On the Rebound Page 17

  Brandon looked around. His mother and father were standing close by. His mother had her hand over her mouth in shock; his father looked indifferent. Richard was holding back Latoya, and he almost grinned at the fierceness in his sister's eyes. Nadine had slithered away into the group to his right. She looked stricken.

  "Okay," he said out loud, "you asked for this showdown in a public place. Well people, here is the truth. Ashley and I broke up first because I found her in bed with her friend Regina. They were not resting. I am sure I don't need to spell out what they were doing in our marital bed. Did I say that it was in our marital bed?"

  There were gasps all around.

  Ashley recoiled. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "You asked for it," Brandon said.

  "He's lying," Ashley snarled. "Brandon, why are you doing this to me? I am the mother of your children."

  And then something snapped in him. There it was again, that term ‘mother of his children’. He detested it with a passion. The wounds were still too raw, still too new.

  He wanted to yell at her, to shake her and ask her why she deceived him for so long. The biggest lie of them all.

  He said it almost softly. "Alisha and Ariel are not biologically mine—two different men, two different affairs. They sent me electronic DNA results after you tore up the paper results. That is the straw that snapped the camel's back, Ashley. Stop grandstanding and stop the melodrama. I never want to see you again. You hear me? Get out of here."

  He said the last bit quietly, almost tiredly. "Divorce papers will be served tomorrow. I checked with my lawyer yesterday. Don't play with me on this divorce, Ashley. You better accept my demands, because you have no leg to stand on here. I really... really... really... want to be free of you."

  Her eyes widened and she backed away, almost stumbling in her haste to pass all the shocked eyes that were looking at her.

  *****

  Brandon stood on the back porch after everyone left. Well, everyone but Nadine; she was helping Latoya and Richard clean up.

  "Now that was the shortest party on record," his mother said, coming to stand beside him.

  His father joined him too. "It was."

  "I shouldn't have done it." Brandon pushed his hands in his pockets. "I shouldn’t have embarrassed her like that. I shouldn't have said what I said about the children."

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the wall.

  His mother rubbed his back. "You have to admit that she asked for it. She came here to your own party to embarrass you. It was a little shocking to hear about the children, though."

  "More than a little," his father sighed. “And you have been bearing this knowledge alone for days."

  "Yes," Brandon sighed. "That's right."

  "So what have you decided to do?" his mother asked. "I am so put out with Ashley I am inclined to agree with anything you say right now."

  Brandon chuckled. "Ah Mom. I am thinking that it's all or nothing. I really don't want to have anything to do with her anymore. So it's either I get full custody of the kids or I completely walk away."

  "And we know you are not going to completely walk away," his mother said fearfully. "Right?"

  "Right." Brandon nodded.

  His parents gave a collective sigh of relief.

  "That would have broken our hearts," his father said huskily. "We love them."

  "I know," Brandon said. "I do too."

  "I wonder if Ashley will still allow us to see them while you are gone," Beatrice whispered.

  "Of course," Brandon frowned. "Why not? I was thinking that it is probably best if they stay here with you guys while I am gone. I can't imagine Ashley alone with them for three months, can you?"

  Latoya came on the porch with a garbage bag in her hand. "You hungry? We got tons of finger food."

  "No," Brandon said, "not hungry at all."

  He looked past her to Nadine, who was walking up the steps. "Later we talk, okay?"

  He walked Nadine to her car after she said her goodnights to his family.

  "Listen," he turned to her, "I am sorry about tonight."

  Nadine put her finger on his lips. "No, don't be sorry. I mean, I can't believe that is what you had gone through with Ashley. It is a small miracle that you can even like another woman again after this."

  "Love," Brandon corrected. "I don't just like you."

  "You don't know that," Nadine said. "We'll wait until all of this wears off and we'll see if your feelings are not just a rebound thing."

  Brandon captured her hands in his and pulled her close. "Okay, that's a plan. I am going away for three months. I'll report back to you then."

  Nadine looked at him seriously. "I'll be here waiting through all the stuff, then. I'll be your anchor and your friend."

  "Thank you." Brandon hugged her close. "Thank you for being here."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Three weeks later, Ashley was sitting around her desk, with Damon, her lawyer, on the other side. "This feels like déjà vu," she said meekly.

  "Yes, doesn't it?" Damon said. "I can't believe you allowed your husband to file for divorce first; that was foolish. His lawyer says that he's going to sell the house and split the cost, and he wants full custody of the children."

  Ashley nodded. "That's only fair. He is leaving me with the business and he's giving me a part of the house sale. That's more than I expected, honestly."

  "But," Damon spluttered, "remember what I told you about getting a check every month from him. You won't get that if you give him the children full time."

  Ashley twisted her lips. "Leave it, Damon. I won't find a man like Brandon in this world ever again. I wasted my years with him. I played around on him. I treated him with disrespect. The children are not even his."

  Damon's mouth opened. "What?"

