Love's Second Chance (Second Chances Series)

by L. P. Dover

  “I guess we should call your family now?” I suggested. “I hope they don’t get mad that we didn’t call them as soon as you woke up.”

  “Yes, we need to call them. I’m sure they’ll understand why we didn’t call them sooner. We needed that time together.” When I was about to pick up the phone to call his family, Galen stopped me. “I love you, Korinne. I would have fought to the end of time to come back to you.”

  “I know you would have, but you’re here now, and we have so many new experiences we need to share with each other.” I paused to stare into his bright blue eyes, the eyes I’d missed seeing for so long. “And I love you. Now that you’ve fulfilled your promise to come back to me, it looks like you’re stuck with me … and our child.”

  Galen smiled. “I think I can live with that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I didn’t remember much about the coma. It was like I was in a void, neither here nor there. It was like a passing of time where I was non-existent, and not even a part of the world. Ten months have passed, and my body is just beginning to feel normal. Being told of the repercussions was really scary. Not knowing how long my kidney was going to last was the biggest thing. I wanted to live, and I wanted to be there for Korinne and the baby.

  My therapy came from Korinne and my little girl. Looking at them every day reminded me of how I needed to push through the obstacles and move through the pain. My leg still ached from time to time, but it was manageable. I hobbled around for a few months on it until I regained the strength in my muscles. I sold my other motorcycle and promised Korinne I would never ride again. Now that I had a family of my own, I couldn’t risk getting hurt.

  Our daughter was almost three months old and we named her Anna. When Korinne went into labor in the middle of the night we still had no clue what we were going to name her. I was so ecstatic to be having a child of my own that we could have named her anything and I would’ve been happy. Once she came out and we saw her for the first time, the name kind of slipped out. It felt right, so we named her Anna Grace Matthews after both of our mothers. We took each of their middle names and combined them together. They were both ecstatic when they found out. Other than Korinne, Anna was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She had blonde curls and bright blue eyes, and the first time she smiled at me I was whipped. So now I have two women that I fawn over all the time.

  I went back to work fairly quickly after getting out of the hospital. Korinne’s name was still a growing commodity, and she stayed super busy until our daughter was born. Anna now had her own little nursery corner in our office. Needless to say, the office sex was put on hold for a while. Most days we were too exhausted to even think about it.

  “Mr. Matthews?” Rebecca said while poking her head through the door.

  I looked up and smiled. “What, no intercom today?”

  She opened the door fully and laughed. “I’m so used to not using it now since the baby stays here sometimes.”

  “Yeah, Korinne took the day off to spend it with her parents. They’re in town to see the baby.”

  “Oh that’s nice. I know she doesn’t get to see her family much. I bet they just go crazy over that little girl of yours. She’s so adorable,” Rebecca cooed.

  “Yes she is,” I said while grinning at Anna’s baby picture on the desk.

  “Oh yeah, I came in to tell you that Jenna is on the phone. She said she tried to call your cell phone, but it didn’t go through for some reason.”

  “I wonder why she’s calling. What line is it?” I asked.

  “She’s on line two,” she said and closed the door behind her.

  I picked up the phone and pressed line two. “Jenna?”

  “Hey, Galen, how are you?” she responded nervously.

  “I’m fine, how are you?”

  “Well,” she paused. “We have a problem, or maybe not exactly a problem, but in a way I guess it is if …”

  “Stop babbling and tell me,” I interrupted her.

  “You know how I was supposed to hold your painting for you until your anniversary?”

  “Yes,” I groaned knowing something was wrong. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s not here,” she blurted out.

  “What do you mean it’s not there?”

  “I have something to tell you and I know your anniversary is only a couple weeks away, but you need to hear this,” she said excitedly.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Getting a good night’s sleep felt amazing. It had been a while since I was able to sleep all night. Our cabin had been finished a couple of months ago, so Galen and I had decided to spend our anniversary weekend there. I couldn’t wait until we could move to the mountains permanently. When Galen opened his eyes, I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Is it bad that I enjoyed sleeping in?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

  Galen blinked a few times and turned to face me. “No, it’s not bad. I quite enjoyed it myself.”

  “It was nice of your mother to take the baby for the weekend.”

  “My mother would keep Anna every day if we asked her to. She only ever had boys, so being around a little girl is heaven for her. You know she wants to move up here, close to us when we make the move.”

  “I can understand that. She’ll be alone in Charlotte if she doesn’t. We would also have a babysitter if she moved up here.” I grinned.

  Galen laughed. “Yes, we would.”

