Page 14 of Meet Me Halfway
I’m too stunned to say anything for long moments. All I can do is sit and stare at the two of them kneeling at my feet, while my brain attempts to process everything they’ve just said. With the impact of a freight train, it hits me. They want me in their lives. Permanently.
Overcome with emotion, I launch myself at them, flinging an arm around each one, and we tumble to the ground in a heap of arms and legs. Tears stream down my face while I laugh like a kid on a sugar rush. Peppering kisses all over first Vivi’s face, then Cal’s, I am enveloped in a feeling of love and acceptance.
“Yes, yes. Yes,” I chant happily. “Oh God, yes. I thought you guys had invited me over tonight to tell me it’s over. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think this would be the outcome.”
Vivi’s tinkling laugh washes over me. She gracefully gets to her feet and holds a hand out to me and one to Cal. “Come on then, my loves. Let’s go celebrate this momentous occasion.”
Cal is the next one on his feet. He, too, offers me a hand, and the two of them pull me to my feet before leading me down the hall to the bedroom. Instead of pounding with fear, my heart now sings with joy. As I follow, I can’t help but do a happy dance in anticipation of the life to come.
Don’t get me wrong. I know it won’t always be moonlight and roses, it won’t always be easy. But no matter what, as long as we’re together, and we’re open and honest with each other, I don’t think there’s anything we can’t overcome. Together.
And there’s nowhere else in this world I’d rather be right now than here, with these two beautiful souls.
Sneak Peek
My Girl
Have you met Gabriel and Sheridan yet? If not, here’s a sneak peek into their story.
Blurb:
Gabriel Stone’s answer to all life’s problems is to avoid facing it head on. When a serious accident threatens to end his career as a drummer, his life is thrown into turmoil.
Sister to the band’s manager, and lifetime friend, Sheridan Daniels opens her home to Gabriel as a place to recover and hide from the world, as their family had done before. But Gabriel’s teetering on the edge. Can Sheridan pull him back or will all be lost?
My Girl
Chapter 1
Gabriel
The shriek of metal as it twisted, a child’s shrill scream of distress, and the sound of glass shattering as it exploded ripped through the quiet of night. Sleeping passengers were woken with a fright as the bus tipped over, and then over again, onto its roof. As the bus skidded down the road upside down, time slowed. Like he was viewing the world from underwater, Gabriel watched from his window as the barrier grew ever closer to their vehicle.
He closed his eyes, bracing for the inevitable. Regret filled him. For all the things he should have said or done. For missed opportunities. But most of all, for never having had the balls to tell the most important person in his life how he felt.
That barrier was the only thing between them and a substantial drop down a mountain cliff. There was no way they could survive a fall like that. His thoughts went to the families on the bus, the small children whose innocent lives would be over before they even began. A familiar feeling of helplessness assailed him, and he had to fight back the urge to scream out his pain and his rage against it.
Time seemed to slow, and Gabriel lost all sense of it and reality. At some point during the continually rolling over of the bus, he became trapped, his right arm and upper torso pinned between two seats. Blood trickled in his hair, over his face, and down his arm.
When the bus had first gone over, he’d been jostled about like a ragdoll. But when the metal had started twisting, clamping him in an unforgiving metal grip, he’d no longer been able to move. Excruciating pain had radiated out from his arm, quickly spreading through his body.Everythinghurt. But as he hung there, a blessed numbness finally settled over him.
In his mind’s eye, however, present and past merged, becoming impossible to separate, and he could see the past like a movie playing solely for his viewing. It took him back to another time, another place. He’d been consumed by this raw anguish, powerlessness, an all-pervasive fear that had gripped him on that other night. The terror was so like the past that at some point they blurred into one, and he slipped intothatnightmare.
He no longer heard the scraping of the metal as it slid across the asphalt to what surely would be their death. He never noticed the change in the road’s camber slowing the bus down in its final approach to the barrier. He was oblivious to the vehicle coming to a jarring halt against the structure as it held firm. All hecouldsee was the traumatic events on that night long past.
An eerie hush settled over the accident scene.
But for Gabriel, there was no lack of noise. His world was overwhelmed by deafening sound. Glass shattered, wood splintered, and all hell broke loose as five armed men burst into their homestead. He watched as his father shouted at the home invaders in rage, his mother screaming in pain when they dragged her away by her hair, and his siblings huddled together, wailing out their fear. He stood, immobilised by the horror he was witnessing, unable to utter a sound.
Then he heard his father shout,“Boeta, vat hulle en hardloop.”Son, take them and run, referring to his younger siblings.
But he’d been unable to. The feeling of paralysis persisted. His heart pounded in his ears, rivalling the rest of the noise. It was only when he saw his father lurch for the nearest gun that he was finally galvanised into action by an even greater fear.
“Nee, Papa. Moenie!”No, Daddy. Don’t! He screamed as he ran towards his father.
Gabriel heard a terrified scream from his parents’ bedroom a split second before a single gunshot. As if in slow motion, he saw his father sink to the ground, a startled look on the man’s face, his own unfired weapon still clutched in his hand. Gabe watched as a crimson-red patch appeared, growing at an alarming rate.
He felt a hand grip his shoulder but couldn’t turn his head to see who it was. Couldn’t run to escape certain death. The paralysis had returned.
