Scars (28 page)

Holly licked her lips. “I…” She thought about it for a minute or two, but the truth was that she didn’t really need to. “I think I want to go back,” she said. “I think I want to start that life we had imagined with you.” She looked into Matt’s green eyes. “What do
you
think?”

Matt smiled. “I think I want the same.”

He kissed her then. He tasted like renewed dreams and rekindled hope.

The California sun beat down on the flourishing vineyard. The vines’ branches were heavy with fruit that would have to be picked and transformed into the wine whose fame had gone past the local borders and spread throughout California, and even reached a few States beyond.

The vineyard wasn’t the only thing to be thriving. Holly was, too. She was thriving within her new life which had turned out to be so much more amazing than she had ever imagined. Presently, she was finishing setting up the long table in the patio. Dishes were neatly arranged, and a delicious meal was waiting to be served, the alluring smell drifting out from the open French doors of the kitchen.

She looked up as a high-pitched squeal caught her attention.

“Erik!” Holly called out. “Stop running around! Go wash up, it’s almost time for dinner!”

The three-year old froze mid-run in the green grass of the backyard, coming to a halt so suddenly that Becky, who had been chasing him, almost slammed into him. The practiced aunt was only able to avoid disaster by sweeping the child up in her arms, which elicited more delighted giggles.

“You’ve heard your mother, young man. Let’s go wash up!” Becky cried. She winked at Holly as she walked by with a still-laughing child in her arms.

Holly smiled fondly. Without thinking, she reached down to place a hand upon her pregnant belly.

Not long now,
she thought in excitement and trepidation.

According to the doctors, she only had about five more weeks to go. They had told her it would be a girl this time. After some debating, she and Matt decided that they would name her Rebecca. Becky had cried when they had given her the news.

Holly watched as Matt came out from inside the house. He was chatting animatedly with Joe and her father. It still felt very surreal to see Harry Springford get along so well with her husband and brother in law, but after the first mutual resistances, they had truly hit it off.

Holly’s parents eventually came around when they had learned she was pregnant with Erik. Apparently, the prospect of a grandchild to love and spoil was all that was needed to finally have them come to their senses. Harry and Eleanor had apologized in every possible way, and since they had all agreed to bury the hatchet, they had proven to have learned their lesson. Now, three years down the road, they learned to not only respect Holly’s life choices, but to love them, even. It was way more than Holly would have dared to hope for on her parents’ part.

Over the past three years, Holly and Matt had also been able to take great care of the house. They had fixed what needed to be fixed and added a few touches here and there to make it their home. They had replaced the plumbing with modern, better functioning pipes, and they had taken care of a few more repairs that begged to be addressed as soon as possible.

Holly’s dreams were slowly but surely morphing into a reality. Inside, the walls of the house were scattered with Holly’s art. She was making headway, and her paintings and drawings were getting more and more requests. While she worked to make it as an artist, she also taught Art at the San Francisco Art Institute. Both careers were incredibly accomplishing and filled her with so much pride that she could burst, particularly when she stopped to consider the fact that she had done it all by herself.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Holly knew she couldn’t have done any of it without Matt’s love and support.

He walked up to her now and kissed her, deeply and passionately as he always did, no matter how brief or long the kiss was. As always, Eleanor pretended to clear her throat and appear embarrassed by the sight of their passion when she came upon them kissing while she carried a large bowl of mashed potatoes outside. Holly felt Matt smirk against her lips. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss still.

Ten minutes later, they were all sitting around the table, eating and chatting amiably.

Holly sat back and considered her life. She watched them all, the smooth, comfortable way of their interactions, and she felt loved and fulfilled in ways she had never thought possible. To think there had been a time when she had thought that giving in to her instincts of running away from her parents’ house in Lincoln, Texas would be the death of her! As it turned out, it had been the life of her.

She found Matt’s hand underneath the table and grasped it, entwining their fingers together. He returned her hold immediately, squeezing her hand in response. He turned to look at her and smiled, and he winked in that cute, sexy way of his, like he always did when he wanted to let her know that he loved her and was feeling every bit as happy as she did.

