Starting Over (New Beginnings #1)

by Gillian Joy

  "Hi."

  "How's Ash this morning?"

  "As well as can be expected."

  "Yeah? Good. Okay, listen, I wanted to let you know we're sending a car around to Mr and Mrs Cross's place this morning. It's our job to notify them about the death of their son."

  "Really? I think Ash wanted to tell them. Do you have to?"

  "Orders from above unfortunately; I'm letting you know more as a courtesy, so Ash can be there for them when they get there."

  "What time will they be there?"

  "Within the hour."

  "Damn..."

  "Sorry Connor."

  "Yeah, No worries. Thanks for letting us know."

  "You're welcome. Look after her, hey. I'll be in touch."

  "Thanks, Bye."

  Connor hung up and looked at his phone. He debated whether to tell Ash straight away, or to leave it until it was too late. She didn't have to know Callum had even called. They could either wait for the phone call from the Cross's, or show up as they had planned anyway and she would be none the wiser.

  Unfortunately, Connor believed that a lie by omission was still a lie, and there was no way he could lie to her, especially not about something as big as this.

  He turned and walked back into the bedroom.

  ****

  Half an hour later they were sitting on the couch with the girls between them. They both cried a little bit, but Connor thought it was more because they thought they should cry, rather than because they were feeling grief. He was worried that that alone would cause the girls more guilt than they should feel and he made a mental note to talk to Ash about getting them in to talk to a councillor about it. He really didn't think they have any cause to feel any guilt at all in relation to the man who was supposed to be their father. He'd had nothing at all to do with them for the last two years and not much at all even prior to that. He'd be surprised if they felt any loss at all for the man.

  The prospect of getting the day off school put a smile on their faces though, and even Ash seemed happy at the prospect of spending the weekend at his place. The girls were extremely excited about getting to decorate the bedroom the way they wanted. Connor was pretty sure he was going to end up with a spare room that had very conflicted styles and colours at each end.

  "Are you okay?" Ash asked the girls as she reached out and pulled them both into a hug.

  "Yeah Mummy." the girls answered in unison. It never failed to amaze Connor how alike, and yet how different the two girls were. Different personalities, different temperaments and yet they could still have the same thoughts, say the same things and finish each other's sentences without having to even think about it.

  "Okay," Ash said. "Because we need to go and see Nan and Pop now and we need to be strong for them, because they lost their son, and they're going to be upset. Are you okay with going to see them?"

  Beth and Sarah glanced back and forth between each other pulling strength from the other, before nodding together.

  "Okay, let's go then." Connor said, ushering them all out to his car.

  ****

  They pulled up out the front of the triple front red brick house just as the police car was pulling away.

  "Are you okay?" Connor asked as he turned to face Ash.

  "Yep, let's do this." Ash said, in turn turning around to face the girls.

  "Let's go and make sure Nan and Pop are okay then."

  By the time she was out of the car Beth was getting out and stood beside her. She took Beth's hand and Sarah came around and took her other one. Connor walked up behind her and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then kept his hand there as they walked up to the front door together.

  Ash's heart was beating in her ears as they knocked on the front door. She had wanted to be there before the police arrived and now she was scared about what the police had told Marianne and Christian. She was worried about what they might be thinking and she didn't want them to blame her for what had happened. She was worried they would end up actively hating her now for her part in their son’s death.

  Christian answered the door and opened it wide for them all to enter.

  "Come on in Ash." He said as he bent down to hug the girls as they walked through the door.

  "Hey, my gorgeous girls," He said, plastering a fake smile on his face.

  "Is that Ash and the girls?" Called Marianne's voice from the front room "Oh my goodness Chris, please tell me they're okay." She said as she raced into the entry hall.

  "We're all fine Marianne." Ash answered as Marianne bent down beside Christian and pulled the girls in for a tight hug.

