Collateral Damage: A Small Town Romance

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Collateral Damage: A Small Town Romance Page 4

by Lagomarsino, Giulia


  I had successfully avoided any contact with Robert for the last thirteen years. And when his parents moved away, it made it so much easier. His brothers didn’t bother to check in on me. They didn’t care. I was their brother’s girlfriend and nothing more. But his parents always worried about me, and that was a little too much to take, especially when their son had completely forgotten about me. He went off to school and never bothered to call again.

  I had a shit job, and I needed a change desperately. So, when the ad was placed for an office manager for his brother, I jumped on it. I just assumed that I would be interviewing with Eric. Little did I know that Robert would be walking back into my life. It didn’t seem fair that I should have to deal with a man that I despised so much. And to make matters worse, while I had been here, dealing with my alcoholic mother, he had been out making his fortune. I felt like a loser. We were so different. Where I had once had big dreams to go off to college and find something that lit me up inside, I now found myself working for the brother of the very man that killed all my dreams.

  Shaking off my negative thoughts about Robert, I walked into the bakery and smiled at Mary Anne. Once upon a time, she used to be good friends with my mom. That was before she started drinking herself into oblivion. She pretty much alienated all her friends with her drinking.

  “Anna,” Mary Anne beamed. “The usual?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I saw you got a new car.”

  “Well, an old new car.”

  “Still a new car,” she smiled, gathering up my chocolate babka. “So, what happened to the old one?”

  “It bit the dust when I was on my way home on Friday.”

  “Oh,” she frowned. “I hope you didn’t walk home.”

  “I did.”

  “That’s so dangerous,” she scolded. I internally rolled my eyes. Here it came. I was about to get the motherly lecture about safety. “You know, when I was your age, I walked home from school every day all by myself. Of course, times were different back then. We didn’t have all these weirdos hanging around every corner. You can’t do that anymore. You should have called someone to come help you.”

  I sighed. “I didn’t walk home alone,” I admitted. “Robert saw me and stopped.”

  Mary Anne froze and looked up at me. “Cortell?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see,” she said, before busying herself again. I knew she had about fifty burning questions. Mary Anne never kept anything to herself, except on the subject of Robert. She didn’t know what happened between us, but she knew that I was broken up over him.

  “Go ahead, I know you want to ask.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “No, we are not together. He happened to be passing by to go see his brother.”

  “And did he walk you into your house?”

  I pursed my lips. “What do you want to know?”

  “Nothing,” she insisted.

  “Yes, he saw my house. No, I don’t care that he knows where I’m living. Yes, I made sure that he stepped in mud puddles and ruined his expensive, pretentious suit. Yes, I laughed when he had to walk back to his fancy car, and I smiled knowing that he probably got that car all dirty.”

  She smiled, but did her best to chide me. “You know he worked very hard to get where he is today.”

  “Yes, and I’m sure he’s happy living his happy life in the city. So, there’s no reason that I have to see him again.”

  “And you’re okay with that? Seeing him again didn’t bring up any…feelings?”

  “By feelings, do you mean did I want to stab him and toss him into a wood chipper and then watch in glee as I scattered his remains along my back yard, then no. I didn’t have those feelings.” I tilted my head in thought. “Although, now I kind of am.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” I turned to see Sheriff Jack Harding and his deputy, Carter Roy. I grinned at them both, though my smile lingered slightly on Carter. I went to school with him, but I only ever spoke with him a handful of times. I was too caught up in Robert to notice anyone else. He was handsome and tall, with short brown hair and brown eyes. He had a muscular build that I found way too appealing, and the way he looked in his uniform was distracting. In fact, Jack looked pretty good in his uniform too. I wasn’t sure how there weren’t more women calling the police for assistance on a daily basis. You would think their days would be booked.

  “Sheriff, I was just saying what everyone else thinks.”

  “Yes, but those thoughts should stay in your head, if you know what’s good for you. One of these days, I’m gonna find a body, and you’re gonna be my first suspect.”

  I grinned at him mischievously. “Well, I’ll be sure to let Carter cuff me and take me in.”

  Carter smirked, his hands resting on his belt. “Always a pleasure to serve, ma’am.”

  “Anna,” I corrected. “I’m too young to be called ma’am.”

  His grin sent shivers down my spine. For the first time in a very long time, I was attracted to another man. His eyes weren’t as intense as Robert’s and he didn’t look at me like he wanted to eat me alive, but I still felt something for him.

  I turned and grabbed my order from Mary Anne, ignoring her frown at my blatant flirting with Carter. When I walked past him, I gave a little wink. I could see in the glass of the front door that he was watching me walk out of the shop. Maybe I would be hearing more from Carter Roy.

  I walked into the office with a huge grin on my face. It had been years since I had been interested in anyone. Carter was handsome, and from what I heard around town, he was very charming. Ever since I moved back here, I mostly kept to myself. My life had been in such turmoil that the thought of finding someone to date was too overwhelming. I had picked up a guy at a bar a few years back, but after I took him home, I felt so dirty that I never did it again. Yes, I had slept with two whole men in all my life, and both turned out to be a disaster. Well, Robert had ended in disaster, but it hadn’t been that way from the start.

