If it wasn’t for Derek I probably would have gone mad. Ah ,yes-- Derek. He had been such a great friend to me through all of this and we had leaned on each other a lot over the past year. He was just about the best person that I knew.
I had actually known Derek for a while before the night of the attack. We first met when we were law students and hit it off right away. I knew that Derek had always had a crush on me, but I was happy to keep it just friendly. I did not really see Derek that way, which surprised a lot of my girlfriends.
Derek was sexy. He was about six feet one inches tall, broad shouldered, brown hair with a reddish tinge to it and a laughter that made him sound older than he was somehow.
He was so sweet, and he was as loyal a guy as you would ever find. But he was missing something that I could not put my finger on. He was missing the extra factor that drew me to someone. The factor that Frank had. You have feelings for some people and others you just don’t feel that chemistry with.
Luckily, Derek seemed to get that and he had never really pushed for anything more to happen between us, but I occasionally saw him gushing over me or checking me out a little inappropriately. It was pretty sweet and flattering, so I pretended not to notice.
I turned to my family photo album in my phone and pulled up the latest picture I had of my mom. She died of cancer when I was twelve and my dad left my mom and me when I was five. I wondered sometimes where he might be and what he was doing.
My mom was never able to track him down. I guess if you want to disappear badly enough in this world then you can do it. He might have been dead for all I knew.
But I had no family left. I was about to get kicked out of my place. There would be nowhere to go for me and baby Devon. The tears began to pour down my cheeks as I looked at the last healthy picture I have of my mother.
She was always so strong. Even with everything she went through she never complained. She always said it was like waiting for the circumstances of life to change and that never worked. You had to work with what you had and make your moves based on that.
I had always worked that way too, but right then I was about as low as I had ever felt and I felt completely alone.
The door opened right then.
I quickly wiped the tears away from my eyes with my hand. I never let anyone see me cry ever. That was another thing I learned from my mom. She always said if you didn’t act upset about things then other people wouldn’t either. Or at least they would never know what you were up to.
A second later Derek came bouncing into the living room. He was wearing his hooded sweatshirt and looked a bit sweaty. I didn’t know why he always came to my place after he finished training clients and was still hot and sweaty. I was on the way to his place and all, but it was still kind of gross I thought.
Derek had recently started his own personal training business. He had always been a bit of a gym rat and he decided after every other door had been slammed in his face that he would try that. So far he was up to five clients and starting to see a bit of a profit.
I was impressed by his ambition. He was even toying with going back to school to study something else.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked as he plopped down on my couch.
“Oh, just looking at the beautiful world of late bills,” I said.
“Ouch, I’ve been to that world and it sucks.”
“Well, at least you have a job,” I reminded him.
“No, see I don’t have a job. I have an enterprise,” he said with a wide smile on his face.
I couldn’t help but laugh. The guy was such a character.
“Well, you have income at least. We can say that. But I’d hardly say you have an enterprise. When you own your own chain of fitness centers then you can say you have an enterprise.”
“No, I’m saying it now,” he joked. “You gotta think big.”
“And by thinking big you mean delusional,” I said.
“One man’s delusion is another man’s reality,” he replied.
“Only if they are sharing the same delusion. Which is most people when you think about it,” I joked.
“So, I take it you have not heard back from any of the jobs you applied for?” He asked.
“Nope,” I said. “Most of them won’t even inform you that you are not going to be selected. It’s pretty pathetic, if you ask me.”
“Yea, they could at least take the time to pretend to have the common courtesy to tell you that you were not selected. It doesn’t take that long and it is the right thing to do. You took all that time to apply after all,” Derek said.
I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic. That was Derek’s thing; you could never tell if he was joking or just being a bit of a sarcastic jerk.
“You could always work with me,” Derek said. “I know I could get a lot more female clients if I had a woman as a partner. We could cover a lot more ground that way and make way more cash.”
“I don’t look like a fitness expert; I look like your clients.”
“What are you talking about? You look great.”
“Well, I know I look great, but most women are not as comfortable as me being a sexy BBW,” I joked. “Most of them want to get rid of curves for some stupid reason, not accentuate the ones they have like I do.”
“True,” Derek said. “There are a lot of women who want to be stick figures.”
I’d always been happy with being a curvier girl. I had everything that thin women had, but much more of it. And as far as I was concerned I was attractive. I’m not conceited, but I do think that I am attractive and the looks I usually receive from all types of men have confirmed this to me.
“Well, it’s probably a good thing or you would be out of business,” I teased. Derek laughed.
He picked up a magazine and started thumbing through it. I couldn't help but smile. I knew that Derek often came over to my place because his roommate Charles was a total dingbat and never shut up. But the man let Derek live there for only paying one-third of the rent.
I think that Charles thought Derek was going to give him free legal advice. For some reason, Charles was constantly having issues with family members who had to be in court to fight going to jail over various infractions.
“So, you got any plans for Christmas?” Derek asked.
