by Hart, Renee
“If you’re looking for Daniel, he’s inside.”
Judith shot Anton a look. Her son was so intuitive. She loved it and at times when it embarrassed her, she hated it. Sometimes she felt like he was wiser than she was. He could sense emotions that she couldn’t. She had been thinking about Daniel, and Anton had figured it out.
“Why didn’t he come out?”
“I dunno. He has something for you. Everyone out here is busy with stuff. I don’t think they’ll care if you’re gone for a while.” Anton made a shooing motion with his hands.
Judith looked around at everyone first so she could be sure that the coast was clear, and then she tiptoed into the back door of the house. She slid the glass door open and shut it when she made her way inside.
She could hear someone humming and there was something in the air that smelt so good.
“Hello?” Judith said as she took a step into the dining space. The humming stopped and she heard the clatter of utensils on pots and the shuffling of feet.
“Jude?”
“Yeah Daniel, it’s me.” Judith stayed put. She didn’t want to intrude. But she also wanted to know why Daniel would host a surprise party in his backyard if he wasn’t even going to bother to show up.
“I was gonna come out in just a bit. Shoot, did I miss the surprise?” Daniel came into view, wiping his hands on a small kitchen towel. Even with his messy clothes he looked amazing. He looked worried and he was chewing on his lip, but his dimples looked so adorable. That was what Judith was paying attention to.
Daniel finally looked up at her to apologize but stopped in his tracks.
“Wow,” he said aloud. Judith squeaked and covered her face with two hands.
“Ahh, don’t hide Jude. I didn’t think you’d look so different is all. It really suits you. You almost look more...more you,” Daniel said. He sounded nervous again and he was trying to ensure that he chose his words wisely. “I’m sorry I missed the big reveal. I’ve been trying to cook.”
“For me?” Judith asked as she came out of her hiding place. She lowered her hands and grinned at him.
“Yeah,” he said, “I wanted to try something new. I thought you’d like it.”
“You didn’t have to go through all of this for me,” Judith said.
“I know...but I wanted to.”
Judith stepped into the kitchen. Whatever he was making smelt divine, and she was curious.
On the island was a plethora of ingredients and kitchen appliances. Everything was strewn around. There were pots on most of the burners of his stove, and the oven light was on. He had pulled out all the stops.
“Is this for the party or…?”
“No actually. It was just for you and me…”
He was standing right behind Judith, looking at her. She turned to face him and noticed something wonderful. He wasn’t seeing her with new eyes. Her makeover didn’t make him fawn over her. He was looking at her the way he always had, only now she felt something between them that was far below the surface.
“And the boys?” she whispered.
“And the boys of course,” he chuckled, his dimples prominent.
“Of course,” she smiled too.
She considered going back outside to see if anyone noticed that she was no longer anywhere in sight since it was technically her party, but then she thought better of it. If they needed her they could come in and find her. At this moment she was right where she wanted to be.
“Is this one of the dates you claim to owe me?” Judith asked as she removed her jacket and placed it on the back of a dining chair.
“No way. This doesn’t count. This is something special I wanted to do for you,” Daniel admitted.
“Well then I guess I can look forward to that date then,” she smiled, sidling over to him. He standing over a pot and checking the contents. He replaced the lid and then faced her with a smile on his face.
Without warning he leaned down and gave her she swiftest and softest kiss on her lips. It was so sudden and so unexpected that she almost thought she had daydreamed it. He moved away and Judith came out of her temporary trance.
“I guess you can,” Daniel said.
Judith stood very still for a long time. She must have looked insane to him, but she needed to process what just happened. Finally, she let it sink in and she smiled up at him. He was already grinning at her. The two of them were blushing and grinning stupidly at each other.
Judith didn’t know where this was going, but she knew right now that this was what she wanted. It was wonderful knowing this was something Daniel wanted too. There had been so many second chances this week that Judith could hardly believe any of this was truly real. But it was, and she was now open to accepting he possibility of what was to come from here on.
“So...” Judith said, feeling awkward as ever and still not confident in the art of flirting.
“So,” Daniel said repeated.
“So...do you...do you need any help with this stuff? Because I’m pretty sure something is burning.”
“Oh thank God you asked! Yes! Yes I absolutely need help with this,” Daniel said. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah yeah. Step out of the way. But you owe me for this Daniel.”
“I know. But we’ve got time. We’ve got time.”
THE END
Keep reading for bonus books.
Tessa's Spring
A Contemporary Suspense Romance
J.L. STARR
Book Description
Tessa Cunningham has always been a health-conscious person, growing her own fresh vegetables at home and spending her days working at a company with a reputation for growing healthy, organic food. But when she comes across some reports that raise questions, she starts to wonder whether her employer is operating entirely on the up and up.
With the help of her neighbor, a hipster health nut named Samson, she starts her own investigation into her employer's practices. But before they know it, Tessa and Samson have gotten in way over their heads.
This is an 18,000 word standalone, contemporary suspense romance novella with no cliffhanger.
Tessa's Summer, the second standalone romantic suspense story in the series is now available on Amazon.com.
