by Renee Hart
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I went down there last week to inspect the property, and to see if there was anything that needed to be salvaged.”
“Anything there belongs to me,” Sunil said.
I turned a weary eye on him and said, “Books, Sunil. I went to collect some old books from the farmhouse.”
“Oh.” He shifted in his seat. From the look in his eyes, I expected he wanted to argue the point that even the books belonged to him. But he surely knew that doing so would be petty.
“I'm afraid I must tell you,” I continued, “I did find some damage to the land. I'm not sure if it was storm damage or vandalism, but some of the equipment was damaged.”
“What are you talking about?” Sunil sat up straighter, looking like he was ready to lunge across the table at me. “I was just there a few weeks ago. I didn't see any damage.”
“Did you inspect the whole 1200 acres?” I asked, forcing myself to meet his eyes.
“Well...no.” He sat back in his seat and adjusted his jacket.
“I did,” I said. “I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I was handing over.”
Sunil leaned over and whispered something to his lawyer. The lawyer made a few notes on her tablet. “What sorts of damages are we talking about?” the lawyer asked.
“Well, most of the irrigation system is pretty badly damaged,” I said. I looked down at the table, unable to meet either Sunil or the lawyer's eyes while I spun my lies. “It looked like a storm had tossed a lot of the equipment about. The sprinklers, the pumps, it's all pretty ruined.”
Sunil drummed his fingers on the table. He stared me down, and I tried my best to keep a calm expression. If he suspected that I'd caused the damages myself, he could ask for an investigation. No one had seen Harold and I while we were out there—the land was quite isolated—but we hadn't exactly tried to cover our tracks very well. I was sure that a professional investigator would easily be able to tell the difference between storm damage and vandalism.
“How much will this impact the value of the land?” Sunil asked, staring at me.
“I really wouldn't know.” I turned my palms up and shrugged. “You're welcome to hire another appraiser to go out and inspect the land, but considering you're not paying me anything, I hardly see how it matters.”
Sunil whispered something else to his lawyer. The lawyer wrote something on her tablet and handed it to Sunil. He glanced at the note, then asked, “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” I said. I took another deep breath. “There was a fire. I'm afraid the farmhouse is destroyed. Not that it should matter, you weren't planning on moving in there anyway.”
Sunil's eyes locked onto mine. I gripped the underside of the table to keep my hands from shaking. I forced my face to remain calm and stoic. All Sunil had to do was say the word “arson,” and I could wind up in jail.
I held his gaze. He knew. I was sure that he knew. But he also knew that I could have him sent to jail any time I wanted for violating the restraining order when he came down to harass me at the library. I had witnesses. The university had security cameras. It wouldn't matter that I hadn't called the police on any of the days that he was there. I had time still before the statute of limitations ran out.
I raised my chin, keeping my eyes on his. Daring him to press the matter. Waiting to see who would blink first.
Sunil made a fist and slammed it against the table. “Sign the damn papers.”
I smiled and reached for the pen. A few signatures and initials later, I was free of the land, and free of anything that would give Sunil a reason to bother me again. I felt the burden of ten years of failed marriage lifting away from me as I scrawled my name on the last page.
Sunil got up to leave. His lawyer stepped out, holding the door for him. Sunil stood there for a moment, staring me down. I folded my hands on the table and smiled at him.
“You're a real witch, Sharada,” he said. “You should go back to Mumbai. Maybe your mother would still take you in and teach you how a woman ought to behave.”
“I'm perfectly happy with the way I behave, thank you very much.” I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands in my lap. “Don't ever come near me again, Sunil. You have no more excuses, and I assure you that if I see you near my home or my workplace again, you'll be arrested.”
He turned and stalked out the door, grumbling to himself. I was confident now that I'd never see him again. And it was a wonderful feeling.
Chapter 16
When I got back home after the meeting, I found Harold waiting there for me, sitting in Babe the Blue Pickup Truck. He got out as soon as I parked my car, carrying a bouquet of flowers.
I took the bouquet and inhaled the sweet scent. “Oh, Harold, you sweet man.” I leaned up on my toes and kissed him. I caressed his smooth cheek. He had shaved now that the vacation was over, though part of me missed the grizzled look of the beard.
“I thought I'd do something to bring you a little cheer,” he said. “Just in case things didn't go well.”
“It went as well as can be expected.” I led him to the door and let us inside. “I don't think Sunil is going to be bothering me anymore.”
“That's a relief.” The tension let out of Harold's shoulders. I smiled at him and stroked his cheek. It touched me to see that he got so concerned about my troubles.
I dug through the kitchen cabinets for a vase, then filled it with water and set it on the table with the flowers. Then I brought out one of the last bottles of cranberry wine we'd retrieved from the farm and poured us each a glass.
I raised my glass and said, “To putting the past behind us, and moving forward.”
“To moving forward.” Harold tipped his glass against mine. “And burning bridges.”
I laughed, then sipped at the tart liquid, finding I was starting to develop a taste for it.
