by Anne, Melody
She passed the counter again for the hundredth time that day when her doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting anyone, but it wasn’t unusual for one or both of her besties to stop by. She walked to the door, not bothering to smile as she opened it.
She froze at the sight of Katherine Anderson standing there, looking regal and beautiful . . . and utterly out of place at her tiny apartment complex. Sarah didn’t know what she was supposed to say.
“Hello, Sarah. I hope you don’t mind me dropping by. I know I should’ve called, but I was visiting the veterans center and decided to swing in last minute,” Katherine told her.
Sarah looked past Katherine at the sparkling Jaguar sitting in her parking lot. It was pristine and expensive, and the neighbors were undoubtedly wondering what in the world a car like that was doing there.
“Of course it’s okay,” Sarah said. She desperately wanted to look behind her and make sure her place wasn’t an utter wreck. She was a pretty tidy person, but when someone like Katherine Anderson stopped in, you wanted perfection. Heck, you didn’t want a person like her to ever stop in at your place. She was made to be in only the finest locations.
“Can I come in?” Katherine asked with a chuckle.
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said as her cheeks heated up, letting her know they were flushed. She opened the door wider and took a breath as she turned around, giving her place a once-over. She could spot everything wrong, though it was honestly pretty dang clean. She wasn’t a knickknack kind of person at all, so there wasn’t clutter. Her laundry was put away, and the dishes were done. Not that she used a lot of dishes. She was a hot-dog-at-the-convenience-store kind of girl when her friends weren’t cooking for her. There were so many more important things to do than to waste her time over a hot stove. She’d never found a love in cooking.
“There’s no need to apologize. I’m the one who dropped in out of the blue,” Katherine said. She stepped inside and smiled as she looked around. “You have a darling place here.”
The way she said the words sounded like she really meant them. Sarah was awed by this amazing woman. Sarah didn’t know a lot of Katherine’s story, but she knew she’d come from some pretty humble roots. Though the woman could have had anything in the world she wanted, Sarah had never seen Katherine act superior to anyone else. She was a beautiful person inside and out.
“Would you like something to drink? I have iced tea and soda,” Sarah said. She also had coffee, but it was the afternoon and pretty warm out. But she was second-guessing just about everything she was saying right now, so maybe she should’ve offered that as well.
“I would love a glass of iced tea with a teaspoon of sugar, please,” Katherine said.
“You can have a seat on the couch while I get that,” Sarah offered.
“Thank you.” Katherine walked over and sat, and Sarah took a second to take a few breaths as she poured them each a tall glass of iced tea. She noticed her fingers were slightly shaking as she moved in her small kitchen. She walked the few feet into the living room area and handed Katherine her glass before sitting on the other end of the sofa and looking expectantly at her.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Katherine said after taking a sip. “This is delicious, by the way.”
“Thank you. I don’t cook, but I do love to play with different drinks,” Sarah said. She’d live on liquids if her body would allow it.
“I’ve had many struggles in my life. I was born in a time when there wasn’t a lot expected out of women except to be a good wife and mother. For those who want to do just that, I say it’s honorable and the hardest job they’ll ever have. But for those who want more, I say the sky’s the limit. I see such talent and drive in you, and my heart hurts for the struggle you’re going through. I want to see you sign that contract and finish the project you started. I know it’s not any of my business, and I hate to meddle in people’s lives, but I have a soft spot for you, and I truly want to see your name on those buildings that are so dear to me.”
Sarah sat there as Katherine spoke, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. For such a powerful woman to say the things she was saying to her—it was humbling and motivating at the same time.
“I’m not really needed,” Sarah said, not realizing she was going to voice that concern until the words came out.
Katherine reached over and took her hand, not allowing Sarah to turn away. She gave her the most sincere and kind smile Sarah had ever received as she squeezed Sarah’s fingers.
“You are more needed than you can possibly imagine. Don’t run away because you’re afraid. Take your dreams into your hands, and show those men how it’s done. I’m proud of the work you’ve done so far, and I know this project won’t be the same without you. I’m not telling you to stay if you truly can’t stand it. I’m just saying don’t quit because you’re afraid, and don’t stop because you think you aren’t important. If you hate it after another couple of months, then you can resign. But I don’t think that’ll happen. I think you’re going to find yourself valued more than you ever have before by the time it’s finished.”
Sarah couldn’t stop the tear from falling this time. She was a bit mortified as she wiped it away, trying to control her emotions.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Katherine squeezed her fingers again. “Please don’t apologize for feeling something real. Time goes so quickly, Sarah, much faster than any of us are ready to accept.” She looked away as if she was lost in her thoughts. Sarah wasn’t sure if she should say something or not, so she waited. Katherine turned back and smiled.
“Live your dreams, and don’t give up. I promise you you’ll regret it if you do,” she finally said.
“Did you give up your dreams?” Sarah asked.