Holly ran her thumb lovingly over the back of his hand, and she was hit with yet another wave of humbling gratitude. She knew she had gotten quite close to losing Matt once or twice during their wanderings together, back when he was still painfully lost. Back when he was a ticking time bomb that could go off at any minute. Back when he thought he wasn’t worthy of love and did not deserve anything good in this world.

Mercifully, those days were long gone. Matt had found himself in the end. He had found himself in his work in the vineyard under the Californian sun, where nature’s ways took care of his mangled soul and restored his battered spirit. He had found himself in house repairs, where working with his hands to fix something had allowed him to fix pieces of himself in the process. He had found himself in Holly and their love and their marriage, where he had learned about strength and courage and about loving himself. He had found himself in their son, where he had learned that he still had some innocence left within him.

And he would, no doubt, find himself in their daughter. Holly could not believe how lucky they had gotten. Some mornings, when she woke up, she would pinch herself sharply to make sure that it had not all been just a dream.

A few days back, they had gotten word from Erik. Holly often thought of the man who had come so close to taking everything away from them and who eventually had ended up giving them everything.

According to the letter, he was doing all right—or as all right as he could, given his painful circumstances. He wrote that he was in Scotland, somewhere in the Orkney Islands. He wrote that there was something about the Atlantic Ocean and its chilly waters that spoke to him, and that gave him something akin to peace. He was far from healed, of course, but he was doing better. He still felt like he was in pieces, he wrote, but the Scottish Isles gifted him with fleeting, precious moments where he thought he was almost whole again. He wrote that he thought of them often, and that he hoped they could be reunited someday.

Holly found herself hoping the same. Her lingering feelings of resentment towards the man who had almost delivered her as a prisoner to a life she did not want, were long gone. Now she only thought of Erik Schneider as the man who had given her and Matt the chance they so desperately needed. Now she only thought of him as a man she would always owe an enormous debt to.

She hoped Erik could truly find his healing someday. She hoped he could one day say that he was doing well and truly mean it. She hoped he would find the love she knew he, too, deserved. She hoped he would find himself again. She hoped he would meet someone who helped him with that, someone who would show him the way to his true self in the same way that Matt had showed her, and that, she liked to think, she had showed Matt.

“I love you.”

Holly jumped out of her reverie at Matt’s sweet whisper in her ear.

She turned to look at him. She didn’t think there would ever come a day when she couldn’t get lost in the green of his eyes. “I love you too,” she said. “So much, you have no idea.”

Matt grinned. “I think I might have a clue or two.” He kissed her, uncaring of the fact that they were still at the table and surrounded by people. Nothing else seemed to matter to him in those moments—nothing else but the two of them.

When they pulled apart, Holly cast a quick glance around the table. No one seemed to have noticed their display. Then again, everyone was quite used to the fact that they would kiss whenever the mood struck, uncaring of where they were or what was going on around them. Harry, Eleanor, Joe, and Becky were engrossed in a conversation amongst themselves. Holly caught the words “granddaughter” and “niece,” and she knew they were making plans for the almost fully grown baby in her belly. She smiled.

“I hope your parents are not thinking of marrying her off,” Matt joked.

Holly snorted. “If they are, we’ll just give her a bus ticket and tell her to go find love.” She smiled. “It worked pretty well for us, after all. Didn’t it?”

Matt smiled. “Yeah, it did.”

Erik picked that moment to walk over and climb into his father’s lap. He didn’t say anything; he never did, not when he just wanted to stay close to his dad. Matt wrapped his arms around him and watched as the child snuggled up contently. Erik was asleep within minutes.

Holly watched the two most important men in her life. Once again, she had to consider how happy she was that she had taken that final opportunity to board a bus to the life she deserved over three years ago.

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HE’S NOT HERE TO SAVE ME.

My life fell apart after my mother’s death and I’d do anything to save my sister from our living hell.

But I didn’t expect Avery—a demon in the ring with nothing but his fists and a bad attitude who clawed his way to the top—to answer my prayers.

I tried to keep my walls up. To keep him from becoming a distraction.

But he won’t be stopped, and in one moment of weakness, I caved.

I fell into his arms and opened my heart…

… until he broke it and nearly wrecked me in the process.

I should’ve learned my lesson and stay away.

But there’s something about this bad boy that draws me back in.

That makes me long for his rough hands.

Makes me beg for his rumbling voice growling in my ear: “Never forget, you’re MINE.”