The Fate Series Box Set (Robin and Tyler Book 4)

by Young, Cheyanne

  “You’re rambling.” She crosses her arms. “Rambling means you like him.” Her stern face looks so much like her mother’s it makes me cringe. I know she’s just screwing with me but I feel my cheeks blush anyway.

  I prop my chin on my hands and lean over to her. “Fine, okay. I like him. Are you happy?”

  She beams. “Yes I’m happy. Now we can stay here.”

  “We are not staying here.”

  “But I think we should.”

  I swivel around to where my knees are touching hers. It’s hard to glare at her with that big blue-black nose of hers, but I do it to the best of my ability. “Oh yeah? Give me one good reason.”

  She rolls her eyes in the perfect portrayal of the teenager she is. “You like him.”

  “That’s not a good reason.”

  “Fine. I’ll give you one good—real—reason. And we’re staying.”

  I jab my fork into a stack of French toast and let it sit vertical. “You don’t make the rules.”

  “Pinky promise.” She holds out her pinky and tries to scoop up my unexpecting pinky but I yank it away just in time. “I’m not pinky promising anything. We hate this place, we’re not staying.”

  “I don’t hate it. I want to stay.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Have fun living alone. Tyler isn’t a good enough reason for me to stay. I’m done with dating.”

  “It’s not about Tyler.” Her eyebrows wriggle and it’s obvious she wants me to ask her for more details. Whatever she wants to say is just bursting out of her seams.

  “What is it about?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and holds up her pinky finger.

  “Fine, I’ll pinky promise.” I hook my pinky around hers. “But—you have to give me one, absolutely amazing, totally perfect reason and I promise to consider staying here…temporarily.”

  She frowns. “That’s the most half-assed promise ever, but I’ll take it.”

  “One reason,” I say.

  “I’ve got two,” she says, pointing to her index finger.

  “One…I just got a job.” She touches her second finger.

  “You did what?” My anger turns into laughter. There’s no way she just said what I think she said.

  “I just talked to Elizabeth and Big Large. I start tomorrow, as hostess but then I’ll get to move up to a waitress.”

  “Why would you do this?” My throat is dry with the way I’m yelling at her in a whisper. The last thing I need is for everyone to stare at us again. “Who the hell is Big Large?”

  “Big Large is the owner. He’s that big guy over there.” She hooks her thumb in the opposite direction and I glance up at a morbidly overweight man with a Santa Clause beard. “And I did it because I’m going to be a mother soon. I need money, as much of it as I can get.”

  “But. We. Don’t. Live. Here,” I hiss.

  She shakes her head slightly with her lips pursed as if to say oh, Robin you’ve got it all wrong. “You haven’t let me tell you the second reason.”

  “I don’t care what your second reason is, we aren’t staying here.”

  “I think you will care.”

  “No, Miranda. I won’t.”

  I fish some cash out of my wallet and leave it on the bar. Then I hop off my stool and prepare to leave her here. Forever, for all I care. She’s completely juvenile and ruining my trip. This trip is about me, not her. It’s where I find out who I’m supposed to be in life, where I’m supposed to be, and maybe—just maybe—who I’m supposed to be my new self with. I shouldn’t have let her come with me anyway. As I’m walking away, Miranda yells my name.

  I stop, turn on my heel and glare at her. “What?”

  She holds up two fingers again, this time pointing at the second finger. “Number two. There’s a photo of Great Grandpa in the countertop.”

  Chapter 11

  “It’s fate.” Miranda’s cheek presses to the bar at the diner as she gazes at the black and white photo sealed beneath half an inch of resin. There’s no denying that the man in the photograph is Grandpa. He’s in his twenties, wearing overalls with one strap hanging loosely off his shoulder, his brown hair slicked back. The eagle tattoo on his arm is bold and fresh, not wrinkly and faded like I remember it.

  Next to him is a woman I can only assume is Grandma. I never met her because she died during childbirth with my mom. Her hair is light and wavy, with little bits of it stuck to her face in the wind, just like mine. She’s wearing overalls too, and her left leg is propped up on a paint bucket. That pant leg is rolled up to her knee, but the other one isn’t. They’re both smiling and standing in front of an old Chevrolet truck. Although I guess the truck wasn’t old when the photo was taken.

