More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2) (6 page)

She nodded and reached across to take it off the plate and lay back eating slowly. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose you know,” she whispered so softly that I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right. 

“Do what?” 

Still not looking at me, she waved her hand at her stomach.
Did she think I thought she got pregnant on purpose?
 

“That never even occurred to me. Where did this come from?” As soon as I said it, I knew exactly where it was coming from - her fucking stepsister. Leaning across her, I gently turned her face so she’d look at me, but she kept her eyes focused on her lap.  

“Isla, look at me, Angel.” I gave her chin a gentle nudge. Once her beautiful eyes were focused on me I continued, “I know you didn’t and I also know that this is because of Calista. You are nothing alike, you’ll never be and no one will ever assume that you would stoop to that level; if they did, I’d have a lot of strong words to say to them.” Taking a deep breath in, I continued, “These babies aren’t a curse, or an inconvenience - they’re a beautiful gift that I’m over the moon about and were made from love, not spite or greed.” 

I could see the tears building up in her eyes and it made my gut ache, but I needed to get all of this out. I put my hand on top of where my world was sleeping safely and looked into the eyes of the rest of my world. 

“I love you, Angel.” The tears started falling down her face, making me groan. “I hate it when you cry. We’ll get through this and I swear on everything that I will prove to you how much I love you and never let you down again.”  

The look on her face cut me deeply; she looked scared and doubtful at the same time. I had done this to us with my stupidity, but I was also going to fix it and prove to her how much I loved her. I was also going to prove that I would be the best husband and father ever. On that thought, an idea came to me. 

“Finish your lunch, baby, I’m going to go and make a couple of phone calls. I’ll be on the balcony, so shout if you need anything okay?” I kissed her on the forehead taking a second to breathe her in again.
“I love you.”
 

Her head snapped up and she took a sharp breath in. Isla wasn’t an overly talkative person, but her silence proved how much work I had ahead of me. 

C
oleman

I was looking across the field
watching one of my guys blend in with the rest of the ranchers as they fixed a fence. This was the eighth time that an alarm had been tripped, and when we got to the section, the fence was broken. No matter what surveillance we put up, it would lose signal in that area, too, like its frequency was being jammed so we never got a clear picture of who or what was doing the damage. One of my guys, Landon, was a tech geek and had put a couple of frequency jammer counter measures in place, but none of them had worked so far. As head of Brett Townsend’s security, it was my job to keep them all safe, and the fact someone was getting one over on us was fucking me off and also worrying me more than I’d let on. 

My phone ringing in my pocket interrupted my pissed off thoughts; pulling it out, I saw that it was Brett. 

“Hey!” We’d dispensed with formalities ages ago after I’d called him ‘Sir’ and he’d threatened to fire me if I ever did it again. We’d been working together for so long though that he was like a brother to me now. 

“Dad called. Luke wants something picked up from his safe and Dad’s in meetings, so he rang me. Have you got someone free to take me?” Brett sounded pissed off even asking, but after the incident in Dallas he knew better than to leave on his own. 

“Give me five and I’ll have someone take you.” Hanging up, I dialed Cooper and gave him instructions. He was one of my undercover’s and one of my best guys, so I knew he’d keep Brett safe. 

Looking back over at the work going on at the fence, a feeling started building in my gut. Something bad was brewing, but we didn’t know what or when it was going to happen. Even worse, we didn’t know who and it was eating away at me. 

C
ole
 

This fucking lug nut
was driving me insane, why the shit wouldn’t it budge? I’d been eyeballing the blow torch and considering just attacking it out of principle when I heard my phone ringing. As always, the assholes that I worked with burst out laughing, but personally I thought
Party in the USA
was an awesome song, so they could go and dangle for all I cared. 

Looking at the screen, I saw Luke’s name and the photo that I’d taken of him when the nurse had told him that they were going to take the catheter out in the hospital. Shit that was funny… 

“Hi, you’ve reached God. How can I help you?” Hello was just so overused and boring. 

His sigh was pretty much standard for whenever I said anything around Luke; the guy was just too serious!  

“I need a favor.” 

I couldn’t help my huge grin, after all Luke was calling
me
to ask for a favor; this was like Christmas. “How can I help you, my liege?” 

“I need Isla’s car to be checked over to make sure it’s in top condition.  I also need you to try and find a buyer for it.” 

