Just Give Me a Reason is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2016 by Rebecca Rogers Maher
Excerpt from I Wish You Were Mine © 2016 by Lauren LeDonne
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
eBook ISBN 9780804181495
Cover design: Diane Luger
Cover illustration: Colin Anderson / Getty Images
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1: Tony
Chapter 2: Beth
Chapter 3: Tony
Chapter 4: Beth
Chapter 5: Tony
Chapter 6: Beth
Chapter 7: Tony
Chapter 8: Beth
Chapter 9: Tony
Chapter 10: Beth
Chapter 11: Tony
Chapter 12: Beth
Chapter 13: Tony
Chapter 14: Beth
Chapter 15: Tony
Chapter 16: Beth
Chapter 17: Tony
Chapter 18: Beth
Chapter 19: Tony
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Rebecca Rogers Maher
About the Author
The Editor’s Corner
Excerpt from I Wish You Were Mine
Chapter 1
Tony
As soon as the car is parked, the girls unbuckle their seatbelts and run squealing into the house. All the way up from the city, they’ve been hatching a detailed plan involving fairies, knights, and the dusty old attic of their aunt Holly’s new house. I believe Holly’s puppy is featured, too, in some sort of dragon capacity. It’s hard to keep up sometimes, with Ana and Sofia.
A year ago, my brother was a cook at a diner in Queens. Now he’s living in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, practically moved in with a woman who might soon be his wife. It doesn’t hurt that they won the lottery together six months ago and are now filthy rich. Their whole, perfect lives are spread out before them.
And I’m happy for them. I really am.
It’s just that sometimes I have a little trouble adjusting. Once upon a time, I was the success story, striving like hell for the life my parents wanted for me. The life my mother left Mexico for, that my father worked double shifts in construction for. That he eventually died for.
I had that life for a while—a wife, two kids, a nice home, a thriving business. Until it all started crumbling, and I couldn’t react fast enough to keep the pieces together.
Ana comes bounding out of the house now, the dog at her heels, shrieking delightedly. Sofia soon follows with a water sprayer, soaking wet and out for vengeance. I look at my watch and chuckle. It took about five minutes for trouble to find them.
I know I should go in, but I’m not quite ready to face Ray and Holly. Or Holly’s friend, for that matter, who might already be here.
I met Beth only once, five months ago, and once was almost more than I could handle. It wasn’t long after I signed my divorce papers. Ray and Holly invited us both out to dinner to celebrate their lottery win.
She was wearing a red dress, and the reason I remember that is because of the way it hugged her skin—the lush shape of her, the curve and weight. I’d say it was shallow of me to notice her body, but honestly, I didn’t choose to notice. It was like some previously silent homing device woke up in my gut and started shivering.
When Ray introduced us, she reached out and shook my hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine—firm and warm—and I’m ashamed to say my first thought was how those fingers would feel on my dick.
I wouldn’t call myself uptight, but I’m not usually the kind of person who veers off the road like that, mentally. I took my seat at the table, kept my head down, and said as little as possible while Ray and Holly talked animatedly about their plans for the restaurant.
Beth cracked deadpan jokes and tried to include me in the conversation. She might even have been flirting with me, but I was so shell-shocked, I had no idea how to respond. She was too beautiful, and I was too broken.
On the whole, it was not my finest hour.
I peer through the windshield at the front windows of Holly’s house. It’s past time I went in and faced everyone. I take a deep breath and reach for the door handle.
And my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.
I fumble it out, glancing guiltily at the house.
Ray and Holly give me grief about accepting work calls up here. They complain that I work too much, but that’s easy for them to say when, combined, they’re worth over a hundred million dollars. I answer the phone.
“Hey, Jackie. Everything okay?”
A Stevie Wonder song filters down the line, which is no surprise. My store manager favors a certain ’70s Pandora station, and she’s not shy about dancing to it.
“Oh yeah, all good, boss. Quiet. Just wanted to see if I should maybe close early like we did last week.”
Like we’ve done for the past several weeks, she’s too polite to say. When it was Saturday night and the store was so dead it wasn’t worth the electricity to keep it open.
“How quiet are we talking?” I ask her.
She hesitates, and Stevie fills in the silence with that song he wrote for his daughter. I breathe deeply so as not to listen too hard, because that song always puts a lump in my throat.
“Like, maybe two or three people in the last two hours.”
I sigh heavily.
The store’s neighborhood used to be diverse and working class, and it was no mystery how to provide for that population. We sold household merchandise out of a double storefront, and like all the other businesses on the block, we offered reasonable prices. The previous owner was Greek; I was Mexican and Italian. We both came from working-class families, and we knew the people who lived around us. Our neighbors were an old-school butcher who’d been there several decades and a cobbler who could turn an ancient pair of boots into a work of art. I worked there as a teenager for extra cash, and ten years and a business degree later, when the owner was ready to retire, I bought the place and took it over.
