Love Is Not Lost Read online

  Love is not Lost

  By: Nikki Bolvair

  All rights reserved nikkibolvair© 2015

  E-book cover design by: Lyn Forester https://www.lynforester.com/copy-of-art-gallery

  Ebook

  ISBN: 9781533780485

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  A big thank you to my beta readers Chris, Isa, Jen and Annie! Together you've helped me to make this book even more enjoyable. Thank you!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Love Is Not Lost (The Faith Series, #1)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Author Bio

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  Book It With Bolvair List

  The Faith Series

  Love Is Not Lost

  Brokenly Found

  Gaining Ground

  Silent Secrets

  Just Married

  The Lovey Dearest Series

  Delicate Beauty

  Sweet Firecracker

  Honey Babe

  Lovely Dearest (Coming 2018)

  The Lydent Series

  Hidden Light

  The Bridge Over Snake Creek

  Tetchy Sleuth (Coming 2018)

  Winter Fairies

  Frozen Hearts

  Chapter 1

  I was young once. The world was my playground. I could do anything, be anyone. I was innocent and naïve. In my perfect world, I didn't know about loss or pain. I didn't know that in a matter of moments, someone I loved could be taken away from me. My young mind couldn't comprehend the changes that were forced on me. I guess my parents couldn't either. Life changes people, sometimes not for the better.

  I could hear their screams again in my mind, my father's and my mother's. My father was drunk, yelling at my mother, never remembering that his only daughter lay in her bedroom not far away.

  It hadn't always been like that. We were a happy family once, but it all changed.

  I was ten. I remember being hysterical. My older brother, my hero, my fearless protector, my best friend.

  Gone.

  He wasn't supposed to leave me. He wasn't supposed to die. But he did, and his death left ripples, like the wavelets of a pond, which could not be smoothed. It wasn't long after that night, the night we lost him, that my family began to spiral.

  My father drowned his sorrows in a bottle.

  Time slipped by, and I was thirteen, with most of the happy past forgotten. The fighting, even though it had started off tame, never lessened. Over the years, it only got worse. They were going to kill each other. This wasn't how love was supposed to be. This wasn't a family. This couldn't be my father. How could...

  One hit. He was her husband.

  One hit was all it took. He loved her once.

  One hit to kill his wife. He was my daddy.

  One hit to lose his life. He used to kiss me goodnight.

  I don't remember. I don't remember what happened after he hit me the first time. I blacked out and then woke up without parents. I hurt everywhere.

  What happened? Did I kill him?

  Chapter 2

  Three years later

  I sat in the back of the police car as red and blue lights glowed, piercing through the night. I was upset. Why was it that no matter what I did, how honest I had been in the past, when it came to a ‘problem’ or an ‘issue’, I was the one they first accused or questioned. That's right, blame the foster child.

  I looked out the window of the police car and saw Officer McIdiot standing just outside, talking on his radio. I'm sure telling my dear, dear foster parents that they had found me.

  It wasn't like I had really run away; I just didn't want to stand there while I was accused of something I hadn’t done.

  But that didn't matter, I was just a foster child, one with a past, one that might have killed her father as she tried to protect her mother, but no one could prove anything.

  I sighed as I looked out the window. I just wanted someone to believe me, to not label me. I just wanted to be normal. I looked down to my fingers, twisting them.

  The officer decided not to cuff me, said he thought that I looked too fragile to do so. And I was fragile.

  My emotions were buried beneath the surface, but I always carried a wounded look.

  I was broken.

  I wanted to be strong; to block out the emotions that would make me feel too much, but it was harder than expected. It wasn't that I didn't believe myself to be unlovable, because I was. I knew my self-worth and I knew people had tried. They had tried to love me, but the price felt too high to risk my heart. There was no such thing as love in my world. Love causes pain, disappointments, and I’d had enough of that. I needed to protect myself.

  I looked up towards the clock on the dash, and saw that it was ten-forty. Late.

  Glancing towards the officer again, I saw another one had joined him.

  It was Officer Brady.

  I groaned, leaning my head back. I couldn't believe they called him. This wasn’t a small town or anything, so how in the hell did he keep showing up everywhere?

  Officer Brady spoke to Officer McIdiot and then came to my door and opened it. Bending down, he looked at me.

  “Daniels," he greeted.

  “Brady,” I stated as I glared straight ahead.

  He stepped back, gesturing for me to step out. “Come on, let's go.”

  I grumbled, pulling myself out of the vehicle as he shut the door behind me. He ushered me towards his K9 unit SUV and had me get in.

  I buckled myself in the seat, and turned around to see a German shepherd, the one I knew would be there. The two of us never really got along.

  He growled at me, his brown eyes narrowing. When I kept his stare, he whined before finally letting out a grumble and lying down across the back seat.

  “Hello, HotShot,” I said, smiling as Officer Brady hopped in.

