The Fate Series Box Set (Robin and Tyler Book 4)

by Young, Cheyanne

  Salt Gap’s first diner would like you to be a part of history. “The citizens are what make our little town so great,” said Mayor Charles Largess, who is building the diner, set to open in March. “Therefore, we’re asking everyone to donate photographs of their favorite places and people in town. They will be preserved forever in the diner.”

  “This is amazing.” My words are a whisper as I pick up the first photograph of a little girl holding a teddy bear on a swing set. The next one is of the same girl, but now she’s standing next to twin boys. I recognize the twins from a photo in the diner…these must be extras. “Grandpa donated his photo on purpose. It wasn’t an accident at all.”

  “What wasn’t an accident?” Tyler’s voice makes me jump. He laughs. “Did you forget I was here?”

  “A little bit,” I admit, tearing my eyes away from his gorgeous smile to pick up another handful of photos. I flip through each one, recognizing some of the people from other photos at the diner, and recognizing even more of the places around town. There’s a photo of the carnival grounds with an old banner made of fabric with painted-on lettering that advertises the Cockroach Festival.

  The next picture makes me gasp. “It’s him.” Grandpa and his wife, standing next to that same old truck, only this time instead of smiling at the camera, my grandmother plants a kiss on Grandpa’s cheek. Tyler reaches into the box and takes out the next photo.

  “There’s more.” He hands me a picture of a young Grandpa standing proudly on stage at the Cockroach Festival, holding a ribbon for first place in one hand and a cockroach in the other.

  “I can’t believe it,” I say, running my finger down the black and white photograph. “He’s so handsome. I have all these memories of him being…well, old. It’s hard to imagine that he was young once.”

  “And very much in love by the looks of these photos.” He holds out the next image and I take it from his fingers. My grandfather holds my grandmother with one hand around her back and one under her knees. Her arms wrap around his neck and they’re eyes are closed as they kiss. I hold it up to get a closer look.

  Tyler squints his eyes at the back of the photo. “Too much in love, apparently,” he says, tapping the back. I turn it over and read the words hastily scribbled on the back: reject- too racy for family diner.

  “I’m going to frame this.” I put it on top of the growing stack of pictures of my grandparents. Tyler brushes hair away from my eyes. He’s overstepping his boundaries with that brave movement, but I let it slide. He just discovered my past with me, and this is an intimate moment. “Thank you for this,” I whisper.

  He swallows and clears his throat. “I guess not every member of the Carter family hates love.”

  My eyes narrow as I look up at him. “I never said I hated love.”

  His head cocks to the side. “You never said you liked it.”

  “That’s because I don’t.” With an annoyed shake of my head, I put the lid on the box and bring it back to its place on the shelf in the corner of the room. I’ve kept all dozen photos of grandpa and can’t wait to show them to Miranda. This is not the time or place to talk about my liking or not liking of something as stupid as love.

  Tyler swoops in front of the door as I try to leave the tiny storage room, blocking it with his body that suddenly looks much more massive than usual. “Why are you so against the idea of loving someone?”

  My arms fold across my chest and I give him a pointed look. “I am capable of love. I love Miranda and my mother. And I already love nephew and the baby’s not even born yet, so I think that classifies me as someone who loves.”

  With one final so suck on that look, I step to the left to bypass him but he slides over and blocks me. Then I stubbornly go to the right, only to be blocked again by a six-foot-two-inch muscular man with a freaking shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Would you stop being a child for just one moment please?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t understand why you can’t just go on one tiny date with me.”

  “I’m sure there’s plenty of things you can’t understand.”

  He shrugs off my insult and lowers his head, giving me a piercing stare with two brown puppy eyes. “What about a practice date?”

  Ugh, I want to so bad. “No.”

  “A pretend date?”

  “No.”

  “A fake date?”

  “What does that even mean?” I hold back a smile because I’m trying to act serious while he’s being so freaking ridiculous. As confident as I am in my decision to decline a date with another man who definitely likes another girl and will undoubtedly rip my heart to shreds, I have to admit that it feels awesome to be pursued so intently.

  “You should have dinner with me and tell me the reasons that you feel are justified enough to banish dating from your life. It won’t be a date… it’ll be two people…talking about not dating.”

  I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  He winks and steps out of the doorway. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “Why do you keep tricking me into having dinner with you?”

  He shrugs. “Why do you keep falling for it?

  Chapter 13

  The drive home is blissful and nerve-wracking and I’d kill for something to take my mind off thinking about Tyler. I am a grown ass woman after all. I am mature and not a fourteen-year-old so it really shouldn’t be so hard. I’m still kicking myself mentally for being so attracted to someone I am not going to date, (despite having accepted a fake date with him) when I turn into my driveway and find something that makes me forget Tyler even exists.

  Marcus’s truck. I cut the engine and scramble outside as quickly as possible, trying to listen for signs of them talking over the beating of my heart. She is freaking pregnant and he needs to stay away. Being knocked up by one loser does not mean she’s open for getting banged by another one.

  The door swings open the moment I unlock it and I practically run inside, hoping to catch that boy before he’s got his hands all over my niece. If he so much as makes a move on her, I will treat him the way he treated my car the first night I came to Salt Gap.

