Chapter 15
"Good now touch your toes."
I glared at the physical therapist and bent low, grunting and almost yelped, but I managed to touch my toes without a sound.
When I sat back up and looked at him, he was holding back a laugh. "You know that you are not fooling anyone, Parker."
I sighed, sitting down and on the uncomfortable pleather gurney that they had in the small room. "Come on Mike, I am doing better, I can go back to work. I can even drive again." I was trying to sound convincing and not defeated but he was already shaking his head. I partway thought this was some revenge for what my brothers did to him when we were younger.
"No, I can see you struggling here with just walking and remember, I have a part time job at the Market, I have seen you when you think no one is looking." I narrowed my eyes a little.
"That is a little creepy Mike."
He rolled his eyes at me and smiled. It's good to know he wasn't outwardly hostile to me, unless, of course, you count the whole torturing me every other day and calling it therapy. "I mean I see you pretend when people are looking but when you think no one is looking, the pain shows all over your face."
I knew he was mostly right. I looked at my hands. Everyone knew of my story. They had too. I told whomever I could in fact, because everyone had to know that Evan was an innocent man. It's not as if I was ashamed, because I wasn't. I am not. However, the story comes with not a fully happy ending. No one knew that part, only the doctors and me. "It's not just physical pain, mike."
Mike made a sympathetic noise and rolled his little doctor rolly stool closer and took my hand. Privileged to my whole medical record because it was all a part of the recovery process, he knew what I was talking about. "Parker, you have to speak to someone, even if it's family. You have to tell Paxton."
I closed my eyes and felt the tears roll down my face. I nodded and shrugged. "He is waiting for me today, I planned on doing that. It's just…" I sighed again and shook my head unable to find a way to finish.
Mike gave my hand a squeeze and pumped his voice full of hope. "Parker, if he was the only man to get as close to you as he has and survived, I think you guys can get through this. Tell him, you and he will feel better knowing all of the air is clear."
With that, Mike "uno" gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and left the room, giving me some space. I didn't really need it. I knew what I wanted to do. It was just the doing it part that was the hardest. I gathered my things and said goodbye to the staff as I headed out, remembering to stop briefly to schedule my next appointment. Paxton was at my side as soon as I left the office and helped me back to the truck. He had gotten a bit like super glue since the whole thing happened and refused to do anything else but stay home and take care of me.
I absolutely cannot stand it and he is driving me insane.
I am a control freak. I am the doer for everyone and now I am laid out on my ass letting my injured husband, sort of, do everything for me. No. I can't be waited on anymore, because that isn't what I need right now.
I was looking out the window, watching the forest go by. "Can we stop at the beach?"
I could almost hear him frowning. "I don't think swimming will help you recover."
I turned to look at him with all the depression and desperation I felt. "I want to talk to you." His face hardened and I am guessing he was expecting this sooner or later. I hadn't been able to do more than lay next to him in our room since everything happened. I couldn't stand loud noises or quick movements or I flinched. There was a truck that back fired last week that sent me to my father's house in a panic.
I won't be that way anymore though.
Paxton pulled over in the small dirt parking lot of First Beach and killed the engine, leaving us with only the sound of the waves and the fresh smell of ocean that the light breeze brought into the cab of the truck. Paxton sat stiffly on his side of the truck and looked out ahead to the ocean. "What would you like to talk about?"
I closed my eyes and took a breath before half turning with a wince to face him. "Us. I am giving you an out. Right now. I will understand and wish you well."
Whatever Paxton was expecting me to say, that wasn't it. "What? What the fuck Stanley, fuck you."
I flinched when his voice raised but narrowed my eyes. "Fuck me? I am letting you of this Scott free, no questions asked."
He suddenly stabbed the seatbelt button, making the belt slide back with a slam before jerking open his door and slamming it closed behind him. I sighed closing my eyes shaking my head. Fuck.
I screamed as my door jerked open a second later and there was a pissed off Paxton looking straight at me in all his seething glory. "What in the god's green earth would ever give you the fucking impression that I would ever what out of this?"
'Tell him all of it.' My conscience whispered.
Thank you, yeah, I'm on it.
"You deserve someone whole and… I am not anymore." I said, cursing the burning feeling I was getting at the back of my eyes.
He frowned and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "What is this really about?"
The breaths I was taking to calm myself down were quickly turning into hyperventilation and I couldn't stop the tears from rolling down my face. "When I sat down with the doctor the last time, they told me that when…" I swallowed hard trying not to throw up. "When I was stabbed, it caused me to miscarry and the damage done was too much to repair." I am sure he couldn't even understand me at this point; I was sobbing and gasping so hard. I managed to just string the last of it into one long word. "Iwillprobablyneverhavechildren."