  “This is so weird,” I say, running my finger over Grandpa’s arm.

  “Like I said, it’s fate.” Miranda’s voice fogs on the counter and temporarily covers over the photo. “Great Grandpa did this. He knew we would find him.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “How so?”

  “Think about it. You have your mental breakdown and decide to leave without telling anyone. And I have my mental breakdown and decide to seek refuge with you. I don’t even know why I did it, I mean, I have friends I could have stayed with but something was just pulling me to your house.”

  I lift the other eyebrow at her. She continues. “I mean, it’s like Great Grandpa was telling me to go see you. You’re right; we don’t know each other at all. I had just seen you at the funeral, so I guess you were on my mind and I just knew that I needed to find you that night. I knew it would be okay if I found you.”

  “That was weird…” I twirl a strand of my hair around my finger as I recall the way she looked when she showed up at my door. “You knocked on my door just minutes before I was going to leave.”

  Miranda nods. “And we ended up here.” She spreads her arms out. “Out of all the other, more interesting, more notable places in the world, we ended up in Salt Gap freaking Texas. I’m telling you, it’s a sign. That’s why I asked for a job.”

  “Is this job another one of your gut feelings?” I make air quotes around the last word.

  “No, it was my way of making you stay here. I know you won’t leave me.”

  “We can’t stay in the inn forever,” I say. Then it dawns on me what her smart ass just said. “And I will leave you. Don’t ever think I won’t.”

  She shrugs. “We’ll find a place. You can afford it.” I laugh. Normally that would be insulting, but she’s right. I could probably buy the whole town with what Grandpa left me.

  A busboy takes our empty plates and refills my orange juice. We sit at the bar on either side of Grandpa’s photo for a long time, each watching the frozen smiles of our ancestors, lost in our own thoughts. Part of my subconscious is freaking out, I’m not going to lie, and that part of me is putting together all this new information, processing and contemplating and just plain freaking the hell out. But, and this is a huge but, there’s another small part of my mind that feels content. That part of me thinks it’ll be just fine to settle down here and live, oh I don’t know, forever.

  And that part, though small, has the other part of my subconscious locked in a death grip, and it’s winning. “Okay,” I say, grabbing Miranda’s hand. “Let’s do it. Let’s stay in Salt Gap.”

  ###

  Cheyanne Young

  Chapter 1

  Sherry hits the roof when we tell her the news that we’re staying in Salt Gap. Her long braid bounces back and forth as she runs around the front desk at the inn and throws her arms around Miranda and me. Sherry must lift weights in her free time because she squeezes me so hard I have to struggle to breathe.

  “You girls are welcome here as long as you’d like,” she says, finally pulling away like a boa constrictor deciding it doesn’t want to eat us.

  “I was thinking we should find a more permanent place to live,” I say, realizing that I haven’t been thinking about it at all. And now that I am thinking, where are we going to live?


  “Are there any houses for sale?” Miranda asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen any real estate signs, have you?” she asks me. I shake my head. That’s odd. It’s been three days and I haven’t seen a single real estate sign. I would have never believed that a few days ago when my life revolved around real estate. There’s even a stack of Carter Properties signs propped on the wall in my office. Well, my old office.

  Sherry thinks on it and shakes her head. “I don’t think Tyler’s houses are finished yet. Darlings, I could drive you around town if you’d like. We can ask around and see if any other homes are available. I have a few hours free on Sunday.”

  I gnaw on my bottom lip. “Tyler’s houses?” She can’t possibly mean my Tyler. I mean, that Tyler.

  “Tyler Hudson. He bought the duplexes off Shouse Street and he’s been fixin’ them up to rent them out. He’s about your age.” She grabs the inn’s telephone and dials a number from memory. “I don’t think they’re ready yet, but we can—Hello Tyler, this is Sherry.”

