Technically Mine (Love, Emerson Book 2)

by Isabel North

  Gabe shook his head. “Why are you still single, viper?”

  “Because I lost 180 pounds of deadweight husband, I climbed up onto the spinster shelf, and I plan to defend my position with everything in my arsenal. Plus, I have a drawer full of batteries. What do I need a man for?”

  In the yard outside, Kate stood over a pile of squeaky bears—every last one yet another of Gabe’s failed attempts to buy Gargoyle’s affection—and was throwing them one after the other for Gargoyle. He had stuffed three in his mouth, and was trying to cram in a fourth.

  “Here.” Jenny nudged Gabe and handed him a mug of coffee.

  “Thanks.” It was a paint-it-yourself mug, and had been decorated with a lumpy red dragon. Kate’s work, he guessed. Gabe smiled. Derek Tate had a dragon tattoo. Nice ink.

  Leaning against the counter, he blew into the mug, watching Jenny over the rim. “What’s going on with you and Tate?” he asked, and took a sip.

  Jenny’s lips tightened. “Not a damn thing.”

  “You know, if I was a betting man like your asshole ex-husband, I’d lay good money on him climbing up to that spinster shelf you were talking about, and dragging you down.”

  “Good job you’re nothing like my asshole ex-husband, and you’re not dumb enough to bet at all, let alone on love.”

  “Sweetheart, I didn’t say anything about love.”

  “Shut up,” she said crossly. “And stop looming.” She sat at the kitchen table.

  He sat opposite her, raising his brows.

  “What are you doing here, Gabe?” Jenny asked.

  He pointed out the window at Gargoyle.

  “Forget that nonsense about the dog. I want the truth.”

  “The truth?” Gabe took another sip of his coffee, and shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t know.”

  “I do.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You’re in mourning.”

  He blinked. “Who died?”

  “No one died. You lost something precious and you don’t know how to handle your feelings.”

  He bit back a smile. “I can handle anything. And I haven’t lost—”

  “You lost your wingman.”

  Gabe burst out laughing. “Alex was never my wingman. You think I’d let him anywhere near my love life? Be serious, Jenny.” Alex’s idea of approaching a woman would go something along the lines of, Hey, my friend wants to have sex with you. How about it? “Our wingman situation was a one-way street. In other words, I told him what to do. You’re welcome, by the way. If I hadn’t intervened, Elle would never have ended up with Alex. She could have ended up with T.J.”

  Elle’s boss, Dr. Ted ‘T.J.’ Coleman, a man who was blissfully un-self-aware, cheerfully optimistic in the face of a thousand female rejections, and whose social skills made even Alex seem suave.

  At the thought of it, Jenny shuddered.

  Gabe continued, “If the day ever comes that I need Alex Zacharov’s help with a woman, promise that you’ll shoot me. Take me out. Head shot.”

  Jenny waited for him to finish and said, “Since he found Elle, you’ve lost your place in his life.”

  “It’s possible that you’re confused about the nature of my relationship with Alex.”

  “I mean there isn’t the same kind of room for you in his life. You’re not interrupting Alex when you decide to drop in unannounced. You’re interrupting a couple.”

  Gabe leaned back in the chair, folding his arms over his chest. “Don’t tell me I want what he has. I don’t want it.”

  “Hey, I’m with you, man. Love sucks.”

  “Love is awesome, Jenny. It’s just not for me. Can you imagine what I’d do to a woman?”

  “I’d rather not,” she said. “I don’t see you that way.”

  “I wasn’t talking about sex. I can’t commit. For me to know this, and yet still try to find an Elle of my own in some sort of twisted keeping-up-with-my-buddy competition, would be an act of extreme and premeditated cruelty.”

  “If you’re not yearning for an Elle of your own, then, try getting a home of your own. That way you won’t have to keep invading Alex’s.”

  “Eh. I already have ten. I don’t think I need any more.”

  Her eyes bulged. “Ten?”

