Running Into Love - The Complete Box Set

by Annalisa Nicole

  Second Chance

  Book Three in the

  Running Into Love Series

  by

  Annalisa Nicole

  Second Edition

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2014 by Annalisa Nicole

  This book is a written act of fiction. Any and all names, places, or similarities are coincidental. No part of this book may be used without written permission except for brief quotations for reviews or blogs. This book may only be distributed by Annalisa Nicole, the owner and Author of this series.

  Second Chance Table of Contents

  Master Table of Contents

  Take a Chance

  I’ll Take a Chance

  Second Chance

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Bonus Novelette ~ A Week in Paradise

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  The Poem

  Acknowledgements

  A Fighting Chance

  Unavoidable Chance

  Unexpected Chance

  A Very Wellington Christmas - Novella

  A Christmas Miracle by Chance – Short Story

  Other Books by Annalisa Nicole

  Where you can find Annalisa Nicole

  A little about Annalisa Nicole

  Character Glossary

  Dedication

  To my Dad

  Near or far, young or old,

  you will always hold that special place in my heart

  as the first man I ever loved

  Chapter 1

  Adrian

  Man, my life sucks. My brother Asher and his wife Willow, just announced they’re pregnant with their second child. My sister Amelia and her husband Kyle, just had their first baby. I’m fucking thirty-five years old and what do I have to show for it? I work God awful hours at my construction company, which is probably the only thing I’ve done right with my life.

  I took a few days off work to spend time with my family at our family’s cabin in the mountains, just outside of Seattle. My whole family is here, even my brother-in-law’s twin sister Chloe and her boyfriend Max. Everyone except my parents, who are back at the cabin watching my niece and nephew, are out ice skating around the large pond in the backyard.

  Asher and Willow are skating close together holding each other’s hand. Amelia just skated off and pulled Kyle back out to skate. Now they’re holding hands looking all goo-goo eyed at each other. Even Chloe and Max are glued to each other’s side and have those fucked up sappy looks for each other, plastered all over their love-struck faces. Everyone has someone special in their life and it pisses me right the fuck off. Well, not everyone has someone. My sister, Ava, and my other brother, Aiden, don’t have anyone in their lives, but even they’re skating together holding hands. I’m the oldest of the five of us and I’m still single. Miserably single at that.

  “Look out, Adrian!” Kyle yells.

  I got so caught up in my pity party for one that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was skating.

  I look up to see a blur of curly blonde hair headed right for me. I don’t even have time to brace myself before they hit me full on, knocking me back a few steps. The woman hits me hard, then falls to the ice on her ass, sending her hair flying in her face.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you alright? Here let me help you up,” I say and offer my hand to help her up.

  My family gathers in a crowd around the woman. She looks up at me through a mess of blonde hair and clumsily swats at her face trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to clear it all out of her face. She slaps my hand away with all kinds of attitude. That hair of hers sends chills down my spine. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was Shay, my ex-wife. But, what are the chances of that? She’s been out of my life for almost two decades now. I won’t lie. My dick does a little happy dance just thinking about her, though.

  She stumbles awkwardly to her feet, takes her hand out of her glove, successfully pushes her hair out of the way and slaps me across the face.

  Yep, that’s Shay alright.

  “Hi Doll,” I say with a smirky half-grin, as I rub my cheek.

  “Honey, why did he call her doll?” Kyle whispers loudly to Amelia.

  “That’s Adrian’s ex-wife Shay,” she tells him.

  “What in the hell is wrong with you? Why did you slap him?” Ava yells at Shay.

  She looks like she’s ready to take her back down on her ass.

  Shay has tears running down her face, but an equally angry look directed solely at me. Aiden grabs Ava and pulls her back. My entire family hates Shay and isn’t happy, to say the least, with how she left. Well, disappeared would be more accurate.

  Another woman skates up to Shay and says, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” then grabs her hand and starts to steer her off the ice.

  Ava breaks free from Aiden and skates after her.

  “Where do you think you’re going? You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, not only to me and my family, but most importantly to Adrian,” she yells at Shay’s back.

  Shay stops abruptly making ice shavings fly from her skates. She turns around and looks Ava square in the face.

  “I have a lot of explaining to do? That’s rich, especially coming from you. I have nothing to say to you, to Adrian, or to the rest of your family. I don’t have to explain a damn thing,” she yells, turns around and skates off the ice with her friend.

  Ava skates back over to our group in a huff and says, “Of all the nerve. Can you believe that? What the hell is she even doing on our pond and when did she get back in town?”

  “Let it go, Ava,” I tell her.

  “Let it go? Are you serious? After everything she put you through, you’re going to let her off that easy?” she questions me angrily.

  “Yeah, I am. Now I’m not asking, I’m telling you, let it go,” I say and skate away.

  A flood of memories come rushing back to me. I take a seat on the bench just off the ice and think about what just happened here. Shay is back in town. She’s been gone for… how long has it been now? Seventeen years, my God has it really been that long? It still seems like yesterday I had her in my bed, warm in my arms.

