Summer Romance Boxset - Weightless, Revelry, On the Way to You

by Steiner, Kandi

  Momma, thank you for letting me stay up past my bedtime to read Harry Potter and for not judging me when I majored in Creative Writing. You will forever be my biggest inspiration and the wind beneath my wings.

  Brittainy C. Cherry, thank you for breathing confidence back into me with every message you sent as you read Weightless. Thank you for believing in me, for sharing my work, for loving my words and for being literally the best human being I know. Period. My life wouldn’t be as bright without you.

  A HUGE, special shout out goes to Angie Doyle McKeon for being the best damn Bumble Bee to ever buzz around in the land of lifeless flowers. You bring life and color to everything and everyone you touch and I appreciate your support and love more than you know.

  To the rest of the beta readers — Kellee, Sahar, Novo, Monique, Trish (Queen Mintness), Maegan, and Tina, thank you for petting my hair and helping me whip this thing into submission. You’re the best ride or die team and I’m so thankful for each and every one of you.

  Kash Monay and Elaine Hudson York — thanks for editing and formatting Weightless to perfection. Now it’s pretty inside and out, and it’s all thanks to you two.

  Two the two groups who keep me going — Tribe and Kandiland — thank you for the daily posts and messages, the support, the love, the giggles, the whiskey, and everything in-between. I’m convinced that I’m the luckiest writer because I have y’all, and I hope the day never comes where I learn what it is to do this without you in my corner.

  To you — the reader — for loving my characters and stories as much as I do and for reading all the way through the acknowledgments (Like seriously, who are you?! You rock.). Thanks for choosing indie. I hope I didn’t let you down.

  Lastly, as always, I have to thank God. Without His blessings and love, I wouldn’t be able to chase my dreams the way I do. I only pray he gives me the strength and the courage to never stop.

  To anyone who has ever felt less than.

  You aren’t just enough.

  You’re more.

  FREE

  ˈfrē

  Adjective

  Enjoying personal freedom : not subject to the control or domination of another

  The first thing I learned as a freshly divorced twenty-seven year old was that no one owed me anything.

  My husband didn’t owe me an apology for any of the horrendous things he’d screamed at me as I packed my bags. The first guy I slept with after being with the same man for ten years didn’t owe me a text message the morning after. My friends didn’t owe me all of their time and undivided attention, even though I desperately wanted it.

  No one owed me a single damn thing.

  And now, for the first time in my life, I was going to live completely on my own.

  I’d gone straight from Mom & Dad’s to college dorms to roommates to a house with my now ex-husband, Keith. For the past four months, I’d been staying with my best friend and business partner, Adrian, but his home didn’t feel like one I could call my own. He had his own family, a partner he was madly in love with, and a brand-new baby girl they’d adopted only six months before I moved in.

  I had no idea what I was doing, where I should go, who I should be, and maybe that’s what made me load up my SUV once more and drive an hour outside of Seattle to rent out a cabin for the summer. I didn’t even look at pictures, just called the number listed and told them I was on my way to see the place.

  It wasn’t easy for me to leave. In fact, I’d nearly changed my mind after Adrian and I called a meeting with our small but close team at the boutique to let them know I was going to take a small hiatus. We’d started it together right after college, and I’d never missed a day of work. I worked more than what some might consider normal, and I guess that was part of the problem that had landed me where I was.

  Still, Adrian had ushered me out the door, ensuring he and the team would be able to handle everything while I was gone. I needed time away—he saw it, I felt it.

  “Bring us back a summer line,” he’d said, bright smile on his perfectly contoured face. My designs were the backbone of Ballard Boutique—it was my name and brand, after all. But I wasn’t the only one who had something to lose. Adrian and my team did, too. I wasn’t just doing this for me, but for them, and so I loaded up my SUV with what I thought would be necessary and started driving with the intention of finding inspiration and bringing back a summer line like no other.