  “Eleven? No. It’s ten.”

  Jenny looked thoughtful. “Any of those properties in Hawaii?”

  “Bahamas. Why? Fancy a vacation? Let me know.”

  “You have ten properties, including one in the Bahamas, yet you keep coming here. To Emerson. I think you want a home. You might not be ready for an Elle, but you’re ready to nest. Do it, Gabe. Make yourself a home.”

  She could be on to something. “All right. How?”

  “What?”

  “How do I make a home?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because I saw this place when you first moved in. You’ve done an amazing job. Turned it from a dump into a cute little cottage.” He sat straighter and looked around with interest. “I’ll make this my home. I already know I like the area.”

  “No, Gabe. It’s not for sale.”

  “A million bucks.”

  “It’s too small for you,” she said.

  “You’d be amazed at where I can fit.”

  “You work in San Francisco!”

  “I’m also very flexible.”

  “It’s already a home. Mine and Kate’s.”

  He ignored her. “First thing I think when I walk in here? What a cozy home. I’ve never—” he sat back, struck, “—I’ve never once walked through my own door and thought, hey, I’m home.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m…here.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to buy this place. Million and a half. It’s clear I have no idea how to make a home myself, or I’d have gotten around to it in the last twenty-two years.” He watched Jenny’s expression soften. “What?” he said.

  “I’m twenty-eight.”

  “I know that.”

  “You’ve been alone since I was about Kate’s age?”

  He stared at her. “I’ve been… I’ve been busy.”

  “Right. I forgot. Building your empire and everything.”

  “You don’t get to be a millionaire by sitting on your ass.”

  “And money is all you’ll ever have, if you don’t watch out. Here’s what you’re going to do, Gabe. You’re going to go back to San Francisco and find yourself an interior designer. All you have to provide is the property and the money, and they’ll take care of the rest. You’ll have a home before you know it.”

  “And you think that will solve all my problems?”

  Jenny leaned over the table and patted his cheek. “Not all of them. But it’s a start.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nora’s cell phone started to ring, right when she was juggling her purse, keys, shopping bags, and a copy of today’s newspaper. She hurried through her new apartment and dumped her armful onto the tiny kitchen table, but as soon as she’d gotten a hand free to answer, the phone stopped ringing.

  And one of the bags tipped over, sending her apples to the floor.

  Nora checked the screen, heaving a sigh when the voicemail notification popped up.

  Sighing was an improvement. For a solid week, her reaction at getting a call, a text, or a voicemail had been a lurching stomach, burning cheeks, and the overwhelming urge to crawl under her covers and stay there forever.

  After that week, she’d replaced her old phone with the cheap yet serviceable model she’d picked up at a gas station outside Phoenix, Arizona, and since only her parents had the new number, no more humiliating calls.

  By the time she’d left town, everyone she’d ever met had already given her their opinion on the whole Vince debacle, anyway.

  Switching to speakerphone, Nora played the voicemail as she crouched and began to gather up the apples.

  “Nora? It’s me.” As expected, her mother.

 
Nora piled the apples in the hand-carved wooden fruit bowl she’d bought at a local craft market on one of her first days in the city.

  The message continued, “I haven’t heard from you for a couple of weeks and I’m starting to worry. Also, I have to talk to you about all those boxes you left behind. Call me back, sweetie.”

  Most of the apples had escaped damage, but one had a big dent in its glossy green skin. Nora took it out of the bowl and rinsed it clean under the faucet. No point in letting it sit and develop a bruise until no one wanted to eat it, was there?

  She unpacked the rest of the shopping while eating the apple, and decided to get the call over with. Otherwise she’d add it to the to-do list at the front of her fancy new Filofax planner, and keep moving it to the next day, and then the next, until she finally gave in.

  Hopping up to sit in the patch of bright sunlight that spilled onto the kitchen counter, she called her mother. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Nora! That was quick. Were you screening?”

  “Nope. I had my hands full. Just got back in.”

