Nobody Said It’d be Easy

by Patty Blount

  That business had been another dream of hers. Oh, sure, it had never held a place of prominence like her dream of a loving family. But it was important. It gave her a sense of pride.

  It was hers.

  Jared encouraged her and spent countless hours talking over ideas and strategies with her…well, she talked and he just mm-hmm’d in the right places. She knew he never really believed she’d succeed so she’d been determined to prove she could. Lia provided remote administrative help to a variety of clients—things like specialized subject matter research for authors of novels and textbooks, social network monitoring for other small business owners, invoicing and bookkeeping, newsletter management, blogging, and essential marketing activities. She had no staff. It was just her, which was okay because she was damn good at this work. She loved that her days were never routine. BVS—Blake Virtual Services—took off.

  When Lia felt ready to expand operations, hire on staff, find office space, that’s when Jared said he wanted to start a family. She put those plans on hold and…and on hold again. When it was clear there was a problem, she began treatment. Fourteen months of it.

  For…nothing. No baby. No husband. No family.

  But she still had BVS. And she had Roseann Paneduro.

  It had been Roseann who’d sent her mother away, Roseann who’d sat with her while she sobbed for all that she’d lost, and Roseann who’d taken her home with her to recover from surgery. After talking things through with her best friend, Lia decided not to fight Jared on the divorce. What would have been the point? But Lia argued about staying in the apartment she and Jared found and decorated together because yeah, there was some perverse part of her that needed to force him to deal with her.

  “Lia, even if he does feel sorry for you—and I truly doubt he’s capable of that—he’s still going home with Candi. Is that what you want to see every day?”

  Yes. Yes, damn it, it was. She wanted, needed Jared to face her, to see the hollows he’d put under her eyes, see the pain he’d etched on her face.

  She watched him now, walking down the street to catch the subway he’d already missed, surprised to find no spark of feeling, no pang of pain. Maybe it was because he wasn’t the only reason she was lurking behind the curtains they’d hung together.

  Candi was.

  Lia glanced at her watch again. 7:07 now. At 7:10 every morning, Candi rode the elevator up from the lobby, carrying the to-go cup of coffee she bought after walking Jared to the train station.

  It was impossible to hide it now.

  Candi had stolen her husband and would soon give birth to his child…the child that should have been hers.

  Absently, Lia rubbed at one of the scars on her belly. Though they were long since healed, they seemed to ache when she saw Candi’s baby bump. As soon as she’d noticed that bump, she’d called Roseann and said, “Help.”

  Roseann got her a lead on a place in Queens. Bayside, to be exact. A nice duplex in a garden apartment building.

  Her phone buzzed. Without pulling her eyes from the window, she answered. “Hello?”

  “Lia, get your face away from that window and drive away.”

  Lia managed a small smile. The jury was out on her parents but she trusted that her friends loved her. “I told them seven-thirty.”

  Roseann cursed. “Okay, look. As soon as they get there, I want you to leave. Just get in the car and go. Don’t look back. The movers know what to do.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice held no interest and Roseann instantly noticed.

  “You’re making the right decision.”

  At this, Lia huffed out a laugh. She’d thought Jared was the right decision once. Look where that got her. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Lia, this new place is perfect. It’s far enough away that you won’t keep bumping into Jared and Candi every time you turn a corner, yet still close enough for us to hang whenever we want. The train station is like four or five blocks. It’s ideal.”

  Lia shivered at the word. Ideal. God, was there ever a more stupid word than ideal? Nothing was ideal and when it was, it was almost certainly another illusion, like her marriage, like her family.

  “…three bedrooms means you can store a lot of your stuff plus set up dedicated office space. That’s a write-off, you know.” Roseann had been singing the praises of this phantom apartment for days now. And because Roseann thought it was ideal, Lia went along. She didn’t care that much one way or the other where she lived as long as it wasn’t here.

  “Okay, the truck just pulled up. I’ll call you later.”

  “Call me when you get there. I’ll head out tonight, after work, help you settle in.”

  “Sure.”

