Davina the Hybrid

Chapter 1 Me.

I sat straight up clutching my blanket close to me, sweat pouring down my forehead. Breathing heavily, it's just a dream, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm in bed in my house. I let out a slow breath starting to relax and cool down. I slowly let go of my blanket and take a few more deep breaths. I'm okay, it's just a dream, thank goodness I'm okay.

I turn to get off the bed and look for my clothes to get ready for a shower. These dreams have been getting intense these past few days. I don't think it's normal to have nightmares 4 days in a row, like who does that?

It doesn't even matter how many times I meditate or read a short sweet novel before bed, I always end up with the same dream over and over. No matter how many times I have it, I'm still scared. Well, who wouldn't be scared of someone slamming into them with such force, you get the wind knocked out of you, then grabs your neck to choke the life out of you?

I shake my head and grab my clothes and make my way to take a shower down the hallway from my house.

I open the bathroom, and put my clothes on the counter top and slide off my shorts and tank top and turn the knob to the warm temperature and get in. I close my eyes and let the water warm my body and wash myself off.

I live in a 3 bedroom house with double garage attached, a farmhouse near by with a Horse Stable. I live here with my sister and her 2 kids and her husband. We have several staff that stay in the farmhouse, which has 7 rooms. We own a lot of land in our area it goes for miles. I won't go into detail much about our estate..

My parents Left this place to my sister and I. My sister and I are really close, she's my best friend and trust her with my life. I love my niece and nephew so very much, I would do anything for them and can't forget my brother in law, he truly is like a big brother to me, I love all of them, they're the only family I have that live anywhere near me. Like, my parents, my grandparents also live far away for us to visit, including my aunt and uncle who also live far from everyone else, in England, we live in Canada.

The water got too cold to be enjoyable anymore, so I get out and grab the towel to dry off, quickly put on my clothes, I'm wearing light blue jeans that have a small tear at each knee, and a Black T-shirt. I grab my tooth brush and begin brushing my teeth looking at my reflection in the mirror. I have big ice blue eyes, small straight nose with a little curve near the end, heart shaped face, natural pink plump lips, and long straight black hair up to my waist. After brushing my teeth, I put on a little of mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, basically just a light natural look. I quickly take a deep breath and race out of the bathroom, went quickly to my bedroom to put on my runners.

"Breakfast!!" My sister yells from down the hall from the kitchen/dining room.

"Coming!" I yell back, as I am tieing up my shoelaces.

When I reach the kitchen/Dining room, I am hit with the sweet aroma of Bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, and pancakes. I close my eyes for a second to enjoy the delicious smell of breakfast.

"You don't have to do that every morning, kid." my brother in law smirks at me.

I roll my eyes, "I must, it gives me positive vibes before work, I soak it into my memory, it reminds me of my childhood and immediately makes me happy, like I'm a child again."

"Whatever your so weird." he shakes his head and continues eating his breakfast.

"Zack just leave her alone, I do the same thing while I make it, it just you don't see me do it, Davina is just more obvious about it." My sister defended me.

Zack lifts up his hands facing them toward my sister as if surrendering, "Okay, sorry, but your both weird then, like who does that?"

We then look at eachother, "We do." We say the same time laughing.

Shaking my head I grab my plate of food with all the helpings, and down orange juice. I sit down at the table sitting across Zack and my sister Alley. Then, in came running my niece and nephew, Donny & Teeny, the twins. They quckily grab their plates and sit on either side of the table. They gobbled up their food so fast, it's like as if they hadn't eaten in days.

"Hold on, guys, where's the fire?" Alley asked her twins, looking at both.

Donny looks at Teeny, and Teeny's eyes widen and she shakes her head at Donny. A little too late their mother noticed. Alley pierced her lips squinting at them and raising her fork pointing at them back and forth, "What was that? I think your hiding something.. Spill."

They both sigh and look down, fidgeting with their fingers, until Donny looked up and yelled, "We found Puppies!"

"Donny!!" Teeny exclaimed.

"What?!" Zack and Alley asked at the same time.

I hid my smile, drinking my orange juice watching patiently amused.

Donny pleads with Teeny, while her arms are crossed over her chest as she furrow her brow, "We need help, Teeny, we can't keep them secret for long, they deserve better."

