Along Came Mr. Right

by Gerri Russell

  “I’m pretty sure Mrs. M. is back in the kitchen as usual,” Paige said, leading her down the hallway to the back of the house. The entire hallway was lined with frames large and small, containing the faces of all the children the Millers had fostered over the past sixteen years.

  “Paige, is that you?” Eugenia called from the kitchen.

  “Olivia is with me,” Paige replied, stepping into the bright light of the most used room in the old Victorian house. That the teenager had responded in that way told Olivia the girl had no idea her foster parents had asked to talk with Olivia today.

  Eugenia and Henry were seated at the large wooden table in the center of the room. “Grab a snack, Paige—then get on to your homework.”

  The teen rolled her eyes, but she went to the counter and picked up an apple. She tossed it in the air a few times before palming it and taking a bite. “I’ll be in my room studying.”

  “Good girl,” Eugenia said with a bright smile. “With how disciplined you’ve been about your schoolwork lately, I just know you’ll pass those tests Wednesday.”

  When Paige left, Henry asked, “Can we get you a cup of tea?”

  Olivia sat beside him, pressing a comforting hand on his arm. “No, thank you. I came to see how you all are doing, not to be entertained. What did you want to discuss with me?”

  A sympathetic look passed between the two of them before Eugenia spoke. “Henry is having a few medical issues as of late. It’s nothing serious, but we think maybe it’s best if we don’t take any more foster kids for a while.”

  Olivia folded her hands on the tabletop. “Oh. Okay. No problem. Is Henry okay?”

  Eugenia smiled at her husband. “He’s got a blockage in his arteries that we need to resolve. The surgery is routine, but he’ll need some time to recover.”

  Olivia nodded. “Are you okay with the five children you have now? Do we need to find new placements for them, or can we provide you with a respite care worker while Henry is in the hospital?”

  “We can’t send those kids to new homes,” Henry said. “Especially Paige. She’s just starting to settle in, finally. The other day she actually came to sit by me while I was reading and wanted to talk. She spontaneously volunteered information about her struggles with theorems.”

  “That was the first time she’d ever done that,” Eugenia added with a smile that brought out the velvety wrinkles in her cheek.

  “Respite help would be most appreciated,” Henry said.

  “I’ll start the process. I’m glad things are finally working out for Paige. She needs the stability the two of you bring to her life.” Olivia breathed a soft sigh of relief that the conversation hadn’t gone in a different direction.

  For now, things were good between the Millers and their children. It was the best scenario for all of them. “Is there anything else the Tomorrow Foundation can provide to help make your lives easier?”

  “That’s nice of you to offer, dear,” Eugenia said with a wink. “For now, we’re holding our own against all the teenagers in our care.”

  Henry laughed. “If only I could have back a tenth of their energy.”

  Eugenia reached over and patted his hand before she returned her attention to Olivia. “How are things with you, dear? You seem as busy as ever. Things would be easier for you if you had someone at home.”

  “There you go, trying to get me married again.” Olivia forced a laugh. Eugenia had been trying her best to fix Olivia up with her friends’ children for the past eight months since she and Damien broke up.

  A couple of times she’d agreed to go out on the arranged dates. Yet none of those men had ever sparked the kind of magic she’d hoped for. Not the kind of magic she had with Max.

  “Olivia?” Eugenia’s voice jerked her back to the present.

  She shook her thoughts away. “I’m sorry—what were we talking about?”

  Eugenia’s eyes narrowed on her. “You looked sad there for a moment.”

  Olivia released a reflective sigh. “I was thinking about what might have been.”

  Eugenia sighed and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. “Take it from Henry and me, life is over in an instant, and when you get to our age, you only regret the things you didn’t do.”

  “It might be too late,” Olivia said, thinking about Max’s upcoming wedding. Unless . . .

  “It’s never too late, dear.” A sly smile came to Eugenia’s lips. “Sometimes you have to let go of the life you’ve planned to accept the life that’s waiting for you.”

