Saving Ella (Mercy's Angels)

by Kirsty Dallas

  “We went to school together,” the nurse said in a low and sympathetic voice. I finally dragged my eyes from Ella’s fragile beaten face to take in the woman standing before me.

  “Dee Witherborn,” I whispered, finally noticing her. She smiled and nodded.

  “Your friend will be fine, she just needs some rest. The loss of blood will make her weak.” I nodded woodenly.

  “She’s my angel. She needs her strength to kick my ass for not keeping her safe.” Dee smiled.

  “Seems to me if you shot the man who did this to her you did your job. She’s here, she’s alive.” I ran a finger carefully down the side of Ella’s face that wasn’t bruised and Dee slipped out of the room. I laid my head down on the bed beside Ella, holding her hand I closed my eyes, trying not to see her pinned under Marcus’s body as he cut her wrist again. I shuddered and lifted my hand, placing it over her heart. Feeling the strong steady beat there helped me to relax. A small weak hand covered mine and I glanced up to see Ella staring at me. She looked so tired.

  “Get some rest angel, I’m not going anywhere. Everything’s okay now.” She watched me carefully for a moment and moved her hand to my bandaged shoulder, the blood on my shirt revealing the evidence of my injury. I captured her hand and kissed it. “Another scar, nothing serious.” At that her eyes flickered to her heavily bandaged wrist.

  “Me too,” she said as her eyes rested sadly on the latest addition to her scars. “Dillon?”

  “He’s in surgery but he’ll be fine.” She nodded, her eyes closing.

  “Thank you.” She had been quiet and still for so long I thought she was asleep.

  “For what angel?”

  “For saving me again.” I shook my head.

  “I told you I would protect you, I promised you wouldn’t be hurt again.” My fingers brushed the bruises on her face.

  “What happened to him?” She shivered and I somehow managed to fold my large body into the bed beside her, taking care not to jostle her about too much. I pulled her close and she rested her head into the crook of my arm.

  “He’s dead. He’s gone from your life Ella, your free now baby.” Her hand settled over my heart and she seemed to gain just as much comfort from the steady beat as I did from hers. She took a long deep breath, and slipped back into sleep.

  Epilogue

  Ella – 12 Months later

  My feet were buried under warm soft sand as I sat with my sketch pad in my lap. The sun was like a blanket, wrapping itself around my body, warming me from the skin right down deep into my soul. My hand feathered the charcoal into soft shading around the hair line and neck of the face before me. The crashing ocean to my right caught my attention again. I found it hard to concentrate out here my eyes constantly drawn to the endless blue water.

  “Finished yet?” Jax lazily yawned before me, stretched like a big lazy and very sexy god on his beach towel. He wore board shorts sitting low on his hips, his skin kissed with a warm bronze tan, his hair as usual too long and messy, but I loved it. His eyes were closed but his arm stretched out and easily found my leg, his large hand wrapping around my calf. I smiled at his touch.

  “No, so stay still.” I demanded and he grinned that lazy chestire cat grin that turned my knees to jelly. I kept drawing, finding both security and reassurance in Jax’s innocent touch. I tried to be brave. I talked the talk, but didn’t really walk the walk, not yet. It still took Jax’s presence to make me feel completely safe, but it had only been twelve months. As Dave always reminded me time is the best healer, and you can’t rush it. Jax’s physical injuries had healed within a couple of weeks, a small scar his only reminder. Dillon took longer. He needed surgery which kept him in the hospital for two weeks, followed by a few months of physiotherapy, but he was doing well now. Neither of the men seemed to show the mental scars that I struggled with. Jax didn’t like being away from me for too long though and rarely allowed me out of his sight when we were together, but otherwise he was the same ol’ cheeky, arrogant Jax Carter. Police investigations were carried out, the evidence that Dillon had accumulated was checked out and Marcus Fairmont was proved to be in fact guilty of the crimes he was accused of. Not that it mattered, he was dead and I was finally safe. Tom Brennan was confirmed to be one very corrupt cop, and again, it didn’t really matter because he was dead too. Dr. Theo was currently facing charges, too many to recall. He would do time in jail and never practice again. I faced my demons and went back to Duntson, visiting both my fathers and mothers graves. I sat at my father’s grave for a long time, talking to him, explaining that I was safe now, that I had found my guardian angel that he was in fact a warrior and he would forever protect me. I sat at my mother’s grave for a long time too, but didn’t really know what to say. Finally I told her that I forgave her and I was sorry for what happened to her. I could spend the rest of my life trying to hate her, filled with anger and unresolved disappointment, or I could let it go. Letting go was by far the easier option. Before heading back to Claymont I took Jax to meet Rita, BJ and Larry. Seeing them this time was different, I guess because for the first time in a long time I wasn’t filled with fear, I wasn’t running, I was living and loving my life.

