Single in Sitka (An Odds-Are-Good Standalone Romance Book 1)

by Katy Regnery

  “You been to Sitka?” I ask.

  “Sure thing,” he answers, stepping back so we can enter his house. “Traveled all over up there for a time. Worked on a few fishing boats.”

  “You like fishing?”

  “I’m Maori,” he says. “It’s in my blood.”

  “Next time you come up,” I hear myself saying, like we’re long-lost best friends, “we’ll get a boat and go out.”

  “Good ’nough,” says Jude. “I’ll return the favor and give you a tour of Century Field if you’re interested.”

  “Are you kidding?” A behind-the-scenes tour of the Seahawks’ home stadium? Not in a million years could I say no to that. “That’d be great.”

  Amanda clears her throat. “I’m sorry to break up this budding new bromance, but I was hoping to get a peek at my godson?”

  “Manda’s cracking the whip!” says Jude with a hearty chuckle. He gestures to the marble staircase behind us with a flick of his chin. “Upstairs in the nursery. Little man just had a bath.”

  “Mind if I bring Luke?”

  “A fisherman who likes the Hawks? Hell, yes, you can bring him. Need more like him around my kid.”

  Amanda smiles at Jude, then takes my hand, leading me up the grand staircase with Jude leading the way.

  “How have they been settling in?” she asks.

  “It’s good to have them home,” says Jude over his shoulder, his voice more sober now. “But I still…” We stop at the top of the stairs. “I worry about him, you know? Such a rough start.” His eyes flick to my face. “You got kids, Luke?”

  I nod. “Three.”

  “Then you know,” he says softly.

  “I know,” I say. “I’d do anything for them. Anything.”

  Jude blinks suddenly, and I realize he’s getting emotional. “So would I.”

  “But he’s got you,” I say, reaching out with my free hand to grasp his upper arm in a man-to-man gesture. “You won’t give up on him. No matter what.”

  Jude takes a deep breath, then nods at me. “Nope. I won’t.”

  “He’ll be all right,” I assure him. “Kids are way more resilient than you think they are. My son, Chad, broke his arm when he was three. I was sure his baseball days were over, but last year he was shortstop and hit two home runs.”

  “Yeah?” Jude’s eyes widen and sparkle.

  “You should know better than anyone,” I say. “The human body can take a beating and keep going strong.”

  “Know what, Manda?” asks Jude, a broad smile taking over his face.

  “Tell me,” she says, squeezing my hand.

  “I’m sure now,” says Jude. “I like him. I approve.”

  She laughs, leaning her head to the side, a gentle and welcome weight on my arm. “Good, because I like him too.”

  “Come on,” says Jude, heading down the upstairs hallway toward the nursery.

  “Thanks for being so awesome,” Amanda whispers beside me. “They’ve had a tough few weeks. Every bit of positivity helps right now.”

  “I can only imagine,” I say.

  “How did Chad break his arm?”

  “Jungle gym at the playground. He was trying to keep up with some older boys. Scared me and Wendy half to death.”

  She makes a sound halfway between a shudder and grunt. “I’m going to be a wreck when I have kids.”

  It makes me remember what she said on the boat ride to the Talon, about how she wanted a man in her life who didn’t need to be convinced to have children. At the time, I’d thought of this comment in the context of children I already have, but now it occurs to me that Amanda might want her own.

  Do I want more kids? I mull over this question for a moment, and the answer comes quickly: I love kids. I wouldn’t be opposed to one or two more.

  And fuck if the thought of her body ripening with my baby doesn’t make me so instantly horny, I actually feel my blood rush south.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I say, letting go of her hand and ducking into an open doorway to my right.

  “Okay. When you’re done, keep going down the hall. Nursery’s on the left,” she calls to me, following after Jude. “You’ll find us.”

  Safely inside the bathroom, I splash my face with cold water and rest my hands on the vanity, staring at myself in the mirror.

  You’re getting way ahead of this situation, I tell myself. Thinking about having kids with her? You don’t even know if this little visit is another fling or the start of something deeper.