  But the way Carter was looking at me this morning gave me hope that my life was finally kicking into high gear. My phone rang, but I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Anna? It’s Carter.”

  Speak of the devil. I bit my lip to hold back the grin threatening to break free. “How did you get my number?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be a very good police officer if I couldn’t manage something as simple as a phone number.”

  I spun a little in my chair and stared out the window with a smile on my face. “Then I’m glad that you’re here to serve and protect.”

  I heard his low chuckle over the phone and it sent tingles through me. “So, Anna, I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner sometime.”

  Before I could answer, the office door opened and Eric walked through. Shit, I wasn’t supposed to take personal calls at the office, not unless it was something important. I was pretty sure that making a date with the town deputy was not considered important.

  “Uh, can I get back to you on that? I’m at work right now.”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll swing by when you get off work tonight. Say, five-thirty?”

  “You’d better make it six.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up with a grin on my face and started up my computer.

  “I take it that wasn’t a client,” Eric chastised.

  “No, it wasn’t. But I don’t technically start for another twenty-seven seconds, so you can suck it.”

  He rolled his eyes as he looked through the mail in his inbox. “I need you to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house.”

  I stopped what I was doing and looked up at him. “What?”

  “Thanksgiving. Dinner is at three.”

  I shook my head slightly, not sure what the hell was going on. “Uh, no thanks.”

  “I wasn’t asking,” he said, still not looking at me.

  “And when has that ever worke
d with me?”

  He looked up at me and sighed. “Look, Robert pulled some shit Friday night at the house and-“

  I rolled my eyes and went back to work. “I’m not interested. Robert can go jump off a bridge.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What?” I asked, my head jerking up in surprise.

  “He posted to the town that Kat and I were thinking about a Christmas wedding and we needed help planning it. You should see the offers we’re receiving. Someone wants to serve chili at our wedding. Chili!”

  I snorted. “So, what does this have to do with me?”

  “Well, I sort of told him that you were coming to Thanksgiving as payback.”

  “And how is that payback?” I asked curiously.

  “Oh, come on. I know something happened between you two, and I know Robert blames himself for it. If he wants to fuck with me, and I can be just as nasty.”

  I put my elbows on the desk and leaned toward him. “Did you ever think that I don’t want to be part of your games? Did you ever think that I would be perfectly happy to never see Robert again?”

  He frowned. “I guess I just thought that you would want payback.”

  “You don’t even know what I would be getting payback for.”

  “You could always tell me.”

  “I could, but I won’t. What happened between Robert and me is private.”

  He sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Look, I already told him you were coming. Besides, it’s not like you have any family around.”

  And just like that, my good mood for the day vanished. “Wow, way to point out that I am truly alone in this world. Thank you so much for that.”

  “That’s not what-“

  “Oh, I know exactly what you meant. You think I’m so pathetic that I wouldn’t dare turn down an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner, even if my ex-boyfriend was there?”

  His eyes widened and he shook his head. “That wasn’t…Shit, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You know, it would be different if you asked me to come simply because of the fact that you wanted me there, but to ask me to come out of revenge is just…Get out.”

  “What?”

  “Get out!” I yelled, picking up my mug, ready to haul it across the room at him. He held up his hands and backed up toward the door.

  “Did I have any important messages?” I glared at him. “What? You are my secretary.”

  I narrowed my eyes right before I pulled my arm back. He saw it was coming and he scrambled for the door. I threw the mug as hard as I could toward him, but he shut the door before the mug could connect.

  I sank down in my chair and stared at the desk. What started off to be a wonderful day had turned crappy really fast. Sometimes it felt like I could never outrun my past or my family. Maybe I should consider moving away from this place. I could find a new place to start over, someplace where no one knew that my mother had drunk herself into a stupor until one morning she never woke up. Coming home to deal with that mess had been hard enough without the whole town gossiping about it. It eventually died down, and I wasn’t the topic of conversation now, but I never really got over it.

  Taking a deep breath, I decided that I wasn’t going to think about Robert or his stupid, fancy car. We were the past, and going to his brother’s house for Thanksgiving would only bring up those bad memories for me. I had to focus on what was in front of me, and at the moment, that was Carter Roy.

  I locked up the office for the night and headed downstairs to my car. Leaning up against his truck across the street was Carter Roy, looking just as sexy as he did this morning.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi,” I said, looking both ways before I crossed the street. “Are you off for the night?”

  He glanced down at his plain clothes and smirked at me. “If I’m not, I’m one helluva bad police officer.”

  “So, what did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking we could grab a drink before dinner.”

  “That sounds good.”

  He jerked his head toward his truck and I rounded it to get in. He yanked the door open and helped me inside. His truck wasn’t fancy or anything. In fact, it was probably at least ten years old, and that made me like him even more. Not every man had to have the latest and greatest.