  “So what is the big surprise tonight?” I asked. “I have to say that I hadn’t been able to figure it out. For the first time in my life I’ll admit that I failed.”

  Galen teased, “It kills you that you don’t know, doesn’t it?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Looking over at the clock, Galen sighed. “Well, since we slept till noon we might need to start getting ready.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’ll be nice to take a long, hot shower without interruption.”

  Galen’s eyes gleamed in the light and he bit his lip enticingly. “You know, we don’t have to leave for another three hours. How about I join you in the shower?”

  “You didn’t get enough last night?” I asked, biting my lip in return.

  He shook his head. “Never will I ever get enough of you.”

  I trailed a finger over his bare, rippled chest until my hand slid underneath the covers to the hardness of his groin below. Teasing him, I ran my hand up and down it a couple of times before I jumped out of bed and headed to the shower, laughing the whole way.

  “Tease!” he yelled.

  I got the water all nice and hot and climbed into the shower, waiting for him to join me. Only seconds later he came into the bathroom and I could see his blurry, bare form through the shower doors. Pulling open the screen, he stood there, all glorious with his hard cock pointing straight up in the air. I bit my lip and moved back to give him more space to enter. The water poured and glistened over Galen’s body and I found it amazingly sexy. I didn’t know what it was about wet skin that looked so enticing, but at that moment I was wet and ready to go.

  “We haven’t had shower sex in a really long time,” he murmured with a deep, husky tone to his voice.

  “I know. I think the last time was on our honeymoon,” I admitted.

  “I think we might need to change that,” he growled before claiming my lips.

  He moved from my lips and went straight down to my breasts. Sucking on my nipple, he glided his fingers to my core and entered me gently, growing more rapid with each thrust. I moaned and placed my hands on the shower walls to keep my balance. My knees went weak and I didn’t know how long I was going to last. When Galen released my breast, he moved up to my neck, kissing along the way. He turned me around so my back faced his body, and he pushed me up against the shower wall, firm and full of passion.

  “You are so damn sexy,” he whispered in my ear from behind. I leaned forward against the shower wall and spread my legs, ready for him to take me. His cock was so hard up against m
y ass, and I ached to feel him inside me.

  “Now who’s the tease?” I asked. Groaning in my ear, he nipped my earlobe. His hands reached around to the front of my body; one massaged my breast while the other rubbed on my nub. I moaned in heightened pleasure and opened myself up even more for him to take me. When I felt him moving closer I knew it was time. He pushed in deeply and gave me all he had, stretching me and filling me to the point it almost hurt, but a good kind of hurt. His fingers moved in tune with his thrusts, giving me the maximum pleasure.

  “You feel so good,” Galen moaned. “All tight and hot wrapped around my cock.”

  “So do you,” I whispered breathlessly.

  I could feel myself getting close the way my core tightened. Galen gripped me harder across the chest and pulled me closer while he pumped harder, getting closer to the edge. “Oh my God, Galen, I can’t hold out any longer!” I screamed out in ecstasy.

  “Oh hell,” he groaned in my ear. The orgasm came swiftly and it rocked my body hard while Galen rode his out inside of me. We stood there for a few seconds to let the hot water relax us and for us to catch our breath. Galen pulled out gently and turned me around. His gorgeous blue eyes peered into mine and he smiled. “That felt amazing.”

  “It always does,” I said before kissing his wet lips. “Happy Anniversary, Galen.”

  Once we got in the car and headed on our way, I spent the majority of the time trying to guess where Galen was taking me. “Are we going to the Biltmore House?” I asked when I saw the Asheville sign.

  Galen rolled his eyes. “You’re relentless, you know that? No, we’re not going to the Biltmore House.”

  “Am I wearing you down yet?” I teased, waggling my eyebrows.

  “Nope, you can keep guessing for all I care, because I’m not going to tell you. Besides, we’re almost there. I’m sure you can wait another couple of minutes,” he told me with a smirk on his face.

  When Galen pulled into the parking lot of our destination I was excited to see that we were at one of the most glorious art museums in Asheville. “Oh Galen, this is perfect,” I sighed happily.

  “Wait until we go inside,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Uh-oh, you’re up to something.”

  He laughed and took my hand. “Me? Up to something? Never.”

  He led me up the steps to the museum door and I was shocked to see that there inside the lobby was Jenna and Brady. What were they doing there, I thought to myself. They motioned for us to join them, so we opened the door and headed inside.

  After pulling Jenna in for a hug, I asked, “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We’re here to crash your anniversary,” Brady joked, laughing.

  I smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jenna whispered in my ear.