  Then she stood back up and looked at Ash. Her eyes were red and puffy and tears were coursing down her cheeks as she sobbed. She stepped towards Ash and pulled her into an equally tight embrace, cutting off Ash's air supply momentarily and causing tears to fall down her own cheeks.

  "I'm so glad you're all okay. The police weren't any help, they told us about Mark, but wouldn't give us any details. What happened? Why didn't you call us?"

  "Let's go and put the kettle on." Ash said and ushered Christian and Marianne towards the kitchen.

  "How about I take the girls out for some ice-cream?" Connor asked. He knew it was early, but he thought it would be best to keep them out of the way while Ash filled in the details about what had transpired yesterday.

  "Really?" Sarah said. Beth gave her a quick elbow to get her to stop talking. "Shh...!" she whispered.

  Ash nodded.

  "For a special one off treat, okay?" Connor confirmed with Beth. "It definitely won't be a regular occurrence I can assure you." He said putting an arm around each of the girls and leading them back outside to the car.

  "We'll be back in about half an hour." He called back.

  Ash made coffee all round before she began speaking. Once they were all seated with fresh brewed coffee in their hands, she reached across the table and took Marianne's shaking hands in her own.

  "What did the police tell you?" she asked.

  "Not much," Christian answered. "They said Mark had been involved in a kidnapping and shooting, and that he had been shot by the police and d-d-died at the scene. They said he, h-h-he was armed and s-s-s-shot a police officer." Christian didn't normally stutter but he was having trouble speaking.

  "They wouldn't tell us anything; who was involved in the kidnapping, what happened, nothing." Marianne said.

  "I asked if you and the girls were okay, but they said they didn't know anything. They said they were here to inform us of our son's death and that was all they could help us with. They offered councillor's details if we wanted them, but all I wanted was to know about you and the girls. I was on the phone to call you when you showed up."

  "I wanted to come and see you before they got here, but we didn't know they were coming this early." Ash said.

  "Was it you he kidnapped?" Christian asked.

  "Did he really have a gun? I didn't know he even owned one." Marianne added.

  Ash nodded.

  "What happened?" Christian asked as he stared down into his coffee.

  Ash took a tentative sip of her own coffee before speaking. She started as close to the beginning as she could, she didn't bother to tell them about the interim order, they already knew about that, but they didn't know about the security Connor had hired so she told them about that before moving onto the events of the day, beginning with Mark kidnapping the girls from school. She berated herself again over not having the forethought to have him banned from accessing them, only to have both her in-laws tell her not to be so ridiculous, none of them could have anticipated that happening. Mark had never been remotely interested in the girls.

  Marianne and Ash were both sobbing when she told them about him leaving the girls at the service centre. Christian had a tight lipped grimace of pain on his face. When she finished with the booze bus and the shootout with the police, Marianne was sobbing again and Christian had tears on his cheeks.

  "I'm so sorry." Ash said,
wiping her own tears away, her unfinished coffee sitting cold and uninviting in front of her.

  "Don't you dare!" Marianne hissed at her, venom rasping her voice. "Don't you dare think you are in any way responsible for his actions. Mark made his own decisions. It was his actions, and his alone that got him killed. Goodness knows I really want to blame the police for shooting him. But I can't, in good conscience, even blame them. Where on earth did he get a gun? Did you know he had it? What was he thinking?"

  Ash cringed at Marianne's questions. She didn't want to have to re-tell that story too.

  Christian noticed her demeanour though and pushed.

  "What aren't you telling us Ash? What do you know about the gun? Did you know he had it?"

  "I tried to leave him when the girls were babies. He pulled it on me then, and threatened me with it. Threatened them with it." she didn't want to go into any more detail than that at this stage. One day she might fill them in on the finer points but at this stage, that was enough said. They were probably feeling bad enough about their son as it was, she didn't feel the need to make them feel any worse.

  "I’d wondered why you never left him." Marianne said quietly.

