Watch What Burns
Authors: Kirsty-Anne Still
Watch What Burns
Kirsty
-Anne Still
Watch What Burns
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2013
Kirsty-Anne Still
Cover design – Cover It Designs –
Arijana Karčić
All rights reserved. Please keep this book in its complete original form with the exception of quotes used in reviews. No alteration of the contents is allowed. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying) recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Also by
Kirsty-Anne Still:
A Fire That Burns
- the prequel to Watch What Burns.
Coming soon:
Your Little Secret
- Co-written with Bethan Cooper.
This is your racing heart
Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
Pumps through your veins
Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
(Bastille - Laura Palmer)
To everyone who stuck out the wait after that impromptu cliff-hanger ending and who still remained faithful to these characters and to me.
Contents
“
YOU’VE never come to see me before.” Natasha’s voice was rough, tortured with neglect and regret. She flashed her gaze over to her mother and sighed, “So why now?”
“I know what you’ve been doing,” Diane spoke up, her tone hard and cold. “You need to leave them alone.”
“
Them
?” Natasha snorted at that, shaking her head as she laughed a little. “I only contact one person other than you and dad. Tyler will come by and see me, Mom. I know he will. He has to.”
“He won’t,” Diane bit back. “It’s been three years, Natasha. He has moved on and made something amazing of his life.” She paused and met her daughter’s almost dead gaze across the wooden table.
“With Austin.”
Natasha shook her head, disbelief marring her entire face, “No, she’s not right for him. I made sure
of that. She’s got that scar down her side. It’d never work.”
“They’ve been married now three years,” Diane reiterated the time lapse, praying that this one time would finally drive some sense into her daughter. In the past three years she had only see her daughter’s mentality became more and more fragile. “The day you were sent to await your trial they got married. She also found out she was pregnant. They let that news out a few weeks after, but they now have a little daughter.”
“You seem to know a lot,” Natasha grumbled unhappily, literally feeling the urge to sulk. Her eyes began flashing with malice as she watched her mother closely, she didn’t want to hate her mother, but she found it was easier to hate everyone nowadays.
“Because
Grace
is part of the town I still have to live in. Do you know how long I had to carry your actions on my back?” Diane asked her daughter, and she watched Natasha’s eyes water. “Too long, Natasha. It was Austin who came over with Grace and invited me to a party. That was the day she got the town talking to me again.”
“They named her Grace?” Natasha gasped at the thought, the realism settling in steadily.
Diane nodded, “Fitting if you ask me. They felt graced with so much hope and happiness after all your doings, and that child brought those two closer than ever. Grace Annabelle they named her. Apparently it means graced with joy. It fits that little girl perfectly, if you ask me. I thought Tyler was truly happy with you, but I have never seen that man literally ignite more than ever when he’s with Austin.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Natasha wallowed, her voice becoming tight on her.
“Because you tortured not only Austin and Tyler for so long, but both their families,” Diane told Natasha heartlessly and grabbed her bag. She retrieved what she needed to from it and slid it across the table at Natasha. “I think you should see what became of your actions so that hopefully you’ll see that there is nothing for you to chase.”
With hesitancy, Natasha leaned forward, grabbing the rectangle paper and took in her first sight of Tyler since she was sent down for her wrongdoings.
There he was, a smiling little girl lifted into the air in his strong grasp. He was full of smiles while she giggled away, and there, right on the sidelines looking on serenely, was Austin. They were a perfect family, living in an all American dream house. There were no bad auras around any of them, and Natasha knew full well they were unbreakable.
“She’s still burnt,” Natasha sneered. It was the only thing she could say right now.
“Well yes,” Diane spoke unhappily. “No thanks to you.”
Natasha looked up wordlessly. She didn’t say a thing, she didn’t mention anything else. She just watched the absolute disgust mask her mother’s face and knew she made an enemy for life. She just never thought she would see it in the eyes of her mother.
“Clearly you haven’t learnt a thing while being in here,” Diane muttered and reached for her bag. She got up and began to leave; she couldn’t remain here any longer than she had to. It made her feel sick and she was disgraced to have brought up a monster. Originally she had sheltered herself from outside life and the harsh truth, but when Austin had appeared on the doorstep one day, she found that there were no reservations or hard feelings projected towards the Truman family like at first.
Austin had given her repentance and shown her how Natasha was the only one fully capable of her own actions, and slowly and surely, Diane found
herself integrated back into Point Arena life. For now, Diane literally admired Austin for the strength she instilled into the town. Regardless of what had happened, no matter how scarred Austin was for life, she loved life to the fullest.