I groaned at the thought. I was lucky that Devon was only twenty months old and didn’t understand anything about the concept of Christmas or presents. But I still felt like the worst mom in the world. The holidays were depressing when you didn’t have a family anyway, even though Stephanie would always invite me to her house for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“I’ll probably just sit here in total silence, if I figure out some way to get the rent paid,” I said.
“Wow, I’d love to help you out, but I’m broke as it is.”
“I wasn’t asking and I wouldn’t accept anyway,” I said.
“You have to learn to accept help sometimes, Jackie. As a mother, you can’t say no sometimes,” Derek reminded me. I hated when he did that. But I knew he was right. I was sure that I could sweet talk the landlord into letting us stay until after the holidays, but I did that with Thanksgiving and I still hadn’t had any money to give him. But what choice did I have?
“Well, what about coming with me for Thanksgiving?” Derek asked.
“What? Where are you going?”
“Oh, my family has rented out a cabin at this really sweet resort in West Virginia. We go to it every couple of years with the whole family. It’s kind of a special thing. I’m sure they’d love to have you.”
I was intrigued by the idea. I had never really met Derek’s family and getting away from everything for a while for the holidays did sound like something amazing to me. I wondered if they were all as fun to be around as he was. A week of that was sure to improve my spirits and afterwards I figured I could tackle life a bit more head on and reevaluate a few things. But I still wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to impose.
<
br /> “It might be fun,” I said. “But do you think your parents will mind?”
“Of course not,” Derek said. “They would love it. Besides Tony is coming,” Derek said.
“Who’s Tony?” I asked.
“Tony Davis,” Derek said.
“The lawyer, Tony Davis?”
“That’s the guy.”
“Why is he coming? I didn’t realize that you guys knew each other that well,” I said.
“We don’t, but he started dating my sister Beth. She invited him,” Derek said with a smile.
“What? He started dating Beth?” I asked my heart sinking a bit.
“Well, they just started dating,” Derek replied.
I tried to hide the fact that I was so disappointed that Tony was dating Beth, especially in front of Derek. I couldn’t help but notice how he became very uncomfortable if I ever mentioned a man I was even remotely attracted to. Not that I had dated anyone since the ice age. During the past year, other things had become much more important.
“Does that matter?” Derek asked.
“No, I was just curious. I haven’t heard that name in a while. I went up against him in court on one of my last cases. He is a good lawyer.”
“Yea, but you still wiped the floor with him,” Derek joked. “That should make for some interesting conversation at Christmas Dinner.”
"I did not wipe the floor with him, but I did beat him," I said. It had been a hard-fought victory.
I wonder if he'd thought about me much at all since then like I'd occasionally thought about him. A few weeks after everything came out in the papers he contacted me by email. It was great to hear from him. He said that he did not believe those vicious lies for a second. He knew I was a woman of integrity and that I would never have done anything that I was accused of. He said if I needed a friend or needed to talk then he was there if I wanted to grab that beer.
I did want to meet with him. I wanted to thank him for the kind words and for having faith in me even though he didn’t really know me that well. But I felt so ashamed. I didn’t want to drag him into it and risk Josh attacking him too. The man’s reach seemingly knew no bounds. He had destroyed my life and Derek’s among countless others over the years. One day he would pay, but I just didn’t know when that would be.
Tony was a good man, I could feel it. If I’d met him at a different time in my life, then things might have been very different. He reminded me of Frank in a lot of ways. They had a lot of the same mannerisms and way of speaking. I doubted it, but it didn’t matter anyway. He was dating Beth. I wondered if I could make it through Christmas dinner without strangling her for being with Tony.
“So, you gonna come?” Derek asked.
I was hesitant and I did not want to commit, but I found myself saying yes anyway. At this point, anything sounded better than spending the holidays with just me and the baby there.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
It felt good to commit to this trip. It was like taking a much-needed step forward on a brand new path.
I just had no idea where that path would lead.
Chapter Four
“Well, you didn’t say that friend of yours was so pretty!”
Those were the first words I heard as I grabbed my suitcase from the back of the car and sat it down on the ground. The voice belonged to a woman in her early fifties, whom I assumed was Derek's mother. She was a very attractive woman who had kept herself in great shape, despite having two kids. She was about five feet seven, slender but athletic, and long, flowing brunette hair. She was the kind of mom that I'm sure got Derek more friends than he ever did, simply because he was the kid with the hot mom.
I smiled at the compliment as the woman extended her hand. Her grip was smooth and yet strong. It was like she was one of those people who never really seemed to age.
“I’m Debra, Derek’s mother,” she said shaking my hand. “You will have to excuse my rude son for not introducing me.”
Derek was standing beside me with his mouth open as if he’d just been insulted.
“Mom we just pulled in. I haven’t even got my suitcase out of the car and you are already putting me down about my manners. I’m starting to remember why I left home.”
Before I could work out if he was serious or not he grabbed his mother in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground. She threw her head back laughing. I could tell instantly that was a common greeting with them and I felt a twinge of sadness for the fact that my own mom was not there. She had never even got to see me finish growing up. I often wondered if she would have been proud of me.
