She never tried to contact her after she graduated, and she’d resisted the temptation to stalk her on Facebook.
Now that Anna was back, the thought of running into Lara Preston made her heart race but she was here today to get her classroom set up and prepare herself for Tuesday morning.
Anna knew she was in room 207 and that she’d be teaching English to sophomores and juniors this year.
She headed down the hallway towards her classroom, surprised that her feet seemed to know exactly where to go. She had the last room on the right at the end of the hallway.
She closed the door behind her and walked across the carpeted room. She left her bag down on the desk as she surveyed the room.
She stood at the front of the classroom with her hands on her hips trying to imagine herself delivering a lesson in two days’ time.
She knew this was what she wanted but the nerves were starting to creep in.
She went over to the wooden desk that was in the corner of the room and pulled open each of the drawers, surprised to find folders and stacks of paper in them.
She emptied the drawers one by one, filling one of the boxes she found in the storage cabinet with the files.
They were labeled ‘Lara Gardner’ and Anna guessed that she must have either retired or changed rooms and forgotten to clean out her desk.
Just as she was pushing the lid down on the overflowing box, the door burst open and a beautiful woman with her chestnut brown hair falling below her shoulders met her stare.
Anna’s heart stopped as she met her piercing green eyes.
“Anna…”
The sound of her voice transported her back in time and in so many ways she wished she could have stayed there, lost in the mostly happy memories from seven years ago.
Part One
Chapter One
Seven Years Ago
2009
Anna parked outside the homeless shelter where she’d just committed to volunteering two days a week this summer.
It was almost an hour away from her house, but it was a great opportunity to give back and she knew she wouldn’t mind making the drive a few days a week.
As she got out of her beat up fifteen-year-old Corolla, she could feel the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach.
At seventeen years old she hadn’t put herself out there much. She’d been a part of the basketball and softball team at high school, but she’d never gotten involved in her school’s theater program or had a job yet.
This was going to be something of an adventure, but she knew she needed to do it.
This time next year she would be getting ready to leave home, go to college, and be thrown into all sorts of new situations like this.
She wanted to help people too. She’d never felt like she could do much as a teenager but when she found out that this shelter let seniors volunteer, she sent them an email asking how she could help.
She explained that she would be starting her senior year in September and that she was free this summer to help out in any way she could.
They got back to her the next day saying that they were looking for extra help on Mondays and Thursdays.
This afternoon was her first Monday and she wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
She was a few minutes early, but she headed inside anyway. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail.
Her blue eyes adjusted to the indoors as she stepped inside, her flip flops gently slapping against the soles of her feet.
She was in a foyer with double doors open in front of her and a door to her right.
She approached the open doors, not exactly sure where she was meant to go.
She peered in the doorway to see rows and rows of beds lining the large room. Most of the beds were unoccupied, with plastic bags and rumpled sheets on them, but only a handful of people were in the room.
She went over to the doorway to her right and gently pushed it open. There was a long hallway that looked like it went from the front of the building to the back with several doors on the right.
She gently knocked on the first door that said ‘Office.’
“Come in.”
She pushed it open to see an older gentleman sitting behind a desk with reading glasses on.
“Hi,” Anna said. “I’m here to start volunteering…”
“Hi. I’m John,” he said as he stood up and extended his hand. “Thanks for giving us your time.”
“Anna. Nice to meet you,” she said as she shook his hand.
“Anna…,” he said as he sat down again to find her name on the computer. “Anna Cooper?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“If you could just fill out this form,” he said as he passed a sheet of paper over to her. “Then we’ll get you started.”
Anna filled out the form and waited as John glanced over it.
“Okay. You’re ready to go. Let’s go down to the back. There’s a room where we keep all the donations and they’ve really been piling in lately. We need help sorting through them. Does that sound okay?”
“It’s perfect,” Anna said as she followed him down the hallway until they reached the last door on the left.
“I’ll leave you to it. Lara will let you know what you have to do,” John said as he left.
Anna took in the stacks of boxes and piles of bedding that were overflowing on the tables at the back of the room. Her eyes fell on the woman John must have meant, Lara.
“Hi,” the brunette said as she crossed the room to greet Anna. “I’m Lara,” she said, extending her hand.
Anna shook it, immediately noticing how soft her skin was. “Anna.”
“Nice to meet you Anna. It’s not every day we get young people like you willing to volunteer,” Lara said, her green eyes meeting Anna’s. “Unless of course this is to keep you out of juvie?”
Anna’s eyes widen at her bluntness. “No… I’m not a criminal. Just a good citizen.”
“Good. Just checking,” Lara said with a smile. “And breaking the ice… You seem nervous.”
“I am. It’s like your first day at a job. Isn’t it natural to be nervous?”