She had done her part in hopefully seeing Natasha accept that what happened had happened and Tyler was no longer hers to claim.
“Will you be back?” Natasha asked, stopping her mother at the door.
Diane dropped her head in defeat, and shook it. “I’m not sure.” She didn’t look at her daughter as she straightened up and tried for some composure. She then turned slightly, only just looking at her daughter, “I don’t know how to face you, Natasha. After everything you’ve done, you’re not my daughter.”
“I am,” she whispered to her mother. “I was just misguided.”
“Misguided for six years?” Diane asked her shocked, mortified even. “Natasha, what you did is unforgiveable and I never raised you to be like that. I tried, I really tried, for you to get along with Austin, but you always found fault.”
“I was misguided,” she tried the same line again, her voice shaking. “Mom, give me a second chance. Please?”
Diane just shook her head solemnly, unable to face such a deal right now. She said nothing else, and left the room, left her daughter, and left the monster she would always feel guilty for creating.
Looking down at the table stop, Natasha saw the snapshot of an idyllic life that should be hers and felt all of the bitterness wash through her. If her mother had brought this to her as torture, as an extra punishment, it had sure worked. She reached up, her fingers lifting the flat picture from its surface and she didn’t react overtly. She remained calm and poised. Natasha looked at the photo in her hands, and slowly pulled her hands into her lap, the photo crumpling in her grasp as her fingers gripped so tightly her knuckles began to turn white.
That little girl should be hers. That life should be hers. Austin should be dead.
Ripping Austin out of the photograph, Natasha looked at the photo in her hands. It was now only of Tyler and Grace. There was no problem in the equation to Natasha’s warped mind. There was no anger raging in her as she looked at the new roughly cropped photo.
“You’re mine, Tyler,” she whispered as the guards finally came in to the escort her back to her cell.
She kept the photo with her, leaving Austin’s still frame half on the floor.
MAY 23rd
. Tyler used to loathe this day. He hated every aspect of it. The moment the clock struck midnight, he felt his heart literally begin to ebb with desolation, the emptiness taking over, the anger of never knowing why spreading through him. It was a day he wished could be wiped from the calendar forever.
However, now it wasn’t marked that way. Tyler had welcomed May 23rd every year since Austin had stepped back into town. After all of the heartache, the depressions and the horror of Natasha’s deeds, Tyler was reunited with Austin, and he couldn’t deny that in itself was purely a happy ending.
Now he worked out purely for the sake of working out. This day was no longer marred with reasons to forget, but reasons to live. As he felt the glory of the throb race through his calves and up into his inner thighs, Tyler pressed himself harder. He ignored the person beside him as they started up the running machine and began to ease themselves into their workout. He just smirked.
“I hope you warmed up,” he commented, not ceasing his concentration on his perfectly paced running. He reached up, pulled one of the ear phones out and turned to look to his wife as she started a slower speed on the running machine beside him.
He watched her smirk at him this time, placing her own headphones on and began to strike up her own workout, picking up the speed to her preferred stage. He chuckled as she rolled her eyes and just got lost in her own exercise. His wife didn’t even need to say a word to get her point across.
Slowing his running speed down to a halt, he climb off the machine and headed over to the weights. Quickly setting the weight limit he wanted, he tossed his iPod aside and sat on the bench and began to work his biceps with the rush of overwork. His eyes remained trained on his wife’s behind, her ample ass looking divine in her workout pants.
Even three years on from their renewed relationship status, Tyler found his wife to be an incredibly sexy woman. There was nothing about her he didn’t find attractive. The way her eyes bore into his, the way she bit her lip, the way she giggled when she was up to something, the way she loved unconditionally regardless of what life had handed to her made him love her more each and every day.
“Stop staring, Armstrong,” Dean quipped jokingly as he came into the room to catch Tyler in the act. “That’s my baby sister.”
Tyler laughed, stopped his workout and looked at Dean, “Nah, that’s my baby mama.”
Dean scrunched his face up at Tyler’s words, “Dude!” he exclaimed, hitting him with his towel, “That’s still my baby sister!”
“I really don’t care,” Tyler laughed at his brother-in-law. “I’m pretty sure you don’t care about what you call your girl when her family’s around.” He watched Dean’s face mask with a smirk at the thought. “I thought so, D. Now, if you don’t mind, I will continue to eye fuck my wife.”
“You are literally relentless, you know that right?” Dean literally scoffed with good humour.
