest woman today,” Sydney called over her shoulder in the kitchen as she scooped heaping piles of mashed potatoes onto three plates. Her blond hair was shimmering in the light of the late evening sun. Day after day she’d become a better cook and now Chris and his son were usually excited to see what she’d bring to the table.

  “I’m not surprised,” Chris smiled as he slid his shoes off and placed them by the front door. Having a real job with a business attire dress code was still something he was getting used to, but it got easier every day. A born leader, he took to managing the union office in town. His witness protection handler, Jason, had been against it considering the age-old links between the mob and unions, but Chris had insisted his old life was completely behind him. He had too much to lose now to get lured in by the promise of easy money. At some point he’d learned the only real easy money you could obtain was the kind you worked for honestly. Otherwise you’d likely find yourself choked by the strings that came attached to those dollar bills. “You think everyone is nice, Syd. Just because you’re in the Midwest doesn’t mean there are no bad apples. You have to keep your guard up.”

  “Oh please, I think you’re remembering North Carolina, not here,” Sydney scoffed and then instantly let her face go still as she pursed her lips. As a family they’d decided it was easier not to talk about Chris’s background. It was too hard to remember where you could and couldn’t mention his former life. Plus, every time it came up his son, Little Chris, would bring up old friends and memories that were better left buried considering they couldn’t ever be a part of his life again. Moving on to a new place was a no brainer for a former mob boss, but for a little boy who spent his whole life in one place up until that point, there were moments of anger about it.

  “Are we ever going back to North Carolina, Dad?” the boy asked with a quizzical grimace, clearly already knowing the answer.

  “You know we can’t, buddy,” Chris replied empathetically as he squeezed down on his son’s shoulder. “We’ve got a great life here. You’ve made friends and you’re starting baseball soon. It doesn’t get much better than that, right?”

  Little Chris shrugged his shoulders and pouted as he moved his meatloaf around in his plate. “I miss Betty’s cooking. Do you think she’ll come back out and visit us soon?”

  Betty, the warm and all knowing grandmotherly figure who had helped Chris and Sydney get out of their own way long enough to fall in love, was missed by all of them these days. Her no-nonsense tough love was exactly what the two of them had needed. Her sincere maternal spirit nurtured Little Chris when he craved loving stability. That was what was so incredible about Betty—she was everything to everyone, even when they all needed different things.

  “We just saw her last month at our wedding and now she’s busy getting her restaurant started. She’s got all those crazy people she takes care of all the time. But she can’t stay away from you too long. I’m sure we’ll see her soon.” Chris tried to look as convincing and upbeat as possible but he wasn’t actually sure when Betty would be back. She truly was a busy woman these days and he missed not only her but his friends as well. Along with Betty, Bobby, Michael, Jules, and Piper were the only people in his life besides his wife and son who knew who he really was and liked him anyway.

  “Everyone is too busy now,” Little Chris snarked as he turned his mashed potatoes into a small mountain with his fork. Chris hadn’t believed it was possible for his baby boy to turn so quickly from fun loving kid to the almost tween with an attitude. Other kids, sure, that was how it worked, but when his own son had begun pulling away from their normal kiss goodbye at school it was far more heartbreaking than Chris had imagined. He often felt completely unsure how to deal with the newfound attitude, but luckily Sydney was far more prepared. He’d faced down danger for years but facing down the teen years was something else all together.

  “We will always have time for you. There is nothing more important to us in this world than you. That’s why we help you with your schoolwork and make sure we don’t miss a single soccer game. We’re never too busy for you.” Sydney took her seat across from Little Chris and, with a sweet and earnest grin, calmed his fears.

 
Though all Little Chris offered back was a shrug, the unease on his face melted away and with it went the tightness in Chris’s chest. Sydney always made things better. That was just who she was. She could soothe a worried heart or repair an argument-laced relationship. To his amazement she was even able to make strides at helping Sean and Chris maneuver the ever-winding road of recovery and forgiveness that came along with addiction. It was an ongoing challenge that Chris couldn’t seem to navigate alone, but with Sydney it always felt easier. Sean had been doing well for a while but rehab became necessary again to maintain the progress he’d made. That had not been an easy decision to make, but it was for the best.

