Destiny: AN MFM Romance

by Brent, Taylor

  Destiny

  AN MFM Romance

  Taylor Brent

  © Copyright 2018 - All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Fresh Start

  Fateful Meetings

  Impressions

  The View From Above

  Flying High

  Doubt

  Game of Love

  Two For One

  Letting Go

  Echoes of the Past

  Romance vs. Passion

  Three’s A Crowd

  Life and Death

  Decisions

  Epilogue

  About Taylor Brent

  For Justin, Matthew

  ~ because sometimes fairytales do come true~

  Prologue

  The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule. Rose Callahan gazed out her front door, pondering those words. Her grandmother used that phrase the entire time Rose was growing up, and Rose didn’t figure out until she went to college that the words were not, in fact, her grandmother’s. Albert Einstein had first uttered the phrase, but Ophelia Callahan claimed it for her own and used it as the best kind of ammunition against her wayward granddaughter.

  The townsfolk of Springvale, Utah would say that, for generations, the Callahan women “ruled” their small town. At the tender age of five, Rose Callahan learned differently. Her steadfast and abstruse grandmother taught Rose she couldn’t lead a group of people without being willing to serve them, too. And serve the people of Springvale the Callahan women did. They gave the roughened, hard-shelled people the one thing they needed most—love. It made the world go round, right?

  Actually, Rose thought wryly, gravity and magnetic fields made the world go round, but try telling that to her overbearing, stubborn grandmother.

  Rose’s mother, grandmother, and the countless generations of Callahan women who came before them made their living in love. Matchmaking, to be more precise. A long ago ancestor had figured out a secret formula for how to match people with their ideal mates, and that formula had passed as a carefully kept secret through the generations. All of Rose’s maternal ancestors called it magic. Rose called it psychology. Her grandmother insisted matchmaking came as a gift from the many spirits that surrounded them, and only a Callahan woman could access those spirits. It didn’t take Rose long to discover that her family’s “magical” ability just involved a clever way of reading people and being nosy enough to know everything about them.

  Rose studied the horizon, reproving herself for her cynical thoughts. Mocking her grandmother’s beliefs in magic was hypocritical of her, and she knew it. She had met many people in her college days—scientists and psychologists—who believed in only cold, hard facts, and she supposed she should have been among them. However, she couldn’t silence that small part of her that wanted to believe in things like magic, happily-ever-afters, and true love. It was pure arrogance to think there were no mysteries left in the world. Not to mention, boring.

  Lightning danced in the distance, caressing the horizon with its bright, electric fingers. Thunder rumbled across the fields and through her bones. A storm was coming. Rose inhaled deeply, taking in the scents of freshly cut grass, rain, and electricity. She shivered even though the sultry night air clung to her skin. Something other than a storm was coming, and she somehow knew it was going to change her life, and those of everyone in this small town. She didn’t know what the change was, but she knew with certainty it was coming.

  She turned from her doorway and entered her old house, closing windows and securing the shutters as she moved through the rooms. Summer thunderstorms sometimes brought tree-snapping winds that possessed the same destructive powers as tornados and hurricanes. Since her home was also her livelihood, Rose took extra care to protect it from damage.

  She lived in what used to be a brothel, passed down through the Callahan line. It was her great-great-great-great-grandmother, Kate Callahan, that discovered their little matchmaking trick. Kate bought and ran the brothel, so Rose could only assume that she had been both thoroughly scandalous and in possession of good business sense. After all, knowing how to match lovers would have been a treasured talent to possess when running a brothel.

  Kate’s granddaughter, Rose’s great-great-grandmother, Christine Callahan, went one step further and built a speakeasy in the brothel’s cellar during Prohibition, turning an already lucrative business in flesh into a thriving business in flesh and booze.

  Kate’s legacy was exploiting forbidden pleasures, but Rose’s grandmother, Ophelia Callahan, wanted a different life for her daughter. She turned the brothel/speakeasy into an inn for tourists. Springvale bumped up against one of Utah’s many national parks, so tourists were common even 73 years ago. Hikers, campers, and adventure-seekers flocked to Utah for its mountains, caves, and hot springs. There was something for everyone here, and for every season.

  Tourism only increased as time went on, especially after hosting the Olympic Games thrust Utah into the international spotlight. As a result, the inn thrived, developing to take advantage of the newest trends in tourism.

  Most of their guests these days desired outdoor activities in varying ranges of difficulty and risk, so Rose had decided to hire a wilderness expert. She needed someone who could take her guests out into the park and act as a guide and instructor for them. Hiring someone adept in outdoor instruction and leadership was a good business decision, and Rose was excited to get someone settled in as soon as possible. She had a stack of applications on her desk she needed to go over. She was certain that the right candidate was just a phone call away.

