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It was 7:30 a.m. and Joe Don had just gotten in the shower. Meanwhile, I had already been up for two hours getting everything ready and in the car for our road trip up to my parent’s house. And to make matters worse, we had to leave by 8 a.m.—like that was going to happen. I got all of Storms things ready since we taking her with while I waited for Joe Don. I quickly grabbed 2 cups of coffee, one for me and one for Joe Don, as I looked at the clock and ran upstairs.
“Baby, you’ve got 5 minutes!” I said opening the bathroom door a little.
“Alright, alright…I’ll be ready. Would you just relax?” Joe Don answered.
“NO.” I replied as I walked out of the bedroom door.
“That was rhetorical!” I heard Joe Don yell with a laugh.
I went back into the kitchen and waited for seemed like an eternity. Finally after 15 or 20 minutes Joe Don came gliding into the kitchen.
“Here’s your coffee.” I said handed him the mug, “Now com’on, we gotta go. NOW!”
“Aw, what’s the rush? I kinda like it when it’s just us two…” Joe Don laughed as he kissed my neck.
“Seriously, if you’re not going to help me get ready to leave, go take Storm outside.” I said as she scratched against the sliding door. She was basically house broken which was crazy for a ten week old puppy.
“Only if you come with me…” he teased grabbing my hand. I just rolled my eyes and followed him to the door.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Joe Don’s POV
We had stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere so Storm could get out and run around for a little bit. I couldn’t help but smile as Alexa played with her. It was obvious she missed having a dog.
I sat on the edge of the car just thinking about how lucky I was to have her in my life. She just has this aura that makes people feel amazing when they’re around her. She has this infectious smile and personality. And she very well may be the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, but that’s one of the things I love most about her. If you had told me six months ago that I was going to fall head over heels for her, I probably would’ve laughed at you. I remember earlier this year her brother had a cookout and he told me that he would introduce us, but she ended up never showing up. At that point I thought I would never meet her but when the label executives asked me to go listen to this girl sing back in June, I was surprised to see someone with such presence. That girl reminded me of the girl Justin had described to me as his sister. The next day when I saw her again and she introduced herself I knew exactly who she was. It seems like it was fate for me to meet Alexa; even if it took some crazy circumstances.
“Hey! Whatcha thinking about?” Alexa said sliding across the hood and interrupting my thoughts.
“Nothin…” I replied.
“Really?” she said giving me a kiss, “Not even about me?”
“How do you know me so well?”
“Because,” she said getting up, handing me Storm, and heading over to the driver’s side, “I can read every single one of your expressions…”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
My POV
“Have you picked a date and scheduled a meeting with the pastor?” was the very first thing my mom asked me when we got to my parents house.
“Yes and yes.” I laughed. Why was she freaking out so much?
“Okay, when?”
“April 5th and tomorrow…” Joe Don said coming up to us.
“Okay, what about a guest list?” she asked.
“Mom! We’ve been engaged for like 6 days! No, we don’t have a guest list! Would you relax?” I said grabbing my suitcase from the trunk.
“Well, I’m just saying. Your wedding is like what 6 months away? You don’t have that much time to plan anything.” She said making me laugh.
“Mom, we have an entire publication team and a management team to plan everything. Basically we just tell them what we want and it’ll get done.” I said walking inside.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next day I was up at 4:30 a.m. to help take care of all the horses. My mom also told me that her and my dad where buying a huge piece of land in Lexington to build a winter residence and equestrian center. Which does make a lot of sense since that’s were they do spend the winter there so they can continue training the racehorses. After all the feedings were done and we let all the horses out into the fields I had to run back inside, take a shower and get ready to leave for Chicago. When I went back into my old room I saw Joe Don still sound asleep with the covers thrown off the bed.
“Typical…” I said rolling my eyes. I knew I had to get him up since we needed to leave in an hour. I took the jeans I had been wearing earlier, rolled them up and threw them across the room at him. They hit him right in the face and all I could hear was a groan come from him.
“What…?” he asked me as he rubbed his eyes.
