No More Running

by Jayton Young

  Just to let you know, Doc is engaged! I know can you believe it? He went out with the head ER nurse and had a wonderful time. They had so much in common, and he told me that it felt as if he’d known her forever. Her name is Julia and she fits in with all of us quite well.

  Anyway, back to the story.

  After Doc came my crew, as I call them. The best people in the world. The ones who were there for me and never left or gave up. The Davis’ were the grandparents I never had. Yes they considered me their daughter, but I can’t discount my mom, so I love them just as much as I would my ‘grandparents’. Mr. Davis, Thomas, as he insisted I call him and I finally gave in, was starting to slow down a little, but still stayed in the kitchen baking up a mini-storm. He did have help now, though. A nice girl fresh out of culinary school, wanting to work in the shop, and learn the up and downs of the business, before she opens a bakery of her own.

  Mrs. Davis, or Patsy as I now call her, is still going strong. I can tell she is very worried about Thomas, with him being older than her. She said it never mattered to her, but she didn’t want to live out her life without him. I know she is sad, but she will make it. She said Thomas told her that God had sent her to him to help him live a better life, and he loved her so much for it. He said he would wreak havoc from heaven if she didn’t live on, and try to be happy after he was gone. At least until God decided it was her time to join him. I cried with her when she told me that, it was so sweet. Hopefully though, they will still have a few years before it becomes an issue.

  Claire asked Stefan to marry her. I know, kind of backward, but she said she’d be old and gray if she waited on him. She didn’t know he was a silent partner until they were selling their homes to find one that fit both of them. He wanted to buy the house for her, but she told him that since they both brought home the same salary, which would have been true if someone else did the work he did every day, they should split the cost. He had seriously thought I had told her his position in the company. Garret and Claire both had lit into him for that, saying he should have known me better than that. Anyway, they just up and flew to Atlantic City one night; got married, gambled, and just plain had fun on their honeymoon. Garret teased them saying they just had to steal our thunder, considering they married two weeks before we did.

  Our wedding was small, but glorious. We got married in Margie’s church, surrounded by our friends, family, and coworkers. The sanctuary was decked out in white and yellow roses.

  Claire’s Matron of Honor dress was an identical dress to mine, just in a yellow rose color. I wore a white dress with a peasant top, off the shoulder straps, and the satin material layered and flowing down to my ankles. I had white satin ballet flats on my feet, which helped with the night of dancing we had where I was passed around to everyone. I hadn’t told anyone except Claire that I was pregnant. I was only three months, but I already had a small baby bump. Luckily it was hidden by the cut and flow of the dress. We wanted everyone’s attention on our wedding and not the baby. We decided to tell them all when we got back from our honeymoon.

  Garret took me on a one month Caribbean cruise. It was wonderful when we finally made it out of our cabin, but was marred by a phone call eight days before we were scheduled to come home.

  Margie had a stroke and fell down a flight of stairs. She died on impact when her head hit a step. I couldn’t get over the guilt of leaving her, and especially of not telling her about her grandbaby. I floated through the funeral and several days afterward, lost in my own world, not really knowing what was happening around me, before Garret finally snapped me back to reality. He literally picked me up and dumped me in a cold shower, which finally allowed me to let the tears and pain, which I’d been holding in, go. He stayed with me in the shower, his arms tight around me, rocking me, and crying with me.

  It was freeing to let it all go. I had been holding in so much, trying not to bring down the people around me. There had been the fire and the aftermath.

  Jamie never made it to trial, he finally confessed everything. When he had gotten out of the hospital in Tacoma, he was still weak. Chuck had come to him, wanting to finish what he’d started, meaning he was going to let Jamie burn to death for daring to think he could date me, when I belonged to Chuck. Whatever Chuck was going to use to set Jamie on fire somehow got Chuck instead.

  Jamie stated that as he watched, all he could think was none of it would have happened if it weren’t for me. So he took care of Chuck’s body and searched through his belongings, finding everything he needed to know about me.

  It had taken almost a year for him to recuperate enough, but when he did, he followed me; always missing me by less than a couple of weeks. He had some reconstructive surgeries to fix his face along the way, finally catching up with me in Savannah.

  He decided to play with me, making me suffer, just as Chuck had done. He said it had just been luck that I got hit by the bullet instead of Claire, and poisoned with Garret. He didn’t plan it, but didn’t mind it. He even confessed to trying to just go ahead and kill me by morphine overdose in the hospital, but he got caught by a nurse. I had forgotten that little bit I’d heard while I was out of it.

