All of You

  Jasmine Stevens

  All of You

  The Holbrook Series Book Two

  Jasmine Stevens

  Copyright 2019 Jasmine Stevens

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organisations or places is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author. All songs, song titles, and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book contains graphic language and sexual content and is intended for mature audiences, ages 18 and older.

  ISBN: 978-0-6484470-3-0

  Book design by Swish Design & Editing

  Editing by Swish Design & Editing

  Proofreading by Swish Design & Editing

  Cover design by Soxsational Cover Art

  Cover Image Copyright 2019

  All rights reserved

  Running from danger is something single Mum, Emma McIntosh, thought she’d never have to do. But, now it’s imperative, in order for her to protect her daughter, Zoe. Starting afresh in the quaint country town of Holbrook, she wants anonymity, so her secrets, stay exactly that – secret. Hoping to rediscover herself after being hurt, the last thing she’s looking for is to fall in love. What she didn’t count on was sexy farmer, Benjamin Beckett, who is as curious as he is friendly, and as frustrating as he is handsome.

  Ben is Holbrook’s most eligible bachelor with his own secret. One, which has cost him the desire to commit to a relationship. His idyllic life is turned upside down when Emma and her daughter Zoe barrel into town. Ben is immediately attracted to the mysterious woman, but when Emma rejects his proposal for a casual fling, he must be content on being simply her friend.

  As their friendship grows, so does their love for one another. But, a broken heart isn’t all they’re in danger of. When Emma’s past finally catches up with her, it places not only her and Zoe’s life at risk but Ben’s too. Is love enough to keep her in Holbrook or will she choose a life on the run?

  For Mum.

  Thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of books.

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Connect With Me Online

  About the Author

  In the blink of an eye, Emma’s entire world changed. One single moment in time when the unthinkable happened. One tiny portion of her life where things could have—should have—transpired differently. In the darkness that descended over her, that threatened to swallow her into its dark abyss, she realised she had made a terrible and fatal mistake, one that would change her life forever.

  Lying on her belly, Emma groaned as excruciating pain made her head spin. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and she tried to swallow, but her throat was parched. Something cold and wet saturated the front and back of her shirt. Was blood causing the fabric to stick to her skin like glue?

  She tried lifting her head. She could barely shift it off the hard surface of the wooden floorboards before it collapsed back down with a thud as the pain gripping her body made her scream an agonising cry echoing in her ears. Grinding her teeth, a wave of nausea swam up from her stomach, filling her mouth with saliva.

  Her voice was hoarse, and barely audible when she spoke, ‘Help. Please help me…’ She paused when she heard a noise.

  Concentrating hard, trying to focus on the noise and its origin, she slowly turned her head towards the distant sound. Emma squinted, fixing her eyes on a blurred image. Through the fog of her pain, she registered a baby’s cries intensifying. She’d forgotten the baby. How? Needing to get to the infant fast, her mind swirled with the question of whether she could even move to get to the baby.

  Taking in a big, shuddering gulp of air, she tried to lift herself. Her left arm was useless. She willed it to move, but it remained limp. Come on, Emma, you can do this, now is not the time to be weak. With her right arm, she braced herself and pushed up until her upper body was off the ground. She screamed out as pain ripped through her body. Dizziness threatened to send her into unconsciousness, but she pushed it aside. With the little strength she had in her, she commando crawled using her right forearm to drag her body across the floor towards the baby’s screams. Her breaths came in short, fast pants as she tried not to succumb to the dizziness. Passing out wasn’t an option. The baby needed her protection.

  As she finally reached the tiny infant with the flailing arms and legs, who laid unprotected on the floor, she managed to assess the baby’s condition. The baby’s face was beetroot red, its body covered in blood. Emma dragged in a deep breath and fought against the wave of nausea which swam up from her stomach. It took all of Emma’s determination and strength to pat over the baby’s body, trying to find the source of the blood. Not entirely certain, she didn’t think the screaming ball of pink lying next to her was injured. Whose blood was smeared all over the baby, then?

  Emma rolled onto her back and moved the baby as best she could into the crook of her arm. ‘Shh, it’s going to be alright. You’re going to be okay.’ The effort to speak sapped her energy. She could feel the darkness dragging her relentlessly under. Her heartbeat, slowed, pulsing in her temples, slower and slower. She tried to focus on the baby. Everything blurred like a camera refusing to autofocus. The baby was alive, maybe Jackson was alive too.

  Emma groaned as she twisted her head over to where she had last seen Jackson. His body remained still. ‘Jacko, Jacko. Can you hear me?’ Her voice was raspy, barely a whisper. The silence was deafening. Maybe he’d passed out from the pain? Yes, that’s it. He’s going to be okay. ‘Jacko, wake up,’ she rasped. Still nothing.