  Rose secured the last shutter in the attic, and sat down on an old, half-broken chaise. She glanced around at the endless clutter. It wouldn’t surprise her to find things up here from the original days of this place. Maybe she could get her new employee to help her clean it out. Rose frowned at a tall stack of boxes. She probably shouldn’t wait for the new wilderness expert’s help to tackle the ever-expanding mess.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the large attic, and a few seconds later, thunder crashed over the house. The small light Rose had turned on when she came up the stairs flickered out, and she swore softly. Without the light, the attic became pitch black, swathed in darkness.

  Sighing, Rose stood up and tried to feel her way to the stairs. It was probably just a fuse, and if she could get to the fuse box in the basement, she could get the power back on. She had a flashlight in her room, which was just at the bottom of the attic stairs. She inched forward, swearing again as she bumped into the tall stack of boxes she had been frowning at a few moments ago. The boxes came crashing down around her, and she yelped, jumping backward out of the way and landing on the floor with a loud thud. She breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of running feet, and seconds later, Daniel Benson, one of her live-in tenants, came barrelling up the stairs, the light from his lantern bouncing off the ceiling and walls.

  “Rose?” he called, his deep Southern drawl elongating her name. “Is that you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Danny,” Rose answered. “I’m over here.”

  Danny walked over to her, shining the light in front of him. He set the lantern down on a small table next to her, and it li
t up the immediate area around them, casting shadows outside the circle of light.

  “What are you doing up here?” he asked, pulling her to her feet.

  “Securing the windows. That last crack of thunder caused the lights to go out, and I bumped into these boxes.”

  Danny looked at the boxes scattered all over the floor.

  “They still shouldn’t have fallen. They’re heavier than you. It would have taken a lot more force to knock them over,” he said, frowning.

  “Well, maybe we have a ghost then,” Rose replied.

  “That ain’t funny, Rose. You really ought not to joke about things like that.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Just help me pick these boxes up, will you?”

  Danny bent down and stacked the boxes, creating two towers shorter than the original. He reached for the last box, which had landed upside down, and a small book tumbled onto the floor. Rose bent to pick it up.

  “No way,” she breathed, brushing her fingers across the cover.

  “What’s that?” Danny asked, grunting as he set the last box on top of a stack.

  Rose continued staring at the book. “It’s a diary.”

  “Whose?”

  “Kate Callahan. My something great-grandmother. She’s the one who first opened this place, way back in the 1800s. My grandmother always said she fell in love with a Native American and he was the one who gave her magic. Something about when he died. I wonder if she talks about him in here.”

  “If it’s her diary, I reckon she must,” Danny answered.

  Rose held the diary to her chest. She couldn’t fathom why it was in a random box that looked only a few years old. She brushed past Danny and squinted at the box from which the diary had come. Flipping open the top, she realized it held a lot of her grandmother’s things. Rose frowned. Why would her grandmother not share their ancestor’s diary with her?

  Now that Rose thought about it, she didn’t know much about Kate. That wouldn’t have seemed so odd—many people knew little about their heritage—if her grandmother hadn’t drummed into her every detail about every other female ancestor in her line, but Ophelia Callahan had done just that. Rose had always assumed that there just hadn’t been a lot passed down about Kate, but this diary meant that her grandmother, and probably her mother, knew more about Kate than they had disclosed. Why? It was a question Rose was eager to find the answers to.

  “You ready to go downstairs?” Danny asked.

  Rose nodded and followed him down the attic stairs, the diary still clutched to her chest. Danny walked her all the way to her room, setting the lantern down on her dresser and turning up the brightness.

  He squinted at her in the darkness. “Do you want me to go and check the fuses?”

  Rose nodded absently, lost in thought.

  “Are you sure those boxes didn’t hurt you?”

  Rose looked up at him. Danny was tall, even taller than herself, and she was a solid five feet and eleven inches. Her dark eyes, almost black in the sparsely lit room, settled on Danny’s angular face, filled with worry, his amber eyes glowing in the lantern light behind her.

  “I’m fine, Danny,” she answered, her tone leaving no room for doubt.

  Danny threw her a doubtful look, but nodded once and ran a hand through his blond hair, leaving it sticking up in a few places. Rose followed the movement, then let her eyes trail appreciatively over Danny’s handsome form. A red and black flannel shirt strained against his broad shoulders, and the sleeves, rolled up to his elbows, showed off his strong forearms. He had left the top three buttons on his shirt undone, giving her a glimpse of his white undershirt, and had tucked the shirts into dark-washed jeans that fit just a little too well for a man so good looking.

  If only I were twenty years younger, Rose thought. If not for the age difference, she’d have propositioned Danny ages ago. Especially since she’d caught him eyeing her long, tanned legs and her sizeable breasts on more than one occasion. She knew many people still considered her beautiful. Sure, she had a respectable number of wrinkles on her weathered face, but she was proud of every one. They told the story of her life—a life filled to the brim with both laughter and pain. Anyone observant enough would see she had lived a fulfilled and distinctive life.

