“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. I promise. Tomorrow, I want you to sit down with Bernard and me and tell us anything you can remember,” he says, taking off my shirt before he lays me on the bed and gets in with me, tucking my head under his chin.
“I can do that.” I nod into his chest. If my grandmother did kill my mom, I want to know where she is so she can be put to rest. And if she didn’t kill her, I hope I can talk to her and ask her why she left me, knowing the kind of person she was leaving me with.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he murmurs, pulling the blankets up around us.
“I’m sorry about your email,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his bare chest.
“No, you’re not, but it’s okay.” He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, making me smile before I float off to sleep.
~*~*~
Waking up, my heart is pounding hard in my chest as I recall the dream I just had.
“What’s the matter?” Carter asks, getting up on his elbow and looking down at me.
“Bad dream,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
“It’s probably just the hormones,” he says, running his hand over my hair. “The baby book said that sometime they could cause bad dreams.”
“It felt so real.” I shake my head, trying to erase the memory of it.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, gathering me against him, and I nod against his chest.
“I was sitting outside on the grass in a big backyard with flowers all around me. It was the middle of the day, and I was little. I could barely walk, but I stood up and wobbled to a dirt pile in the yard. I started to cry when I saw the dirt was covering my mom. When she wouldn’t move, I reached down into the grave and took her necklace....then I woke up,” I say, feeling sick.
“I think stress and the questions about your mom have your imagination running wild,” he says, gently kissing my forehead.
“What if it was real though?” I ask in a whisper, lifting the necklace up and running my fingers over it. “My granddad had to know I took this from his drawer. He had to know, and he didn’t ever question me about it. And he never asked anyone else either.”
“He knew it was something that was meant to be yours.”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. I can’t get rid of the feeling it wasn’t a dream but a memory. I close my eyes.
“You don’t believe it was a dream.”
“I don’t,” I say, opening my eyes back up to meet his.
“Where could this have happened if it wasn’t a dream?” he asks, studying me while his hand runs gently over my stomach.
“I don’t know. We didn’t have a yard in the city, and I don’t remember having one when I was younger, or going anywhere that was like the place in my dream,” I tell him, wishing I knew if it was real or not.
“Come with me,” he says, getting out of bed and handing me his shirt to put back on as he puts on a pair of sweats. He takes my hand and leads me out of the room and down the hall to his office. Sitting in the chair I was in last night, he pulls me down onto his lap then clicks away on the screen. Not knowing what he’s doing, I wait for him to tell me what he’s looking for.
Soon, my grandfather’s information is there, detailing every account and piece of property he owned before his death. Moving through the list, he stops on a house that my grandparents owned in Connecticut around the time of my birth before selling a few years later. Pulling the address from the list, he pastes it into the internet search bar and the house pops up on a website. Clicking on the link, pictures of the home come into view, and my breath leaves me in a whoosh when I see the backyard that was in my dream.
“That’s the yard,” I tell him, running my finger over the image of the flower-covered backyard.
“I’m gonna make a couple of phone calls. Why don’t you go get something to eat?”
“I can’t eat right now.” I frown, wondering if he’s crazy.
“Fuck, when did you start talking back?” he asks.
“Here,” I say, picking up the phone and handing it to him. Then I turn on his lap, resting both my legs over his, and lay my head on his chest, not wanting to push his buttons too much by laughing at him.
“Fuck,” he growls, wrapping one arm tightly around me then the phone starts to beep, and a few seconds later, he’s talking to his dad. After that, he calls the police in Connecticut where the house is located, and then he calls a judge in the same area. I don’t know how many people he talks to, but I watch the time tick away on the clock for two hours before he puts the phone down and folds his arms around me. “Now, we wait.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“They’re going to send a forensics team to the house to scan the backyard. If anything comes back abnormal, they’ll dig and call us if they find out anything.
Nodding against his chest, I close my eyes and pray.
Sitting at the kitchen counter on one of the barstools, where Carter planted me, telling me I needed to eat, I look at him when his phone begins to ring. Wrapping his arms around the back of my neck, he searches my face—for what, I don’t know—then kisses my lips briefly before picking up his phone.
“Hello? Yeah.” He closes his eyes then wraps his hand around the back of my head and pulls me into his chest. I know I was right. I know it wasn’t a dream without him having to tell me so. After a few more words I don’t really hear, a loud bang sounds in the quiet condo and I know he just threw his phone into the wall. As he wraps his arms around me, I hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest.
“It was her, wasn’t it?” I ask, and his arms tighten.
“We can’t know for sure until they do DNA testing, but I can’t imagine it being anyone else, beautiful,” he says, sounding gutted.
“She killed her,” I tell him as wetness covers my cheeks. “She didn’t leave me on purpose.” I cry in relief and sadness then wrap myself around him as he picks me up and carries me across the room. He then lays me down in the bed, holding me tightly as I cry for a mom I never knew.
Chapter 13
Carter
Watching Fern walk across the stage at graduation, I can’t help but feel proud of my beautiful girl. Three weeks ago, forensics confirmed her mom was the woman buried in the shallow grave in the backyard of the house in Connecticut. I knew she needed to know if her mom had left her or not, but I didn’t know how much that information was effecting her until she got the phone call verifying what she already believed.
The police were still building a case against her grandmother, but between what was found at the burial site and her history with Fern, it didn’t look like she would be getting out of jail until she was taken out in a body bag. We would never know if her grandfather knew about what happened, but I want to believe he didn’t.
Stand
ing up from my chair, I clap loud and yell as her hand wraps around her diploma. Turning, she looks at me and presses her fingers to her lips, sending a kiss my way, and my eyes land on the new ring on her finger and I smile.
A week ago, I dragged her to the courthouse, much to my mother’s disapproval. I couldn’t wait any longer for her to be my wife, and I told my mom I was just keeping up with tradition. Neither of us cared about having a big wedding, and really, all I needed was everyone to know she belonged to me.
~*~*~
“Where are we going?” Fern asks, turning on my lap to look at me.
“I already told you it’s a surprise,” I remind her with a kiss once again as my hand roams over her stomach that is now sporting a small bump.
“Can I have a hint?”
“Nope.” I smile then dig into my pocket for the blindfold I put there before we left home. Covering her eyes before we reach the airport, I lift her out of the car then carry her onto the private jet and into the backroom, laying her down on the bed.
“Are we on a plane?” she asks as I nibble my way down her body, settling myself between her legs. Lifting the bottom of the dress she has on, I pull her panties to the side and distract her with my mouth and my cock until we land in Jamaica two hours later.
“We’re here, baby,” I say, kissing her neck and waking her up.
“Where’s here?” she asks with a smile, running her fingers through my hair.
Leaning down, I ignore her question, pressing a kiss to her mouth then lifting her out of the bed. I help slip her dress back on over her head then take her hand and lead her to the front of the plane, giving the pilot a nod before stepping down the stairs of the plane, hearing Fern gasp behind me. “Welcome to Jamaica,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her once we’re both on the tarmac. As she lifts up on her tiptoes, I meet her halfway, kissing her deeply.
“I can’t believe you brought me to Jamaica,” she says excitedly.
Kissing her once more, I then lead her over to a car that is waiting for us.
“This is so beautiful,” she says, stepping out the glass door to the balcony that leads to our private pool. Watching her lean her face back and close her eyes as the sun shines down on her, I see the outline of her body through the white material of her dress and feel myself grow hard.