  Suddenly, Olivia could hardly wait until Wednesday afternoon when she would see Max. Maybe it was time, as Eugenia urged, to risk it all, regardless of her fears, and take that kiss she’d wanted so desperately earlier today.

  Olivia made her way to The Lucky Club to join her friends on Tuesday evening after a long day at work. Jordan and Ellie sat at their usual table near the back, chatting while looking at the screen of Jordan’s cell phone and sipping their pink champagne. When Olivia slipped into her seat, the conversation stopped.

  Jordan set her cell phone on the table. “How’s the tutoring going?”

  “Well, I think Paige is improving. She has two big tests tomorrow, so we’ll know for certain when her test results come back,” Olivia replied.

  Jordan frowned. “I’m glad for Paige, but what about you? Has it been hard seeing Max?”

  She shrugged. “At first but not lately. Something’s different . . . better between us. Today he looked at me like I was ice cream and he was the spoon.” At the memory of the hunger in his eyes, a chill went down her spine. “He wants to meet tomorrow to talk.”

  Jordan made a face. “What’s wrong with your brain, girl? The man’s a lying cheater. Really, what else is there to hope for?”

  Ellie interrupted Jordan with a speaking glance. “Did he say what about?” Ellie asked with concern in her voice.

  Olivia shook her head. “I have a feeling it’s about his relationship with Annalise.”

  Ellie and Jordan shared a look—one tinged with doubt and disapproval.

  “Have you checked social media today?” Jordan asked.

  Olivia tensed. “No. Why?”

  Jordan turned over and touched the screen of her phone. She pushed it across the table toward Olivia.

  With trembling fingers she pulled the phone closer and stared down at a picture of Max, holding Annalise in his arms. Below the photograph—in big, bold letters—were the words: AND BABY MAKES THREE. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

  A cry wedged itself in Olivia’s throat, but she held it back. Don’t panic. Not until you have all the facts. Forcing herself to remain calm, she drew a shaky breath. “It might be a lie.”

  Jordan frowned. “Or it could be the truth.”

  Ellie muttered, “That rat.”

  Olivia shook her head. “No, I can’t believe Max would look at me the way he did when he . . . had just fathered a baby with another woman. I am a terrible judge of men, but no one could be that cruel. Could they?”

  With a groan of anguish, she planted her elbows on the table, then dropped her forehead into her palms. “What is wrong with me, you guys? Why do I keep getting into this with men?”

  “You’re not to blame here.” Ellie reached out and stroked her forearm. “Look at me, Olivia.”

  Olivia dropped her palms to the table, blew her hair out of her face, and looked at her friend. All while fighting the tears that brimmed in her eyes.

  “We just don’t want you to be hurt again,” Ellie said.

  “Too late.”

  “Here.” Jordan pushed Olivia’s glass of champagne closer. “This might help.”

  Olivia threw down a long gulp. “I have a feeling it will take something a lot stronger than this to make the pain go away.”

  “You really like this guy?” Ellie asked.

  Heat flooded Olivia’s cheeks. “I don’t want to like him. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  Jordan’s eyes narr
owed. “You like him. He likes you, yet he’s supposedly marrying someone else.”

  “When you say it like that, it sounds terrible,” Ellie admitted with a heavy sigh. “Are you still going to meet with him tomorrow?”

  “I have to. If I don’t, I won’t ever know for certain what he wanted to say.”

  “Do you want us to come with you?” Ellie asked.

  “No. I need to do this alone.” Olivia took another sip of her champagne, wondering as she did why they always drank champagne. Champagne was a celebratory drink, not a leave-your-troubles-behind beverage. Tonight they had nothing to celebrate, except being together. Olivia sighed. Maybe that was enough for now.

  Jordan’s chin came up. “You know, I have access to some very strong anesthetics.”

