Our Forever Promise

by Mary Wasowski

  by

  Mary A. Wasowski

  * * * *

  Our Forever Promise

  Book Three in The Forever Series

  Copyright © 2014 by Mary A. Wasowski

  Cover Design by Okay Creations

  Formatting by JT Formatting

  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 both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  A Note from the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Author Links

  For my boys…

  Three’s a charm! In 2008, we welcomed our third son to our family. Each of our children shines in their own special way, and they bring us so much joy to our lives. This book is for them.

  For Zachary:

  Words cannot express how proud I am of you and the man you have become. Your future is bright with a military career on the horizon. You are focused and driven. I know you will make an amazing soldier serving our country. I love you, son.

  For Christopher:

  You think being the middle child is tough at times, but I think it’s perfect for you. You have an amazing personality filled with laughter and wit. You are fearless and confident. Thank you for always making me laugh. I love you, son.

  For Cameron:

  You are our miracle. I thank God for saving you and allowing me to be your mom. For being only six years old, you seem to teach me something new every day. I love your one-liners and never know what you will say next, but it’s always music to my ears. I love you, son.

  Being your mother has been my greatest achievement. I held your hand when each of you were born, but it was you three who held my heart. When I married your dad, we became a family, but when we had you, we were complete.

  Team Wasowski… Always and Forever.

  THANK YOU, READERS, for taking time to purchase Our Forever Promise. Writing for Walker and Reese has taken me on many twists and turns. They were quite the challenge. In Forever, I had my moments where I was mad at Walker and wanted to shake Reese. In Second Chance at Forever, we see them reunite and rediscover they never stopped loving each other. Their pursuit of happily ever after is not an easy journey, but in the end, true love can never be denied.

  So now, here we are! Get ready for another rollercoaster ride as Walker and Reese’s love story comes to an exciting conclusion. …But wait, there’s more! As we say goodbye to this amazing couple, we make room for the next generation, Jackson and Riley. I am happy to announce that I will be writing a fourth book in The Forever Series, where Jackson and Riley’s story continues. The apple does not fall too far from the tree, and young Mr. Reed is truly his father’s son. Title and details to come at a later date.

  Happy Reading! I truly hope you enjoy where I have taken their love story, and all the exciting new adventures to come. Writing this series has been an amazing experience. I have grown so much as a writer, and I am looking forward to writing the next series with another super couple for you to love.

  The best gift you can give an author is to leave a review. It doesn’t have to be many words, a simple sentence if you can. Feedback is so important. I welcome each and every comment and message I receive, but I would also love to see them on the sites you purchased this title on.

  With love,

  IN ALL OF my wildest dreams, I never thought I would have this moment I have right now. But it wasn’t always this blissful.

  As I sat in my office with silence around me, I took a few minutes to reflect. I tried not to think of all the years of our problematic past, but my relationship with my father was complex, to say the least. Opening my bottom drawer, I pulled out the one picture of us that was taken on a good day, the day I took over as CEO of Reed Global. My father wore an expression of admiration for me. Our hands were entwined and raised high into the air. My mother could be seen in the background wiping her eyes. It was a rare moment of happiness for the Reed family.

  My last conversation with my father didn’t end so well, and one thing he said to me still resonated and was running through my head at the moment: “For a man who has everything, I would think you would be happier.”

  At the time, he hit the nail right on the head. The bastard was right. When my father said that, I really wasn’t happy, not even close. Sure, I had my work, my amazing son, but what I didn’t have was the one person I desired most. The one that simply walked out of my life one day to never to be heard of again. I wasn’t living the life I always knew I wanted…with Reese. You would have thought I would have been able to move on from that kind of hurt, but I didn’t. All I did was bury my feelings along with the pain of losing her deep down inside. I concealed it from everyone, including myself. I knew it was there, but I never allowed myself to feel it. To remember her would only bring back the h
urt I felt when she left.

  I became whole again, or as close as I could manage with the help from my friend, my best friend Elizabeth. She saved me in more ways than I could ever thank her for. One reckless decision after another, I was drowning until she threw me a life preserver to rejoin the land of the living.

