Providence Series Books 1-4

by Mary B. Moore

  After this morning, I was feeling more relaxed, but I couldn’t get myself to trust him fully. I kept waiting for something to happen or for him to leave me and break my heart. I knew that this was to be expected, but I’d let him into my body so surely trust should follow.

  Docking in Lombok, we got off the boat and into a taxi to take us to the Medical Center with Guntur as his men followed us in another taxi. As we drove through the streets, I took in the beauty that was Bali. There was an eclectic mix of people and styles everywhere and it was breath taking. We drove past shopfronts overflowing with wooden figurines, batik sarongs, flip flops, tanks and t-shirts with the Indonesian Beer called Bintang on them, stalls with silver…it was just beautiful.

  Pulling up to the Medical Center, we got out and entered the building, going straight to the reception desk. Guntur’s men were apparently spread around the outside and inside of the building, blending in with the crowds and watching everything like hawks. Guntur himself was to act like our local guide and translator so that we didn’t draw attention to ourselves, he played his role well as he asked where the OBGYN Department was. Following him into an elevator, we all stayed quiet as we rode to the floor. I was scared but excited about seeing the babies again and finding out what sex they were. Underneath it all was the fear that they’d find something wrong and all of the dreams that I’d built up over the last couple of weeks would be shattered.

  Arriving at our floor, we got out and Guntur went to sign us in. Within minutes, we were being called through to the room where they would be doing the scan, bringing Guntur with us. The Medical Center he had booked me into may be new and state of the art, it was small, though, and not in the center of Lombok and not all of the doctors spoke English. My Bahasa was no way near conversation level. The most I could do was say terima kasih, which was thank you, and silakan for please, so Guntur was needed.

  Following the instructions that he translated for me, Luke lifted me up onto the table and I lay back, trying to get comfortable on the paper underneath me. I hated this stuff, it always tore as soon as you sat on it or moved; what was the point?

  The nurse came over and covered my lower half with a sheet and gently pulled my dress up over my stomach whilst making sure that the sheet stayed where it was. None of my shorts fit any more, so I was stuck in dresses, which was inconvenient because I wasn’t a huge fan of them, but it was all that I'd had available.

  I could see Luke shooting scowls in Guntur’s direction, and I started giggling because he was facing away from me in the corner of the room.

  “It’s not funny,” Luke grumbled, still scowling in Guntur’s direction every couple of seconds.

  Reaching out and grabbing his hand, I gave it a tug so he’d look at me. “I’m covered, no one can see anything so, do the poor guy a favor and take him out the dunce corner!”

  “Guntur,” he called just as the technician squirted ice cold jelly on my stomach shocking the hell out of me. Oh my God, what did they do - freeze the stuff?

  Looking over in Guntur’s direction, I smiled and rolled my eyes as the technician rolled the weird wand thing over my babies.

  “Shit,” Luke gasped from beside me and my head snapped around to look at the screen while my heart froze.

  “What?”

  “Look, there’s our baby,” he was whispering now and watching it with a stunned look on his face. I knew how he felt, these babies were beautiful, little miracles.

  Guntur began interpreting what was being said for us, giving us the measurements of Thing One’s body and all of the other details that the technician was reeling off; basically Thing One was perfect. She moved on to Thing Two, who frustratingly was quite happy behind their sibling. They had to push down quite hard to get a proper scan which was uncomfortable, but seeing my miracles made it tolerable.

  Grinning as she continued to scan, I heard her say straight to Guntur, “satu laki-laki”. Luke and I looked straight at him waiting for the translation to see him grinning which shocked me for a second because he was such a serious guy and I’d never seen him smile like that.

  “What did she say?” Luke said, impatient for more information.

  “Congratulations, baby one is a boy!”

  “A boy?” I whispered. Oh shit, this was really happening; I was going to be a mom and I had a son.

