Forgotten Awakenings (Awakenings #2) (14 page)

“Forever,” Sadie whimpered.

“Awe,” reverberated throughout the crowd circled around the four lovers.

“Callum,” the pastor said, holding out Elle’s ring to him.

He took it and turned to Elle, a happy smile on his face. “We’ve waited our whole lives for you. With this ring, you’re ours forever.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she murmured through her tears. Callum slid the ring along her finger until it was pressed against the diamond engagement ring he and Derek had given her months ago.

“Elle,” the pastor said, softly. “You know what to do.”

“I do,” she murmured, taking the ring from him. Shifting her eyes up to Callum’s, she felt the tears well up once more as she said, “Thank you for loving us. Thank you for needing us. Thank you for wanting us. Thank you for being a part of us.”

“I can’t live without you,” he said, as she slid the ring onto his finger. He cupped her face, but before his lips could touch hers, he looked at the pastor. “Tell me I can kiss her.”

The pastor tilted his head back and laughed. “Yes, yes, you may kiss your brides.”

The second the words were out of his mouth, Callum’s lips found hers. The kiss was simple, yet the passion, the need, the yearning behind it could be felt. As soon as their kiss ended, Elle found herself in Derek’s arms, and then in Sadie’s.

“It is my honor to announce, for the first time, Elle, Sadie, Callum, and Derek Davis, as husbands and wives.”

Hand in hand, the four of them made their walk back up the aisle, surrounded by family and friends, accepted and loved for who they were. And for the first time in months, Elle felt hope for a life together.

Thirteen

Elle moaned as she stretched, her body sore in a delicious way. She’d spent the last three days in orgasm bliss, loving the way her lovers touched and manipulated her body. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips.

Her husbands and wife.

Three days later and she still couldn’t believe they were married. Or that her mother had helped surprise them with a wedding.

“If you don’t stop making those noises, I’m going to be forced to fuck you,” Callum growled, draping his arm across her waist. His fingers curved around her hips as he pressed his face against the side of her neck.

Elle smiled. “Force you? I don’t think you need forcing to do anything to me.”

Callum laughed and leaned up on his elbow. “Touché, baby.” His eyes shifted to the where Derek and Sadie usually sleep. “Where’d they get off to?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured, but before she could say anything more, Derek and Sadie walked back into the room with cups of coffee and what smelled like blueberry muffins from their favorite café. Unlike the big coffee chains, this was a small mom and pop store that had been owned by the same people for almost thirty years.

“Guess they went to grab breakfast,” Elle laughed, gesturing to their husband and wife.

“I was starving,” Sadie cackled, placing the bag of muffins on the bed before kicking off her shoes and sliding her shorts down her legs, kicking them to the side. “And seeing as you two were snoring, Derek and I thought we needed to grab some food.”

“I don’t snore!” Elle and Callum both insisted.

“Whatever,” Derek scoffed, ditching his shorts and his shirt before climbing into the bed next to Sadie. He held out two cups of coffee. “Yours is marked, Elle.”

“Thanks, lover,” she cooed, taking the cup with the X written on the side. She took a small sip, moaning. “Damn, that’s good.”

Derek laughed. “Sex noises. Coffee always brings out the sex noises from you.”

“Everything brings out the sex noises in her,” Sadie said, grabbing the bag of muffins and pulling out a large one. “I’m so fucking hungry.”

Elle bit her lip as she watched Sadie take a chunk off the side of the muffin and pop it into her mouth, her tongue lapping the crumbs off the tips of her fingers.

Catching Elle staring at her, Sadie smirked. “See something you like, baby?”

“More than like,” she murmured. “Love. I see
someone
I love.”

“I love you, too,” she chirped before taking another bite of her muffins. She shifted her eyes from Elle, to Callum and Derek, both of whom were watching her, too. “Stop gawking at me! I’m fucking hungry because I’m growing a human being inside of my body.”

“Sorry, no can do,” Derek said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re just too damn sexy when you eat.”

“Me eating a muffin is sexy?” she asked, laughing, but then said, “Never mind. I walked into that one.”

“Yeah, you did,” Callum snorted.

Elle laughed as she grabbed the bag and grabbed one of the muffins. “Do you realize how much we have to do before the baby comes?”

“You mean like pick a name?” Sadie snorted. “Can’t keep calling her baby.”

