Love, Cass Read online

  Her first…kiss. There are no words for this one other than our little girl is growing up. I’ve said that a lot lately in my letters. This time, it hit me just how much I’m missing and you are taking on…alone. Then I remembered…your brothers. Something tells me they’re reading this along with you, because when it comes to Reagan, you’re all a bunch of protective dads.

  First, don’t hurt the boy. It may be your first instinct, but if hers was to kiss him, or let him kiss her — you can’t hurt him. Second, please don’t embarrass her. This is an awkward stage where everything is weird and awkward for you. It’s more so for her. Next, let her choose. I have no doubt she’s going to have strong boundaries and high expectations. She’s an O’Reilly. Don’t forget that. I worry more for the boy she chooses than any of you. Last, if he breaks her heart, you boys better put the fear of the O’Reilly clan in him…but don’t tell her.

  My best advice with the first kiss is just to love her, which I know you do, Liam. I think the hardest part will be for your brothers to keep you grounded…and vice versa. Oh, how you love so hard. All of you. Reagan is so lucky to have you all, and if I know anything, it’s that she will measure every boy to the five incredible men in her life. You have nothing to worry about.

  Continue to be her hero — all of you. Love her until she can’t take it anymore, and love each other. Together, you’re a force that knows no match. Just don’t use it to scare off all the boys likely to walk in and out of the picture until Reagan finds her one true love. And, boys…remember this if you have daughters someday. And should you have boys…Lord help the girls.

  I love you bigger than the sky — even the boys.

  Always and forever…

  Cass

  Dear Reagan…

  It’s prom! I am so excited for you, unless of course, you chose not to go, and that’s okay too. Something tells me you’re going, though. And if you are, have the time of your life. Whoever is lucky enough to take you has their work cut out for them, though. You might want to warn your date about daddy and the boys.

  No matter what they say, or how they behave, remember it’s all out of love and how lucky you are to be loved that much. Even if it’s utterly embarrassing and you’d like to run far, far away. Remember who you are, baby, and remind your date if you need to. And if that isn’t enough, remind your date who your daddy and uncles are. Then look in the rearview mirror and show him what car they’re in, because we both know at least two of them are tailing you. I’m sorry, baby…remember, it’s out of love, and they just can’t help themselves.

  You deserve the moon, stars, and whatever the hip word is at this stage. I wish I was there to help you with your hair, and nails, and I am — if you look for me, you’ll feel me. Always in your heart, honey.

  This is where life starts to go a little faster. Hang on and enjoy the ride. Your best life is going to be fantastic, and I can’t wait to see where it takes you. I know it will be far.

  I love you more than anything, my darling girl…

  Love, Mama

  P.S. If you didn’t go to prom, I hope you’re doing something fabulous instead, and it better involve popcorn! The rest of my words still apply…especially the I love you part.

  Dear Liam…

  I can’t believe we have an eighteen-year-old graduating high school! We are the parents of an adult! Are we old enough for that? Where did the time go?

  I know today must be full of mixed emotions, but remember, this is just the beginning for her. She has so much to look forward to: college, her first apartment and job, finding true love. I’m sure keeping her close is what you really want, but just like you had to let her ride that school bus all those years ago, you have to do this too.

  Let her experience life, make mistakes, learn from them. She still needs you, Liam, she always will. Just let her learn that for herself now and she’ll never be far. Growing up without me had to be hard, but I know she couldn’t have strayed far from the path she was destined to take because she’s had you to guide her.

  She’s an O’Reilly…

  Reagan is all the good things that come with that name. Congratulations, dad…you’ve done an incredible job and I love you for it. Look out, world…there’s another O’Reilly to take you by storm.

  I love you, dear husband…you’ve always been my favorite…

  Love, Cass

  P.S. If Reagan chooses to move away for college, I fully support you vetting the place, installing extreme security measures under the radar, and hacking campus cameras. Safety first, right? Oh, and if you send someone to stand in the shadows to watch over her, make sure it’s one of your brothers. She’s likely to sniff out your bodyguard and date him to make a point otherwise. She’s an O’Reilly, after all.

  My Dearest Reagan…

  It’s your wedding day! This is going to one of the best days of your life and start a whole new chapter for you, baby! I can only imagine the excitement you feel for this day and the days to come as a married woman. Marrying your father was one of my greatest adventures, and I can’t wait for you to enjoy yours.

  Marriage is just that: an adventure full of knowns and unknowns. There will be peaks and valleys and storms to weather, but the greatest part is that through the best of times and the worst of times, you will have a partner to travel through it all with. Remember marriage is a partnership. It’s full of give and take with plenty of compromise. And the greatest tool to find your way through it all is communication and love.

  If you communicate your love for one another, you’ll always navigate your way through thick and thin and find that light at the end of every tunnel. The best part of all: you have someone to share it all with. The highs are that much more celebrated, and lows aren’t nearly as lonely.