“Get up, we have to leave soon.” I said, “I’m taking a shower. I’ll be out in like 15 minutes. I expect you to be up.”
”I’ll join you.” He said starting to get up.
“Believe me, you don’t want to. I smell like nasty barn…” I laughed as I grabbed a change of clothes and walked into the bathroom.
“Fine…” he said flopping back down on the bed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“So how’d the meeting go?” my mom asked as I walked into her office.
“Good. They said it’s gonna be tight, but they’ll be able to get everything set up.” I replied.
“Hmmm…okay.” She said looking out the door
“What?” I asked. I knew she wanted to say something but she wanted to make sure no one could hear us.
“Have you told him about your horse?” she asked.
“Who? Curlin? No, not yet.” I said.
“Are you planning to?”
“Well, yeah. I mean I’m going to have to before I leave for Breeder’s Cup.”
“I think you should tell him now…” she replied.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I should have to. I mean, it’s not really an issue right now anyways.”
“Not an issue…okay, since you’ve made what like over $1 million dollars from partial ownership of one horse so far this year. Don’t you think he should know that?”
“Well, yeah. He’s gonna for sure find out when we draw up the pre-nup papers.” I said.
“So you guys already talked about that?”
“The pre-nup. Yeah. But I told him that I wanted to do it because I’m not one to steal money. And you never know what’s going to happen these days with marriages.”
“Well, I think you should tell him soon, because otherwise it’s just gonna cause a huge mess.”
“I will…” I said looking out the window. I really didn’t want to tell him about the fact that I have partial ownership of the number one racehorse in the world but I knew what my mom said was right. If I didn’t tell him it would cause a huge mess. And that was the last thing I wanted or needed right now.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Late Sunday Morning
“So Joe Don was in the 9 a.m. tee group?” my Aunt Patti asked as we (meaning me, her, my mom, and my cousin Kelly) were preparing dinner for the whole 60-some people who were going to be there.
“Yep.” I replied checking on the lasagna in the oven.
“Who else was in that group?”
“Um, my dad, Kevin, and I think Justin.”
“Oh that’ll be good. You know that they probably are already drunk out on the course.” She laughed.
“They better not be. I told Joe Don he can have anything but water until he gets here…” I said, “But knowing that he’s been friends with my brother for 3 years, he probably won’t listen to me.”
“Lexa! Lexa! Lexa! Guess what!” I heard my little cousin Taylor (Kelly’s daughter) call running to me.
“What Tay?!” I asked enthusiastically.
“My Kevin is here!” she yelled. That’s what she called her mom’s fiancé. He was ‘her Kevin’ and no one else’s. Not even her mom’s.
“Really? Where?”
“There!” she said pointing around the corner and went running off. I looked at Kelly and she just rolled her eyes.
“Her Kevin huh?” I laughed.
“Yeah…she’s a wild one.” Kelly replied.
“But you gotta love her…”
Just then Kevin came walking around the corner carrying Taylor.
“That man is a beast on the golf course…” he said.
“Who? Joe Don?” I asked.
“Yeah. He scored a 29. And par is 36.”
“Speaking of Joe Don, where is he?” I asked.
“Helping your brother with the keg. You’re probably gonna end up doing the keg stand again.” Kevin he laughed.
“They got a keg! Again!” I said, “I’m gonna kill them!” I said walking outside.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Between introducing Joe Don to everyone in my mom’s family, making sure the food was ready, and keeping my uncles away from the food, I was getting a workout.
I was talking with Joe Don when suddenly we were interrupted by a group of little kids chasing each other. I stopped Taylor as she ran by because I wanted Joe Don to meet her.
“Taylor, do you know who this is?” I asked knowing she should, considering that she made Kelly listen to ‘Life Is A Highway’ all the time. I laughed a little as she cocked her head a Joe Don.
“Mommy thinks you’re cute!” she said pointing at Joe Don and ran away. Joe Don and I burst out laughing.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
By the end of the night, Taylor had attached herself to Joe Don. In fact when we were getting ready to leave she didn’t want him to go.