  Luke was busy staring back at the screen looking pale and as shocked as I felt. The technician was talking to the nurse who was standing behind her and I heard the word perembuan followed by laki-laki again. I was having two boys?

  Before I could ask Guntur, the technician turned around and started talking very quickly and gesturing and my heart froze. Was there something wrong with baby number two? I’d been holding Luke’s hand throughout the scan and gave it a squeeze.

  “They are having problems,” Guntur started. “The way that the baby is positioned just now, behind the other and on its side, means they don’t know if it is a boy or a girl.” He explained.

  “So, nothing is wrong with the baby?” I asked.

  He asked the technician and she grinned and grabbed my hand, holding it tightly. “All okay. Very good.”

  I lay back, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. My biggest fear was something happening to someone that I loved, and these babies were now my life. The worry that something could happen to them, though, took over from time to time. Right now, my babies were fine. I might not know what Thing Two was, but I knew that I had a son. Luke squeezed my hand tightly and I opened my eyes and looked over at him to see him standing with tears in his eyes as he looked at the frozen image on the screen and then down at me.

  Leaning over me, he put his forehead on mine and croaked, “Thank you so much, Angel.” And then he kissed me softly.

  Chapter 11

  Luke

  H olding Isla’s hand tightly so that we didn’t get separated, we walked around going into various small shops. There were a couple of malls, but Isla wanted to shop this way and I had to admit I preferred it. There was so much to look at and so far, we had five full bags of things. Isla was having issues fitting into her clothes, so we’d bought her some stretchy shorts and some dresses. I had to admit, I loved that bump. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I was obsessed with it!

  I stood in front of a small shop filled with silver with Guntur and watched Isla as she walked around. The deal was - she picked, I paid. Why? Because I was so fucking happy and she deserved the world, which I was going to do everything that I could to give it to her.

  Watching her point to something and smile at the woman who was talking to her, I caught sight of a woman carrying a small child in a sarong made into a sling walking towards us. As she passed, I heard her say a word that I’d heard a couple of times and couldn’t figure out what it meant.

  “Hey, what did that lady call her kid there?” I asked Guntur. His eyebrows shot up over his sunglasses as he turned to look at me.

  “Sayang?” At my nod he shrugged. “It means darling or dear. It’s a common endearment that we call our loved ones.”

  Thanking him, I looked back at Isla to see a pile of silver jewelry forming beside her on the glass counter and grinned, looks like I got to treat her again.

  Isla

  Lying on Luke in the hammock after dinner, I thought about the phone calls that we’d made when we got back. Luke’s mom Christie had always been quiet, but now she was on excitement overload and I loved every second of it. She was going to go shopping tomorrow to start getting her grandbabies things that they needed. Last week, I’d called Gram to let her know the good news, and, as expected, she was beyond delighted and was almost as bad as Christie when it came to buying stuff for her great grandbabies. Finding out that we had one boy for sure on the way today, just sent her into a spin. She might be getting old, but she was made of titanium and was still more independent than even I was.

  Laughing at the memory of her “oooooeeeeeeeeee!” when we’d told her, I snuggled further into Luke.

&nb
sp; “You okay, sayang?” He was stroking one hand through my hair and the other hand was on my butt and pressing me into him.

  “Sayang?” I tried to lift my head, but he applied pressure and used the hand that had been running through my hair to press my head to his neck.

  “It means darling in Bahasa.”

  Relaxing back into him, I absorbed what he was saying. I loved this new name that he had for me because, when we got home, it meant that it was just ours. It also came from this time which, regardless of why it happened, had ended up being the most amazing and beautiful experience of my life to date, and it was all thanks to Luke.