Katherine’s smile grew. “No. I’ve been blessed over and over again in life. From the moment I met Joseph Anderson, my world has been a giant roller-coaster ride that I wouldn’t change for a minute. But time isn’t always our friend. We need to live life to the fullest and store every single memory and enjoy every moment—even the ones we might think of as bad at the time they happen. Everything does happen for a reason, whether it’s to build our character, make us stronger, or teach us that without the bad, we can’t truly know how good things are. I can guarantee you won’t regret doing this project, but you will always question yourself if you walk away.”
Sarah was left speechless, something that seemed to happen quite a bit around the Anderson family.
“Thank you, Katherine,” she finally said. She was too choked up to say anything more than that. Katherine let go of her fingers, and Sarah stood up and moved over to the contract. She grabbed a pen and signed. Then she returned to the couch.
“Would you mind giving this to your husband?” she asked.
The smile Katherine gave her left Sarah knowing she’d made the right choice. They chatted for another hour, and Sarah was left feeling at peace—at least for a little while. She was going to live her dreams—she just wished she knew more of what they were.
CHAPTER THREE
Six months later
Travel!
Really, the word should be trvl so she could then call it a four-letter word, because anytime Sarah Jennings had to go somewhere, she found her normally pleasant demeanor shattered like a frail windowpane next to a pack of middle school boys with rocks in their grubby hands.
She despised everything to do with traveling, from the packing at the beginning and inevitably forgetting something, to the long lines at the airports and getting felt up like a teen in the back of some boy’s car at the TSA station, to the cramped airplane. Then when she arrived at her destination, something had to go wrong at least once, whether it was losing her reservation, her baggage, her purse, or her sanity.
But the moment she arrived back home and took a deep breath, she was fine once more. At least that’s how it normally went. Today wasn’t that day. She was struggling to hold on to her loaded bag, oversize purse, and ap
artment keys. She was so tired she felt as if she could fall asleep standing up, and her bladder was uncomfortably full.
After a long struggle she finally managed to get her key in the apartment lock and kicked the door open with her sore foot. She inhaled but didn’t find the relief she normally felt when stepping back inside her place after a long trip.
“The peace is coming,” she assured herself out loud, not at all worried to be talking like a crazy person to the walls. No one was around to hear her, anyway. She was perfectly fine.
She stepped forward, getting ready to toss her bag aside, when her foot caught on the entry area rug. She knew she was going down, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. Not right now, not with her arms loaded with a bunch of stuff she hadn’t even really needed on her trip.
She hit her knees first before sprawling forward, landing very ungracefully on her chest. Thankfully her purse cushioned some of the fall. Maybe it was seconds or possibly even minutes. Sarah wasn’t fully sure. She just stayed exactly where she was, fighting the urge to cry.
Exhaustion and frustration were making her far more moody than she normally was. The weak, pathetic emotions were making her more and more angry with herself.
“Pull it together,” she said between clenched teeth. “This is absolutely ridiculous.”
Before she could continue lecturing herself, her phone began screaming at her from inside her purse. She really didn’t care who was calling. The last thing she needed to do was talk to another human being. So she let it go to voice mail.
When the phone immediately began ringing again, she let out a sigh as she flipped to her side and tugged open her purse. It took a few seconds of digging around before she found her huge iPhone and pulled it out, ready to bite the head off of whoever was calling her twice in a row this late on a Friday night.
Her anger immediately drained, though, when she saw one of her two best friends smiling at her from her screen. Of course it wasn’t the most flattering pic of her bestie, but that just made it even better. The evil woman had a picture of her lying in a hospital bed as her profile pic on her phone. Sarah vowed to take an even worse one of Brooke the second she had a chance.
“Hello, Brooke. What’s so urgent you’re calling me over and over?” Sarah asked.
“If you’d answer the phone the first time, I wouldn’t have to call over and over,” Brooke pointed out.
“You knew I was traveling all day. What if I was still in the plane?” Sarah asked. She pushed her purse behind her and rolled to her back, using the bag as a pillow. She might just fall asleep right where she was. It had been a long flight from London.
“I tracked your flight and knew you’d be home by now,” Brooke said, making Sarah laugh.
“Of course you did. You’ve only been a mom for a month now, and you’re already overprotective,” Sarah said with another chuckle.
“You’re my best friend. Of course I’m overprotective. Well, I worry equally about you and Chloe.”
“As I do the two of you,” Sarah said.
“I want to hear all about the trip,” Brooke said, as if she had all night.
“Don’t you need sleep? It’s nearly midnight,” Sarah pointed out.
“I need sleep, but your nieces are perfectly content to nurse for an hour and then take another hour burping, so I have all the time in the world,” Brooke said, sounding way too happy for a sleepless new mother of twins.
“Ah, they are totally worth giving up sleep for,” Sarah said, feeling her grumpiness vanish at the mention of her nieces. They really were the cutest little girls in the universe. Of course, they had parents who could grace the cover of Vogue magazine, so the chances of them not being adorable were zero to none.
“Yeah, I’m pretty in love with them,” Brooke said, sounding happier than she ever had in her life.