  He said that he resented Doc because he knew Doc helped me decide when and where to move to, so it was his fault it took so long to get to me, so he had decided to try to pin it all on him, but Doc messed that up for him.

  By the time I had finished listening to his taped confession, I was sick to my stomach. Chuck had been very twisted, but Jamie was completely insane. He had even talked about the insanity plea, but his lawyer advised against it saying there had been too much thought put into everything, making it premeditated. He plea bargained down to twenty five years to life with no possibility of parole. The prosecutor said it was a good deal with his five counts of attempted murder, two counts of arson, and murder as self-defense, which is how they classified it with his particular situation.

  Tonight was my one year anniversary as Mrs. Garret Starr. Claire had Kinsley, my five month old baby girl, and I was planning a romantic night with my husband. I wanted to let him know that we were almost to the point of being the dream American family. We had a house with a fence, it was a privacy fence, not white picket, but it was close. We had a German Shepard named Cujo. He was a sweetheart, but as a cute little puppy, I had thought it would be a funny name to give him. I mean who will come close to your yard when you have a dog with the name Cujo. See? It instills fear, though if he attacks you; it’s with licks and not bites. We had one girl; I was hoping the baby I was telling Garret about tonight, that was now on the way, was going to be a boy.

  The only question left to make it the perfect life and family. How do you have the point five child?

  About The Author

  I am a stay at home mother of three that has always loved coming up with stories. Since high school, I have loved to both read and write all genres of stories. I have a couple of earlier works that I loved, but learned a lot from, so hopefully my writing reflects that. As my children have gotten older and now all have their own things to do, they have encouraged me in my dream of becoming an author. I have really great feedback from my readers before I even publish the finalized manuscripts, so I really hope that the readers who buy my books enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

  Follow Jayton Young on her website http://www.authorjaytonyoung.com

  or on facebook http://www.facebook.com/JaytonYoung.

  Finding Aiden

  Jayton young

  Copyright © Jayton Young 2012

  WARNING: This story will contain some explicit sexual situations. Ménage (M/F/M) situations

  Blurb

  Aimee Dumont is an Intern living with her twin brother Aiden and their two best friends Mike and Brock. When Aiden goes undercover, he tells Aimee that he’ll be gone for a while, not to worry, but when she feels him get hurt and can no longer communicate with him, she will do everything in her power to find out what happened.

 
Aimee will be pulled into a world of the mafia looking for the answers no one is willing to give. Will Mike and Brock be able to get to her in time, or is she in way over her head?

  Exerpt from Finding Aiden:

  Chris was outside waiting when they pulled up in another cab a few minutes later. As soon as Aimee was out of the cab, He grabbed her up, twirling her around.

  “Damn, girlie. You want everything with a bulge between its legs attackin’ you?” He asked as the guys got out of the cab and paid the fare.

  Aimee looked at Chris with confusion. “As usual I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “As yummy as you look; we are going to be fighting the boys and the girls off you.”

  Aimee looked down at what she was wearing. She had on her black stretch denim skinny jeans on and a red vest top with a silver zip-up, and it showed her red rose belly ring glittering in the lights of the club. She had put on her black cowboy hat when they’d gone to drop their shopping off at the house, and of course she was wearing her red cowgirl boots. She’s been wearing all of it all evening and she didn’t see a problem with it.

  Mike chuckled. “You have no idea, Chip. We’ve been having stare downs with half of the male population today.”

  Aimee slapped Mike in the chest. “Y’all stop it. Nobody’s been looking at me nor are they going to be, outside of dancing. You know I’ll end up on the bar at some point. Especially if Randy sees me.”

  Randy was the bartender slash manager of the club and they’d been great friends ever since she worked there. His wife was one of the few female friends she had. Aimee had been a tom-boy most of her life, and that didn’t invite too many girls to strike up conversations. In school, usually if someone wanted to talk to her and be friends with her, it was to get closer to either Aiden, Brock, or Mike because the four of them were always together.

  “Tammy is about to pop if she didn’t at some point this week, so he might not be here.” Chris said as he held her hand, dragging her in past Brandt, the bouncer who just waved at them and winked at Aimee as the crowd in line started shouting their complaints. The whole staff knew the lot of them, either from her previously working there, or from their regular visits to the club.