  "So what do we do now?" Ash asked quietly, eyes down, not wanting to meet the gaze of Marianne or Christian, hoping they didn't ask for more details on those incidents.

  "We go on as we were. Nothing will change as far as we're concerned, it has been years since Mark was a part of this family, and even then it was only at your insistence." Christian said.

  "What about the funeral and stuff?" Ash asked.

  "We can't organise anything until the police release the body. The officers said we can call up next week but it might take a week or so as they will probably want to do a full autopsy for investigative purposes. We'll make an appointment and go and talk to someone but I don't think we'll be able to book anything in at this stage."

  "Do you want me to come with you? I can organise for someone to look after the girls if you’d like."

  Christian stood up and walked up behind Ash and put his hand on her shoulder. "Thank you for the offer Ash, but you don't need to do this. We're his parents. We'll take care of it."

  Ash patted Christian’s hand.

  "Thank you," She said as the front door slammed open and two dark haired, sugar high, young girls came bursting noisily into the room.

  "Hey, hey, hey!" Christian said, turning his attention immediately to the girls. "So how come you two aren't in school? You don't look very sick to me."

  "Mummy said it was okay." Sarah said.

  "We don't have to go back until next week; we're going to go and stay at Connor’s for the weekend and have a sleepover." Beth added.

  "And we're going to go shopping today and buy bunk beds for his spare room so we've got somewhere to sleep." Sarah continued wrapping her arms tightly around Christian’s neck.

  "But Mummy will share with Connor, ‘cause his bed's big enough for two he said." Sarah continued.

  Ash turned a bright shade of pink.

  "Okay, I think that's enough from you two, I don't think that ice cream was such a good idea."

  "No Mummy, it was."

  "It really, really, was."

  "Hmmm." Ash murmured.

  Connor's shoulders shook in a silent chuckle as he laughed at the girls’ antics and Ash's embarrassment. He didn't want to appear too jovial though in light of the current situation.

  "When were you planning on going shopping?" Marianne asked, turning her attention to Connor.

  "Later on this afternoon. This morning was allocated to you guys, then we thought we'd grab a late lunch before hitting the furniture store. The girls haven't stayed at my place before, and I have this big spare bedroom that I thought they might like to decorate themselves so they feel more comfortable."

  "So you specifically wanted to take them shopping with you then?" Marianne asked.

  "Yeah," Beth yelled out. "We get to pick our own stuff, all of it."

  Connor shrugged.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "I thought it would be nice if the girls could stay here for a little while today, but that's okay."

  Connor stopped for a minute, trying to come up with a solution.

  "What if they stay for a while, and Ash and I will come back and pick them up after lunch to go shopping?”

  "That will free you up this afternoon to talk to funeral planners too." Ash added.

  "That would be wonderful." Marianne said with a smile gracing her tear stained face as she looked across to Christian.

  "Alright then," Ash said. "Connor and I will get out of your hair for a bit and pick the girls back up after lunch."

  ****

  Chapter 31

  Connor was right, the room was definitely going to end up looking like it came straight out of the pages of a decorators "how not to" handbook. Fortunately, the girls had agreed on matching bedroom furniture though. They had the furniture in stock but couldn't organise for delivery until the next week. Connor ended up organising a courier to have the furniture picked up and delivered that afternoon; all he had to do now was find someone to assemble it for him. He didn't really want to spend most of the afternoon putting together bunk beds, although he figured as a worst case he might be able to get Hayden to come over and help him.

  Beth had picked out a vibrant floral bedspread with deep purples, blues and blacks, while Sarah had picked a soft design; pale blues and greens with swans and images of water. They couldn't agree on curtains or a mat, so Sarah picked the curtains to match her bedspread, and Beth picked a mat; deep purple, thick pile, soft and luxurious. The bedroom was going to be a hot-potch mix of the two girls preferred tastes, and Connor couldn't wait to see it.