  But then Rose noticed his brown work boots, caked with mud, and her previous train of thought screeched to a halt. She couldn’t help but grimace at the thought of the sludge he had probably tracked through her hallways.

  Danny followed her gaze to his shoes and grinned apologetically. “Sorry about the mud. I wasn’t thinking when I heard you scream.”

  “It’s okay, Danny,” Rose replied. “We can clean it up when the power comes back on.”

  At the gentle reminder, Danny nodded and stepped out of her bedroom. Rose sighed and pushed his image from her mind. Daniel Benson was too much of a distraction to her. Climbing onto her bed, she sat cross-legged and flipped through the diary in her hands. A small object fell out of the back cover, and Rose scooped it up. Turning the flash drive over in her hand, she frowned. It couldn’t have been Kate Callahan’s, seeing as how Kate lived and died in the 1800s. It must have belonged to her mother or grandmother, but Rose would have to wait until the power came back on to find out—and to learn any other secrets it held. She had forgotten to charge her laptop, so it sat useless on her desk, its battery drained.

  A knock on the door made her jump.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Danny walked into her room, looking surly. “The fuses all work, so the power outage must be a line or something.”

  “Well, we should have enough lanterns to last us until morning. If we’re still without power by then, I’ll fire up the generator.”

  Danny nodded and bid her good night as he backed out of her room, closing the door behind him.

  Sighing, she flipped open the diary and began reading.

  A few hours later, she still sat, now stunned, on her bed, staring in disbelief at the finished diary. As family secrets went, this one was pretty epic.

  Rose looked up, meeting her own gaze in the reflection from the vanity mirror opposite her bed, and wondering how much of what she saw came from the choices her many-great-grandmothers had made. She studied her square face, pointy chin, and defined cheekbones, her wild, jet-black hair.

  Gripping the flash drive in her hand, her gaze darted to her dead laptop, and she willed it with every fiber of her being to blink to life. She itched to see what was on it, to find the long-buried truth of Kate Callahan’s life.

  Fresh Start

  Jill Martin hummed along to the radio as the mountainous Utah terrain passed by in a dizzying blur of red and brown. She and her little hatchback had made good time on the back roads, which put Jill’s arrival into Springvale, Utah just a few hours away. Her favorite song came on, and Jill switched to outright singing, allowing herself a short, one-person dance party.

  Jill had been bristling with excitement ever since Rose Callahan had called to offer her the job. Well, excitement and bewilderment. Rose had asked her a few vague questions and then offered her the job on the spot. She had expected Rose to ask her to fly out for a face-to-face interview or a trial run, or to at least subject her to a lengthy telephone interview, but Rose had decided to hire her less than fifteen minutes after saying hello. Jill had just assumed her resume stood out from the others and brushed it off as a stroke of good luck.

  She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror, reaching up to smooth her thick, black hair back from her heart-shaped face. The black kohl eyeliner that lined her lids had smudged at the corners, and she leaned toward the mirror to get a better look at the damage. Her almond-shaped eyes were easily her favorite feature, so she paid special attention to highlighting them. Jill swiped at the disobedient liner, only succeeding in smudging it more and getting some on the bridge of her broad nose. She sighed, noting the sign for the upcoming gas station, and resolved to stop there to fix her make-up, fill up the tank, and buy herself t
he biggest cup of coffee she could find.

  After driving for almost twelve hours, Jill desperately needed the pick-me-up. She pulled off the road and parked her car next to the pump nearest the door. She freshened up in the restroom before purchasing a cup of hot coffee and enough gas to get her to Springvale.

  Back at her car, she fumbled with the gas nozzle, swearing when she spilled a little of her coffee on her favorite shirt. It was white with a deep V-neck cut that showed off just the right amount of cleavage and subtle ruffles that lined the neckline and short sleeves, and it always gave her the confidence boost she needed. She ducked into the car and set the cup in one of her cup holders, wiping her hands on her dark-washed skinny jeans. Pulling a few napkins out of the nearby dispenser usually used for windshield cleaner, she dabbed at her shirt and swore again. The gas nozzle clicked.

  Sighing, Jill tossed the napkins in the nearby trash, noticing at the last second that some of the coffee had dripped onto her leather work boots. She swiped at it and then walked back to the car to replace the nozzle on its holder. If recent events were any indicator of how things would go in Utah, Jill figured she was in for a rough time.

  Pulling out of the gas station, she took a careful sip of her coffee, letting the warmth wash over her in energizing waves. The sun was setting over the mountains in a gorgeous mix of orange, pink, and purple. She sighed in delight at the amazing views around her, the reds and browns and greens of the landscape blurring together as she sped toward her destination. She already loved the mountains and the open valleys of Utah; they felt more like home than her own hometown on the southern East Coast.