  My wedding gift to you is these three words: patience, forgiveness, and generosity. You mix any one of those, or even all three, with love, and you have the recipe for a happy marriage.

  I love you, my beautiful girl. On this day, I know you’ll see me everywhere. It’ll be like we’ve been planning this your whole life. Maybe we have…

  Congratulations, Reagan!

  Forever and ever…

  Love, Mama

  Dear Reagan…

  A new baby! Congratulations, honey. I’m so proud of you!

  Being a mommy is the most rewarding and hardest thing you’ll ever do. There are times when you’ll feel like you aren’t quite making it, that you aren’t enough, but know that is just par for the course — you are always enough.

  I’ll let you in on a little secret. When you’re wondering if you’ve spent enough time playing with your baby, reading to the little one, playing the right music, or searching out the right preschool…know you’re doing it all exactly right. Push aside the guilt and ignore the voices that make you question everything from diaper brand to appropriate bedtime, to whether or not vegan is right for a baby.

  No matter how hard you try or how much you think you aren’t enough, you will be, because you’ll love that baby with an intensity you didn’t know was within you. As long as you feel that love, you’ll know you’re doing everything right because that’s all they really need… You taught me that, sweet girl.

  All that baby wants and needs is to feel your unconditional love. That will lead you to all the good days and see you through the bad days.

  Now, for the easy stuff. Nap when the baby naps, take the baby in the shower with you, and for the love of all things holy, feed the baby whatever you’re eating when he or she is old enough or you’ll be making chicken nuggets and corn dogs for the rest of your life and ketchup will be the only vegetable the child knows. You’ll thank me for that.

  You’re going to be amazing at this, Reagan. You’ve had an amazing example with your daddy, just follow his lead.

  I love you and your new little one forever…and then some more.

  Love, Mama

  **********

  Thank you for reading Cass’s story...

 
; I hope she touched your life in some way: be it small, big, or profoundly.

  I hope my personal journey, even if fictionalized, serves a purpose beyond myself...

  If you want to read more about the O’Reilly’s you can find them in Brother’s Keeper. Declan is the first book, and although I recommend reading in order, you can start anywhere...

  The current series is nearly complete, but expect more from this family very soon!

  Click here to read more O’Reilly’s...

  ABOUT STEPHANIE ST. KLAIRE

  Stephanie St. Klaire is a Pacific Northwest native currently living in Portland, Oregon with her husband, five children, and two ferocious lap dogs that are used to the finer things in life like sleeping all day. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found with a plate full of taco’s, a side of bean dip, and probably some gummy bears while being a little bit hippy and a lot bit busy mom’ing and wife’ing.

  When she’s not tossing around gritty crime show inspired serial killers and diabolical bad guys, she likes to make people pee their pants a little with a good romcom. Sometimes, her worlds collide, and she writes really funny stuff right before she kills people off on the pages! She loves murder and mayhem as much as a good laugh and HEA! That’s why she’s a die-hard Hallmark junky but loves her gritty crime shows – balance!

  Stephanie has always been a story teller, with the gift of “gab”, and a life-long goal to be a writer. Unfortunate circumstances with her health, finally afforded her the time to do so. Irony at its best, she began writing her first novel at an adverse time, to escape her circumstance and explore the stories in her imagination for relief. She is happy to share those stories with her readers, and bring a little fun, entertainment, and of course smexy characters to the pages.

  Follow Stephanie St. Klaire on Social media to learn more about her, how often she really eats taco’s, and to keep up with her work.

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  WHAT TO READ NEXT...

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  McKenzie Ridge

  Rescued

  Hidden

  Forgotten

  Fearless

  Redemption

  Brother’s Keeper

  Declan

  Liam

  Luke

  Dace – 2019

  Wylie – 2019

  The Keeper’s

  Close Encounter

  ROMANTIC COMEDY

  McKenzie Ridge Novellas

  Christmas in July

  DILF Diaries

  Oh Baby

  Faux-Mance

  Liar

  Rumor Has It

  Sneaking Around

  Bed Buddies

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  Brother’s Keeper Novella

  Love, Cass

  McKenzie Ridge Novellas

  Christmas in July

  COPYRIGHT © 2017

  Brother’s Keeper I: Declan

  Stephanie St. Klaire

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, or other status is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever known, not known or hereafter invented, or stored in any storage or retrieval system, is forbidden and punishable by the fullest extent of the law without written permission of the author.

  EDITOR: Dawn Yacovetta

  FORMATTING: The SSK Group

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  He shot the man. Lydia just watched her husband commit murder in cold blood. His eyes were void of emotion, his expression seething, and his cold demeanor something she didn’t recognize. Murder was a far cry from the affair Lydia Prescott-Valdez feared she would stumble upon when looking for her husband after he skipped yet another date night – a sign her marriage was in trouble. The shock of what unfolded instead provoked a sharp gasp and sent her running when one of Esteban’s men caught her eye – he saw her. She ran blindly, her body on auto-pilot while the last several minutes, which would change her life forever, played back like a bad movie reel.

