Resolution (Saviour) (47 page)

She knows each and every word because it’s one of my favourite songs too and we always turn it up and give it large when it comes on in the car
. We have this thing we do where I slow down and speed up. ‘Making the car do a happy dance’ as we call it, but anyway, that’s our little secret that we keep from Daddy. Ruby has her eyes tightly closed as she sings her little heart out, opening them as the song comes to an end, where the IPod is that the head phones are blue toothed to is, I have no idea. Everyone in the room cheers, including Gabe. Ruby opens her eyes grins and bows. The Gucci sunglasses fall from her head and just as she starts to lose her balance and it looks like she’s going to step on them.

Gabe scoops her up
. “Great singing Angel.”

“
Awww Daddy, don’t be a div, it was shit house.” I close my eyes in mortification. My daughter also has the mouth of a sewer.

Ava screams from beside me
. “Ruby Angel Rose. Get back here and clean this mess up. Get my clothes off! Lauren, look at my Gucci’s, look at my Channel scarf, she always ruins my stuff. I’m getting a lock on this door, I swear to God.”

Ruby turns in Gabe’s arms to look at Ava and say
s, “I sorry Ave, I wanted to look priddy for your burtday and sing you the happy car dance song. I do loves you lots like jelly tots Avie.”

There’s a big
“awww”
from everyone in the room. Just then Harry my grandson. Yep, Sonny and Jess have a son just six months younger than the twins, it makes for an interesting conversation at kindy, as they are all in the same class, in the same school; they moved back over here to live as soon as Jess realised she was pregnant so they could be close to their families. Harry runs into the room, closely followed by Reef, both of them dressed in pirates outfits and waiving rubber swords the pair of them jump on the bed. “Avie… Don’t you shout at Rubes, she’s just my baby sister, she don’t know what she’s doing. You shout at her, I will punch your lights out.”

“
We will.” Agrees Harry.

I groan inwardly
, I’m not a bad parent, I’m really not but my younger children are truly Wild or should that be Wilde?

Gabe pulls me to him, Ruby still in his arms
, Reef now in mine. “Let’s throw these two in the tub and get them down for a nap, then we can get back to bed.”

A shudder runs through me as Gabe slides his fingers under my
t-shirt. His t-shirt and boxers in fact, as they are what I threw on when I thought that someone was being murdered. This is our life, the life we found and built together from the rubble of both our fucked up pasts. It’s chaos and madness most of the time, full to the brim with love all of the time and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

Where do I start? I wrote Saviour to keep me saneduring a difficult time for my family, the jury is still out on whether that goal was achieve
d☺
. I only originally wrote the first eight chapters and had no idea what to do with them or where the story was going to go. That was supposed to be the end of it but when I sent those eight chapters out to friends and to some people that, at the time, I hardly knew, they asked for more. So I finished the book and decided to publish Gabe and Lauren’s story, I had no idea so many of you would love it and would want more, so now I have given you more, I have written the follow up and I truly hope you have enjoyed reading the continuation of their story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

So where do I start? My Husband was lucky to be working away during the writing of this book and so he didn’t have to endure the lack of domesticity in our home during the process, my boys on the other hand, were stuck with me, so while I thank my Husband for his support, I thank my boys even more for putting up with my unwashed self, their unwashed clothes and all the dinners I didn’t cook and at the same time I would like to thank Brogan, my Queen Of Clean, for stepping in when the place really needed a woman’s touch.

My Twitter and Facebook champions, Mags, Ally, Marina, Peita and all of you other ladies that like, share, Tweet and re Tweet, I thank you, thank you, thank you.

I thank all of you bloggers for the mentions and reviews, you are what keep us indie authors going, without you getting our work out there, mentioned and noticed, we would need to spend so much of our own time, that there would be very little left for writing,
you really are our life blood.

To Vicki, Kaz, Wendy, Michelle, Nic and Tash, my dream team of Betas, you truly are a group of amazing women, our conversations would probably get us locked up if they were ever to be made public, you make me laugh, you make me cry but I know for sure that despite the miles, we are all there for each other, I love you all girls, not just for your help with this book but just for being you. Wendy, please don’t cry when you read thi
s☺
.

My Oh My Ladies – keep the naughtiness coming ladies.

My SC ladies – you keep me inspired, motivated, grounded and reasonably sane, I really don’t know where I would be without our little chats. May they never become publi
c☺
. When I make it back to England, we are going to have the biggest round of shots ever.

Happy
21
st
Birthday Chloë!

To all of you that have bought and enjoyed Saviour and Resolution, I can’t thank you enough for your support and kind words, I never intended being a writer, it just sort of happened and without all of you and your messages telling me how you wanted to hear more of Gabe and Lauren’s story, I would have just left it at the one book, I only hope that their story has ended in a way that makes you all happy.

Lauren and Gabe’s story may have come to an end but I am now working on something new and completely different, I can only hope that you fall in love with Georgia, Cameron and Sean as you read their story, in the way that you did Gabe and Lauren.

-
Lesley Jones

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