“Yeah, last I heard your sister loved me like it,” Tyler joked and watched Dean’s face fall, but he didn’t care. The whole town knew how Tyler and Austin’s relationship was, and Tyler refused to change that because he was now a family man or older. He looked over to his wife as her rhythm suddenly changed and frowned. “Seems she’s giving up.”
“What is she up to?” Dean asked as Austin suddenly slowed her running machine down to a complete stop and then climbed off, not looking to them as she pulled her headphones from her ears.
Austin approached the large window that overlooked Point Arena Cove, running a towel over her neck. She had left the running machine until last in her workout regime, using the sight before her as one to get lost in and now she was just mesmerised by it as her body began to cool down.
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” Tyler declared and approached his wife. He didn’t probe her the moment he was by her side, but decided on being playful with her. “We still have a good hour or two before Tom’s going to be at ours,” Tyler commented as he came to stand beside Austin. He knew, invariably, Tom would be late, and he never cared. Today, if he played his cards right, he wouldn’t even bat an eyelid. “We should use that time valuably.”
Austin looked at her husband, intent masking her gaze. “You have a plan for what we should do before our duties come back?” she asked teasingly.
“Of course I do, Sunny,” he spoke back with a smirk on his lips. “You always did love that place,” he said as he watched her gaze return to the sight before them.
“We’ve made so many new memories there since I came back,” she spoke softly, her gaze literally running over the sight before her. She had enough memories of Point Arena to make any person jealous, and the thought literally had her smiling every day. She was blessed and loved, and she knew that now. Love came in abundances now.
Tyler watched his wife, watched how the serenity was literally blown from her expression and darkness took over.
“Did you see that?” Austin asked, moving a little to the left, asking him before he had a chance to ask her what was wrong.
“What?” Tyler asked, trying to see what Austin could, but all he saw was a rolling landscape down towards the Cove. “There’s nothing there, baby.”
“It looked like Natasha was down there,” she whispered, her voice taut with fear.
Tyler watched his wife stiffen before his eyes as she uttered that name and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knew the amount of nightmares that woman had cast upon Austin at night, and he knew that even now, three years on, Austin was still haunted by that woman’s hatred and jealously.
“Baby,” he stepped in, wrapping his arms around her, “She’s locked up. She won’t be getting anywhere near us. It’s impossible. She’s never getting out of that cell.”
“I know,” she spoke bashfully and just looked back out of the window. Austin started to laugh, and felt like an idiot. “It’s a tree,” she grumbled amongst her chortling.
“I think it’s time we finished this gym session,” Tyler teased her endlessly. “Seems you’ve overdone it, woman.”
“I was up all night with Gracie so I didn’t sleep well. I’m just overtired,” Austin told him, but persisted to not give into her exhaustion. “What’s the plan for today, hubby of mine?”
Tyler smirked and rose an eyebrow to her before speaking, “I was going to take you home and ravish you, but I’m thinking of getting you home and spoiling you.”
“I can be ravished!” she exclaimed at him, suddenly wide awake and alert. She watched him laugh and she melted into a pout. “I like being ravished.”
“Oh, I know that,” Tyler told her and drew her straight across his body. “Baby, I’m trying to make this look seductive seeing as your brother is right behind us.” He looked over to Dean who was staring. “Yup, he’s staring.”
“We’re going to be celebrating our third year wedding anniversary soon, he needs to get with the programme, Handsome,” Austin stated with a mirthful tone, unable to control her need to burst with laughter over how protective her brothers still were.
“One day.” Tyler grinned, he tried to make himself believe it, but he understood where they were coming from. He was like this with his own little sister, and no man, no matter how amazing they were, was good enough. “What you do say we skip this place and head home for a shower?” Tyler asked, kissing into her neck, tasting the perspiration as it raced across her skin. “I don’t think they like co-sharing showers here and I really want some time alone with you.”
“Come on then, Mr. Armstrong,” Austin grinned at him, her eyes twinkling in sheer delight. “I’ll show you how to use your shower time appropriately.”
Tyler’s eyes ignited with intent. “Oh, and you haven’t done that over the past several years?”
“Oh I did, but we’re older and wiser than we were yesterday morning,” she giggled and then left him standing there as she disappeared to grab her bag. “If you hurry we’ll be able to have double time.”
Tyler ran a hand over the back of his neck as her seductive tone looped around in his mind, capturing him in the impending rapture that awaited him at home. He took a few seconds to watch his wife walk away, her ass looking perfect in her workout pants, her figure slim and alluring.
