by Kristy Tate
Darby opened a bag of crackers and crumbled them into her soup. “We met the day before I left London. Sad, right?”
Chad looked as if he didn’t know how to respond. After a moment, he came up with, “What were you doing in London?”
“I’m a CPA for Hopper and Rhode Accounting, and one of our clients was having issues. I thought at first it was a huge honor for them to send me, but then I realized no one else wanted to go.”
“How come?”
Darby frowned. She really wasn’t supposed to talk about her clients, especially if she didn’t have anything good to say. “Let’s just say that my client likes to smoke cigars.” She lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips. Yep, it was hot. After a moment, she added, “She had other vices, as well of course.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “She?”
“Yep.” She paused her spoon. “Are you telling me you’re one of those sexist people who think women can’t enjoy cigars?”
“Can anyone really enjoy cigars?”
After another sip of soup, she put down her spoon and smiled. “Nope. I don’t know why anyone smokes them, unless, of course, they’re just intentionally trying to be annoying. Although, in general, it’s really a bad idea to try and annoy your accountant. After all, a good accountant is trying to save you money and often—as in this woman’s case—her business.”
“What was her business?” he asked with a smile he probably considered charming.
“I can’t talk about my clients. Sorry.”
Chad pulled out his phone and tapped out something. Darby tried not to be curious. After a second, he leaned back in his chair, gave her a pleased grin and showed her his phone’s screen. “Your client, Amanda Ward, an American living in London, president of Finders, Sneakers, a U.S. based company—”
“I know who she is,” Darby said. “How did you do that?”
“It was pretty easy, really.” He pocketed his phone. “I knew she had to be the head of a U.S. company—otherwise, why hire a U.S. accountant? But she was living in London...although, I think the cigar smoking pretty much nailed her.”
“It probably will nail her—into her coffin.” Darby’s hand flew to her mouth. “I should not have said that. You won’t tell my boss, will you?”
Chad smiled and cut into his steak. It let out a waft of heavenly scent. “So, since you can’t talk about your mysterious cigar smoking-client, tell me about the boyfriend that fell on you.”
Darby set down her spoon. “He was at a party right above my hotel room and there was a fire. Of course, I didn’t know that since I was asleep in my bed. Anyway, to escape, he jumped down onto my balcony saw me sleeping in my bed and woke me.”
“No fire alarm?”
“Huh, I guess not.” The memory of the first time she’d seen Benjamin’s gorgeous and concerned face flashed in her mind. “He picked me up and carried me outside.” She didn’t add that they had spent the rest of the night making out on the hotel lawn and that she’d only been wearing a silk teddy. Remembering the cold wet grass pressing against her naked legs, Darby took another spoonful of soup. “It was very romantic.”
“But then you left London?”
She nodded.
“So, you really don’t know him all that well.”
Darby bristled because this was exactly what her mom, sisters, brothers, and friends had been saying. “We’ve Skyped every day. In some ways, this is a better way to get to know each other because we couldn’t get carried away with snogging. That’s the British word for—”
“I know all about snogging,” he said with a smile.
Yes, from the looks of him, he probably did.
“I know it’s absolutely none of my business.” Chad buttered his potato. “But when you only know each other via social media, it’s really easy to just show your good bits.”
Wow. He really did sound like her mom. “You’re right.” She swallowed another spoonful of soup. “It’s none of your business. But sometimes, when you meet the right person, you know.”
“You just know, huh?”
She nodded. “That’s how it was for me and Benjamin. He fell into my life at the right time. It was meant to be.”
“Hmm...I wonder if the hotel owners felt the same way.”
“What? Why would they care?”
“It was their hotel on fire, right? I just wonder if they had such a fatalistic attitude.” He grinned and took a bite of his steak.
“Do you believe in fate or Kismet?”
“There are people who believe there’s no such thing as coincidences. I’m not sure if I’m one of those people.”
“What sort of people are you?” Darby asked.
“I believe that relationships take work and commitment. Just because someone fell into your life doesn’t mean they’re bound to stay there. They have to want to stay there, and you need to make it an enjoyable place to be.”
