Page 2 of Second Chance Fate

Her ex’s behavior was slow and corrosive; it was couched in the framework of him taking care of her and always having her best interests at heart. And after Owen was born prematurely, caring for him was more than a full-time job. The first five years of his life were a blur of sleepless nights, doctor’s visits, hospital stays, and outpatient procedures. It wasn’t until Owen started school that she knew just how bad things were. It happened overnight. From one day to the next, her entire world changed.

Taylor got a part-time job in the school library, mainly because she worried about Owen’s health and wanted to be on school grounds with him in case of an emergency. Her first day on the job, she came home and found her ex waiting for her in their bedroom. The lights were off and the curtains were drawn. She walked in and was startled to see him sitting on the edge of the bed. He had a cold, detached look in his eyes. He asked her where she’d been. She was confused because he knew about the job, but she reminded him anyway. He asked who she was with, and before she was able to respond, he called her a lying whore, and she ended up on the ground with a black eye and swollen lip.

Later, she found out Martin and the assistant principal had dated the same woman years before Taylor met him. Apparently, one of the cops who Martin worked with had a kid at the same school and told Martin that his rival worked at the school. Taylornever went back to that job, and from that day on, she knew she had to get out, to escape.

It wasn’t as easy as just leaving. She had no job, no money, and she didn’t even have a bank account or car in her own name. The biggest obstacle, though, was that she had a very ill child whose life depended on the medical insurance her ex provided. Things snowballed from bad to worse when her ex got suspended for using excessive force and took an early retirement a year after the on-the-job incident. Once that happened, Martin opened his own private investigation firm and worked from home, which meant he watched her night and day.

Taylor never knew what his schedule was; he came and went at all hours of the night and day. He had cameras installed everywhere for ‘security,’ but really, they were there so he could watch her when he wasn’t home. He installed cloning software on her phone so he could see everything she googled, hear every conversation she had, and read every text message and DM, and he had all the passwords to her social media accounts and email. For ten years, the only people she spoke to were medical professionals and her ninety-year-old neighbor Alice, or should she say, her guardian angel Alice.

Alice was the reason Taylor and Owen were in Hope Falls and no longer in Chicago. Alice realized what was going on and managed to covertly communicate that she had the resources Taylor needed to escape, which was not an easy task. She hid burn-after-reading notes on the bottom of platters holding fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, knowing that Martin had never cleaned a dish in his life. She also snuck them in knitted scarves and gloves she made as gifts for Taylor and Owen. She even faked falling down and getting hurt to give Taylor an excuse to go over and help her without Martin getting suspicious.

While they were plotting and planning, Alice did some research and discovered that Martin and Taylor weren’t evenlegally married. At the time of their ‘wedding,’ he was still married to another woman, the woman who cheated with the assistant principal, it turned out. A woman Taylor was told was his stalker. The good news was, despite having a wedding, they had no marriage license, which meant Taylor didn’t have to get a divorce. He was not named on Owen’s birth certificate as the father and had never adopted him, so she was in the clear there.

Taylor had resigned herself to having to stay eighteen years with Martin, but Alice gave her faith, strength, and a renewed sense of hope. She also gave her an actionable plan, and then it was a waiting game. She needed to get them as far away from the Watts family as possible and make sure they were untraceable. Alice procured Taylor a new phone, clothes, ten grand in cash, and a car in her name.

The morning her plan went from being abstract to reality began wholly unremarkably. It was a random Tuesday. The sky was overcast; she ran out of milk for cereal, so she had toast instead; she’d done two loads of laundry and was cleaning out the fridge when she got a call from the school nurse saying that Owen’s blood sugar had dropped below sixty and he’d passed out in P.E. He was recovering in the nurse’s office, but they felt he should be taken to urgent care to get checked out.

Martin had been on a “stakeout” in a strip club the night before and was sleeping it off. When Taylor woke him to say that she needed to go get Owen, he told her to go handle it herself, then rolled over and passed out again. From the alcohol on his breath, she knew he’d be out for at least an hour or two.

She walked out of her bedroom, grabbed her purse, and enough medication for six weeks for Owen. Her emotions were all over the place, but mainly she was terrified as she pulled out of her driveway for what she hoped was the last time, with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Her hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably.

The entire drive to the school was sort of a blur. She’d had so much adrenaline coursing through her. She knew exactly what she had to do and where she had to go. Alice had prepared everything for her. All Taylor had to do was make it to the rendezvous point that had no security or CCTV. Once she was there, Alice’s friends, whom she’d enlisted and had no connection to anyone involved, would bring Taylor and Owen out of the city, where everything they needed would be waiting for them. It was all very cloak and dagger.

Somehow, it worked. Taylor got to the middle school and took Owen out of school. His blood sugar was back in the normal range at 110. She and Owen parked her car at O’Hare and then contacted Alice’s friends Margie and Mabel from an Internet café. They picked Taylor and Owen up, and they crossed state lines before Martin even knew she was gone.

The only regret Taylor had at the time was that she’d had to leave their dog behind, but there was no way she could have taken him without making her ex suspicious. If Martin had heard her sneaking him out or woken up and seen him gone, it would have been over. It devastated her not saving him, too. Casper was the reason her ex never laid a hand on her son. Martin tried to deny that he was afraid of Casper. He tried to assert his dominance over the 70-pound white pittie. Casper humored him and obeyed Martin. But Martin could see, just like Taylor could, that if Martin ever touched a hair on Owen’s head, Casper would have killed him.