  I’d been thinking about us since we arrived, and I knew that I had a lot of trust issues when it came to him and with good reason. I also had beauty in my life after twenty-six years of having slim to none thanks to my parents, this now outweighed the prom and Kendal incidents. I hadn’t completely forgiven him, and I knew it would take a while for me to fully trust him, but I was in love with him and carrying his babies. He’d proven over the years that I meant something deep to him regardless and when we were together he treated me like the most precious thing in the world. I also knew how quickly he could have been taken away from me because of the accident or if he’d been the one to open the door to his house when it exploded. The thought of not having him in the world made it feel like I had a brick in my chest. Because of all of this, I was relaxed around him now and allowed myself to enjoy every moment like this and every other moment we were having together. I wanted to see where this would take us.

  “What are you thinking about?” He murmured into my hair. I loved it when he did that and it happened often because, he was just over a foot taller than me.

  “Us. The babies.”

  “Wanna explain that a little further, sayang? It doesn’t really give me much to go on.” His hand was gently and slowly moving up and down my back while I listened to his heartbeat and looked out onto the beach from my position on top of him.

  “I spoke to Guntur today,” I began. “I wanted to have some names ready for the babies just in case.” Leaning up so that I could look him in the eyes I continued. “I want them to have Indonesian names because of this moment that we’ve had together. It’s been the most beautiful time of my life, bar none, and I want names that mean something literally and emotionally.”

  Before I could tell him the names Guntur had given me, he grabbed the back of my head and pulled my mouth down onto his. I hadn’t been expecting it and gasped, giving his tongue access into my mouth. By the speed that he’d pulled my head down, I thought that it would be a hard, demanding kiss. Luke surprised me once again, though, and gave me another beautiful memory by making it a soft, but seriously hot, kiss.

  Dropping his head back onto the hammock, he grinned up at me. “What names have you got then, Angel?”

  “Did you know Guntur means thunder?”

  Luke’s brows shot up. “You…want to name our son…Guntur?” The way he asked, I knew he thought I’d lost it.

  “No, I just thought it was kickass when I found out.”

  Luke burst out laughing and my body shook with him as he did it and he tightened his arms around me. “Thank fuck, Isla.” He snorted into my neck, which I wasn’t so enamored with. “I thought I was gonna have to call an intervention! Don’t get me wrong, I really like the guy, but I’m not calling my son Guntur Montgomery!” He pulled back and looked back into my eyes, still smiling. “Now sayang, tell me what you’ve got.”

  “Okay, for boys there’s: Arya which means warrior, Budi which means wise one, Ismaya which also means wise, and Kali which means river.” Taking a deep breath, I continued. “For a girl: Karina which means beloved and pure, Yanti who is an Indonesian Goddess, and Dewi which also means Goddess.”

  I could see Luke mulling over the choices. He was so quiet for so long that I was beginning to worry that he hated all of them because honestly, I loved every single one. “I know they’re not traditional Luke, but these names mean something….”

  “Yanti or Dewi for a girl,” he cut me off. “You need to find a second possible name for a boy, though, because out of that list the only one I’m naming a son is Kali. If Thing Two turns out to be a boy, no way is he getting one of those names.”

  I thought back to some of the other options that Guntur had given me today. “What about Matius? It means gift of god.”

  Luke’s mouth pulled up into a big grin on his face as he gently pulled my face down to his. “We just named our babies!”

  Squealing, I went to get up to do a dance. Seeing them and knowing they were in there made it real, but naming them with names that meant something huge…now it was real. Just as I was pushing up, though, Luke’s arms tightened around me keeping me where I was.

  “Luke, let me up!” I tried to push up again, but he wasn’t budging.

  “Isla,” he called, and the tone of his voice cut through my excitement as I focused back on his face which was now serious. The last time I’d seen him look that serious, he was telling me that my car and his house had exploded so my stomach dropped.

  “What is it?” I whispered. “Jesus, please don’t tell me something else has happened.”

  “No, baby,” he gave me a squeeze and kissed my forehead softly. “It’s not that, but just so you know there has been a couple more attempted incidents at some sites, but they were caught before anyone could be injured.” His hands cupped my face and kept my eyes on his. “I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. I can still tell you what you were wearing and I can also tell you a shit ton of memories from over the last twenty years. I know that I’ve given you two moments in that time to make you not trust me and that I’ve hurt you deeply, but I’m going to lay my heart on the line here and tell you that it’s always been you.”

