WE ARE ONE: Volume Two

by Jewel, Bella

  I hear Jackson say, “They’re here,” in to receiver just before two ambulance officers enter the open bathroom door. They take me and the baby to hospital while Jackson follows in the car.

  “Isn’t she just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” I gush to Jackson as we sit ogling our new daughter in our hospital room.

  “She’s as beautiful as her mum, that’s for sure. I’m the luckiest man alive.” I stop looking at our baby and focus my eyes on him when I hear him choke back a sob.

  “Honey,”

  “Thank you for having her. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for everything. I’m so proud of you, darlin’. You did such a good job. I’m just … I’m just so proud of you.”

  “Oh, honey,” I start to cry.

  “Was planning on giving you this when you came to bed, but someone decided to gatecrash my party,” a burst of laughter escapes his lips.

  “Giving me what?”

  “This,” he says, holding up a black velvet ring box. He opens it up and there sits a beautiful emerald cut diamond which is surrounded by smaller diamonds. Even the band is diamonds.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper.

  “I love you Edie. Every day you show me a love that I never knew existed. Now you’ve given me the most precious gift in the world. You are my everything. You’re the first thing I think of in the morning, and the last thing I think of at night. You’re my every star in the sky. I want to protect and love you for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?” Tears are streaming down both of our faces as he spills his words.

  “Yes, of course I’ll marry you,” I sob.

  “Was that romantic enough?” His voice is muffled by my hair.

  I laugh, “That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever experienced. Thank you,” I kiss his lips.

  “So, do you want to know her name?” Jackson asks.

  “Yes. I’m dying over here,” I mutter.

  “I want to call her after my great grandmother, Olive. What do you think?” He asks nervously.

  “Olive,” I repeat. “I like it. We can call her Liv, Livvy or Olly for short. Olive Rose Henley. I love it.”

  A short time later, I lay little Olive back in her crib after she’s had a feed. Jackson is snoring softly in the chair beside my bed and I take a moment to think of my parents. I know they’re looking down and they’d love Olive as much as we do. I’m sure they will be her guardian angels and look out for her. Then I think of Jules. She had wanted to be in the delivery room with me when I gave birth so she’s going to get a shock when she arrives in a few hours to find I’ve already had the baby. I look back over at my handsome fiancé and I’m glad I took the chance to live again with no regrets. I know now without a doubt that the love I feel for Jackson is worth all the vulnerability and risk in the world.

  When the winds of destiny blew with the fury of a hurricane, I never expected them to take this city girl to a Cowboy Town and straight into the arms of the country boy of her dreams. But, I’m so glad they did.

  “There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be...” John Lennon

  Look out for Ava & Jeremy’s story, coming soon in Sky Cowboy.

  Add Sky Cowboy to your Want to Read shelf on Goodreads.com

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  Please enjoy the following excerpt from Sky Cowboy.

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  Sky

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  Kasey Millstead

  Chapter Twelve

  "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Perhaps my parents should have named me Eleanor. Maybe then I would have possessed some of her strength, wisdom and courage.

  My mother loves to tell the story of how my sister and I were named. You see, she had this obsession with the television series Green Acres, and she also had an obsession with Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor. Actually, she had an obsession with Hollywood royalty period, but she held a particular fondness for the Gabor sisters. When she fell pregnant with my sister, she was dying to call her Zsa Zsa, but my father told her in no uncertain terms that she was not calling his little girl Zsa Zsa. He managed to convince my mother (with the promise of buying her a Poodle puppy that she could call Zsa Zsa) to call my sister ‘Kennedy’, after Jackie Kennedy Onassis. He argued that Jackie was a well-respected former first lady and it was a good omen. They couldn’t call my sister ‘Jackie’ because they had an old sheep dog with the same name. Mum agreed, thinking it sounded old-worldly and timeless, so Kennedy Monroe (after Marilyn, of course) Crawley was born.

  Three years after Kennedy was born, I came along. My mother begged my father to name me Eva, but he wanted to name me Ava, after Ava Gardner. He said with a namesake like that, I would be the most beautiful little girl in the world. So, with visions of a delicate, brown haired, pouty lipped beauty in her mind, my mother agreed. My middle name, Elizabeth, comes from another dark haired beauty – Elizabeth Taylor.

  My mother and father had spent three years dedicating themselves to catering to Kennedy’s every whim. Needless to say, when I came along she got her nose put out of joint because she was no longer the center of their attention. My sister was and is a spoiled brat. She was never good at sharing - Anything; our parents, her toys, her clothes, her food. She despised me right from beginning for intruding on her perfect life. It got gradually worse as we were growing up. I was always beneath her, in her eyes. She made sure to tell me this on a regular basis and it was exacerbated because I had to wear her hand-me-down clothing and shoes. She was popular at school – smart, funny and gorgeous. A triple threat. She was Queen Bee and had a large following of minions who did whatever she said, when she said. Mostly, she told them to tease me, make up stories about me and belittle me. She regularly made it public knowledge that I wasn’t important or special enough to wear new clothes and that’s why I wore her old clothing. She liked to put me down to build herself up and unfortunately, I wasn’t strong enough to resist her constant beat downs. After a while, I started to believe everything she said about me.

