Providence Series Books 1-4

by Mary B. Moore

  “What is she doing here?” he fumed. Good question!

  Everyone turned in Adele’s direction just as she caught sight of us all and started weaving her way in our direction. I had a sinking feeling that this was not going to go well.

  “Who’s that?” Scarlett asked. Apparently, she hadn’t been privy to the last group meeting with the snake.

  “Cole’s ex,” Ebru murmured, just loud enough for Scarlett to hear as she watched Adele get closer with a look of fury on her face.

  “Cooooooole,” she squealed and started doing a drunken run towards me. It was one of those hands and arms flapping and legs going everywhere runs, and if we didn’t have the history that we did, I’d have found it amusing. Like everyone else at the table, though, I was far from laughing, and they didn’t even know the full story.

  She was a couple of feet away from me when Ebru stood up and put herself between us. Adele immediately lifted her hands to push Eb out of her way, and that was me done.

  “Don’t touch her,” I growled, getting up intending to catch her hand, but Ava got there first. I hadn’t even seen her get up, but then when someone intends to hit the woman that you love you focus on that. Well, I assumed that any man would.

  “I’m shooooooo glad ta see ouuuu,” Adele slurred. Her eyes looked like someone had punched the space between them and they’d fallen out, because they were pointing in opposite directions. But that wasn’t what really stood out about them. Her pupils were like pin pricks, and they were glassy too. What the fuck had she taken?

  “Leave.” Standing behind her, I put my arm across Eb’s chest and gently moved her back into me, making it blatantly obvious that I’d protect her. Or at least, I hoped it was obvious, but then with Adele being in the state that she was, it was hard to tell what would stand out to her and what wouldn’t.

  The viper’s eyes dropped down to my arm and narrowed before she looked up at me and a false smile took over her face. Actually, I think she was looking at me. After all, her eyes were facing in opposite corners of the room so it was hard to tell where she was actually looking. I wonder if she had chameleon vision?

  “I come heeaaaah,” she pointed at the floor in front of her, so I assumed that she was saying the word here, “ta sheeee ya.”

  “I don’t want to see you, though, so it was a wasted visit.”

  Movement behind her caught my eye, and I saw two of Ethan’s security guys making their way towards us with Baz behind them. I’d known that he was watching everything, but he was also aware of who she was from that night at the bar, so I wasn’t surprised that he was going to intervene.

  Adele was on some slurred rambling rant when they reached her. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, ma’am.”

  Then all hell broke loose as she lunged in mine and Eb’s direction and started screaming at us, drawing the attention of everyone in the VIP area. I moved Ebru behind me and looked at Mace making it clear that I wanted him in front of her before I turned back to the poisonous banshee who was now being dragged away. In the scuffle that I’d missed, she’d lost a shoe, and her skirt was up around her ribs as she kicked out trying to hit the guards.

  “What the hell is it with these sluts showing their sausage wallet to the world?” Tony groaned as he covered his eyes. Lars snorted and rubbed his shoulder as he whispered something in Tony’s ear which made him laugh.

  “Did she mean that little to you? Did she? DID SHE?” Adele screamed. The fact that she wasn’t slurring anymore and her movements looked more controlled had me realizing that the drunken fumblings from before had been an act. Then the words hit me and started to feel sick; she wasn’t going to scream it out across a club in front of my family. Please God, please don’t let her do it. “I’m the mother of your child.”

  I heard the chorus of shocked gasps behind me as well as a ton of expletives, but I was too caught up now in the devastation of what she’d just done.

  The second she was dragged out of the doors, the room came back into focus for me as I stood there numbly registering the looks of shock and a couple of disgust. Whether it was directed at me or her, I didn’t know and didn’t want to think about right now. Turning around with the intention of getting Ebru and getting the fuck outta Dodge, I saw my friends and family all staring at me in anger.

  “That lying fucking cunt,” Ren yelled, wincing when Maya elbowed him in the gut.

  “Oh she’s a dead bitch,” Ava snarled, looking like she was ready to go after her.

  They all seemed to start shouting and swearing at the same time, and I realized that they were angry for me, not at me.

  Ebru walked up to me and put her arms around me with her forehead on my chest, holding me tight.

  “She’s not lying,” I croaked out, and felt her squeeze me.

  “What the fuck?” Ren looked horrified. “So, where’s the goddamn motherfucking baby then? Or is she pregnant? Because, I saw that bitch’s eyes, and I’m telling you, that baby is fucked ‘cause she was as high as a fucking kite. I hope you’re doing a DNA test!”

  I was at a loss on what to say back, but thankfully Ebru turned around and took over. “I don’t think that this is the place to have this conversation. Why don’t we all go back to ours and Cole will tell you everything there, okay?”

  One by one they nodded and we started packing up. As we walked through the VIP section towards the exit, I got various claps on the shoulder from people or a squeeze of the arm. I hadn’t seen a majority of these people since I was at school, and sure as hell hadn’t socialized with them, but at that moment the support meant everything to me.

  “Explain,” Ren demanded as soon as we were all in the living room, he made it sound so easy.