Owen cried most of the way to California because they had to leave him behind. Not out loud. Just silently, tears streamed down his face as he looked out the window, which was even more heartbreaking somehow. It broke her heart, too, but she truly didn’t believe she had a choice.

Thankfully, their hearts didn’t stay broken too long. In what Taylor could only describe as fate, or serendipity, Casper ranaway from her ex’s house, made it forty-five miles away, and a good Samaritan named Leah found him and drove him 2000 miles to be reunited with them, so now they were all together.

Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and Taylor’s ex was able to use his P.I. skills and law enforcement connections to find out about Leah’s road trip. He showed up at her house and threatened her with a gun to tell him where she’d taken the dog and where she and Owen were. Leah’s boyfriend, Lance, ended up taking a bullet to the shoulder. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured. Martin was arrested for attempted murder and false imprisonment. He was out on bail awaiting his trial and apparently about to be exonerated. Taylor would feel a whole lot better when this was over, especially if it ended with her ex being behind bars.

But, until then, life didn’t stop. She had to find a job. Taylor had managed to save some money over the years that Martin didn’t know about. Combined with the money Alice gave her, it allowed her to move and get settled, but it was almost all gone.

“Ruff.” Casper’s deep bark filled the cozy five hundred square foot living space, drawing Taylor’s attention outside.

Her entire body seized with alarm. It wasn’t a conscious reaction. That was her body’s response every time Casper alerted her to any activity outside. The fact that Martin had an ankle monitor didn’t mean anything to her. If there was someone who would be able to work the system, it would be him.

Taylor stood from the kitchen table and hurried over to the front window to investigate, stepping over Owen’s crossed legs as he stared up atRick and Mortyon the flat screen. The short walk nearly ended in a twisted ankle after Casper decided to join her investigation and rose from his slumber at the exact moment she was straddling the 70-pound gentle giant, causing her to trip and land on the side of her foot. Luckily, with the free hand that wasn’t holding the phone of torture music, she managed to grabonto the back of the armchair and absorb some of her weight so it wasn’t all coming down on her bent foot.

Her close-call injury was the least of her worries as her heart pounded wildly and she glanced out the window as covertly as possible. Her anxiety morphed into a different form of tension as she spied with her little eye Caleb Harrison running, in all his shirtless glory, along the path behind the cottage. She wasn’t sure what was more glorious, the majestic backdrop of the Sierra Nevadas covered in green pine trees and dotted with orange and yellow aspens against a bright blue morning sky with white fluffy clouds, or the breathtaking beauty that was Caleb Harrison’s upper body.

Even from a distance, the strength and power were evident in Caleb's athletic frame. His arms pumped effortlessly by his side as his legs propelled him forward with ease. The grace and command in his movements caused a flush to rise on her cheeks. At least that’s what she was telling herself the blush was caused by.

But she couldn’t deny Caleb Harrison's body was a work of art, a masterpiece. His muscles flexed and rippled with each powerful movement. Every curve and angle of his torso was sculpted like a Greek god. The early morning sunrise shone down on his damp skin, making it glisten.

As she watched him, her mouth watered, and she imagined the salty taste of his skin and the promise of sweet and satisfying kisses. His mouth claiming hers with desperation. She closed her eyes and felt the touch of his fingertips grazing her shoulder before gripping the back of her neck firmly, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. She absentmindedly licked her lips, tasting the coffee she’d just drunk, which snapped her back to reality.

She quickly pushed the borderline NSFW thoughts from her mind and stepped back from the window. Taylor needed to clear out all dirty thoughts from her head. Her brain wasa thoroughbred racehorse that needed blinders on. She had to keep it on track, galloping to the finish line. There were too many things pressing on her to-do list, and she was determined to stay focused through the clutter of her life.

She shook her head in an attempt to erase any X-rated visions dancing in her mind. She had no business fantasizing about Hope Falls' most eligible bachelor, even if he was the reason she had moved to Hope Falls in the first place.

When Taylor left Illinois and traveled to California, she hadn’t just closed her eyes, spun around ten times, and pinned the tail on the arbitrary donkey map to pick a destination. Her move was intentional. Three years before she was finally able to leave, she knew exactly where she would go if she ever got the chance.

She was at the hospital with Owen; he’d been admitted for pneumonia, and the nurses had put on a documentary calledWhat is Love?Taylor was only half listening as she read her latest romance by Abby Jimenez on her Kindle, but something caught her attention. They stopped in a town called Hope Falls to interview an actor named Kyle Austen Reed. During the segment, they had B-roll of him walking around town and also at a charity event. It was the charity event that she sawhim—Caleb, Spring Break, Daytona Beach, Caleb. He was older, a little more filled out, but it was him; she was sure of it. Hiseyes, hisdimple, and hissmilewere exactly the same. She remembered them all. It was hard not to since she had a daily reminder staring back at her in Owen.

It took her a month to figure out what Caleb’s last name was. She couldn’t look anything up on her phone for fear her ex would see it. So she had to wait and use an iPad at Owen’s doctor’s office. The nurses gave it to him to use to play games on sometimes. After going down a Hope Falls rabbit hole, she discovered his last name was Harrison, and he was a pastor.

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