It was relatively simple until the neighborhood population changed. Since then, we’ve all been fighting to adjust, and some of us are failing. The butcher closed up shop three years ago—replaced by a chain store—and the cobbler is already planning his retirement. He can sell the store for seven figures now and move out to Long Island with his grandchildren.
If I had been less distracted by the disintegration of my marriage, I might have come up with a plan of my own sooner—a strategy for reconfiguring the business, for acclimating to the shifting neighborhood. But by the time I had my head on straight, we were already sinking. For the last six months, I’ve been fighting like hell to rescue us, and every minute I’m not there I feel like I’m letting my employees down. They need their jobs as much as I need mine, and it’s not looking good for us at the moment.
I take another deep breath. “Go ahead and close up at six, okay, Jackie? Make sure you set the alarm.”
“Sure.” She pauses. “You okay, Tony?”
Which is a question that kills me. Jackie’s been with the store for fifteen years—longer than I have. It would devastate h
er family to lose the work, and yet it’s me she’s worried about.
And Ray wonders why I put so many hours in.
He had to push hard to get me to leave work and come up here this weekend. In the end he reminded me that my daughters need me, too, and need their extended family. It was a low blow, but it worked. I took the day off and bundled the girls into the car. Their utter delight at the unexpected trip shamed me. They stared rapt at the changing leaves on the trees, and I tried and failed to remember the last time I’d taken them anywhere.
“Yeah, Jackie, I’m good. Thanks. You go, and have a good weekend.”
“You too, Tony. Take care, okay?”
“Will do.”
I hang up and stare at the front of the house. The girls have probably already taken over all the toys of Holly’s son, Drew, and he’s probably let them, sweet kid that he is. I’m bracing myself to head inside when another car pulls into the driveway.
I’ve parked under a tree at the side of the house in order to make room for the other cars. In this shaded spot, with the sun at full shine, I’m probably not visible to the driver. I wonder briefly if I should get out of the car and make myself known, but when I see who it is, I quickly lean back into the shadows.
It’s her.
Beth.
A few weeks after I met her at dinner, Ray told me she was pregnant. I remembered, belatedly, how little she’d eaten at dinner. Some bread, maybe, and a glass of ginger ale. If she was anything like my ex-wife in pregnancy, she must have been right in the throes of morning sickness. I was grateful I’d had the sense to keep my inappropriate thoughts to myself.
Alice comes tearing out from behind the house to greet her visitor, and when Beth rolls down her window to scratch the dog’s ears, I pull back and sneak a look in the rearview mirror. I haven’t had a haircut for months. It’s the sort of thing I always forget now that I’m single. I raced out of the house without shaving, too, and now here I am, hiding in my truck, looking like somebody who slept on the street.
I’m thinking my unattractive state is probably for the best when she steps out of her car, and then for a moment I’m not thinking at all. Only, again, reacting.
She’s wearing black leggings and a white tank top, with a long caramel-colored cardigan over it, and knee-length boots. Her dark hair is braided loosely down her back, and she pushes a few strands out of her eyes as she shuts the car door. There is an immediate physicality about her that makes me go utterly still. A presence and a center of gravity that pulls everything toward her.
She is fuller now than before, naturally. Rounded in her belly and swollen—like a ripe peach is swollen, like a teardrop on the edge of a lash. I exhale and realize I’ve been holding my breath. She pulls open the car’s back door to retrieve something from the seat, and when she bends over, I have to close my eyes entirely.
What. The hell. Is wrong with me.
It must be that it’s been a while—that’s all. Alexa and I were on ice for a long time before we actually separated. Once the divorce was final, I slogged through a dozen or so dinners with women I met on dating sites, and they were nice enough. But nothing clicked so much that I wanted to take it past a second or third date. And for better or worse, I’m not a one-night-stand type of guy.
At the moment I’m wishing I were, since maybe it would have taken the edge off seeing Beth again. Three minutes in, and I’m already right back where I was that first night: tongue-tied, hard as a rock, and embarrassed at myself.
Beth shuts her car door and heads into the house, carrying a large red bowl.
I shake my head to clear it.
It’s not her problem that I’ve suddenly developed a deep and abiding sexual fetish for pregnant women that I’ll probably never shake. It’s not her problem that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life.
I open my car door with resolve and head across the driveway.
And right around to the backyard, where I know Ray will be grilling.
Alone.
I’ll go into the house once I get my head on straight.
Chapter 2
Beth
“Tell me you’re making apple cake, Holly, and I’ll die of happiness.”
I balance a heavy red salad bowl on my hip, open the front door, and follow the scent of cinnamon into the kitchen. Holly is at the counter chopping chunks of bright orange cantaloupe on a cutting board. I set my salad bowl down and peek into the oven, where an upside-down Bundt pan filled with apples and golden batter lies gently baking.
