Love past 40 (BWWM Romance Book 1) Read online
Love Past 40
Will the past haunt them or will she have her second chance at love?
A sexy lonely widow romance by Rochelle Jackson of BWWM Club.
Ginger Lanton has been a widow for ten years.
Ever since her husband’s death, a piece of her remains missing, and the void grows deeper and deeper every day.
When she moves to another state to finally start her life over, she never thought her second chance at love would be with a man whose company was responsible for her husband’s death!
CEO Joshua Hart has been busy dealing with his father’s messes after inheriting his company…
And one of the messes is dealing with the death of a woman’s husband—the very woman he has fallen head over heels for!
As their passionate romance deepens, not everyone is happy that they’re together…
Will their past continue to haunt them?
Or will they be able to create their own story?
Find out in this emotional yet sexy romance by Rochelle Jackson of BWWM Club.
Suitable for over 18s only due to sex scenes so sizzling, you’ll start wishing for your own CEO hottie!
Tip: Search BWWM Club on Amazon to see more of our great books.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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Chapter 1
Her hand touched the smooth headstone. The clouds were dark grey, and a light rain misted over the cemetery, synchronizing to her mood. She couldn’t believe it had been twenty years since she'd lost her husband. Not a day went by that Ginger didn’t lose herself in the void inside her heart. It grew deeper and deeper every day, a reminder that she was missing a part of herself that had died with her husband.
Kendrick had died in a work incident. He'd worked construction, climbing high on those damn high rises. Ginger had told him a hundred times to change professions, but it had brought good money—until his cord had snapped, sending him tumbling down thirty stories. He'd landed on a car, smashing it from the momentum of the fall. He'd died on impact and it gave her a small amount of relief knowing he hadn’t been in pain. But what about the fall? What had he been thinking when that cord snapped? Had he felt scared? That was what still kept her up at night twenty years later. It was a question that would forever remain unanswered. It haunted her to know that during those few seconds of life, he'd had no one there. He'd died scared, something she could barely stomach.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t just had their second son, not even two weeks old. She'd raised their children alone since that horrible day. She'd never known love again, and she didn’t want to. There would never be someone other than Kendrick for her.
Ginger was forty−three years old now, her boys were grown, and they were a spitting image of their father. It hurt like hell to look at them sometimes, but it made her happy too; it was a bittersweet reminder of Kendrick, something she wouldn’t change for the world.
“Kendrick,” she whispered into the fog that floated along the ground. “I miss you so much.” A tear rolled down her cheek as her hand clutched the top of the headstone. Ginger visited his grave every Sunday, and she would until she took her very last breath. “Heath just graduated college. You’d be so proud of him, Kendrick. He graduated with honors and got into med school.” Another tear rolled down her face. It was the same thing every time she visited—the pain consumed her. “Jamal is in his second year of law school. Crazy thing wants to be a lawyer. He wants to bring justice to families that lost loved ones during a work incident. I think it’s his way of doing something for you. We miss you. We miss you so much.” She laid her forehead against the stone, the only thing left of her husband to grieve. “I wish you were here.”
“Mama?” Jamal crouched, placing his hand on her shoulder.
She wiped the tears away. “What are you doing here?” She stood, and Jamal placed his hand on her elbow, helping her up. “How did you know where I was?”
“You aren’t as slick as you think you are. Every Sunday you leave the house crying and every Sunday you come back crying.” He spun her toward him. “You can’t keep coming here, Mama. It isn’t good for you. It’s been twenty years and Heath and I have let this go on, thinking you needed it to heal, but you keep getting depressed. Your pain is getting worse and worse. We're worried about you.”
“I’m fine, baby. I’m just paying respect to your father.”
“You aren’t fine and you’re torturing yourself.” Jamal kissed his hand and laid it on top of the headstone. “We all miss him, but we can’t let pain keep us from living our lives. He wouldn’t want this for you.”
She knew her son was right. He always meddled in her business. Heath stood back a little, letting her grieve, but Jamal had always kept a shoe in, and the darn boy had followed her here. She didn’t know whether to be mad at him or love him for it. Ginger glanced back at the headstone that said 'Loving husband, father, and brother. Forever in our hearts'. She traced the words with her fingers, remembering the day that she'd told the person what to put on it. It seemed like yesterday.
“I can’t,” she admitted, not looking her son in the eye.
Jamal sighed, taking her hand. “He wouldn’t want this life for you. You’re a good woman, Mama. You’ve always taken care of us, all these years, alone. You deserve happiness, not to wallow in pain. Heath and I talked about it, I think it’s best if we move away. The three of us.”
Her heart stopped beating as she yanked her hand away from his, clutching the stone for dear life. She shook her head, trying to keep herself upright as his words drifted through her head. Leave? She couldn’t leave. Kendrick was here.