  I was ugly.

  I would never be as well-proportioned as her.

  I was too chunky.

  I was not as smart as her.

  I would never be classically beautiful like she was.

  No man would ever love me, especially when they could love her.

  Her attacks were relentless for years. I couldn’t escape them. I saw her at school and I lived with her at home. It was constant.

  Throughout our teenage years she garnered a lot of notice from the boys. She loved the attention but she loved to rub my nose it even more.

  There’s no boy in this town that will want you, Ava. And if by the grace of God they do, they’ll be my sloppy seconds and you’ll have to live your life knowing they settled for second best with you because they couldn’t have me forever.

  It was probably the only thing she said to me that I didn’t believe. Surely she couldn’t be that much of a slut. Our town was small, sure, but I didn’t think she would have been with every guy in our age range. In all honesty, it should have been the only thing she ever said to me that I did believe. But, alas, I would find out the hard way that when my sister said she’d make sure I got her sloppy seconds, she meant it.

  I grew up on a cattle station in Pine Creek, Northern Territory, Australia. Ours wasn’t the smallest in the area, but it also wasn’t the biggest. We only ran cattle unlike some of the other stations in the area which had crops and sheep, along with cattle. My father employed five workers to help him out and because he didn’t have any sons to leave the property to when he retired, he made no secret of the fact he’d like Kennedy or me to marry one of the local boys so he could pass the farm down. His
prime preference was one of the Henley brothers. My father thought it was an omen that he had two daughters and Maggie and Scott Henley had been blessed with two sons and our properties were joined by a boundary fence. So, this would mean should my father’s wishes come true and one of his girls married a Henley, we could tear down the fence and have one massive station. My father thought it was a perfect solution and my mother couldn’t agree more. They would never miss an opportunity to voice their wishes throughout my childhood. Jackson and Jeremy Henley are identical twins and they’re the same age as Kennedy so naturally my parents romanticized about marrying Kennedy off to one of them. I don’t really think they ever once factored me into it. My parents were unashamed in their pursuit and encouraged my sister to date each of the boys. She was allowed extended curfews, increased pocket money – anything she wanted as long as she fed their whims.

  I had always had a secret crush on Jeremy. I’m not sure why I liked him more than Jackson but I did. It was always like that. I never felt anything for Jackson that wasn’t friendship. Jeremy was a whole other story. Every time I saw him, I’d get butterflies in my stomach and my palms would sweat. And every time he called me mate, it felt like those butterflies had turned into knives and were twisting in my gut. He was tall, tanned, gorgeous and funny with dark hair and crystal clear blue eyes which had the ability to hypnotize. When he wasn’t at school, he was working on his farm and all that activity had ensured his body was toned and defined. I remember feeling green with envy any time one of the girls at school would fawn over him; asking him if they could touch his six pack and then gushing as they ran their hands over his muscled abdomen. I never asked him, but that didn’t mean I didn’t look when he lifted his shirt.

  Many times during my teenage years, my parents invited Jeremy and Jackson over for dinner. They we so blatant with their intentions – they would insist that Kennedy sit in between Jeremy and Jackson and they would spend the entire night raving about how wonderful and talented and funny their first born was. I would sit off to the side mentally rolling my eyes at their melodramatics.

  But it didn’t matter whether we had dinner guests or not; I was never really acknowledged, noticed or included.

  Always a wall flower.

  At least that’s how I felt when I was growing up. I don’t think it was intentional on my parent’s behalf. I think they just spent so much time fussing over my sister and trying to please her that I got pushed into the background and that’s where I stayed. It suited me fine though; I was never a child who wanted to be the center of attention. Where my sister was a show pony and an attention seeker, I was a quiet achiever who liked to escape on the back of my horse.

  Now that I’m an adult, I’m embarrassed to admit the number of times I would ride my horse along the boundary fence hoping to catch sight of Jackson. A time or two he would be there, fixing a fence or driving past checking cattle, but the other thousand odd times I rode there proved to be fruitless.

  When Kennedy would boast about having a date with Jeremy, I would simply shrink away, saddle up my horse and ride for hours. There’s nothing more amazing in the world than cantering across a paddock on the back of a mountainous beast with the wind rushing through your hair and the only sound you hear is the thud of the horse’s hooves pounding on the ground. I spent a lot of time with my horse, Jarrah, throughout my teenage years. She was my best friend. My only real friend.

  Most of the kids in our town were sent off to boarding school once they reached high school. My parents chose not to send us away so the few friends I made in school soon forgot about me once they left for the city. Sure, we’d catch up when they came home for term break but it was never the same. I was friendly with Jackson and Jeremy, but Kennedy was always more their style. The boys always considered me to be a mate. This was probably because I was a tomboy and average looking, whereas Kennedy was girly and very pretty. A teenage boys’ wet dream.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Over the years, I had two significant moments with Jeremy.