  Roseann sighed. “Lia. This is a good move. I feel it.”

  Lia bit her lip. “Yeah. Maybe.” She hadn’t even seen this apartment. She was trusting someone else to make an important decision because it was so painfully clear her own judgment was faulty.

  They ended the call. Lia scooped her planner, her maps, and her notes into a large bag, grabbed her keys and left the apartment without looking back. Down at the curb, she greeted the movers, directed them to her unit. Everything was boxed and labeled. Sorted. She had a grid of the new apartment and knew which boxes were to go in which rooms.

  Lists, maps, plans…they were all the tools of her trade. Ruthlessly organized, she shined when hard work turned easy, when things were exactly where they were supposed to be. She relied on working smart, efficiently, and now that she was free of Jared, she could expand her business as she’d always planned and do it all from her new place.

  The movers assured her they had the new address and she left them to their business.

  As she drove to the tunnel and left Manhattan, Lia decided Roseann was right. Making this move as quickly as she could arrange it meant she’d never have to think of Jared, Candi-with-an-I, or their baby again.

  *

  By the time she’d arrived in Queens, she was starving and decided breakfast should be her first order of business. She traded the Long Island Expressway for the Cross Island Parkway, enjoying the way the September sun glittered on the water to her right. There was a pedestrian path there, full of people jogging, bike riding, and walking dogs. She’d studied the maps and knew the Northern Boulevard exit would get her closest to her destination but elected to drive a few miles further north, to Bell Boulevard.

  Lia wanted to explore.

  The Bell Boulevard exit took her near a large shopping center. She ducked inside, found a place to park her Hyundai, and treated herself to a bagel and coffee. Bagels were a guilty pleasure and she’d decided finding a great bagel shop had to be her first priority. She sat facing the window and scanned the shopping center. Movie theater, groceries, dry cleaners, restaurants…well, she wouldn’t go without a thing.

  Twenty minutes later, she was back behind the wheel, traveling south on Bell. She liked the way it felt here. Busy, though not as busy as Manhattan. Tree-lined streets, plenty of shopping. Within minutes, she’d located her new neighborhood and driven by the building…a grand Tudor that took up most of the block it sat on, solid brick construction, sloping roofs, turrets and gables. It reminded her of something out of Austen. There were several restaurant options just up the street, and since she didn’t cook, not even a little, this made her happy, especially the fun pizza place on the corner about one block south of her new address. Laundromat next door, which was handy since she hadn’t inquired yet if the apartment had facilities on the premises. Her bank had a branch not even ten minutes away.

  Ideal, Roseann had said. Okay, maybe…

  Her phone buzzed. Rolling her eyes, Lia hit the steering wheel button to answer the call.

  “So? Was I right?”

  Lia laughed. Speak of the devil herself. “Liking the neighborhood so far. Haven’t seen inside yet.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  “I decided to explore. I just had the most amazing bagel. Now, I’m trying to
find a place to park so I can scope out my dinner options.”

  “Okay. Call me later. Better yet, send me pictures!”

  Lia ended the call and pulled to the curb. She needed to get out and walk for a while. See if this neighborhood could feel like home. She watched children walking to school. She gathered her bag and her notes and her phone and her coffee and hit the pavement with a little grin.

  So far so good. She’d found the library, introduced herself to a librarian, and loved the friendly welcome she received at a coffee shop that had the most delicious pastries in their case. Lia decided that would be one of her first stops after she got settled. She glanced at the time, decided she should meet the superintendent and collect the keys because the moving van should be arriving soon.

  Her car was parked on the corner just ahead. The blare of horns and a few raised voices caught her attention.

  “Get the hell out of the way, you faggot!” The driver of the van shouted at a man in the street whose SUV was apparently stalled.

  Lia’s step faltered.

  The man was utterly captivating. Lean and tall, probably a foot taller than her own five feet, four inches, what he did to the faded blue jeans and black T-shirt he wore should be illegal. He had an unruly mop of dark blond hair held by a trio of plastic rainbow barrettes. He flipped up a finger at the shouting driver and lifted the hood on his SUV. With a few angry words, he stalked to the rear of his vehicle and began directing the line of cars around it.