  They headed straight for the bar and pushed their way through to the front. Sure enough, Randy was there, but he was so busy he didn’t see Aimee and the guys.

  “Hey, Bootlicker! Can we get some service down here?!” Aimee shouted with a huge grin on her face.

  His scraggly face split into a big smile. “You whore! Get your ass on this side of the bar!” He hollered back.

  She climbed up the barstool onto the bar and hopped down on the other side. Running over to where he was standing, mixing a drink, she jumped up onto his back, reached her face around to his cheek, and smacked him a big kiss. “It’s my birthday, Papi. I’ll need a pitcher of Sex on the Beach. I’m getting waaasteeed.” She sang.

  He laughed as she extended the word wasted. “Your brother’s really going to allow that?” He asked as he went back to mixing the drinks he had orders for. Aimee lost her smile and hopped off of his back, going to the bar and mixing her pitcher. “He’s not here. That’s why I’m getting wasted.” She said and tried to summon a smile back for him.

  It must not have worked because he gave her a pitying look, but quickly covered it with his smile. “Don’t worry, sweet cheeks, by the end of the night you’ll have forgotten you had a brother. And your drinks will be on the house, birthday girl.”

  Aimee finished making her drink and then made a different one for each of the guys. They drank first, and then Aimee, keeping the rest of her pitcher behind the bar to stay safe, went into the crowd to dance. She danced for a while, different guys coming up to her and dancing with her, but when she didn’t show interest, they would leave her. At one point she got up on the bar and danced with the waitresses to Shania Twain’s ‘Any Man of Mine’. She ended up going through the whole pitcher of Sex on the Beach, and ordered another, snacking on nuts and olives so as not to get sick.

  She had just finished the second pitcher, when Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s ‘Let’s Make Love’ came on. Mike grabbed one hand and Brock grabbed the other, and pulled her back to the dance floor. Mike grabbed her hips to pull her close and she stretched her arms over his shoulders. He had always made her feel smaller and more petite than she was; which was sad considering she was only five feet, but next to his six foot four frame, she felt like a kid. Brock wasn’t much better, holding her from behind with his six foot even muscular body. They both had such builds on them, she knew that if they weren’t careful, they could hurt her, but she was certain they would never let that happen.

  Mike’s hands slid into her back pockets and started massaging and squeezing her ass, while Brock’s hands moved around her waist, rubbing her abdomen, moving lower and lower each time. Mike bent down and pressed his lips to hers. It was so soft and sweet; different than what it was like with Brock. She tightened her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and nibbled on his lips seeking entrance, which he happily granted. She slowly snaked her tongue in seeking his. He sucked on her tongue eliciting a moan from her. As the kiss heated, but stayed soft and sweet at the same time, she felt Brock bend down to kiss below her ear, moving down to her neck to start suckling. The three of them slowly danced and kissed for a while, not paying attention to when the song ended. They were in their own little world until someone bumped into them as the floor filled even further with the next song.

  Aimee lifted her head away from Mike to look in his eyes, and she could see not only the lust she was feeling, but love too. “Let’s go home.” She said softly, but he heard her.

  “Do you mean…?” He trailed off wanting to make sure of what she intended in going home.

  She backed away from him and turned slightly to grab Brock’s hand, including him in her next statement. “Only if y’all want to.”

  Mike kissed her again, this time keeping it short, and then whispered in her ear. “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time, baby.”

  She looked at Brock and could see that he felt the same way. It shocked her that she’d been so stupid as not to see it sooner. She could have saved herself some major heart break, but she intended to fix it right then. “So let go end your wait.” She said pulling them behind her as she told Randy goodbye. Chris had left with someone a little earlier, so she would talk to him the following day.

  As they got in a cab to head home, Brock squeezed the hand that she refused to let go of. “Are you sure about this, doll? I don’t want you to regret anything in the morning.” He said. She could hear it in his voice that he hoped she wouldn’t back out.

  “Mike told me y’all had been waiting for me for a long time,” She told him. “Well I have been, too. I didn’t think either of y’all saw me that way, so I moved on. I wasted my time because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by saying something and then neither of you reciprocated my feelings. I don’t want to waste any more time, and though I am buzzed still, I’m not drunk. I know what I want, and I know what I hope is about to happen, and there will be no regrets.”

  Brock smiled and kissed her ferociously. He heard Mike tell the cab driver to step on it and get them home. He couldn’t be any happier than he was at this moment.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Other Works

  Blurb:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  About The Author


  Excerpt