  Miranda and I exchange glances. The slight cocky expression on her face says I told you this was fate. Sherry’s talking about the goats now and something about how the fainting one keeps getting picked on by an older goat named Maurice.

  I clear my throat. She glances at me and then remembers the reason she called him. “Listen, Tyler, I have a question. Are any of your duplexes ready to be rented out?”

  Miranda and I listen with so much anticipation we could hear a pin drop. Sherry nods and says a few uh-huhs. “It’s these two darlings from Houston. They keep their room real clean here so I know they would make great tenants. Mmhmm. Yes, her name is Robin and the girl’s name is Miranda. Oh?” She glances at us and I feel my face turn thoroughly red. “You’ve already met them! That’s lovely. Okay, well I’ll tell her. Okay dear, buh-bye.”

  The phone clicks back onto the receiver and I’m pretty sure my heart stops. “He says one of the duplexes is almost ready to rent if you’d like to swing by and see it.”

  “When?” I ask, my voice light like I hadn’t remembered to breathe in the last few minutes.

  “Now. Or whenever. He’s there all day.” Sherry takes a piece of stationery out of a drawer and starts drawing a map. When she hands it to me, it looks like a capital letter H. “Here we are here, at the square,” she says pointing to the obvious inn-shaped square with the initials SGI written on it. “Now the quickest way is to go down here, take a left, and take another left. Sure, you could go this way but it’s twenty miles an hour speed limits and too many stop signs.”

  “Thanks, this is great,” I say. Then my heart sinks. “Wait, I don’t have a car yet.”

  “I’ll call Marcus,” Miranda says. “He’ll take us.” She reaches her arm around me and grabs my phone out of my back pocket. I make a mental note as her hand grabs my ass, to get her a new charger for her phone. Whatever it costs, it’ll be worth it. Then she proceeds to do the one arm in the air salute to the signal gods as she walks around the room, hoping for that one precious bar.

  Ten minutes later, Marcus wears black Salt Gap High School sweatpants, no shirt and is sitting in his truck ready to give us a ride. Miranda lets out a breath of air when she pulls open the passenger door and I’m thinking the same thing. Only I’m ten years older than he is, so that’s totally inappropriate. But the boy’s got abs and, I mean, they should be appreciated. From a safe, legal distance of course.

  “Are you in track or something?” Miranda asks, commenting on his pants.

  “Yes ma’am,” he says with a wink. “Six minute mile.” He throws his arm over her shoulder to look back as he reverses out of the inn’s small driveway. “Where am I taking y’all?”

  I’m not sure I like the whole arm-around-my-pregnant-niece thing, but I let it slide. Unfolding my hand drawn map, I hold it up for him to see. “Um, we’re going to this intersection, then taking a left and another left. It’s called Shouse Street.

  He laughs, not looking at my directions. “Okay, can do. Tyler’s place?”

  “Er, yeah.” I roll my eyes at Miranda’s not-so-subtle attempt to give me the look again. The look about fate and destiny and all that. “We’re headed to the duplexes actually. He’s going to rent one to us.”

  “No shit?” Marcus says as a big Texas-sized grin spreads across his face. “You guys staying for a while or something?”

  “Yep,” Miranda beams.

  “Or something is more like it,” I add.

  Miranda tells him not to worry about me. Right, because I forgot that she’s running the show now. Hell. I don’t know. Maybe she is.

  Shouse Street is a dead end road with two duplex homes on each side. The two on the left are in terrible condition, missing windows, plywood doors, and old chipped paint. But the two on the right are beautiful, remodeled cottage-style homes. A newer model black Ford truck is parked in the yard of the first one and that’s where Marcus parks too, only he stays in the driveway. So Tyler drives a shiny new truck? I don’t know why I find that so ridiculously sexy, but I do. Not that it matters.

  Not that any guy matters.

  My knees go wobbly as I pull open the door and climb out onto the gravel. Tyler is here and I’ll see him soon. And he’ll make yet another impression of me as he shows us this house that I already know I’m going to love. Maybe this is fate.