Paxton froze, watching my face. At least I think he was, everything was all blurry from crying and I couldn't really tell where he was looking. I saw his blurry form step back before he slowly took off his shirt and brought it to my face to clean up the mess I was making with the snot and water leaking from my face.
He made me blow my nose, even when I protested, right in his shirt, before he throws it behind the seat and took my hands, looking at them as if he were fascinated by them. "Parker, it doesn't matter to me if you can't have kids." I snorted, but stayed silent. He took the bait anyways. "What? You don't believe me?"
I shook my head, looking at him sadly. "No, I believe you, I just think you believe that right now, but later…"
He rolled his eyes at me and smiled shaking his head. "You're fucking stupid, you know that, right?" I frowned at him and opened my mouth to reply but he shook his head. "You work in a school surrounded by children. You see more of your brothers now than when you lived with them. Claire all but lives at our place now that Kim went missing." Paxton leaned over and kissed my forehead. "You dumbass, if you can't find enough to love with all that, then I don't know how to help you."
I gave a watery laugh that only made me cry harder. "We had a baby…"
"That would have been beautiful if the gods thought the world was ready for such a being, but it wasn't." Paxton said with power and conviction behind his voice. "There are some pretty amazing babies being born every day that need an equally amazing mother to raise them up."
He never stopped surprising me.
"Not to mention your father and brother's that still need raising up." He was right. So, I told him so.
Kim was found three weeks later, hiding out in Seattle. Without Jyran to take the fall for what had happened, Kim got the next highest charge of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Sam, who helped me organize my reentry back into the work force by shuttling papers back and forth to the school from my house, fell in love with none other than Principle Young. It had taken three years after their first date, but they finally got married and are the very surprised, yet happy parents of a son named William. They live four houses from daddy.
Jeremy was very upset over Kim's betrayal and never really recovered. He seemed to have closed off his heart in the romantic love department; however, it didn't make him any less happy. He is the best uncle in the world to the kids and takes his role very seriously. Since the day I was stabbed, we grew closer and never grew apart again. He lives two houses down from Sam and one away from me.
Ash married and then divorced and married again and divorced again. He is single now and more than happy raising up four daughters and one son. His youngest daughter has now adopted the name, Princess Stanley. They all live together, including both ex-wives, three houses from daddy in a huge house that is never quiet.
Ember was finishing some tiling work on one of the houses that they were building right in the city and literally ran right into Rachel Blake, Jake's sister and a beautiful American Indian woman that had made a name for herself in the acting world. She recently had the house built that resembled the one she grew up in from Darrington in the city so that she didn't have to travel so far to have a piece of home. They only dated for six months before they married. This was good because a month after the wedding they found out that she was two months pregnant. They both now live in Darrington, in her childhood home, which was only one house away from Paxton's and mine. They had a baby girl and three boys after that, Sarah, Paxton, Brady, and Collin.
Shay remarried to Clair's best friend Ashley's mother. Of course, the girls loved it and it made for the perfect match, both for the girls and the parents. They moved into the house in between Jeremy and me.
Jacob Blake married a white girl from out of the town. It was a pretty big deal because she came from a very wealthy family and they were very against the couple being together at all. She was a very nice girl with a funny name that only a rich city family would choose. In the end, she got pregnant and the family had no choice but to let Jake have her hand in marriage in order to save face to their rich city friends. To this day, Jake swears it wasn't the plan, but he wasn't complaining. The day of the wedding, which was held in our small town, we renamed the girl Chenoa (white dove). They had twin boys named Owen and Alistair who were trouble makers to the bone, but fierce fighters. They lived in the house that's back yard was connected to Paxton's and mine.
Evan Collins was welcomed back to Darrington with open arms, especially by us Stanley's and he was even given a legitimate job working for Sam at the construction company. He eventually met Rebecca Blake, Jake's other sister and married her and have one blue eyed, tanned skinned, dark haired heartbreaker named Amy, after his sister. They live right next door to daddy.
Amy moved to Seattle and doesn't often come back. She is very happy that Evan's name was finally cleared, however the memories that the town brought back with it just wasn't worth moving back. She visits sometimes.
Daddy, well he is Daddy. The EMT that helped with his broken nose was an older woman named Shawn and she was like a hot fire against dry grass when it came to Daddy. He didn't stand a chance and quite frankly, I don't think he wanted to. It was fast and they were perfect for each other. Sue didn't let Daddy get away with any of his protective bullshit with me and she can cook, so he is finally eating right. They still live in Daddy's house.