  “Like I was saying,” Sydney smiled, “I met the nicest woman today. I was watching Little Chris at karate and she commented on how much she loved my purse and we started talking. She wants to meet for coffee tomorrow while Chris is playing at Zack’s house.”

  “Was her son in the class?” Chris asked, furrowing his brows in that way that screams his antennas had gone up.

  “Oh, will you please stop? You can’t always assume everyone is out to get us. Of course her child was in the class. Why else would she be there?” Sydney passed around the salt and pepper as she rolled her eyes at her husband.

  “Which kid is hers? I mean, you’ve been going to the class for almost six weeks and this is the first time she shows up?” Chris’s back was arrow straight and he refused to touch his food until he’d made his point.

  “I’m not sure which of the kids was hers, but maybe her husband usually brings them to the class. Or a lot of the kids are brought by nannies. I swear, you can make any completely innocent situation into something diabolical.”

  “You have to be hyper-vigilant, Sydney. You can’t walk around thinking everyone has good intentions for you. It makes you a target. Trust me on this.” Chris’s eyes were pleading with his wife.

  “This sounds a lot like the time you didn’t think Little Chris’s teacher really wanted to meet with me at the library. I was twenty minutes late because you wanted to do surveillance. It was a completely innocuous situation you blew out of proportion. This is the same thing.” Sydney was always mindful to keep her voice level and not too argumentative in front of Little Chris. She did a far better job of that than her husband, and in that moment, he took note of it. Just another reason to be grateful to her.

  “Well, one day it might not be so innocuous and I want to make sure you’re prepared. Both of you,” he said, turning his eyes toward Little Chris. “Just because we’re out here and we have new names doesn’t mean we’re invisible. There are still things we need to be cautious of. I’m not saying it’s fun; I’m saying it’s necessary.”

  “Speaking of new names,” Little Chris said with a mouth full of food, “I don’t want you calling me Little Chris anymore. I’m not little. Just call me Chris Jr. or C.J.”

  “You are still little,” Chris shot back, needing that to be true. He needed his son to stay little because little kids were easy to bargain with and protect. Big kids were jerks and he wasn’t ready to be raising a jerk.

  “I’m not little, Dad. Call me C.J.” He tossed down his fork and folded his arms defiantly across his chest.

  “Fine,” Sydney agreed, urging Chris to do the same with a stern look. “We’ll call you whatever you want.”

  “No,” Chris insisted loudly. “I’m your father and I’ll call you what I want to. You are Little Chris. That’s just what your name is and if some day you are bigger than me I’ll stop calling you that. Now let’s not get off track, I want you both to be prepared if anything should ever happen. We need to always be careful.”

  “But only because of the stuff you did, not anything we did. So it’s like being punished for something we had nothing to do with.” Little Chris’s voice was loud and full of attitude.

  Sydney’s and Chris’s eyes met and they exchanged a brief understanding that instantly had them moving from opposite sides of the argument over to the same. “Your dad is right,” Sydney offered gently, just above a whisper. “We do need to be careful. I know it can feel like a punishment sometimes, but the choices your father made were to protect you and now to protect me, too. It doesn’t mean we have to hide under a rock,” she glanced toward Chris for a moment then back to the boy, “but it does mean we have a responsibility to watch out for what’s going on around us and do what we can to keep ourselves tucked away out here.”

  “Just like how I couldn’t have my picture taken with the rest of my karate class for the newspaper when we won our tournament?” Little Chris countered as he narrowed his eyes. “I was the only one who missed the picture.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chris offered as he hung his head with remorse. “I know it’s not fair. I’ll never try to convince you that it is. It’s just how our life has to be. We don’t have any other options.”

  “Is what you used to do really that bad that people would want to hurt us?” The air left the room as though a vacuum has sucked it out. The ticking clock on the wall was the only sound, and its incessant clicking amplified the longer the room stayed quiet.