  I’d just gotten my license. I was seventeen. I’d spent the day in town at a festival that Pine Creek had put on – it was basically market stalls mixed with a few merry-go-rounds and pony rides. That night a local company had sponsored a massive fireworks display which I had stayed to watch. I was driving home afterwards and swerved in a panic to miss a mob of kangaroos that hopped in front of me. My car fishtailed and then went careening off the road and into a ditch. My head hit the steering wheel with a loud thud as the car came to a sudden halt. Somehow, the front windscreen had shattered and glass had flown in, cutting my hands, chest and face. It wasn’t bad, but head wounds always bleed a lot, so there was plenty of blood pouring from me. My door was jammed shut so I climbed over the passenger seat and got out that way. I sat down on the grass in shock and looked unseeingly at my car. I’m not sure how long I had been sitting there, maybe half an hour or so, when Jeremy arrived.

  “Ava, what the fuck happened? Are you alright? Fuckin’ shit your face is pissing out blood. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  “I’m okay, really. Head wounds always bleed a lot. My car’s a wreck.” My words come out sounding emotionless. Perhaps that’s because I feel numb.

  Jackson slides his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, kissing my hair in between whispered words of comfort.

  Okay, so it wasn’t really a moment but it was something. Something sweet, tender, beautiful. And all ours. Something my sister couldn’t take away from me.

  The next moment, really was a moment. A big one. A moment that led to a catastrophic series of events that would change my life and break my heart.

  Eight years earlier

  I was twenty and devastated; looking to drown my sorrows. My horse, Jarrah, had passed away during the night. I’d had her since I was five and she ten when my dad brought her. It was old age and for the best; she’d been riddled with arthritis. Even though I knew it was coming, it still hurt like a mother bitch. Midafternoon, I took myself off to the local pub, The Cow and Calf, to wipe myself out. I walked in and sat myself up on a wooden bar stool next to Skip. Skip is an older man who’s lived in Pine Creek his entire life. He got his nickname because he’s fondly renowned for skipping in and out of the bar many times during the day to grab a beer or two.

  “G’day Ava, how’ve you been?”

  “Been better, Skip. What about yourself?”

  “Same old, same old,” he mutters in reply.

  “What can I getcha, Ava love?” Doreen asks. Doreen is the owner of The Cow and Calf. She’s also a born and bred local and has the huskiest voice on a woman I’ve ever heard. She’s one of the nicest and most sincere woman I know.

  “Hey Dory, I’ll have a shot of tequila and keep ‘em comin’,” I demand.

  “Bad day?” She replies, cocking an eyebrow.

  I nod my response.

  “You got it.” She hurries off to get the alcohol and then places the bottle and a shot glass on the bar in front of me. I set a fifty dollar note on the bar and begin to alienate myself with good old Patron.

  I’d managed to down about half the bottle by the time Jeremy strolled in looking as edible as always. Dark wash Wrangler jeans covering his bottom half, Black collared shirt with Wrangler written down his left side. Scuffed high top boots on his feet – his jeans not tucked in. Usually a man wearing his boots un-tucked annoyed me. I thought it looked ridiculous. But on Jeremy Henley it looked fucking delicious.

  “Hey, Jeremy,” I slur. The alcohol is definitely bringing out my inner bravado.

  “Hey Ava.” He smiles at me and I melt. I feel like I could slide right off the stool and pool on the floor in a big alcoholic puddle. “What’s going on?” He says nodding towards the Patron.

  “Nothing much.” I slur again and then use my fingers to shove my tongue back in my mouth and wipe away any escaping drool at the same time.

  “Want some company?” He grins cheekily and all I can do is stare at his mouth; hypnotized. I’
m pretty sure my tongue is hanging out but I can’t do anything about it. My reflexes are too slow and besides, Jeremy is just too delicious.

  He chuckles, snapping me out of my reverie, and slides onto the stool beside me.

  As we finish off the bottle of tequila together, we start to flirt. Harmlessly at first but then things start getting heated. I shift in my seat as he blows in my ear and whispers something that I can’t make out. It doesn’t matter though, it’s still hot as hell.

  “I need to pee,” I slur. Wobbling as I stand, I make my way slowly outside, towards the ladies room. Once there, I use the facilities and try to give myself a pep talk. I need to calm down. Focus. Sober up a bit so I can enjoy Jeremy and actually remember having this time with him in the morning. I wash my hands and walk out, running smack bang into a hard wall of warm solidness.

  “Sorry,” I giggle before looking up into the hypnotizing clear blue eyes of Jeremy. He grips me around the waist and pushes me back into the wall. His hand travels down my leg, pausing at my knee to lift up. Automatically, I curl my limb around his waist. He leans in and I smell his sweet, warm, alcohol induced breath as it mingles with mine for a split second before he touches his lips to mine. I moan involuntarily and then gasp as he grinds his hardness against my softness. His tongue sweeps in and teases mine in an erotic dance. My hands dive into his soft chocolate brown and I grip and tug causing a deep groan to rise from his throat.

  “Get a room, Henley,” a voice calls as they walk by. I immediately drop my leg and push him back slightly. We’re both panting heavily. I try my hardest to focus. I’m so turned on its unbelievable. I would have let him take my virginity right then and there if we hadn’t been interrupted. But we were. I take a deep breath and stumble back inside ignoring him calling my name.