Abandoned but Not Alone
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Authors: Theresa L. Henry
Abandoned
but not Alone
By
Theresa L. Henry
Copyright
©
2013 by Theresa L. Henry
All rights reserved. Without
limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be
reproduced, stored or shared in any form, including but not limited to:
printing, photocopying, faxing, recording, electronic transmission, or by any
information storage or retrieval system without prior written permission from
the author and copyright holder; excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction.
References may be made to locations and historical events. However, names,
characters, places and incidents are the products of the authors imagination
and/or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
events or locales is either used fictitiously or coincidentally. All
trademarks, service marks, registered trademark, and registered service marks
are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for
identification purposes only.
Adult Content: Contains sexually
explicit scenes and adult language. This book is for sale to adults only.
Please store your files responsibly, where they will not be accessible to
under-aged readers.
Published by: Theresa L. Henry
Cover image:
©
Les3photo8
|
This book is dedicated to all my
friends and family. Thank you all. xx
A special thank you to the following
ladies: Debbie Webb, Debra Lewis Brown, Joan Reid and Marie Healy.
With her
breakfast complete, Aviva thought it the perfect opportunity to make herself
scarce. With a bit of luck on her side, she wouldn't run into the Queen of Wax
and she could spend the day by the lovely pool she'd spotted instead of having
to endure another day at a spa. It seemed every time she met up with Hope she
got dragged off to another spa.
Maybe if
Hope couldn't find her she would give up looking and leave without her. This
house was enormous so there had to be plenty of places to hide. Thinking her
plan a sound one, Aviva left the dining room in search of a hiding place.
Sneaking out the front door she hurried down the steps and headed for the back
of the house.
“
Aviva!
”
Startled by
the sound of someone calling her name, she looked over her shoulder to see Hope
standing at the top of the stairs.
'I am invisible, she can't see me, I'm a
figment of her imagination, I'm getting the hell out of here because if I have
to spend the whole day in another one of her spas I'll go mad'
. Aviva had
no intentions of flying thousands of mile from New York to California to spend
the day in another of Hope's woo-woo music spas, with women who looked like
mannequins scaring the lights out of her with their clangers or whatever they
were called, oh yeah, cymbals that was it, being clicked over her head every
few seconds. She didn't hate spas per se; she just didn't like the ones Hope
insisted on taking her to. Starting off at a brisk walk which soon turned into
a run Aviva attempted a getaway; if Hope wanted her to go with her so badly,
she would have to catch her.
“
Aviva, stop being so silly, our appointment
’
s booked for ten-thirty and I don
’
t intend to be late.
”
She heard her but she didn
’
t stop; no response necessary, continued
motion spoke for itself.
“
Girl, don
’
t make me have to chase you down! You don
’
t even know where the hell you
’
re going. You are going to the spa with
me. You are going to have done to you, everything I
’
m having done to me, so you might as well give it up! I said
stop the damn running
–
now!
”
Stamping her feet Hope came to a sudden
halt. She didn't pay Hope any mind, she knew better, the Queen of Wax wasn
’
t above using tantrums and blackmail to
get her way.
What really
scared her was the leisurely way in which Hope gave chase, she sort of just
strolled along in a long legged gait, while Aviva felt as though she were
giving this running lark all she had, and Hope was still gaining on her. She
didn't feel so good, this running business wasn't all it was cracked up to be;
who the hell wanted to run unless it was absolutely necessary, oh my bad, this
was necessary. Chancing one more look over her shoulder she saw that the Queen
of Wax hadn't given up the chase.
Whipping
her head forward, she turned the corner, arms and legs still pumping; standing
in the middle of the driveway was a man, in fact he was one of the largest men
she had ever seen in real life,
‘
the dude is
huge!
’
As the
thought registered in her mind it gave her an idea. Running for all she was
worth, Aviva made a beeline straight towards him. Reaching the stranger she
flung out her arm, making contact with his abdomen, sliding her palm across his
hard belly to gain purchase as she skidded to a halt directly behind him. In
her most polite voice she ordered the man not to move; then plastered her much
smaller frame behind his back while attempting to control her breathing. She
had read about that once; something about letting your mind do the talking,
maybe not talking, she didn
’
t want to
be discovered. That was it, let the breath flow from you in perfect harmony
with everything around you, listen to it, embrace it, be as one with it. Aviva
thought she couldn
’
t help
listening to it; she sounded like a braying donkey that had been running around
a house after having too big a breakfast. Standing perfectly still, she once
again attempted to clear her mind
–
it wasn
’
t working, she was distracted. Before
she could help it, words popped out of her mouth.
