Real Love 2 (Second Chances)
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Second Chances
(Real Love Series – Book 2)
Christian Novella
H. H. Fowler
Copyright © 2015 H. H. Fowler
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
All characters, names, descriptions, and traits are products of the author’s imagination. Similarities of actual people – living or dead are purely coincidental.
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Connect with H.H. Fowler on Twitter:
@fowlerguy1
Blog: www.churchboyz.org
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Dear Reader,
Off the coast of the Bahama Islands, there is a fictional place called Devin’s Cay. The series consists of seven books, which could be considered standalones, but are intricately tied to each other. My hope is that you will be entertained, inspired and illuminated.
If Only You Were Mine (Book 1)
Second Chances (Book 2)
Hungry Hearts (Book 3)
If Loving You is Wrong (Book 4)
Love the One You’re With (Book 5)
I’m Still in Love With You (Book 6)
Love Knows No Bounds (Book7)
CONTENTS
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
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Excerpt from Hungry Hearts (Book 3)
From the Desk of H.H. Fowler
Chapter One
“Sasha, please, slow down!”
Drake barely caught his wife’s lithe frame turning the corridor, determined to get away from him. He’d finally tracked her down and he was not going to let her get away from him. They had to talk about this situation with Levi. But Drake didn’t get why Sasha was so upset when she was the one who’d cheated on him. He almost felt justified leaving her for those six months because it certainly didn’t compare to what she’d done to him. However, this negative chain of thoughts was not what Drake wanted at the start of their conversation. Because it was such thinking that had kept him from seeking reconciliation with his wife in the first place.
“Sasha,” Drake called, right before she’d slammed one of Hunter’s bedroom doors in his face, “are you going to calm down so that we can talk?”
“So now you wanna talk,” she spat back. “You should have thought about that six months ago when I begged you to tell me what was going on with you. You looked at me with disdain and intentionally said things to hurt my feelings. The next thing I knew, you disappeared without a trace.”
“I didn’t disappear; I went to Tampa and stayed with my brother.”
Sasha pulled the room door open and looked at Drake like he’d lost his mind. “I didn’t know where you were. If you wanted me to find you, you would have said so in the note you left me, which by the way, were some of the most heartless and painful words I’ve ever laid eyes upon. And the thing that hurt me the most was that you never gave me the opportunity to explain my side of the story. That was so selfish of you – to treat me with such blatant disrespect, as if I never mattered to you!”
“I realize now that I’d made a very immature decision,” Drake tried to explain, “but Sasha, pause for a minute and put yourself in my shoes…”
“I don’t need to put myself in your shoes,” she snapped, “because I would have never done what you did, no matter how hurt I was.”
Sasha spun away from Drake because his handsome face was making it hard for her to enjoy her anger. Those six months he’d been gone, she’d cried herself to sleep almost every night, wishing she didn’t miss him so much. But she did, so much so that she thought she would literally die from the loneliness. Now he was suddenly back in her life and she did not know how to react.
Drake followed Sasha into the room, closing the door behind him. “Can you imagine what it was like for me, seeing you in Levi’s arms, kissing him, and we hadn’t even been married a week? What was I to think – how was I to react – especially when I had an anonymous note in my pocket that said you’d slept with my best friend?”
Sasha kept her back turned toward Drake. “Do you even know who sent that note to you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters… It matters because the note wasn’t true. It matters because Levi was the one who sent it. It matters because you believed it and acted upon it and allowed it to ruin years of trust between us.”
Drake crumpled his forehead in confusion, as his perception of the situation began to disintegrate into a million pieces. “Who told you that Levi sent that note?”
“No one told me anything…” Sasha whirled around and leveled her gaze with Drake’s. “The way Levi had been acting, following me around and trying to seduce me, I figured it out myself. I turned his house upside down and found the notepad from where the note had been written – the very same notepad you bought me almost three summers ago. Levi stole it because his intention had always been to find a way to ruin our relationship. But had you stayed in Devin’s Cay, you would have discovered this for yourself and saved us both six months of wasted time.”
Drake was at a loss for words. Did he even dare believe Sasha was telling the truth? This was Levi they were talking about – his best friend from their prepubescent years. He paced away from her, feeling his heart grow cold all of a sudden, because it was impossible to believe Levi had been that calculating. “Where do you suggest we go from here?” he asked her.
“Are you serious? I can’t believe you asked me that question.” Sasha felt the switch in Drake’s mood and she didn’t like it one bit. “If your mind is not made up about saving this marriage, why did you come back to Devin’s Cay? Well, of course, you came back for Rev. Henderson’s funeral. How could I have missed that? I was just an afterthought.”
