Mariah: The M Series: Book Two

  TheM Series, Book Two:

  MARIAH

  By Ryanne Anthony

  © 2013 Ryanne Anthony

  All Rights Reserved

  The author wishes that you enjoy this eBook and asks that you do not sell or give away your copy. If you do wish to share, please purchase a separate copy for each recipient. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated and thank you for supporting this author’s work, which is entirely fiction. Any similarities in names and/or incidences are entirely unintentional and purely coincidence.

  To all the girls struggling to become women.

  Stay on that road. Your destination is on the right.

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter One I’m…

  Chapter Two Dr. Marcus Alexander…

  Chapter Three You Cannot Get Her Fast Enough…

  Chapter Four Will or Marcus? Hmm…

  Chapter Five But… You’re engaged!

  Chapter Six Unbelievable Pain…

  Chapter Seven Gifts, Good and Bad…

  Chapter Eight Things You Learn…

  Chapter Nine I Love You too, but…

  Chapter Ten Well-Rested and Eager to Learn…

  Chapter Eleven Happy Birthday, Marcus…

  Chapter Twelve What I Do to You?! Triple That…

  Chapter Thirteen You Scare Me…

  Chapter Fourteen Saying Goodbye. Maybe…

  Chapter Fifteen Dr. Marcus Alexander… Cannon

  Chapter Sixteen I Want to Forgive You but…

  Chapter Seventeen Come On and Dance with Me…

  Chapter Eighteen I’m a Stubborn Fool…

  Chapter Nineteen In His Arms Again, Where I Belong…

  Chapter Twenty YES! YES… YES!

  Chapter Twenty-One Needed Distractions…

  Chapter Twenty-Two What?! Oh, No…

  Chapter Twenty-Three I’m Christopher Richards, P.I…

  Chapter Twenty-Four I Missed Him…

  Chapter Twenty-Five I Missed These Guys, Too…

  Chapter Twenty-Six I’ll Never Stop Loving You…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven When Matthew met Madison…

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Matthew, I Think…

  Chapter Twenty-Nine Goin’ Back to Cali…

  Chapter Thirty I Don’t Think…

  Excerpt The M Series, Book Three: MARCUS

  Chapter One

  I’m…

  “Mariah Nicole Hollander! Get out of the mirror and get down here, now! Do you see the time, hun? We’re going to be so late!”

  I frowned and shook my head in the mirror as Lisa screamed my full name like my mother used to do when I'd done something she didn't like as a child.

  As I continued my stare-a-thon, once again, I had to remind myself that she wasn’t dead, just remarried, after being a widow for seventeen years, and on her honeymoon with her new husband. At the time of her wedding, I was in the last month of studies at UIC-Chicago, earning my bachelor's in Nursing. She and my new stepfather had come back from her new home state of California for my graduation. Right after my ceremony, they left on an extended honeymoon, starting in Italy.

  I was happy for my mom; she couldn't have picked a better second husband. It was just her and me for the last seventeen years, then she met visiting lecturer, Dr. Thomas Michael Harvey II, an exceedingly handsome and very rich plastic surgeon, during one of our many campus lunch dates in the spring of my third year. He fell in love with my mother almost instantly but it took Ms. Rachel Arron-Hollander a little longer to follow suit. Well, it took her longer to admit her feelings.

  I thought it was very sweet when, after nine months of long-distance dating, he nervously asked me for my mom's hand in marriage. Thomas was always nice and generous when Mom would let him so I didn't hesitate a moment to give my consent. I wanted Mom happy and I knew he would do any and everything he could to make that happen, as he had been since they met.

  On a warm spring day the following May, they had a small ceremony at a little church in Skokie, attended only by family and closest friends. In attendance were his three children, including my now-roommate, Lisa Elaine Harvey. They welcomed me warmly when we met the previous Fourth of July, Thomas having flown my mother and me to California for the week to join them in their celebrations. Lisa and I hit it off right away, as I did her brothers when they arrived in town. Thomas' ex-wife, Lil, her second husband, Caspar Reed and their two boys attended, as well.