  “Which you would never abuse,” Olivia added in case anyone was listening to their conversation. Even so Jordan’s vehemence brought a partial smile to Olivia’s lips. She hadn’t always had people in her life who cared about her this much. “Thanks, Jordan. I appreciate the thought.”

  Jordan sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. Her gaze moved to the cell phone in the center of the table. The screen had gone dark, but they all knew she was remembering the image of Max and Annalise together. “Be careful.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Olivia replied.

  Jordan’s brow arched upward. “Usually I would agree, but when it comes to this one man, you have no judgment, only hormones.”

  Olivia wanted to argue, but Jordan spoke the truth. “I’ll be careful,” she said, knowing even as she did that it was getting harder and harder to stay unaffected by Max. The rational part of her brain wanted one thing. Her more primal side longed for something more.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wednesday afternoon, Paige sat on a bench at her bus stop, staring at the Walgreens drugstore across the street. An emptiness she had no idea how to fix echoed inside her.

  She might have passed her English test, but she’d failed her geometry test. She knew it even before it was graded, because her panic had happened again. The moment the test was placed on the desk before her, the numbers blurred, her heart raced, and she couldn’t remember a thing. She’d searched the entire test, looking for one equation she could see and understand. Comprehension had finally happened, but not until she’d had only fifteen minutes to finish.

  Three questions. That’s all she’d had time to answer. Three questions out of twelve. Even if she got all three questions right, it meant she’d failed. It meant she’d flunk tenth grade.

  She’d let them all down—Max, Olivia, and the Millers. They wanted her to succeed. Paige wasn’t sure she ever could. There wasn’t one thing in this world she was good at except being on the receiving end of someone else’s anger.

  All the kindness that surrounded her every day at the Millers’ house and with Max and Olivia was misplaced. Didn’t they all know their generosity wore her down? Why were they all so patient with her when her own parents couldn’t be?

  Every morning she confronted that reality, and every morning her anger flared.

  “Let go of your anger,” her foster mom had encouraged with the gentlest of smiles.

  Didn’t the woman know? Anger was the only thing holding her together. It was the only thing she had left of her past—of the father who used to torture her by slicing her skin with a razor blade every time he was frustrated with his own life, or when she’d been bad. He’d screamed at her for years that she was the reason her mother had left him, that she was too loud, too needy, too much in his way.

  She’d done her best to try to please him, and when that hadn’t changed anything, her anger had. The day she fought back and jammed a fork through his hand sent him to the emergency room and her into foster care.

  That was three years ago, when she’d been thirteen. She’d been holding an invisible fork ever since.

  Paige dropped her gaze to the rainwater at her feet. Her spiky, black hair jutted around her face, except for the one long clump of bangs she drew over her right eye. She could see the world only through her left eye, and they could see only half of her. More than once she’d been told by the Millers that her hairstyle made others uncomfortable, but she liked it that way.

  She’d been uncomfortable for years. It was time the world around her squirmed, while she figured out how to take back some of what was owed to her. Was today the day that would happen?

  Paige looked across the street. She wasn’t certain how long she’d sat there, staring at the brick exterior of the drugstore, watching happy people walk in and out of the automatic doors, making their way through life in a carefree way she longed to possess.

  Anger and sadness coiled inside her as she got to her feet. Winding her way through traffic, she crossed the street to stop at the entrance. The doors opened for her, as they did for everyone else, inviting her inside.

  Maybe it was time for her to succeed at something, even if it meant breaking the law. If she was forced out of school and out of the Millers’ home . . . how would she survive? No one would hire a dropout.

  Wanting to feel something other than anger and pain was what pushed her forward into the store. Paige casually made her way up and down the aisles, assessing where people were, and maybe a camera or two. She touched a few things here and there as she walked through the candy aisle and picked up a pack of Trident mint gum. It was better to look as if she was buying something while she made up her mind about the rest.