“I guess it is,” Lara said as she picked up a pair of scissors to open another cardboard box that was on the table beside them. “Ready to get started?”
“Sure.”
Anna’s eyes followed Lara as she gave her the rundown of how things worked.
Donations were only supposed to come in on Thursdays and Fridays, but they often appeared at any time.
One of her jobs was going to be sorting through the new donations and putting everything where it belonged: bedding in that pile, food in the pantry, men’s clothing on one table, women’s on the other…
Anna followed Lara as she gave her a mini tour and ran through what a typical day would look like.
“I’m here most days during the summer,” Lara said as she tucked a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear. “So, if you have any questions, just ask. Don’t be shy.”
Anna guessed that she was in her late twenties and wondered what she did that she could spend so much time here.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Anna’s first day flew by as she met people at the door and brought their donations inside or showed them where to leave their boxes down.
By the end of the day she was exhausted. Her shoulders and back ached but she felt better than she had in months, knowing that she’d spent the day being useful and giving back to the community.
Chapter Two
The next week, Anna was eager to get back to the shelter. She’d been almost restless the last few days.
Suddenly the idea of lounging around by the pool and reading a book or binge watching a tv series seemed like she was wasting her time.
Volunteering here for just one week had already started to shift her perspective. When she scrolled through her social media feeds last night all she saw were her friends out partying and spending their days at the beach.
That’s what she would normally be doing too but now she couldn’t really justify it.
When she saw the people that came in here every day with nowhere else to go, she found her friends’ self-absorbed Facebook profiles almost repulsive and she knew that she wouldn’t be spending much time with them this summer.
She’d always considered herself mature for her age, but she still spent most of her time with friends from school.
Now she was spending her days with other people who were willing to give up their time to help those less fortunate and she felt like she’d just graduated into a much more fulfilling social circle.
She’d spent all day Thursday with Lara. She was easy to talk to and they got to know each other as they spent the day opening boxes and sorting through clothes and bed sheets.
Even though they’d only known each other for a week, Anna felt like she could trust her.
“Hey, do you want to go get lunch?” Lara asked as she emptied another box.
“Sure,” Anna answered. “I’ll just finish this box. Is that okay?”
“No problem.”
Anna could feel Lara’s gaze on her and she looked up to meet her green eyes flecked with golden brown tones. “You sure?”
Lara nodded. “You’re a hard worker. I like that… I’ll be outside. We can take my car if you want…Save the environment while we’re at it,” she said with a smile.
“Okay,” Anna said as she returned her smile. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Take your time.”
Anna lifted the remaining items of clothing out of the box and folded each one before placing them in the correct piles. She left the empty box under the table so that it could be recycled.
She pushed her blond hair away from her face. She’d left it down in loose waves, but she was starting to regret that decision. It was a humid day and she hoped she’d find a hair tie at the bottom of her bag.
She grabbed her worn brown leather bag and slung it across her body as she made her way outside. She reached into her bag as she walked to find her sunglasses and slip them on as the sun’s rays beat down on her bare shoulders.
“Ready?” Lara asked. She was sitting inside her black Jeep, tying her hair back into a ponytail.
“Yeah…” Anna eyed up the jeep with the open top and Lara read her mind.
“Do you want one?” she asked, holding up a hair tie.
“Thanks. I think I’d better.”
Anna got in, put on her seatbelt and tied her hair back in a low, messy bun.
As Lara pulled out onto the main road, the wind whipped through the jeep and Anna struggled to keep strands of her blond hair out of her eyes.
“Is a deli okay?” Lara asked, shouting over the noise.
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
A few minutes later, they pulled up outside a small deli and Anna checked her reflection in the mirror to try and fix her hair. She tucked all of the loose strands behind her ears, her bun still in place.
They ordered sandwiches and Lara suggested eating outside on one of the picnic tables.
“So, what do you think so far?” Lara asked when they'd finished eating. “Will you last all summer?”
“Definitely. I’m just completely in awe of what you guys are doing there. I had no idea so many people needed help.”
“It’s pretty alarming,” Lara said.
“You’ll see me there for the rest of the summer. That’s for sure. I’m glad that I can do something to help.”
“We could use more volunteers. Think you can recruit some of your friends?”
“I doubt it,” Anna said. “I was just thinking earlier how different their summer is going to be. It’s all about beach parties and who has the most followers on Instagram.”
“Well maybe you can convert some of them.”
“Would it help if I did more than two days a week?”
“Yeah…,” Lara said, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the table. “Don’t feel like you have to though. It’s not urgent but we can always use the help.”
“I really have nothing else to do this summer.”
“Just drop by whenever you want. Come back to the storage room and I’ll put you to work. That way you’re not committing to anything. Something more interesting might come along before the summer’s over,” Lara said with a smile.