  Shay and I were high school sweethearts. We were inseparable from the tenth grade on. Everything I did in high school revolved around either hockey or Shay. We had our entire futures planned out together. I had a hockey scholarship to Boston University with a bright future in turning pro after graduation. Shay was also going to attend Boston University to pursue a degree in architecture.

  We decided to get married the week after we graduated from high school when she turned eighteen. Much to both of our parents’ discouragement, we did it anyway. We took a flight down to Las Vegas, stopped at the first wedding chapel we came to, and tied the knot. We were going off to Boston as a married couple and planned on staying in off campus married housing. We were that sure of our love for one another.

  We were both so young and so stupid. I had a little bit of a hothead back then and man, did we have epic arguments.

  Before we headed off to college, we were going to one last Sunday family dinner at my parent’s house. My mother’s always insisted, no matter where we are in our busy lives, that we stop and come to dinner as a family at least once a week. That’s what formed our Sunday family dinner ritual that we still keep to this day.

  Shay was driving and I can’t even tell you what
we were arguing about, but she lost control of the car. We ended up in a ditch upside down. I don’t know how long I laid there unconscious. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with a compound fracture in my left leg.

  Shay, thank God, didn’t have a scratch on her. Not even two weeks later I was served with divorce papers and she was gone. I never heard from her again. All communication was done through her lawyer. Who knew in one day’s events, I could lose so much. I lost my scholarship to Boston University, because I was unable to play hockey ever again, and I lost my wife for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.

  Shay

  I knew better than to let Mia talk me into coming to this stupid pond. I know Adrian’s family owns it, but what were the chances of running into him? I mean seriously, what were the odds?

  I just moved back to Seattle after being away for seventeen years. Alright, let’s be honest, I was hiding from Seattle for seventeen years and I reluctantly had to move back. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long, it feels like just yesterday I lived here without a care in the world. So much has happened, so much has changed. I’ve changed. Life changed me and I’m not sure it’s all for the better. After I graduated from Columbia University in New York, I became an architect. I was perfectly happy living in New York in my own safe little world. I never planned on ever moving back to Washington.

  I got a call from my brother, Drew, telling me our mother wasn’t doing well, and it was either put her in assisted living or I needed to move back home. He said he couldn’t do it and that it was much easier for me to do it, seeing that I was still single. Thanks for always throwing that in my face, Drew. He lives in California with his wife, two-point-five perfectly behaved children, a dog, and a white picket fence. Our father passed away a few years ago and there isn’t anyone else to take care of her. So, I quit my job and moved back to Seattle a month ago, bought a condo, and moved my mother in with me to help her.

  I found a job right away, which I knew wouldn’t be a problem. My problem was that I didn’t want to be in the same state as my ex-husband, Adrian Wellington, or any of the Wellington clan. I don’t know how I let Mia talk me into coming to this damn pond. Mia’s been my saving grace since moving back. Honestly, I knew running into someone from the Wellington family would happen sooner or later. I just didn’t think it would be so soon and definitely not all of them at the same time, for crying out loud.

  I met Mia at the firm I work for, she’s a fellow architect and we quickly became best friends. She said her uncle owns a cabin in the mountains that she wanted to take me to. She said I needed a time-out from my busy schedule at work and caring for my mother. That if I didn’t take some me time, I’d explode. I figured she was probably right and I deserved to have a little me time.

  The second we hit the road leading up the mountain, up that mountain, I started to panic. I’ve been up this road several times with Adrian and his family. I begged her to turn around and go back home. She insisted it would be fine.

  She said, “What are the odds of running into him, like zero?”

  Again, seriously what were the odds?

  So, I agreed and I told her all about Adrian the rest of the ride up to her uncle’s cabin. The second we walked in the door she insisted we go ice skating on this fabulous pond close by. I had no idea she was talking about their pond. When we got on the ice, there was no one, and I mean no one else on the pond. I started having so much fun I hadn’t noticed that it quickly filled with about a dozen people. It wasn’t uncommon, even back then for all the neighboring cabins to come skate on this pond.

  I tuned out the other people skating around the pond and let my mind wander. It’s been a long time since I felt like I could let my guard down. I couldn’t help thinking back to Adrian. That was my mistake letting my guard down. As I turned my face to the sky and started to feel free is when I should have been really watching where I was going, because I ran into none other than the man I was thinking about.

  Adrian was the love of my life. Yes, we were young, but there was no denying how much I loved him. My world revolved around him. If I wasn’t with him at school, I was at his hockey games. I never missed one.

  I thought my mom and dad were going to blow a gasket when we came back from Vegas married. We were that sure we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. Then, one day changed everything. It’s so hard to wrap my head around that day’s events, even today, and to accept that in the blink of an eye, it would forever change the rest of my life.

