Anna's Dress: a heart-wrenching second chance romance story that will make you believe in true love

by London Casey

  Anna’s Dress

  London Casey

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Foreword

  Stay social with both authors here:

  Anna’s Dress

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  From the authors:

  Breaking News!

  About the authors:

  Foreword

  From the minds of the two bestselling authors who brought you Dear Everly, 5 Years Later, and In Her Words, comes this stand alone novel about a romance that began years ago and finally gets another chance in the wake of tragedy.

  How long would you wait for true love?

  Written by London Casey (Karolyn James) and Jaxson Kidman

  Stay social with both authors here:

  Newsletter (part of the Outlaw Romance Obsession team): http://eepurl.com/b9BDKb

  Jaxson Kidman Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/jaxsonkidman

  London Casey (Karolyn James) Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/caseyandkidman

  St. Skin Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/stskinseries

  Anna’s Dress

  He stole my heart long before my sister stole his.

  She was the "bad girl" all the guys wanted and I was the "good girl" everyone overlooked.

  Now my sister is dead. I'm alone, left in the shadow she cast over me.

  He's the last person I expect to see at the funeral.

  And now I need him more than ever.

  Prologue

  (One More Knock)

  NOW

  (Adena)

  I could have been dreaming about anything - anything - but the moment my eyes opened, I lost it all. That mind tingling feeling where you knew something had been happening but you couldn’t remember a thing. Like your brain had its own secrets that it refused to share with you.

  My instinct had me grabbing for my phone to see the time.

  I squinted at the brightness of the screen as my eyes stung. I did a double take when I saw that it was just an hour after I went to bed. I pushed my normal eleven o’clock bedtime to midnight as I couldn’t fall asleep. Tossing and turning, the last thing I remembered seeing was midnight.

  Then my eyes shut.

  Now they were open.

  And for good reason.

  I heard the pounding outside my bedroom and I jumped up. Twenty years ago, I’d pull the covers to my chin and tell myself this was it. The monster was here. It was coming to get me. I was in big trouble.

  I taught myself at a young age that imaginary monsters were stupid because the real ones were scarier.

  I reached for the light and turned it on.

  The pounding continued. Then the doorbell chimed. I was on the second floor of the old house, in my bedroom, but the house wasn’t all that big. And my bedroom was right over the front of the house, looking out to the porch and the front yard.

  So I heard the pounding as though someone were just outside my room.

  You’d think that at one in the morning, someone attacking the front door would be cause for concern, but it wasn’t.

  I kicked the covers off my body and got out of bed. I reached for the navy blue robe on the back of the door. I wore nothing but panties and a white shirt, no bra, messy hair, looking like a sleepy dream. I was a freaking mess, and not just by how I looked either. And for whatever damn reason, my nipples were hard, clearly showing through the thin, white shirt.

  I pulled the robe tight and tied it. No need to give whoever was dropping Anna off a show.

  She couldn’t remember much when she got blackout drunk or crazy high. What she did remember was that her name was Anna, I was her older sister, and that she knew how to get to Aunt Beth’s house. Even though Aunt Beth was gone and the house was mine, Anna knew how to get there. The house was like a security blanket to her. As was I. She could dig herself into the deepest hole of booze, substance, self abuse, but when she reached her limit, she wanted to come to the house, have me hold her, and tell her stories of when we were kids and I’d build a fort with the dining room table chairs and blankets. We’d sneak the good crackers and nibble on them, giggling, Anna making me promise her that everything would be okay.

  “It’ll be okay,” I whispered as I walked down the stairs toward the front door.

  The wood steps went down five steps, cut to the right for another fifteen, then cut to the right again for a wide two step landing. The front door was there on the left.

  It was usually the same people dropping Anna off. Tony. Bella. One of the other losers she insisted were friends but all they did was use her for her money and her body, then dump her off on me to rebuild her.

  I ripped open the door and took a step back, gasping.

  “Tommy,” I whispered.

  Tommy gave a nod as he relaxed his hands off his waist. He stood tall, wide, much different from the dorky kid in school we used to pick on for being obsessed with cowboys and indians. In high school he learned how to lift weights, wrestle, joined the military, and now was a cop.

  If Anna wasn’t dropped off by one of her dumb ass friends, it was usually Tommy. Sometimes he’d find her sleeping on a park bench. Or walking the curb on the main street, like we used to do as kids. Except now the main street was a lot busier. And Anna had no concept of how messed up she was.

