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

by Katy Regnery

  “Yep. Nice…” I say, but my mind is wandering. An idea is forming. It hadn’t occurred to me before now, but I wonder if she’d want to…if she’d even consider—

  No. No, she wouldn’t.

  What woman would want to drive six or seven hours by herself to spend time with the kids and extended family of a man she’s just started seeing? That’d be crazy, right? That’d be asking too much of her. But hell, I can’t stop myself. After all, one thing I’m learning about Amanda is that not asking her for something gets me nothing, while asking—more often than not—seems to get me what I want.

  “Hey, um…it’d be quite a drive from Seattle, but…” She doesn’t say anything right away, so I plough forward with my stupid, selfish idea, finishing my invitation in a rush. “But if you’d consider making it, I know my aunt Cecily, uh, Cece, would welcome you, and I would…” My heart is racing like crazy, but I gulp and add, “I would love to see you.”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice breathy and soft, and I know Amanda well enough at this point to hear the smile on her lips.

  One tiny word and my heart takes flight.

  “Yes? Yes, you’ll drive down?”

  “Mm-hm. I’ll leave Seattle early on Saturday morning. I should get there by noon.”

  Noon. A week from today. And she’ll be in my arms again. Thank the good Lord!

  “You will?” I say, shaking my head and grinning at Mt. Eureka like a lunatic. This woman is constantly surprising me. I flashback to the first time I ever saw her, walking along the highway, fiery red hair escaping her hood, crying buckets, but still able to sass me. Or last week when I showed up on her doorstop and she pulled me inside her apartment like she’d been expecting me all along. She’s spontaneous and she’s got spirit, and man but I love it. “Are you sure, baby? It’s a long way.”

  “Not if I get to see you and the kids. Plus, it’s cheaper than a flight to Sitka,” she says matter-of-factly, “and best of all, it’s soon.”

  “Best of all,” I correct her, “Aunt Cece has very modern ideas about dating couples sharing the same bedroom.”

  She giggles softly. “Just in case I forget to tell you next weekend, I really, really like your aunt Cece.”

  ***

  Amanda

  The drive from Seattle to Coos Bay is easy on a Saturday morning, especially when you wake up at five o’clock to make it. It’s five hours south on one road and then another hour west after Eugene. And since there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with Luke and his kids, it flies by with good music and sweet, sweet anticipation.

  We’ve spoken on the phone for an hour or two every night this week, our conversations running the gamut from parents and siblings to favorite music, from our political views to how often we attend church, from our most embarrassing grade school moment to our favorite breakfast foods.

  I thought this week would crawl by as I waited for the chance to see him again, but it didn’t. All day, I would think of things I wanted to share with him or questions I wanted to ask him. In a weird turn of events, I think it’s actually deepened our connection to be apart physically; without being able to reach for each other, we had to reach out to each other and share different parts of ourselves to maintain intimacy. I’ve loved every minute of our nightly phone dates. But now, as my GPS guides me into his aunt’s driveway, I’m ready to see him again, breathless with anticipation as I pull into the gravel parking area and look up at the massive, sprawling house before me.

  I don’t know what I expected, but this peaked and gabled mansion with a wide front porch and manicured gardens in the front yard wasn’t it. It’s easily as big as Leigh and Jude’s house, but in the not-so-far distance, I can see the glistening promise of water: the Charleston Bay.

  As I step out of my car, the front door opens, and I smile with glee as Meghan Kingston races down the steps to hug me.

  “Amanda! Amanda, you’re here!” she cries, tugging at my heartstrings like I didn’t know she could.

  I sweep her little body up into my arms, hugging her tightly before drawing back to look into her face. “Hello, you!”

  “You’re early,” she says. “Daddy said you wouldn’t get here ’til this afternoon.”

  “I couldn’t wait to see you again,” I say, walking toward the house with her in my arms.

  “I been at my gram’s,” she tells me. “That’s why you missed me, maybe.”

  It occurs to me that at five years old, Meghan may not realize that I live in Seattle while she lives in Alaska.