  My breath caught in my throat as he paused and watched my reaction; then he continued and blew what was left of my control away.

  “Isla, I love you and our babies more than I love anything in this world. The moment I found out that you were pregnant, it took everything in me not to cry like a baby, no pun intended, in front of Baz and his guys on the plane. That moment gave me every dream that I’d had since I was old enough to understand what it was that I felt for you. I’m warning you now, I’m not letting you go. I want you to have my name and my ring on your finger soon, and most definitely before the babies get here.” He pulled his right hand away from my face and turned it around in front of my face so that I could see the most beautiful, yet simple, white gold band with a princess cut diamond on it. It took my breath away. “Isla Banks, will you marry me?”

  I couldn’t see his face because it was blurred through the tears that I couldn’t stop, these damn hormones, but I took a risk and lunged hoping that I’d get his mouth. Unfortunately, I got his nose and because my mouth had been open slightly it ended up inside it, which was pretty disgusting.

  Laughing, I moved my mouth down the way until I had his and whispered, “Yes!’

  We may have some things to work through still, but I’d loved him for what felt like all of my life. Trust took time to build in every relationship.

  Pulling back, he grinned up at me. “Maya got a micro pig, I got my nose sucked. You owe me!”

  “You proposed to me, though! Why do I owe you anything?”

  “You sucked my nose,” he said laughing and bouncing me up and down again. Poor Thing One and Thing Two; could babies get motion sickness inside you? I needed to ask Siri the next time I had the iPad.

  “It was an accident,” I snapped. “And it was pretty disgusting; think about it from my point of view!”

  “You owe me!”

  Looking down at him, I played my trump card. “I’m carrying your babies, at least one son.”

  His eyes flashed as he looked up at me and quicker than I could register, he swung around off the hammock and was walking in the direction of the tall sliding glass doors of our bedroom. “You’re right, and I’m going to
thank you and prove to you how grateful I am, right now!”

  Lying on the beach the following day, I kept my eyes closed and listened to the sounds of the waves coming up onto the shore. Unfortunately, when you were carrying two Montgomery’s, the sound made you need to pee every five minutes and I’d been holding it for thirty so I was going to have to move soon. Aside from the bursting bladder, though, I was too comfortable and didn’t want to get up.

  All of a sudden I felt movement in my stomach and squealed. It was like a strong butterfly flutter.

  “Luke!” He was in the sea, but not too far away so he heard me yelling and moved quickly through the water and up the beach toward me.

  “What? Is it the babies? Fuck, where’s Guntur?” He was scanning the beach, but the point of Guntur and his men were that they were to blend in and not stand out, so Luke reached for the burner phone lying on my book.

  “Yes…no…yes! They moved!” I felt the feeling again and went to put my hand over it, but Luke beat me to it.

  He was crouched over me for a couple of minutes while we waited for it to happen again, and just as he started to reduce the pressure it happened.

  “Holy shit!” He whispered. I knew from pregnancy websites that you couldn’t normally feel a baby move from the outside until around twenty weeks, but when I’d looked up twins it had said that it was possible when they were in this position. It didn’t happen often, though. The fact that it had and that Luke had felt it made this moment one to never be forgotten. When I was little, every time something good happened or I had a memorable occasion, I would put them into a journal that I’d titled ‘Good Times’. Because my Dad was an asshole and my mom was self-centered, the only good that I’d had in my life was Gram and the Montgomery’s so the memories were all to do with them. Then I met my three best friends and I had moments with them too, but this was going into the top five moments; all of which involved the father of my little kickers who was smiling so wide that it had to hurt. He looked up at me with his hand still over the babies. I still had a notebook that I wrote them in, or I typed notes in the app on my phone.