  I didn’t see Anna anywhere though.

  “Adena,” Tommy said. “Sorry to bother you this late.”

  “I’m used to it,” I said. I held the robe at the top tight with one hand. “Where is she?”

  I tried to look past him to his police cruiser.

  Tommy put a hand out. “She’s, uh, not here.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  There was always a third option with Anna. Sometimes the night would get so far away from her, she’d end up in jail. Usually for fighting or peeing herself or whatever she felt like doing.

  “Adena…”

  “Look,” I said, “spare me any kind of pep talk. I just need to know how much I need to get her out of there.”

  I started to think about how much I had in my checking account.
How much I had in my savings account - less than my checking account. I thought about the stuff in the kitchen I could sell, if need be. Or put my car up for collateral. Maybe even call the lawyer, the bank, see if the house was worth two nickels rubbed together to make a dime.

  Anna had drained me… and everyone she ever encountered in life.

  I could see it on Tommy’s face.

  I lost count of how many times he had to interact with her.

  And to think that Anna was the one who flashed Tommy at a party once because she felt bad he was a geek and hadn’t gotten laid yet. Hell, maybe she even slept with him. There was very few places in town that Anna hadn’t been.

  “It’s not that simple,” Tommy said. “Not this time, Adena.”

  “What do you mean? What did she do? Did she hurt someone for real?”

  “Adena, I need you to come for a ride with me.”

  “A ride?” I asked. “What the hell did…”

  I looked to the front of the house. Tommy’s cruiser was parked where Anna normally parked her car.

  “Tell me she didn’t drive,” I said. “Tell me she didn’t fucking drive… tell me she didn’t get another DUI.”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “She hurt someone?”

  Tommy reached for my arm. He had a firm grip. “I think you should get changed, Adena.”

  “Why? What’s going on, Tommy? Stop messing around. You know what I’m up against with her. What I’ve had to go through.”

  Tommy cleared his throat. “Okay, fine, I’ll be straight with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You need to get changed and come for a ride with me.”

  “Why, Tommy?” I asked.

  But in some way I already knew. I felt my heart pounding. My throat closing. My eyes blinking fast as I felt dizzy.

  “I’m sorry, Adena… but your sister is dead.”

  Chapter One

  (Fat but Cute)

  YEARS AGO

  (Adena)

  “You can’t be serious right now,” I said as I stood at the side of Anna’s bed.

  She had become obsessed with black and purple. And she had these weird looking tapestries on the walls that were of intricate designs. If you stared too long at them you’d think they were moving. She’d hang out of the window and smoke one of her special cigs and then crash on the bed and stare at the tapestries for hours.

  I never understood how she could live high all the time.

  Anna checked her makeup in the chipped black paint rimmed mirror that was balanced on the desk where she was supposed to do her homework. With her thumb, she swiped just under her lip. She smacked her lips together and stood up. The desk was covered in makeup. Plus a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. It seemed like Anna had found a loophole in the system of discipline that Aunt Beth tried to put in place. At first, Aunt Beth was dead against smoking. She would go after Anna and punish her. But when Anna started smoking other stuff and trying other stuff, cigarettes didn’t seem so bad. So now the rule was no smoking in the house. Which Anna still did though. She’d just sit in her room with the window open, smoking away.

  The window was also an amazing escape route that Anna had perfected.

  She opened the window and stood there. She took a deep breath.

  “How do I look?”

  “Anna, you can’t do this,” I said.

  “Watch me.”

  “Aunt Beth is right downstairs.”

  “Jake is coming around back,” she said. “He has the top down.”

  “It’s fall.”

  “Who cares? Why are you so afraid of everything in life?”

  “I’m not afraid. Plus, isn’t Jake in college?”

  “Yup.”

  “Which means he’s older than you.”

  “Yup,” Anna said with a sparkle in her eyes.

  “And he doesn’t care that you’re only-”

  “He thinks I go to college,” Anna said. “I told him I’m visiting home to see my sick and dying aunt. That I took a few weeks off.”

  “What?”

  “Plus, I have this bad boy…” Anna reached into her little purse looking thing and brought out a card. “Fake ID.”

  “You have a fake ID? How…”

  “So, according to this, I’m legally allowed to drink. So all I need is for Jake to take me across town to where nobody really knows me. And I’m good to go.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked. “At least tell me what you’re doing. So I…”

  “So you can cover for me?” Anna asked.