  When she had pulled up to the real estate tycoon’s building in booming Miami just minutes before, she thought it odd that there were so many cars in the parking lot at such a late hour. Esteban’s car, front and center. Nobody holds board meetings that late. Mistake number one – don’t go in. A sense of fury raced through her, and rage sent her storming through the front door despite the warning bells sounding in her head telling her not to go unless she was prepared for hard truths and ready to deal with them. Deaf to her own good sense, she went up the elevator to his executive suite. Mistake number two – if you act on emotion, be prepared for the fall out.

  Confident that she was about to unveil the source of her husband’s distraction in the form of giant fake boobs and a trashy discount store outfit that wasn’t even fit for a stripper, she was surprised to find his office empty. Fists tight and white knuckled, she followed the sound of something she couldn’t identify, intent on finding her damn husband. Half of the executive floor was under construction, and as she followed the sounds, it began to look like it was just late-night renovations, given the drill-like sounds and what was perhaps a saw. Mistake number three – missing people and odd noises never end well.

  She stopped in her tracks when she heard a man’s blood curdling scream. Mistake number four – if a man screams in sheer agony, you should run. But she didn’t; she kept on going until she found her husband, gun in hand, watching one of his associates drag a knife down the side of a bloodied and beaten man’s face while an equally brutalized man lay on the floor in a wounded heap. The man at the other end of the torture was held up only by rope dangling from the rafters because he could no longer stand on his own two feet. Certain her husband had nothing to do with something so heinous, that he stumbled upon it just as she had, she waited for him to use the gun to free the victims.

  He raised his gun, alright, and used it but not at all the way she assumed he would. Gunfire rang out as the body on the floor jolted from the impact of the bullets Esteban just emptied into his now dead corpse. The other man cried out, wetting himself from fear. Fear Lydia’s husband invoked, fear only evil could stir, fear that now raced through her, too.

  She hadn’t realized that her reaction was out loud. She didn’t hear herself, but one of Esteban’s men did. Jason. He was her driver and body guard, appointed to watch over her and her son. Nausea settled in when their eyes met, and menace rested in his stare; all she could do was run. She was completely unaware of how she made it down the elevator, through the lobby, and out to her car – she was just…there.

  Sitting behind the wheel of her running car, panic threatened to paralyze her until she saw Jason through the lobby’s glass doors, running toward her. Tears spilled over, and she gasped for air while her tires spun out on the hot pavement. Slammed with every emotion one could muster after realizing that not only was her marriage clearly over, but she also just witnessed a murder, her next move became obvious. Run.

  Her whirlwind love affair with Esteban was tainted at some point, and Lydia had been determined to get things back on track. She wasn’t a quitter, used to getting what she wanted. Thinking back, the socialite circuit that Lydia and her sister Trinity frequented exposed them to endless lines of suitors, but there was one that caught Lydia’s eye, and fought for her heart – Esteban Ricardo Valdez – also accustomed to getting what he wanted. He pursued her, wooed her, and finally won her over despite the enormous red flags on fire that she chose to ignore. He was too damn charming and easy on the eyes for her own good.

  Their mar
riage began as a fairytale, certain to end in a forever happily ever after, but eventually, the newness wore off, and the once doting husband became the absentee husband. When Lydia became pregnant with their son, it seemed their happily ever after was on the horizon once again, until the baby was born, and family became boring. She had always prided herself on her independence, though she lived on a trust fund and never worked a day in her life, and her confidence – until now.

  It wasn’t the money and spoiled life her husband offered her; she grew up privileged. It was love, or so she thought, and she had been ready to fight for it. Whatever had Esteban’s attention was to meet its match, but she was no match for murder and scandal, nor did she expect to stumble upon it.

  She wasn’t that tough, and he wasn’t worth that much. Sitting in a cold musty interview room at Miami PD, her mind was reeling. It all started to fall into place as she sat alone in the room, lost in thought. So many late night, broken hearts and tears, wondering where her husband had been, fell into place now. A person doesn’t simply pick up a gun one day and create a scene such as the one she watched unfold. It was calculated, methodical, and horrific. He knew what he was doing because he had done it before, more than once, more than twice.

  How the hell did she love a man like that, and why the hell had she been so bent on trying make him love her back when he didn’t want her. Now she didn’t want him. She feared him and all that came with him. When she told the police officer what she had witnessed, he placed her in an interview room and was likely watching her through the large mirrored window to her left, trying to decide if she was a half-crazed loon or a real witness to a crime. She was dressed in a scandalous dress that was supposed to impress and seduce her husband, and her makeup was a runny mess from all the frantic tears she unloaded, along with skinned knees and elbows…she must’ve fallen at some point and just couldn’t remember. Lydia looked like a hot mess right out of Miami’s seedy night life.