  For Mom's engagement present, Dr. Harvey paid off all my student loans plus the rent and utilities on our apartment until my graduation. I was hesitant to accept such gifts but Mom assured me that it was okay with her; that I should appreciate his gestures as much as she did… while crying like a baby at being debt-free for the first time since my father's death. The student loans were gone, rent was paid up and I took over paying my hospital bills from when I was a child.

  Since the deaths of my father, sister and brother in a car accident, in which as I was injured, around Christmas when I was eight, my mother has struggled to provide a good home and food on our table, sometimes juggling as many as three jobs, but never once complaining.

  Mom paid for extra-curricular classes and kept me well-dressed. I could ask her for anything and I usually did until one day, when I was fourteen, I came across the bill for my ballroom dance classes, the only 'sport' she would agree to let me participate in, other than swimming. She was paying a lot of money for those classes and I was determined to do the best I could.

  I decided then to cut out all the extras I asked for and work harder at the dance studio. I lost most of my friends in the process, having unintentionally distanced myself, and I was a little bitter about it, but pleasing Mom was more important to me.

  My therapist pointed out I had issues with money because of Mom's struggles. In our last session, before I moved to California, she assured me it was okay to be accepting of Thomas' wealth and I should let him spoil my mom and me. Still, I was hesitant; money, and the people who possess it, scared me.

  In the beginning, Thomas was not an exception.

  I actually became quite good at ballroom dancing and I acquired a dancer's build that accentuates my natural curves. My breasts are larger than I'd like, but Mom always insisted they're awesome. Mom's are the size of apples. I'm like grapefruits. Other than breasts, we basically have the same build.

  Once, when I was around seventeen, she entered the bathroom as I was drying off from a shower and gaped at me as she pointed at my breasts.

  “Jesus Mariah! How do you stand up straight with all of that? That’s definitely another plus from your dad’s side! I feel flat-chested having seen you like this, honey!”

  We both got a good laugh out of that.

  Daddy's parents died when he was in his early twenties, his mom from a heart attack and his dad from grief almost a year later. I’d never met my mother's parents; Mom had a nasty fallout with them over her dumping the guy they picked for her to marry, for someone as 'inappropriate' as my father.

  To this day, she insists she made the right decision, but I know she missed having them around, and could have used their support before and after the accident.

  Mom and Daddy were only children and, outside of my Daddy’s Aunt Mattie, they were all they had in the world. The deaths of over half of her family at once nearly destroyed my mother and I remember it all, despite her attempting to shield her hurt and pain while helping me through my treatments, surgeries, physical therapy and recovery. To see her so happy because of the handsome Dr. Harvey continuously makes me speechless. I'm ecstatic that she's happy, but I think that’s an understatement.

  Mom was very disappointed that I decided not to move right away to California with them
, to the point of having an anxiety attack, when I finally told her of my plans to stay. She pleaded for me to change my mind but I really wanted to stay and graduate with my class. She only relented when I agreed to move to California right after graduation. Still, she worried about me living alone but I convinced her I’d be fine, and I was since my best friend Nathan practically lived with me during Mom’s absence.

  To this day, I believe she put him up to it.

  I loved all my college years. It was a much-needed distraction. Until now, it was almost the best time of my life, until February of my last year...

  I met Nathan in my first year at UIC after I signed up for tutoring, and we were matched. One afternoon, as I stood at a bus stop, he offered me a ride when rain was threatening to fall, and we've been friends since. Six years older than me, Nathan is tall and attractive with brown hair and green eyes that dance and play at you.

  Then, he was an ER resident at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston at night and an instructor at UIC part-time. He was determined to pay off his student loans sooner rather than later.

  Even before Mom married, Nathan spent many nights at the apartment Mom and I shared and neither of us ever got much sleep. We'd sit on the couch, talking and laughing, until Mom came home from one of her jobs in the early morning hours. She'd fix us a snack and shoo us off to nap before we had to be at school.

