I manned the fuck up and told the guy that I’d never be able to thank him enough. He set her free and kept her safe until it was time for fate to throw us together so I could take over. Ross knew when I was running out of words. Simple words were never going to be enough to portray the thanks for what I had in my life now. And it was all because he and my brother had made the decision to get her to safety all those years ago. I was thankful when Ross ended the call. I was well on my way to having my own emotional breakdown when I should have been comforting my new bride.
I pulled my shit together and got on with her surprise.
Arriving at Miss Bale’s place had Rebecca confused. I was fucking bursting to just blurt it out, but I felt she needed more than that and even though I had no idea what ‘more’ consisted of, thankfully, my sister and Lacey did.
The place was in darkness as we opened the door and all evidence of the pole dancing party had gone. On the window ledges and floors were lots of jars with lit candles inside. With the reflection on the mirrored walls, it was a sight to behold and one neither of us were expecting. I laughed, a lot, when she asked if I’d done this. She’d learn soon enough I wasn’t that thoughtful without other people dropping huge hints. On the wall in the middle of the mirror was a poster and when we both went over to look at it, it said ‘Rebecca Griggs - School of Dance’. There were some opening times, but she didn’t read that far. She collapsed in that beautiful dress and began sobbing on the floor. My protective gut instinct kicked in and I was with her immediately. After lots of snot sobbing and eye wiping, she was able to get the words out. I understood now—she was truly thankful for the second chance she’d been given.
She had something to focus on and see her through the rest of her college term, which was good, as I had to leave and report for training at the police academy a couple of days later.
I promised to be home as often as possible, but there were nights when it just wasn’t possible due to the training exercises and my sheer exhaustion. God, I can’t tell you how much I fucking missed her. I’d gone through my whole life sleeping alone and after a few short months, the thought of not being next to her to end the day and welcome in a new one was a killer. Thankfully, she was busy, too. Rebecca was busting her ass to get the dance school up and running. Her own future was giving her a much-needed distraction, that, and my mother and her Dancing With The Stars nights.
My amazing mother practically inserted herself into every corner of Rebecca’s new life in Hawkstown and I begged my wife to tell me if it was too much, but she seemed genuinely happy. Dad was beside himself. He got to make some bespoke pieces of joinery that Rebecca wanted for the studio, giving him some shed time. So, it was more than just her dream. It was something they used to get to know one another.
Lacey became a constant in Rebecca’s new world, too. I often wondered how Lacey mixed in with Tommy and his friends due to the age difference, but she did it because it was important to him. Having her best friend’s wife around helped with that. Tommy was able to get some alone time with his pals. Rebecca became a friend who Lacey bonded with and she was happy to click with someone of her own age. It made me wonder whether Tommy noticed the age difference when it was his turn to hang out with us, but he never showed it. Lacey had been a cornerstone in my life for so long that I think me disappearing to the academy for a while forced her and Rebecca to figure out their relationship and boundaries without me. By the time I returned, I slotted into place easily. I loved them both in completely different ways and was blessed to have two people who loved me in my corner. It took me a while to get my head around it, but I realized there was always room for more in your life and changes didn’t always have to mean sacrifices.
The dance school renovations were amazing.
We had an opening party, which turned out to be a small taster session for some parents who needed convincing that this place was different. They wanted reassurance that the old methods had gone out the door along with the old décor.
My nieces were always in the thick of things at the studio. They helped show people round the new two-studio dance area, with designated seating and refreshment area. I was afraid it wouldn’t go well for her but it became clear that my girl was going to be easily accepted into our community. They were going to suck her up and soak in all she had to offer, and very soon we ended up with a waiting list of people trying to get into the sessions.
The timetable of classes that Rebecca had initially created was ambitious and there was no way she was going to be able to do it all by herself. I knew she would have tried if I’d let her. It wasn’t just her physical exhaustion that worried me—after all, we were newlyweds and I was as desperate for alone time with her as she was with me. Help was required to keep the clients content and the business from drowning in its own success. Carly stepped in to help where she could, but as she wasn’t a qualified dancer, she ended up picking up lots of the administration. She was in college now, but the extra cash and the flexibility that we offered to keep her help played out well for both of us. Most of all, it gave Rebecca the opportunity to still teach a morning or afternoon of classes. That was why she had started this after all. The rest of the classes were taught by self-employed dancers who had the temperament, qualifications and above all, the right personalities to be part of Rebecca’s dream.
I was right in thinking that Rebecca would want to finance it. She’d had her eyes on the prize for some time, had been clever with money and after some negotiation with Oli, they finalized terms for her to buy the recently knocked through bit of the school.