  It was a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep, especially since I hadn’t been able to sketch anything of worth since I’d left Keith in October. The holidays were hard, and the final divorce hearing in January was even harder. I had hoped that once I emerged on the other side of it, I’d be fine—healed, cured of my lack of inspiration. But I still felt broken, and so here I was, driving to a cabin in Gold Bar.

  Now that I was halfway there, windows down and tears drying on my cheeks faster than they could fall, I wondered if I really was crazy.

  That’s what everyone had been calling me lately—crazy.

  My ex-husband said I was crazy for leaving him. His family said I was crazy from the start. Our “friends” said I was crazy to walk away from such a “perfect marriage.” Everyone was saying it, and even though I should have been arguing with them, I couldn’t. Because the truth was I felt as crazy as they accused me of being.

  I had to be crazy, didn’t I? After all, I walked away from a ten-year relationship, a seven-year marriage, and not for reasons anyone around me seemed to understand—except for maybe Adrian. Keith hadn’t been physically abusive, he hadn’t cheated on me, and to everyone around us, we seemed perfect. We posted pictures on social media of us opening his first practice, visiting New York for Fashion Week, sharing sweets at Pike Place, and even just lounging around on Sundays. We were perfect.

  At least, we made it seem that way.

  No one knew the struggles we had behind closed doors. They didn’t know how my loving husband had begun to resent me and the success of the boutique, especially since he’d always seen sketching and sewing as hobbies. He was always so focused on his own dreams that he didn’t think to take mine seriously. And I was okay with that, for a long time, until the “report cards” as I liked to call them, started rolling in.

  Every three to four months like clockwork, Keith would get angry about something and we’d fight until dawn. When I say “fight,” I mean he would tell me every way I was failing him as a wife and I would cry and vow to do better, all the while defending everything he called out in the first place. It took me a long time to realize that he wasn’t angry at me, but rather at himself—for reasons he would never explain to me.

  But, even after counseling, and even after the papers were signed, Keith never saw it as an anger issue. He still felt that it was my actions that made him angry, and that I was a selfish woman.

  Selfish.

  I’d heard the word so many times over the past few years it might as well have been tattooed on my forehead, or maybe across my chest like The Scarlett Letter.

  Maybe I was selfish, I wasn’t sure I could argue that point. My dreams were important to me, as was my career, but I still loved Keith. I always wanted him to be the best he could be. I always wanted to help him get there. But somewhere along the way, our love grew black, charred from an angry fire fueled by resentment.

  No one ever gets married thinking they’ll end up divorced, and now that I was on the other side of that unfortunate destiny, I had to figure out who I was again.

  And I had no idea where to start.

  I didn’t know what it was like to be completely alone, and I was scared. I told Adrian I’d be fine, that I was excited to get out on my own for a while, that I needed space. But I’d never known loneliness, not truly. I didn’t know the kind of lonely that seeped all the way into my bones when literally no one in the entire world was talking to me, wondering about me, or waiting for me.

  I wondered if I’d survive it.

  But something strange happened when
I turned onto the roughly paved road that would lead me to my home for the next few months. The fear of loneliness slowly drifted out my open windows, and an unmoving sense of alright-ness fell into its place, a quiet whisper, growing louder every mile until it was a booming voice. I smiled, swiping the remnants of my tears away as my GPS announced that I’d arrived at my destination.

  The first beauty I found as a freshly divorced twenty-seven year old was that I didn’t owe anyone anything, either.

  I didn’t owe my ex-husband another year, minute, second of my life. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation of why our marriage failed. I didn’t owe any other man or person in general a phone call to check in or an apology for something I loved to do that they disagreed with.

  For the first time in my life, I was owed nothing, and I owed nothing.

  Lonely or not, I was free.

