As the statute of limitations wasn’t up on what the bitches had done to her, I had gotten a copy of the police report from him and the letter that Finn had received. Brett had sent them to his lawyer for me. He didn’t know what was in the envelope, obviously, but he knew I wouldn’t ask for his help unless it was important. The father was no longer the DA and had, in fact, been disgraced when he was caught enjoying incredibly young prostitutes, both male and female. That just made it even better.
Last night, we’d been lying in bed facing each other, and I’d traced the tattoo on her side.
Forever in our hearts
Forever on our minds
And always the brightest star
Shining in the sky
LDW
It all made sense to me now, and I couldn’t think of a more beautiful tribute to her sister. Hearing her whisper that she’d tell Louise all about it when she saw her again and to sleep tasty had broken something inside of me. I couldn’t imagine having to say goodbye to someone who you loved so much, knowing that you had to wait until you took your last breath on earth to see them again. I didn’t know how she did it, but she wasn’t alone anymore.
Now, I was in my Mom’s kitchen with her, Isla and Maya. The babies were all asleep in the pack and plays that my parents had bought for when they were all over, and I was watching them all sleep.
Dewi and Kali were in the same one and always seemed to need to sleep with one part of their body touching even if it was just a foot; maybe it was a twin thing? Baby Crystal almost disappeared in the bed she was that tiny. I loved these little people so much, and the grave of the little boy near Louise’s kept flashing into my mind. I would give my own life for them not to be taken away from us.
I was so lost in my thoughts that when my mom spoke, it took me a while to realize that she was talking to me.
“Are you okay, love?”
Snapping out of where my mind had gone, I looked at her and the girls and let it all out. I told them all about Louise and the visit to Ebru’s parents as well as what her childhood had been like and the photos. By the time I finished they were all in tears.
“That’ll be why she flinched when the Pastor said my middle name during the wedding,” Isla whispered looking distraught. I think we’d all noticed Ebru doing it, but it hadn’t made sense to any of us. Now that Isla said it, though, all of the pieces fell into place.
“She’s not talking about any of it,” I looked around them making it clear that I needed help with this.
Mom wiped her hands off on her dishtowel and walked towards me. “Sweetheart, if anyone knows how to deal with this it’s you. You just said that you’d declared your love for each other…”
“Well, I did. She said, ‘until forever’,” I interrupted.
“Yes, and you told us what those words meant too,” Isla spoke up.
“So, as I was saying,” Mom continued, glaring at me. “You declared your love for each other and given Ebru’s past that isn’t an easy thing. Why don’t you do something romantic? Something to get her mind off of what is going on.”
Actually, now that she mentioned it…an idea came into my head, and I jumped up to start putting it into motion. I had the perfect plan.
“You’re such a wise old bird,” I said as I kissed Mom goodbye and got a cuff around the head.
“Don’t forget, tomorrow night you’re wetting the babies heads with the rest of the guys,” Maya reminded me as I kissed her and Isla goodbye. To be honest, I could do without the night out, but then it was to celebrate my nieces and nephew, so I’d be there.
Ebru
Looking down at my the message on my screen, I couldn’t help wondering what the tool was up to.
Cole: Meet me at OUR spot at the lake at 6. Until forever baby. xxx
I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I loved that he was calling his special spot at the lake ours now, and that he was using the words ‘until forever’ back at me. They seemed to carry more meaning than a standard ‘I love you’ did.
Hitting reply, I tapped out a message as I made my way to the door.
Me: Just leaving. Have to stop at store to get shampoo and conditioner first tho. Will be there asap. xoxo
Before I got to my car, he’d replied.
Cole: drive carefully baby. xxx
Turning the engine on, I laid my head back against the headrest and tried to just let the stress of the day go. It hadn’t been busy, but we’d had a little boy brought in who had been attacked by his mom’s boyfriend and was now on life support. Seeing that never got easier regardless of what they told you at college.
Lifting my head, I took the parking brake off and drove out of the parking lot in the direction of Coopers. While I was there, I picked up a couple of things that caught my eye like the fucking awesome cinnamon rolls that they baked daily and then carried it all back to the car. How two items turns into three bags, I’ll never know, but I managed to do it every single time.
I was on the road heading towards the lake when the car in front of me slowed and signaled that it was pulling into the parking lot of the new Italian restaurant that had just opened. As I slowed, I looked into the lot to see what the front of the restaurant looked like wondering if Cole would be interested in going with me. I never expected to see the man I loved with his arms around the one female that he professed to hate with a passion, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t right there in front of me.
Doing a quick u-turn, I drove back towards town and then headed in the direction of the one place that I felt safe right now. Caleb’s house.
I didn’t let the tears fall until he opened the door, and then it was a facial flood as I face planted in his chest.
Cole
I’d called through an order to Capisce and had then headed out to the lake to lay out the torches and the small candles that I’d bought. I wanted this to be as romantic as possible and having us surrounded by candlelight sounded pretty damned romantic to me.