Chapter 1
“It's not illegal,” Tessa's boss told her. “Everything we're doing is well within the boundaries of the law.”
“That doesn't make it right,” Tessa said. “I mean, these reports—”
“Those reports are company secrets,” Mr. Morgan said. “I trust we have an understanding in that regard? I can't have anyone leaking our internal information.”
Tessa held the file folder in her hands, struggling with what was inside. She wasn't sure what to do, though her gut was telling her that there was something very wrong going on at Dunham Enterprises. The nationwide food chain had a reputation for providing clean, wholly organic products, though the more time she spent on the inside, the more Tessa was starting to question what she knew about her employer.
“Are we going to have a problem here?” Mr. Morgan asked. He studied her like he was readying the chopping block.
“No problem, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “It's just that I don't want to get myself into any trouble. If I'm liable...”
“Don't worry.” He smirked and patted her on the arm. “You won't be held liable for anything. Besides, like I said, everything we're doing is perfectly legal. All the major corporations operate this way.”
“They do?”
“Of course. It's the cost of doing business. Perfectly standard.”
“Oh.” Tessa looked down at the file folder, wondering if she'd simply misunderstood it. “All right. Sorry for taking up so much of your time.”
“No problem at all.” Mr. Morgan turned to leave, then paused and looked back at her. “I'm glad you brought this to my attention first, Tessa. You're a smart girl. I've always thought you do an excellent job here. You probably know that if internal information were ever l
eaked to the press, it could cause a scandal. That's the sort of thing that costs people their jobs. I'm sure you don't want that.”
“No,” Tessa said. “I definitely don't.”
“Good.”
Mr. Morgan left, and Tessa returned to her cubicle. She sat in her chair, her shoulders slumped, and tossed the folder onto her desk.
A head topped with short, spiky read hair popped up over the wall of her cubicle. “What was that all about?” Mindy asked. She glanced down at Tessa, then looked over the wall at Mr. Morgan as he headed out the office door.
“Nothing,” Tessa said, keeping her head down. “I don't want to talk about it.”
Mindy leaned her arms on the wall and peered down at her. “You okay, Tess? You've been pent up all day.”
Tessa tapped her fingers on the folder in front of her. She opened her mouth to say something, then remembered what Mr. Morgan had said about not letting certain things be spread. “It's nothing. I'm just having a rough day. I can't wait to get finished here, go home, pop open a bottle of wine, and get my hands dirty.”
Mindy snorted and shook her head. “Okay then, if you say so.” She disappeared back into her own cubicle, leaving Tessa alone with her work.
She booted up her computer and navigated through the company's archaic online file system until she found the folders she needed. This was supposed to be the easy part of her work. Tessa's department at Dunham was responsible for organizing inventory reports, results from health inspections, and internal safety test reports, all gathered from the hundreds of manufacturing branches the company had around the country.
There was an endless stream of files and reports coming into the office. So many files, in fact, that there was a three year backlog on getting them entered into the system. There were stacks upon stacks of boxes lined up along the wall on one side of the office, containing all of the files that needed to be organized, typed up, investigated, and eventually disposed of.
Tessa started entering the information from the report into the online database. It was a tedious process, mostly consisting of typing in the handwritten notes made by plant managers and inspectors. The company handled a lot of things digitally, but with a corporation this size, there was simply no way to avoid good old fashioned paperwork for some of the most mundane, grueling tasks.
As she entered the information from the report, Tessa tried not to think about the meaning behind it. She didn't know much about how pesticides and Genetically Modified Organisms worked, but Dunham Enterprises always advertised its products as being completely natural and organic.
The report showed that a number of GMOs were used in the ingredients of a large number of Dunham's products, and that there were traces of some potentially harmful pesticides. The man who'd written the report, one of Dunham's own internal Quality Assurance Inspectors, had made a note in his report suggesting further investigation.
Tessa finished entering the information into the computer, hit “SUBMIT,” then placed the folder in her outbox with the rest of the files she'd gone through that day. It was getting close to 5:00, so she grabbed her stack of folders and headed for the shredding room.
There were several large, industrial-size cross-cut paper shredders standing throughout the room, each one with a waste bin packed with little confetti-sized bits of paper. The janitor, Corey, was already there dumping the contents of the bins into large plastic bags and loading them into a trash cart to be hauled off for recycling.
“Hey there, Tessa,” he said, nodding to her. “I haven't dumped number three yet, you can use that one.”
“Thanks,” Tessa said. She set the stack of folders on the side of the machine and started pulling out any staples she found so they wouldn't jam up the shredder. Bits of paper snowed down into the waste bin in a steady stream as she fed the files in one after another.
She saved the file on the GMOs for last. She tapped her fingers against it, considering something stupid and possibly dangerous. She didn't want to get anyone in trouble, and she really didn't want to lose her job. She could cost a lot of people their jobs if this information got leaked.
But on the other hand, she thought about all the people who could potentially get sick if they didn't realize what they were eating. She didn't believe that all GMOs were automatically dangerous, but if there was even the possibility, she could end up responsible for a lot of suffering.