  We'd arrive together before first class and many of my classmates thought we were dating, but no. Nathan is the big brother I never had to that point, and we teased one another mercilessly about any and everything.

  Cass in point: once he came over and I was cowering in the corner of the kitchen. I'd seen a spider and was paralyzed with fear. He laughed until he lost his breath, especially when I started crying and pleading with him to find it and kill it. I still haven't lived that down; to this day, he calls me Bug and I call him Deet. It cracks my mother up, as well as everyone else.

  Another night, Nathan brought a shirt of his over with him to fix a button, but he needed a needle. After I gave him one, I watched with humor as he frowned and bit the side of his lip as he sewed on the button. When he finished, I looked at his work. He'd sewn the button on upside down and on the wrong side! I laughed till I cried.

  “What's wrong with it,” he asked, clearly puzzled.

  I showed him. He reddened when he saw his mistakes then laughed right along with me as he started to take the button off again.

  “I hope you don't stitch your patients like this, Deet! Why on Earth did you become a doctor?”

  He sobered immediately and relayed the events of his father's death in a head-on collision when he was thirteen. The car that hit his father was driven by a drunk driver. The car hit a pole, careened then hit his father's car. He lived for an hour at the hospital, dying just minutes before the family made it there.

  His father was a family practitioner and Nathan decided to be a physician just like him, but he chose Emergency Medicine as his specialty. His honesty tugged at my heart and it made me share the details of my car accident.

  We were going to visit Daddy's Aunt Mattie in Hyde Park because we weren't going to see her for the holidays. Since retiring as a teacher, Aunt Mattie and several friends made an annual holiday trip to Las Vegas. She was set to leave in three days and wouldn’t return until after the new year, which was too long to wait to see her 'precious babies,' as she called my siblings and I. Mom had stayed home, sick with the flu after nursing us kids through our bouts. She suggested he leave me with her but he said no, she needed time alone, to rest. He leaned to kiss her goodbye but she turned away.

  “No, Donnie,” Mom whined. “You’ll get sick, next.”

  “Don’t care,” Daddy replied. He touched her face with his right hand, his thumb caressed her cheek as he kissed her. When he pulled back, he said softly, “I love you, Rachel. Always.”

  “I love you, Donnie. Forever,” she whispered. After making sure we were properly bundled, she kissed me and the twins’ cheeks, told us she loved us then we left.

  On the expressway coming home from Aunt Mattie's, the twins and I were strapped down in the backseat. Daddy asked us if we missed Mommy and we all said yes. Headlights lit up our car then something hit us from behind. We flipped in the air, landing upside down. I don't remember anything else, just waking up in the hospital, strapped face down to a bed, and feeling lots of pain on my left side, making me scream and cry as my mother laid on her side next to me, wearing a mask and a yellow gown. Her eyes were red and puffy and tears streamed down her face as she tried over and over to soothe me.

  As I healed from the burns on my neck, arm, shoulder and blade, I frequently experienced excruciating pain in my head that made me immobilized, sometimes all day. Light, normal tones, and any touching hurt like hell. The diagnosis was stress-induced migraines and I was advised to not participate in any activity that would cause me any anxiety, hence the dancing and swimming.

  When I finished my story, Nathan just stared at me. When he found his voice he asked, “Is that why you want to be a nurse?”

  I shook my head. “I tried being a doctor first but those tests did my head in, so I had to rethink. My favorite nurse was a woman named Helen who stayed with me constantly, even when her shift was over. She held one hand while Mom held the other. Everyday. She had a family, children of her own but still she stayed with me, practically giving me singing lessons to get through all that pain. Mom kept in touch with her when I was finally released, after ten months in the hospital. Miss Helen died from breast cancer when I was fifteen and I was there as much as Mom would let me. The stress from that caused me some of the worst migraines of my life and I missed a year of school. Miss Helen is the reason. I want to be like she was with me.”

