“Hello again, Sarah.” It was like he knew me, but not creepy or icky like it is sometimes when men you don’t know use your name. It stopped me in my tracks. I was frozen, I couldn’t move and I could hardly breathe. I heard Derek tell his colleagues to go on without him. “I’ll catch up,” he said. They left and I was still standing there like an idiot. He smiled at me again and said, “It’s really nice to see you again. We didn’t meet properly the last time, however...I’m Derek.”
“Um...yes, I know. It’s really nice to see you again too. How did you know my name?”
He smiled. This time it was a full mouth, white-teeth, knock-your-socks-off smile. I don’t know how I managed to not fall down at his feet. It was beautiful. “I asked your father about you.”
I’m not kidding, diary! He said he asked about me! This was a grown, professional, model gorgeous man and he asked about me. I didn’t even know what to say to that. I squeaked out an “Oh...um...okay.”
Then it happened, diary...the one miracle I will probably see in my lifetime. Derek Stark said, “I came to this seminar with my colleagues today because I was hoping to somehow find you. If that didn’t work, I was going to ask your father.”
I laughed. It was a giddy laugh. He was trying to run into me? He was going to ask Daddy? Oh Lord! I didn’t know how much more my heart could take. “Why?” I said. That was almost as brilliant and articulate as “Oh.”
“Because since the day I saw you in your father’s office, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind.”
I nearly fainted. I don’t even remember what I said. I’d be willing to bet that it was completely inarticulate and not very smart. We had coffee, diary! Tomorrow we are having lunch! Maybe the day after that we’ll go to dinner and then we’ll get married...I know, I’m being silly again, but a girl can dream.
Chloe alternated between smiling, laughing and crying as she read that entry, twice. She felt everything that Sarah must have been feeling...because she’d had those same feelings herself. He was the most beautiful man on the planet...inside and out. Chloe often had the feeling herself that it was “fate” that they met. She never used to believe in things like that. As a child she’d been denied any magic in her life, so she had a hard time believing it existed. But there had been something about Derek right away that convinced her otherwise. It was another thing that she and her sister had in common. Reading that hadn’t made her feel guilty because she suddenly believed in her heart that he had been made and put on this earth to love both of them.
Chapter 8
When Trevor and Derek got back from their ride, Trevor went in to shower and Derek found Chloe clutching another of Sarah’s journals with fresh tears staining her face. He understood that she needed to know her sister and the journals were the best way for her to do that, and he wished so badly that they could have known each other...but it broke his heart to see her cry over anything.
He sat down next to her on the patio and said, “Are you okay?”
She smiled and touched his face. “Yeah. It’s funny, but I feel like I miss her. Do you think it’s possible to miss someone that you never even knew?”
He nodded. “She’s a part of you. She always has been and always will be. It makes perfect sense to me that you would miss her.”
Chloe leaned in close and said, “You want to know something else?”
“What’s that?” His breaths were speeding up. He wanted her so badly that his whole body ached when she was so close. Between worrying that Trevor and Samantha would hear them, and worrying about hurting her arm, they’d barely had a chance for a make-out session in the past three weeks.
“She had great taste in men.” She let her tongue slide out and glide across his bottom lip. It caused him to shiver. “You like that?”
“Oh baby, I love it. I love you. I want you so bad...”
Chloe smiled and covered his mouth with hers. She parted her lips and let his tongue tangle up with hers. He brought his hands up and fisted them in her hair. He tugged on it gently, angling her head to one side while he delved deeper. The front of his jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight and when she laid her palm on his thigh as they kissed, he actually growled.
Chloe pulled back just slightly and said, “I want you too.”
“How about a walk to the barn? I saw a fresh stack of hay and a blanket...”
Chloe stood up and held out her hand. Derek suddenly felt guilty. He looked at her other arm which was healing, but still far from 100% and said, “Are you sure that you’re up to this?”
Chloe stepped in close again and after looking over his shoulder to make sure neither of her parents were around, she rubbed the palm of her left hand against the front of his jeans, causing his swollen member to throb even more. “I’m as up for it as you are, baby.”
Derek gave her another quick kiss and took hold of her left hand. They made it out to the barn in record time. He took a quilt that was folded up on the tack shelf down and spread it over the top of a fresh pile of hay. Then he kissed her again, this time tugging back on her hair to expose her long, sexy neck. He planted kisses across it and then using his teeth very lightly, he gave it a few nips.
Chloe lay in Derek’s arms after they made love, tracing the lines of the muscles on his chest with her finger. He had his eyes closed, but every so often as she drug her fingers down his abdomen or across his nipples, he would shudder and moan. After several minutes of that he opened his eyes and said, “You’re going to get me all excited again.”
She stopped and let the palm of her hand rest against his chest. Kissing him lightly on the lips she said, “It’s hard not to touch you.”
“I didn’t say you had to stop...”
She smiled. Propping herself up on her left elbow she said, “We probably shouldn’t. We’ve been gone from the house for a while. I don’t want them to worry.”