  “Good. You know I don’t like it when you screen me.”

  Ninety-nine percent of the time, she took her mother’s call—and wasn’t that a hell of a statement about her life, that she was almost always available to take her mother’s call—but that one percent was the important percent, it would seem.

  “What’s up, Mom?”

  “How’s Nebraska?”

  “Getting on just fine without me.”

  “You’re still on the move? Honestly, Nora, how far are you going to run?”

  This again? She clenched her teeth. “It’s a road trip. Not running.”

  “Teenagers take road trips when they steal their parents’ cars and make bad choices. Twentysomethings take road trips when they’re trying to pretend they’re not a grown-up with a nine-to-five job. You’re thirty-six. You have absolutely no excuse for a road trip. And you’ll be thirty-seven soon.”

  “Yes. In ten months. Is this why you called? Early birthday congratulations?”

  “Don’t be silly. Where are you if you’re not in Nebraska? Vermont? Kentucky?”

  The road trip had been a last-minute decision. Her lease had run out, her long-term relationship was about as over as a relationship could get with both parties still breathing, people were talking, and then there’d been the issues at work.

  Two days after finding Vince romping around in a bathrobe with his new wife, Nora had woken alone in her soon-to-be-ex-apartment, dry-eyed and exhausted, and it had hit her: there wasn’t a single reason for her to stay in Beacon Falls.

  Considering the whole Vince situation, it was the last place on earth she wanted to be.

  In the end, it had been surprisingly simple to get the hell out of town. She’d rented a storage unit and a van. She and her father had shuttled between her apartment and the storage facility until all her worldly possessions were locked up tight, except for the last few boxes, which held the remains of her childhood.

  Nora had been on the fence about the storage unit. If she could have gotten away with it, she’d have piled up every reminder of her sad adult life in the apartment building’s parking lot, and set it on fire.

  Stuffing it into the unit, slamming the door, and throwing the key at her father had been the next best thing.

  She’d crammed the contents of her closet into every suitcase she owned, filled her laundry basket with her bathroom toiletries, packed it all in her car, and that was it.

  She’d left.

  Stereo blasting. Power ballads. Eat my dust.

  The works.

  Despite what her mother, Vince, Melissa, her ex-boss, and everyone else with an opinion on her thought, it wasn’t running away.

  Nora was running toward something.

  She debated whether to let her mother believe she was, in fact, in a state on the other side of the country, but she’d signed a short-term lease with sweet Mrs. Valdez who owned and lived in the ground floor of the little Victorian, so she may as well come clean.

  “I’m in San Francisco,” she said. “I think I’m going to stay here for a while.” Nora braced for her mother’s reaction.

  “That’s nice. You’re not planning on coming back to Beacon Falls? That’s good. Nice. That’s nice.”

  Nice?

  Nora had expected her mother to insist she grow up, come home, and get on her knees to beg for her job at the dental office back. She hadn’t expected…nice.

  “In that case,” her mother said. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

  “What?” Nora asked cautiously.

  “It’s all those boxes. As you’ve finally stopped running, I’ll go ahead and send them to you.”

  The boxes that, no matter how she’d shoved and rearranged, she hadn’t quite been able to force into the storage unit. “I’m trying a fresh start here, Mom.” Her eye fell on the fruit bowl, and she smiled. “Can’t you keep them for me?”

  “They take up a lot of space.”

  “It’s four boxes. Do they take up that much space? Really?”

  “I can’t abide clutter, and they’re cluttering.”

  Moira Bowman was not the kind of mother who had bronzed her daughter’s baby shoes, hung mismatched family photos all over the walls, or kept ugly but well-meant handmade gifts.

  She was the kind of mother who had turned Nora’s bedroom into a craft room before Nora had been at college for a week, and had the entire house repainted, inside and out, every five years.

  “The thing is, Mom, the apartment I’m renting is tiny. I don’t have the room.”

  “As you said, it’s four boxes. You don’t want the clutter, but I have to put up with it?”