Teeny was scowling at Donny from across the table, "We don't need help, they're ours! We found them!"

"We had to tell them someday!" Donny shouts at Teeny.

"No we didn't! They'll make us give them up! Don! I won't give them up!" Teeny began to cry, tears streaming down her eyes.

Donny sighs, "Teeny, they would've found out eventually, because the pups are getting big and they're starting to follow us."

Teeny still crying she looks at her mom and dad, "Yous see? that's why we lied and hid them, we don't want you to give them up, we-" she choked and put her head down on the table sobbing.

My sister took a deep breath, glanced at Zack and he shrugged his shoulders. "Can you maybe show us? They can stay here where it's warm..."

Zack adds, "And safer, but we will need to call in a vet to take a good look at all of them to make sure they're all healthy." Zack reaches over and takes Teeny's hand in his and gives it a small squeeze.

She looks up slowly her eyes hopeful, "So, we get to keep them?" she asks.

Alley smiles at her, "We'll talk about that later, we don't even know how much pups there are."

Donny, "4!" he raised his voice and we all looked at him, he clears his throat, "Sorry, there's four pups, the mother lost one, we were too late when we found her."

Zack then says, "Well then, we also don't know where this mother stray ended up here.."

I raised my hand then, "She's a run away, I now see an Ad for her on my phone."

Everyone looks at me as my sister grabs my phone from me, reading it out loud, "Animal Rescue lost a Golden Labrador a few weeks ago, we think she may have ended up at one of the farms out of town, if anyone sees her, please inform us or if you'd like to adopt her, we have her realise papers and her known history, birthday etc. Come see us in town or give us a call."

She looks up saying, "Okay guys, show us this dog and pups, we need to make sure it's the same one they talk about in this Ad." she gets up from the table and heads for the door to turn around.

"Mom, does that mean we can keep all of them?" Teeny asked, sounding scared.

"Well, we gotta see if their the ones on that Ad or if they're supposedly missing from someone else." Ally answered.

Zack gets up and takes Teeny's hand, we all stand up too and follow Alley outside, we walk to the side of the house , Alley turns to her 9 year old son, "Donny lead the way."

He nods and gestures to us to follow him, he walks to the back of the house and takes us to the little shed we use for the riding lawnmower, he opens it and goes in, we follow, he points to the back. Where we see a small bed made with some old blankets set up and on top was a golden Labrador with 4 pups playing around the mother, they looked to be about 7 or 8 weeks old. The pups trotted over to all of us tails wagging vigorously anxious to get pet or picked up. One came up to me and looked up at me with such cute puppy dog eyes, "Aww" I coo and pick it up and gave it a hug while petting him.

"So? can we keep them?" Teeny asked looking hopefully at her parents, while carrying one of the pups.

"I'll have to call the Animal Rescue to confirm. Then if they say it's okay, then we keep them, they'll make good guard dogs, hunting dogs, and cattle dogs, should be easy to train at this age." Zack spoke up after a short pause, looking at Alley, then she also nodded. "Keep in mind, that we also may not be able to in case they say no. I'm sorry guys but we have to do what is right by letting these people know that the missing female is no longer missing."

Teeny sighed, "Okay mom."

"Now, in the mean time, I want you both to work together and create a space for them to stay in the house, they can stay in the empty room, find toys for them to chew on, I don't want them biting anything else, they will be teething. Then, clear this space and clean up, give them fresh water and food. I'll call the Animal Rescue and call in the vet to make a house visit." Alley says.

"Okay." the twins both say and went running straight to the House.

I put down the pup I was cuddling and kissed his little forehead and walked out with Zack and Alley, Zack made sure the door was closed properly so they won't escape.

"I'm going to do my chores, see yous at lunch." I wave them goodbye and they waved back. They have quite a lot to do today, no doubt my sister will go to town, so I guess Zacks turn to cook for lunch. Only means my turn to cook for supper later.

I quickly put my hair in a pony tail and head towards the barn. I muck out the horses stalls, gave them fresh water with the watering hose that's from the tap outside the front of the house. Then I gave some of the horses oats and others got an apple to snack on, and fresh hay. Next I take them out one by one for their daily exercise.