  He moved like a cat. Oh, no. Not like Jingles, the cat her grandmother had had when she was a little girl. No. He moved like a panther, all sleek muscle and grace.

  She stood and watched him for a minute or two because, why not? And then she sighed. It was so unfair. A man this beautiful, this outrageously sexy, and he was gay.

  Just as well, she concluded.

  Thanks to Jared, she no longer had any interest in men and hoped she never did again.

  Chapter Three

  Horns blew behind him. Gabe tried to activate the emergency flashers, but the car was dead. He’d just gotten the girls to school when his SUV stalled at a stop sign.

  “F-u-c—”

  “Dad-dee?”

  “It’s okay, E-Rex. Car’s broken. Daddy will fix it.” Just like he fixed every other damn thing. He grabbed his keys, popped the hood, and locked Emmy inside the vehicle while he stepped out to wave traffic around him. The street was narrow—one lane of traffic in either direction, separated by a double-yellow line. Parked cars edged both sides of the street. There was nowhere to push the SUV—assuming he could even move it by himself. The inspector was due by nine and damn it, he had a whole clipboard of things to do today. Damn it all the way to hell and back again.

  A woman walked toward him and he forgot all about his annoyance. She didn’t walk so much as…flow, he decided. She wore jeans and a soft, flowy T-shirt under a light jacket, but that wasn’t why he noticed her. He’d been caught by her hair. Dark auburn and long, it bounced all around her shoulders, and glowed like fire where the sun hit it. She walked toward him, lips curved in a smile that sucked him in like a vortex. Jeez, she was beautiful.

  And jeez, what the hell was wrong with him? He was married—

  The pain shot through him like a bullet.

  “Car trouble?” she asked.

  “Dead battery.”

  Her eyebrows popped up from behind the oversized sunglasses she wore and he frowned. Why did that shock her? Did she really presume he couldn’t diagnose car trouble?

  “Ah,” she said. That was it. Just ah. And continued to look him up and down, the smile on her lips.

  Annoyance flared. “What?” he demanded.

  She shook her head and held up her hands, one of which clutched a pile of papers and a book. A map, he noticed. And a notebook.

  “You’re blocking traffic,” she finally said.

  “I’m aware. As I said, dead battery.”

  Her lips twitched and Gabe wondered just what the hell she found so funny.

  Temper blazed and he bit his tongue, deciding to take the high road. “I don’t suppose you have a car nearby and could give me a jump start?”

  “Yes, actually, I do,” she responded. “Mine is the car you’re currently blocking.”

  She pointed to an aging Hyundai parked right beside his, at the corner. If Gabe hadn’t been pissed off, he might have appreciated the serendipity. “This is yours? This is perfect.”

  “Uh, sorry?”

  “I’ve got jumper cables. Give me a jump and I can move mine right into your spot. Then I won’t have to have it towed. I can walk back here and repair it myself—” When? When in the actual hell was he going to do that? “Tonight.” He waved a hand. He’d figure it out.

  She smiled. “I like your nails.”

  He glanced down at his cotton candy pink nail polish and tried not to blush. His daughters enjoyed their Friday night manicure parties. They’d been disappointed enough. He wasn’t about to tell them real men didn’t wear nail polish. “So do my kids.”

  He strode around to the rear of the truck, snatched the jumper cables and Emmy wriggled around in her car seat. “Dad-dee!”

  “It’s okay, Emmy. Daddy’s fixing the car.”

  “Dad-dee!” She started to wail and he sighed. Okay. He moved to her door, sprung her free from the car seat. With his daughter in one hand and cables in the other, he returned to the woman who owned the Hyundai.

  “Pop your hood.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, a horrified expression on her face.

  Gabe looked around. And when he realized she’d been referring to his daughter, his jaw clenched. “That is commonly known as a baby.”

  The woman’s face went red and she looked down for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I just wondered—well, how are you going to jump-start a car with a baby in your arms? She could get hurt.”