“Taylor-Anne, you have to let them leave…” Kelly said laughing.
“No! My Joe Don.” She said back.
“Taylor, you can’t have both Kevin and Joe Don.” I said trying to budge her. It worked. She looked at Kevin then at Joe Don.
“Bye!” she said walking over and grabbing Kevin’s legs.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
3 weeks later
I had just gotten home from the Breeder’s Cup in New York and I still hadn’t told Joe Don about the fact that I had partial ownership of the now 2007 Racehorse of the Year. I figured it would probably be a good idea to tell him since I had just made another $1.5 million off my horse winning one of the biggest races in the world. In fact my mom told me that if I didn’t tell Joe Don about it within the week she would tell him herself. And that could even messier than it’s already going to be.
I was just finishing up cleaning the dishes when I decided that I had to talk to Joe Don. I walked into the living room where Joe Don was sitting on the couch watching TV. I reached for the remote but not before he grabbed my arm and made me put it back down. I just rolled my eyes, sat down, and rested my head on his shoulders. I took a deep breath trying to figure out how I was going to tell him what I needed to tell him.
“Can we talk?” I asked him.
“Sure. But can I ask you a question first?” Joe Don replied.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you are a co-owner of Curlin?” he asked catching me off guard. My eyes widened and I panicked. Why didn’t I tell him? I had never really thought about it.
“I don’t know.” I said not knowing what to say.
“Well was it because you didn’t want me knowing about the money?”
“No. It’s just that I’ve always been real independent and I like to keep that kind of stuff to myself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean…?” Joe Don questioned in a sort of tone like he was starting to get angry.
“My ex used to steal money from me all the time. We had a joint bank account and he would just spend most of the money of crap that he didn’t need. That or he’d just take it from my wallet.”
“Hmmm…”
“What? Do you think I’m lying?”
“Seems a little shady that you never told me.”
“Oh, well that’s funny. I’m shady because this is what I wanted to talk about anyways. Whatever. You want to be mad at me, go ahead. I really don’t care.” I said getting fed up and heading off to the bedroom. I’d had enough at that point. I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to begin with…
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Next Morning
My phone alarm went off the next morning at 5:30 a.m. and to my surprise, Joe Don wasn’t in bed. Unless I was hallucinating, he had gotten into bed the night before about a half hour after I did. I brushed it off and head to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for work.
Thirty minutes later I was walking down the hall to the stairs and as I passed Joe Don’s studio I glanced inside. Sure enough he was in there appearing to be writing something. I didn’t want to bother him so I just kept walking and went to go get myself some breakfast. While I was eating I heard Joe Don come downstairs, went out to the garage, and headed back upstairs a minute later. So much for saying a simple 'good morning'. I quickly finished up and put the bowl and spoon I had used in the dishwasher. Looking around the kitchen I felt like I was forgetting something. A minute later it came to me. If Joe Don isn’t up when I leave (which is never…) I always leave him a little note saying that I love him and that I’d call him when I get off work. I thought about not leaving it but then I decided I had to do it. I grabbed a post-it from by the phone, jotted down my little note, left it on the kitchen table and walked out to the garage. When I got out to my car there was an envelope with my name on it underneath my windshield wiper. I snatched out and threw it in my purse---I really didn’t want to read it at that point; as if what happened last night wasn’t enough the fact that he didn’t even have the decency to acknowledge my presence this morning really pissed me off.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I was sitting in the staff office at the gym doing some paperwork for the elites. I went to go grab a pen from my purse when I noticed to envelope Joe Don had left on my car that morning. I opened it up and pulled out the letter that was inside. I took a deep breath before I started to read it…
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I drove home from work trying to hold the tears back. I really couldn’t believe what I had just read. This couldn’t be happening. I opened the garage door hoping Joe Don’s truck would still be inside but it wasn’t. That’s when I lost it. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. I went inside and sat down on the couch with my face in my hands.
I reached for my phone going through it trying to find someone that I knew would understand. The only person that would was Kati. I pressed call and waited for her to answer while I tried to compose myself.