I grab a lead rope and hook it onto Blue's halter and lead him out. Blue is a Black Thoroughbred, but in the sunlight, his mane looks a bit blue and shiny, so my sister called him Blue when he was born which was 7 years ago now. I took him first, because he's the most impatient one out of the herd. He's a very competitive horse, very talented and very stubborn. He's kind of a Diva in a way. He's great at jumping, but he's a winner at racing. He's won his fair share of racing 3 years in a row. He's been offered buyers but for some reason my sister won't sell him, she loves this horse.

As I'm walking him in the field, I hear foot steps behind us, I turn to see Our Hand, Jake, "Hey Davina, hope you don't mind, Katy and I would love to join you and Blue, she was was also getting anxious to get out for a bit. Plus, I thought you can use the hand with the horses for today."

I smile at him and look away shyly saying, "Sure, um, maybe we can take them further out and let them graze for awhile?" I opened up the fence and led them in and shut it again. All the while looking down as we walked, avoiding making eye contact with Jake. I've had a crush on him since my brother in law hired Jake a few days ago. Jake went to school back in the day with Zack and needed a part time job while he was going to the town College. He worked here during the week 9 am till 5 pm. He had lunch with us everyday since he started. Then he'd go back into town and stay in his apartment to study in the evenings. He's like 5 foot 11, Black tousled hair that spikes up in front nicely, with dark eyes which makes him look mysterious, with a husky built, he's so darn hot. My cheeks go red as I'm thinking about him.

"So, How bout we lead them over this hill and let them go here?" Jake asked.

I snap my head up at the landscape in front of us. Open field with tall grass and a tree line to our left and far across on either side more trees, but with a lot of open field and hills spread out far. I look at Jake and nod, "Perfect."

I Unhook Blue and immediately he takes a run for it. I stare at him in shock and yell, "Rude Mr!!!" I shake my head at him and put my hands on my hips and look over at Jake who already let go of Katy who was trotting away taking her time, "Do you believe that? He couldn't wait to get away from me?!" I say disbelief.

He just smirks at me, "That's what happens when you keep your head to the ground the whole way here."

I roll my eyes and sit down on the ground, "Whatever, it's just his nature, he's so selfish sometimes." then I look at Jake again as he sits beside me, "Anyway, before I was rudely ditched by a horse, how are you settling in?" I asked him.

He shrugs and sighs, "Alright I guess, it's only been, less than a week, maybe?" he picks at the grass, "I've been dating this girl from the the state over, and she's having a hard time with our living situation."

I look at him eyes wide, "Oh? Zack never mentioned you had a girlfriend."

He looks at me then, "Well, I told him not to tell you, that I wanted to, if I had a chance later. I want to start off being honest with my new friends and bosses. " He gestures to me, and raises a eye brow, " or new friend? hopefully?"

I smile, even though I as bummed out that he had a girlfriend, of course her did, why wouldn't he, he's hot. "Of course I'll be your friend. Don't call me boss that title belongs to my sister and brother in law." I chuckle.

"You don't take yourself as owner?" he asked.

"No, no, I do.. but I don't like formalities with people I work with. Zack and Alley do all the hiring, paper work, financial stuff, meetings, and all that important stuff that comes with being a Boss is... as for me, I love to work, keeping my hands and mind busy doing things with the animals or working the fields, anything to stay away from all that- I take it. So, I please never call me your boss" rolled my eyes and air quoted the word "Boss"

He laughed, "I like that."

"What?" I asked while I picked up some grass and made small knots tying it over and over in my hands.

"I like that you seem to know who you are as a business partner. I wish I even knew what I was doing half the time." he shrugged.

I looked at him and he was frowning picking up small rocks from the ground, "You mean, you don't know what your doing with school... or??"

He sighed, "It's all complicated, I'm trying to do 2 years of college here and work here, then my plan was to go back to the state where she lives and work out there, but, I'm not sure now, because I really like it out here. It's hard to explain." he throws the rocks shaking his head in frustration.

"I have time to listen, beside looks like they are having the time of their lives anyway and forgot about us." I gesture to the horses who wondered further and was eating the grass enjoying themselves.