  Gabe would die before he let that happen. “Fine. You hold her.”

  The woman literally jumped back a step. “No! I can’t do that.”

  Through gritted teeth, Gabe asked, “Any particular reason why not?”

  “Because!” She waved a hand. “I’m…I’m a stranger. I’ll make her cry.”

  Emmy was already screaming so Gabe figured it couldn’t get much worse. “I’ll risk it. Here.” He leaned over, handed Emmy to her before either of them knew what was happening.

  Emmy balked and tried to cling to him like a sock on a towel fresh from the dryer but he peeled her off. “It’s okay, baby. Daddy’s gonna fix the car. You watch, okay?”

  The woman held Emmy like she was a bomb about to detonate, which—Gabe had to admit—wasn’t far from the truth. Emmy’s wails were climbing the decibel chart.

  That’s when the most extraordinary transformation happened.

  It was almost as if Emmy had cast a spell over this woman. Or maybe, the woman cast a spell over Emmy. Their eyes met. The woman shook her head, as if to clear it. She smiled and cooed at his daughter, bounced her and talked nonsense about the pizza slice on her T-shirt. Emmy soon stopped screaming. She even spoke to the woman, told her that Daddy was going to fix the car.

  She may have more confidence in his abilities than he did.

  The woman followed Emmy’s every syllable, trying to decipher what was often gibberish. Fear gave way to intrigue to…to pure, naked emotion. He figured they were good now, so he made quick work of the job, talking to the baby the whole time.

  “Look at the cables, sweetheart. What color is this?”

  She blinked tear-filled eyes at him. “Wed.”

  “Red, good girl. The red one goes here. What color is this one?”

  “Back.”

  “Black, yes! High five.” He held up a palm and Emmy slapped it. “Okay, the black one goes here.” He hooked up the cables and said, “Hey, go rev your engine a bit, will you?”

  “You—um—you want me to rev my engine,” she echoed, the words sounding almost dirty the way she said
them. She had a soft, sort of smoky voice.

  Praying for patience, he slowly nodded. “Please.”

  Still holding Emmy, the woman slipped behind the wheel, the baby now on her lap.

  “Dad-dee! I dwive.” Emmy gripped the Hyundai’s steering wheel and pulled a face of such intensity, he realized, after a second, that it was probably the one he wore while trying to get the girls to school on time.

  Yeah. He’d work on that.

  When he heard her engine rev, he tried cranking his ignition. It was slow at first and then, the engine caught. He let it run for a few minutes, his eyes pinned to the dashboard, where an indicator light glowed steady. “Hell.” The rest of the curses, he spelled.

  He walked back to her. “You can stop revving it now.”

  “Oh. Good.” She took her foot off the accelerator and stuck Emmy out the door like a sack of groceries. He grabbed his daughter and Emmy curled into him like they’d been cruelly parted for centuries.

  “Okay, baby girl, okay.”

  “Car fix, Dad-dee?”

  “No, E-Rex. It’s not.”

  The woman lifted her dark glasses, revealing an arresting pair of brown eyes. “It’s not? What do you mean, it’s not?”

  “It’s the alternator, not the battery.”

  “But it’s running.”

  “Yes and it’s going to drain again because the alternator isn’t charging.”

  “Great. Are you telling me I’m trapped here?”

  “No. It’ll hold for a few minutes. As soon as you move your car, I’ll slide into your spot, get it out of traffic. Thanks for the jump. And for holding my daughter.”

  Those amazing dark eyes warmed as they slid to Emmy and the woman nodded. “You’re welcome. Are we, um, finished?”

  “Yeah. Gimme a minute. I’ll get her buckled back into her seat and disconnect the cables.”

  Gabe soothed Emerson, rocking and bouncing her as he walked back to his SUV. She put her head on his shoulder, one chubby hand wrapped around the longest part of his hair. “Okay, baby girl. We’re going to walk home in your stroller, but first, Daddy has to park the car. You sit in your seat for a few minutes. Be right back.”