  “Yo!” Marcus calls out with his hands cupped over his mouth. “I got some pretty ladies lookin’ for a place to stay!”

  Miranda giggles. Of course she would. We walk up to the front porch, which smells like new lumber and has a porch swing and a brand new Welcome mat at the door. The price tag still hangs off the side of the mat. Marcus swings open the front door and steps inside without knocking. Miranda is right at his heels and I lag along behind, realizing that the moment I step through this door is the moment my life will change forever.

  Okay, so it doesn’t actually change. I step from the white porch into the dark cherry wood floors and nothing at all happens. I don’t hear angels singing and I don’t get a warm rush of fate sweeping over me or anything. It’s just like stepping into any other empty house that’s on the market, ready for me to make it sell.

  It has that recently remodeled smell that I love so much. “This is great,” I say, leaving my mouth open in awe as I take in the granite kitchen countertops and reclaimed wooden cabinets. I find Miranda and Marcus sitting together on the bay window in a bedroom. The master bedroom, by the looks of it.

  “This is my room,” I say, slapping my hand on the shiny white door frame to claim it.

  Miranda rolls her eyes and immediately jumps up like the room is gross now that it’s mine. “I hope we get this place,” she says, wandering into the room down the hall, which to my chagrin is actually bigger and has a better view of the bluebonnets in the back yard. “I wish we knew where your boyfriend was.”

  Marcus’s eyes crouch together. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “I was talking about Tyler,” Miranda says with a coy smile in my direction. My chest burns with the pain of an embarrassed thumping heart. I could kill her.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I say, keeping my voice bold and confident even though I’m riddled with mortification thanks to her. “I don’t even know this Tyler guy.”

  “He owns these houses,” Marcus says. “I don’t know where he is though. Are you sure you were supposed to come over now?”

  “That’s not his truck in the driveway?” I ask.

  Marcus shakes his head. “Nah, that’s Bryce’s truck. He’s a contractor. I don’t know where he is either, I guess they left together.”

  “Guess we’ll have to come back tomorrow,” Miranda says. “Or you could hang out with us for a while and bring us back?”

  “Yeah sure, I don’t have any plans,” Marcus says. He offers to show her the bluebonnets and they venture off into the backyard. I watch Miranda through the back windows. Her hair flows lightly in the breeze and she smiles at ev
erything Marcus tells her. She’s happy here. Maybe that’s only because she’s here and not home. I want her to be happy. But I don’t know how long this happiness will last.

  I take another tour of the house alone, my fingers clenched nervously at my sides. My heart sinks and I feel like a total idiot for it. Tyler is just some guy who I barely even know, but here I am obsessing over the fact that I don’t get to see him when I was all psyched up for the opportunity. I don’t know what I was thinking would happen. It’s not like he’d take one look at me, declare his undying love and sweep me off to live happily ever after with him. And I don’t even want that. So why the hell do I keep thinking about it?

  But… this is a fate journey after all. So, I guess anything is possible. To avoid daydreaming about Tyler like my life is a romance novel, my mind goes into automatic realtor mode without my realizing it. One kitchen wall doesn’t have a strip of floor molding and there’s a hanging wire by the back door. Also, a nail sticks out a little too far in the door frame.

  And someone didn’t align the over-the-stove cabinets correctly because this one on the left is slightly lower than the right. I have to use a lot of force to pull it open because it’s not attached perfectly straight. Plus it’s reclaimed wood, which is beautiful in its own right but a total bitch to get right when crafting into cabinets. People pay a lot of money for this kind of detail in Houston. But I bet it’s common out here in the country.

  I have to stand on my tip toes to shove the little cabinet door closed. It needs to be lifted on the end and shoved at exactly the right moment and—there! Got it.

  “Something wrong with the cabinet?” The voice makes me jump in an embarrassing flinching move that has me pulling the cabinet door back open after it was finally shut.

  “Crap!” I squeak, my voice high-pitched as I spin around and see Tyler standing in the kitchen, looking so ridiculously hot that he probably just came back from a photo shoot for the cover of a romance novel called something like The Construction Worker Next Door.