“Mama. Look at yourself.”
She gripped the granite so hard she thought it was going to crumble. “I can’t leave him, Jamal. You don’t understand. How could you want to leave your father? He's your father!” she yelled, leaning against the stone.
Jamal pulled her in for a tight hug and she cried, sobbing, big wet tears strolling down her face. “I can’t.”
“He was my father and I miss him, but we can’t stop our lives because of a stone in the ground. He's with us wherever we go, but you’re letting it control your life. Heath and I have already been excepted into schools in New Orleans. We're set to move.”
Ginger’s heart pounded in her chest. “New Orleans?”
“We know you’ve always wanted to go there. We see you scrapbooking your dream trip. Why make it a trip? Let’s just go. Let’s leave all the pain and suffering behind, Mama,” he begged.
She pulled back, staring into the hazel eyes Jamal had gotten f
rom his father. “You can’t be serious. Your dad—”
“Dad will always be here. You’ve let his loss consume you. It’s time for a change. Twenty years…I’m not saying it’s too long to grieve. You’ll always miss him. I’ll always miss him, but it’s too long to keep your life on pause. You deserve to live your life, not keep it bound to a stone that can’t talk back.” His eyes held sadness, but not for his father, for her. Jamal and Heath had come to grips with their father’s death along time ago.
“It’s your father.”
“He isn’t my father. My father died. That’s a damn rock, Mama. That stone isn’t dad and it will never be dad. He's here.” He pressed a fist to his heart. “Here. Not in a stone.”
Ginger couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her own sons would turn their back on their father. She glanced at the stone and back up at Jamal, shaking her head. “How could you say that? He's right here.” She rubbed her hand over the headstone, the rough grains scratching her palm. She fell to her knees and the wet grass soaked her pants as her eyes stared at the intricate cursive that spelled her husband’s…late husband’s name, wondering if her son was right. Had it been too long? Had it been long enough? How could she let go of something she loved so much?
She wasn’t sure if she could.
Jamal kneeled next to her, grasping her hands. “You know I’m right, Mama. You have to stop doing this to yourself. He wouldn’t have wanted that. He would have wanted you to find love again—to live again.”
“I don’t think I know how,” she admitted, hanging her head and staring at the droplets of water on the grass beneath her.
“You won’t be able to if you stay here. You’ll come here every Sunday and Monday to Saturday you’ll let your grief destroy you. Heath and I can’t take it anymore. We're worried about you. We miss our Mama.”
That broke her heart. She sobbed, loud, heart-wrenching sobs wracked through her. She collapsed on the headstone, counting on Kendrick to hold her up, but it wasn’t him, it was their son, Jamal. Kendrick was just a stone now. “I don’t…I don’t know how to be without him, Jamal. I love him. You don’t understand.”
“I know what love is because you've shown me it every day. You've proven that your love goes further than his death. I admire you for that, but right now, if this is what love does, I don’t know if I want it. I don’t know if I want something that is so all-consuming that it makes me lose my way—that it makes me lose who I am as a person.”
Ginger pinched her brows. Did he really think that she'd lost her way? She thought about the last twenty years, and she couldn’t remember doing anything that bettered her life. She hadn’t even touched the life insurance money that had been left after his death. It was all a blur. Had she really been grieving so long that she'd lost track of time? “You think I don’t know who I am?”
“I think you’ve forgotten who you are because of the pain and the grief of losing dad.”
She nodded, stumbling away in haze of confusion and realization. Ginger needed time to think about this. Jamal couldn’t come here and lay all this on her. Sundays were dedicated to his father. Why couldn’t he respect that?
“Mama!” he shouted as he chased after her.
She spun, catching him off guard, and stared at the copper flecks in his eyes—those damn eyes that were just like his father’s. “What do I do, Jamal? I don’t…I don’t know how to—”
Jamal embraced her in a tight hold. “You’ve got us. We aren’t ever going to leave you alone. We can get through this. We can do it. We need a new start, okay?” He pushed her away and ducked his head down to look her in the eyes. “This isn’t healthy. We miss you.”
“I miss me, too,” she said, and her shoulders shook with the realization as she cried.
“Let’s go, then.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“But—” She started to panic. She hadn’t said goodbye. She needed to say goodbye to Kendrick. She didn’t get to say bye. She had to.
“Mom.” Jamal’s voice was stern and demanding. He never called her mom.
“Jamal. You can’t ask this of me so quickly. You sprung this up on me. Give me time. Give me time.”
“You’ve had twenty years.”