  “All right. I don’t want mementoes of a life I’m trying to forget hanging around.”

  “You’re trying to forget your life? I like that. You’re welcome. For life. And for the happy childhood your father and I gave you. I hardly think it’s my fault you went off the rails. I won’t be made to feel responsible.”

  Nora clutched the phone in her fist and pressed it to her forehead. She took a deep breath. “Mom? I got drunk once—”

  “Twice.”

  Once when she was eighteen and discovered she had no tolerance whatsoever for alcohol, and once when her fiancé had married another woman. Both were stupid decisions. Both were totally normal.

  “Yes,” Nora said. “Twice. Almost twenty years apart. I don’t think it counts as going off the rails. My gratitude for the gift of life you and Dad bestowed upon me knows no bounds. And if you can’t bear to store four boxes in one of your many, many closets, or the basement, then go ahead and donate my memories to Goodwill.”

  “Honey. No need to get all upset.”

  There was need.

  “I’ll make room. It’s not a big deal. Now, I have to go, but since you’re settling, I want you to text me your new address.”

  “Why?” If she sent the boxes, Nora would freak out.

  “I want to send a housewarming gift. I have the best idea. You’ll love it. Also, if I don’t hear from you in a few weeks, I want to know where to send the police to check for a body.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not joking. Call me in a couple of days, or I’ll have to come and check on you.”

  Her mom drove her crazy and could be the most insensitive woman in the world, but she cared. She’d bitch and moan about the inconvenience, but she’d come and check. If Nora was on the International Space Station and didn’t take her mother’s calls, she’d come and check. “Maybe I won’t give you my address, then you can’t come, and your conscience can remain clear.”

  “Text me, and look out for the housewarming gift.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Bye, honey. Be happy!”

  “Yep.”

  Nora microwaved one of the three takeout coffees she’d bought earlier that morning. While she waited for it to reheat, she opened her Filofax and mo
ved buy coffee maker to the top of her to-do list. Sitting at the kitchen table with her steaming cup, she plodded through the job listings in the newspaper twice, found nothing, and decided to book a computer at the library and expand her search.

  The road trip had taken a great chunk out of her savings, and her checking account got leaner by the day. Driving aimlessly about the country for two months sucked down money like you wouldn’t believe.

  She’d been in San Francisco for a month, and after the deposit and rent for the apartment, she needed a job soon. It wasn’t desperate, but it would be.

  In, say, a week.

  Exhausted by her adulting, Nora flopped onto the twin bed that came with the apartment, and took a nap.

  ~ ~ ~

  Hours later, Nora sat up and stared at the door in confusion.

  Unless she’d dialed for pizza in her sleep, there was no reason for her doorbell to be ringing. And yet it was, ringing like someone was leaning on it.

  Apart from the infrequent food delivery, no one, not one single person, had rung the bell in the entire time she had lived there. She rolled off the bed and headed for the door. “I’m coming!”

  The bell stopped ringing and her visitor landed a few solid thumps on the wood, yelling, “Open up, nerd!”

  Nora stopped dead. It wasn’t. Her mother wouldn’t...

  She scurried over to the peephole. Her shoulders sagged.

  Ah, crap. This was her housewarming gift, wasn’t it? Nora opened the door.

  A woman stood there, tall and slender. An expensive purse hung in the crook of an elbow, she held an iPhone in the other hand, and her natural five-eight was lifted to an intimidating six feet by a pair of stilettoes that matched the purse.

  Her mother had sent Nora’s baby cousin, Anna.

  “I hear your life has gone to shit,” Anna said. “Thank God. It’s perfect timing.”

  She moved in, and Nora automatically reached out to hug her. She hadn’t seen Anna for years, and hadn’t thought to let her cousin know she was in town because, while seven-year-old Anna had worshipped the ground thirteen-year-old Nora walked on, thirty-year-old Anna with her successful interior design company and effortless cool flat-out intimidated her.