***
“That’s it”
“What are you doing? Get out of my room!”
“You are going out with me, now,” Paul said as he forcibly removed me from my bed and out of my room. As we were standing in the driveway he said, “Do you know it’s 5 o’clock?”
“Don’t care.”
“You should do, your still in your nightie, woman.”
“Not like I’m going anywhere,” I shrugged.
“What you’re doing isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“Don’t be so bloody dramatic.”
So says the man who just came in to my room, drew the curtains and practically carried me down the stairs into his truck.
“What you’re doing isn’t fair to the baby.”
Oh, for flip sake. Is there a secret camera? Is this one of those stupid programs? How to be happy and a parent or something? If so, then they need to get better people to participate.
I watched him prepare to make a speech with only one thing on my mind: I needed to get back to bed. That was exactly what I did while he was outside pacing up and down, giving me a lecture about the role of parenthood and how selfish I was being.
Sure, make me feel bad. Make me out to be a horrible person. That’ll make me get out of bed and start being a ray of sunshine. Sure, I’m so bad, let me start changing my ways. I don’t feel like it and I don’t want to.
I handed in my notice at work, using some bullshit excuse that they bought. Then I found out that if I had left it a couple of weeks, they would have made me redundant anyway. That was what annoyed me the most. Sod’s bloody law. I decided to give up after that. I wasn’t going to make an effort anymore, what was the bloody point?
***
Every day for nearly two weeks, Paul did exactly the same thing. At five o’clock sharp, after he finished at the farm, he would come to my room, get me out of bed and take me outside. He never attempted to take me anywhere, he just gave me the same speech over and over again, after which I would sneak into my room and go back to bed.
It started to become a game. I would set my alarm for four thirty and wait for him to come, making sure I had some perfume and was wearing a better nightie. The final time he came, I had clothes on and this time we went on a date. We had dinner at a steak house and then went for a drive to the top of the hill. We ate and talked all night long.
We began to do that on a regular basis. It was nice, really nice. Now, I don’t wait for him in bed anymore, but simply at the front door.
Mummy
Mum was so excited when I was in my third trimester. She made me move up to Yorkshire after the sale of my house. After the last time I went to London, I never went back. I had them send my stuff to my new home and didn’t even clear out my desk.
Everyone wanted me to move to Yorkshire. It didn’t take much convincing because I had already decided that was what I wanted to do. I was having a great time with Paul. I finally told him about the baby and he didn’t care if it was his baby or not. He just said he wouldn’t let me go ever again.
I felt the same way about him as he did about me and I fell in love with him, and with the life I left behind, all over again. Also, Mum said there was no way she’d let her grandchild be brought up in London.
Steve moved out. He said he was going to go find himself. The last I heard he was in India, chanting with the wind. He sends postcards once in a while, I’m not sure why as we have no reason to talk to each other anymore. The strange thing is that he’s making more of an effort now than he did when we were together. I’m not sure what happened to Poppy, nor do I care.
Mrs. Meldrew said she thought he was going to find himself another dick after Mrs. Meldrew posted it on Facebook with the title How Small Is This? By SDS. It was taken down a few days later as it was against the site’s policy, but it was funny. I watched it a couple of times and Sophie managed to get a copy of it. She watches it when she needs a good laugh.
The video begins with me coming home to discover him in that position. It’s five minutes long and in the two weeks it managed to stay online it had over 500k hits. I don’t even think Miley Cyrus’s song when she was rocking on a ball had that many hits in such a short space of time.
After returning home I recognized it was the place I wanted to be. London was great when I was young and single, but as I got older I started to understand that what happened with my dad had more of an effect on me then I first understood.
We had our house in London Bridge for five years and it quadrupled in price so we had over 150k each after the mortgage was paid. Even though we weren’t together we made a good sum of profit from the house. Mum said it was a good thing that something came out of living with him for so long and she was right.
It wasn’t just the money either. If not for him, I would have ended up spending my life living in misery and not waking up to the reality that I needed to change my life and face my demons.
Throughout my pregnancy I had counselling and I got a new lease of life. The plan was to adopt Paul’s son James as soon as we got married, which would be sooner rather than later. Mum told Paul about my pregnancy dates and he decided that he wasn’t letting me go; he is a sharp man for a farmer and thought there was a possibility that the baby was his, we did the paternity test and he was right.
Living on a farm isn´t bad. Apart from the fact that you smell shit all day long every single day when you´re pregnant. I was so happy when the little one finally came, so eager to get my life back on track. They say that can take another nine months, but I knew it would take a lot longer than that because there’s another one on the way already, and this time it’s definitely his, no paternity test needed.