He chuckled, "Yeah, guess your right. Anyway, when I was where she lived, I always felt, rushed, anxious and tense all the time, something didn't feel right, but when I moved out here for school, it feels right. It feels more like home out here than it did over there and it's real strange because, I just moved here this week." he shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair making it even more messier and sexier. I bite my lip and he continues, "I feel like I belong here, and I tried telling her and she didn't like it, she even asked if I was having an affair and I told her she's crazy and she went on saying I'm never satisfied and that I always wanted to run away from her and she goes, 'Its over, you here me, it's what you always wanted' then, she says 'I'm sorry I just miss you so much', I don't know.. it's the first time we've been apart and we've been dating for 8 months now. She says I'm the one for her and she's kind of upset too because I've never said those words to her yet." he looks at me then.

I raise my eye brows, "Go on.."

"I've never told any woman in my life besides my own mom, that I love them. I told her, it's because I'm not fully there yet, I don't know." he looks at me apologetically, "I'm sorry I'm rambling on and on, maybe I should just break it off with her right? Start over?"

I shrug my shoulders, "In the end, it's totally up to you on how you want to live your life, your living it for yourself and if your not happy, your never going to be unless you make it happen. I mean, I hate to say this and yet, we barely know eachother but from what your telling me, it sounds as though you already made up your mind. As for your girlfriend, why haven't you told her you loved her? I mean, 8 months in and you don't even know if your in love?" I shake my head and wrinkle my nose, "I'd hate if a guy made me wait that long to hear those words and then he leaves and still hasn't said them? I'm surprised she hasn't let you go because of it. She must really love you, and your leading her on if you don't feel the same way, and that's really mean. When she can stop wasting time and find someone else who will love her and not wait months for it to be just No."

He looked at me like as if I just slapped him in the face and I immediately felt bad, "I'm sorry" I say fast, "You asked and I gave you an honest answer.. but I'm sorry if I sounded harsh or mean." I looked down, great, i think I over stepped my first impression as a friend.

He said frowning at the ground, "Your right."

I snapped my head back at him, shocked. and he looks at me then his dark eyes digging into mine, "Your right. I feel like crap now that I've lead her on this long... and no. I am not in love with her at all and I can't believe I'm now figuring it out. I guess it took me so long because, I was busy working all the time and time just flew by on me without realising that I hadn't felt that about her. She felt more of a companion and that's what I liked.. just having someone to come home to and tell her about my day. To think about it, I only had s*x with her the one time too."

"Well I didn't need to know that part." I cross my arms and added, "What were you so busy doing that time flew by on you?"

"I was on a 11 hour nightshift on weekends for the hospital, then during the week from 7 am till 4 pm I worked at a Lumber Factory, then some nights evening shifts on Mondays, Wednesdays Thursdays from 5 till 9 pm I open up a recreational center for kids." he looks at me and smiles.

"Wow, workaholic." I say, "No wonder time got away from you. So, now what are you going to do?"

He sighed again and said, "I'm going to have a long, long conversation with her later this evening." he puts his hands on his face and laughed, "I must sound stupid to you huh? I wanted to make a good first impression on you and here I am telling you my pathetic failing love life."

I smile and touch his shoulder, "It's fine. I keep so busy too sometimes and I rarely have times like this, to just sit and talk for awhile, it was nice."

"Well okay then." he stands up then and grabs my hand to pull me up with him, "How about I come back later after my talk and we can have a fire outside and just sit and talk some more?"

I nod thinking, after supper I'll be caught up in all my chores and a nice fire outside sounds nice, since after supper Zack and Ally get too busy to hang out with me with their kids. plus they go to bed early. So, it'll just be me and Jake later. I could use some alone time with him and get to know him more, "Sure, just come to the main house when you get back."

He smiles and says, "C'mon, let's get these horses back before the other get mad at us for taking too long with these ones, we have 4 more to take out, those guys took the other 7 out to the other side of the property."

I put my hand in front of him before he can walk further, "Wait." he looks at me confused and I half bit my bottom lip and let out a loud whistle and the horses galloped right up to us ready to go back home.

He laughed as he hooked up Katy with the rope and I did the same, "Cool trick."

"Thanks." I beamed.

We took the horses back and grabbed the other 4, this time we took 2 each to the same place and we sat down again.

"So, what do you think your going to say to her?" I asked curiously peaking at him.