“Oh my God, I love you.” I pull her in for a quick squeeze, and she laughs when my belly bumps into her midsection.
“Whoa there.” She leans back but keeps hold of my arms. “You’re looking especially radiant this evening.”
“Mom says I have about a month left before the glow turns into generalized swelling.”
“You’re like a piece of ripe fruit.”
“Just before it rots, yes.”
Holly snorts and pats my arm reassuringly. “You’ll stay gorgeous all the way through, and at forty weeks you’ll sneeze politely and the baby will pop out.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears, honey.”
She opens the lid on the salad container and takes a look. I brought some greens from our community garden and topped them with roasted pumpkin slices, shaved almonds, and dried cranberries, and I’m pretty proud of myself. I’m not a huge fan of cooking, generally speaking, but I try to keep up with Holly when I’m visiting.
“Looks delicious.” She takes a mason jar of vinaigrette from my hand and tucks it into the refrigerator. “How was work today?”
“Oh, you know. Busy. Sold about forty million bottles of maple syrup.”
For about five times what they’re actually worth, but I’m not going to tell the tourists that.
This time of year, thousands of people roll through town in pursuit of autumn foliage, and they like to buy souvenirs to take home—the more authentically local-sounding, the better. Along with fresh maple syrup in quaint little bottles, we sell organic soaps and candles, jewelry and pottery made by community artisans, and tiny watercolor paintings of the mountains. We have greeting cards and calendars, too, as well as self-help books, meditation CDs, and baby clothing made of hemp—just what you’d expect from a handmade goods store in a crunchy Catskills town.
I don’t mind the fall crowds, though, to be honest. They support the local artists and farmers who supply our merchandise, and the hours pass much more quickly when the store is hopping. My shift was over almost as soon as it started. I handed over the keys to the night manager, walked out into the crisp air and fresh sunlight, and took my time driving over. And I didn’t even toss my cookies once.
You really don’t appreciate the glory of not puking three times a day until that becomes your reality for twelve weeks running. And then it stops, and the clouds crack open and sunshine pours in and all is suddenly right with the world. Back to normal. Except for the watermelon in your belly and the fact that you now walk like a duck who just crapped his pants.
Holly’s got two pots boiling on the stove, and a bowl half-full of fruit salad, with a whole pineapple beside it. I drop my purse on a chair and go to wash my hands. “How about I cut up the rest of the fruit?”
“Sure. That’d be great.” She brings over a stool so I can sit while I chop.
I don’t turn the stool down, even though I feel almost normal again. It was rough going there in the beginning, when I had no idea what I was going to do about the pregnancy. I spent the first few days taking one test after another, certain each time that the previous ones would be proven wrong. Then, once it became clear that my birth control had definitely failed, I started building a case against my pill and condom companies, not to mention my gynecologist, who had promised there was a next-to-zero chance of getting pregnant when combining those two methods. Turns out, though, that next to zero is not the same as zero.
Holly and I, we like to beat the odd
s, I guess. She won the lottery. And me? I got the miracle pregnancy.
I chop the top off the pineapple. “You guys all packed for your trip?”
“Almost.” Holly grabs a pint of blueberries and brings them to the sink. “Drew says we should cram all our stuff into rain barrels, and then when we get there, we can use the barrels for riding over the Falls.”
“Well, if you’re going to Niagara Falls, you might as well get the full experience.”
“Maybe Ray and I should get married, then.” Holly blushes a little, but her smile doesn’t falter.
It’s strange how different two people can be. The idea of spending the rest of my life with one person makes me run for the hills, but not Holly. For her, there’s no hesitation, no concern. Just pure, abject joy.
Which even I have to admit takes courage. Not so long ago, I was helping her flee a marriage so sneakily abusive, it could have flatly killed the idealism of any ordinary person. It didn’t make Holly lose faith in the possibility of love, though.
“Have you guys talked about getting married?” I ask her. I’m curious what she’ll say. Holly has no idea, but Ray is going to propose to her this week, on the Maid of the Mist boat ride, underneath Niagara Falls. Since her parents are gone, he came to me to ask for her hand. What else could I say but yes?
Even though I know it will change things for Holly and me.
It was different when her husband was an asshole, or when both of us were single. Then, it was the two of us together—an inseparable team. We supported each other, we loved each other, we spent most of our free time together. I had men in my life, but Holly was my primary relationship outside of my family. When something happened to either of us—big or small—we went to the other first. To talk about it, rage against it, laugh about it. We were each other’s front lines.
I got used to that, to relying on her in that way, and to being relied on. I can’t lie—it made me feel important, like I mattered to someone.
Now it’s Ray she goes to, and I can’t blame her. He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met in my life, he adores Holly, and he’s got a seriously smoking ass. I can’t exactly compete with that.
Just Give Me a Reason Page 1