We moved into the living room and sat on the couch. I curled my legs under me and turned to face Harold. He looked like he had something on his mind. I put a hand on his leg and asked, “What is it?”
“Well,” he said, “I've been thinking a lot today about what we talked about. About the future, and children, and all of that.”
I squeezed his knee and smiled at him. “We don't need to decide anything right away. Wanting one simple thing, remember?”
The corner of his mouth twisted in a smirk. His hands kept fidgeting with the bottom of his flannel shirt. “What if I want something that's not so simple?”
My breath caught in my throat. I held myself very still. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I'm forty-three years old. Turning forty-four in a couple of weeks. I feel like I'm at the age where I don't want to waste time trying to figure things out when I already know what I want.”
My face started to feel warm. “And what do you want.”
“You.”
He turned to face me. He reached into his pocket.
I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Harold...”
“You can wait your entire life trying to find the right time to start living it,” he said. “Or you can find that all the pieces are falling into place, and you want to make sure not to lose the chance that life has handed you. I spent a long time in a marriage that didn't fit, trying to force it to work. Now that I've found something that works, something that works all on its own, without me having to force it...” He looked down and cleared his throat. “Well, this is what feels right to me. I know this is what I want.”
Tears filled my eyes. I pulled my hand away from his arm and nodded, waiting for what I knew was coming.
He pulled the small black box out of his pocket. He turned it around a few times in his hands, then shifted in his seat. I thought for a moment he was going to get down on one knee, but I knew his knees were bad sometimes, and I didn't want him to struggle to get back up just because he wanted to make a romantic gesture. I shifted closer and took his hands in mine, cradling the box between us.
He cleare
d his throat, unable to quite look up at me. His face was red. “I'm not so good at this. I didn't actually have to do it the first time. We just eloped.”
“You don't need to ask, you sweet man. You already know the answer.”
I took the box and opened it. The ring was simple and unadorned. It was perfect.
He slid it onto my finger. It felt a bit strange to be wearing a ring there again, after more than a year without one. But it was comfortable.
I leaned in and kissed him. I slipped my arms around him and pulled him close. Then we settled side by side on the couch, my head laying against his shoulder. He put an arm around me and held me against him. It felt right. It felt comfortable. Perfect.
I already knew I would want to sell the house. There were too many memories from my life with Sunil here. Harold and I could find a new home together. A simple place, with hardwood floors and a fireplace. Someplace rustic, with history seeped within the walls and plenty of room to build new memories, a new life together.
And a couple of extra bedrooms, just in case there were a few new additions to the family in our future.
THE END
Tessa's Spring
A Contemporary Suspense Romance
J.L. STARR
Description
Tessa Cunningham has always been a health-conscious person, growing her own fresh vegetables at home and spending her days working at a company with a reputation for growing healthy, organic food. But when she comes across some reports that raise questions, she starts to wonder whether her employer is operating entirely on the up and up.
With the help of her neighbor, a hipster health nut named Samson, she starts her own investigation into her employer's practices. But before they know it, Tessa and Samson have gotten in way over their heads.
This is an 18,000 word standalone, contemporary suspense romance novella with no cliffhanger.
Tessa's Summer, the second romantic suspense story in the series follows this story.
Tessa's Autumn will be available on Amazon.com in July 2016.
Chapter 1
“It's not illegal,” Tessa's boss told her. “Everything we're doing is well within the boundaries of the law.”
“That doesn't make it right,” Tessa said. “I mean, these reports—”
“Those reports are company secrets,” Mr. Morgan said. “I trust we have an understanding in that regard? I can't have anyone leaking our internal information.”
Tessa held the file folder in her hands, struggling with what was inside. She wasn't sure what to do, though her gut was telling her that there was something very wrong going on at Dunham Enterprises. The nationwide food chain had a reputation for providing clean, wholly organic products, though the more time she spent on the inside, the more Tessa was starting to question what she knew about her employer.
“Are we going to have a problem here?” Mr. Morgan asked. He studied her like he was readying the chopping block.
“No problem, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “It's just that I don't want to get myself into any trouble. If I'm liable...”
“Don't worry.” He smirked and patted her on the arm. “You won't be held liable for anything. Besides, like I said, everything we're doing is perfectly legal. All the major corporations operate this way.”
“They do?”
“Of course. It's the cost of doing business. Perfectly standard.”
“Oh.” Tessa looked down at the file folder, wondering if she'd simply misunderstood it. “All right. Sorry for taking up so much of your time.”
“No problem at all.” Mr. Morgan turned to leave, then paused and looked back at her. “I'm glad you brought this to my attention first, Tessa. You're a smart girl. I've always thought you do an excellent job here. You probably know that if internal information were ever leaked to the press, it could cause a scandal. That's the sort of thing that costs people their jobs. I'm sure you don't want that.”
“No,” Tessa said. “I definitely don't.”
“Good.”
Mr. Morgan left, and Tessa returned to her cubicle. She sat in her chair, her shoulders slumped, and tossed the folder onto her desk.
