by Toni Blake
Dedication
To Robin Zentmeyer,
with whom I shared my first apartment—
who was there with me when the door was kicked in,
when the light fixture came crashing down,
and when the potted plants were thrown.
All these years later, life becomes art.
Acknowledgments
All I Want Is You is a book that’s been a long time in the making. I first conceived the story idea, and many of the details about it, nearly fifteen years ago. And much of the inspiration came from personal life experiences and travels that have been percolating inside me for nearly thirty. It’s so fun to finally see this particular story come to fruition.
Thanks to the incomparable Lindsey Faber for endless brainstorming help and plot problem solving as this story took shape. I couldn’t ask for a better, smarter, or more helpful friend.
Thanks to my first reader, Renee Norris, not only for reading this book in record time, but for helping me see shining bits of light in it that had escaped me until she pointed them out.
Thanks, as always, to Meg Ruley, Christina Hogrebe, and the rest of my fabulous agenting team at the Rotrosen Agency for all your support, guidance, and cheerleading on my behalf.
Thanks to the amazing folks at Avon Books for finding new and wonderful ways to sell my books, and for being a super warm and supportive environment in which to write and publish.
And special thanks to my fabulous editor, May Chen, for being so amazingly kind, patient, and understanding during the writing of this book—and when I kept missing deadlines. Your support is truly and deeply appreciated!
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Epilogue
About the Author
By Toni Blake
Copyright
About the Publisher
Down, down, down.
Would the fall never come to an end?
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Prologue
CHRISTY KNIGHT sat in an old, comfy easy chair in Under the Covers, the bookstore on Destiny’s quaint town square, cradling a large mug of hot chocolate between her palms, surrounded by hometown friends. The wintry February wind outside whistled, but the cozy bookshop felt warm. Almost safe even. And it had been a while since she’d felt safe.
The past few years had been rough—far rougher than life had prepared her for—and mostly, she tried to deal with that by putting on a brave face. But as she looked to the friendly expressions of Amy Bright and Sue Ann Simpkins, who she’d known her whole life, and Anna Romo, a more recent friend, she knew she could open up to them and be honest. Especially when Amy said, “Whatever’s going on, you can tell us. You know that, right?”
Christy nodded, then let out the breath she hadn’t quite realized she’d been holding. “Well, the truth is . . . maybe my life in the city is harder than I’ve made it out to be. Not many people know this, but . . . when Mom and Dad died, I discovered they’d been having financial trouble, and that they’d let their insurance policies lapse.”
She sensed shock blanketing the room, heard the gasps the others so valiantly tried to hold in—and pressed onward. “Ultimately, I was left with . . . nothing. So it’s been . . . difficult.”
Christy had kept all that quiet after her parents’ tragic death in a house fire here three years earlier—both to protect their good names and because she didn’t want pity. Surviving it all had been hard enough without pity heaped on top of it.
Sitting in the easy chair next to hers, Amy reached over to touch her arm. “Christy, I’m so sorry.”
“But I guess this explains why you left school,” Sue Ann said from the overstuffed chair across from her. Christy had dropped out of the University of Cincinnati—a two-hour drive from Destiny—just one semester shy of receiving her bachelor’s degree. “That never made sense to me—but now . . . I guess it was a money thing.”
Christy confirmed it with a nod. “I had no choice. I had to move into an apartment and work full-time to keep afloat.”
“Well,” said Anna, perched on the arm of Sue Ann’s chair, “I think it’s amazing that you’ve handled this completely on your own. That’s not easy. You should be proud of yourself.” Christy valued Anna’s opinion, as she’d been through some tough times, too—but now came the really hard part. Admitting that . . . maybe she couldn’t handle it anymore. That she was tired. That she wanted to make a change, find an easier way to live.
She swallowed back her discomfort and told them why she’d driven back to her hometown this weekend. “I kept thinking life would get easier, that I’d make more money somehow. But it hasn’t. And so . . . I’m wondering if maybe I should throw in the towel and come home. To Destiny.”
When her friends’ eyes all lit up, it restored in her a long lost sense of security, of being welcomed, and encouraged her to go on. “I’ve always dreamed of making a living selling my jewelry, but I work so much that there’s no time to explore that.” Christy created custom jewelry from inexpensive vintage pieces in her spare time. “And I just thought . . . if I come home, maybe I can finally, somehow, find a way to make that happen—and find a way to feel at peace in my own life again.”
“You should totally come home,” Anna encouraged her warmly. “Even though I almost fought it at first when I moved to Destiny, people here are so caring that it’s hard not to feel at peace.”