  Sirens screamed in the background, their intensity increasing as they neared, competing against the baby’s cries. Car doors slammed. Feet pounded wooden floorboards, and still, the baby cried. Emma’s ears pulsed with the sound of her own short, gasping breaths in complete contrast to the lack of sound and movement coming from Jackson. Wake up, Jacko, please? Don’t be dead. Don’t you die on me, you hear me? You have to live. Stay alive, please. Hot tears burned a path down her face and ran into her ears as she looked at the ceiling, wishing she’d wake from this nightmare. Please wake up.

  She wanted to close her eyes. They felt so heavy. So heavy. She forced them to stay open through sheer will. She had to protect the baby. Voices echoed in her ears now, and she tried to focus on a face looking down at her. Someone, a woman, telling her she was going to be okay. Someone, taking the baby out of the crook of her arm. The voice wa
s soothing like waves lapping against the hull of a boat on a calm day at the lake.

  She recognised the soothing voice and knew the baby and her would be safe. She didn’t feel okay, though. Was this what it felt like to die? Her eyelids felt like lead, pulling the delicate skin down, drawing them to close. Finally, there was darkness. The baby’s cries had stopped. Her raspy breaths were becoming fewer and farther between.

  ‘He’s gone.’ Voices became distant, but hands, hands seemed to be everywhere on her. Someone far away was telling her to open her eyes.

  A heartbeat later and there was that irritating voice telling her to open her eyes again. No, she wanted to scream. No, she wouldn’t open her eyes. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, ‘Let me sleep. Please… let me die.’

  She had made one deadly mistake.

  It had cost lives.

  She deserved to die.

  Emma opened the first brown box labelled ‘Fragile Kitchen.’ She struggled to lift the cumbersome microwave out of its rectangular shell, her shoulder aching in protest over her failed attempts.

  Her mother yelled out, ‘You stop lifting that this instant, Emma. You stop right now. It’s far too heavy for you.’

  It irritated Emma when her mother of late observed her struggles over her triumphs. Her mother had not been at her physiotherapy session where she finally, after four long months, lifted her left arm above her head. Nor did she see the first time Emma used her left hand to wash her hair.

  No, she always saw the failures.

  Saw Emma wrestle to open a jar.

  Saw the wince of pain when she lifted Zoe out of her cot.

  Once in her rush to comfort a crying Zoe, she’d forgotten to lower the rail. A simple mistake which cost her dearly. She had strained a ligament, and it had sent her recovery time back even further. Her mother had chastised her for days after, telling her, ‘Emma, you must be more careful. You must think before you act.’ Her mother was right, of course. The trouble with Emma was, she didn’t think before she acted. Her stupidity and disregard for forethought were how she had gotten herself into this mess in the first place.

  Her mother left Zoe sitting on the beige carpet playing with some blocks and walked over to Emma. As she did, she yelled down the hall, ‘John, Emma needs help lifting the microwave.’

  Emma rolled her eyes. ‘Mum. Will you please stop fussing over me? I have to keep strengthening my muscles as part of my rehabilitation. I know my limits.’ Emma gave her mother a pleading look. ‘It’s been six months. My shoulder has healed, and now I need to make it strong again. I have to use it.’

  Caroline McIntosh reached her daughter and squeezed her arm none too gently. Emma flinched as pain seared through her upper arm and across her shoulder, leaving a burning sensation. ‘Mmm…’ she tutted. ‘You call that fine?’

  Emma looked away, embarrassed she was an open book. Whether it was pain, happiness, sadness, or shame, she was unable to hide behind a mask of obscurity, disguising her emotions. She wore her heart on her sleeve with no veil to conceal her true feelings. Some viewed this as a strength. Emma saw it as her weakness.

  John, Emma’s father, walked into the kitchen. He winked at Emma giving her silent encouragement. He carefully lifted the microwave out from inside the box and placed it on top of the black kitchen bench. ‘There you are, sweetheart. I’ve finished putting your bed together. I might need some help lifting the mattress onto the base, though. Think you can handle it?’

  Emma knew what her father was doing, and she appreciated him for it. ‘Sure. Let’s get it over and done with.’

  Caroline’s pursed lips let both father and daughter know she was less than impressed. Caroline never tried to hide her disappointment or her judgements. ‘John, really?’ She tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows questioningly in an expression telling Emma her father was never going to hear the end of this. ‘Surely I could help with the mattress. Emma has been “stretching,”’ Caroline looked pointedly at Emma, ‘All day. She needs to rest. She’s overexerting herself.’

  Emma crossed her arms and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Oh, Mum, please?’ She thought she sounded like a spoilt teenager having a tantrum, but her mother’s constant worrying was agitating Emma more and more.

  John looked at his daughter with affectionate eyes. ‘Are you alright to help with the mattress, Em?’

  Striding out of the kitchen and down the carpeted hall, Emma said with her back to her parents, ‘I’m capable of helping you lift a mattress, Dad. Now let’s get it done.’ Emma was glad her parents couldn’t see her face as they would clearly read she wasn’t at all confident with a task, which only a few short months ago would have been an undemanding one.

