by Peggy Bird
Unwilling to believe her beloved Lexus would abandon her as most of her colleagues in Portland had, she ignored what she heard and turned toward the I-5 entrance ramp. But as she accelerated to get onto the freeway there was another weird noise, the car refused to shift into a higher gear, and the check engine light went on. She pulled over to the side of the on ramp and stopped. All she could think to do was what she did with a balky computer—she turned the ignition off, waited a few seconds, and turned it back on. The engine revved but the car didn’t move. No matter what she tried, it refused to budge from its new home on the side of the road.
Fuck. One more desertion.
The tow truck arrived half an hour later, but the man from the garage couldn’t get the car going either. The best he could do was offer her a ride into town after he loaded her car onto his truck. She was stuck for what he warned might be several days until they could figure out what was wrong.
She wanted to scream. So close to escaping, yet so far from succeeding. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised. Being stranded in Ashland with a broken-down car went along with everything else that had gone wrong lately. There was no point in being disappointed. She just had to suck it up and live with it.
Yeah. Right. If she could convince herself to be calm about this, she’d be eligible for sainthood.
• • •
The room the woman at the visitor’s center found for her was in a remodeled fifties motel that had been turned into a comfortable and beautifully appointed place to stay. The owners lived on site and had been alerted to her situation before she arrived.
“You poor thing,” the woman at the front desk said as Greer filled out the registration information. “Car trouble is such a pain.” She looked down at the paperwork in front of her. “Oops. Sorry. With your last name, I guess we don’t make pain jokes.”
Greer smiled for the first time in quite a few hours. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.”
“Well, the bright side of this is you’ll have a chance to see Ashland. Ever been here before?”
“Yeah. Came up from California to the Shakespeare Festival every summer for years.”
The woman looked at the registration form again. “You gave an Oregon address.”
“I’ve been living in Portland for a few years, but I’m moving back to California. The visits were when I was a kid. Came here with my mother and sisters.”
“If you haven’t been here in a while, you might find a few things have changed. Why don’t you take a walk around while we get your room ready? You can leave your luggage here. It’ll be safe.”
With nothing better to do until she could hole up in her motel room for the night, Greer wandered back toward town. The woman at the motel was right—some things had changed. Her mother’s favorite French restaurant was gone, replaced by a newer, trendier eating establishment. The store where her older sister had always found clothes she liked was now a convenience store. And there was a new indoor theater added to the outdoor Elizabethan theater and the Bowmer indoor space.
But the bones of the town were the same. Ashland still had the comfortable feel of a small town that just happened to have at its core a world-class theater company.
It was also very much Oregon, as Greer found out when she ordered a late lunch at a restaurant near Lithia Park. In a manner usually reserved for explaining the provenance of a valuable painting or a special bottle of wine, her server assured her that the chicken salad on field greens she ordered was local and free-range.
After lunch she cruised through a few clothing stores where there were end-of-season sales going on. She hadn’t planned on spending money on clothes, as she faced the probability of a large car repair bill and had no job waiting for her in California. But when one shop owner lowered the price of a green dress that matched the color of Greer’s eyes and that the woman said was meant for her, Greer had given in. How could she resist when the owner had been so accommodating
A couple more pleasant encounters with the shop owners and residents of Ashland later, Greer realized, as she walked back to her motel, that for the first time in months she was beginning to feel relaxed—in spite of the car breakdown, the unknown cost of repairs, and the forced change of plans. Her good mood might be a reaction to the beautiful autumn day—she was walking ankle-deep in colorful fallen leaves past shop windows that were beginning to be dressed for Halloween. The air was crisp and clean, the sun warm on her face.
Or maybe it wasn’t the warmth of the sun that had relaxed her, but the warmth of the people she’d met. For a town overrun with tourists for most of the year, Ashland was remarkably friendly. Maybe, she thought, it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck here for a few days. I can hang out, relax, get my car repaired, and be back on the road in a day or two feeling a little less stressed and ready to face whatever’s next.
That thought held until the next morning when she called the garage. The conversation started with the mechanic saying, “We’ve discovered what’s wrong with your car, Ms. Payne.”
“Great. How much will it cost, and how long will it take to fix it?”
“Minimum cost is a couple thousand dollars. And it’ll take four or five days, maybe longer, to get it repaired.”
“Ouch. What costs that much and takes so long?”
“Your transmission’s shot. And, unless we can find one in a shop nearby, we have to order a new one. It’ll take a few days to get here. I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you.”
“How’s it shipped, slow boat from Tokyo?”
The mechanic snorted. “If we need to order it, it’ll be FedEx from Canada, actually. We’ll start tracking a tranny down as soon as you come in and sign a work order.”
With no other choice, Greer signed the papers, extended her stay at the motel, and began what felt like a hospital vigil waiting for her sick car to come through surgery.
By day five, with no end to her stay in sight, Greer was about out of patience. She was also out of things to divert her from worrying about the cost of this forced “vacation.” The charm of having the Starbucks barista know what she would order as soon as she walked in every morning had worn off. As had the welcome she got from the employees at Bloomsbury Books, all of whom greeted her by name each time she picked up the morning paper.
Then just when she thought nothing good could possibly happen to her ever again, her luck turned.
She was settled at a table with her paper in Brothers’, her favorite breakfast place, when she overhead a conversation between two men she’d often seen in Starbucks and around town. She’d figured out they were attorneys from the conversations she’d heard before and had often eavesdropped just to hear the professional chitchat they engaged in—the kind of banter between legal colleagues she missed. Today, however, it was more than just chitchat.