  I shook my head, chastising myself for thinking about Robert nonstop. I was going out with a sexy man. Robert was the last person that I needed to be thinking about.

  “So, I was thinking we could go to The Lakeside Grille. We can grab some drinks and, if you’re hungry, get some dinner.”

  “That sounds good.”

  The Lakeside Grille sounded fancy, but it was actually a bar that was located next to a swamp. They had greasy food and cheap beer, which was pretty much what everyone in this town liked. The other option was The End Zone, but that tended to attract a rougher crowd.

  “Did you have a good day?” he asked.

  I thought about how my day had gone after I left him and sighed. “Well, it was good up until Eric showed up for work and demanded that I join him for Thanksgiving to piss off his brother.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Do you keep in contact with Robert?”

  Carter knew about Robert and I. Hell, everyone in town knew about us. We were crazy in love in high school. I wasn’t around for the aftermath of our breakup, but I heard all about the town gossip when my mother called me at my aunt’s house.

  “No, I mean, I’ve seen him twice in the last year. He’s the one that got me the job working for his brother.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  I snorted. “He felt guilty because I was still working at the gas station. And then my car broke down Friday night and he was passing by. He stopped to help.”

  He chuckled. “Does he even know anything about cars?”

  “I doubt it. He wanted to drive me home, but I refused. He followed me home on foot in his expensive suit,” I said with a grin.

  He laughed slightly, rubbing his jaw. “Remind me not to piss you off. So, is there something going on with you two?”

  “No, why would you ask?”

  “Anna, I remember the two of you in high school. You guys were inseparable. I just don’t want to step on any toes.”

  The fact that my relationship with Robert was still considered something to be wary of even thirteen years later really ate at me. Robert had no control over me, and I wouldn’t let the ghost of our past relationship follow me everywhere I went.

  “Robert and I are nothing. We haven’t been for years. He has his life in the city and I have my life here. Other than the fact that I work for his brother, there’s nothing else between us.”

  He grinned and pulled into a parking spot out in front of the restaurant. “That’s good to know.”

  Robert

  “What?” I snapped as I stepped out of my meeting.

  “I need you to get down here,” Eric grumbled. “The town is holding a meeting tonight to start planning my wedding!”

  I laughed to myself and headed back for my office. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I want you to fix it! You put that post on Facebook, so get down here and take care of it.”

  “Why can’t you let them help you? They want to be part of your big day.”

  “They’re taking over the whole fucking thing,” he shouted. “There’s a woman that says she has a kid in high school that can have his band play at our wedding. They’re a death metal group!”

  I cringed. “Well, they’re upcoming artists. Someday, they’ll be playing on stage somewhere and they’ll be able to say they got their big break when they played at your wedding.”

  “I don’t want a death metal band at my wedding! I wanted a small, private ceremony. There are people congratulating me and asking where we’re registered, and I’ve never even met them before!”

  “Well, you said you wanted to redo the house. I guess you’ll get your chance when you register for yo
ur wedding.”

  “This isn’t funny. I expect you down here tonight to defuse the situation.”

  I sighed heavily and looked at my watch. I still had a bunch of shit to do before I could go home for the night, and I had an early morning in court. The last thing I needed was to drive an hour down to my brother’s house, and then get home late at night.

  “Fine. What time?”

  “The meeting’s at seven. The Lakeside Grille.”

  “Fine.”

  I hung up and got to work on the mountain of paperwork sitting on my desk. I only had two hours before I had to leave, and there was no way I was going to get through all this. When six o’clock rolled around, I grabbed my stuff and left my office. I was going to have to come in early to finish going through everything I had left.

  My secretary was still here for the night, so at least she could get my court documents couriered over first thing in the morning. “Cindy, can you have these sent to the court house first thing in the morning?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’ll need you in here at six tomorrow morning. I have court right away.”

  Her eyes flashed in anger. “Of course, sir.”

  I rushed past her. If she didn’t like the hours, she could get a different job. I had a high profile divorce that needed all my attention. The fact that I was leaving when I should be preparing showed just what an idiot I was. Which reminded me…

  I spun around and snapped my fingers. “And Cindy, I need the suit that’s hanging in my office sent to the dry cleaners and I need it back here first thing in the morning.”

  She stared at me in shock. “There’s no way they’ll get that done in time.”

  “Find a way,” I snapped before walking out of the office. This case was stressing me out. There was a lot of money on the line for both parties, along with companies, assets, you name it, it was tossed into the mess that was this case.

  I stormed out of my office and down to my car. I hated that I was leaving right now, but I caused this mess for Eric and Kat and I had to tame the wild creatures of town. An hour later, I pulled into the parking lot of The Lakeside Grille and walked inside to absolute chaos. There were at least thirty people from town in the main part of the bar. Mrs. Cranston was there handing out samples of cake, while John Henderson was passing around pigs in a blanket. Mayor Delwood was at the front of it all, gavel in hand and ready to call the meeting to order.

 

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