  Ash looked at him apologetically numerous times throughout the afternoon, but he smiled back at her and shrugged his shoulders in reply. It really didn't matter at all; he didn't care what the room ended up looking like so long as the girls were comfortable there. That was his aim, make Ash and the girls comfortable.

  ****

  Friday night saw Connor, Hayden and Matt drinking beer and building bedroom furniture. Ash had wanted to take the girls home to bed but Connor had begged them to stay. His argument, worst case scenario they could spend the night sleeping on the mattresses on the floor. The girls had loved that idea. They didn't really care where they had to sleep; they were just excited at the prospect of getting to spend the night at Connor’s place. Like the lake house, it had a pool, and it was heated. That was all the girls were interested in really, and Ash was quite relenting about anything the girls wanted at the moment, so Connor wasn't going to complain while it worked in his favour. She hadn't once complained about the ridiculous amount of money Connor had spent on the bedroom furniture, not even when the girls had piled the trolley high with extras; pillows, cushions, lamps and a plethora of other knick-knacks that they really didn't need, but wanted anyway. Then after they had finished shopping, and the girls had wanted to go out for more ice-cream, she relented again. Connor had never known her to let the girls have ice-cream twice in one day, especially not before their main meal. He wasn't going to say anything though, especially not when she agreed to them all staying at his place for the whole weekend. They had called in at her place to grab pj’s, clothes, and the girl’s iPads and a few other toys, as well as swimmers of course.

  On the way back to his place, Connor had called Deb to invite her and Matt and the kids over for dinner and a swim, before calling Hayden with a promise of the same; he waited till they showed up to mention the assembly of the bedroom furniture. So while Ash and Deb watched the kids in the swimming pool and shared a bottle of wine, Connor, Hayden and Matt attempted to put the beds together.

  "You're an arse, you know that Connor?" Hayden said. "You lure us over here, with the promise of food, drink and company. And then have us trying to assemble, some stupid Swedish flat-pack furniture. How long did you spend in IKEA this afternoon anyway?" He kept flipping thr
ough the pages of the instructions, turning them one way, then the other. "I can't make heads or tails of this shit. Why didn't you just pay for assembly? It's not like you can't afford it."

  Matt laughed and took a sip of his beer before pulling the instructions out of Hayden's hands.

  "I tried." Connor admitted sheepishly. "No one was available until next week. I really need them done tonight though. I'll feed you. I promise. I've got sausages and steaks to cook on the barbie."

  "Come on." Matt interrupted. "We can do this, easy as. If they're not done in an hour, we'll go and do the barbeque and come back to it after dinner."

  Hayden stared at him blankly. "You think this'll be that easy?"

  "Sure! I've had a bit of experience at flat pack assembly before. It's not that hard if you follow the instructions."

  "They're not from IKEA, by the way." Connor added as Matt took control of the assembly and they actually got things underway.

  ****

  Two hours later they had not only eaten a delicious barbeque dinner with jacket potatoes topped with bacon and sour cream, but even had both sets of bunks fully assembled with mattresses in place and beds fully made ready for the girls to climb into. There was still a lot to be done in the bedroom, but the girls had somewhere to sleep tonight, and Connor was pleased as punch.

  Matt and Deb only hung around for a little while after dinner; they had get home and put the kids to bed anyway, and Deb knew that after the turmoil of the last few days, Ash wouldn’t want the girls to have too late a night, so after dinner and a movie, Matt and Deb headed home with Adam and Bianca, despite the protests of the kids all round.

  Ash took the girls straight off to bed after they left and Hayden helped himself to Connor’s bar, holding up an unopened bottle of A.H. Hirsh Reserve Bourbon Whisky.

  "What's this?" he asked, waving the bottle in the air at Connor.

  "Careful with that." Connor said, grabbing the bottle off Hayden and putting it back on the shelf. "That's over a thousand dollars a bottle."

  "Really? Let's open it then. Bet it tastes sweet as."

  "No, I'm saving it."