  But still, the image of a pregnant Amanda, with my child growing inside of her, or of her nursing our baby in the quiet lavender light of early morning dawn? It makes a whole new yearning twist inside of me.

  I shake my head and take a deep breath.

  I didn’t even realize I wanted more kids. And now? Now I’m fantasizing about them in celebrity washrooms.

  “Get it together, Luke,” I growl at myself. “Back it up, man.”

  As I let reality crowd out caveman thoughts of knocking up Amanda, I have to concede that this baby fantasy is just the latest symptom of a bigger issue. I’m starting to wonder how far we could push a relationship that started with a personal ad and a hotel meet-up. I’m starting to wonder how much I’d be willing to compromise—or give up—to be with her.

  I spent today at her apartment while she went into the office for a few hours, and it didn’t take more than some casual observation to gather that her life is deeply entrenched in Seattle.

  She came here for college when she was seventeen years old and never left, which means she’s lived her entire adult life in this city. Her best friend, whom she met in college, is also her writing partner at a job they’ve held for almost a decade, and she’s just become the godmother to her partner’s son. Add to this, the child’s father is a Seattle Seahawk, an icon of the city she loves. Her ties to this place—to Seattle—are significant.

  Amanda McKendrick isn’t a young woman who’s footloose and fancy free; she’s got roots. She’s thirty-two years old and looking for a man—in her own words—to be her “next someone.” Her “real” someone. The person she settles down with to have a family and with whom she wants to grow old.

  Despite what Bonnie said about gauging her interest before tackling the question of distance, I’m starting to realize that the question of geography can’t be omitted from the equation. To be fair to Amanda, I need to open my eyes to the fact that she’s happy here. She lives here and loves it here. She may not want to leave. And whether I like the question or not, I need to ask myself,

  Could I be happy here too?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  Tomorrow, while Amanda’s at work, I’m going to hit the pavement and reacquaint myself with the Emerald City. And maybe—just maybe—I’ll find some common ground between the city I once loved and one of her prodigal sons.

  ***

  “Hey, man, can you spare a few bucks?”

  I’m not entirely heartless.

  I’ve given out more than fifty dollars today to various panhandlers.

  But I also have three kids about to hit me up for new sneakers when school starts.

  “Sorry,” I say, opening the door to a coffee shop in West Seattle. “I’m all out.”

  “Asshole,” the man yells at my back. “You hear me? You’re an asshole!”

  I don’t turn around. There’s no point. The likelihood that he’s on drugs is high, and I’m not interested in getting into a physical altercation with someone who’s not in his right mind.

  The young woman behind the counter, who’s obviously heard the yelling, greets me with a sheepish smile.

  “Don’t you just love Seattle?” she quips. “What can I get you?”

  “Coffee, please. Black.”

  “Small, medium, or large?”

  “Large, please.”

  “Four sixty.”

  “Uh. No. I just want a plain coffee.”

  “Right. A large black coffee. Four six
ty.”

  I stare at her for a second to see if she’s kidding, but it’s apparent that she’s not. I take five dollars from my wallet and slide it across the counter. But I can’t help comparing: at my favorite place in Sitka—the Highliner Coffee Company—a grande black coffee is less than two bucks. The cost of living here has skyrocketed since I last visited.

  When I get my drink, I take it outside to a side patio where the sound of jackhammers, which has been my constant companion today, feels at odds with a neighborhood that I remember as quiet and leafy. But progress will not be stopped, and Seattle is bursting with shiny new construction. High-rise condos. Offices. The grunge joints of the nineties have been replaced with family-friendly chain restaurants, and all of it has drastically changed the face of my hometown.

  A waitress exits the café to clear the empty coffee cups on the table beside me, then stops by my table, reaching into her apron pocket. When she opens her palm, it holds ear plugs.

  “Want some?”

  I blink at her offering, then look up at her. “No, thanks.”

  “It feels like they’ve been building that one forever,” she says, looking up at the scaffolding above us.

  “I used to live here.”

  “In Seattle?” she asks.

  I nod. “When I was a kid.”

  “I hear it’s changed a lot,” she notes.