The moment he caught gazes with Austin, he was done for. He couldn’t wait anymore. He raced to grab his own bag and follow her.
***
“Put her down,” Tom chided the moment he walked into the house and found his sister pressed against Tyler.
Austin rested her head against Tyler’s chest and smiled, ignoring her brother. “How was she?”
“Well,” he started and looked at his niece as she looked at him and stuck her tongue out at him. He looked back at Austin and Tyler and just couldn’t resist laughing, “That’s how she’s been.” He looked back to his niece. “You’ve been a little terror haven’t you, Gracie?”
“No!” Grace shouted and shook her head, giggling along with it. “No, no, no! Imma good girl!”
“Not when you’re keeping your mama up,” Tyler said as he went over and took his daughter from her uncle’s safe arms.
“We pwayed pwincesses!” Grace smiled from ear to ear as she told her father proudly. “You tomorrow daddy?”
“Oh no,” Tyler shook his head. “Tonight you’re sleeping or we don’t go to the park tomorrow.” He watched as Grace’s eyes went wide, her mouth slacking some as she just stared at him in horror. For a little girl, her dramatics were spot on. “Now what do you say, baby, do you want a whole day at the park or sitting here doing nothing?”
Grace’s face transformed into mischievous grin and she couldn’t withhold on her excitement. “Park!”
“Seems the little one’s spoken,” Austin laughed at her daughter and husband. “Now, Gracie, take daddy outside and keep him busy. Uncle Tommy and I have things to do.”
“Oka, mommy!” The exclamation was full of excitement and she just allowed her father to carry her outside.
“Want a beer?” Austin asked her brother who just nodded. She grabbed a bottle of water for herself and handed him his beer. “I say we go outside before we have to get things really ready for dinner.”
“I’ll be out in a moment,” Tom told her, grabbing his cell phone from his pocket. “I just need to call Alice and I’ll follow you.”
“She best be coming over,” Austin grinned at her brother. She couldn’t deny she loved her sister-in-law as though she were her real sister.
“That’s what I’m checking on her for.” Tom smirked, and dialled her number. “Go on, I’ll be out in like two seconds.”
“Okay,” Austin replied and took
herself out of the house and onto the decking outside. She ignored the tables and chairs and decided to sit on the steps leading down onto the grass and watched her little family messing around before her.
It was moments like this she wondered how she got so lucky. After her spate of bad luck, she didn’t know if she was worthy of this life - the life so full of love and happiness. She had no idea how she came to acquire it all, and even though there were parts of her life she was better off forgetting, Austin couldn’t have wished for a better happily ever after.
“You’re too quiet,” Tom said as he sat down beside her, his beer bottle in hand, a relaxed expression on his face. “What’s happened?”
Austin had to smile, her brother read her like an open book. “I thought I saw Natasha earlier,” she admitted to her brother and watched as the disbelief washed through his expression. Now he thought she was crazy too. “I know it’s insane, but she’s literally been exploding our mail box with letters to Tyler, and it plays on my mind.”
“She’s played some really important roles in your life,” Tom comforted her. If anyone, he was the best at understanding his sister’s mentality right now. He looked out at Tyler playing around with Grace, and pointed to them with his beer bottle. “But she had no doing in that.”
Austin watched Tyler make their daughter giggle out loudly and she felt her eyes water. “It took too long for us to get to this point.” She ran a hand up her arm, tugging on her sleeve to hide the burns down her right arm. She knew no one cared about the scarring, but sometimes she felt raw and vulnerable under their reminders. “I watch her sleeping some nights and wonder what life would have been like had I never lost the first one.”
“Probably not as formidable,” Tom countered with certainty. “He needed to lose you to realise how much he needed you, and you had to come to find out the same. We’ve been over this for the past several years, Aussie. What happened, well it happened for a reason. However painful it was for us to live through, we did. We all survived and look at us now.”
“Look at you now, you mean,” she quipped sarcastically. “You turn into a pile of emotional mush when you get a chance.” She laughed but silenced herself into a bright smile, “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked her completely confused.
“For loving me enough to bring me back and remain on my side. You never once believed the rumours or Natasha. You didn’t even turn on me when mom tried.” She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder and watched her husband and daughter, “Without you I wouldn’t have this.”
“You and Tyler were meant to be, Aussie,” Tom told her and put his arm around her. “Now stop being such an over thinker and get this barbeque going.”
Hitting her brother as she sat up, she scowled at him playfully and finally took a stand. “You going to get Alice or is she just coming over?”