About P. K. Darling
Penny loves to write about romance, but when she´s not writing about it she´s either running around her three kids dreaming about it or in Starbucks plotting her next book. If you would like future releases by Penny, then sign-up to her newsletter: - http://eepurl.com/JQOiz
Other Books by P. K. Darling:
Virtually Me: Virtually Me is a light-hearted, romantic comedy about a single mom searching for true love.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IIETJDO
Love In Different Doses: Love in Different Doses is a collection of four short romantic comedies.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOKTSCY
Waking Caroline
by Darby Briar
Waking Caroline is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locations, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Darby Briar.
All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
* This book contains swearing and sexual content and is best suited for mature readers. *
About Waking Caroline
Caroline wakes up eerily disturbed by her surroundings. Injured and alone, she finds herself in a world she doesn’t recognize, hunted by a bizarre and yet familiar animal, and carrying a baby she doesn’t remember conceiving. While struggling to unlock her memories, she must get to safety and protect the life inside her.
Chapter 1
Wake up, Caroline.
Awareness came to her. The man’s voice had come from somewhere near her ear, a soothing deep tenure that her body eagerly responded to. When she tried to turn to see who spoke, her body didn’t answer her call. It stayed stiff, unresponsive as if encased in plaster. There was feeling in her limps though, plenty of feeling coming through her nerves. In fact if anything there was too much feeling. Her muscles ached and pai
n flared each time she tried to call her body into movement. Her head near her right temple stung most of all, but coming in a close second, third and fourth was her left arm from shoulder to elbow, her back, and her right knee.
Caroline struggled to move her extremities through the pain. This paralysis feeling had her panicking. As her eye lids slowly fluttered open they felt heavy. A blanket of gray greeted her eyes. Before she could view her surroundings further, something small slapped against her cheek. Her breath caught, and moisture rolled down her cheek to her ear. Another drop fell, this time on her nose. Rain, she surmised.
The rain wasn’t soaking her, but it fell steady in small drops, enough to send a prickling sensation across her face, arms, and bared legs as each one touched her skin. The air smelled like a wet summer’s day. Sweet with flowers and the scent of grass.
Her breath resumed although her heart now beat a tick faster. What am I doing outside? In the rain? How did I get here?
She searched her memory—found that she couldn’t remember much of anything beyond waking up to a man’s voice.
A growl of some sort rumbled from miles away drawing her attention away. She took it the troubling clouds overhead and exhaled. Only thunder. The sound had first put her on edge, but now that she knew it was the weather and not an animal nearby, she relaxed.
Her right hand twitched, finally responding. Her now lively fingers came up to wipe at the wetness on her face clearing it away. One by one parts of her body started to move and she quickly realized that she didn’t know where she was. Her eyes searched the area around her. How did I get here?
She was lying on her back on the cold, hard ground in wide open space filled with grass surrounded her, barren spots pooling now with water. Underneath her was a rock that had been digging into her back, which explained the back pain. And the chill of the cold earth and wet grass was sinking into her bones making her shiver.
The thunder rumbled again and Caroline’s eyes snapped once again up to the sky. Through the dark clouds about three miles away, a lightning bolt crackled. The storm unnerved her. Something about it had her biting the inside of her cheek and digging her nails into her palms.
Propping herself on her elbow, she surveyed that state of herself. A loose, navy blue, cotton dress covered her torso and legs, and combat boots covered her feet, which thankfully kept her feet toasty warm. Her knee had a two-inch gash across it and dried blood crusted around it. More blood stained her dress, though it appeared to be dry. Her arm screamed with pain when moved, and now she noticed how it hung at an odd angle. Pulling it in tight to her body, she tried to minimize the pain as she got first to her a sitting position and then she tried to stand. Getting to her feet proved to be a difficult task. She gritted her teeth through it and eventually stood.
Breathing heavily and sweating she looked around for an answer of how she had come to be here.
To her right, Caroline saw where the clouds ended and the sun blazed. She could go that way and try to find help, especially since the storm looked to be headed toward her and not in that direction. On second thought, there weren’t any buildings, only more open space. Would she find any people there?
On her left were a few dark buildings, though she’d have to walk quite a ways to get there. It dark city looked desolate, and there were no sounds of any kind coming from it. The windows were all dark with broken glass, and the storm seemed to be headed toward it.
Turning in a circle Caroline found something she didn’t expect. A river. But it wasn’t like any river she’d ever seen before. This one bubbled and flowed, though not with water by the look of the substance filling its depths. It was thick and dark red. The color like the stains on her dress. Her stomached twisted and she placed her hand there out of instinct to still its revolt against what she was witnessing. A river of blood.
Something that shouldn’t have been there touched her hand. A bump. Not the flatness of her belly. A semi-large one by the feel of the rounded skin just under her dress.