  “They’re here because I invited them,” Galen admitted. “Since they introduced us in college, I thought it was fitting they were here on our anniversary.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I agreed. “I can’t wait to see what they have here.”

  “I hear they just got some new pieces in, too,” Brady informed us with a slight grin to his face.

  Before I could ask what he was up to, Jenna took over. “Shall we go in?” she said, leading the way into the museum.

  Galen grabbed my hand and we followed her. “Don’t we need to pay?” I asked as we walked past the admission desk. Jenna waved at the man behind the counter, who smiled and waved her through.

  “No, I got it covered, Ducky.”

  I squeezed her on the shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that, but it was really sweet of you. Thank you.”

  She smiled at me, and then she and Brady took off in their own direction. I’m sure we would catch up with them later. As soon as we turned the corner, my eyes lit up in wonder. When you were an art fanatic like myself it was hard not to get chills when you saw it all before you, especially being at a museum you’d never been to before, and in this case I was shivering from the chills.

  “Wow,” I whispered.

  “Exactly,” Galen agreed. He liked art as well, but not as much as me. Galen held my hand as we made our way through the museum in silence. Nothing would ever beat our dinner date at the museum back home, but this one was one I would never forget either. Two hours passed by and we still weren’t done exploring the wonderment of the art. I would stay in those museums for hours if they would let me. “We have one exhibit left,” Galen said softly.

  “It’s all been amazing. I don’t want to leave.” I sighed.

  He laughed. “We can always come back, love. I’m sure once you see your surprise you’re going to want to come back here often.”

  “What kind of surprise for me would be in an exhibit?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiled handsomely at me.

  We hurried to the last exhibit, and as soon as we entered into the room not only did the paintings look familiar, but one stuck out at me above the rest. It called to me, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. I walked toward it slowly, nothing existing except Galen, me, and that painting. The tears were building, and I let them fall without shame. The memory of that day captured on the canvas before me came rushing back full force.

  “Oh my …” I cried.

  The tears slowly drifted down my cheeks and I stared mesmerized at the two people in the painting. Galen came up behind me, wrapping his arms around me. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered softly in my ear.

  I nodded ever so gently and placed my hand over my mouth to keep in the sob. “How?” I asked, lifting my gaze to his.

  He smiled. “It was supposed to be an anniversary present to put up in our home, but—”

  “But I screwed up and it ended up here.” Jenna sighed from behind me.

  Galen smiled and cut in, “But when I found out they really wanted it here, I told Jenna to leave it.”

  Jenna came up to me and explained, “Apparently, I had it stored with my paintings that were to be delivered here. The director called me and said she fell in love with your painting. I had no clue which one she was talking about until I realized I had misplaced yours and sent it here. I’m sorry, but you have to admit it looks good up there.”

  I walked up as close as I could to the painting, aching to touch it. The golden plate underneath it had the words ‘Second Chances’ engraved on it. That right there had me bursting into tears. The painting was of me and Galen out in the meadow where we had our picnics back in college. It was a beautiful place, flowers as far as you could see and it was so quiet, so peaceful. We were always the only ones there when we went, and it became our haven, a place that only we shared together.

  As I stared at the expressions on our faces in the painting, I could feel the emotions pouring out of it. We were sitting on the tailgate of Big Blue, each of us had one leg hanging off of the back while we faced each other, holding hands. It was the exact moment and the exact time when Galen first told me he loved me and I him. It was the same day we made love in the rain. Jenna even had the storm clouds rolling in on the painting. It was perfect … way beyond perfect.

  “How did you capture it so well?” I asked her.

  Jenna shook her head incredulously, “I may not have been there, but I remembered the way you looked when you two were together. It’s the same way you look at each other now. Also, your husband described that moment in full detail to me.”

  Galen smiled down at me when I gazed up into his eyes. He whispered to me, “It was a moment I knew I would never forget.”

  “And a moment I never forgot either,” I murmured softly back to him.

  “I had Jenna call it ‘Second Chances.’ I thought it was fitting given our circumstances.” He paused to take my face in his hands, and I lifted mine to place over his, intertwining them. “I had a second chance at life, my love,” he cried softly.

  He had begun to lean his head down, so I tilted my head back to receive the kiss he was about to best
ow on me. Before our lips touched, I paused to say one more thing to him before sealing our night with a kiss. They were words that came straight from my heart and soul, and from every fiber of my being. His blue eyes stared intently into mine when I said, “And I had a second chance at love. You’ve given me that love, a family, and a new life. You will always be mine.”

  He smiled and whispered across my lips, “Always.”

  The End

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