“Did you see in the paper that Wilson Montgomery’s moving to Arizona?” the younger man asked.
“No, that’s a surprise. I thought he’d be in the legislature until he was wheeled out of the House chamber on a gurney.” His companion laughed.
“Apparently not. He’s closing his law practice, selling his house, and leaving town. Wants to be in a warmer climate, I guess.”
“Sorry to lose him. I don’t always agree with his politics, but he knows more about consumer fraud than any other lawyer for three counties. No one else has his expertise. We’ll miss that.”
Consumer fraud? They were talking about her area of expertise. She’d prosecuted more cases like that than all the rest of the deputies in Jeff’s office combined. She leaned over and interrupted them. “Excuse me for eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help hearing your conversation. Are you saying there might be a need in town for a lawyer with consumer fraud experience?”
“Yeah, you know one?” the younger man asked.
“I may,” she replied.
“If you do, there’s a law practice just begging to be taken over.”
“Who would I contact? I mean, if I knew
someone, a friend maybe, who was interested.”
The older man cocked his head and smirked. “If you’re seriously interested—or your friend is—call Wilson Montgomery.” He pulled a business card out of his jacket pocket and wrote something on the back of it. “Here’s the phone number.” He started to hand it to her then pulled it back. “You a lawyer?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Member of the Oregon bar?”
“Yup.”
“Interesting. Never recruited an attorney in a restaurant before.”
“You may still not have.”
He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.” Handing her the business card he said, “I’m Jim Foster. This is George Ross. And you’re …?”
“Julie Payne.”
She’d replied without thinking and was so stunned at her response that she was sure she looked relieved when the man merely said, “Nice to meet you, Julie Payne. Hope we see you again.” She said nothing more as the two of them rose from their table and left after a brief conversation with the restaurant owner.
Julie Payne? Where the hell had that come from? Well, okay. She knew where it had come from. But she sure didn’t know why it had come out in the course of that particular conversation. On the drive from Portland, she’d toyed with the idea of killing off Greer Payne and resurrecting her childhood name, but she hadn’t thought more about it since she’d been in town.
Her whole, legal birth name was Juliet Greerson Payne. Her family called her Juliet, a name she’d dumped in high school when she’d gotten tired of Romeo and Juliet jokes. She’d chosen Greer, a version of her middle name, which was the family name of her beloved grandparents. No one in her family ever called her Greer, but everyone else had, from high school on.
This morning, she’d changed all that by introducing herself as Julie. She could be Julie if she stayed in Ashland. If she had the nerve to follow up on that conversation and call the guy who was leaving town.
It had some appeal. God knows she liked the feel of the town. She’d been made to feel at home by everyone she’d met, from the tow truck driver up to and including the two lawyers she’d just talked to, since the first moment she’d arrived in town. It wasn’t as if she knew what her plans were when she got to California. She’d done some online job searching while she’d been hanging around waiting for her car, but she hadn’t found anything that had caught her fancy. Not the way the conversation she’d just overheard had.
Even if she found something right away in California, she’d have limited usefulness as a practicing attorney until the following year when she could take the bar exam. She’d be able to get right to work in Oregon, where she was already a member of the bar.
With the obscene amount of money she’d gotten from the sale of her overpriced waterfront condo in Portland and what she knew she could get out of her Public Employees Retirement System account, she could probably buy into an existing law practice as well as purchase a house in Ashland. Who knew what she could buy in the expensive California market?
Even changing her name wouldn’t be a problem—her college and law school diplomas as well as her bar membership, hell, even the credit card she’d used to check into her motel, were all in her full, legal name.
A new job. A new life. Wasn’t that what she’d been running to? She might be able to have it all by staying right where she was. All she had to do was make a phone call and see what was out there. She looked at the business card in her hand and made a decision. She’d do it. Julie Payne would make that call. The hell with Greer and the problems she’d left behind in Portland.
To purchase this ebook and learn more about the author, click here.
For more great novels from Peggy Bird, check out these titles:
A Holiday for Love series:
Sparked by Love
Praise for Sparked by Love:
“With lies and hidden agendas, you have to wait and see till the very end for all the pieces to fall together!”—Chicks That Read
“A warm, fuzzy romance read. Leo and Shannon are just so sweet together. There is plenty of steam as well. Very enjoyable read for romance lovers.”—Wilovebooks, 4 stars
“This book had the Triple ‘S’ factor for me: short, sweet and sexy . . . a wonderful book.”—Red's Hot Reads, 4 stars
“This was my first time reading Peggy Bird. I was pleasantly surprised by not only her writing style, which was very engaging and flowed, but also her characters.”—Book Nerd, 4 stars
Second Chances series:
Beginning Again
Praise for Beginning Again:
“Both Liz and Collins are great characters. Liz is not a bitter middle aged woman, but instead a very strong and brave lady. I really enjoyed Beginning Again because it was an easy read that made my gray autumn day a little bit less gray.”—Long & Short Reviews
Loving Again
Together Again
Praise for Together Again:
“…a very enjoyable romance. I loved the main characters and the great writing. I always admire strong, independent women, so if you also enjoy those qualities in a heroine, and enjoy a well-written romance, I recommend this one.”—Night Owl Reviews
Trusting Again
Praise for Trusting Again:
"The book moves along at a nice pace and the characters are believable and realistic. It is a well-written story with a wonderful ending!”—Harlequin Junkie
Believing Again
Falling Again
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Check out Christmas Clash by Dana Volney at CrimsonRomance.com.