  “You can’t run off like that, Daniels!” he lectured as we rode off. “It's too late at night, and who knows what could have happened to you!” His hair held more silver than the first time we had met, aging him. I couldn’t help but think I was partly to blame for that. I hadn’t been an easy child, and in some ways, he had bound himself to me as another parent figure, even though I had never resided in his house.

  “How's your wife?” I asked, glancing out of the window, trying to deflect.

  “Nu-uh,” he stated, shaking his head. “You don't get to ask about my wife until we talk about what happened tonight.”

  I twisted my lips, glaring at my reflection in the window, not wanting to talk about it, but I knew he would persist. I pinched my lips.

  “They wouldn't believe me when I told them that I didn't take the money. They kept trying; asking me to tell the truth, that the consequences would be less if I just ‘fessed up,” I finished harshly.

  “Did you?” he softly asked. I whipped my head towards him, my eyes blazing.

  “I am not a thief,” I grounded out. “I never touched her purse.”

  Officer Brady was silent as he continued to drive. I could tell he was thinking hard. Possibly abou
t the night he found me.

  Just like tonight, he had come and rescued me.

  He had been leaning over me when I came to after blacking out, with both of my parents already gone.

  “Oh man, Lee,” he had said to his partner. “Look at her, she's only a kid.” He'd crouched down, and I had groaned as my head radiated in pain. My body had been stiff and painful.

  “You hang in there, honey,” he had said to me gently, careful not to touch my bruised body. “Help's coming.”

  Help did come and so did the accusations. They wanted to know what had happened. I told them what I could remember. They said my father died of ‘blunt force trauma to the head’, had asked if I knew who had done it?

  Did I do it?

  I told them, no. I don't know. That I couldn't remember.

  They ruled it as self-defense. That my mom could have been the one to strike him, but I knew better.

  She was already gone when I had gotten to her that night. Either I had killed my father and blocked it out somehow, or someone had done it for me.

  I settled on the idea that someone else had done it. That someone had showed up that night and saved me. My reasoning behind this idea was that the police had never found a murder weapon, and that confused them. To this day, one was never found.

  Perhaps I was romancing the idea that someone had heard me and stepped in, but I wouldn’t know. Throughout the years, no one had stepped forward, and I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to confess to murdering someone, even if it was an act to save someone else.

  Or, I could have blocked out that I had done it. It was a circle that never ended. Did I do it, or was it someone else? Either way, I was grateful that I was alive.

  I glanced out the window, watching street after street fly by. Since that night, Officer Brady had been the only constant in my life, besides my case worker.

  “Daniels,” Brady stated. “You're sixteen, nearly seventeen, you need to quit focusing on the past and look towards your future.”

  Still looking out the window, I snorted. I already knew that. I struggled each day to prove myself to others who thought less of me; prove it to those who knew, those who remembered the past as I did. I needed to get out of the system and learn to live on my own. My foster parents weren’t bad. I was given food, a place to live, rules to keep me safe. But no more, no less; just enough.

  My first foster family, the Shepherds, had felt sorry for me. They had been my favorite. She was a math teacher. He was an engineer. I left them after a year when Mrs. Shepherd found out she was expecting their first baby. Twins. They moved away to be closer to Mrs. Shepherd's family. I missed them, and when I moved, I had the fleeting thought that I had no home. It was the second place I had stayed in that they became nothing more than houses. It had made me realize that wherever I was, wherever I was going to be, it was temporary. After the third house, I didn't just think that, I believed it.

  Brady and Sarah always followed me while I moved around, kept in contact, and I often questioned why they didn’t take me in, but I knew they probably didn’t want a broken child. Especially when they had no others.

  They had stayed when others didn’t, and I clung to that, even though I knew it was for nothing. I put up a good front, one I depended on. I wasn’t planning on allowing Officer Brady to bring my walls down.

  “What? Are straight A's not enough? How about graduating early and taking college classes? Is that good enough? When will people stop judging me?” I turned to him, “What do I have to do, Brady? What do I have to do for people to see the good in me? All they see now is my past.”

  He sighed and pulled into a 24 hour Denny's. “Let's go inside. There's something I want to talk to you about anyway.”

  I looked towards the restaurant and back to him, scrunching my brows “At Denny's?” I asked him, slightly confused. “I just poured out my worries to you, and you want to go to Denny's?”

  He got out of the SUV before I could ask him anything else, shutting his door.

  I looked towards HotShot, “Well, what about you?”

  Brady opened the back door, calling for the dog to follow, answering my question. Before he shut the back door, he leaned in and commanded at me, “Hop out of the truck, Faith.”

  I grumbled at the use of my first name and jumped out, trailing behind the pair. He wanted to have a serious conversation in Denny's? Then we'd have a serious conversation in Denny’s.

  I hope he wasn’t too squeamish about sex, because there was a boy I liked, and I thought birth control might be a good idea. My foster parents would freak if I came out and asked them, so maybe I would leave it up to him. I needed to know that he had my back — he couldn't let me get preggers.

