I scrambled back as fast as I could, it couldn’t be him!  I saw him laying there all crumpled and bloody, arms and legs in angles they shouldn’t have been.  How?  How was he standing there?

“Jesse, wait, let me explain!”  He took a step toward me cautiously. “Please, just trust me for a moment.”  Those blue eyes pleaded with me.

I stopped backing up, and sat there on the fresh dirt, trembling and stuttering incoherently.  Suddenly everything started to go dark, and I started to hyperventilate.  “Jesus, Jesse!  Breathe baby, breathe.”  He rushed over to me.  The last thing I saw was his hand reaching for me.

*                                                      *                                                     *

“Dad, it’s the only way I could make sure.  No, I want her out of our lives!  I don’t want her to have anything to do with us anymore.  She doesn’t exist to me anymore.  Goodbye!”

“Josh?  Am I dead?  Why are you here?  This doesn’t make sense.”  I spoke it all slowly, trying to believe my own words that Josh was alive.

“Jesse, your waking up!  You gave me quite a scare.  Doctor says you and the baby are fine.  Once you are completely awake and able to handle it all, I will explain.”  I felt his lips on my forehead, they were warm and soft.

I struggled to pull myself up to a sitting position, and slowly opened my eyes.  I was in a room, not my room, and not a hospital room.  “Where am I?”

“You’re at my house, it’s the guest room.  How ya feeling?”

“Fine I think.”  I looked down, and I was in a hospital gown.  “Do you just have medical facilities on site?”  I looked at him puzzled.

“No, silly.  I called my family physician in, he brought the hospital gown and stuff.  I just wanted to make sure you were as comfy as possible.”  He looked at me and smiled.

“Okay, can I have a drink of something, my mouth is a bit dry.”  He reached over to a bedside table, and handed me a small glass of ice water.

“Okay, so why are you here, and not six feet under, and what were you telling your dad when I came to?”  I put the glass back on the small table, and looked at him intently.

“So, this is kinda complicated, and you may get very mad at me, but just remember this.  No matter what happens between us or to us, I will love you always.  Okay?”

“Okay”

“I staged my death.  Why?  Because I knew something was going on.  I needed to find out what.  So, I hired an investigator, and worked with the local law enforcement to make it all work and be possible.  This could have ended worse.  My mom is being brought on charges, because of the harassment and possibly a charge of attempted involuntary manslaughter.  In the past, there have been times that it ended worse, but they have to be proven that it was her that caused the deaths.  Yes, deaths.  She wasn’t counting on me falling in love this time.  She wasn’t counting on me catching on to the scheme this time.  In the past, she would just threaten the girls until they did something stupid, or killed themselves, because she would get to them that bad.  I can’t help but feel guilty now.  They are dead all because of me.”  He paused a moment and took a long deep breathe.  “So, I set it up.  I made sure mom knew how I felt, and that I was going to take you to Colorado this November and propose to you.  She was furious, I could see it in her eyes.  I had him watching her every move.  I had him hacking her email accounts.  I had him following letters.  I knew it all.  I had to make her pay.  So, we found a double.  I was the one who came to your door that morning.  I was the one who walked away.  My double was the one in the car.  I was in another vehicle in the parking lot.  I didn’t expect you to follow like that.  I didn’t want you to see the accident.  It killed me to watch you fall to the ground as you fainted.  I couldn’t run to you, I couldn’t cradle you in my arms.  I just had to watch.  It was tricky getting it all set up.  We knew where the accident would occur.  We just didn’t count on you being there.  Luckily it was believable enough.  So, I sat back and watch them ‘bury’ me.  I sat there and wondered where you were.  That’s when the investigator got what he needed.  The last email to you from her, and your email back.  When I found out that you were pregnant, it took all my self control to not run to you, and pick you up and hold you.  We watched her.  She drove to your apartment.  We watched her leave.  She is now on her way back to the states.  She is going to jail.  For a long time.”  He looked up at me.

“Josh, I….I…”  I started to cry.

“I know babe.  It’s hard for you to see me here.  It must have been hard to think that  Iwas dead.  But I am not.  I am here..living, breathing, and ready to be a dad.  I want to marry you, and have babies…lots of babies!!  Jess, I love you so much, being away from you almost killed me.”  He reached over and took my left hand, the one with the ring he gave me.  “Marry me!  This weekend!  What ever you want!”  I almost fainted again.

“Yes!  Yes!  Yes!!!”  I pulled him close to me and kissed him.

*                                             *                                                      *

Two years have passed.  Josh and I live in that big house in Weatherford.  With our blue eyed baby boy, toddling around the house.  His mom went to prison, life sentence.  They got her for two other ‘suicides’.  His dad Frank comes up and sees us and the baby every weekend.  We named the baby Joshua Franklin.  He was born in April the year after the accident.  It’s amazing how something so small can change your entire outlook on life.

There really can be a happily ever after…..

The End