  A walk in the park now filled her with anxiety.

  What if she couldn’t lift the damn mattress?

  What if she wasn’t strong enough?

  No matter what she did at some stage throughout the day, fear gripped her like a vice. She was never confident she was capable of anything anymore. Never one hundred per cent sure she was strong enough. Six months ago, no one, not even herself, would have questioned her strength.

  Today her body ached everywhere. Moving into the house in Holbrook, travelling the long distance from Melbourne, caring for Zoe and putting up with her mother’s constant fretting over her was taxing. However, she didn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction of knowing she was indeed correct. Emma was struggling today. Knowing this, made anger simmer underneath the surface. She knew she’d never have a full range of movement in her left shoulder. But, she’d be damned if she were going to let her disability beat her down and stop her from living a normal life. She’d be damned if Axel Knight, the gunman who planted three bullets in her body, was going to win. She was determined he would not ruin her life and stop her from doing anything. He’d done his hardest to try and kill her. He hadn’t succeeded. Even in his death, he wouldn’t succeed in dragging her down into the pits of darkness again.

  As she helped her father lift the mattress onto the timber slats of her bed, he spoke without looking at her. ‘She means well, your mum.’

  Emma dropped the mattress in place. She puffed, wiping beads of perspiration from her forehead with her sleeve. ‘I know, Dad. It’s the constant fussing. I’m not used to it. It gets tiring.’ Emma blew out a breath, which lifted her auburn fringe off her forehead. ‘I need her to understand I’m not going to have you and her here to help me all of the time. When you go back to Melbourne, I’m going to have to stand on my own two feet.’

  Her father studied her with a furrowed brow. ‘Maybe we should stay a couple of weeks. Make sure you and Zoe are completely settled in.’

  Emma squeezed the bridge of her nose. She could feel a headache coming on. ‘No. You and Mum have taken enough time off work to help me.’ She looked into his eyes, imploring him. ‘You need to go home. I’ll be alright. I can do this. I’m tough.’

  ‘Whether you’re tough or not, isn’t the question. You forget we were the ones who sat by your bed while you fought to live. We know you’re tough. But we want to make sure you aren’t pushing yourself too far, too fast. We love you.’ John came to his daughter then and hugged her. She rested her head on her father’s chest and sighed. ‘We hated seeing you in so much pain,’ he said.

  ‘I know it was hard for you guys, but I want my independence back. I need to work through all of this on my own, stand on my own two feet.’ Emma pulled away from her father and looked up at him. ‘I have to prove to myself I can be everything Ryan told me I couldn’t be. I don’t want him to be right. I want to prove him wrong.’

  John’s face screwed up in distaste. ‘Just hearing Ryan’s name leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Where was his support when you were going through the toughest fight of your life?’

  Emma shrugged. ‘He wasn’t strong enough to deal with it all. Me, for one, and then Zoe. It was all too much. He has never handled stress well.’

  John raised sc
eptical eyes to Emma. ‘It was too hard for him? He wasn’t strong enough? Sorry, sweetheart, but when the going got tough, he left you in the lurch. He left you because he couldn’t handle what life threw at him. The man’s a coward.’

  ‘Come on, Dad. That’s not entirely true. I wanted Zoe, he didn’t. I can’t force him to feel the same way I do about Zoe. That little baby in there,’ Emma pointed out to the lounge room, ‘became something for me to fight for. Ryan didn’t understand our connection. He had no bond with Zoe. I did. I can’t blame him or call him a coward.’ It wouldn’t be fair.’

  John crossed his arms. ‘Well, I can. His true colours certainly came out and I’m glad they surfaced before the two of you decided to get married. That’s one saving grace, anyway.’

  Emma went to protest but was interrupted by Zoe’s cry from the lounge room. She checked her watch, it was five thirty. Where had the time gone? ‘I better go and heat up some food for ZoZo, she’ll be getting hungry.’

  John scuffed up his daughter’s already messy hair some more. ‘Okay, I’ll go and put up the other bed in the guest room.’ John walked out of the bedroom after Emma. ‘Em?’

  She stopped and turned around to face her father. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Nice talk.’

  Emma smiled. ‘Yeah, Dad, nice talk.’

  Emma and her parents had been efficient in finding every item Zoe would need tonight. Earlier, with Allen keys and screwdriver in hand, Emma had put together the new white cot she had purchased from Baby Bunting. Why on earth they made those damn things so hard to put together was beyond her. Building her daughter’s cot had given her a sense of accomplishment, and she was thankful she had splurged on a piece of furniture which would turn into a toddler’s bed when Zoe outgrew it. She could have kept the hand-me-down cot her sister had loaned her, but she had wanted Zoe to have something brand new, something she could call her own. God knows with all the upheaval in the baby’s life in the last few months, she deserved to have her own brand-new bed. Today symbolised a fresh start for both Zoe and herself.