  Of course, it was all bull, but it would be awesome to see him squirm. Boys were not for me. They meant dealing with all the little relationship issues, emotions that I never wanted to feel again.

  I smiled evilly, and HotShot looked back at me as if he could sense my sneaky plan. He lifted his lips in a gentle growl. I frowned and stuck my tongue out at him.

  Weird dog.

  ***

  We sat at a table as HotShot laid down across Officer Brady's feet. I looked down at him as he lifted his head, tilted it, then laid it back down as if I wasn't worth his time.

  “Daniels! Daniels!”

  I popped my head up to find Brady looking exasperated.

  “What?”

  He sighed heavily. “Did you pick what you want to eat, or are you still having a stare down with HotShot?”

  I shifted in my seat, annoyed with myself for getting caught. I briefly turned back to the mutt and glared at him before picking up the menu and ordering.

  When my strawberry pancakes came, I was happy. Sometimes Officer Brady would do little things for me like this, and his wife was always nice. She worked at the college I went to, and I hardly ever saw her, but when I did she always had a warm smile for me, along with my favorite drink.

  Cherry Dr. Pepper.

  They had never left me. They were nice, but I would never let them know that — couldn’t get too close. My walls needed to stay up.

  As I savored my pancakes, I noticed Officer Brady was being unusually twitchy. I narrowed my eyes as I studied him. He was restless, had said we need to talk. Then it dawned on me, and I hardened my resolve.

  I put my fork down and sat back, folding my arms. I knew exactly what was going on. I'd been in the system long enough to recognize the signals. He was leaving, moving I bet, and leaving me behind. Just like everyone else, and I was going to be alone once again.

  As I gazed at him, he blew out a breath and looked at me. “Sarah and I are-”

  “Birth control!” I popped out. I didn't want to know. I needed a distraction. I had gotten as close to him and his wife as I ever allowed over the years - I wouldn't call it love per se, more of an attachment. I was comfortable with them.

  I couldn’t deal with this right now.

  His face scrunched up in confusion, “What?”

  “I need birth control. There's a boy I like...” Like he was going to believe that! But it was as good a distraction as any.

  “Daniels!”

  “And I want to be safe...” I gleefully laughed in my head as his expression turned horrified. Maybe I could joke my way out of breaking down in front of him.

  “Faith.”

  I narrowed my eyes. "And since I'm new to this...”

  “For heaven's sake, Faith!” he said, shaking his head, exasperated. “Sarah and I are moving out of town, and we want you to come with us,” he rushed out.

  I opened my mouth for another interesting interruption, but failed when what he said registered. “Huh? What? You want me....” I looked up at him as my heart pounded in my chest. My walls dipped as confusion speared me.

  Whoa, I hadn't see that one coming.

  He looked me square in the eye, searching my face for an answer. “My wife and I want you to come with us. We want to petition the cour
ts for guardianship.” Then he cautiously asked, “How do you feel about that?”

  I was totally shocked. I looked at him, my eyes wide and I nodded, not saying a thing. My hardened heart cracked as a sliver slipped away. “Why?” I asked quietly, as my mind reeled with a million questions.

  He choked out a broken laugh, which threw me even more. “What do you mean, why?” He got up, dragging me out of my seat and into a hug. “Because, I couldn't leave you behind and Sarah couldn't either. We've grown too attached to your outrageous behavior,” he said, ruffling my hair. He then stepped back from me and smiled.

  “Really?” After all this time, too...

  “Yes, Daniels, really.”

  “Where?” I swallowed nervously. “Where are... we moving to?

  Chapter 3

  New York.

  I was moving to New York.

  I was moving with Officer Brady and his wife to East Rochester, New York.

  I pinched myself again.

  “Ouch," I whispered, and HotShot turned his head towards me.

  “Again?” Sarah sighed, looking back at me from the front seat of the car.

  I grinned at her as I shrugged. “I had to make sure... again.” She let out a little laugh as she turned back around.

  “No more of that, Daniels,” Brady stated simply. “This is real, so please stop pinching yourself.”

  “Ok,” I stated as I bounced my knee nervously.

  HotShot yawned, sitting up, looking out the window and then towards me. We had been in the car for a few hours, and I had yet to pet the mutt, not even sure if he’d let me. I glanced towards him as bent his head and moved closer. He bumped his nose on my chest, then put his head on my lap. His eyes looked up at me, pleading. I rolled mine and glanced out the window. He continued to put his paw on my arm, nudging it. When I continued to ignore him, he buried his nose underneath my hand and nipped my fingers, trying to get my attention.

  “Hey,” I exclaimed, drawing my hand away. He whined, and I caved, stroking his head, down his back. Within five minutes, I had HotShot sleeping.

  A day and a half of travel, and we finally made it to Rochester, New York.