“Sasha, that is not true…”
“Admit it, Drake, you don’t know what you want! And until you do, my suggestion is that you go back to Tampa and let’s pretend that we never had this conversation.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Of course I don’t. But I refuse to live my life in limbo and endure the misery of not knowing how you really feel about me.”
Drake ached to touch his wife’s slightly-full lips, which were quivering and moist with tears. He wished he could turn back the hands of time and do things differently. For starters, he wouldn’t have abandoned her, because he saw how his actions had done more damage than good.
“I think you should go,” she said after a long stretch of silence, “because I don’t know what else to say to you. It is as if I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Drake choked back his tears. He probably deserved every harsh word Sasha was tossing in his direction. However, he was honestly trying to purge his mind of the last six months. But he just didn’t know how to do it. “I am sorry –”
Sasha stopped him. “Don’t say it; just leave and think about what you really want. But whenever you come to your senses, I can’t promise you that I will be around.”
The air felt like it had been
sucked out of the atmosphere. Sasha took in a deep breath anyway, dried her tears and walked out of the room.
Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of a man are never satisfied.
Proverbs 27:20
Chapter Two
It hadn’t even been three days since Rev. T. G. Henderson had been buried six feet under and his life’s toil was already being challenged by those he’d left behind to run the church. For starters, the commencing of Thursday night bible study had been upped from 7:45 p.m. to 6:45 p.m., prayer meeting had been scaled back from early Friday morning to Saturday evening and Rev. Henderson’s office was presently being stripped of its décor to accommodate its new occupant, the unopposed contender, Elder John Dewey.
Elder John, as he’d always been called, who was one of the oldest surviving members of El Shaddai Ministries, had a convincing way about him. He made it clear to the board that even though Drake Beckford was Rev. Henderson’s first choice to become the next bishop, he (Elder John) had been his second. And since Drake had been ‘missing in action’ the last six months, it would be a grave insult to thrust such an unstable young man to the helm of power.
It didn’t matter that Drake had used Rev. Henderson’s funeral as a platform to apologize for his waywardness, and that the congregation went giddy with their applause, the fact remained, Drake was not a suitable candidate. However, as Elder John walked toward the mic in a brand new black cassock, ready to get his first taste of what it was like sitting in Rev. Henderson’s stead as presiding bishop over a faithful flock, he scanned the sparse pews, and the empty seats in the pulpit, and realized that it was far from the glorious experience Rev. Henderson had enjoyed while he was alive.
Thank God for his beautiful daughter, who would support him in anything. She sat in the front pew with an assuring smile on her face and although her miniskirt was inappropriate for the setting, Elder John turned a blind eye to it. She was his life, his confidante and advisor. Ninety percent of the congregants may have stayed home, but as far as Elder John was concerned, he had his daughter to keep him encouraged. The people would eventually warm up to him and the changes he’d made, they would see, had only been for their benefit. Certainly they didn’t expect Rev. Henderson to live forever. The old buzzard had been alluding to his death for months and had been preparing the church for his heavenly departure.
But about fifteen minutes into his presentation, which seemed to be of no interest to the few listless faces, Elder John began to feel the spirit of anger and envy swelling through his veins. The emotions appeared out of nowhere and Elder John knew it had everything to do with Drake Beckford. What the hell did Drake Beckford have that he didn’t have? Youth? Charisma? Good looks? On the surface it appeared Drake had it all, but those traits were just temporal. Drake would live to get as old as he was and his young, dashing beauty would be a thing of yesteryears.
The young man was missing one of the most important characteristics that made a great leader and that was the gift of insight. Had Drake had insight, he wouldn’t have allowed his personal issues with Sasha to interfere with his vocation and run away to live with his brother in Tampa, Florida. Drake ought to have assessed the effects of his actions. He ought to have considered how Rev. Henderson would have felt, after years of grooming Drake to be the next big thing in Devin’s Cay, to have him flee at the first sign of trouble. Well, Elder John wasn’t complaining. He was just solidifying the fact that Drake was not fit to lead and certainly not fit to catapult El Shaddai Ministries into the next dimension.
Still, there was this nagging feeling in the pit of Elder John’s stomach. Even with all of the stupid, immature decisions Drake had made, the people were still crazy about him and still wanted Drake to be their leader. Such a silly response from the people. Elder John may be envious of the favor on Drake’s life, but he was certainly not a fool. That kind of deference was hard to contend with, and if he didn’t do something to tarnish Drake’s character in the eyes of those gullible idiots, Elder John knew he would be driven through the doors of the church quicker than he could spell his own name.
He alighted the pulpit and gave his sparse audience a graceful smile, but his heart was filled with connivance, considering ways to eliminate his competition. Because it would be a crying shame if he allowed a young boy like Drake to overthrow his venerable years of serving at the feet of Rev. Henderson. He signaled for his daughter to follow him and by the time they got to the office, Elder John had fully discussed his frustrations with her.