  She bit her lip and opened her eyes wide. When she did that, she was no longer just my little sister. She was my really little sister, five years old, looking up at me with the biggest brown eyes ever. A beacon of innocence, only caring about the part in the movie when the brave knight saves the princess. Staring up at me during the whirlwind of confusion and asking the question, “What does it mean that Mommy and Daddy are dead?” …

  I swallowed hard.

  “You have to tell me what you’re doing,” I said.

  “I’m going out with Jake. Okay? We’re going to have a few drinks. Then we’re going to park somewhere and we’re going to watch the stars. But not for long, if you know what I mean…”

  Anna wiggled her eyebrows.

  “You can’t do that stuff with every guy you meet,” I said.

  “Says the one who hasn’t even kissed a boy,” Anna jabbed at me.

  I stiffened. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I do know that if you keep eating all that yummy stuff you bake, it’s going to catch up to you worse than it is.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Please,” Anna said. “You know you’re getting a little thick, Adena. Not that it’s all that bad. My one friend, Ashleigh, she’s really thick and she gets a ton of attention. You just need to keep it in your hips and chest. Anywhere else and it’s gross.”

  I hugged myself.

  I was mad, offended, but I suddenly couldn’t stop wanting to look in a mirror and see what Anna saw.

  “I have to go,” Anna said. “Please don’t be a bitch about this. I don’t give a shit if Beth” – (she never called her Aunt Beth. Ever.) – “finds out anyway, but it would be easier if she didn’t. Her old heart can’t take the way I live.”

  Anna giggled.

  She stuck a leg out the window and pulled herself to the roof.

  I ran after her. I had to shove aside the stuff she just said to me about being fat.

  I grabbed her wrist before she was fully on the roof.

  “Anna,” I said.

  She looked back at me. She smelled like sweet pea body spray and lotion. Her hair had a can of spray to make it look wet and a little curly. Her makeup was two strokes away from being clown like. My little sister was beautiful and she didn’t need this crap to be beautiful. She wanted to hide her pain and anger but her eyes always showed the truth. And giving her body to guys wasn’t going to help. And giving her soul to cigarettes, booze, drugs, that wasn’t going to help either.

  “What?” Anna asked. “I have to go.”

  “I love you.”

  Anna half smiled. She then put her pointer finger to the tip of my nose. She wiggled her finger a few times. “Love you too, Deeenee…”

  That’s what Anna used to call me when she was too young to say my name.

  “Please be careful.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be home later.”

  I let her go, always hating myself when I did it.

  I watched Anna slither her way down the angled roof. My knees tingled and shook just watching her. She feared nothing. Ever. Me, I was afraid of my own shadow.

  Anna turned and threw her legs over and off the roof. She then hung there for a few seconds, smiling, before letting go. The drop was big but Anna knew how to land and not hurt herself.

  A few seconds later she was in the backyard, running toward the gate.

  A set
of headlights then appeared and as Anna exited the gate, a car pulled up. The top was down and some wannabe cool looking guy put his arm out and across the empty passenger seat. Anna climbed over the door without opening it. She threw her arms around the guy. He wrapped his arm around her and quickly slid his hand down to her ass and cupped it.

  I cringed, feeling a sting of jealousy.

  Sometimes I wished I could be more like Anna.

  Sometimes I wished Anna could be more like me.

  Aunt Beth opened the bathroom door and caught me looking at myself sideways in the mirror.

  I gasped and put my shirt down.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did she say to you?” Aunt Beth’s face dropped.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  “You know, anytime someone says something bad about you, they mean it about themselves.”

  “I doubt that,” I said.

  “Why? Because Anna is skinny as a rail?”

  I swallowed hard. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “When she looks in the mirror, she thinks she’s heavy,” Aunt Beth said. “So she projects that on you. She wants you to feel that horrible feeling of not loving yourself. But you do love yourself, Adena. You love the world around you. Don’t let her take that from you.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I just… I don’t know. Maybe I am eating too much unhealthy stuff.”

  Aunt Beth shook her head. “You’re damn good at what you do, Adena. You’re going to be eighteen soon. The world is yours. There’s no shame in enjoying life responsibly.”

  “You think maybe I should start running? Or working out?”

  “That’s up to you. I’d like you to do that because you believe in exercising and being healthy. Not because your sister made fun of you.”

  I looked down at my feet. Anna told me I have clubbed toes like a cavewoman. She always kept her toenails painted. I never painted my toenails ever. Not once.