  "You heard me." Ashley hiccupped as tears ran down her cheeks. "I just can't refute whatever it is that Brandon wants. Even now, in divorce, he is showing me some mercy. He is giving me this business so that I can have an income. He is the one that bought this place, paid for my stock..." She looked at his shocked expression. "Yes, I am the stupidest woman on Planet Earth."

  Damon closed his mouth with a snap and stammered a bit. "Er...are you interested in visitation with your children?"

  "Whatever Brandon says," Ashley said. "The children are with his parents while he is gone. It's three weeks and I haven't got the courage to go and say hello to them. Do I sound like a good mother to you?"

  Damon got up. "Okay. Okay. I'll contact Brandon's lawyer today."

  "Good." Ashley watched as he walked out of the office. She looked down at her documents. It was ironic, really, her wake-up call had come since that night when she had pushed Brandon to the breaking point and he had blasted her in front of his friends.

  When she thought about it, she had to lose him in order to finally come back to her senses. And she had come back down to earth with a bang. She had done some really awful things and she needed God's forgiveness. She needed to go back to basics. She needed to find her way back home.

  And this time she was not doing it because she wanted to impress anybody; she wasn't doing it so that she could marry anyone. She was doing it because she needed to change. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she didn't want to die so selfish and unfeeling.

  She was hoping that one day, she could even ask Brandon for forgiveness; he had taken the brunt of her bad behavior over the years. She had done him wrong and she was sorry. Not for the first time a tear slipped down her cheeks. It was followed by a second and a third. It was never too late to change, and she was going to do so one step at a time.

  Epilogue

  Five years later...

  "Why did I agree to this, this year?" Nadine asked Brandon as she stirred a pot on the stove.

  Brandon grinned. "You said that you wanted both of our families to meet up this year. That it would be fun, one melting pot of personalities, and that we should all come together with l
ove and laughter. Healing the rifts, et cetera, et cetera."

  "Nads," Tara came to the kitchen doorway. "Can I cut the front of Alisha's hair? I think she would look better with bangs."

  "No!" both Nadine and Brandon said at the same time.

  "Jeesh. You guys are so old fashioned." Tara moved away from the doorway and then indicated the baby in Brandon's hand. "Can I at least hold my nephew while you guys cook?"

  Brandon handed over Jacob reluctantly. He was eighteen months old and looked just like him. Not that it would have been an issue if he hadn't. He trusted Nadine implicitly. They had a partnership, and a friendship that was rock solid. This marriage was so unlike his previous one that he was finding it hard to even remember all the angst that he had with Ashley.

  After his three months in Canada he had returned home, gotten divorced from Ashley, and then gotten married to Nadine the year after that.

  Eventually, he had started communicating with Ashley again, at Nadine's prompting. Nothing good ever came from being bitter for long, and he was so happy now he couldn't remember with much clarity what it felt like not to be a part of a good partnership.

  They had even attended Ashley's wedding a year ago to a minister of the gospel. Brandon could hardly believe that his ex-wife was a first lady.

  Sometimes he thought about it and laughed, but the truth was Ashley had changed drastically. She was not the same woman she once was. She saw the girls occasionally, but she still wasn't the world's most maternal person. That much hadn't changed.

  He had officially adopted the girls years ago, so that just in case he needed to live abroad, taking them would not be an issue.

  "Daddy!" Ariel came to the doorway. "Which one should I wear for the family picture?"

  She held up two dresses.

  Nadine looked around and then chuckled. "She is a fashionista just like Ashley."

  Brandon contemplated the pieces. "I like the lavender."

  "Me too." She grinned.

  "Mommy, will you be wearing lavender too?"

  "Yes," Nadine grinned, "why not? So that our section of the family can match. Tell Alisha."

  "Okay," Ariel scampered away.

  "So you invited Ashley and her new husband?" Brandon grimaced. "Don't you think he is a bit too, er, holy?"

  Nadine threw back her head and laughed.

  "He prays at the drop of a hat," Brandon complained, hugging Nadine around her waist.

  Nadine chuckled. "He is in a marriage that needs it, Brandon."

  Brandon laughed in her neck but he closed his eyes too and prayed silently, "Dear God, thank you for sending this woman into my life. Thank you for my family. Thank you for your blessings. Amen."

  THE END

  Author's Notes

  Dear Reader,

  THANK YOU for reading On The Rebound! If you enjoyed reading it, PLEASE leave a review where you bought this ebook.

  There is an On The Rebound 2! The excerpt is below. I just had to do a story about Ashley and where she ends up, and of course Regina is back to create trouble for not just Ashley, who is now a first lady, but the members of the Primrose Hill church where Ashley attends.

  You can also check out my BOOK LIST, for other titles. The Scarlett Series is coming with another family who is filled with drama, romance, suspense and all of that mixed in. You will find the titles and the release dates on the book list.

  If you have comments or suggestions, I welcome them. You can reach me and receive a reply at brenalbar@gmail.com.

  You can be among the first to hear when I have special prices and new book releases by signing up for my mailing list. It will take you less than 50 seconds to signup. Click here to signup.