  My reward for being so brave, and my Christmas present from Jax was a three week trip to Hawaii to finally see the ocean. He wasn’t a fan of the heat, or the sand, but he said he would endure it for me, and apparently seeing me in a bikini wasn’t a hardship either. I thought of Mercy’s Shelter back in Claymont as I continued to work on my portrait under the Hawaiian sun. It was freezing back there and as of yesterday, Mercy’s was unfortunately a full house. Rebecca had closed Bouquets. She had grizzled and moaned the entire three days it took to move her shop into the larger premises that would be big enough for my gallery, her flowers and a small café that Annie now managed. We called it Mercy’s Angels, and it was doing well. I glanced at the silver cuff style bracelet around one of my wrists, a thick leather strap watch around my other. I wasn’t comfortable with the curious glances these scars drew so Jax had bought me the jewelry to cover them. As for the other scars on my arms, they didn’t bother me like they used to. They were really quite faint and difficult to distinguish. I think I was more scared of how I felt when I saw those scars then what other people thought of them.

  “Taking too long angel,” growled Jax as he suddenly sat up. I smiled and put the sketch book down, crawling into his lap. His arms immediately encircled me and I melted into his embrace, enjoying the strength and warmth only his body could give me. “What were you drawing?” He wondered out loud, grabbing the sketch book. It wasn’t what he thought I was drawing. I had asked him to lie before me perfectly still while I did this portrait and it wasn’t because I was sketching him. I didn’t want him watching over my shoulder like he usually did when I sketched. While he had been quietly napping before me, I sketched the face of a girl. Long dark hair, parted down the middle and hanging like a fall of water over her shoulders, dark eyes, slightly slanted, full heart shaped lips, high cheek bones and a small scar by her right eye. She was pretty, no she was beautiful.

  “Looks like you finally got it right,” Jax murmured. As part of my ‘healing’, David had commissioned me to sketch a picture, a portrait, of myself. I had been attempting to do it for months without success. It was up to Jax to tell me if I had it right and so far I hadn’t even been close. The fear, darkness and sadness in all the previous drawings meant I had to keep on trying until Jax finally gave my sketch his approval. The admiring gaze in his eyes told me I had finally gotten it right. For some reason, I finally saw myself this way, happy, peaceful, beautiful. He threw the book aside and pulled me down positioning me right on top of him. On the beach, under the sun, in this man’s arms I finally felt reborn. I finally felt like the woman I was meant to be. Marcus Fairmont may have stolen a portion of my life, he may have marked my skin, but he didn’t defeat me, he hadn’t taken my heart and soul.

  “Such a beautiful angel,” Jax whispered. I kissed
his lips gently and gazed down into those steel gray eyes and for the first time I didn’t marvel about how this man could possibly love me. I simply accepted that he did. As my forehead rested against his, our lips only but a breath apart, I whispered the words that would forever rest in my heart.

  “I love you Jaxon James Carter, thank you for saving me.”

  The end

  “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life.”

  Stay tuned for the next installment in the Mercy’s Angel’s Series, ‘Fighting Back’, featuring our favorite sassy pin up girl/florist Rebecca Donovan and Jax’s best friend, the far too cocky and arrogant Charlie Parsons.