“Does she know about all of this?” I mean, I’m all for making sure she’s safe, but she loved that car and I wasn’t going to risk my balls. 

“Look, I can’t say why just now, but it needs to be done, Cole, so can you do it or do I need to call someone else?”  

“You’re missing a minor detail, dude; I don’t have her keys! Sure, I could break into it and all, but I’m thinking that the person who bought it might have an issue with having to jimmy the lock every time they wanted to get in. And it’s not like you can fit the shit needed to do it in a pocket or a purse. Well, maybe some women could cause some carry around frigging enormous purses, but it wouldn’t look good on the ad saying…” 

“COLE!” Uh oh, I’d pissed off the bear. I thought I had a valid point, though. “Shut the fuck up and listen. Maya has a key to Isla’s house; go get it and the key to the car will be in the dish on the unit just inside the door. Can you fucking do that or not?” 

“Well, seeing as you ask so nicely, my liege…” His sigh was enough to tell me he’d reached his breaking point, but when had that ever stopped me? “I’ll do it, but I’m not selling it without Isla’s say so, dude. I love my balls! They bring me luck.”  

“Thanks. Check it over and make sure it’s safe. I’ll speak to Isla and get her to call you about the other thing.” 

“Okay darling, have a great day at the office. I love you!” I said as I hung up on him and turned to the office to clean up and change my shirt before I went to go and see Maya to get the keys.
Damn, I loved pissing him off
. 

B
rett
 

Pulling up in front
of Luke’s house, I reached for the door handle to get out the car when Cooper stopped me. 

“Something doesn’t feel right.” He was scanning the street and area around us.  

Looking around, it all looked perfectly normal to me, but the tension coming off of the guy beside me told me he didn’t agree. 

“It’s just a quick in and out. Luke wants me to go into his office and get a box out of his safe; you can come with me.” 

Still looking around, Cooper shook his head. “Give me the details and I’ll go in. You stay in the car.” 

The car was a specialized one that Coleman had got from a contact of his; it was 

‘everything proof’ according to him. It was instinct and pride that had me about to argue it out with Coop, but then I saw exactly how tense he was. Cooper was a pretty relaxed guy, so when he got like this people took notice. 

Writing it all down, I locked the doors and watched him walk up to the door and put the key in the lock. He looked back at me and did another sweep of the street before opening the door. Just as he pushed it open, there was a deafening explosion and Cooper was thrown away from the door and onto the grass as Luke’s house literally blew up in front of me. Bits of it hit the car so hard that it almost tipped over.  

There was random debris flying everywhere and pieces were hitting Cooper’s prone body; I couldn’t get out of the car while it all fell without getting hit by it either. It felt like it went on for hours and smaller bangs were coming from inside the property. All I could do was watch in horror as Luke’s house burned and Cooper continued to lay on the ground not moving. I couldn’t even see if he was breathing. 

Getting my cell out of my pocket, I rang Coleman, but there was no answer. Of all the fucking times for him to be busy!  

Looking out of the windows, the falling debris was stopping so I got out of the car and ran over to Cooper. He still wasn’t moving on the grass, but I could see his chest moving shallowly. Thank fuck he was alive. There were injuries all over him with blood coming from different places and blisters instantly forming on the areas that had been burnt when he opened the door. 

Grabbing my phone out of my pocket again, I dialed 911 as I checked Cooper over and told them everything I could about his condition. They confirmed that they’d already had calls requesting Fire and Rescue and that an ambulance had been dispatched as a formality alongside it so one was actually closer than I realized. I hung up once I heard the sirens getting close and dialed Coleman again. 

Hanging up as the ambulance, fire crew, and police pulled in, I dialed Coleman again. 

"Yea...What the fuck? Why the fuck am I hearing sirens?" He barked at me. 

“There was a bomb,” I shouted down the phone at him and turned to look quickly at Luke’s house that was just one big ball of fire now. “I don’t know if Cooper’s gonna make it!”  

C
ole
 

God, Isla’s home was boring.
I’d had a snoop to see if I could find anything juicy or interesting and there was literally nothing. So disappointing! 

I could hear sirens as I walked out of Isla’s house and looked in their direction to see smoke rising into the sky far away from where I was. There had been a bang while I was in the house, so maybe someone had left their gas on?