Tessa chewed on her lip until the other files finished shredding and the snowfall into the waste bin stopped. Then she tucked the last remaining folder under her jacket and turned to leave.
“Tessa?” Corey said.
She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder.
“You have yourself a good night,” he said, nodding to her.
“Thanks. You too.”
She hurried from the room, stopping at her desk to get her purse. She folded the file in half and shoved it into her purse, then headed out the door, feeling eyes on her back the entire time.
Chapter 2
When she got home, Tessa pulled out the stolen file folder and stared at it. She wasn't sure why she'd taken it. She had no idea what to do with it. It had just seemed like the thing to do.
Thinking about the consequences set her on edge. She licked her lips and looked around her apartment, then shoved the folder in her desk drawer and tried to forget about it. She wiped her hands on her shirt, pacing around the room. Without any ideas about what she was supposed to do, or if she should even do anything at all, she decided she needed some stress relief. Something to keep her hands and her mind busy.
She changed out of her work clothes and into jeans and an old, worn shirt. She grabbed her gardening caddy off the counter and headed out the back door, to the broad community gardening plot that sat between the apartment buildings.
The plot was huge, stretching out behind her apartment building all the way up to the next building across the way. It had been divided into several dozen patches, each “owned” by a different tenant. Tessa wasn't sure how the community gardening plot had gotten started; she'd inherited her small plot when she'd moved in, taking over the space that had belonged to the previous tenant. Tending her garden had become her hobby and her stress relief. Plus it was nice to have fresh-grown produce throughout the warmer parts of the year. Most of the tenants traded fruits and vegetables with each other, so while Tessa mostly grew tomatoes and watermelons, she always had plenty of fresh berries, carrots, and other goods given to her by her neighbors.
She greeted a few of her neighbors on her way to her part of the patch. It was a nice, sunny day outside, so there were several people out tending their gardens. She said hello to an older woman who grew flowers in her plot, and a young gay couple who had a little coy pond in the corner of their plot. Everyone grew something different, and the only rule was that everything had to be all-natural. There were no chemical fertilizers, no artificial products. Just a patchwork field covered in little plots of nature.
Tessa pulled on her gloves and got to work digging up the soil and mixing in organic fertilizer she bought from a local supplier. It was early in the season yet, and her plot was mostly an empty patch of dirt for now. She needed to fertilize the soil after the long, dry winter, and loosen the dirt to give the roots plenty of room to grow and thrive. She planted several tall trellises in the ground around the patch, to give the tomato plants somewhere to grow. They would help keep the tomatoes off the ground, keeping them cleaner and easier to inspect and harvest.
She was working up a pretty good sweat when the ringing of a bicycle bell announced the arrival of her neighbor, Samson. He pedaled his bike around the back of the apartment building and stopped not far from her. He pulled a wooden case of herb seedlings from the basket hanging from the handlebars, then brought it over to his plot, right next to Tessa's. His garden was a busy, crowded patch, with vegetables growing in the dirt, and benches lining the area, each covered in collections of little clay plots for his herbs.
“Good after
noon, Tessa,” he said, flashing her a smile. He had long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and he had a style that could only be described as “hipster hippie.” He wore skinny jeans and a loose flannel shirt over a tight tie-dyed t-shirt. Sometimes Tessa thought he belonged back in the sixties, but the iPod in his pocket marked him as a millennial through and through.
“Hey, Samson.” She waved at him, scattering specks of dirt from her gloves.
“How's life treating you?” He set the box of herb seedlings on one of his benches and started sorting through them. He dumped some of the old, dry dirt from the clay pots on the bench and refilled them with fresh soil to help the new herbs thrive.
“I'm not even sure how to answer that question anymore.” She lowered her head, trying to focus on her work. She hacked through a patch of dirt with a little hand rake, wishing she could slice through her worries the way she did these troublesome roots.
“That sounds ominous,” he said. “Anything you care to talk about?”
Tessa thought about the file folder sitting in her desk drawer. She knew she couldn't talk about that to anyone. Not unless she was ready to be a whistle blower. And she couldn't do something like that when she wasn't even sure if Dunham was doing anything wrong. Like Mr. Morgan had said, there was nothing illegal about using GMOs. She couldn't even be sure if they were dangerous.
“Ever have a moral dilemma?” she asked.
“Once,” he said, nodding sagely.
“What about?”
“Well, it was back when I was much more religious.”
“You?” Tessa looked him up and down, from his ponytail to his leather sandals. “Religious?”
He laughed while he settled one of his seedlings into a pot. “Believe it or not, Tessa, I was raised to be Very Catholic.”
“'Very' Catholic?” Tessa mulled that over. “As opposed to only 'Slightly' Catholic?”
“Indeed.” He winked at her. “The difference is, someone who is only Slightly Catholic only goes to church on holidays, and they celebrate Christmas and Easter more for the presents and candy than for the religious aspects. But my parents wanted me to be Very Catholic, which meant church every Sunday, and always wearing our Sunday best.”
