Calling You Home: Remember Me Book 2 of 3 of Calling You Home Saga- Kristal McKerrington

Hello Readers

Its a wet day here in Helensbrugh and I'm going to give you a real treat. The first chapter of the second "Calling You Home" saga. This has been a book that just got off a great blog tour. As I continue to write the second Marie's World book your going to get to read book 1's chapter 1 of the series tomorrow. Enjoy:

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CHAPTER 1

Driving down the twisting and turning road, Jason fought the overwhelming reality of having a daughter. His heart sank. His hands trembled on the steering wheel. He wondered what Abby must think of him. There were plenty of times he’d asked himself what she'd do to get him through these dark times. Nobody expected this to happen.

Abby was never meant to die and May wasn't suppose to come back with a kid.

Backing into the driveway, he parked the beat up Pickup Turk and turned off the engine. The rusty, flaking red truck stared back at him in the reflection in the puddle. Already he secretly planned this truck to be his daughters one day.

The thought of daughter scared him witless.

He leaned back on the cushioned seat behind his body. Thoughts of his son comforted him. He wanted to focus on raising Stuart and remember a time when May remained a kind-hearted, gentle woman. Jason hated the feeling of helplessness.

Anger erupted like fireworks within him.

All he wanted was distance from this nightmare. He questioned everything he'd ever done. He wanted to know his daughter. Being the good man everyone believed him to be but doing the right thing got him nothing in the end, except heartache.

The sound of Mary Chapin Carpenter began to play and he pounded the eject button with a clenched fist. The disc slid out and he threw it out of the window. He just couldn’t bear any part of May’s memory to touch him right now. The memory felt like acid being poured on his exposed flesh.

He focused his eyes on the road in front of him.

Jason failed to recognise a single part of the girl he grew up with. The girl who he held, the girl he never wanted to see cry. Right now he wanted her to hurt just as much as she hurt him. Seeing the hate and disappointment in his daughters face felt like a knife through his heart. A knife May held all responsibility for.

“Damn it!” He shouted slamming his hands on the dashboard.

He sat in the truck and slipped a Luke Bryan CD into the player. The soft tones and words of Jesus soothed his frazzled nerves. Finally, no longer angry, Jason could let the tears come. It felt like the weight of everything was crushing him. He sobbed into his weather worn hand.

As he glanced down, the cross his mother gave him caught his eye hanging around his rear view mirror he thought she must be scowling down on him from the heavens.

His mother had always left his sister, brothers and him small gifts until they turned twenty-one. He grasped it and prayed for strength. Jason knew he would need the strength for the next few days while he tried to work out what to do.

Turning the truck back on, he forced himself to continue on, even though he wanted to lay down in his truck and just give up.

Driving down his driveway down towards his house another world seemed to open up before him. The fairy lights Abby put up began glowing as the sun began setting. It took her hours to place the solar powered lights along the road. The lights still took his breath away.

Jason remembered Abby told him it made her feel like she came home to a palace. She could see them twinkling in the distance each time she came home. Her smile shone brighter the closer to home she got. She always warmed his heart. Made him believe that home really was where the heart was.

Part of Jason remembered how he held her in the field with the swaying grass, while she carried his son in her stomach and he made her a promise.

'I'll never leave you. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure your happy.' Remembering those words broke his head now, sobs erupted out of his chest.

Abby had turned towards him where she allowed her fingers to stroke his cheek and she whispered the following words.

'I'll never leave you either.'

“Where are you now Abby?” Jason yelled in his truck and slammed his fist into the steering wheel, while his tears continued to fall unchecked.

There wasn't an answer, Jason knew the answer was never going to come.

Jason continued to remember how nothing ever seemed wrong when she smiled. How her fingers curled into little fists when she slept next to him. Her laughter when she watched the butterflies raise out of their garden in spring.

Nothing made her sad for long.

Coming around the corner the hole in his chest grew and he felt like there wasn't a heart left in the gaping wound. Instead he felt empty and cold.

Jason wished Abby was on the porch waiting for him as he got home, but she was gone. Dancing over the clouds and smiling with her loved ones. He envied her.