  “That’s an understatement,” I mutter, taking a sip of coffee as she heads back into the café.

  My parents migrated from San Francisco to West Seattle because they loved the outdoors. They loved the mountains. They loved the Puget Sound. They envisioned raising their children in a suburb near a city where my father could support us with a good job at Boeing and we could get lost in the mountains, hiking every weekend.

  I was four years old when Kurt Cobain dropped “Smells like Teen Spirit,” which changed the cultural landscape of the city. A few years later, Starbucks launched its worldwide empire, and Jeff Bezos went public with Amazon. Music. Coffee. Books. The nineties was a decade of beautiful synergy. Seattle was the “it” city of the world, and I was there for it. For its glorious, unlikely zeitgeist.

  But with that fast, impactful change, a different Seattle emerged. More money, less grunge. More corporate cultural, less grassroots magic. Thirty years after Cobain declared that we were here and demanded that we be entertained, the Seattle I remember is gone, and I can’t lie: I grieve it.

  A one-time hidden jewel of the northwest went from a city abounding in natural beauty to a hotbed of art and commerce to…today.

  There still appear to be relics of a lost time: fairs and festivals, musical concerts, and craft beers, but it feels different. A flashier, chromier skyline crowns the birthplace of grunge and coffee, and homelessness runs rampant with no real plans to fix it (were a fix even possible at this point). My cop mind spins with unsavory facts: with more than twelve thousand people with nowhere to sleep at night, drug use is up, and Seattle boasts one of the highest crime rates in America.

  All of it breaks. My. Heart.

  My Seattle is gone.

  And so when Amanda comes home that evening, yes, I’m glad to see her, and yes, I fold her into my arms and strip her body bare before she can take a sip of the Snoqualmie Riesling I’ve purchased for us…but in that broken heart, I know—as certainly as I know my name or the color of my eyes or the timbre of each of my kids’ voices—that I cannot live in the city of Seattle. I cannot raise my kids here. I wouldn’t be happy.

  And it’s just a matter of time before I will need to share this unfortunate piece of information with Amanda.

  ***

  Amanda

  Dawn’s early light filters through the filmy curtains covering my bedroom windows.

  Luke spoons me from behind, his warm, masculine smell everywhere and his morning erection pulsing against the curve of my spine.

  He leaves tomorrow.

  The thought falls like a ton of bricks on my chest.

  Low-grade panic sets in, making my breath shallow and an unexpected lump rise in my throat. I blink my eyes against the sudden threat of tears, telling myself to calm down. I don’t want him to go. After having him here for the past three days, I hate the thought of coming home to my quiet, empty apartment. I will miss his voice. His body. Him.

  Turning in his arms, I study his face in repose: the soft-pink pout of his opened lips; the scruff of a beard highlighting his jaw; his long, dark lashes; and his bristly cop haircut.

  I’m falling for you, I think. I’m falling so much harder and faster than I should, than I ever thought I could.

  Two nights ago at Leigh’s, after Kai was asleep, Anna Mae reheated some fried chicken, and we all sat on stools around their kitchen counter, eating dinner together. We used paper plates for the food and paper towels for napkins, but Luke looked happy as a clam, one hundred percent comfortable where he was. Bryce would have turned up his chef’s nose at leftovers, embarrassing me by declining a plate, but not Luke. He was grateful for whatever was offered. He treated my best friends with genuine, unforced warmth and kindness.

  It’s not that I had a right to feel proud of him per se, but I did. I felt proud that he was with me—that we were Amanda and Luke—and it made me realize how often I’d felt ashamed of Bryce’s pretentions, how worried I would have been about Bryce being served chicken on a Dixie plate. Something else to add to the ongoing list of what I want: a man with simple tastes and a gift for gratitude.

  “I feel you looking at me.”

  “Creepy?” I ask, leaning forward to kiss him.

  “Nope,” he says, grinning at me as his eyes slowly open. “Awesome.”

  He pulls me closer, nuzzling my nose and gently pushing his hips into mine.

  “Definitely awesome,” I sigh, marveling that it’s possible to want someone as much as I want Luke. We’ve had more sex in the past month than Bryce and I had over the course of our last year together.