  “I’m sure that’s why,” I say, lowering her to the porch as I climb up the steps to the front door.

  Luke appears in the doorway just as I reach it, and as corny as it sounds, the lyrics from the Bruno Mars’ song “Just the Way You Are” fly through my head: When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change / ’Cause you’re amazing, just the way you are.

  He’s wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt, his feet bare and face scruffy. When he opens his arms to me with a smile, I rush into them, burying my face in his neck. My eyes close as I breathe him in: warmth, sweetness, Luke.

  “You’re here,” he rumbles near my ear.

  “I’m here.”

  “How was the drive?”

  “Easy.”

  “Amanda, you want some pancakes? We’re having a brunch!”

  The little voice by my side reminds me that Luke and I are not alone, and I step back, looking down at his daughter.

  “I thought I smelled something delicious!” I tell her.

  She grabs my hand and pulls me through a beautiful foyer, a grand living room, and a set of French doors onto a stone patio where a dozen people are seated at an outdoor table sharing a meal.

  “Look, everyone! Amanda is here!” she announces.

  As the entire table turns to look at me, I feel my cheeks flush. I’m interrupting their brunch with my early arrival and almost feel like I should go wait in my car until they’re finished. But a pair of strong hands land on my shoulder, and suddenly I know I’m not alone. I lean back into Luke, smiling at the gray-haired woman who stands up from her seat and comes over to greet me.

  “I’m Aunt Cece,” she says, holding out her hand. “It’s lovely to meet you, Amanda.”

  “Thank you for having me,” I tell her.

  “You made good time.”

  Her eyes are the same color as Luke’s, which are striking in the face of an older woman, and I have a passing thought that if Luke and I were to ever have a child, his or her eyes might be that color too. Something quickens in my belly as I imagine those eyes in the face of my child; something that makes me want some alone time with my boyfriend. But this is a family weekend, I remind myself. Behave.

  “I was lucky. No traffic.”

  “Very lucky,” she says, flicking her eyes to her nephew briefly before grinning at me. “Come and join us. There’s plenty of food.”

  I’m quickly introduced to Luke’s uncle Ross and cousins Greg, Mark, and Libby and their spouses and kids, whose names go in one ear and out the other because there are so many of them.

  When we get to Chad and Gillian, both children look up at me, but only Gillian smiles.

  “Hi, Amanda,” she says.

  “Hey, Gilly,” I say. “I think you got a tan since I last saw you.”

  “I was in San Francisco,” she says, “with Gram and PopPop. They’re my mom’s parents.”

  There’s an emphasis on the word mom that isn’t lost on me.

  “Your dad says you had a great time.”

  “I did,” she says, nodding at me, her young face caught in the territory between warmth and caution. I get it. I understand that she wants to be loyal to her mother; there’s no need to push things between us. I’d prefer that our relationship develops organically, and I know it might take a while.

  “Chad,” says Luke from behind me, “can you say hello to Amanda?”

  “Hi,” he says without looking at me. He nudges his cousin. �
�Let’s go play!”

  At the word play, the kids all scramble out of their seats, leaving plenty available, and I choose one, happy when Luke sits down beside me.

  “So, Amanda,” says Luke’s cousin Mark, “Luke says you’re a reporter?”

  “I write a column for the Seattle Sentinel.”

  “That’s really cool,” says Mark’s sister Libby, who sits on my other side. “I studied communications in college but went into web development instead.”

  “With the way newspapers are dying,” I say, accepting a cup of coffee from Cece with a grateful smile, “that was probably a smart choice.”

  “Online newspapers aren’t going anywhere,” she points out. “People can’t get enough of Yahoo! News and Google News. Or even opinion sites like the HuffPost. Did you know that more than half of Americans get their news from feeders like Facebook and Twitter? It’s only newspapers that are dying. Writers and reporters are still in demand.”

  Wow. I’m impressed. Luke’s cousin is smart and interesting.

  “What do you do, Libby?”