Except . . . why had Sue Ann’s expression filled with doubt? “Though as beautiful as your jewelry is,” she said, “I’m not sure Destiny is the place to make a living selling it.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree,” Amy added, though she appeared surprisingly cheery and wide-eyed about it. Then she pointed upward. “But you could live in my old apartment above the store for free.” She owned Under the Covers and had resided upstairs until she’d married Logan Whitaker last summer—now she made her home with him in his cottage on Blue Valley Lake.
“And you could work in the bookstore,” Anna added, motioning around them. “I love my part-time job here, but the bed-and-breakfast is really keeping me busy these days and I’ve told Amy she needs to find someone to replace me.”
“And you could adopt a cat!” Amy said.
Suddenly a little overwhelmed, Christy blinked. “A cat?”
Anna met her gaze matter-of-factly. “It’s become a big thing in Destiny. Everyone adopts a cat. Even me. Even though I thought I didn’t like cats.”
“A lot of strays show up here,” Amy explained. “And I let them live in the store for as long as they need to, but I also make it a mission to find good homes for them. We don’t have a cat on hand right now . . .”
“But one will show up soon,” Sue Ann said. “Trust me on this. They always do.”
“And a cat will make your life in Destiny complete,” Amy said sweetly. “And before you know it, you’ll be as happy as all of us are.”
Christy let out another breath as she looked around at the faces of her friends. They were
all so nice. And so caring. And coming home would give her that ease of instantly belonging, of having people to turn to. And the truth was, she yearned for that. It was one of those things she’d never fully appreciated until it was gone.
But Amy, Anna, and Sue Ann were all older than her—in their thirties. They all had significant others—strong, reliable guys to share the struggles of everyday life with. They were all much further along in their journey through adulthood. It made sense that they were happy and at peace.
At twenty-four, though, Christy didn’t have a significant other—or anyone else—to rely on. And as kind an offer as it was, the idea of working day in and day out in this tiny bookstore—no matter how cute it was—just didn’t appeal. And she was not—and perhaps would never be—at a place in life where she’d believe a cat would complete her. Even now, she realized—after all she’d been through, all the loss and all the struggles—her dreams were still bigger than that.
She loved Destiny, and she loved the kind people here. But the moment forced her to face something that, deep down, she’d probably known all along, or she would have come back much sooner. Destiny, for all its many charms, would never let her evolve into who she was supposed to be, and she just didn’t belong here anymore. It was a wonderful little town, but it was also the place where her parents had died and her childhood home had burned to the ground.
She was tired. She often felt beaten. And it had been tempting to consider retreating to a safer place than she’d managed to carve out for herself in the city.
But the reality was . . . her life in Destiny was over.
She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Chapter 1
CHRISTY PUSHED the key into the old lock on her front door and turned it. Nothing. She repeated the motion, twisting the doorknob and pushing inward. Still nothing.
“Howdy do, neighbor.”
Crap, I almost made it. She looked up to see Mrs. Hart, the old woman who lived below her. “Hi,” she said, glancing up only briefly in hopes of not inviting conversation. When she’d first met Mrs. Hart, she’d thought: How nice, a sweet little old lady to talk to. The notion had made her think of Destiny and decide that even in the city maybe she could find people who reminded her of home. Only it turned out that Mrs. Hart was mostly an irritating gossip whose lengthy meanderings were hard to escape once she got started.
“The Harringtons were at it again last night, did you hear?”
Christy tried to answer shortly. “Yep, sure did.” The Harringtons lived across the street in a house laden with potted plants. Terra-cotta and ceramic pots of all shapes and sizes filled the ledges of the large covered porch and lined the front walk. And they argued a lot. More and more lately, it seemed.
“I worry for her. Do you know what I heard him say to her when they were fighting in the front yard night before last?”
One more try with the key and . . . click—the door unlocked. Third time’s the charm. It usually was. One day I’m going to get this door open on the first try. But for now she just said, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hart, I have to run,” and trundled forward, two plastic grocery bags looped over one wrist, and started up the old wooden stairs that led to her second floor apartment in a rundown Cincinnati neighborhood.
She lived in an old two-story home of dark brick that had been divided into a duplex complete with a second door added on to the front. The house, with its high ceilings and dark wood moldings, had clearly seen better days. But she tried to be thankful for the touches that reminded her the place had once been more elegant.
“Son of a bitch.”
Of course, walking in to find her roommate, Bethany, cussing, put a damper on the elegance she was trying to appreciate.
“What’s wrong?” Christy asked as she entered the living room.
Bethany, an aspiring artist, stood behind her easel, but rather than a paintbrush she held a cell phone. “That bastard cut my hours again this week.”