Darby thought about her parents and their noisy and chaotic home. “In my house, sometimes it seems as if love is more about taking out the trash, mucking out the garbage disposal, or being the one to change the poopy diaper. But I don’t think it has to be that way. There should be room for romance, too.”
“Are you from a large family?”
“I’m the youngest of seven.”
Chad whistled. “But if you’re the youngest, your parents can’t still be changing diapers. At least, I hope not. Sorry if that’s too personal a question.”
“I’m not wearing Depends, if that’s what you’re asking. My sister and her three children live with us.”
“You live at home?”
Darby nodded.
“Your parents must have a full house.”
“You have no idea.” She didn’t feel the need to tell him she shared the house with her parents, her brother Tom, her sister, Meg, her two nephews Tristan and Luke and niece Jolene, her other sister, Henley, her Grandma Betty, and the dog, Wheezer.
“So, there’s not a lot of romance...”
“There’s a lot of love, but sometimes...” Darby grappled for the right words. How could she explain her family to this stranger? “It can be chaotic, too. Not a lot of bathrooms and too many people—and creatures—in too tight a space. Romance gets lost in the piles of laundry or the overflowing toilet.”
“I’d like to meet your family.”
Darby put down her spoon. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“I’d pick love over romance any day.”
“I don’t think it has to be an either-or choice.”
“And you think Brit-boy can deliver both?”
Darby nodded. “I know he can.”
“I hope you’re right, for your sake. But I’m pretty sure real-life steps in eventually on everyone’s romance.”
“That’s very jaded.”
“Not at all. Being in love isn’t something that just happens to us, it’s a way of being. It’s a choice, or rather a series of choices. It’s choosing to put someone else’s needs over own over and over again.”
“Which brings us back to the clogged garbage disposal and the poopy diapers.”
Chad pointed his fork at her and smiled. “Exactly.”
“Life doesn’t have to be so real,” Darby argued. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting more romance, flowers, wine, and less chaos and noise.”
“No, but I bet the chaos and noise keep things interesting.”
“Interesting is a good word for my family.”
“I’d like to meet your family,” he said again.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Darby didn’t want to be annoyed by this handsome stranger, but it rankled that his words echoed pretty much everything her family had been saying about Benjamin, romance, and real life.
“I’m waiting for my sister,” Chad said after a moment to fill the awkward silence. “She’s coming into town to help celebrate my grandfather’s eightieth birthday.”
While Chad went on and on about his family, barely noticing her prolo
nged silence, Darby ate her soup as quickly as she could without slurping and occupied her thoughts with memories and fantasies about Benjamin.
Where he would stay had been a trick since she couldn’t very well bring him home. Not only was she from a long line of staunch Catholics, she was also from a large family...who happened to live in a not so large house.
Benjamin, of course, had understood and made arrangements with some friends who lived in L.A. Still, it made snogging difficult.
“Are your grandparents still alive?” Chad interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes,” she said, though she did not want to talk about Grandma Betty. Darby shoveled in the last drop of soup and put down her spoon. “It’s been really nice meeting you and thanks for the lunch, but I have to go.” She gathered up her purse, said goodbye, and left.
The Tick-tock Between You and Me is now available at most online book retailers
Other books by Kristy Tate and Eloise Alden
ROMANTIC COMEDIES
The Tick-Tock Between You and Me
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CZ67FQY
Darby thought she had love all figured out until she heard the tick-tock of a clock.
Dreaming of You and Me
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FN6V4YN
When you find the man of your dreams...
The Music of You and Me (novella available in the Authors of Main Street Christmas wishes box set. Novel not yet published.)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K63PFH9
The Billionaire's Beagle
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HQYV596
Wes and Letty are forced to fess up to their lies and exaggerations before their problems (and beagles) get completely out of hand and off leash.
The Oblivious Billionaire
https://www.amazon.com/Oblivious-Billionaire-Romantic-Forgetful-Misbehaving-ebook/dp/B07KPKVM53
How can you know where you're going if you can't remember where you've been?