  Part of me wondered if I’d started outgrowing sex or if I just didn’t like it anymore. I was wrong, though. That wasn’t the case. Sex wasn’t the problem. I just needed the right partner.

  Looping my arms around Luke’s neck, I arch my back and rub my breasts against his chest. “I think I’ll take a well day today.”

  “A well day?”

  “I’m not sick,” I explain, “but I used all of my vacation days. I only have sick days left.”

  “Sure you want to do that? Won’t you need time off at the holidays?”

  I shrug. Right this minute, Thanksgiving in Delaware loses swiftly to today with Luke. No contest. “I have six left. I only used one.” Reaching over him, I grab my phone and dial Frumplestein’s number. “Hey, Norm, I think I caught a bug by spending so much time at the hospital last week. I’m going to stay home today. I’ll probably be back in on Monday.”

  As I hit End and place the phone back on the bedside table, Luke raises his eyebrows at me. “Voilà. She’s free.”

  “I’m not,” I say, lying across his chest, my elbows propped on his collarbone, my eyes searching his. “I’m not free.”

  The hand trailing up and down my back stills. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not…available.”

  “What does that—” His expression closes a little, and his eyebrows furrow. I can feel his muscles bunching beneath me. “I don’t understand.”

  “It means,” I whisper, “that I only want to be with you.”

  “Exclusively?” he asks.

  I nod, holding my breath, waiting for him to respond.

  He stares at me without blinking, and suddenly I’m worried that I misread the situation—that I’ve overplayed my hand somehow…that I’m moving too fast for a single dad who only lost his wife two years ago…that maybe I’ve misjudged things and he only wanted to continue our fling. But I made myself a promise that I would tell him how I felt no matter how hard it was.

  “I don’t want to be with anyone else either,” he says in a rush
, like he’s been holding back the words for a little while and it’s a relief to finally let them loose.

  He reaches up to cradle my face in his hands, which makes me smile. I lean down to kiss him, a feeling of euphoria replacing the panic I felt before.

  In one, smooth move, with his lips still clinging to mine, he flips me onto my back, nestling between my thighs.

  “I want to fuck my girlfriend,” he says, grinning at me like he knows how cheesy that sounds and doesn’t give a shit.

  “She wants to be fucked,” I tell him, spreading my legs and bending my knees to cradle him.

  He doesn’t prime me by touching my clit or rubbing my cunt. It’s like he knows I woke up wet for him, just like he woke up hard for me. He slides into my body like it was custom built for his pleasure, and fuck if his cock wasn’t custom built for mine. My nails rake down his back as he pumps into me, establishing a fluid rhythm, velvety and easy. His hands still cup my face, and when it’s clear that we’re about to come, his fingers curl into my cheeks.

  “Look at me,” he demands.

  I open my eyes, and those twin blue orbs that can look like the summer sky are dark and stormy.

  “Exclusive,” he grunts. “Only I do this with you.”

  “Only you,” I moan, about to go out of my head with the building (building, building) of pleasure inside. It peaks and explodes, making my whole body shudder as muscle spasms in my pussy squeeze him until he cries out my name.

  He comes inside of me, hot splashes of his seed that I not only welcome but crave. I squeeze his buttocks, whispering his name over and over and over again, grateful that in this perfect moment, at least, my sorrow at our imminent parting is kept at bay by our passion.

  ***

  “How is that possible?” I demand. “How could you grow up in Seattle, go to Evergreen for college, and never take the ferry over to Whidbey Island?”

  “It’s not like the ferry comes and goes from Seattle. We’re an hour north of the city.”

  “So what? Was driving north outlawed in your family?”

  He shrugs. “No. We just didn’t come up here, I guess.”

  “That’s crazy,” I say, leaning over the railing to look at the water. The ferry cuts through the dark-blue waves swiftly, and I inhale the salt air, sighing with pleasure. Seattle offers some amazing day trips, but this is, hands down, my favorite. “It’s like someone living in New York City who never takes a ride on the Staten Island Ferry.”