They would be reunited one day in heaven. Peace seemed so far away. He needed to remain strong for his son. He wanted to raise him to be a strong man; he didn't want Stuart to lose anyone else.

Stuarts small and round face appeared in his mind's eye. Almost making the gaping wound grow at the idea of him being so selfish as to want to lay down in his truck and never get up.

Jason held onto the image of Stuart's button nose and little eyes staring back at him, only the image soon got replace, by a darker crueller one. Thinking of his son made him think about his daughter standing on her grandparents’ porch, her eyes filled with disappointment, loathing and even disdain. He wondered if his own son might ever want to know why he had been kept apart from his sister.

The memory of his daughter Dolly’s face as she stood out on the porch like a carbon copy of her mother, May appeared in his mind. The sight of her tortured him. He couldn't understand what he did wrong.

What he did he do to deserve this?

It occurred to him that Stuart and Dolly had the same eyes. They had dimples in their cheeks, plus they had the same button noses. A sight he couldn't get over ever.

He wondered as he sat in his truck in front of his house if there was any way he could fix his broken family. Jason stared around him and knew that none of this would mean a damn thing if there wasn't a family to enjoy it too.

Everything in this world should be about family and nothing else.

Tomorrow offered him a new day and Jason hoped there might be some new hope in his chest to make each breathe easier to breath. He wondered if he wanted to face the new dawn if the pain of tomorrow was as bad as this.

Abby, the woman he would always be thankful for, told him “a new day, meant a new chance; a clean slate and a day where the past is behind you and the future is in front of you.”

Jason had always felt impressed when it came to her. It was as if she passed all of her knowledge onto him. He didn't know when he got so wise. He believed he'd become the luckiest man on earth when she had picked him. For Abby in the end had picked him. Trusted him and gave him the ultimate gift; a son.

Opening the truck door, he slipped out of it and let his feet hit the dirt track road. The stones crunched underneath his feet. His music died as he pulled his keys from the ignition and his heart sped up, reminding him that it beat in his chest. His head hung and his arms felt like they were coated in gold. Jason stumbled when he went to walk towards his house, he rested his hand against his truck to steady himself.

Jason felt Drew's eyes on him. His best friend Jason guessed judged him for his actions with May; even something in his gut was eating away at him.

Jason searched himself for the strength to tell Drew what he felt, disappeared. Telling Drew about the secret May kept from him, required him to shed everything. Jason wasn't in the right place to out his secrets to the world around him.

Even if he trusted Drew.

“Welcome back.” Drew greeted. Jason felt his eyes follow him when his foot connected with the wooden porch.

“Don't want to talk Drew. Is Stuart still asleep?” He made his way further onto the porch. Jason never slowed his step and reached for the door. Something twisted in his gut making his hand fall away from the knob.

“Yes, he's still asleep. He woke up, I fed him, and he went back down almost instantly.” Drew said softly as he waved the baby monitor at Jason.

The truth of his son being worn out from a day out with his auntie Clea gave Jason some relief. He kept his back to the world, Drew included. Jason pulled himself together long enough to enter his house and he distantly heard Drew follow him.

Jason's chest started to hurt more than it had ever hurt before. Seeing the picture of his wife staring at him made him move with lightening speed. His fingers clutched the picture for dear life. He didn't see his fingers turning white, nor his wedding band shining at him. All Jason saw was his wife smiling back at him. His hand rested about his heart as tears started to fall after knowing she must hate him.

He remained still.

“Are you okay Jason?” Drew asked with a careful voice and Jason ignored him almost completely.

Jason felt words pour out of his mouth. His entire being screamed to be alone, he let words fall between Drew and him, not thinking how they could affect his friend. Jason felt like he had fallen into a black hole with no way to get out.

“I need to be alone Drew. Please leave.” He answered, entering his kitchen where he set his picture of Abby down onto the counter top.

Jason moved toward the fridge where he took a bottle of beer out where he popped the cap off. Pain rushed through him again, he sipped the beer as he fell to his knees. He kept his hand on his chest. Jason took a moment to just think of all the times she cooked dinner for him. Danced around the titled room in her underwear, while she swung her hair out behind her.

Jason wondered if he would ever be that happy again.