Derek groaned. “Okay, but we have to get our own place soon.”
Chloe looked down at him. “Our own place? You mean together?”
“You don’t want to live on a yacht, do you?”
“Not really...”
“Well I don’t want to live with Lexi and Brock...no offense to either one of them.”
She giggled. “Yeah, that would make for a crowded house. I just didn’t realize that you wanted us to live together.”
“I guess I just assumed...the baby will be here soon and we’re committed to each other. I guess that I should ask you first how you feel about it, huh?”
“I feel...excited and impatient. I mean this with all of the sincerity in the world: I would love to live with you...and I would live on a yacht, if that’s where you want to live.”
They kissed again and when they came up for air Derek said, “I want a house for you and our child. I have a big question for you though...where do you want to live?”
“I have choices?” she asked.
“Of course. You, my love, will always have choices.”
She smiled. “I just meant, I thought we would need to stay in Rhode Island because of your business.”
“I can do business anywhere. If you want to live in Jamaica...or on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro...I’m there.”
Laughing she said, “Mt. Kilimanjaro might be difficult to maneuver a stroller up the side of.”
“I’ll hire someone to carry it and you up.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too. Give it some thought, and maybe next week we can go house hunting. Oh, and don’t forget to factor in where you want to go to school.”
“School?”
“Don’t you still want to be a teacher?”
“Yes, but...”
“No buts. You’ve waited long enough...to long, for your dreams to come true.”
“You’re the embodiment of every dream I’ve ever had, you know that?”
He answered her with another kiss.
Chapter 9
Saturday would be Chloe’s twenty-fifth birthday. For s
ome reason, when she woke up on Friday morning her first thought was that she found it a little bit strange that no one in the house mentioned it at all. It wasn’t like she was used to celebrating it. Last year, Roxi, Lexi and Chloe had a girls’ night out and Roxi took them out for a nice dinner. She wanted to take them to a club in New York, but at the time Chloe was still running from her past, so she turned her down. But this year there was so much to celebrate and she was finally with the people that she wanted to celebrate it with the most. She felt kind of silly worrying about it...but she did find it strange.
When she got out of bed she found a note from Derek that said, “Off to Rhode Island today. I have meetings with staff and clients scheduled for most of the day. I will keep my phone on and handy however if you need anything at all, please call me! I love you so much. Have a peaceful, relaxing day.”
She noticed when she came out of her room that the house was deathly quiet. She could tell right away that no one was there, even before she found the note on the big chalkboard in the kitchen that said,
“Dad and I had to go into the office today. Please call us if you need anything at all. We love you! Have a great day!”
Chloe smiled and chastised herself for worrying about her birthday. These amazing people loved her and told her so every day. Her birthday was just another day and if no one remembered it that would likely be due to all of the drama she’d caused them recently anyways.
She fixed herself a bowl of cereal. She hadn’t been able to drink coffee, not even decaf lately without getting severe heartburn. She could only drink milk if it was skim milk, and she’d had to give up eggs completely. This child was going to be a picky eater, she could tell already. She took her cereal into the dining room and when she sat down; she looked over and saw the crates of journals. She got back up and went over and picked up the one that came after the one where Sarah talked about meeting Derek. That was the only entry that Chloe read. She didn’t really feel the need to read about them falling in love and she wasn’t sure that she was ready to handle anything that had to do with making love either, so she skipped all of that. The one she picked up this morning was the last one...the very last journal Sarah had written in before she died. It broke her heart to think of Samantha and Trevor reading the last passage she wrote. Sarah’s entries were all so positive and usually so filled with her hopes and plans for the future. If that was the case with her last entry, Chloe wasn’t sure that she wanted to read it herself.
She sat back down at the table and opened it to the first page. As she ate her breakfast, she began to read,
December 24, 2008
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written in a while because I have been so busy living. It’s Christmas Eve! I love Christmas! My last journal wasn’t completely full, but I wanted to start a new one for this entry because it’s so special. First of all I want to say that I am the luckiest girl in the world. If I died tomorrow, it would be completely fulfilled. Don’t get me wrong, there is still much that I want and plan to do with my life...but I am truly happy and I know that I’ve been so blessed. (And I wouldn’t want to die on Christmas)
With that being said, I will tell you what happened last night. Derek came to pick me up for dinner. I could tell as soon as he came to the door that something was up with him. He was kind of antsy and he and my dad kept making eye contact and secret things were being passed between them, I think. It was like they knew something that I didn’t know.
Derek took me to a beautiful French restaurant in Manhattan. We just talked and laughed through dinner the same way that we always do and I’d begun to think that it was my imagination that Derek had anything planned. After dinner we went to Rockefeller Center and we ice skated and looked at the tree and we even did a little bit of last minute shopping. I found a beautiful charm for mom’s bracelet. It’s a twin’s symbol and Derek had the idea to have “Sarah” engraved on one side and “Sophia” on the other. I feel so bad that Sophia has missed so many Christmases with us. I hope that Christmas in Heaven is extra special for her and I hope she knows that every year, Mom buys her a present. There’s a plastic box in the basement full of them.