I flew through the Police Academy. There was never going to be any doubt. A lot of the entrants around my age didn’t have my responsibilities or a fucking beautiful woman waiting for them, so I got my shit together and my head down before passing with flying colors.
Sheriff Roberts was as good as his word about the job. Although, not long later, the college jurisdictional role was created and I was asked to take it on. I agreed to split my responsibilities between the two sheriff’s departments. My only stipulation was that my primary base was Hawkstown. I took Jonas’s words seriously when we had our heart to heart and there was no way I was going to spend more time than necessary away from Rebecca.
The windows and layout of the dance studio meant that I knew where she was during her daily schedule. Driving past and catching a glimpse of her was the highlight of my day. There hadn’t been a traffic violation on Main Street for a while now since I was on it constantly, trying to sneak a peek at my beauty doing what she loved.
The dance school timetable followed the school one, meaning there were regular end of semester performances and I always made a point of attending them.
I was late for today’s and I hated that. These performances were when she was at her most emotional. It didn’t matter what age group or the dance being taught, seeing the fruition of her labor come together for others was the reason why she did what she did. It was her reward.
And because I was fucking late, I was going to miss seeing that joy on her face.
“Uncle Jake, you’re late,” B, my growing niece growled at me as I flipped the lock button on the patrol car. Her natural dance ability was unbelievable. The kid attended dance classes, rarely took part, but then managed to pull a star performance out of nowhere when it mattered. Her twin sister, A, bless her, had two left feet and put extra time and effort in, to just about scrape through a class without falling on her ass every time. I smiled inside, knowing that Jonas would have been forced to endure watching this performance but knew he’d do it with his insides melting. Those girls were his reward.
What Rebecca craved for in a normal life, Jonas did, too. His time in the Special Forces had disturbed him and even though he would rather have stuck pins in his eyes than watched his girls in tutus, he would do it with thanks, repeatedly. Thanking some God he refused to acknowledge for a long time that Dolly was finally his and he had a beautiful family.
“You
missed my parrots!” A wailed at me and I squatted down.
“I bet you looked beautiful doing your parrots. Did Aunt Rebecca have fun?” I asked.
“She was clapping and crying, so I’m not sure,” she replied, puzzled.
“Uncle Jake is going to have to make it up to Aunty Becca, isn’t he?” I heard my sister say, warning me that I was going to get my ear chewed off when I got inside.
“I got this.” I smiled, waggling my eyebrows, and Dolly just smiled back at me. She knew.
“Chip off the old block,” Jonas muttered and carried on walking past me, laughing with pride, to put his girls in the car.
The rest of the end of term performance dancers and their parents were all heading towards me in a rush. As nice as it was to see a lot of them, at the moment, they were just a tidal wave of bodies stopping me from getting to my woman. I was also in my uniform, which meant some of the little people wanted to stop and say hi. The little brothers of the dancers stopped to salute me and asked to see my handcuffs, and I could tell some of the moms were thinking other inappropriate things about the same wrist shackles. I was as polite as possible without barraging them out of the way to get to my destination.
The music had stopped and I knew what I was going to find when I got in there—my woman with the biggest smile on her face for pulling off another successful term.
This time, though, I was wrong. She was sweeping up and she looked unhappy. Beautiful, but unhappy. I saw Carly stacking chairs in the corner, and she glared at me when she noticed my arrival.
Rebecca spotted my reflection in the mirror.
“You missed it, Jake,” she sighed. “Carly, you can go, honey. I’m about to beat your Uncle Jake into a pulp and no one should witness that.”
Fuck.
I looked at the woman wielding a broom and wondered if she was really contemplating using it on me. God, even in dance clothes she was stunning. Spandex had never looked so fucking hot on anyone else.
“How are you?” I asked tentatively from the other side of the room, and nodded down at her belly. The signs of our first baby were just starting to show and we’d only told a handful of close people. But I could tell. She was thickening out in all the right motherly places, and call me a man-pig, but her tits had swelled and I loved it.
“Don’t try to get on my good side by talking about waffle.” She pointed her broom at me.
“Oh… he’s waffle today.”
Rebecca nodded at me. Ever since we’d found out, the baby had been through a range of crazy names based on her eating habits. “It was waffles for breakfast then today? Sorry I wasn’t there to make them for you.”
“I’m not bothered about that, although you should worry if I start calling her ‘Vodka’ or ‘Miller’. I wanted you to see the little people dancing.” She frowned. The sheer joy she got out of her day to day life was immense. Everyone should love what they do as much as my wife. It should be law.
“Miller… I like that name.” When she glared back at me, I knew I had addressed the wrong part of her statement first. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“I’m not sure you can do anything.” She pouted.
“Anything. Name it.” Her eyes buzzed with a mischievous edge. I knew what was coming.