  “Yes,” Chris admitted, making good on a promise he made to himself about being as honest with his son as possible about his past. It would have been easier to make up a story about how he heroically put himself in the line of danger and then needed to be whisked away to keep them safe. But Chris understood a lie like that could keep his son from taking seriously how much danger there really was for their family. “I hurt a lot of people and I made so many bad choices. Because of that you and Sydney have to suffer. I’m sorry.”

  “Sean told me you ratted people out.” Little Chris stiffened his back as though he’d been holding on to this fact for a long time, just waiting for the courage to say it.

  “Your uncle,” Sydney cut in, “has an addiction problem. When he’s struggling he’s going to use bad judgment and say things he doesn’t mean. You know that because we’ve explained it to you before. But he’s in treatment again and he’ll be home in a month. I’m sure when he comes back he’ll be apologizing for saying that.”

  “I did rat people out,” Chris admitted reluctantly as he stared down at the untouched plate of food in front of him.

  “But all of those people were incredibly bad and the world is better off without them walking the streets,” Sydney defended, her voice raising a few octaves higher.

  “You were bad too, weren’t you, Dad? So why aren’t you in jail?” The boy’s face showed he was completely aware of how large a hornet’s nest he was poking. He wanted answers or a fight; he seemed happy for either.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” Chris sighed with heavy shoulders and a heavier heart. At the sound of his son’s annoyed protest of “But Dad,” he felt a piece of his former dominating self bubble to the top. “I said enough,” he boomed with a solid planting of his palm on the table, hard enough to rattle the floral centerpiece Betty had sent them.

  “Can I be excused?” Little Chris asked, returning to the use of his good manners though his attitude-laced voice hadn’t changed.

  “You’ve barely touched your food,” Sydney protested, but Chris waved his son off, knowing there was nothing left to discuss tonight.

  When the boy’s door firmly slammed shut, Sydney reached out and brushed her husband’s angry red cheek. “He’ll understand someday. I know everything you did was to protect him. He’s just upset right now. You’re working overtime and with Sean being back in rehab, it’s all getting to him. Lashing out is normal at his age but I know he’ll come around.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” Chris groaned as he rolled the tension out of his neck and closed his eyes. “If it were just you and him without me you’d be safer. You’d be able to live much more normal lives. I committed as many crimes as any of the men I sold out, shouldn’t I be in jail?”

  “We’re safest with you. I don’t ever want to imagine a day when you aren’t with us. You are my everything.” Sydney stood and waited for Ch
ris to make room on his lap for her. When she settled on top of him she ran her hand through his hair gently.

  “I used to be that to him.”

  “You still are. He’s just going to forget for a few years then he’ll remember again. The important thing is to make sure you’re still around when he realizes how much you mean to him.”

  Chris lifted Sydney’s delicate hand to his lips and kissed it gratefully and gently. “We’d have never made it this far without you.”

  “Agreed,” she joked. “But alone, I wasn’t doing too great myself. We’re better together. All of us.”

  Chapter Two

  Chris awoke the next morning with sore muscles and heavy eyes from restless, guilt-ridden sleep. All night he asked himself over and over again if he deserved this second chance at life. Had he earned it? Was there really such a thing as starting over or would a past as dark as his follow him wherever he went?

  Slipping out of the house before either Sydney or his son awoke, he grabbed a notebook and jotted a note down for his wife. Sorry about last night. Enjoy your coffee this afternoon. You deserve it. He knew it wasn’t really logical to assume every kind person was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It wasn’t fair to expect Sydney not to socialize and connect with other people.

  Opening the refrigerator, Chris pulled out the lunch Sydney had packed for him, and he couldn’t help but warm a little with affection. Every day his wife came up with something creative to write on his napkin. And while he worked damn hard to make sure none of the other guys in the office ever got a glimpse of them, it was something he looked forward to reading each day. Sometimes it was a joke. Other days it was a quote of encouragement. Even on the days it was limited to a heart or a smiley face meant something to Chris. Not to mention he could appreciate the amount of time it took to pack the lunch in the first place. But Sydney did it with a smile. He was truly a lucky man.