I’d just left Capisce with our bags of food and was putting them in the trunk when I heard my name being called.
“Cole! Cole!”
I clenched my jaw as I shut the trunk and turned towards the one person that I’d happily never ever see again.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said in that irritating as shit voice that she used around me. “I was hoping to see you.”
Hearing those words made me suddenly suspicious and I looked around the parking lot. There weren’t that many cars around, and there was no one waiting for her at the door to the restaurant while she spoke to me. Had she followed me?
“What do you want?” No sense in beating around the bush.
“I just wanted to see you,” she said. Then the expression on her face turned, and I braced myself for what she was going to do next. I would have bet on either tears or anger, and she didn’t disappoint as she put her hands over her face and started sobbing. “You hate me, don’t you? Please, don’t hate me. I had no choice. And you didn’t want either of us…” she said through the crocodile tears.
There were few things in life that I was one hundred percent certain on, but the fact that she was pretty much bullshitting me was one of them.
I wasn’t expecting what she did next as I leaned against the back of the ‘Stang with my arms crossed.
“Don’t hate me,” she wailed as she threw herself at my chest and wrapped her arms around me, not letting go when I tried to move them. My arms were trapped at my sides by hers, so I was pretty restricted on what I could do to get free. “I want to die for what I did to you. Do you hear me? Die!” she continued.
A car pulled in and drove past us to a space at the opposite end of the parking lot. I heard the squealing of tires on the road behind me as I lost my cool. I wanted her off me now, and the only option I had now was to put my hands on her waist and push, which I did. Taking an exaggerated stumbling step backward, she looked at me in shock.
“I don’t care what you do, Adele. The only time
that I did care what you did, you got rid of my child and then threw it in my face calling it my bastard,” I sneered. “In fact, the whole time we were together, you wanted Ren or Brett. So don’t fucking come at me with your bullshit and lies.” I turned and walked towards the driver’s door and as I opened it to get in, I looked back at her stunned face and said the words that I’d been dying to say to her for ages. “If you see me, you never come near me. Do I make myself clear?”
I didn’t give her a chance to reply as I got into the car, started the ignition and drove away taking a left out of the parking lot in the direction of the lake. It was somewhat cathartic getting all of that off my chest, but I’d realized that the weekend that we’d had at Ebru’s parents hadn’t just put her heart at ease, it had done the same to mine also. The memory of what I’d lost would always be with me, but now I had a proper future with someone that I loved and wanted to have children with.
I was five minutes out from the lake when my phone rang, and Caleb’s name flashed up on the screen. Touching the button on my steering wheel to answer the phone, I started to say hello when his voice filled my car.
“You stupid sonovabitch,” he barked. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
I looked at the screen on the dash to double check that it was Caleb who was calling before answering.
“Excuse me?”
“Ebru is here, at my home. Crying!”
I quickly slowed the car and did a u-turn to head in the direction of Caleb’s house.
“What the fuck is going on?” She’d seemed fine in her text message. Oh fuck, what if something happened to her Mom?
“I guess she didn’t like seeing you holding an ex-girlfriend. Funny that,” he said sarcastically.
“It wasn’t like that,” I growled. “Hold her there. I’m five minutes out.”
“The front door is unlocked so just let yourself in. But for fuck’s sake asshole, you fix this, and you fix it properly.”
Pressing the disconnect button, I turned down the street that led to Caleb’s house. I knew that I would get her back, there was no way that I was losing Ebru ever. But the fact that I’d hurt her, regardless of the true circumstances of what she’d seen, didn’t sit well with me.
Pulling up in front of his house, I got out of the car and prepared for the battle ahead of me. Then an idea hit me, and I grinned as I walked toward the front door.
Checkmate!
Ebru
I was sitting on the couch in Caleb’s living room when the front door opened and in walked the biggest asshole in the world, also known as Cowslip Charming Reins. I never got the chance to tell him to fuck off like I wanted to because he walked straight up to me, bent over and picked me up over his shoulder.
“Put me down,” I screamed, trying to hit him. I would aim at his balls, but honest to God those poor bastards had been through enough recently so I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
He’d just got to the door when Caleb spoke up. “You either fix this, or I’m coming to get her, and she’ll live here with me.”
Cole turned us around so that he was facing Caleb. “Fuck no! That will never happen. She is my life, my entire world. She stays with me,” he replied firmly, before walking out the door.
I just managed to lift my head to look at Caleb and saw him leaning against the door frame grinning in our direction.
“You betraying asshole!” I yelled, jumping when Cole spanked my ass. “Oh my God, you hit me,” I screeched as Caleb burst out laughing.
“No baby, I spanked you; there’s a big difference. And anyway, you deserved it for yelling out what you just did.”
Deciding that silence was the best form of attack in this instance, I crossed my arms after he dumped me in the passenger seat and put the seatbelt across me and said nothing.