Christy sighed. It was an ongoing drama, for both of them—trying to put in enough hours at low-paying jobs to make the rent. Bethany worked at a local fresh food market—which at least came with the perk of free fruit just before it went bad—and Christy at a chain fashion store in the mall. Which didn’t come with many perks, but at least she was surrounded by pretty things.
“Oh, and I brought those home for you,” Bethany said, suddenly calmer now as she pointed to an old strand of fake pearls on the circa 1980 coffee table. Bethany was good at compartmentalizing, which Christy had learned was a valuable skill of the broke and poor, even if she hadn’t quite yet mastered it herself. “They’ve been in the lost and found bin at work for over thirty days, so they’re yours.”
Christy lowered her grocery bags to the table and bent to pick up the pearls. “These are great—thanks!” Since Christy’s particular art—and art was the thing she and Bethany had most in common—required old costume jewelry, little made her happier these days than getting materials for free.
After putting away the milk and other groceries, Christy eased her aching feet out of the heels she’d worn to work, then changed into sweats. It was April—two months had passed since her realization that she couldn’t return home to Destiny. The good thing about spring was that she and Bethany didn’t have to walk around the apartment freezing because they couldn’t afford to turn the heat up. But the bad thing was that soon it would be sweltering hot in a place with no air-conditioning.
On this warm April day, Bethany had opened a few windows and Christy could smell the city scents wafting their way inside. The house sat just blocks from a distillery on one side and a flavor-making factory on the other. She decided to name today’s scent “vanilla whiskey.”
“You know what you need to do,” Bethany said from behind her as Christy stood at the window peering out on the cracked sidewalk below.
Christy guessed her expression must have led Bethany to read her thoughts. After realizing she couldn’t go home, she’d had no choice but to continue facing her troubles head-on—but it was hard to keep her chin up all the time in the midst of poverty, whether it came in the form of heat, cold, bad smells, or trouble paying the rent. Even so, she told Bethany, “Don’t say it.”
But Bethany said it anyway—the same way she always did. “You need to find yourself a rich man to take you away from all this.”
Bethany was like a broken record on this topic lately. And Christy raised a challenging gaze as it occurred to her for the first time ever to say, “Why do I need a rich man and you don’t?”
Yet her roommate only shrugged. “Oh, I’d take one if he came along. But it’s different for me because I chose this. I knew the road I was traveling and I went down it anyway. You didn’t have the same choice.”
True enough. Bethany came from a happy middle class family to whom she could go home if she ever got that desperate. Never quite feeling she fit in to their mainstream world, she’d chosen the risky path of art as a lifestyle. And though Christy felt that following one’s heart was the noblest path, it was definitely her parents’ deaths that had determined her current fate—it had never been a decision.
Still, she simply replied as she always did when Bethany brought this up. “I am not going out chasing rich guys. Because I’m not the gold digger type. That’s just so yucky.” She gave a slight shiver. “If I ever get married, it’ll be because I fall madly, desperately in love with someone.”
She’d been in love once before—a boy named Kyle during her first year of college—and though their relationship had eventually fizzled, she remembered love being a wonderful thing. And she had no intention of settling for less.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t fall in love with them,” Bethany pointed out with a dramatic head tilt, her d
ark brown locks swaying. “I’m just saying it should be a guy with assets, and that it should be, like, now.” She stepped closer to where Christy still stood by the window, leaning against the wall, and let her voice go lower. “I worry about you. You weren’t cut out for this.”
Christy raised her eyebrows. “And you were?”
Another shrug from her friend. “I pull off the starving artist thing better than you—I look good skinny. And I’m less idealistic—I don’t believe in rainbows and unicorns, or in falling madly, desperately in love—so I’m able to be more practical when things don’t turn out like I want. And we both know that if things ever get really, really bad, I won’t starve. I always have the option of giving up and going home. So it’s different for me. I have a fallback position. You don’t.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Christy said with an eye roll and a sigh. Then she caught sight of Mrs. Harrington watering her plants. The woman clearly loved them—Christy had seen her pot and repot things on her front porch in almost all seasons. She took them all inside for winter and Christy had been happy to notice her putting them back on the porch one day last week. She found a certain comfort in watching the woman with her plants and flowers, even from a distance. “They’re what keeps her going,” she mused.
“Huh?” Bethany asked.
“The plants. They’re what keeps her moving forward in life. They give her hope, take away her stress. They are to her what my jewelry is to me and your art is to you.”
“Plants and art and jewelry,” Bethany said softly, now peering out the window, too. “Such small, fragile things to hold such weight.”