There had been a time Sarah had worried Brooke would never find happiness again, especially after the loss of her brother. But then her best friend had met Finn Anderson, and her world had been flipped upside down. Brooke had fought her feelings toward the man, but in the end love had won, and now it was like they’d been together forever; they were so in sync with one another. It gave Sarah the tiniest pang of jealousy.
Sarah didn’t stick with guys very long. She loved to flirt and loved to date, but she inevitably was disappointed in the opposite sex. They might hold her attention for a day or a week but never for a full month. Well, that was until she’d met Noah Anderson.
Her smile fell away as she thought about the man she was working on the huge Anderson veterans project with. He drove her absolutely crazy, and not in a good way, she told herself. He made her feel things she had no business feeling, and she wanted to get as far away from him as humanly possible. But since they were the architects for the veterans project, she’d had to work with the man nearly daily.
That’s why she hadn’t complained too much about jaunting off to London for another personal project she was working on. It was bad timing for work but much needed for her sanity.
“Hey!” Brooke’s voice came through loud and clear, making Sarah jump.
“Why are you yelling?” Sarah asked.
“I’ve been talking for at least two minutes, and you just disappeared. You went into your own head again, didn’t you?” Brooke said with a laugh.
There was no use denying it. “Yep. Sorry about that.”
“And what were you thinking about?”
“Nothing worth mentioning,” Sarah muttered.
“Ah, then probably Noah,” Brooke said, laughing hard enough this time that Sarah heard a whimper from whichever niece Brooke was nursing.
“Better calm down, or you’re going to have an overly excited baby on your hands, and you won’t get any sleep tonight,” Sarah said.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Brooke said. Sarah’s eyes were growing heavier by the second, but the floor wasn’t comfortable in the least; otherwise she’d probably fall asleep with Brooke still talking. “Get some rest. At least one of us can,” Brooke added with a weak laugh.
“Thank you,” Sarah said. She barely had the energy to whisper those words.
Sarah hung up the phone to the sound of Brooke’s laughter; then she staggered to her feet, leaving her purse and bags right where they were, scattered contents and all. For a clean freak this showed how tired she truly was. She somehow managed to check her lock to make sure it was bolted; then she made her way the short distance to her bedroom.
Her clothes were stripped off in seconds, and then thankfully she fell into her super-comfortable bed. Sarah was out within seconds. Tomorrow was a brand-new day, and she’d definitely have a brand-new attitude to go along with it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Noah walked into Joseph Anderson’s ridiculously large-size den and smiled, feeling completely at ease now that he knew his uncle well enough to be comfortable around the man. If he were being technical, Joseph was actually a . . . cousin, he believed, but the man had insisted he was an uncle, and since he felt like the Anderson kids were his cousins, he’d fallen right into calling him that.
This was a family that didn’t take no for an answer to anything they needed, wanted, or demanded. That’s why the Anderson empire had grown so huge through the years with Joseph at its head. The man might technically be retired now, but everyone knew he was still at the helm. He just did things from behind the scenes, sitting in a comfortable lounge chair with a cigar and scotch instead of behind his massive desk on the top floor of the Anderson headquarters. But he wasn’t as sneaky as he might like to think he was.
It had only been about a year since Noah had learned he was one of “those” Andersons. And though he was still somewhat in awe to be a part of the Anderson empire, he was growing more comfortable with it by the day. For one thing, the family might be richer than Bill Gates, but they in no way looked down upon people. For another, family truly was something special in the huge mansion Joseph called home. In a
world where the word family meant little to a lot of people, it gave Noah hope to see it so intact with his blood. He’d also discovered in life that family didn’t have to be blood related. He’d served with men he’d forever call his brothers. A strong bond could make family just as much as blood did.
“You’re late,” Joseph said as Noah moved forward.
“I’m ten minutes early,” Noah corrected.
“In my book anything less than thirty minutes early is late,” Joseph said before he took a sip of his fine scotch and then picked up a cigar, taking a whiff and sighing with pleasure.
“Didn’t you tell Katherine you weren’t gonna smoke as many of those?” Noah asked with a devilish gleam in his eyes.
“She’s out shopping right now, so there’s no harm in having a few puffs,” Joseph said before his eyes narrowed. “And no one needs to mention it.”
Noah chuckled. “It’s quite adorable how you think you won’t be busted.”
Joseph reached into a drawer in the table next to him and pulled out a tin of breath mints. “These are mighty strong. I eat about a dozen when I’m done, and then I have minty-fresh breath,” he said proudly.
Noah didn’t argue any further. If Joseph was getting away with smoking his cigars, it was because his wife was allowing it. The relationship between Joseph and Katherine was exceptional. They had a love most people aspired to have. It was something Noah had never seen before. They truly made each other better people, and the way they looked at one another sometimes made anyone watching feel as if they were intruding. The rest of the world faded away when they were together. A love that strong was a rare thing. Noah wasn’t sure it existed beyond the two of them.