“
Bloody hell, it's a good thing you
’
re an adult and can feed yourself, in
this economic climate your parents would be in all kinds of trouble trying to
feed you!
”
A strange
rumbling started within the mountainous man as he slowly turned his head to
look over his shoulder. His head continued its downward motion until they made
eye contact. When he spoke, Aviva felt his voice rumble throughout his body
zinging through her own.
“
Well hello, how
’
s the weather doing down there?
”
For the
life of her, she didn
’
t
understand a word he said. In that moment all she was capable of doing was
staring bug-eyed at his gorgeousness, her lips forming a perfect O. He was
just so
…
Her heartbeat already
running on overdrive went crazy. Man Mountain
’
s eyes began to change color from what she had originally
thought were a dark green to black with an undeniable look of interest. As
though in slow motion, he began to turn.
Transfixed
by the intensity of his eyes, Aviva felt herself being pulling forward by an
invisible cord she was powerless to resist. Her eyes began to flutter,
closing, images of his muscular arms wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth as his
lips descended towards hers, taking what he wanted, taking her
…
“
Aviva!
”
Shaking her head, her eyes popped open emerging from her daze,
registering the sound of Hope
’
s
exasperated voice calling her name. Grabbing onto the man, Aviva again ordered
him not to move and to turn around and not look at her. He didn't comply
quickly enough for her liking, so she pinched him
–
hard. There wasn
’
t much
spare flesh to get hold of, but she managed it, her actions if not her words
gained his full cooperation; the man
’
s head spun
around facing forwards. Still plastered against his back Aviva held her breath
and waited for the dangerous Queen of Wax to pass them by. No such luck.
“
Girl, stop being so foolish, I can see
you.
”
‘
How does she do that?
’
Aviva thought. She had been almost
certain Hope hadn
’
t seen her
slide behind the man
’
s back.
Looking down she saw he stood with his legs braced apart, exasperated she
ordered in a whisper,
“
Close your
legs
–
right now!
”
The rumble
resumed, was he for real, he was laughing at her again and he wasn
’
t closing his damn legs. As a matter of
fact, he stood his ground in exactly the same position and folded his arms
across his chest.
“
Blinking
man
”
, Aviva mumbled under
her breath just loud enough for him to hear that she was speaking about him
specifically and not men in general. Well at least he wasn
’
t looking at her any more, too little too
late, Waxy had arrived.
“
Hi sweetie,
”
Hope said reaching up to give the man a kiss on his cheek.
“
Hi Hope, you lost something?
”
“
Yeah, I did, and she
’
s standing behind you. In all my life I
have never seen anyone run so fast and cover so little ground. I can't lie,
that was probably the most pathetic run I
’
ve ever seen.
”
Irritated,
Aviva poked her head from her hiding place and enunciated through tight lips,
“
I could still kick your ass in a foot
race if I only had one leg and my hands tied behind my back.
With the
two of them laughing at her comment, Aviva had had enough, fully emerging from
behind the man's back she stood facing them, hands on her hips, annoyed. Well
she wasn
’
t really annoyed but
they didn
’
t need to
know that. Pulling herself up to her full height of five feet four, she looked
down her nose at them. Using her best upper crust British accent filled with
condescension she looked them up and down.
“
As you both find me so amusing, it will be my pleasure to remove
myself from your childishly amused company immediately.
”
Her words
didn
’
t have the desired
effect, seeming only to heighten their hilarity. Sticking her nose even
further in the air, she executed what she hoped was a ladylike turn meant to
show her complete and utter disdain of the situation and in the process make
her escape. After only one step she was snagged around her waist by a pair of
very large hands lifting her off the ground, ruining her exit line. Back
peddling in thin air, and no doubt looking ridiculous, Aviva tried to hold in
her laughter; when she couldn't she decided to ham up the situation even more.