“Yasmine, please advise me on what to do,” he pleaded, as they sat next to each other on Rev. Henderson’s worn-out velvet couch. “That young boy is sending up my blood pressure to dangerous levels.”
Yasmine flicked a lock of hair out of her face, stylishly tucking her feet beneath her. She was always smiling and showing off those bright white teeth, even for her beloved papa. The symmetry of her face was on point. So were the curves of her body. Yasmine had been in beauty pageants since she was five years old and even at thirty-one, she still looked young and pretty enough to be a worthy contestant. But she now preferred to coach other up and coming beauty queens, a seasonal job that provided her with enough money to survive.
“I can handle Drake for you,” she said. “You need not add another grey hair to that perfectly round head of yours. I will take care of it.”
“I don’t like when you speak with such finality,” Elder John said. “That spells trouble. Besides, Drake is my problem, not yours. I wish he was the one who had cheated on his wife and not the other way around, which makes it even harder for me to think of a way that would get the people to hate him. He’s so…clean, squeaky clean.”
“Daddy,” Yasmine singsonged, rubbing her father’s arm in a way to calm him. “I know how to handle men like Drake. I deal with all sorts in my line of work…now please, let me do this for you.”
“No, darling. I don’t want you getting involved with Drake Beckford.”
“I can handle myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Yasmine moved from rubbing her father’s arm to rubbing his balding head. “You’ve always been there for me; I would like to return the favor. Don’t make me beg. Aren’t those your favorite words?”
Elder John stared at his daughter with his dull grey eyes, finding it difficult to resist her request. He’d always given her what she wanted. Why should this time be any different?
“Well, at least tell me what you have planned,” he finally said.
Yasmine cracked a devilish laugh. “And spoil the surprise? No way. You will hear about it soon enough. I heard Drake flew back to the island for Rev. Henderson’s funeral. Tell me where he’s staying and I’ll take it from there.”
“I don’t know where he’s staying,” Elder John admitted. “But wherever his brother is, you will find Drake. But be warned: Kevin will not let Drake out of his sight. He’s very protective of Drake.”
Yasmine scoffed. “Kevin Beckford is no match for me. I can handle him too.” She remembered the Beckford brothers growing up as a budding teenager. Before she and her father moved to a more upscale neighborhood, they’d lived on the same street. Armando, Kevin and Drake – the three musketeers, were always together, pranking the neighbors with their toy guns and setting off firecrackers late at night. Yasmine had always thought they were so immature for their ages. But if the truth be told, she had a soft spot for Kevin, even after all these years. She stood to her feet and said, “I should be going, because there’s no telling how long Drake will be in town.”
Elder John stood too. “Well, think of it this way: If Drake goes back to Tampa with Kevin, then I might be safe. You won’t need to get involved.”
“You don’t really know what Drake is going to do,” Yasmine said. “It’s best if I take care of this situation once and for all.”
Elder John watched his daughter gracefully sway out of the office. No woman was as poised and as beautiful as his Yasmine. He was lucky to have a daughter who would litera
lly do anything for him. He loved her dearly, so much so that it crushed his heart to see her sharing her attention with other men. But soon, a small smile began to mess with his lips, because Yasmine had taken the bait… hook, line and sinker – just as he suspected she would.
Chapter Three
Suanne Beckford was close to sixty years old, but she didn’t look a day over forty-five. When she answered her front door and saw two of her sons, each standing with a bouquet of flowers in hand, her eyes moistened. She hadn’t seen Drake since he married Sasha six months ago and she hadn’t seen Kevin and Armando in at least two years. Her sons were all grown up now and each of them had made a life for themselves. But Suanne’s concern for her boys never diminished over the years. In fact, her concern had increased now that they were scattered all over the place.
“I just thought I should say hi before I leave for the airport tomorrow,” Kevin said, as he stepped into his mother’s embrace. “How have you been?”
“I’m doin’ much better now that I see my handsome boys,” Suanne gushed. She released Kevin and grabbed Drake by the neck. “Why did you stay away from Devin’s Cay for so long? You love Tampa that much?”
“I’ve been trying to drill some sense into him since the day he showed up on my doorstep,” Kevin said. “Now I think he’s finally coming around.”
Suanne looked back and forth between her sons. “Now what does that mean?”
“It means nothing,” Drake chimed in. “I am still contemplating going back to Tampa with Kevin.”
“And chance ruining an opportunity to reconcile with your wife? I don’t think so.” Suanne loved her boys but she never held back from speaking her mind. “Have you even made an effort to look for Sasha since you’ve been back? That girl has made her mistakes, but name me one person who hasn’t? She loves the dirt you walk on and I suggest that you make it right before you lose her for good.”