  “I work for the AP in Spokane,” she says.

  “At the Data Center?”

  “Yep.”

  The Spokane Data Center is where the Associated Press collects a significant amount of the data that results in sports and elections numbers provided to news outlets around the world.

  “Well, you’re about to have a big year,” I say, “with the 2020 election just around the corner.”

  “This is the last vacation I’ll take for a while,” she says with a slight eye roll.

  “The kids’ll get their mom back sometime around January twenty-first,” her husband, Steve, chimes in.

  “Luckily, I’ve got a good partner,” she says, giving Steve a quick a peck on the lips.

  Under the table, Luke takes my hand, weaving his fingers through mine, as the word husband, so familiar, so heretofore unattainable, spins in my head like something finally, almost, maybe within reach.

  “Have you ever thought about writing for the HuffPost?” asks Libby. “You must have a pretty decent following in Seattle if you have your own column.”

  “I write with a partner,” I explain, “and I suspect the following is more hers than mine. Her husband is Jude Stanton.”

  “Jude Stanton, the Hawks safety?” asks Luke’s cousin Greg, the youngest of the three siblings. “Whoa! That’s huge! I saw on Facebook he just had a kid.”

  “That kid,” says Luke, “is Amanda’s godson, Kai.”

  “Cuz!” says Greg. “Your girlfriend’s mad connected.”

  It’s the first time anyone—besides me or Luke—has used the word girlfriend in reference to me, and it makes me feel so awesome, I half turn to my boyfriend and kiss him sweetly, happy to be mad connected, happy to be with him.

  ***

  After brunch, while Cece and Libby clear the table, Ross, Mark, and Greg offer to take the kids down to the bay for a swim. Which leaves Luke to show me to our room.

  He closes the door behind us, and for the first time since I arrived, we’re alone. We fall back on the unmade bed together, his lips smashing into mine and our teeth colliding. We half whine, half laugh as we settle into a gentler, less frantic kiss. We are together again. That’s the only thing that matters.

  After kissing each other like the world is ending, we lie on our sides, facing each other.

  “Thanks for coming,” he says, caressing my face with his gaze.

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “I loved our talks,” he says, leaning forward to tenderly press his lips to mine, “but I hate being apart.”

  “I know. It’s hell.” I pillow my hands under my cheek. “You don’t mind sharing a room? With your kids here? Will it be confusing to them?”

  He rolls onto his back. “All the kids share a room full of bunk beds in the basement. They don’t come up here a ton. Besides, I want them to understand that you’re important to me. I don’t want to hide anything from them.”

  “So you told them we’re dating?”

  He scrubs at his head with his hands. “Yeah.”

  “And how’d that go over?” I ask, although I can guess. “Meghan was delighted, Gilly was cautious, and Chad wasn’t happy.”

  He rolls back to his side and looks at me, his eyes wide and a little impressed. “Yeah. Spot on. How’d you know?”

  “A little intuition and a little observation.”

  “My girlfriend’s mad connected and wicked smart,” he says, throwing an arm over my waist to pull me closer. He nuzzles my nose, and his breath smells like maple syrup.

  “Speaking of connections,” I say, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Mm-hm. You know how I was originally up in Sitka to do a story about the bears?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how the Sentinel is sponsoring a carnival next weekend?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Well, as a thank-you to me for agreeing to be Kai’s godmother, Jude wants to fly you and the kids down to Seattle next weekend.”

  “All of us?” he asks.

  “Yep,” I say, grinning at him. “But I said I had to ask you first.”

  He sighs loudly. “Seattle, huh?”

  “I know you don’t love it there, but just give it one more chance?” I ask, half smiling, fingers crossed. “For me?”

  “For you?” he says, pushing me to my back, then settling his weight on top of me so we can make out properly. “Anything.”

  Chapter 13

  Luke

  To say that I got mixed reactions from the kids about visiting Seattle would be an understatement.