Stuck With You (novella)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KQ9JT5C
When Andie breaks Whit’s glasses, he offers to forgive her debt if she’ll pose as his date to his brother’s wedding. It's the perfect mixture of business and pleasure, until business threatens to get in the way of a happily-ever-after neither Andie nor Whit could have ever imagined
That Song in Patagonia (novella)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H7R2DVQ
Two people with hurting hearts and unrealized dreams explore the streets of Buenos Aires and the South American countryside, and it changes them both forever. And what they find in each other is something that might just heal them both.
THE HIGHWAYMAN INCIDENT
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QL15NQ8
Celia and Jason must tread carefully, as what happens in the past can reverberate through the ages. Their lives, hearts, and futures are caught in time’s slippery hands.
The Cowboy Encounter
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UM6B7TK
When Dr. Becca Martin stumbles into the Witching Well, she finds that all of her medical training can’t protect her from the dangers of the Wild West and the charms of Clint Warwick.
The Pirate Episode
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017DZPT6O
Cambria Brandt, a senior at Norfolk High, juggles homework assignments, tennis practice, and her overprotective mother, all while struggling to conceal her crush on Dr. Fleur, her biology teacher. But one sip of the witching well water makes her all concerns disappear.
The Witching Well series box set
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079V92M7C
The Little White Christmas Lie (novella)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MPZJA14
Carson nor Millie know that their lives are about to spin out of control thanks to a patch of black ice, a cow, and a little white Christmas lie.
Baby Blue Christmas (novella)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077JGFM46
As Christmas nears, Sophie and Luke’s love for Jamison draws them together, causing them to rethink their plans for the future and redefine their ideas of family.
A Ghost of a Second Chance
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007IK0KZK
As Laine unravels the mystery of her grandparents’ marriage she is forced to confront her own estranged husband and answer one more question of the heart—can love live even after it has died?
Stealing Mercy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FCFHZ6
Serving murder, mayhem and pies, Stealing Mercy is a romantic adventure set in 1889—on the eve of the Great Seattle Fire, when more than a city is set on fire
Rewriting Rita
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078SZS99Z
Reeling with grief and self-doubts, Addison Mills never suspects her life is about to change when a stranger gifts her a manuscript and asks her to rewrite the ending.
YOUNG ADULT SPECULATIVE FICTION
Beyond the Fortuneteller's Tent
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H2CA18U
When Petra Baron goes into the fortuneteller’s tent at a Renaissance fair, she expects to leave with a date to the prom. Instead, she walks out into Elizabethan England, where she meets gypsies, a demon dog and a kindred spirit in Emory Ravenswood.
Beyond the Hollow
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HYLT34
If Rip Van Winkle was telling the truth, anything is possible...
BEYOND THE PALE
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N34SRU0
Beyond the Pale is the stunning conclusion in USA Today bestselling author Kristy Tate’s Beyond series, where Petra is reminded that love can conquer even the most villainous.
Beyond Box set
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MST7QPF
All three books in the award-winning and bestselling time travel series.
Witch Ways
https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Ways-Kristy-Tate-ebook/dp/B07HHMLH3C
Everyday each of us must decide whether or not to be a witch. For Evelynn Marston, that decision is becoming increasingly difficult.
Witch Winter
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014QDXSVE
Evie gathers her wits and a heaping dose of her own brand of magic to right a terrible wrong, never suspecting the life she saves might be her own
Witch Wishes
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ATTOP52
Somehow, someway Evie must summon and restore the magic the earth and all her people have lost.
Menagerie
https://www.amazon.com/Menagerie-Kristy-Tate-ebook
Everyone talks to animals. Some do it every day, although very few stop to listen for a reply.
Melange
https://www.amazon.com/Melange-Menagerie-Book-Kristy-Tate-ebook
Lisbet discovers the wolves have terrifying abilities, capable of destroying not only Lizbet and Declan’s plans for their future but also their hope for happiness.
Melee
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074MJKS1Y/
Lizbet realizes that maybe the most terrifying changes are the ones she’ll have to make to survive.
Grace in the Mirror
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071Y61238
Fairy tales can come true. But it’s terrifying when it happens to you...
Grace James thinks having to wear a hand-me-down uniform while trying to fit into her posh new school in glitzy Orange County is bad but being followed to class by seven little angry men is worse.
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