“Well, we could,” Derek drawled, laughing when Sadie glared at him. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah, yeah; whatever,” she scoffed. “Elle’s right, though. We have ten, twelve weeks before she’ll be here. We haven’t bought as much as a pack of diapers. Which room should we use for the nursery? Do we paint it pink? Yellow? Green? We need a crib, dresser, changing table, clothes, bottles, wipes.” Sadie paused, placing her hand on her belly. “Wow. All the sudden the fact that we’re having a baby is a reality.”

“And it wasn’t before?” Derek asked with a chuckle.

“No, it was,” Sadie said, softly. “But we’re on the home stretch now, aren’t we? We’re going to be parents.”

“When you put it like that,” Elle groused, shaking her head. “Okay, so let’s talk names. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie murmured, tucking her cup of tea up to her chest. “Melanie?”

“No!” Derek and Elle shuttered, while Callum hummed and said, “It’s okay, but it reminds me of this girl I went to high school with. She was a whack job.”

“Did you date her?” Elle asked, casually.

“Ew, no!” Callum made a gagging sound. “She was crazy.”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Elle laughed putting her hands up. “How about Madeline? We could call her Maddie?”

“That’s not too bad,” Sadie said. “We can add it to the list.”

“How about Candy?” Derek suggested, but when Elle and Sadie glared at him, he added, “Or not.”

“Candy sounds like a stripper,” Sadie told him, her tone sharp and snippy. “And my daughter will
not
be a stripper.”

“All right, I’m sorry. Calm down, Momma,” Derek grumbled. “It was just a suggestion.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Sadie sighed. “I want her name to mean something. Maybe we can, I don’t know, find something that represents the other parts of her family.”

“Okay, that at least gives us a starting point,” Elle said. “Why don’t we each make a list of our top ten favorite girls’ names and then we can see if a couple of them work?”

“Why two names?” Derek asked.

“Well, she’s going to need a first name and a middle name, isn’t she?” Elle pointed out. “Besides, we have bigger issues than her name to figure out.”

“Like?” Sadie questioned.

“Like what are we going to do with our baby while we are at work,” Elle pointed out. “We can’t very well take that baby with us, can we?”

“Well, we could,” Callum suggested. “But we’d have to cut way back on the office blowjobs.”

Elle and Sadie laughed while Derek groaned, clearly not liking the idea.

“Daycare is the least of our problems,” Sadie said, smiling. “Lydia’s going to watch her.”

“Huh? When was this decided?” Elle asked, frowning.

“While you were in the hospital,” she replied, slowly. “We told you. None of like the idea of leaving our daughter in a daycare, and Lydia offered to watch her while we’re working.”

“Oh.” Elle shifted to her coffee cup, trying to remember having the conversation that included leaving their baby with their mother-in-law. Just one more way she hadn’t been there for Sadie, or their baby. “Guess that sounds like a good plan.”

“It’s better than daycare,” Sadie said, sliding her hand over Elle’s arm. “I’ve been doing a lot of research, just in case we changed our minds, and I just don’t like what I’m finding. Too many kids, not enough workers, and the costs are ridiculous!”

“Especially for one, small human.” Derek took a sip of his coffee as the phone rang. Sighing, he reached over onto the nightstand and picked it up. “Hello . . . Oh, hey, Samuel . . . What!” he exploded, scooting to the side of the bed and dragging his hand through his hair. “Okay . . . Yeah, I will. See you in a bit.”

Derek sighed once more as he ended the call, tossing the phone onto the bottom of the bed as he turned and looked at Elle. “Um, that was Samuel. He needs us to come over. Said . . . said it was important.”

“Why? What happened?” Elle asked, the look on his face had her nervous.

Derek closed his eyes and shook his head. “All he said was that Trixie has been arrested inside their house.”

“What?” Callum scrambled out of bed. “Are they okay?”

“They’re fine, just said they needed us there ASAP.” Derek walked around to where Callum stood. “I promise they’re all right. Just rattled.”

Callum nodded. “Okay.”

Derek turned to Elle, who’d been unable to keep the tears from falling down her face. Finally, after months of expecting her to pop out of the shadows, to come after her again, she was now in police custody. She felt relieved, yet there were so many questions begging to be asked.

“Honey,” Derek said, kneeling next to the bed and reaching out to grab her hand. Elle shifted her tear-filled eyes to him. “Oh, honey.”

“I don’t know how to process this,” she whispered. “She’s been arrested?”

Derek nodded slowly. “She can’t hurt you again. Not ever.”