  Thanks again. All the best,

  Brenda

  Here is an excerpt for

  On The Rebound 2

  Church.

  She was in church.

  Regina sat in the back of the picturesque neat building and looked around with a sense of disbelief. This is what Ashley had unknowingly driven her to, going to church just so that she could see her.

  And not any old church either, this church was the epitome of conservativeness. It gave her the creeps. It reminded her of those long ago days when she stayed with her grandparents after her parents divorced. But even then her grandparent’s church could not compare to this medieval looking edifice. Everything was minimalist and white—from the gleaming church floors to the material they had covering the podium. The only splash of color was a floral bouquet with some daffodils; their bright yellow blooms were some of the biggest that she had ever seen.

  She admired them for a while and then continued to look around in disbelief. The people coordinated with the Spartan decor. From what she could tell from her position in the back row, the women wore long dresses covering their knees...and hats! Good lord, who still wore those kind of broad brimmed hats in the twenty first century…and blouses buttoned up to their neck?

  And if that was not bad enough everybody had unprocessed hair except for a braided hair or two. No one had on make up or jewelry that she could see.

  Even Ashley, Miss fashion plate, sitting at the front of the church was looking plain and unadorned, not even a ring on her finger.

  At least she could bring off the plain look, Regina thought admiring her for a while. Ashley did not need makeup or any of that stuff to look pretty. Her hair was natural now and the curly bun she had under the ridiculously frilly blue hat looked curly and thick.

  Ashley looked softer somehow; younger if that were possible, and innocent...no not innocent, pious...that was the word. She hadn't seen Ashley in person for five years, ever since Ashley's divorce from Brandon Blake.

  Regina had kept tabs on her though; even when she had gone to live in the UK and was working as a sports journalist she had hired an investigator to track Ashley.

  His reports had been monotonous; Ashley did nothing really remarkable that first year after her divorce. The second year she had started going back to church in earnest and started this mad path she was on to recreate herself into this holy creature. The third year she visited her mother in the States for three months and they seemed to be getting along. The fourth year, Ashley met a guy, Ruel Dennison.

  A pastor.

  Of all the professions in the world? Regina had been flabbergasted. Ashley really seemed to have a type. She liked straitlaced conservative Christian men. Brandon had been the epitome of straitlaced conservatism and she had thought that Ashley would not have stood a chance with him.

  She was wrong then and she was wrong now because this pastor, Ruel Dennison, had married Ashley eleven months ago.

  He was even more conservative than Brandon. If her reports from King, the investigator, were right. The pastor was forty years old, a widower with one child, a girl around sixteen who still lived with her grandmother.

  The pastor had met Ashley at one of those things that churches have—a convention. It was an event where church folks came together and stroked each others egos, or that was how Regina imagined it having never been to one.

  As far as she knew Ashley had not told him about her and their past together and she was backing on the shock factor to get Ashley out of here and away from Ruel Dennison, minister of the gospel. Surely he wouldn't want a wife who had a past like Ashley's. That was her ace card. Ashley made it so easy with her choice of men.

  It gave Regina power and she was not afraid to use this ammunition to once more break up Ashley's happy ever after with whatever sucker she had managed to lure into her web.

  Regina truly believed that Ashley had gotten in over her head. Surely she couldn't be enjoying this imprisonment in a small hick town in the back of beyond.

  It was possible that the pastor had worked some sort of voodoo on her or given her some sort of magic pill for her to be staying in this place. Surely it was not normal or natural to be this buttoned-up and suppressed. It boggled Regina’s mind that Ashley who had just turned thirty-five could enjoy this kind
of hemmed in lifestyle.

  Regina had to rescue Ashley. She had to do something. Her two months vacation before she joined a local television station as head of their sports department would have to be spent up here in Hicksville trying to get Ashley to see sense once again. And this time she was sure that Ashley would listen...

  OTHER BOOKS BY BRENDA BARRETT

  Resetter Series

  Never Too Late (Book 1)- Addi finds out she is a resetter and goes back to the summer of 92 to change her family's lives.

  Never Say Never (Book 2)- Skyler's handsome college lecturer, who happens to be her neighbor, has a T in his palms. Should she tell him the significance of it. If she does, would he believe her?

  Now or Never (Book 3)- Ten years later Addi and Randy meet again at Randy's engagement party. Why is it that the chemistry between them was still so potent? Can they ever have a future together? Would Randy choose her this time around?

  Almost Never (Book 4)- Tech genius Joshua Porter had all but given up on love. He then meets Portia, an escapee from the female penitentiary and his life takes a turn for the adventurous.

  The Scarlett Family Series

  Scarlett Baby (Book 1)- When the head of the Scarlett family died, Yuri had to return home to Treasure Beach for the funeral. What he didn't count on was seeing Marla, his childhood sweetheart and his best friend's wife. And when emotions overwhelm them and a few months later Marla is pregnant, Yuri wants the impossible: his best friend's wife and the baby they made together...