“What the …”
Her hand moved frantically over her stomach. Yes it was what she’d thought it was. Looking around panicked, she made sure she was the only person around, Caroline lifted her dress. Light blue panties met her eyes and above those, she saw her pale light skin stretching over a pregnant belly. Her thoughts raced and again when she came up with nothing. “No. No.”
Her hand inspected the skin roaming over it trying to understand how in the world she could be pregnant. “This can’t be.” She moved her other hand by accident and whimpered when it flared with pain. “How?” She shook her head. “Stupid question how. Come on Caroline. Obviously you had sex. With—with someone.” A handsome male face, the side of his face quickly flashed in her mind, but it had come and gone too rapidly for her to really see.
The bump under her hands moved, a jittery feeling fluttered inside her tummy. Her eyes widened and she stared in shock at her belly.
Dropping her dress, she stood there stunned. Not able to remember anything before waking up. That was going to be a problem.
First she needed to get out of this field before the rain turned into a downpour. Being pregnant and injured she couldn’t afford to get pneumonia on top of everything else. After she reached somewhere dry, she’d deal with her memory loss and the fact that a baby was growing inside of her.
A baby she had no clue how to handle.
Though she limped, Caroline started walking away from the sun and toward the buildings. A large stone wall closed her off from the city, but there in the middle stood a tunnel, big enough to fit four lanes of traffic. The sight caused her heartbeat to pick up. The dark shadows inside it maybe. Caroline’s nails dug into her right hand. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d have to walk through that tunnel to get to the city. To get to a hospital.
Her hand went again to her stomach. “It’s okay. We’re going to be fine. I promise. I don’t know if I can take care of you, but I can at least walk through there.” The blackness in the tunnel had her scared to death, but she had to do this. Not for herself, but because she had someone else to worry about now. “I think I can, anyway.”
Through the stinging pain she walked toward the tunnel. With each movement her arm gave off a sharp sting and it traveled the length of her arm from her finger tips to her shoulder blade. Caroline tried not to look at the river that stood thirty feet or so to her left. She could hear the bubbling blood pop every now and again. She also tried to ignore the dead-looking trees all around her. Trees she hadn’t noticed before.
She limped through the field, and the thunder got worse. The thunder roared louder than before as the storm drew closer. The clouds turned a deeper grey, in parts almost charcoal.
As she moved on she started to pay more attention to the trees. Their branches scurvy, eerie branches were wicked-looking. And the farther she walked the denser the trees became. Chills spread over her arms. Her long, dark hair was wet and collecting more moisture by the minute, which didn’t help her keep the cold from soaking into her bones. Her tank top dress was too loose and damp to give her any warmth, if anything it stuck to her skin and felt like ice over her skin.
But that wasn’t the only reason shivers raced over her skin and the icy feeling skated over her spine. She felt like she was being watched. She slyly peaked over her shoulder, but didn’t see anything or anyone to confirm her feeling.
Soon the grass gave way to mud, and her feet began to stick in it, making it harder and more painful to move toward the tunnel. After ten steps she glanced up again. Caroline had started to pay more attention to pulling her feet out of the mucky ground, than the forest building around her. When she looked up, she knew something was amiss. The trees had become thicker. It didn’t seem possible, but she would swear more trees had appeared out of nowhere.
She’d tried to ignore the sore gut feeling she’d been having. She’d tried to tell herself that the only thing that mattered was getting to the tunnel. She’d even tried to tell
herself that the growl of the storm was just that, a storm, though as it closed in it sounded less and less like thunder.
A whoosh past inches from her face. And a black shape suddenly filled her vision. Caroline screamed and ducked as the thing came towards her. A cry sounded and she hunkered down covering her head. After peeking up moments later, she saw another black shape, and another fly past her, so close that wisps of air hit her from their speed and proximity.
A vibrating growl sounded again, this time it had sounded more like a lion’s roar.
She looked around nervously and not seeing any animal her eyes flickered back to the birds circling and some standing on a tree branch. Thankfully, when the growl had rung out, the black crows perched in the tree above her took flight and soared up into the darkening sky.
Placing her hand to her heart, she clenched her eyes shut. Caroline tried to calm down. Her breaths were fast and generous. Her heart had become a small humming bird inside her chest. After a couple of deep breaths, Caroline opened her eyes. She didn’t remember where she’d come from or what her life had been like before waking up today, but this place seemed wrong. She didn’t belong here. She knew it like she knew her own name—Caroline Lange, and her birthday, September sixteenth. She had just turned—twenty five.
Looking down at the large scarlet stain on her dress, she realized there was more damage than she’d originally thought. The stain of blood went all the way down to below her breast. Maybe she had died. Could she be dead and not know it? Was this hell—or the in-between?
Six Shades of Romance Page 3