“I’m Jackie,” I said.
“Oh, yes. Derek has told us so much about you,” Debra said.
“Oh, well I’m probably in trouble now,” I joked.
“No, he only tells us the good things, I swear,” she joked.
Devon cried out just then. It was just a soft giggle of a whine. I imagined he was wet and needed to be fed. I grabbed him out of his car seat and held him close to me.
“Oh, wow. That is the most adorable little thing,” Debra said.
“Enjoy them when they are this small. And take my advice—don’t teach him to speak. Derek would be so much more loved if he’d never learned to talk,” Debra joked.
“I will pretend I did not hear that,” Derek said.
Before I could even ask Debra was carrying my suitcase towards the cabin. I followed suit behind Derek and his mother.
Little Devon was already starting to quiet down. I had been blessed to have a very quiet baby. He hardly ever cried unless he really needed something and he actually kept a fairly regular sleeping routine. I often worried if it was normal to have a baby who did not cry out just to be held or just because it felt lonely like most babies do. But my doctor had advised me that he was just fine.
The cabin was insane. It was two stories tall, with five bedrooms, a huge open area where the kitchen and the living room blended together, a Jacuzzi room, walk in closets that were almost as big as my whole bedroom in my apartment, and a game room with a billiard table and dart board. A mini bar sat in the corner. I did not even want to ask how much this place was costing, but I was damn curious. Derek said his family rented this same cabin out every couple of years for Christmas.
It was spectacular.
As soon as we entered the cabin I was immediately surrounded by a greeting party of Derek’s dad Bill, his brother Keith, and his sister Beth. I had heard a bit about each of them but this was the first time I was actually meeting them in person.
Derek’s dad I knew owned a chain of restaurants around West Virginia. His brother and sister both managed a few of them. Derek had decided not to move into the family business it looked like. I often wondered why he didn’t come back here and just manage one of the restaurants too.
But Derek was always too proud. He loved living in New York City and he was determined to stand on his own two feet. He was not content to rely on his dad to give him a job in the family business. Besides Derek was quite good as a lawyer.
“Did you guys have a good trip down?” Bill asked.
“We did,” I said.
“Well, it could have been nicer if you had flown. I’m not sure Derek told you we offered to buy you both tickets so you could have got here yesterday with the rest of us,” Bill said.
“Um, yea he did mention it, but the drive down was fun,” I said.
I would have preferred flying to the eight-hour drive on often snowy roads, but I didn't say anything. I was thankful to just be going somewhere besides that apartment for Christmas.
“I hate flying,” Derek said. “Besides there is nothing wrong with a nice road trip. It’s way more fun than flying.”
I knew that wasn’t the reason. Derek was just too proud to take any money from his folks. I understood that. I was too proud to let him take money on my behalf for a plane ticket anyway.
“Well, you guys are here. That is the important thing,” Bill said. He grabbed a suit
case and Derek and I followed him up to our rooms.
After I got settled in and put Devon down for a nap in his crib I went back downstairs to join the rest of them. Derek was already sitting on the couch talking to his brother and sister.
And someone else was there who had been absent when I walked in before. I felt my whole body growing numb with anticipation and nervous chills. This was not like me. I did not get nervous over people like that. I had always been a take me as I am kind of girl and it was freaking me out a bit to see myself feeling and acting that way right then.
As I hit the bottom of the steps everyone turned to look at me and the new arrival stood up.
Tony Davis looked even more immaculate than I remembered. I could swear his athletic body got even tighter, or it might have been because he was in a t-shirt and jeans and not a three-piece suit like he was the last time I saw him.
“Well, hello,” Tony said extending his hand. “Long time no see.”
"Hi, how are you, Tony?" I said shaking his hand. His grip was just as magical as I remembered it. His hand was thick, slightly calloused from hard work (he wasn't always in the courtroom) and the muscular strength that I loved to feel gripping me.
“I have no complaints,” Tony said with a smile.
“You two know each other?” Beth asked, suddenly appearing beside us. If I was not mistaken her question was really more of an accusation, but she hid the tone well. Almost well enough…
“Jackie here took me down in the courtroom.”
“Oh, really? I find that hard to believe,” Beth said.
I wasn’t sure whether to take her compliment as an insult to me or a loving praise for her new man. I decided to ignore it and let it slide.
“No, she did,” Tony said. “It’s good to see you again counselor.”
“You as well,” I replied. I wanted to thank him for the email he sent and tell him I was sorry that I never got back in touch with him. I was just so embarrassed over everything that happened.
“So, Beth, Derek has told me a bit about you,” I said. “I understand you are in real estate?”
“Yea,” Beth said and as she did I could swear she was glaring daggers up at me. I was getting the distinct feeling that she was none too happy that I knew Tony at all. Derek told me once that his sister was a bit of a wackjob, but I figured he was saying that in jest as all people tend to think their siblings are psychos.
Beta's Destiny (Rocky Mountain Shifters Book 2) Page 58