“I know,” she cried, but Elle didn’t feel safe yet, though she couldn’t explain why. “We’d better hurry.”

“Okay, beautiful.” Derek helped her out of bed, sliding his arm around her waist and leaning in to kiss her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whimpered through her tears.

A half hour later, Callum pulled her car up into the driveway of Samuel and Lydia’s house. They’d showered and dressed, none of them in a hurry to face the woman who’d tried to ruin their life, yet the urgency was noted. A black and white police car was parked out front, along with an ambulance and an older model sedan. Elle felt her body tense as the four of them headed inside.

Samuel and Lydia were seated on the larger of their two sofas. A paramedic was kneeling next to Samuel, tending to a cut on his forearm. Two uniform police officers were standing in front of the large picture window that overlooked the front yard, next to the two detectives who had been handling the case against Trixie.

“Ms. Reid,” the taller of the two detectives said, holding his hand out toward her as he walked in her direction.

Martin Hamilton was the senior detective assigned to her case. He had sparse gray hair that he kept longer on one side so he could comb it over to cover the top of his head. His partner, Christopher Allen, was an solid two decades younger than him. He had dark black hair that he kept cut short and dark black eyes.

They’d spent hours questioning her after she woke up in the hospital, trying to pull every last detail of Trixie’s attempt on her life out of her. The more she recounted her story, the harder it became to deal. Plus, they hadn’t made their disgust with her relationship with Callum, Derek, and Sadie a secret, either.

“Actually, it’s Davis now,” Elle said, refusing to take his hand. “Is it true? You’ve arrested Trixie Maxwell?”

He nodded softly. “She’s in custody.”

Elle blew out a heavy breath and looked at Samuel, her eyes drifting to the three inch gash in his arm. “She cut you?”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

“That’s not what I asked!” Elle snarled, tightening her grip on her cane and walking over to him. Lydia slid over so she could sit next to her father-in-law. “She cut you.”

Samuel nodded. “We’d gone out for breakfast, and when we got back, the front door was open. I told Lydia to stay outside and call the police while I went inside.”

“You stupid fool,” Lydia cried.

“What were you thinking?” Elle exclaimed. “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

“No, of course not!” he insisted. “But I couldn’t just stay on the porch. I found Trixie inside our bedroom. She was . . . she was on the bed, touching herself.”

“Ew,” Callum groused as he, Derek, and Sadie sat on the other sofa.

“Tell me about it,” Samuel scoffed, shifting so that he was facing Elle. “Sweetheart, she, um, she’s dyed her hair dark, like . . . like yours.”

“Like mine?” Elle whispered.

“Yeah, and, uh, I think she was wearing your clothes.”

“W . . . What?” she stammered, her chest heaving as she struggled to keep her breathing calm and even. “What do you mean my clothes?”

“I don’t know how she got them, but you remember the outfit you wore the day you presented your plans for Alvarez Park?” he asked.

Elle bit her lip, thinking back to the day she and Sadie had met Samuel Davis. It’d been a year — a long year, that hadn’t been the easiest on them. “Um, vaguely. I remember wearing one of my black skirts, but I can’t remember what blouse I wore.”

“It was your blue silk blouse,” Sadie said, her cheeks warming. “You looked hot in it. Hugged your —”

“Sadie,” Elle hissed, shifting her eyes to the detectives before looking back at Samuel. “She was wearing my clothes?”

“Or clothes that looked like yours,” he said. “When I found her on the bed, she smiled and said she’d been waiting for me. I told her to leave, called her by her name, and she . . .  Well, Trixie went nuts and started screaming at me, saying she was you.”

Elle felt her eyes widen. “Me?”

He nodded. “She came at me, swinging a knife around. I tried to grab her arm, but she cut me before I could pin her to the ground. The police showed up not long after and they hauled her off.”

“Oh, wow,” Elle murmured, placing her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her hands.

She’d known Trixie was unbalanced and dangerous, but obsessed to the point that she tried to transform herself into being Elle? And trying to seduce Samuel? What was that about? Did she think Elle had a sexual relationship with him?

“Elle, honey,” Derek said, pulling her attention to him, Callum, and Sadie. “You’re kind of scaring us.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just . . .” Elle shook her head and looked back at the paramedic, who’d been silently stitching Samuel’s arm. “Is he okay?”

“The cut was fairly shallow. Ten stitches or so and he should be okay. As long as he doesn’t do anything stupid, like approach someone wielding a knife,” he said, casually.