Chloe had to stop there for a minute. She could hardly breathe and she had tears so thick in her eyes that she couldn’t see. She thought about Samantha, shopping every year for Christmas and buying a present for the baby she lost. Once she gathered herself, she read on.
After we’d driven out of the city and into the country, Derek said, “There’s something I need to show you.” He drove a ways further and then pulled off on this long, country road. I was curious, but I waited as patiently as I could. Suddenly, I could see nothing but lights. I asked him what it was and he said, “Just wait, you’ll see.” When we got closer I could see that it was a little lake. There were trees all around it and hanging from all of the trees were tons of beautiful lighted stars. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. There was a path along behind the trees and Derek and I got out of the car and walked along it. When we got to the center, Derek stopped. He had me sit down on this big rock and then he knelt down next to me. At that second I knew what the surprise was and I was already shaking.
“Sarah, I wished on a thousand stars that someday I would find the woman of my dreams. I found her and I’m hoping that she’ll consent to making me the happiest man in the world.” He opened a box he had in his hand and the prettiest ring I’d ever seen was in there. I had to blink back my tears to really see it. Derek went on and said, “Will you marry me, Sarah?”
I’m sure you’ve figured it out diary...I said yes. I’ve never felt anything like the way he makes me feel. I’m so happy and I love him so much and my only regret is that my sister won’t be here to be my maid of honor. I’ll carry her with me where I always do though...in my heart.
******
Chloe spent the rest of the morning after her shower, taking a walk around the grounds. It was such a beautiful place, and as much as she loved the beach, the more she thought about where she wanted to live, the more a place like this came to mind. She loved to walk along the dirt or gravel paths where the countryside stretched out in front of her like a quilt of green, brown and gold squares. The trees along the outside held it all together and it was dotted with the horses all through the center. The further she walked, the more the land rose and fell like giant waves and occasionally she would see a farmhouse or a barn. Out here, she couldn’t help but feel at peace with the world. If someone asked her what she wanted most for the child she was carrying, she would tell them peace. She wanted the baby to grow up with the peace in his or her heart that Chloe never felt until recently, because of all the feelings she’d ever had, a peaceful heart was the best.
She was out walking for almost an hour when her phone rang. It was Jake. “Hi Jake!”
“Hey Chloe. Where are you?”
“I’m out for a walk, headed back to the house now. What’s up?”
“I’m here at the house. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” As she walked back, she let herself wonder what it was that Jake might want to tell her. It was hard to tell from his tone. It had been neutral, as usual. She assumed since he came all the way out here instead of just calling, that it had to do with her case. When she reached the back of the house, she saw Jake out on the patio waiting for her. “Hi.”
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
“I feel good,” she told him honestly. “Almost as good as new.”
“My nephew is doing well?”
Chloe laughed. “He...or she is doing fine according to my doctor. I saw her this week.”
“That’s great. You’re going to name him after me, right?”
She laughed again. “What if it turns out to be a she?”
“I think Jake is such a strong name that it could go either way.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a smile. “What’s up?”
“Let’s sit down.”
>
“Uh –oh!”
“It’s not that bad. It’s something we can deal with a lot easier than you having criminal charges against you.”
Chloe sat down and said, “Okay, give it to me.”
“Vince Donavan is filing a wrongful death suit against you.”
“Jesus, he can do that if the state didn’t even charge me with anything?”
“Yeah, it’s a civil suit. The burden of proof in a civil suit weighs heavier on the defendant than it does in a criminal case. Basically in a civil suit, you have to prove your innocence.”
“What is he looking to gain?”
“I haven’t gotten served with any papers for you yet, so I’m not sure what he wants in damages, but the bottom line is...he wants you to suffer.”
Chloe nodded. “Sounds a lot like his son.”
“Yeah, unfortunately the apple rarely falls far. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to be taken off guard when you get served with the paperwork, but I don’t want you to worry about it. What we have on our side is proof that he abused you. We have proof that he tried to kill you once...he was convicted of it. We had charges filed against him for what he did to Chantelle...we’ve got a lot of witnesses to his bizarre behavior, myself included. I don’t believe that Vince will win, so please don’t waste any time worrying.”
Chloe nodded again and said, “I’ll do my best.”
Chapter 10
Saturday morning Derek woke up excited. He had big plans for Chloe’s birthday and it had been really hard for him to keep them a secret, the closer it got to September 28th. Chloe was still asleep when he woke up, so he lay there for a long time, just watching her sleep. He could see the difference in her face now as opposed to when he first met her. Back then, even asleep she’d looked guarded...or she’d had nightmares. It had been a long time since Derek woke up to her having a nightmare. He hoped that someday so many good thoughts and memories would drown those old ones out of her head completely.
SCARRED - Part 6 (The SCARRED Series - Book 6) Page 5
