TWO MONTHS LATER

EMILY

“He waits any longer and I’m gonna be as big as the house,” Lily grumbles as we’re sitting in a bridal shop where she’s trying on dresses.

“I think he might like that,” I tell her back.

She looks at me. “Good point,” she says before looking down at her body. She’s not showing per say, but she’s definitely pregnant, at least to anyone who knows her well.

I made the remark because any chance Loki gets, he’s kissing on her belly, on her, on Piper, it doesn’t matter. Watching his behavior has made me insanely jealous and it makes me think of Tryke.

God, that seems like it was a lifetime ago.

A lifetime ago that he forgot all about me.

He’d come to the house to tell me about Lily being in the hospital and before he’d left, I’m pretty sure I fell in love with him. At least the idea of what he had to offer, but since then, nothing.

It makes absolutely no sense to me and I’m trying my best to put it out of my mind, but it’s hard. Especially when he’s at the house constantly.

“Alright, Em, what about this one?” Lily asks me.

“Wow,” I breathe, taking in the strapless, A-line wedding dress she’s currently wearing. It shows off her back tattoo, the one of the tribal wings she has with its low-cut backline. “Have you looked at yourself yet?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to fall in love with something like this then have him wait another three months to finally walk me down the aisle,” she grumbles.

“I think you should look in the mirror, Kiwi,” I urge her. Her hair is no longer black and green like it was when we first moved to Roswell a few months ago. Now it’s blue and it’s fitting for her. She can pull off the crazy colors and I love how excited she gets when she wants to change it.

“You think?” she questions.

I nod vigorously.

Finally, she steps up onto the pedestal that’s centered in the three-way mirror of the boutique we’re in. “Open your eyes, woman,” I tell her.

“I can’t,” she laughs.

“Yes, you can, because if he doesn’t walk you down the aisle in the next month, you make him wait until this dress looks just like this on you,” I tell her. It’s truly the perfect dress and it screams for both the sweet Lily and biker’s woman Kiwi.

She slowly opens her eyes and then her eyes widen as she takes in the entire dress.

There’s a small train on the back, but the dress is literally, nothing. There’s three tiny fake buttons that come down between her breasts, and a small satin band under them that is met in the back on either side of a long eloquent line of buttons that runs from the top to the end of the train. It fits her like a glove. “This is it,” she says with so much excitement I can’t help smiling at her. “It’s perfect,” she squeals.

“Then we’re all set.”

An hour later and we’re leaving the shop. The dress is a perfect fit, for today at least, and we leave with it. She also got a beautiful choker necklace and veil to go with it, though she’s hesitant on that part of it, she bought it anyway.

While she was paying for it, I snuck off to send a text.

Then as she was just about done, I send off another one.

Leaving in five

I didn’t get a response to either one of the texts, I didn’t have to. I know what he’s up to.

“Where to?” I ask her.

She yawns. “Home. I need a nap.”

I smile at her, but I know a nap is not in her future.

We arrive at home and there is no sign of Loki. “Where’d he go?” she mumbles as we pull in the driveway.

I shrug. “No clue.” Liar.

Piper is with Loni and Cowboy, for now. They have their own tasks to handle when it comes to the spritely six-year-old.

Her birthday was a couple weeks ago. She’s loving school more with each passing day. I decided to put off college until at least the next fall semester. With all the changes happening around the house, I knew Lily would need me, and she reluctantly agreed to let me wait ‘til next term. That made me happy.

We’re walking into the house when Kiwi stops dead in her tracks. “What’s this?”

I smile. “You must be Kiwi,” someone says.

“Who are you and why are you in my house?”

I smile at Lara. “Let me take this,” I tell Kiwi as I scoop her dress from her arms.

“I’m Lara. I’m going to be your stylist today.”

I hide my laugh. “Stylist for what?” Kiwi asks.

Lara smiles. “Your wedding day.”

Kiwi turns to me, her eyes wide with fear. “You knew?” she accuses me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell her as I trot off to her bedroom with her dress, necklace and veil. Once in her room I go to her closet, now half full of her stuff, the other half full of Loki’s. He lives here, for the most part, full time. That is until the house is finished.

About a month after Kiwi got out of the hospital, Tryke, her brother, and the love of my life – he just doesn’t know it yet- gave Kiwi a gift from her uncles. It was a fat check for a million dollars. Kiwi nearly passed out and Loki about had a heart attack.

The note said it’s what she should have received when Kellen had been ‘killed’ but no one knew she was still alive. So, she’s putting the money to good use and having the house she once shared with her family rebuilt. It’s where Loki, Kiwi, Piper, the baby and I will be moving before the baby arrives.

On my way out of the closet, I catch my reflection in the bathroom window. I stare at the woman staring back at me. A woman thriving, living a life that makes her happy, about to go to school to do what she’s always dreamed of doing. But the reflection in the window doesn’t match the woman underneath it.

The woman underneath the mask is shattered, lonely, and living lies she’s told so many times it’s starting to blur realities.

Anonymity has been my game.

Running from my past has been my goal.

First it was Boulder, where I befriended a woman who would quickly become my best friend. A woman I would bond with only to later find out we were hiding our pasts from those around us. The woman who took me in, treated me as her own, and offered me a job as the nanny to her beautiful daughter. Who would later move me farther away from the past I was running from when she brought me to Roswell.

Now, with my past buried, my future laid out before me, can I give into my one true desire? Hand myself over to a man I know nothing about because he makes my insides go squishy and my brain misfire?

What will happen when all my secrets are revealed?

I shudder at the thought.

In the window I see Emily Jefferson, nanny, friend and fraud.

In my heart, in my soul, I am Amelia Black, scared, alone, and on the run from a man who will stop at nothing until my heart stops beating.