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One year later
I watched my husband splash around in the pool with our twins and my step-daughter. Never in a million years did I picture my life where it is today. Last summer my life was falling apart around me, and now I saw all my dreams coming true in front of me. Nathan and I married six months ago. It may have seemed quick, but when you know it's real thing, why wait? When Nathan told he would make me a mother I wasn’t sure what to expect. The possibility of having another miscarriage scared the hell out of me. My heart filled with so much love when he started talking about adoption. And when the agency told us about the twins, we knew our family would be complete.
After moving in with Nathan, I quit working at The Cave. But I did some of the group and feature dances on the weekend, because I enjoyed it. However, Nathan insisted that there were no more lap dances for anyone but him. I actually took a job working at Ms. Jewel’s Dance Studio a few nights a week, teaching pole dancing classes. Nathan told me I didn’t have to work, but I wanted to keep some of my independence. I depended on Lucas too much and would never put myself in that position again.
Even though I repeatedly told Nathan to leave the situation with Lucas alone, he didn’t. He kept saying something about needing to protect those that he loved. I tried explaining to him that Lucas couldn’t hurt me anymore. Despite having to leave a job I loved, I knew better things were in my future. But Nathan was insistent. Lucas was marrying one of his seniors from the previous year. She was nineteen, but still not okay. To him the only thing important was making babies, and she was ready to that for him. What I didn’t know was that Lucas was set to inherit a large sum of money upon the birth of his first child. We'd always lived a pretty modest life, so I had no idea that his grandmother was filthy rich; the will stated that the child must be Lucas’s biological child.
One Saturday afternoon, Rose and I noticed Mrs. McKennan sitting across from us while out having lunch. I kept noticing her flashing me the dirtiest looks. For the life of me, I had no idea what I had done to have her treat me this way, but I was sure as hell going to find out.
I excused myself from Rose before she could stop me and calmly walked over and confronted Lucas’s mother. “Can I ask you why you keep giving me all these horrible looks from across the room?”
“How dare you? After what you did to Lucas. Walking out on him like that,” she huffed at me.
“You’re not serious, are you, LuAnn? I didn’t walk out on Lucas. After the doctors told me I couldn’t have children, he walked out on me. What were his words? Oh yes, he changed his mind.”
A shocked LuAnn McKennan asked me to sit with her. I explained to her what had happened and the reasons Lucas gave when he suddenly served me with divorce papers. Apparently, the lie he had told everyone was that I was cheating on him. Lucas was never supposed to know about the inheritance, but he accidently overheard his aunt and mother speaking about it one day. And from that moment, LuAnn said the only thing that mattered to Lucas was finding the perfect mother for his children.
What Lucas didn’t know was that LuAnn was sole executor to her mother’s will, and with that she was granted the ability to redistribute the money as she saw fit. She said she'd been looking for any reason to not give the money to Lucas and his nineteen-year-old bride, who was apparently already pregnant. After finding out what Lucas had done to me, LuAnn decided to divide the half million dollars that was set aside for Lucas’s family to all of his cousins. She apologized profusely for what her son did, but I knew I couldn’t hold that against her. She wished me luck and told me we should have lunch some time and that she will always think of me as a daughter.
I left her table doing a silent, little happy dance inside. I never wanted to wish ill will on anyone, but Lucas sure as hell had that coming.
Not long after, Nathan and I were married in front of our friends and family on a private estate in Hawaii. That night, I thought my life would never be more prefect. Until the day the agency presented us with a unique situation. They had a set of three-year-old twins, a boy and girl. Their mother had died shortly after they were born, and the father was sick and could no longer care for his children. The agency was looking for someone to take the children together as soon as possible. Nathan and I were there the next day.
“Hello! Earth to Ryann! Are you somewhere in there?” Rose shouted as she pretty much pushed me off my chair.
“Hey! Watch it,” I laughed with her. “Sorry. Lost in thought. Looking at my beautiful family.”
“You know, I'm still waiting on my thank you,” she said sarcastically.
“For what?” I asked.
“Really? If it wasn’t for me convincing you to work at The Cave then you would be living back in California with your mother and her nudist boyfriend.” I cringed at her comment. “Instead you have fallen into this beautiful life with your three adorable children.” Ella decided to come and live with us for a year while Jordyn spent some time traveling with her new husband. Ella didn’t talk very highly of him.
“Well, thank you, Rose. You're my best friend and each day I'm grateful for the life you have given me. I would have never found true happiness without you. There. Good enough?” I smiled at her.
“Sarcastic bitch,” she said as she tried to give me a dirty look without laughing.
Turning our attention back to the pool, we saw Jeremy do a cannonball into the water, right in front of us. We tried to be pissed off at him, but the cool water felt too good on our sweaty bodies. Neither one of us could turn away from watching our husbands playing with our kids. The smiles and the laughter coming from our two men was sexy. Watching Jeremy toss around Ali and Ella, had me ogling just a bit. His arms were huge. As I glanced over, I saw Rose watching Nathan play with the twins. Hmmm…this could be interesting.
“Damn we're some lucky girls, aren’t we, Ryann?”
“Yes, we are, Rose. Yes, we are.”
THE END