“I doubt it but that sounds perfect.”
“We should probably get back,” Lara said a few moments later.
They threw out their garbage and got back into the jeep. They didn’t talk much on the ride back, but Anna felt surprisingly relaxed in her company.
She was starting to wonder how she was going to go back to her normal life in September.
She’d been looking forward to her senior year and she still was, but she just couldn’t see herself spending all of her time listening to the latest gossip about how was dating who.
Her social circle was a mixture of athletes and musicians. She wasn’t in any honors classes where she probably would have met other students who were more grounded and knew that there was more to life than partying.
Everyone she’d met at the shelter so far had been so friendly and welcoming. She couldn’t wait to get out in the real world and leave high school behind her.
She’d met with her guidance counselor, Mr. Wilson, a few times last year and they both thought that journalism was a great career path.
Anna loved English and it was her best subject. The only thing he said that she could do to improve her chances of getting into the college she wanted was to get involved with the school newspaper.
Anna gravitated towards journalism because she loved to write. She’d been running a blog that only got a few hits a month, but it was just six months old. Every day she checked her stats, waiting for that spike in traffic.
Now, she was starting to think about what she could really do with a degree like that.
She could write articles about places like this shelter and bring awareness to causes that really mattered.
That was how she was going to get through her senior year… with a purpose.
Chapter Three
“What are you doing for the 4th of July?” Lara asked, taking a break from sorting through the latest boxes of donations.
“I was invited to a barbeque, but I don’t know… I wasn’t really planning on going to it. Do you have plans?”
“Yeah. My husband’s office always has a party. Do you know that sports bar with all the Celtics and Red Sox memorabilia? Irish flags outside?”
Anna nodded.
“Well, they’re taking over that pub. They have the whole place reserved and there’ll be a barbeque out the back.”
“Sounds like fun. What does your husband do?” Anna asked.
“He does the marketing for a sports apparel company. They supply a lot of the schools around here. Anyway… I was wondering if you wanted to come with me? It’s pretty much a guy’s day out.”
Anna looked up from what she was doing to meet her eyes. “Don’t the other wives and girlfriends go too?”
“They do but they’re either mothers with four kids or self-absorbed shopaholics who can’t talk about anything other than their hair or their nails… Sorry. That probably sounded really judgmental.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I just don’t get along with any of them. I hate going to Jake’s work stuff, but I don’t really have a choice.”
“I’ll go with you,” Anna said as she took a break and leaned against the table behind her.
“You will?”
Anna nodded. “Sure. Why not? We can either both be miserable at separate parties or hang out together and make the best of it.”
“I’ll text you the details. There’s supposed to be a band and we’ll be able to see the fireworks on the lake from their deck.”
“I’ll be there,” Anna said with a smile.
Chapter Four
Anna pulled up outside the bar at 4:30 an
d she took one of the last remaining parking spaces.
She’d forgotten to ask Lara what she should wear. She knew it was a work event, but it was also a 4th of July barbeque.
She ended up going with jean shorts that weren’t too short but still showed off her legs and a dressy navy tank top. She wore flip flops even though they were probably too casual, but she wanted to be comfortable.
Her blond hair was in loose curls that fell below her shoulders. She hung her sunglasses on the silky fabric of her tank top just above her cleavage.
She climbed the stairs that led to the main entrance, trying to ignore all of the Boston sports gear that screamed at her from all sides.
She made her way through the crowd and felt a little bit like she was crashing the party.
She’d love to order an ice-cold beer and wished that this country would lower the legal drinking age.
Twenty-one was just not realistic.
If eighteen worked in Europe, why not here?
Not that she was eighteen… She would be next month. But still. She thought it was something that needed to be changed.
Her blue eyes scanned the pub and she could see exactly what Lara meant.
There were plenty of kids running around and she already spotted a few women sipping cocktails at the bar with immaculate hair and freshly manicured nails.
She got the bartender’s attention and ordered a non-alcoholic beer.
This will have to do.
She took a drink and made her way out onto the back deck. As soon as she stepped out the view of the lake was all that she saw.
She’d been out there before on a jet ski and wakeboarding behind a boat, but the bar was on a hillside and the scenes from up here were breath-taking.
The lake was in the middle of miles and miles of woods and Anna leaned against the railing taking it all in.
“There you are.”
Anna turned when she heard Lara’s voice. She hardly recognized her.
When they were at the shelter both of them dressed casually in shorts and a t shirt. They got sweaty and they both just wanted to be comfortable.
Today Lara was dressed in shorts that were skimpier than the ones she normally wore. They weren’t too short but the difference between them and what she wore when she was volunteering was significant.
Forbidden Love Page 17