  I cut the engine on my Kia Sportage, and as soon as I did I was surrounded by quiet. Not the kind of quiet I was accustomed to from living in the city, where there was always a constant hum of cars and voices. No, this was a peaceful quiet, with just the faintest sound of water running nearby and birds singing their songs to the new girl in town.

  May was nearly over, but the air was still a brisk sixty-two degrees as evening began to fall. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my light leather jacket as I scanned the front of the cabin. It was three stories, the first consisting only of what appeared to be a small garage next to the stairs that led up to the second level. Freshly cut firewood lined the side of the garage and two simple rocking chairs along with one long, cushioned bench sat on the small front porch.

  My eyes scaled the dark wood of the cabin up to the red roof and trim, following it to the left side where there was a small view of the river that I was sure would be even better from the back. My stomach flipped, uneasy with a mixture of excitement and nerves. Now that I was standing in front of it, I felt a little ridiculous for driving an hour outside of the city to stay in a cabin for the summer. Yet still, it felt right, too.

  The gravel driveway crunched under my knee-high Gianvitto Rossi boots as I made my way toward the cabin. I’d just reached the bottom stair when the door near the top swung open.

  “Ah, you weren’t kidding when you said you’d be here in an hour, were you?” the man asked, accent thick and warm eyes crinkling at the edges as he waited for me to ascend the stairs. He met me with a firm handshake, the heat from inside the cabin wafting out a bit from behind him. It smelled of cinnamon and pine, warm and inviting. “I’m Abdiel.”

  “Wren,” I said in return as he released my hand. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”

  Abdiel eyed me curiously for a moment before waving a hand. “Please, it’s my pleasure. Come, take a look around.”

  As we walked into the warm cabin, I shrugged off my jacket and scarf, slinging them over my arm and letting my eyes take in the space. It was surprisingly large, with a full kitchen just off to the left as soon as we entered and a wood-burning stove straight ahead. The small dining table that sat between the two spaces was littered with mail, a homey touch that was oddly soothing. I relaxed a little, following Abdiel.

  “Everything works in the kitchen, though the fridge acts up from time to time. Nothing a little TLC doesn’t fix. Wood-burning stove keeps it nice and toasty in the winter. The door broke a few weeks ago, but you can prop the poker up against it to keep it shut or just let it hang open a bit to warm the downstairs even quicker. There’s no air conditioning, but even on the hottest days of the summer, opening the windows and doors usually provides a nice enough draft to cool the place off. Might get a little warm around mid-afternoon, but evening cools it down again.”

  I nodded as we rounded into the living room, a quaint set up with a large sectional and flat-screen television. He walked us out onto the back porch next, which was considerably larger than the front and housed another sectional, this one with off-white, weather-resistant cushions and accented by a dark brown coffee table. A small hot tub sat covered on the opposite side, but it was the view of the river that was breathtaking, causing me to pause at the door frame while Abdiel talked on.

  “Got a great view of the mountains and river, and you can walk there easily through that path I cut out down there,” he added, pointing to a break in the brush below. “Hot tub works fine.” He turned back to me, smiling a little at what I’m sure was my dumbfounded expression. I’d seen the silhouette of the mountains from the city, driven through the gorgeous Pacific Northwest a few times when we traveled for holidays, but for the most part, my view was concrete, brick, and neon lights. “Stunning, isn’t it?”

  “And then some.”

  Abdiel cocked his head a bit as if he was trying to figure out my story—who I was, why I was there. And I’d have told him, but I didn’t know myself.

  He led me upstairs to the third level next, which played home to a cozy bedroom and simple bath. The bedroom had another small balcony that sat just above the one we’d just stood on below, and I rested my hands on the banister as Abdiel explained there were a few boards that needed replacing on all of the balconies and to be careful where I stepped. He went on and on about the cabin and the little community it rested in, but my eyes were on the water, imagining how I’d feel to wake up here every morning, to drink my coffee on the back porch, to watch the sunlight slowly touch the tips of each mountain before lazily making its way to the river.