  With the gum clearly in her hand, she headed to the makeup aisle. She walked up and down the aisle, casually picking up first one brand of mascara, then another until she came to one that caught her eye. Covergirl LashBlast. When you showed only one eye to the world, you had to make the most of it.

  Paige picked the mascara up and held it in her hand. A ripple of excitement pulsed in her throat. She could easily hide the container in her hand, then slide it into her pocket. And no one would be the wiser if she did it right.

  Stealing is wrong.

  She heard Mrs. Miller’s voice in her head, and for a moment Paige faltered. Her heart sped up, and her palms grew damp. She should put the makeup back. A prick of fear crept past her resolve. Her hand moved back toward the shelf just as the fear was replaced by a rare surge of confidence. She pretended to put the mascara back as she slipped it along her palm and walked away from the aisle.

  She walked through the remainder of the store for a while, feeling as though the mascara tube were a ten-pound weight in her hand. Casually she looked around her. When no one was in sight, she turned the corner at the end of an aisle and slipped her hand in her pocket. Just as quickly she pulled her empty hand out.

  Numbness overcame her. She was a thief. She wasn’t sure if she was thrilled by the fact or horrified. Mrs. Miller would be incredibly disappointed in her if she ever found out.

  Paige straightened her shoulders. The older woman would never know if she didn’t get caught. Without further hesitation, Paige moved to the checkout counter and the young salesclerk waiting there.

  “Did you find everything you needed?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yes,” Paige replied past the thunderous beat of her heart. She paid for her gum, then very calmly headed through the door and back out into the gray drizzle of Capitol Hill.

  The numbness melted away as a smile pulled up the corner of her mouth. She’d done it. Her first crime. She’d taken two steps when a male voice behind her said, “Stop. Miss, you need to return to the store with me.”

  Her first instinct was to run, but the image of Mrs. Miller’s disappointed face flashed across Paige’s mind as she hung her head and did as she was instructed. She’d failed school and being a thief all in the same day.

  Forcing her thoughts away from the image of Max and a pregnant Annalise that seemed forever burned in her mind, Olivia walked up the stairs to Max’s classroom to meet with him as they’d arranged. She stepped inside to find him waiting at the window, staring across th
e parking lot at who knew what. Her heart hammered at the sight of him dressed in jeans and a crisp, light-blue shirt. She wondered, as she approached, how many of his young students were in love with him. Max was nothing like the teachers she’d had in high school.

  He must have heard her because he turned to her suddenly and gave her his usual devastating smile. His gray eyes fixed on her. The raw hunger in them made her hot and shivery all over. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Anytime.” When he looked at her that way, she couldn’t think. A thousand emotions tore through Olivia. Anxiety, fear, but mostly happiness at seeing him again.

  “This might be easier if we sit down,” Max said. But instead of taking a seat in the student desks, he motioned toward the two chairs he’d arranged in the corner near the window.

  Olivia sat and clenched her hands in her lap. It was the only thing she could do to keep herself from reaching out and touching him. Before she could allow herself that kind of intimacy with him again, she needed Max to say something that would prove to her that the picture and headline she’d seen last night were a lie.

  “Olivia,” Max said, watching her closely. “Meeting you at your auction was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Olivia’s face flamed at the memory of their first meeting.

  He scooted forward until their knees touched.

  At the contact, her breath caught.

  “I woke up that day from a lifetime of wrong moments to find the right one.”

  “Max, what are you saying?”

  “I’ve made mistakes, especially with Annalise. She and I are—”

  Olivia’s cell phone chimed. She groaned inwardly at the terrible timing. “I’m so sorry,” she said as her hand automatically pulled her phone from the front pocket of her purse. She glanced at the screen, at the unknown number displayed there. “I have to take this. I never know when a foster child or parent might be calling.” She scooted back slightly in her chair, breaking the contact with Max and pressing the “Answer” button. “Hello?”

  At the sound of Paige’s distressed voice, Olivia’s gaze shot to Max. “Paige, what’s wrong?”