  “Walker, take my hand, and I will help you,” she said. Elizabeth gave me hope when everything in my life was just hopeless. She stood by me when I lost Reese and the future that I intended to have with her. I always cared for Elizabeth, but I never could bring myself to love her the way she needed to be loved. She wanted me and never hid that fact.

  When you lose everything that matters to you, it’s easy to fall back into old patterns. I drank too much, fucked too much, and I did all of those things with Elizabeth. I was arrogant and took what I wanted. She deserved so much better. I only gave her small parts of me; it was all I was able to give her. I hated myself for using her, but she never felt like I was doing that. She would tell me over and over again that when I was ready, love would come for us.

  Well, she was right: love did happen for us. It was an indescribable love. It was a love that could never be truly measured or even explained. I felt it all on the day she told me that she was carrying my child. For a brief second—less than a second—I thought it was the worst excuse for manners on my part. How could I be so irresponsible and careless with my friend? But she didn’t see it that way. It was God’s way of bringing two souls together and giving them a precious gift…our child.

  Sounds like a beautiful story, doesn’t it? So can you imagine how I felt when my world went dark on the day that I lost my best friend? How could the fates be so cruel to me for a second time? Our son survived, but I lost Elizabeth. She didn’t leave me like Reese did…she left me for all eternity. I wanted to curse the heavens for taking my Elizabeth away from me, but how could I do that when I was holding the closest thing to perfection as one could have? All seven pounds and three ounces of him were perfect. He captured my heart with one look, and my life changed and undoubtedly changed me.

  Now nearly two decades later, I’d been blessed with a rare and precious gift. The heavens were now smiling upon me. I was about marry Reese Mitchell, the one I thought I lost forever, but whom I was reunited with by a simple twist of fate. Our second chance, if you will. Our reunion was nothing short of a miracle.

  We were only a few weeks to the moment where we would finally become husband and wife. Reese always had a way of knocking me off my feet. Well, she certainly managed that when she told me her amazing news. I was going to be a father again! Reese telling me that she was pregnant was a feeling I could not explain. It was pure joy penetrating my heart down to my soul. Here I was with a grown son about to go off to college and then Reese told me her news. I never thought I would be experiencing this again, but it became very real when I held the Ultrasound picture of our baby in my hands. My eyes filled with tears as Reese told me more happy news. We would be welcoming to our family a daughter of our very own. My legs weakened and I nearly fell over. After countless times making love to her in front of the fireplace, I held my angel in my arms while marking her soft skin with kisses. I couldn’t stop touching her. She gave herself to me openly with no barriers between us. I had never felt freer in all of my life.

  All of our years spent apart and separated by the unknown had led us here. We were about to finally get our happily ever after, and I was beyond ready to begin my new life with Reese. I didn’t even recognize the man that I used to be. I laugh when I remember the words that Jenny, my assistant, used on me when I left for the trip that would change my life forever. She told me to live a little and get a life. How right she was when my past collided with my present, and became my future. That was the moment Reese Mitchell walked back into my life, and I vowed never to let her go. Well, I haven’t, and Reese was back where she belonged. She was here with me and now carrying our child.

  I was the luckiest man in the world to be given such a gift. All the money in the world could never give you these precious moments that I’d been able to have in my life. I thanked God every night for returning Reese to me.

  I picked up a photograph from my desk of my beautiful Reese. My heart beat a bit faster, even looking at a picture. I was so in love with her. I had everything a man could ever want in ten lifetimes. I had Reese, our family, and a new baby on the way. New promises of forever had sealed us together, and we were truly blessed. This time around, no one would ever come between us, and we would spend the rest of our lives in complete bliss.

  Looking back at the photo of my father, I was ready to answer his question, even though he wasn’t there to hear it.

  “I’m happy, father. I’ve never been happier in all of my life.” Placing the picture back in its place, I head home to my heart…my Reese.

  NO MATTER HOW happy I was at this moment, I couldn’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that had strangled me through my dreams the last few nights. My recurring nightmare was rearing its ugly head again in the form of Phillip Reed. He was haunting me. I felt my mind fighting through the nightmare, only seeing grainy images of my father, until tonight when he completely materialized in my dream.

