Authors: Heather C Leigh

Jagger (Broken Doll Book 2) (18 page)

BOOK: Jagger (Broken Doll Book 2)

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Three years later
Jag

I
stared
out the window of my office, entertained by the tiny sandpipers that ran back and forth in a frantic bid to escape each wave before it crashed on the shore. I would watch them all day if I didn’t have work to do. Miri would kill me if I didn’t finish the accounting so she could close the Center’s books by the fifteenth of the month.

“Jag? Are you upstairs, honey?”

The multiple muffled thumps of shoes being kicked off followed by the pounding of feet on the stairs let me know I was about twenty seconds from being pounced on. I spun the office chair to face the door and opened my arms, ready and waiting. A colorful blur burst into the room and took a flying leap onto my lap.

“Oof!” I clutched my stomach and pretended to have the wind knocked out of me. “You’re getting big. Pretty soon I’m going to pop like a balloon when you do that.”

A pair of enormous green eyes framed by the darkest, thickest lashes I’d ever seen blinked up at me. Slowly, the confused expression turned into a wide smile. “Daddy, you makin’ that up. Mommy says no lying.”

My mouth dropped open and I huffed in pretend shock. “I am not making it up. You’re enormous!” I grabbed my son by the waist and tossed him into the air, suspending him above my head. He squealed and giggled uncontrollably, the delightful sounds of childhood warming my heart as my son begged for more. “C’mon! Fly me, Daddy. Fly me!”

“Why don’t we fly downstairs and find Mommy. What do you think?”

Ace nodded furiously. “Mommy, Mommy!” At two and a half, my son was full of energy, unpredictable, sometimes whiney, and was the shining center of my universe. He made sputtering airplane noises while I flew him down to the first floor.

I found Miri in the kitchen, unpacking a small bag of groceries. Wanting to greet my wife, I put our son on the floor and he took off running, probably to go tear the house apart. I couldn’t have cared less. My attention was on the gorgeous redhead holding a box of Cheerios in one hand and a jug of milk in the other. I took the items, put the cereal on the counter and the milk in the fridge, and slid my arms around my wife’s waist.

“Hey, doll. Long day?” For a brief moment, my eyes closed and I breathed in deep, letting her scent envelop me.

Before she could answer, I tipped her head back and gave her a long, deep kiss. Miri had only been gone six hours, but it may as well have been six days. My attraction to her was just as strong as the day she stumbled into my life. I still wanted her all the time, even if it was simply quiet time snuggling on the couch.

“Mmmmm, nice,” she said when I reluctantly released her mouth. Miri laid her head on my chest as I gently rubbed her back. “Not long, just frustrating.”

“Problems at the Center?”

After receiving our new identities, we relocated to Rhode Island and bought a three-story house right on the beach. Miri and I wasted no time getting married, the quick ceremony held on the strip of sand between our house and Narraganset Bay.

Cat lived with us the first seven months while we purchased a building and the three of us worked on the renovation with our project manager. Ace was born two weeks before the Center for Abused and Addicted Women opened. Cat stepped up and took charge, coming into her own as the Center’s director while taking night classes to become a certified counselor and dating a fireman she met when doing an anti-drug speech at a high school. Miri worked with the women to help them find apartments and jobs and spoke to them about her own experience with drugs.

There was enough money that neither of the women had to work ever again, but I had to give it to them, they really wanted to make a difference. And they did. Every single day. While we were in Austin, researching where we wanted to relocate, Cat was the one who suggested the smallest of the US states. It blew my mind to find out Rhode Island had one of the worst drug problems in the country. Heroin laced with the powerful prescription painkiller, fentanyl, was causing more and more overdoses and deaths every day. The mafia, while not as prevalent in New England as it used to be, was still a powerful force. They controlled most of the drug trade in the state, similar to my reign over Austin. While I refused to allow Miri or Cat to end up anywhere on the mafia’s radar through their work getting addicts clean. The Center saw more than a few women that had been abused by the crime family step through their doors.

“Nah, I’m just tired. I think I just need to give in and hire another assistant.” Miri tried to step out of my hold to finish the groceries, but I spun her around and pressed my front to her back. Sliding my arms around her waist, I splayed my palms over her midsection.

“Any chance you’re tired because you have another little Sinclair growing in there?” I nuzzled her ear and laughed when she shivered and playfully pushed her ass into my groin.

“Maybe,” she teased. “I haven’t taken a test yet.”

We’d recently decided to give Ace a sibling and Miri had ditched her birth control. With our inability to quell the fire between us and the fact that we both were all over each other all the time, I figured it wouldn’t take long for baby number two to be on his or her way.