"I'll tell her the truth, I owe her that much but I'll apologize too, but I don't think she'll take it lightly, it's going to break her heart and that's the part I feel so bad about. If she calls me names, I'll take it. Weird, I feel more relief now." he smiles.

"Wow, I can't believe you should've done that before you moved here if you didn't feel something." I shake my head.

"Hey, I would have but I thought maybe a little distance will make the heart grow founder..."

"Nope! Not when you've been already distant by all the jobs you had back there. You what only gave her time with you on Tuesday evenings once a week? and sleeping together on the same bed doesn't count." I protest.

"Your right, I am an idiot." he says shaking his head.

"No, your not an i***t, you just didn't know what you were doing until now." I say and then added, "Anyway, now that that's kinda done, how do you like working here?

"Oh I love it, the freedom you get and the beautiful scenery, what's not to love? Plus most of the workload helps clear your head and gives you a good mental and physical workout."

"Yes it does, this place can heal a lot of broken hearts." I say remembering how my heart broke a year ago. No, I won't let myself think of him..

He looked at me concern in his eyes and he reached over, wiping a tear that I didn't know escaped. "What happened?" he asked.

I flinched and swallowed slowly taking a breath, and I looked away, "I don't want to talk about it right now, maybe another time?" I wipe my eyes.

"Sure, no rush." he looked down in deep thought, here he was telling me and confiding in me about his life and love life and here I am closing myself off on him. He was being honest with me and shouldn't I want to be honest too? I mean, I haven't talked about him with no one at all, not even my sister.

I cleared my throat and looked straight ahead then, "He was my first love, we dated for 2 years, we loved eachother a little too much, our parents would constantly tell us. We never did it once. We wanted to wait until.." I started fidgeting and then I sighed and quickly said, "I wanted to save myself until marriage, it's something I've always wanted and he respected that of me, we weren't engaged or anything like that, we, he well.." my voice shook. Jake put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, waiting patiently for me to finish. I took a deep breath and said, "He disappeared a year ago." I felt a tear slide down my face and wiped it away quickly, "He was supposed to meet me at the park in town, he wanted to take me somewhere, I remember waiting and waiting but, he never showed up. It was a few hours before I got a call from his mom asking if he was with me, I told her no.. she said, that he took her car but she was cut off by another caller, calling in, she came back on the phone line with me and she was quiet for a moment... then, finally she told me that her car was found empty but with some blood on the seats a couple blocks away from me in front of a jewelry store." I looked at Jake then, he was listening closely, and I continued, "They never found his body, Just his blood on the seats but not much of it, the cops couldn't do much as the only evidence they could have had didn't exist due to a robbery that same time at the jewelry place, the cameras were all shot at, and as for the other camera's down that whole street was taken out by a hacker, and when he was parked there, he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, cops say they probably took him because maybe he saw something he shouldn't have and were probably scared he'd report them... they told us that those robbers were highly skilled and knew what they were doing. Maybe his body will turn up sooner or later, they just left the case as is.. Missing man.. thats it, they just couldn't find him and it's been a year already..." I shrugged, "I had a hard time to cope for a long time, I was suppose to be sole owner of our property, the whole thing by myself, but I couldn't do it alone, so I agreed to a partnership between Zack and Alley. Told them it will be good for the kids as they get older it'll be theirs. I don't have any, and it didn't make sense for me to have it to myself, with no one to pass it down to.. I don't know." I looked away embarrassed that I told all that to someone I've only just met like 3 days ago.

"Your still young, you don't know if you will have children later." Jake said to me.

I shrugged looking at the beautiful sky above, "Well, yeah, your right, sometimes things change, but I'm scared to let myself get that close to someone again, he was my first love and, well..."

He reached over and took my hand, I looked at him right away and he smiled at me, "I get it. It's okay. Thank you so much for being honest with me. We can remain like this, I'm not looking for a relationship right now obviously I have that other thing to deal with still, but after that, I want us to be friends."

I smiled at him then and gave him a hug, "Thank you Jake, it felt good, finally letting my feelings out to someone. I would love for us to be friends." I back up and looked at him in the eyes, "I think it'll be a good thing for me."

"Lunch!" Zack yelled.

Yes, I think having a friend will be good for me.