I hadn’t really been paying attention to where we were going, but when I focused on where we were, I realized that we were heading in the direction of the lake. Unfortunately, Cole had also decided that silence was golden, so my plan was pretty much fubar’d. Asshole!
Cole
I pulled up as close to where our spot at the lake was, but the last bit always had to be walked, so I guess Ebru was doing it fireman style.
Getting out of the car, I walked around and lifted her over my shoulder just as she was getting out.
“Enough now,” she yelled as she hit my back. I’d decided that the best thing to do was to stay quiet until I could be face to face with her to explain what actually happened. It hurt that she didn’t trust me, even now, even knowing what Adele had done to me and what she’d taken away from me, but as my Gram always said - Rome wasn’t built in a day. I knew that I’d gotten further than I’d ever thought that we would be by this stage, and that with her past our relationship wouldn’t be set in stone, more like Jello, so I needed to work on that and let her know that it was only her for me. The idea of ever hurting Ebru was like stabbing myself.
Walking along the familiar trail, I took us to where the electric lanterns were lit and put her down on the blanket that I’d laid down before I went to get the food.
I knew full well that she’d try to get up, so I lay down on top of her, giving her enough of my weight to hold her still.
She lay still with her head turned to the side, so I put my hands either side of her head and gently turned it towards me so that I could look into her eyes as I told her the truth.
“It wasn’t what you think,” I started. “I was putting the food in the car when she came up crying and saying she wanted to die for what she did.” My stomach started turning at the thought of her trying to play me after what she had already done. “Then she lunged at me, and with the way I was standing when she did it, my arms were pretty much trapped.”
“They didn’t look trapped,” she snapped and started moving.
“Lie still, baby.”
“No,” she was furious and, to be honest, I didn’t blame her.
“I pushed her away and told her not to come near me again,” I felt a small amount of panic that I could lose her. Her emotions and trust were so fragile that all it would take would be one word and I’d lose her for good. I needed to tread carefully. “Baby,” I said gently, and she stopped moving but held herself rigidly beneath me. “I hate the bitch. She’s nothing but trouble and ruined my life for six years. The only time I got my peace back was when you walked into my life.” I shifted a bit so that less of my weight was on her seeing as she’d stopped moving and had relaxed a bit too.
Deciding to press the point home on what Adele had done to me and why I would never trust her, I reiterated what she’d taken from me. “Ebru, she got rid of my child without telling me or asking me. You know that I was in shock when she told me that she was pregnant, but I would have taken the baby and been a single parent if I needed to. There’s no coming back once you’ve torn someone’s heart out like that. Every time I see a baby, I get an ache inside thinking about what mine would look like right now. Would I have taken them to Disney World already? What would they be doing at this stage?” I looked back out over the water for a minute and then I realized that it wasn’t hurting as badly as it did when I was here on the anniversary of the worst day of my life.
She lay staring up at me, but as always I couldn’t read her face to see what she was thinking. I was starting to worry that she intended to stay silent again when she spoke up. “I know about heartache and people breaking your trust. Every time I hear the name Louise, it cuts through me because I look around expecting to see her.”
“We figured as much,” I stroked her hair. “I told Mom, Maya, and Isla today. Isla was the one who put the pieces together after we all saw you flinch when the Pastor said her full name at the wedding.” I wasn’t sure if she’d be pissed that I’d told her private business to the ladies, but she would find out soon enough and I couldn’t ever lie to Ebru. “I’m sorry for telling them baby, but I needed some advice on how to help you and…”
“It’s cool. I
don’t mind them knowing,” she interrupted. “I can’t help my reaction to the name, and maybe in time it’ll get easier, but right now even after all of these years, it still hurts. The thing is, I get that sometimes you reach a place where you need to forgive people for whatever they did. Look at what happened with my parents. I swore I would never forgive them or care what they did ever again. What if you decide you want to try again and get back what you lost with her?”
“There is no fucking way that would happen,” I said firmly, and it was definitely the truth. “The only woman that I want to carry my babies ever is lying beneath me right now.” She gasped, and her arms went around me. “You’re all that I see baby, and when I say I love you or until forever, I mean forever.”
It took a couple of minutes for that to sink in, but the second it did, she lunged up quickly and kissed me. It was a frantic kiss, one that was almost desperate, but I understood it and the emotions that she was feeling about us because I felt the same ones.
I pulled back before things got carried away and we ended up not eating the apparently amazing Italian food that was still in my car.
“Cole,” she reached up to pull me back down to her.
“No, baby. I have a plan to pamper you, and I’m going to do it,” I started lighting the candles around us, and I saw the moment that she saw everything that I’d done earlier to make the area even more beautiful. I don’t even think that she’d noticed the rose petals that I’d scattered everywhere. “Plus that food is stinking up the ‘Stang, so I want to go and save my car before it’s too late.” Hey, it was a fucking gorgeous car. Of course I wanted to make sure that nothing spilled or stank it up for life; I loved that car!
Providence Series Books 1-4 Page 63