Growling, I thrust my hardening cock into the cleft of Miri’s round ass and groped her breasts. She moaned when I licked a path from her neck to her ear. “What are you waiting for, doll?”

Miri blindly reached for the grocery bag and stuck her hand inside. She pulled out a pink and white box, holding it up where I could see it. “Who said I was waiting?”

“Mommy, Daddy, I wanna go beach!” Ace raced into the kitchen on stubby legs, and in typical toddler fashion, tripped and crashed right into my leg. The little guy bounced off and landed flat on his butt. Miri and I looked down to see that fat lower lip tremble and those huge eyes fill with tears.

Miri scooped up our son and did damage control while I tried to hide a laugh. Ace had apparently taken it upon himself to get changed into his bathing suit. Unfortunately, he had put it on wrong, stepping into a leg hole, so both of his feet protruded from what should be the waistband. It looked like he was wearing a really tight skirt with an extra leg opening hanging off the side. I had to turn my head to hide my smile.

“Sweetie,” Miri crooned. “Don’t cry.” She peppered his red face with kisses. “Daddy will fix your suit and put your sunscreen on while Mommy uses the bathroom and changes, okay?” Miri gave me a knowing look, the pregnancy test clutched in one hand.

“Right.” I took Ace from her arms and mussed his dark hair. “We’ll get ready and meet Mommy outside. How does that sound?”

Ace wiggled until I put him down. I no sooner fixed his bathing suit and he was off. Like a tiny tornado, Ace scurried to the mudroom, snatched a towel off the pile, which subsequently toppled over, and grabbed the bottle of sunscreen before circling back to me.

“Now, Daddy,” he demanded, thrusting the sunscreen at my hand.

I crouched down and gently bopped him on the nose with a finger. “Okay, buddy. Then I have to change into my bathing suit too.”

“Hurry.” Ace was practically dancing, he was so excited.

Miri

Pregnant
.

I stared at the miniature screen, letting the news sink in. Once it did, I couldn’t stop the huge grin from spreading across my face. Another baby. Jag and I would be the parents of two children.

My reality was so incredible, so far removed from my horrific childhood and battle with addiction, it seemed as if I were living someone else’s life. I wasn’t beaten by my mother and locked in a closet for hours on end. I didn’t run away with my best friend and try to make it on my own at the age of seventeen. It certainly wasn’t me who shot heroin and whored herself for drugs. Despite the nightmares that plagued me at times, it definitely didn’t feel as if I were the one kidnapped and tortured by a madman, let alone the one who shot and killed him.

No, those things happened to someone else in another lifetime.

Life turned out to be pretty damn amazing. I married an incredible man, my protector, my savior, my lover. We had a beautiful, perfect child and were going to have another in eight months or so. I lived on the beach and spent my days helping women as desperate and broken as I once was, giving them hope the way Jag gave me mine.

I clutched the plastic stick in my hand as tears of joy spilled from my eyes. I would never have believed something so beautiful could have come from something so ugly. My scars were mine and yes, they represented how far I had to sink before finding the strength to emerge into the light.

Jag was my light. He would always be my light.

Bathing suit on and huge hat in place to cover my face, I applied a liberal amount of sunscreen and walked down the boardwalk that led from our door to the beach. Jag and Ace were tossing a small football back and forth in a game of catch. Well, they were both tossing it, but only Jag was catching the unpredictable foam ball. Ace was laughing though, and so was my husband. My heart swelled in my chest as I watched my two favorite people race up and down the sand.

I tilted my head back and looked up at the endless blue sky, thankful for everything I had been blessed with. Pregnancy test in hand, I joined my family on the beach, ready to start the next chapter in my life.

Wherever that would lead us.

Also by Heather C Leigh

KILLER - a dark romance

T
en years after a school shooting
, a survivor and the brother of a victim are still dealing with the fallout. Each deals with the pain in ways that are unhealthy and will ultimately destroy them. Can they find healing in each other?

"The fact I feel
anything
should let me know I’m headed in the wrong direction, headed down a path of darkness, destruction, and failure. A path that will dig out memories so painful I’ve created an entire persona to avoid dealing with them. Yet I know—I’m going down that path headfirst no questions asked, no matter the outcome.

I might be a monster, but I’m a selfish one."—
Keller Keating

"
W
hen his strength envelops me
, every wrong becomes right, every anxiety melts away, every doubt disappears. I feel calm, safe, whole. The spark of life that’s been missing inside burns bright, lighting me up like a solar flare, sizzling white-hot through my veins. Keller brings me out of the darkness and into the light."—
Britton Reeves

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