  “After things ended between us, she told me that she was pregnant.” I blurted out. I figured going for the band aid approach would make it easier. Pacing back and forth now, I continued. “I was fucking wrecked when she said it. I didn’t even like her; she’d only been with me to get to you and Brett, ya know?” The room was silent as I worked my way through it all. “I took some time to think it over and on the Friday I went to meet y’all at Jilly’s and she was there, drunk out of her fucking skull. I’d just accepted it so I was pissed because that shit couldn’t have been good for the baby.”

  I walked over to where Ebru was, picked her up and sat down with her on my lap. I needed the closeness to her right now, and this was my favorite position to sit in anyway.

  “So where is it?” Ren asked grimly. He knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “She got rid of it,” I whispered. The whole thing had gotten easier since I’d become a part of Ebru’s life and had put it all into perspective given what she’d been through, but I hated saying this part. “She told me that she didn’t want my bastard.”

  I heard the sniffs and some sobs around the room, but didn’t want to look up to see the expressions on people’s faces. I didn’t want the pity, and I worried that they’d be angry with me for not stopping it or stepping up sooner. I had always wondered if I had taken responsibility sooner, if it would have stopped her from having the abortion.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Ren rasped. He sounded how I felt when I’d found out, and how I still felt when I pictured what the baby would have looked like.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I mumbled.

  “Is this why you go to the lake and get shit faced?” Mace spoke up. The anger coming from him was palpable, and I found the courage to look up as I nodded at him.

  Putting Maya on the couch and standing up, Ren started pacing. The muscles were visibly flexing in his arms as he went back and forth. “That fucking bitch. That fucking bitch,” he roared. Mace, Adam, Ethan, Tony, Lars and Baz, who’d been standing in the corner looking like he was ready to kill someone, nodded as all of the females looked like the world had ended and were in various degrees of tears.

  “I think y’all need to take some time to get your head around this,” Ebru suggested. �
��You need time to think of questions or whatever details you want to know, and right now Cole needs time to get over what Adele did tonight.”

  “I can’t believe you never told us,” Ren sounded almost wounded by it all, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

  “I couldn’t,” I put my head in my hands trying to think of how best to explain it. “I couldn’t even get my head around it myself to begin with, and then after that, I felt like it was my fault.”

  “How the fuck do you figure that? We would have been there for you, Cole. Jesus Christ, you’ve dealt with this on your own, and you didn’t fucking have to!” He thundered, making me feel even worse.

  “Honey, let’s go and get Crystal, and I’ll drive us home. Cole did what he did, and you have to put yourself in his shoes,” Maya implored, rubbing his arm.

  “I’d have told my fucking family.”

  “You don’t know that,” Ebru spoke up. “You think that that’s what you’d have done, but you don’t know that. You can never say you’d do something until you’re in that position and, thankfully, you’ll never go through the hell that Cole’s been through. Think about that.”

  One by one they all started to filter out of the house leaving us alone with Maya and Ren, who seemed to be losing the anger now and feeling the hurt of it all in its place.

  “I’m sorry, man,” he croaked, and I was shocked to see him looking like he was going to cry. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He took a shuddering breath in. “I’m thinking of Crystal and how I’d feel if she’d been taken away from me before I’d even gotten to hold her…” he was stopped by the sobs that started coming from his wife. Almost like they broke the last defense he had against his tears, one fell down his cheek. “I’m just so fucking sorry!”

  I can count on one hand the number of times that Ren and I have hugged. We’ve done the ‘yeah brah’ type man hug with the obligatory thumps on the back, but true hugs? Hardly ever. So when he walked up and pulled me to him in a bear hug, I felt lost for a matter of seconds before I hugged him back.

  Pulling away from me, he wiped his face. “You need to tell Mom and Dad.”

  I’d never wanted them to find out, but now that it was out there…I knew he was right. They deserved to know.

  “Tomorrow,” I confirmed, not feeling the fear and dread that I thought I’d have felt. It was a relief to finally be able to share the worst moment of my life with my family. The knowledge of how upset they were going to be also made me hate Adele even more.

  Almost as if she was reading my mind, Ebru said, “I hope that bitch burns in hell.”

  “She will,” Maya had that gleam in her eye, and the responding evil smile that Ebru gave her would have made me feel sorry for Adele if I didn’t also echo Maya’s sentiment about hell.

  I’d left my parents house and was walking back to my home, thinking about what had just happened. As expected, they’d been upset and then angry and had then gone back to being upset. Mom had even given me a couple of smacks across the head for not telling her, just as well she hit like a butterfly - weakly.

  Dad had some sage advice to give out too, saying that there was nothing that I could have done to stop it and that it wasn’t my guilt to bear because I’d wanted to do the right thing and be in my child’s life. Gram and Pops were the heated ones of the bunch while Brett, who’d flown back in at the crack of dawn, had said nothing. It was never easy to tell what he’d do, he was the most secretive one out of all of us, but I didn’t have it in me to worry about it. It hadn’t been bad, but it had been an emotionally exhausting revelation.

  After a lot of tears from the women and wisdom from Pops and Dad, Mom and Gram had decided that the emotion that they were going to go with was anger.