  “I’ll take it,” I said, cutting Abdiel off mid-sentence.

  “Really?”

  I nodded, excitement bubbling low in my stomach. For the first time since I’d left the place I shared with Keith, a small tinge of home brushed my chest. This cabin, this river, these mountains—they were where I needed to be.

  “How much is it?”

  “Two-hundred thousand is my asking price, but if you want to talk to your Realtor, I’m willing to come down a bit due to some of the maintenance that needs to take place.”

  I blinked, whipping around to face Abdiel. “For three months?”

  “What?”

  We both blinked this time.

  “It’s that much to rent for the summer?”

  I’m not crazy, am I? I was well aware that real estate in Seattle was far from cheap, but hundreds of thousands of dollars for three months didn’t add up. “No offense, your cabin is beautiful and everything, I’m just a little shocked at that number.”

  He squinted, brows pinching together. “The cabin isn’t for rent, Miss Wren. It’s for sale.”

  The excitement I’d felt like a balloon in my chest just moments before popped, deflating on one long exhale.

  “Oh,” I said simply, letting my eyes fall to my jacket. “Of course, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood the ad.”

  The truer statement would have been that I didn’t really take the time to read through the ad completely. It’d been the first one I’d seen, honestly, and I’d stopped reading at SUMMER CABIN.

  I shook my head, pulling on my jacket and scarf quickly and moving past Abdiel back inside the cabin. “I’m so sorry I wasted your time.” I offered him a smile I hoped wasn’t as pitiful as I felt. “I’ll show myself out.”

  My cheeks flamed from embarrassment as I descended the stairs, but before I could rush out the front door, Abdiel stopped me.

  “Wait!” he called out, carefully stepping his way down the stairs I’d just flown over. He was smiling through heavy breaths when he reached me, throwing his hands up. “Maybe we can make this work.”

  “Really?” I asked, too eagerly I was sure, because Abdiel’s smile only widened.

  “I wanted to make the sale before I traveled to see my family in Puerto Rico. I’m moving there, but there’s no rush. I’m retired, which means I get to make my own rules,” he added with a wink. “So, I tell you what. You pay me up front for the three months, you can stay for the summer as a rental. But you’ll have to take care of anything that breaks on your own, because I’ll be on the island. And, if you dec
ide at the end of the summer that you want to buy, we can work out details then.”

  Excitement rallied, but the realist in me squashed it down.

  “And if I don’t buy?”

  He shrugged, eyes still so warm. “Then I put the listing back up and you pay the gift of time forward one day when you have more of it to spare, too.”

  It was in that moment that I learned my second lesson as a freshly divorced twenty-seven year old.

  No one may have owed me anything, least of all kindness, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t give it, anyway.

  It didn’t take long for me to unpack, especially considering I’d left nearly a decade of things behind. I just referred to all of it as things—the furniture, the photos, the memories, the “marital” property, even though some of it was rightly mine.

  How interesting that I’d spent so many years of my life collecting those things, but when the day came to leave, I didn’t care to take a single one of them with me.

  Still, surveying my new home for the summer made me realize that I had a plethora of clothes, shoes, jewelry and makeup—and not much else. I had my laptop, tablet, and sketch book, of course, mostly because I needed those to work. My sewing machine was already set up on the desk downstairs. One box still sat untouched in the SUV with sentimental things from my childhood and I’d managed to take off with three of my most-used coffee mugs and my favorite blanket.

  It wasn’t much, but I found I didn’t really need much.

  I paused at the sight of my reflection in the dresser mirror as I packed away the seven different swimsuits I’d brought with me and stood straighter. My platinum blonde hair was the only bright thing about me, and I tied it in a knot at the base of my neck almost like I didn’t remember the fun girl it once belonged to. I’d taken my makeup off, leaving my face pale, wide eyes dark like the past I’d left behind, full pink lips in the same neutral position they’d been in since Abdiel had left.