  Acknowledgements

  I have to thank all my family and friends who put up with a few months of the mindless, monotone life I existed in while my head drifted in a constant daze of Jax and Ella. Being a writer can send you into a catatonic state for long periods of time and no-one but a writer can comprehend the feeling. Thank you to my awesome sister-in-law/friend/manager/partner-in-crime and everything in between, Kylie who kept me focused, motivated and moving through the entire Saving Ella journey. She didn’t have to pick up a whip once! Her enthusiasm and love for the story was motivation enough for me. Jax and Ella were her babies. I hope the story is everything you dreamed it would be Kylie; it’s yours my friend……

  My life and love of writing was cultivated by so many people, but began with my mother who read to me endlessly as a baby. Thanks mummy for starting my dream. I especially have to thank David Russell for encouraging me to pursue my ambition of writing. I never imagined I could actually be a published author. It was merely a hope that seemed too hard or distant to grasp. David made me realize writing was within my reach! Thank you….. Also a big hug for my Aunty Robyn on the Sunny Coast, thank you for providing me one of the most valuable tools a writer could ever possess, Stylewriter editing software.. A-mazing!

  Thank you to the awesome bloggers and reviewers out there who really are the backbone to a writer’s existence. The likes of Angie’s Dreamy Reads, The Reading Vixens, The Book Hookers, A love Affair with books, Reading fiction for Life, Can’t Read Just One, Totally Booked, you guys literally keep us ‘indie’ author’s afloat and inspire us to create these awesome characters and as always, the all-important book boyfriend!! I hope you all drool and swoon over Jax and he ruins you for all other mere mortal men!!

  Thanks to my team of Beta readers, ‘TEAM W.P’, (and only the privileged members of that team will understand what that means), Sandy, Kylie, Trish, Kim, and Nadine. All your advice and notes helped mold Saving Ella into the perfect tale.

  A big shout out to my models, Kyle Low and Danielle Suffredini, my Jax and Ella who were used for the book cover and or book trailer and teasers. You guys were utterly amazing!!! I have so much love and appreciation for my father who is the most beautiful, gentle soul in existence and the best photographer in the world. It was his eye behind the camera lens that gave me my cover photo and my mum’s expertise with photoshop who put on the finishing touches!

  To my fellow writers who fill my Facebook newsfeed and keep me dreaming the dream; Amy Bartol, Shelly Crane, Paullina Simons, Kresely Cole, Jessica Sorenson, Abbi Glines, thank you!! Your books and words fill me with inspiration. You all rock and man I hope to meet some, if not all of you one day.

  And lastly, thank you to the readers, the fans of romance that live for that moment where they slip into an alternate universe and become immersed in a life outside of their own. A world where anything is possible, where love is never perfect but so all-consuming and passionate that it is worth every hiccup and shit fight that it endures. Thank you fellow book geeks, you are all so awesome!

  About the Author

  I'm just a little Aussie girl with a big imagination, so much to write and so little time to do it. When I'm not writing (or reading) I am kept smiling and sane (for the most part) by my 5 year old daughter. She is the light in my world. I have a wonderfully supportive family who keep me completely grounded. Trust me, they will never let any success go to my head!! And I love them for it. I enjoy ice cold ciders, barbeques, music and art. My feet rarely grace anything other than flip-flops and even in the middle of a hot Aussie summer, I love my jeans!!! To sum me up in a few words, easy going, laid back, dreamy and passionate.

  I hope you all love reading my novels as much as I love writing them.

  Follow me at www.facebook.com/KirstyDallasAuthor

  And please read on for a snippet out of my next novel, Breeze of Life……

  Breeze of Life

  For Andy

  (who I wouldn’t kiss because that would just be weird)

  “Friends will be at your side until you die;

  But a best friend knows where to find you after that.”