“Hey girl!” Kati answered.
“H-hi…” I managed to squeak out between my tears.
“Oh my gosh…what’s wrong? I’m coming over right now.” She said hanging up. One word and she always knew whether something was wrong or if I was fine. I guess thats what 21 years of friendship does to you.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ten minutes later Kati squealed up to the curb by the house a raced inside. She immediately gave me a hug.
“What happened?” she asked. I couldn’t even talk, I just gave he the letter. She sat down on the couch and a look of disbelief came across her face.
“I can’t believe he would say that.” She finally said.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if he really means that…” I replied finally able to speak audibly.
“Well I know what I’m going to do…” she said getting out her phone.
“Kati. Don’t. It’s not your problem to solve.”
”I don’t care. He needs to talk to you and understand why you are the way you are.” She said dialing Joe Don’s number and walking into the kitchen. I sat in silence hoping he wouldn’t pick up. I didn’t want to explain this whole thing over the phone.
“Joe Don you better get your ass back over here…I don’t care if you don’t want to…well guess what she’s been crying for the 30 minutes and I can’t get her to stop…NO, I’m not going to put her on the phone…well you have to come home and talk to her…Bye.” Kati obviously was pissed. I didn’t know what Joe Don had said to her neither did I want to.
“He’s gonna be here in like 10 minutes. He’s at Preston’s.” Kati said. I nodded and walked into the kitchen without saying a word.
“Do you want me to stay.” She asked following me.
“Just until he gets here.”
“Okay. Well, let me know if you need anything.” She said walking back out to the living room.
After a few minutes I heard the garage door opened followed by Kati talking.
“She’s in the kitchen.” Was all she said and then I heard her walked out the front door.
Joe Don walked in and sat down in the chair next to me without saying anything or looking at me. We sat there for a while before Joe Don finally broke the silence.
“So do you want to talk first or should I?” he said rudely.
“I’m not going to say anything if you’re going to be like that.”
“No I want to hear what you have to say.”
I let out a sigh and look Joe Don in the eyes before I started to speak.
“Let me just say that I don’t think you have a complete understanding of why I have to be the way I am with relationships—“
“So you have to hide stuff just to feel secure in a relationship?” Joe Don said cutting me.
“I’m saying that I’ve learned that sometimes it’s just best to not tell a guy everything about myself because in the end it results in the need to end the relationship because of something like stealing money or just trust issues in general. And that was always so hard for me because when I fall for someone, I fall hard and I fall fast. You, out of anyone should know that…” I said starting to cry.
“But this isn’t just any other relationship. We’re engaged. And I would’ve expect you to sit me down right away and tell about the fact that you have a much higher amount of income than it actually appears. And I would never steal your money—I have my own to spend. So I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to realize that you can trust me. It’s not like I’m some drug addict that’s desperate for you money because I can’t hold a job.” Joe Don replied.
“But baby, you don’t understand why I have to be the way I am.” I repeated, “You don’t know probably three-quarters of what went on in my previous relationship. It wasn’t just bad because I got pregnant and miscarried—it was lying, cheating, stealing, abuse—just about everything that could go wrong in a relationship happened to me in a matter of eight months. And the fact is, I’m over Jeff, but emotionally I’m not over everything that happened to me because of him. And do you think saying that maybe we should rethink our engagement really helped the fact that just a year ago my life was about as screwed up as it possibly could be? That why when Kati read the letter you wrote she freaked out and called you—she knows everything that’s happened to me and I just feel like even if you did know everything you still wouldn’t understand.”
“Alexa, you didn’t even explain any of this too me, so I never had the chance to try to understand everything that’s happened to you.” He said grabbing my hand to try and make me relax.
“I know. It’s just that I never really know who I can really trust anymore. I mean I’ve only actually known you for 4 ½ months.”
“The amount of time we’ve known each other doesn’t matter. What matter is the fact that I’ve never done anything to hurt you or keep you from being able to trust me and that’s why I don’t understand why you feel the way you feel.” Joe Don said.