“Dance for me,” she said daringly, like I was too chicken to do it. She knew I wouldn’t turn down a challenge and this was our thing. It helped remind us why we were who we were, and what was important in our lives.
“You sure?” I asked, but Rebecca was already rushing to get a chair for the middle of the floor. “Don’t pick that up!” I shouted, my blood pressure racing because she was overdoing it. Fuck knew what I’d be like in five months.
“Oh shush, Officer. I was doing the worm earlier.”
That stopped me on the way to the music control centre. “You’d better be fucking joking,” I barked.
Rebecca laughed at me. “Of course I’m joking. Your mom is like my shadow. Very soon I’ll be using a drinking straw because the effort of raising a glass to my lips will be deemed too much for me.”
“Glad to fucking hear it,” I mumbled, shuffling through Spotify for the one song I knew would undo my fuck up of missing the performance. “Are you sat down?”
“I am. Are you going to take your coat off?” She clapped her hands excitedly like a child on Christmas morning.
“Oh, I will.” I smiled. “It’s all part of the package.”
The music started and I began to mime the words as Rebecca squealed and did a little dance thing with her feet. The ridiculous thing was that I always picked the same song, Maroon 5’s ‘Sugar’, and she always acted like it was the first time I’d done this for her.
That should tell you how often I got things wrong, but I was learning and what the fuck…? This is fun. It’s our thing.
When we got to the chorus, I stopped miming and sang the words in earnest while doing a really poor job of removing my clothes.
‘Your sugar, yes please, won’t you come and put it down on me?’
I should have thought about this before I agreed. Trying to dance provocatively while removing a bulletproof vest and full on Batman belt, as she called it, was just stupid. Her squeals of joy were now pure. My stupid fumbling had her fully entertained. As I bent down to untie my work boots, I tried to twerk my ass at the same time, causing me to fall in a pile.
Her hilarity knew no bounds, and as I looked up at her, she had tears pouring down her face and she was mumbling something about laughing so hard she might pee herself.
My work here was nearly done.
My girl was fucking beautiful and breathed life into both of us every day.
I continued to sing to her as I lay on the floor, half dressed. ‘When I’m without you, I’m something weak. You got me begging, begging. I’m on my knees.’
Rebecca came to join me on the floor. Our connection was real and after being apart all day, the fact I still hadn’t had my lips on some part of her body was a miracle.
She waited patiently as I finished singing to her. I’d stopped stripping, my attention elsewhere..
As I came to the end of the words, ‘My broken pieces, you pick them up, don’t leave me hanging,’ I showered her belly with kisses and then moved up her body, pausing briefly to free her breasts from the dance spandex she needed to keep them under control.
The song was right. I was literally seconds away from pouring something inside her, something caused by the sweetness in my life—her.
As the song ended, we were already doing what came naturally to us.
We were loving each other.
The End… for now.
Get ready for the final installment of the Soul Mates Series… Forbidden.
The best way to show an author what you think of their hard work is to leave a review at the site where you purchased it.
It would mean a lot to me if you could take a few seconds to do this… pretty please!
Firstly, H.A. Robinson, you and your red pen comments slay my humour filled heart every time.
Secondly, J.C Clarke, you turn my books into something amazing. The cover and formatting are just beautiful.
All my fantastic beta readers… much love.
Mr. Johns, you know how much I adore my book world and you make it possible for me to trip in and out of it. You are my rock x
Jnr. Johns… Olly, I promised I’d write a dedication for you. When you came into our lives everything changed. We had the chance to look at the world through the eyes of a person who was learning all about life. Watching you grow shows me the real concept of time flying by and it’s taught me to take chances, live life and enjoy each and every day. One day I hope you’ll read my books, (but not for another six years please,) and appreciate that hard work and effort delivers its own rewards, especially when you take a chance on something in life. I know I’m insane and I embarrass you in front of your friends, but that’s my job and I take it seriously. Just know that I will always
love you like you love ketchup, football and Weetabix.
Victoria Johns is a writer who enjoys sharing a happily ever after and believes that it’s every good girl’s dream to experience a steamy one. Growing up in North West England in a large family surrounded by love and support she found her Prince Charming many years ago and enjoys living the life they’ve made with their son.
She’s always had a creative imagination and decided that some of the stories bubbling in her head need to be given life and shared. This pen name gives them the freedom to be loved by others. When she’s not writing, she’s sewing, cycling or chomping on crisps in front of the TV.
Facebook: @victoriajohnsauthor
Twitter: @victoriajohns75
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www.victoriajohnsbooks.com
The Soul Sisters Series
Fostering Love
Forgiving Love
Fated Love
Finding Love
Foundation Love – A novella
Alive Page 22