  Chapter 1

  Harper

  When I woke I knew immediately that the oppressive ball of fire in the sky was glaring down on me in all its blasphemous glory. I peeled my eyes apart slowly, squinting against the fierce glare and somehow found the energy to move my heavy limbs. My head disagreed with every attempt to drag myself from sleep, my stomachs disagreement was even more vehement. Somehow I forced my body into an upright position and I took in my surroundings. I knew this place though I had no recollection of how I came to be here today. This was Peniche Beach, Portugal, the very beach I had won the last round of the ASP World Tour a distant month ago. I was covered in sand. It was in my hair, on my skin, in my clothes, even my mouth. How in the fuck had it got in my mouth? In a very undignified and manly way I scratched my groin, shit, it was there too. A bottle of Portugal’s finest beer, Super Bock sat on a precarious angle, shoved carelessly into the sand beside me. I picked it up and squinted down the long dark neck and grinned with lazy satisfaction when I realized the bottle wasn’t empty. I took a mouthful of the warm nectar and swilled it around my mouth, spitting it into the beach at my side trying desperately to rid my mouth of sand. Then I took a second mouthful and drank it down with a grimace. I was alone on the beach but that wasn’t unusual. Most of my fellow competitors had either gone home for a short break before Pipeline or had followed the waves to some unknown destination elsewhere on this massive globe we call Earth. I however was still here, stuck in Portugal, unable, or perhaps unwilling to go home, drowning my sorrows in a bottle, actually many many bottles. My folks were in Greece, yippee for them. I rarely saw them and that was fine with me. My real family though was back in Australia, on the Gold Coast, at home. My Breeze. My best damn friend in the entire world and I hadn’t spoken to her in eight months. God I missed her. The few brief emails we had exchanged remained in a special folder in my inbox and I read them over every day. Her words had been far too civil and bland for what our relationship was. Bree and I usually teased each other mercilessly. That was gone now. It was my fault; I was the one who fucked everything up by letting my tongue loose, literally. Finally, after so many years of hedging around it I had told Bree how much I loved her and then I had kissed her. The first problem in the long list of fucking problems with this confession was I was drunk, like completely ripped and legless drunk when I declared my slurred avowal and then shoved my tongue down Bree’s throat. Second problem was she had kissed me back and damn had she kissed me and damn it had felt right. Some might not see this as a problem, but it became one when Bree withdrew from my horny embrace and told me it couldn’t happen, that our friendship meant too much for her to screw it up. Then came problem number three, Noah McDick, or McNeil as his friends called him, Bree’s boyfriend for the last year. He was a complete douche and I was certain that the only thing that was standing between Noah cheating on Bree was time. Forth a final problem was how easily I walked out of Bree’s room and proceeded to fuck my always reliable fuck buddy Nadia, on the couch in mine and Bree’s apartment. Really, if I honestly loved Bree how on earth could I do that? Obviously the high percentage of alcohol in my blood had something
to do with it, but it still sickened me before, during and after the actual event. I left for Bells Beach the next day, to get away from the awkwardness that was now mine and Bree’s relationship, and to get away from the mistake that was Nadia. Somehow I had driven my life into a hard regime of surfing and drinking, sometimes drinking and surfing, and somehow I still managed to rank in third position on the tour. Obviously that was proof that I didn’t need brain cells to paddle and rip. The one thing I had avoided this tour so far was women. I had sworn off them, indefinitely. I couldn’t even bring myself to want another woman following my lapse in judgment with Nadia. Nobody compared to my Breeze, and she didn’t want me. Fuck the pity party Harper Somerville, you’ve got it made my man! The internal berating was one I gave myself often, unfortunately it didn’t seem to help. I still knew I had fucked up, I hated that I had pushed Bree from my life and I had no idea how to fix it.

  From my back pocket my phone vibrated, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit hummed low and proud, it was my favorite song, period! I reached back and smiled at the familiar name on the screen, this was another good friend I hadn’t heard from in eight long months.

  “George man, how you doing?” I exclaimed through a husky sleep stoned voice.

  “Did I wake you Harp? I thought it was like the middle of the day over there?”

  I chuckled and tried to comb my fingers through my knotty hair, like George might see me through the phone or something. “Yeah, the suns definitely up. What’s been happening, did Breeze burn the fucking condo down yet?” George owned the condo next door to me. Bree and I had lived together since we escaped our craphole homes right out of high school. I would never let anyone else live with me. I trusted Bree with my stuff and she was quite literally the best flatmate ever. She was obsessively clean and quiet as a mouse, except for her music. She loved her music and played it loud and proud, which was fine with me and the neighbors never seemed to mind. George and Bree had quickly developed a close relationship when we moved in. That friendship had once been the cause of great jealousy on my part, but over the years I came to understand that George and Bree gave each other something both of them needed. Bree got the daddy she never had and George got someone to fuss over. When George hesitated to answer my burning down the condo joke I immediately began to panic.