  It was the first time I shared that story with anyone and I felt liberated after I told him. We held each other in silence and I knew I’d always want Nathan in my life, no matter what. The next morning, when we arrived at school, I told him so.

  He kissed my cheek and said, “I finally have a sister. I'm not going anywhere.”

  That was the one and only time we talked about our tragedies.

  Mom had my plane ticket with her at my graduation, insisting the week before that I pack up everything I wanted, right then as she spoke to me, and just leaving the rest for someone who really needed it; the next tenants, or perhaps donating it all. Lisa came back with them and informed me that Thomas rented us a condo very close to their home and they’d already furnished it. I rolled my eyes, thinking, of course.

  After my graduation, Mom and Pops flew off to Italy and Lisa and I flew to California, together, and she got me settled in. After six weeks in my new home state, Mom and Thomas were scheduled to arrive from their honeymoon that morning and I couldn't wait to see Mom at lunch. Did I mention how much I missed her?

  When I heard my new sister stomp up the stairs, I attempted to put a relaxed look on my face. I reached up to feel the visible burn on the left side of my neck. It goes down to my upper arm and my shoulder blade. I tend to rub it when I'm anxious or nervous, which is damn near every day. I was still self-conscious about it, especially around new people, even though Lisa assured me constantly it’s not that bad.

  “Mariah, what’s taking you so long,” Lisa whined at me. “Seriously, is it still Thursday?”

  I looked at her with the pained expression that made her blood boil and go into a damn-near vicious rant. For weeks, she had been encouraging me to ditch my usual turtlenecks and long sleeves. I had, but I'd also started fixing my hair to fall over my neck and purchased a number of hoodies.

  That day, I was wearing a short-sleeved, gray silk blouse, black pencil skirt and heels, all courtesy of the new wardrobe Mom bought during her time away from me, at Thomas’ insistence. Not going to tell you about the snit I went into when I found all that new shit in my new closet with her note, explaining. I damn near called to disrupt their honeymoon. I didn’t; I just accepted silently, preferring to see them as
graduation gifts.

  Lisa had chosen a rose-hued sheath dress and a nude heel. Her long reddish-blonde hair ended under her shoulder blades and her eyes were so green that you'd think you were looking at emeralds. At twenty-four, she looked like a model, just like her mother, psychiatrist Lillian Harvey-Reed.

  “Stop fretting. You look wonderful; I can barely see the burn, but if it could be seen, so what? You are a beautiful woman, Mariah. Please relax and forget about it and let's go,” Lisa whined at me again then started pouting.

  She is a beautiful woman.

  Skeptically, I looked back in the mirror and she moved to stand next to me.

  “Mariah, seriously. That burn means nothing other than a reminder of your accident. How can you not see what the rest of us see? Look at you! All that long, thick black hair, big beautiful brown eyes, full lips that Pops is paid thousands to give to other people… even your mom is in awe of you. TFP, babe. TFP,” she yelled sincerely, stretching out her arms in exasperation.

  Lisa looked in the mirror. “Now I, on the other hand... geez, I look like my mom, and neither of us needs to be in any sun. And you don't even need to try to tan because you have a gorgeous color you can sport all year-round! I'd kill to have your coloring. Your skin… you’re just a perfect mix of both your parents.”

  She reached over to my tall chest and picked up the framed picture of my daddy. It was taken the Thanksgiving before the accident and was in his uniform because he’d just gotten off duty. Donald Joseph Hollander was a well-respected, well-liked sergeant with the Evanston Police Department. He was very well-missed.

  While growing up, many officers would stop in at the diner where mom worked and tell me stories about him, including his partner, Richard and his wife, Beth, who were also frequent visitors to our apartment. Beth tried to encourage Mom to date again, but she always said I was her priority and men could wait, especially after all the disastrous dates my friend Madison’s mother set her up on. Dr. Harvey came along just when she began to open up again, and changed her mind.