  “Oh I’m going to smack down on that bitch,” Gram fumed.

  “It’s smack that bitch down,” Mom corrected, but she was nodding her head anyway.

  “Actually it’s…” I stopped when both of them turned to face me, and I saw the glares headed my way.

  “Whatever, her ass is mine,” Gram snapped.

  “That just sounds kinky,” Pops observed, becoming the lucky recipient of the glare from her now.

  “Get your head out of the damn gutter. And, so help me God, if you even mention a nekkie hotel or ass floss I will cut your balls off.”

  Realizing that this was the best time for me to make my escape, and wanting to get back to Ebru, who was waiting for me at the house after saying that it was best for me to tell my family myself, which I now agreed with, I’d headed toward the back door.

  “Cole,” my Mom called. I turned to face her with my hand on the door knob, and she said the words that made me want to cry like a baby. “I love you, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry.”

  Swallowing over the lump in my throat, I gave her a smile, and then she said the words that helped heal the ache and that actually got me thinking. “You’d be a great daddy, in fact you still will be. You and Ebru will have beautiful babies one day, you wait and see.”

  I didn’t think it would be possible to grin after what I’d just put my family through, but I couldn’t help it. Ebru and I would have beautiful babies, she was right. Saying goodbye and leaving my Mom and Gram arguing over who would kick Adele’s ass, I walked up the path towards our house not seeing Coleman until he was right in front of me. The guy seriously was a fucking ghost.

  “I’m sorry, man,” his voice sounded gruffer than normal. I didn’t think that he’d ever be the kind of guy for a heart to heart over anything, so I just shrugged. “When did she do it?”

  “Summer of 2010.”

  He nodded and looked across the field beside us. “What’s the chick’s full name?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  Looking back at me, I saw a hardness in his eyes that even beat the one that was normally there. “I’m gonna look into it, okay? Don’t question it, just let me do it.”

  I didn’t know what that was going to achieve, but I really needed to get home to Eb, so I answered his questions.

  “Thanks,” he put his hands awkwardly in his pockets, and I swear to God I wished I had the balls to take photos of him because he looked so unlike his usual confident self. “I’m sorry, ya know?”

  “Thanks,” I echoed and nodded. Things had suddenly gotten really fucking awkward. “Uh, are we gonna stand here and braid each other’s hair or discuss nail polish colors?”

  “Fuck you,” he snorted, and turned around and walked away.

  Welp, that was one way to get rid of him.

  Ebru

  I’d just put my cup of coffee down on the table when Cole walked through the front door. I’d hated sending him to face his parents on his own, but they needed to hear it from him and have family time. It was a relief to see him, though, because I’d been fluttering around the house unable to sit down while I worried if he was okay. Both Poppy and Winston, who had been following me around everywhere after somehow mastering the staircase, ran toward him making their normal excited noises.

  “How did it go?” I took in the expression on his face and the fact that his shoulders looked relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Obviously they weren’t happy about it, but after some tears and ranting I left Mom and Gram arguing over who was going to, and I quote, ‘smack the bitch down’.” I burst out laughing because I’d figured that something like that would happen, both of them were Hellcats when they got started. “The biggest surprise was on my way back here, though.” He kicked his shoes into the corner of the room, which was a pet peeve of mine, and plonked himself down on the couch.

  “What was that?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate on it.

  “Coleman was nice and said he was sorry. I thought we were gonna braid each other’s hair and play Barbies,” he leaned over to pick up the babies who were trying to climb up his legs. Having trotters and puppy claws weren’t conducive with Spiderman scaling abilities, though, so they were getting more and more frustrated with every fai
led attempt. I’d been on the receiving end of their frustration because of that quite a few times since we got them and it usually ended up with scratches and bruises.

  “Meh, Bigfoot likes you. We all know that.” And it’s true, he did. He gave the standard eye rolls and looks of displeasure that we all gave Cole frequently, but you could tell he respected and liked Cole. Who didn’t?

  I watched as he made a fuss of the puppy and piglet and hoped that they didn’t do an excited pee on the couch.

  “I need to talk to you.” The tone of his voice took my attention away from the animals.

  “What now?”

  “Come sit.” He patted the space beside him causing the puppy and piglet to start attacking his hand. As soon as I sat down, though, they lost interest in finger killing, and Poppy climbed onto my lap for a cuddle while Winston went to Cole. Deciding that he didn’t like this arrangement, Cole put the protesting babies on the floor and then lay down and pulled me down beside him.

  “What have you done?”

  Grinning at me, he moved my hair away from my face. “You’re so beautiful,” his voice was barely audible. Smiling back up at him, I gently flicked his nose making him laugh.

  “Get on with it!”

  “I got a lawyer to look into the stabbing, and he wants you to press charges.” I don’t know what I’d expected from him, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

  “What?”

  Sighing, he dropped his forehead gently to mine. “I spoke to your dad when we were at your parents' house. He was blackmailed into not pressing charges ‘cause one of the bitch’s dads was the DA. He’s no longer the DA after being caught with underage prostitutes.” I sucked in a shocked breath. I’d known he was the DA, but I didn’t know any of the other things that he’d just told me.