Harley's Choice (19 page)

“Sis, today’s Thursday…”

“IT’S WHAT!” I wrapped my good arm around my
ribs.

“Don’t get angry…it’s not going to help you
heal.”

“Shut up and take me home.”

“I can’t…” he frowned at me.

“Bryant I can’t be in here anymore.”

“You didn’t even know you were here.” I
pouted at him. “I’ll talk to the doctor and see what he says.” I
pouted again. “Ok twenty-four hours, but you have to deal with your
guards.”

“I have guards?”

“They haven’t left your side in four
days.”

I cried again, remembering Carson’s face and
Kyle. “Kyle?”

“Apparently understood the message you gave
him and called us. We got there as soon as we could.” The phone had
simply said. NO COPS! CALL #2

“Are they angry at me?”

“Angry at you…no, no one could be angry at
you baby sis, happy that you’re alive, ecstatic; happy that you’re
in this situation…not in the least.” I turned my face away from
him. “Harry, I know how you feel about allowing people getting
close to you.”

“Bryant you weren’t there in that room as
Marcus held that gun to his head. If it wasn’t for Carson I
wouldn’t be here now. He somehow palmed the pistol and gave it to
me.”

“Yeah he gave a report to father.” I cringed
at that conversation. “He also said you kept your cool the entire
time.”

“Of course, I’m just that good.” He smiled
at me.

“They should be back soon, they went for
coffee, they have been living off coffee and hospital food for four
days.” The thought of food set my stomach to rumbling. Brant
laughed. “You’ll be fine little sis.” I went to raise my hand and
cried out. “Yeah you’re going to be a bit sore on that arm, they
say for six weeks. They also say it’ll be a few months before your
ribs are back to normal.”

“Unacceptable.” We smiled at each other.

“Harley?” We both looked to the door where
Carson and Kyle stood.

“You two look like shit.” I croaked out.

“Ah, but better than you.” Carson said as he
smiled, though sadly.

“You’re just jealous.” I gave a tired smile
at Carson; at least he still had his banter in tacked.

“Hey kitten.” Kyle stepped around Carson and
came to the bed.

“Harry I’m going to go get a bite and call
father he wanted to know when you woke up.” He looked at Kyle and
Carson then back to me and sent me a sad smile. He knew what I was
going to do and he knew it was going to hurt me.

He pulled the curtain and shut the door. The
silence in the room was thick and Carson was the first to break it.
“Harley, how are you really?”

“I hurt and I’ve recently discovered I’m
hungry.”

“We’ve been so worried about you. The damn
doctors wouldn’t tell us shit.” Kyle was pissed and I used that to
make the first cut.

“Because you’re not next of kin.” I turned
away from them and looked out the window…tears threatening to
overrun. “Perhaps you should go.”

“Harley!” they both shouted.

I used that anger to strike the second cut.
“Look the weekend was beyond lovely, but you don’t honestly believe
anything could come from it – an actor in hiding, a famous recluse
author and a lady killer.” I was too weak to keep the tears out of
my voice. “Look I’m sure the media is having a field day, and I am
not one for popularity. So it may be for the best.”

Kyle walked into my line of sight and I
looked into his deep green eyes the pain showing in his eyes and
the tears flowing from mine. “Kitten...” I closed my eyes and I
heard him stand and walk away. “Come my friend, we should get
home.”

“No, I want her-” I felt his hands on my
shoulder “I want you to look at me and tell to go. Harley, look at
me!” I turned my head and thru tear blurred eyes he still looked so
damn comfortable

“I-I don’t want you here.” I rushed through
the statement but the pain in my chest was something that would not
be rushed. I loved them both, but I wouldn’t put them through this
sort of thing ever again.

Carson’s eye searched mine the pain too
strong to keep it out of my eyes and I knew it. His own eyes were
also filled with hurt, pain, even anger. He stared into my eyes,
his eyes shifting from one eye to the other. Finally he closed his
eyes and I felt alone.

I shivered as I watched them walk out of the
hospital room and out of my life. I rolled to my left, away from
the door, putting me in the open, not caring if I died today. I
welcomed it.

I heard the door open and felt my brother’s
hand at my back then felt him curl up behind me and carefully put
his arm over me and slid his other hand under my neck and pulled me
in with his love.

He hadn’t done this for ten years.

Not since the last time they were removed
from my life.

He held me once more as I cried.

###

Thank you for taking the time to read
Harley’s Choice
. I hope you enjoy it, please leave a review
at your favorite retailer.

T
hanks!

Shaelin

Psst…there is a second book of Harley’s in
the work

Shaelin Ferra (oh! that’s me!) lives in the
woods with her husband (Hubby) and three wonderful children (spawns
of Satan (Baby Girl, Lil Man, and Bubby) that have sprung from my
loins (lord what was
I
thinking?)). She smiles and laughs
daily (because, hey, life’s too short to be taken seriously). She
writes for pleasure and gets pleasure from writing (what! What the
hell! Nope! I write so the voices in my head will let me sleep!
(Sheesh, what’s this person thinking?))

Wonderland: Alice’s Fall
– is a
fantasy style of book also by Shaelin Ferra that will be out soon,
(that is if the spawns of Satan remain still long enough):

Alice and her twin sister Marcy couldn’t
have been more alike or different. One major difference separates
her and Marcy; Marcy has always been an impulsive, fly by the seat
of her pants kind of girl; while Alice on the other hand was
patient, always caring for others before herself. Life hasn’t been
easy for them, but they’ve made it work along with their two older
brothers Matt and Tad.