  It was fall and it had just rained. Adrian and I were arguing about the stupidest thing. Adrian could argue with the best of them. I think I got off on making him so angry all the time. I loved the challenge of a good fight. That evening was no different. I had picked a fight with him about my hair. I told him I wanted to get it cut short. He blew up. He loved my long hair, always did. It’s always been long and curly my entire life. I for one would never cut it short. It was just the first thing that came to my mind to get him going. The mood struck me so I said to myself, what the heck let’s pick a fight. The makeup sex is well worth the yelling.

  So, playing along with the argument, I took my eyes off the road for one second to give him an angry look. That’s all it took, one second to destroy two lives forever. I must have hit a slick spot on the road, because the next thing I know, the car started hydroplaning and I lost control. I still remember the helpless feeling, knowing that we were going to crash, and that I couldn’t do a single thing to stop it.

  We ended up flipping the car twice and it crashed into a ditch on the side of the road. Adrian was knocked unconscious. I was trapped in my seatbelt and I couldn’t get to him. I remember screaming his name to try to get him to wake up. He had so much blood coming from his leg, and all I could do was sit there screaming. I was so scared, all I kept thinking was please don’t die. Please, I begged to anyone who could hear me, I’ll do anything, I’ll give up anything, just please don’t let him die.

  An ambulance was soon on the scene. I was cut from my seatbelt and taken to the hospital. I didn’t want to go without Adrian. They had him laid out on a back board working on him, when I was taken away. I screamed and cried to please let me stay with him.

  At the hospital, I stayed with Adrian nonstop in his room for days, I never left his side. His leg injury was really bad and it required multiple surgeries. One day everyone talked me into going home and at least getting a shower. I reluctantly agreed. I did what I needed to do and I rushed back to the hospital as fast as I could. Even from down the hallway, I could hear Adrian and his family having a heated discussion. I eavesdropped just outside his door. What I heard not only Adrian, but his entire family saying devastated me and tore my heart right out of my chest.

  They not only blamed me for the accident, but for ruining his promising career as a professional hockey player. Even Adrian was saying the most hurtful things and blamed me saying, I took my eyes off the road. Every word stuck the dagger in my chest deeper and deeper, twisting at every horrible word they said. His sister, Ava, was beyond livid with me. She was pretty young at the time, but it didn’t take away the sting of her words. She said she wished I had been the one hurt and not Adrian. That it wasn’t fair I wasn’t hurt at all. What was even worse than hearing Adrian say hurtful things, was hearing his mother’s distraught sobs. She too blamed me. How could I ever show my face to that family again?

  Was I a coward for running away? Maybe. Was it immature of me to file for divorce, pack my shit and leave? Possibly. But, what none of them know is that Adrian is not the only person that lost something that day. Yes, Adrian got injured and lost his scholarship, and I chose to end our marriage and run away. No one can blame me more than I blame myself. I take full responsibility for everything that happened that day. But even to this day, no one knows the whole truth, not my mother, not Mia, no one.

  My reaction to seeing Adrian came as a surprise to me. I’ve perfected the art of not arguing with anyone anymore, ev
er. I’ve been as cool as a cucumber since moving away, OK, I’ll be honest, since I ran away.

  I don’t pick fights anymore. I don’t participate in arguments. I’m as meek as they come now. That day’s events, seventeen years ago, broke not only my heart, but my spirit as well. Nothing is worth the pain and sorrow that a stupid argument can cause. I’ve had seventeen years of anger and resentment toward Adrian and his family building up and I guess, I just snapped. I know it’s not exactly fair, because none of them know what I’ve lived with all these years, but that doesn’t change how I feel inside. I feel angry and sad and dead inside.

  When Mia and I skated off and I was more or less attacked by Ava, my heart shattered all over again. As soon as we got back to her uncle’s cabin I sunk to the floor.

  “Please, can we just go home?” I beg Mia.

  “If that’s what you want, but if you want me to, I can go back out there and take the little brown haired bitch out. How dare she talk to you that way? Just give me a minute with her, I’ll take her little fiery attitude and shove it up where the sun don’t shine,” she says.

  She starts to head back outside and I know I’ve only known Mia a short time, but I have the feeling that she’ll do just that. I quickly get to my feet and block her from going back outside. I give her a hug, then pull away and look at her face. Her face softens and she takes my hand.

  “Home it is then,” she says.

  I love Mia for wanting to have my back, and I’m thankful she’s willing to give up her weekend getaway with just a hug. I feel guilty enough as it is being away from my mother. I have an important meeting Monday morning anyway. The entire ride down the mountain, I just stare out the window at the world speeding by in a blur. Why can’t the past just stay in the past?

  Chapter 2

  Adrian

  I’ve been sitting on this bench for hours. The cold winter air bites into my cheeks. My fingers and toes have been numb for a while now, but I just don’t care. Seeing Shay after all this time, has sent my world and my emotions into a tailspin. My family went back up to the cabin a long time ago. Memories of Shay and the life we had, play over and over in my head. God, I loved that woman. I was so angry with her when she just disappeared. I was even more confused as to why she had me served at the hospital with divorce papers. I know the accident was terrible, but I have no clue why she would just run away.