A head topped with short, spiky read hair popped up over the wall of her cubicle. “What was that all about?” Mindy asked. She glanced down at Tessa, then looked over the wall at Mr. Morgan as he headed out the office door.
“Nothing,” Tessa said, keeping her head down. “I don't want to talk about it.”
Mindy leaned her arms on the wall and peered down at her. “You okay, Tess? You've been pent up all day.”
Tessa tapped her fingers on the folder in front of her. She opened her mouth to say something, then remembered what Mr. Morgan had said about not letting certain things be spread. “It's nothing. I'm just having a rough day. I can't wait to get finished here, go home, pop open a bottle of wine, and get my hands dirty.”
Mindy snorted and shook her head. “Okay then, if you say so.” She disappeared back into her own cubicle, leaving Tessa alone with her work.
She booted up her computer and navigated through the company's archaic online file system until she found the folders she needed. This was supposed to be the easy part of her work. Tessa's department at Dunham was responsible for organizing inventory reports, results from health inspections, and internal safety test reports, all gathered from the hundreds of manufacturing branches the company had around the country.
There was an endless stream of files and reports coming into the office. So many files, in fact, that there was a three year backlog on getting them entered into the system. There were stacks upon stacks of boxes lined up along the wall on one side of the office, containing all of the files that needed to be organized, typed up, investigated, and eventually disposed of.
Tessa started entering the information from the report into the online database. It was a tedious process, mostly consisting of typing in the handwritten notes made by plant managers and inspectors. The company handled a lot of things digitally, but with a corporation this size, there was simply no way to avoid good old fashioned paperwork for some of the most mundane, grueling tasks.
As she entered the information from the report, Tessa tried not to think about the meaning behind it. She didn't know much about how pesticides and Genetically Modified Organisms worked, but Dunham Enterprises always advertised its products as being completely natural and organic.
The report showed that a number of GMOs were used in the ingredients of a large number of Dunham's products, and that there were traces of some potentially harmful pesticides. The man who'd written the report, one of Dunham's own internal Quality Assurance Inspectors, had made a note in his report suggesting further investigation.
Tessa finished entering the information into the computer, hit “SUBMIT,” then placed the folder in her outbox with the rest of the files she'd gone through that day. It was getting close to 5:00, so she grabbed her stack of folders and headed for the shredding room.
There were several large, industrial-size cross-cut paper shredders standing throughout the room, each one with a waste bin packed with little confetti-sized bits of paper. The janitor, Corey, was already there dumping the contents of the bins into large plastic bags and loading them into a trash cart to be hauled off for recycling.
“Hey there, Tessa,” he said, nodding to her. “I haven't dumped number three yet, you can use that one.”
“Thanks,” Tessa said. She set the stack of folders on the side of the machine and started pulling out any staples she found so they wouldn't jam up the shredder. Bits of paper snowed down into the waste bin in a steady stream as she fed the files in one after another.
She saved the file on the GMOs for last. She tapped her fingers against it, considering something stupid and possibly dangerous. She didn't want to get anyone in trouble, and she really didn't want to lose her job. She could cost a lot of people their jobs if this information got leaked.
But on the other hand, she thought about all the people who co
uld potentially get sick if they didn't realize what they were eating. She didn't believe that all GMOs were automatically dangerous, but if there was even the possibility, she could end up responsible for a lot of suffering.
Tessa chewed on her lip until the other files finished shredding and the snowfall into the waste bin stopped. Then she tucked the last remaining folder under her jacket and turned to leave.
“Tessa?” Corey said.
She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder.
“You have yourself a good night,” he said, nodding to her.
“Thanks. You too.”
She hurried from the room, stopping at her desk to get her purse. She folded the file in half and shoved it into her purse, then headed out the door, feeling eyes on her back the entire time.
Chapter 2
When she got home, Tessa pulled out the stolen file folder and stared at it. She wasn't sure why she'd taken it. She had no idea what to do with it. It had just seemed like the thing to do.
Thinking about the consequences set her on edge. She licked her lips and looked around her apartment, then shoved the folder in her desk drawer and tried to forget about it. She wiped her hands on her shirt, pacing around the room. Without any ideas about what she was supposed to do, or if she should even do anything at all, she decided she needed some stress relief. Something to keep her hands and her mind busy.
She changed out of her work clothes and into jeans and an old, worn shirt. She grabbed her gardening caddy off the counter and headed out the back door, to the broad community gardening plot that sat between the apartment buildings.
The plot was huge, stretching out behind her apartment building all the way up to the next building across the way. It had been divided into several dozen patches, each “owned” by a different tenant. Tessa wasn't sure how the community gardening plot had gotten started; she'd inherited her small plot when she'd moved in, taking over the space that had belonged to the previous tenant. Tending her garden had become her hobby and her stress relief. Plus it was nice to have fresh-grown produce throughout the warmer parts of the year. Most of the tenants traded fruits and vegetables with each other, so while Tessa mostly grew tomatoes and watermelons, she always had plenty of fresh berries, carrots, and other goods given to her by her neighbors.