All was going well until the night Alice
gets the call ‘Marcy’s gone missing.’ Alice dropped everything to
come home to look for her and to pick up the life Marcy dropped.
For two years Alice stayed home waiting, looking for signs of her
sister.

None came.

Until two days after their twenty-third
birthday, when Alice received an invitation to the hottest new club
in town Wonderland.

But all is exactly as it should be in
Wonderland – that is to say, all is not as it should be…

With the Hatter, seducing her body, Cheshire
and his enigmatic smile and Caterpillar trying to seduce her mind,
will she make it out with her sanity intact?

Does she want to make it out at all?

Prologue:

My name is Alice, Alice Josephine Cooper, and
all my friends and family think I’m dead – as proven by the
tombstone I’m now standing over. I thought to cry, to mourn my own
passing but truly I was not sad; not that I didn’t miss my family,
well some of them anyways – my brother’s Matt and Tad, missed them
entirely.

I looked up into the darkening sky and closed
my eyes and asked the stars for the strength keep going
forward.

I suppose I should explain how it was I ended
up standing over my own grave.

I shall start at the beginning:

As a child I was much like other children, I
was active, took dancing, actually excelled in dancing, I was under
ten ballroom silver winner. I loved dancing and took all kinds
jazz, modern, tap, ballet and of course ballroom.

My sister Marcy and I are twins,
identical-ish fraternal, but we couldn’t be more different. We were
close though, so there is that.

My parents are wonderful parents – or at
least they would have been had they made it home from the “second
honeymoon” in Bora Bora.

Now the reason there are little bunny rabbit
ears around “second honeymoon” was because I have since found out
that they are both alive and living comfortably in a country that
does not extradite to the US. We had found out about their crimes
just after we got news of their “death”.

One day everything was fine with mom and dad
heading home, then the next they had gone down in a plane crash
into the deep Pacific with no bodies recovered, then all of a
sudden they were wanted criminals, apparently my parents were
wanted hit men/hit people – still unsure of the proper term for
them. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.

At least they had waited until Matt was
twenty four and had a stable job, but Tad was nineteen and Marcy
and I were just fifteen; the next three years were hard on us all.
So with our parents gone, our brothers raising two very active
teenage girls through the rest of high school Matt took control of
the home, he basically became our father and Tad, though he tried
very hard, had a hard time of the new responsibilities, and it
wasn’t for about two that he was finally able to get control of
himself and help the rest of us, but I never hated him for it.
Marcy and I started working at sixteen to help with things.

Our senior year Marcy and I received full
scholarships to the state college. I went because Matt said that it
would be a good thing for me to do, to extend my education to
become something I wanted to be. I really wanted to be a fashion
designer. I had started sewing at eight when my mom fumbled through
teaching me. Sewing was always fun, to have the freedom to make
what I wanted or make a change to something I already had or was
handed down to me – I was upcycling before it became a fad.

Marcy on the other hand had turned hers down,
saying that working at the firm she was working at was enough for
her and that “one of us had to make sure the boys didn’t get sucked
under trash.” I honestly thought it was because she had no idea
what she wanted to do.

For the first year I thought she was angry at
me for quitting work and going to college but when I came home for
summer break the following year she was so happy for me. We stayed
up for hours telling each other stories of our lives away from each
other.

At the end of summer break as we cried our
goodbyes, we made promises to visit each other and so went the
following couple of years. She would come visit me or I would go
home to see everyone but we never went more than two months without
seeing each other, we simply couldn’t be away from each other any
more than that without the urge to see each other became too strong
and we couldn’t focus on anything but talking to each other.

We would talk on the phone but as it is with
twins we needed physical contact with each other.

Halfway through the spring semester of my
junior year, just after we turned twenty-one I got a call that
changed my whole life.

Matt called and said that Marcy was
missing.

I left school that night after pulling out of
all my classes and headed home…

And this is where the story really gets
strange.

1:

F
or almost two years
I have been home looking for or awaiting word of Marcy. I was the
assistant librarian at the public library for going on a year
now.

Two days ago I celebrated our twenty-third
birthday alone. I didn’t even bother to go out, even though my
friends begged me to go out and celebrate, but it was a sad time
for me and I just begged off.

Matt and Tad were both home with me,
celebrating in an alright tone. We had cake and few beers but then
the rest of my night was spent outside staring into the starry
night praying for a word from her.

It did not come.

As I sat behind my desk at work and watched
the clock creep closer to the nine o’clock hour, I wondered what
was left for dinner for me. Tad, after his two years of rebellious
behavior went to culinary school and was now a head chef at a very
prestigious restaurant at the heart of down town.

Matt who was a fireman now, took us there
once to experience the place and the class, but we haven’t been
back – it was really expensive.

Now Tad just makes frozen meals from scratch
to eat when we wanted.

It was nice really, the three of us, though
hardly ever home at the same time, have made our chaotic house a
home once again. With Tad cooking, Matt does repairs and handyman
skills and I, somehow was thrown into the role of house keeper. It
wasn’t too bad really, they don’t make much of a mess, and the ones
they do make are usually kept to their rooms.