  Meghan was off to the races the moment I mentioned it—packing her Disney Princess suitcase, excited to see Amanda and ecstatic to go to a carnival. Sitka isn’t large enough to have its own carnival, and Wendy and I never got around to taking our children to the state fair up in Anchorage, so my kids have only seen carnivals in movies and on TV shows. Attending one in person? For Meghan, at least, this was cause for great celebration.

  Gillian didn’t say anything about staying at Amanda’s apartment; she just raised an eyebrow at me and skulked off to her bedroom. Soon after, however, I overheard her on the phone with one of her friends, bragging about going to the carnival, so I think she was looking forward to it too.

  Chad’s reaction was unambiguous: he was decidedly unhappy about the entire plan.

  “Why can’t I stay here with Aunt Bonnie?”

  “Because we’ve been invited by Amanda, and I’ve accepted her invitation.”

  “Since when is Amanda in charge of where our family goes and what we do?”

  “She’s not,” I said, a little surprised by the force of his pushback, “but I am. And I say we’re going. Together.”

  “What is she now, your girlfriend? Last I heard, you two were just dating.”

  “Things have changed since then, son. She’s become more important to me.”

  “Is that why she showed up at Aunt Cece’s?”

  “She didn’t ‘show up.’ She was invited.” I dropped a hand to his shoulder and waited until he met my eyes with his. “I expect you to be polite to her while we’re visiting.”

  “Fine,” he said, shrugging my hand away and heading to his room, “but you can’t make me like her.”

  I debated whether or not to share these interactions with Amanda prior to our arrival in Seattle but decided against it. I’m falling for this woman hard and fast—I want her to like my kids, to get along with them, and telling her that my son doesn’t like her isn’t going to win me, or him, any points.

  She’s waiting for us outside of arrivals when our plane lands at the Seattle airport, and while my heart lifts to see her standing beside her bright-red Kia Forte, my immediate problem is that her trunk barely holds our four bags. After I squish them all inside, I give her a quick kiss on the lips while Meghan hugs her around the waist.

  “We’
re here, Amanda!” she announces. “We’re in Seattle!”

  Amanda leans down to chat with my youngest. “You sure are! And I am so happy about that!”

  “Me too!” says Meghan, and Lord, but I’m grateful for her excitement, because the older two are standing on the curb staring at her car like it’s normally used to transport manure.

  Straightening up, Amanda smiles at them. “Hey, Gilly. Chad. Welcome to Seattle.”

  “Thanks,” says Gillian, offering Amanda a small smile before darting a glance at the gray sky. “Too bad it’s raining.”

  “It’s supposed to stop later,” says Amanda. “Fingers crossed! Carnival’s are much better without rain.”

  Chad sighs loudly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your car’s really small.”

  “Yep. It is. I’m trying to minimize my carbon footprint,” she says.

  “Trying to what your what?”

  “Use as little gas as possible so that my emissions are small.”

  “You said ‘gas,’” says Chad, and Gilly giggles.

  “That’s enough, guys,” I tell them, giving Chad a warning look. “Let’s get in the car, huh?”

  My kids scramble into the backseat of the car, fitting just fine, and I look at Amanda over the roof.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  “Hey, handsome.”

  “Thanks for inviting us.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  I cock my head to the side. “My son’s being a brat.”

  “Your son’s being a teenager,” she says with a grin. “I can handle him.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Mm-hm,” she says, winking at me before opening her door and sitting down in the car.

  I sit down in the passenger seat beside her, and a moment later she’s driving us out of the airport, toward downtown Seattle.

  “Did you guys know that Seattle’s nickname is the ‘Emerald City’?” asks Amanda.

  “Like in The Wizard of Oz?” asks Gilly.

  “Yep. But there are no munchkins or witches,” she says. “Just tons and tons of green trees everywhere.”

  I glance at the rearview mirror, and Chad’s glued to his phone while the girls are listening to Amanda. A feeling of disappointment sweeps over me, but I tell myself to be patient with him. As Amanda pointed out a few weeks ago, he had Wendy the longest. He’s acting out of loyalty to her, and I don’t want to be too hard on him.