Her eyes narrowed at her son, and she straightened her spine. Tears still ran down her face, but she wasn’t going to let her son take this from her. She pointed a finger at him. “You better remember who raised you, boy. Me. I raised you through heartbreak, tears, depression, sadness, misery, and agony. I worked hard and I sacrificed. I sacrificed for you. I won’t have you stand here and disrespect me. I won’t have you stand here and try to push me out of this cemetery. I refuse to have you bully me when I’m at my most vulnerable. What? You thought you and your brother could catch me at my weakest? Bend me to your will and I’d go? I might not be the same woman I used to be, but I still know when to use my backbone. We aren’t moving tomorrow. I have time to say goodbye to your father. He might just be a damn stone to you, but that stone has been my saving grace for twenty−damn−years and you don’t get to come here and demand change. You better get your ass out of my way. I’ll see you at home with your brother and when I get there, both of you have some explaining to do. Do you understand me? I’m disappointed. I might not have been the best mother, but I deserve respect.” She stomped by him to go back to the grave. “We can talk about this move like adults, something you and your brother know nothing about, confronting a grieving widow in the middle of a cemetery. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stared at him standing there, like he was waiting for her to say something else. “Well? Go. I’ll see you at home.”
He nodded, putting his hands in his pockets and strode toward where he parked his car. Ginger understood Jamal. She didn’t think he handled the situation right but she knew that her boys had done this out of love. They probably thought it was an intervention, but they couldn’t expect her to never look back at the stone that brought her a small amount of peace. She’d never admit it out loud, but being there only tripled her agony because she felt closer to Kendrick, and he wasn’t there. She was glutton for punishment. She wanted more of a bad thing and it was what made her spiral out of control and made her completely lose herself. The more she went to the cemetery, the more she expected questions to be answered, but they weren’t. They never were. Her boys were right. It was time to move on, but if she had to move on, she had to do it right, or she would forever regret it.
“Hey, Kendrick. It’s me again,” she laughed as she knelt on the grass again. “Your sons are out of this world. They're headstrong just like you, smart, but sometimes they don’t think things through. They want to move. They don’t think me being here, talking to you every Sunday is a good thing. Apparently, I’ve put my life on hold for twenty years and they miss their mama. Jamal even pulled out ‘mom’, can you believe that? He has some nerve, let me tell you.” Ginger let out a sad chuckle and exhaled. “They're right, you know. I didn’t think so at first, but they're right.” She swirled her finger through the grass. “I don’t know how to let you go. They want me to. They want me to say goodbye and they want to take me to New Orleans. They’ve been paying attention to my scrapbook, can you believe that? I don’t want to leave you, Kendrick. I’ve forgotten how to live without you. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I breathed. I do it, it’s natural, but I feel numb all over my body. A piece of me is gone, it’s missing, and I don’t know how to get that back. You were it for me and our boys tell me that you’d want me to love again, but would you?” At that moment, the breeze swirled the leaves, like Kendrick had answered her.
“I don’t know how to love another like I loved you.” She peered toward the sky and tears fell from the corners of her eyes, flowing down her cheeks. “How do I let go of this pain? How do I let go of everything that has built inside me over the last twenty years? I don’t know how to do it. I’ve
forgotten how to let people in. I’ve forgotten how to trust. I’ve forgotten how to love. I’ve lost myself in you when you were alive, and I’ve lost myself in you in your death. I need a map to get my way back.” she joked.
She turned her head to see Jamal standing by the car, waiting for her. She knew he wanted to make sure she was okay. “He has your eyes you know—Jamal. Those pretty copper pennies. He has broken so many hearts, but he's a good man. You’d be proud of him. He never leads them on. If anything, they break their own hearts by the expectations they set. Silly girls. Can’t say I blame them though. I understand being enthralled by those pretty pennies. It was the first thing about you that I fell in love with.” Her bottom lip quivered as she wiped her left eye, making sure to catch the tears before they fell. “They're right, Kendrick. I can’t keep doing this and I didn’t know that until now. The boys have never confronted me before and all this time I thought what I was doing was right. I thought I was staying true to you, but I've been holding myself back. “
Another gust of wind blew, making her hair dance on her shoulders. Ginger could have sworn she felt Kendrick's presence next to her and his hand on her back. “I miss you. I’ll forever miss you. I will always love you. I don’t think I’ll ever find love again. You were it for me, but I think it’s time to let you go—to let us go. Maybe a new place, new scenery, new people will do my heart some good and bring it back to life. It’s numb from the pain of losing you and I miss feeling the warmth of it in my chest. Jamal and Heath don’t know that I’m really considering it. I wasn’t before, but it’s funny when someone makes you realize your shortcomings. It really changes your perspective.” She leaned her forehead against the stone. “I love you to the moon, to the stars, through every vein in my heart,” she whispered what they used to say to each other before bed every night.
She took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs. She’d be back for her final farewell. Her heels sunk into the soil, pressing small holes into the ground as she walked back to her car with her coat wrapped tight around her waist.