  It felt real. Real enough that I heard his voice as if he was still alive and in front of me. I screamed at him to leave me alone and to rot in hell. He wouldn’t leave, and even in my dreams he was willing me to talk to him, just like the day in my office when I rejected the olive branch he was trying so hard to give. All I had to do was accept it, but I refused him.

  Was this my punishment for not listening to him then? If he truly wanted to confess his sins to me on that day, he shouldn’t have hesitated, but he did. He may have thought he wanted to finally reveal the truth to me but that would have meant that he was remorseful, and I will never believe that he was sorry for all he had done to us. Yes, he left letters, letters filled with words that he didn’t have the courage to say to me in person, so it doesn’t change anything. He’s gone now, and I’ve made my peace with the past that he controlled. Why do my dreams keep revisiting this?

  In my dream, I was in my office, just like the day my father visited me. It was the anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, and my son’s eighteenth birthday. This time around, my father wasn’t talking in circles, he looked confident, as if he knew something I didn’t and taunted me with it.

  I kept myself in control this time, and didn’t succumb to his prodding. He once again fixed himself a drink, and then he turned to me and said something that completely made me catch my breath. His voice was calm and controlled, but yet I also heard defeat. He took a sip of his drink and said, “Every story has a villain. In your story son, I’m yours.” He repeated this, over and over again.

  There was no freedom from this nightmare, I fought against it. Seeking strength I didn’t know I possessed. I could not wake from it, and I was literally caught with no means of escaping it, or him. How can this even be possible? He was dead, but yet standing right in front of me. Was he here to drive me insane? Or was he trying to convey a deeper message to me?

  “Get out of my head!” I screamed at him, but he stood there with a stoic expression and didn’t blink.

  “You may be with your Reese Mitchell again, but you will never have your happily ever after.”

  “You’re wrong father, I already have it, and I will continue to have it for the rest of my life. You can’t hurt me anymore, so get the hell out of my head and go back to hell where you belong.”

  “I was in Hell, Walker. All those years ago when I hurt you and continued to hurt you. You will never know how sorry I truly am. I wanted to tell you so many times, but my guilt scared me. I didn’t want to lose you completely, and I knew once all my deceptions were revealed, I would have. I was a selfish bastard, this I know, but I always loved you. I’m sorry I failed you as a father, but now all I seek is your mercy. I have no place. I have no sides to cross until you decide my fate.”

  “What the hell are
you talking about?”

  “You need to forgive me. You are still carrying your deep rooted hatred for me, and it will destroy you in the end if you don’t let it go. Forgive me, son. Free me from these chains that now bind me. Only you can decide my fate. Forgive me, Walker. Forgive me…son.”

  “I will never forgive you for what you did to me and to Reese. I lost her because of you and Henry. You do not deserve forgiveness, even in death. I will never give it to you. Now get the hell out of my head!”

  “Every story has a villain. You will never know how sorry I am that I’m yours. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.” As his voice faded out into the unknown, I finally broke free of him.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I shouted out in our darkened bedroom.

  “Walker, wake up!” Reese softly speaks over and over again until my eyes blink open. The most beautiful brown eyes stared back at me, as she continued to calm me with her sweet voice and soft kisses on my face.

  “Baby, are you okay? You were screaming in your sleep. You’re soaked in sweat.”

  There was no way I was going to tell Reese about my dream. I simply would not put her through any unnecessary pain, especially at the hands of my father again. I wasn’t about to analyze why I was dreaming about him. I closed that chapter of my life the day I left his home for the final time, making promises never to return. I wanted a clean slate, and it was never to be had holding on to the sad memories of my past.

  I wrapped my arms around Reese and made love to her, burying myself deep inside her. I loved her like I needed my next breath. Reese was my Forever, and I wasn’t going to let these nightmares get in the way of that. All would be right with my world in a matter of a few weeks from now. I would be marrying Reese, surrounded by our family and friends. I couldn’t wait to see her walk down the aisle and into my waiting arms.

  My girl was in a deep sleep. I wore her out with our middle-of-the-night sexathon, but it was what I needed to rid my mind of the bullshit that occupied it. She never questioned or held back the same need of desire that made us both fit like missing pieces to a puzzle. We were always connected in every way that mattered.