That just leaves Paxton and I. Oh Paxton and I. Well what can I say much other then we are happy. We never got married again; we did however renew our vow's…twice. We adopted four children, all of different ages. Mica, Nick, Shauna, and Tanner were the light of our lives for years and years.
Then one day, about five years after we adopted Tanner, something unexpected happened. I got pregnant. It was twins, as they seem to run in the family. They were both boys. Jeff and Jeremy where born happy and healthy and are now in fact making a mess of my house.
"Jeff and Jeremy, you have about five seconds before I throw every single game away for the PlayStation © and set fire to the damn thing!" I was satisfied to hear the loud thumping of scrambling boys upstairs, fighting over who can get down here first. I am glad they took me seriously. They should because if they ever doubt me again, they can just ask their Xbox if I am serious or not. It's still a charred brick out back.
"Damn mom, you don't have to get crazy." Jeff said with a wink of his hazel eyes that looked exactly like his fathers.
"I do when I've been saying it for three days' guys." I said, keeping my serious face. That was hard with the boys, since they both looked exactly like their father, right down to the cockiness and flirting. "You brother and sister will be here any minute and this house is a wreck."
Jeremy rolled his eyes and smirked. "Mom, they have all lived here. You're not fooling anyone with cleaning today."
I sighed exasperated with the boys, mainly because they were right. It's not as if my other children had never lived here, they all still have their own rooms. I refused to do anything with because if my babies want to come home, they can. Although, I am seriously reconsidering that point of view with these two jokers.
They day on the beach when I confessed to Paxton about being unable to have children was the worst and best day of our relationship. It had taken a lot of convincing on Paxton's part that I was worth staying with at all. In my mind, mainly because of my stellar upbringing, I believed that a woman needed to be able to cook, clean and make babies. If you can't do those things, you're no good to a man. How very wrong I was.
My adopted children were no less close to me now than they were before Jeff and Jeremy was born. If anything, they are closer. Mica was found walking on the side of the road with no shoes and no food in his belly for at least three days. He was only three. Later they found out that his mother had been in a car accident and Mica had been in the car too. We adopted him when he was four and we still visit his mother's grave every year. Mica never liked to cut his hair so it was well down his back, with chocolate brown eyes and the Native American tan skin.
Nick was Paxton's idea and as soon as he brought it to me, I was all chips in. Nick had been given up for adoption when he was born and had bounced in and out of homes since. He had been in some trouble and my dad and told Paxton that they were going to ship him off to the State Juvenile Correctional facility because they could no longer handle him. We adopted him the very next day and after a pep talk with Paxton on the very first day, he has been an angel in our lives. He was sixteen when we adopted him and, in all honesty, looked exactly like Ember. You have no idea how much that scared me but hey, if you're going to adopted then why not your brother's illegitimate son, right?
Shauna came to us. Literally. I was walking along the beach and this tiny little one year old crawled her way over to Nick, Micah, Paxton and I. She is beautiful. We brought her to Daddy who went through all the hoops and signed all the papers to find out nothing. He has no idea what happened to her parents. The second we found that out, Paxton and I changed that and adopted her and named her the very next day. Shauna Renee Aimon was named after both Paxton's mother and mine. She had dark brown hair like mine, but steel blue eyes like Evan's. She fought like her brothers and hardly cried, even when she was a teenager and she got her first broken heart. (Much to Paxton's aggravation.), she refused to let her father or brother's do anything about it.
Tanner was a suggestion from Daddy. There were apparently a couple that was going to be sent away for a long time and dad couldn't find a next of kind for the 9-month-old baby that they were leaving behind. After talking sense into the mother and my own personal visit, reassuring her that they will never not be welcome to see their child, she signed over custody to us. He looked like a mix between Shay and Shauna.
Paxton came in the house and grinned, watching the boys give me a hard time. "Don't just stand there, get your asses in gear!"
The boys looked at Paxton and all he did was nod in their direction and they were off doing my bidding. Boys are so weird.
Paxton came over to me and pulled me into a hug whispering in my ear. "It's time to say happy birthday to your dad, you ready?"
I clung to Paxton, inhaling his safe and familiar scent. "The kids aren't here yet."
Then came the double yells of the twins. "MOM, MICAH JUST PULLED UP!"
I laughed and tugged on Paxton's hand, pulling him to the back door. Everyone was out there. Sam and Aria and William were standing next to Jeremy who had his arm around Ash's son Paxton. They were talking to Sarah, Brady, and Collin. Ash and his flock were next to Daddy and Sue. Ember was with his beautiful wife and Evan and his wife were talking shop with Sam. Shay the girls and his wife all waved as we came out and my children mobbed me as soon as my feet touched the grass of the back yard.
This was my loud, aggressive, possessive family.
I loved them all.