“I’m sorry…” I said not even knowing what else I could say other than that. I got up and walked away from the table and headed to our bedroom hoping that Joe Don would just give me some time to relax and calm down by myself.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Joe Don’s POV
I heard the bedroom door slam and I didn’t know whether it was because Alexa was angry with or just plain upset over the whole situation. I went to go to my studio to get some writing in but as I was just about to head up the stairs I saw the letter I had written to Alexa. I picked it up and started to read it. I was surprised by some of the things I had wrote because, honestly, at the time I was writing it, I didn’t really care about what I was saying. It was more of just getting out my frustrations. I thought about how our relationship was basically ‘drama-free’ before we had gotten engaged but now that we were it seemed so much was just popping up and it was getting hard to handle. I decided that I needed to get my mind off of everything that had happened in the last 24 hours so I finally went upstairs to get in some songwriting.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Two hours later and I looked down at my song book to see nothing written on the page. Every time I would try to go write something down my mind would trail off to one thing that Alexa had said earlier. That one thing was that she suffered abuse in her previous relationship. I couldn’t help but think that the abuse was the reason for the loss of her pregnancy. I hated to think that it was really the reason but Alexa isn’t really the type to do something stupid that would cause her to lose a child. I just felt like I needed to know to put be able to put what she had said into perspective.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
My POV
I was sitting in our bedroom watching TV basically waiting for Joe Don to come in. It may have taken me a while but I had finally calmed down and felt like I needed to talk to him now, when I’m not so upset. Just then, I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in!” I called and Joe Don walked in. How ironic, considering I was just about to go look for him. He walked around to the side of the bed where I was as sat down looking at me.
“Listen, I need to ask you a question, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” He said grabbing my hand and squeezing it.
“Um, okay…” I replied hoping it wasn’t the question I was dreading.
“How did you lose the baby?” Joe Don asked. I took a deep breath and started to feel the tears coming. I hated thinking back to that day but I knew Joe Don needed to know.
“Well, like I said before, my relationship with Jeff was very bad.” I started, “Just about everything you could imagine happened to me during the time that we were together. But the worst of it was definitely the physical abuse. And it wasn’t like he would hit me every day, but every time we’d fight I’d almost always come out of it with some bruises. But then when we found out that I was pregnant, the abuse stop being physical and just verbal. And one night after he went out for who knows how long, he came home extremely pissed about something. He started screaming at me for no reason so I told him that he needed to get anger management otherwise I was leaving for good. It turned into an all out screaming match and I ended up getting ready to just leave to go to Kati’s for the night. So as I was walking down the stairs of my condo he was behind and me and screaming at me still. I was about halfway down when I felt him shove me and I fell. I just got up and got out of there as fast as I could and went to Kati’s. I didn’t even realize that I was bleeding until I got there either. I went straight to the hospital and they told me I lost the baby. I still don’t even know how to describe that way I felt for weeks after it happened. And still to this day I’ve only seen Jeff once since that all that happened and that was when he came to get all of his stuff from my condo...but i wouldn't let him come until Justin could be there with me…” I finished wiping the tears from my face.
“Baby, I’m so sorry…” Joe Don said hugging me.
“I know. It’s just I hate talking about it so I just don’t unless I need to. And I needed to tell you.” I replied.
“Boy or girl?” he asked.
“Boy.” I said as Joe Don kissed my cheek
“Thank you for telling me. I felt like I needed to know to start to get a perspective on what you said earlier. I just wish that you would’ve told me sooner.”
“I know but…” I said but Joe Don didn’t let me finish. He leaned in and kissed my lips lightly. When we pulled apart I kept my eyes closed waiting for another one.
”I love you.” Joe Don whispered into my ear.
”I love you too.” I said giving him a hug. It finally felt like everything was going to be okay. But I had one more thing to tell him, “Oh and hunny.”
“Yeah?” he replied.
“I bought a new horse this weekend…” I smiled.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Now get over here and show me how much you love me!” I laughed grabbing Joe Don and kissing him.
“Mmmm…I love a woman who takes control…” Joe Don said laughing.
Get on home! Now!