  Miranda’s laugh is the first thing I hear. I stop short in the living room, realizing that I don’t have to barge in her room and murder anyone. They’re both on the floor surrounded by pieces of wood and screws. A tiny mattress rests against the wall. Marcus’s clothes are all on his body and their hair isn’t disheveled. Thank God.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, plastering a friendly smile on my face. If Miranda knew what I was thinking, she’d bitch me out for an hour.

  Miranda stares at an instruction manual in her hand and points to two identical shaped wooden rails. Marcus takes the rails and lines them up on his half-finished crib frame. “Marcus’s sister give me her crib now that her baby is in a toddler bed. Isn’t this awesome?”

  “That was really nice of her.” I kneel on the floor near her and pick up a piece of the bed. It’s a black wooden piece that looks sturdy and expensive. “Marcus please tell your sister how much we appreciate it.”

  “Aw, it’s no problem,” he says while his tongue pokes out of his lips in concentration as he screws two parts together. “If I knew we’d be meeting Miranda so soon, I wouldn’t have taken this thing apart a few months ago. This would be a hell of a lot easier if it wasn’t in pieces.”

  Miranda pulls herself up on the newly purchased couch with a lot more effort than usual. Her pregnant belly is finally starting to show so much that she leaves her jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, covered with an oversized T-shirt. I’m starting to feel kind of stupid for assuming Marcus would be making out with her when I got home. He seems like a decent enough kid. You know, minus the car vandalism and all.

  “So how was your talk with the Sugar Plum Fairy?” Miranda asks.

  I snort. “You must mean Ms. Candy.”

  I make a pot of coffee, decaf for Miranda, and tell her
all about my visit with Salt Gap’s resident pin up girl. Then I ignore all of her squees and giggles and jokes about Tyler as I tell her how he brought me to the library and showed me the box of photos. She’s still making fun of me and singing the k-i-s-s-i-n-g song when I slap the photos on the counter to shut her up.

  By six-fifteen in the evening Marcus has finished the crib and we’ve all agreed that it’s the most beautiful piece of furniture in the house. Miranda puts it in her bedroom next to her own bed. Marcus makes himself comfortable on our couch as he tells Miranda all about his sister and the struggles she’s been through as a single mom and how the two of them totally need to hang out and share motherly advice.

  My stomach twists into knots with every minute they keep chatting because every stupid joke he makes and every time she giggles is just time wasted until seven o’clock when I really don’t want either one of them to know that I have a fake date with Tyler tonight. I manage to slip into my bedroom and get dressed, making sure to look cute but not desirable or date-worthy because the last thing I want to do is lead him on.

  Or do I?

  No. I don’t. Stop it, Robin.

  My reflection frowns at me in the bathroom mirror. Admittedly, I love that a gorgeous guy has taken an interest in me, but I can never let myself fall into that situation again. Relationships can work for some people but for me, they will always end in failure. I just wasn’t meant to date.

  Grandpa’s watch hangs loosely on my wrist and the memory of him prompts me to sneak out of my room and grab the pictures I had left on the kitchen counter. Miranda and Marcus are still on the couch with their backs to me, so no one sees me slip into the kitchen dressed in a new outfit. I am not ready for the questions. Not yet. Plus it’s still ten minutes until seven, so there’s still a chance the boy will leave before I have to embarrass myself.

  Now back in the safety of my bedroom, I lay out the photos on the bed. My grandparents look so happy in each one. I bet neither one of them ever had a broken heart before they met each other. Back in those days, people met the love of their life and stayed happily in love. They didn’t have to deal with Facebook drama or finding naked pictures of your best friend on your fiancé’s cell phone. Life was simple and all they had to do was love each other.

  I stare at my grandmother’s smiling face and a tear pools in the corner of my eye. She was so incredibly beautiful. It’s hard to realize that their love would end just a year after these pictures were taken. She would die in childbirth and her beautiful face would never be in another photograph again.

  By the time I knew Grandpa, he had aged considerably. But even I know that in the time I knew him, he never once smiled as happily as he did in these photographs.

  Maybe true love isn’t as great as it looks.

  Chapter 14

  My metaphorical big girl panties fit a little too snugly tonight. After I had psyched myself up for the millionth time in front of my mirror, I tugged on the pretend panties and strode out into my living room like a woman with nothing to hide. When Tyler’s obscenely loud truck comes to a stop in front of my house, I do as I had planned just moments go. “That’s my ride, gotta go, see ya later, be good!” I run out the front door like a teenager running from an overprotective dad. It takes a whole three seconds after Tyler pulls out of my driveway to glance at me and question what the hell just happened.

  “I would have gotten out and walked up to the door, you know. You didn’t need to sprint to my truck like an Olympic gold medalist.”

  I shrug and feel the weight of my anxiety press into me. “Marcus and Miranda were getting a little annoying so I just couldn’t wait to get out of the house.”

  “More like you didn’t tell them you were going out with me.”

  He says it all smug and matter-of-fact. It makes me wonder if he has hidden cameras in the house to watch my every move. I lift an eyebrow as I try to think of a response, but then he holds up his cell phone from the cup holder in the center console.

  I read the screen and see a text from Marcus.

  Marcus: Secret booty call? haha Robin didn’t tell us she was going out with you.

  I bury my face in my hands. “Oh god.”

  Tyler laughs. “You didn’t tell them about our fake date? I’m shocked. It’s not like you’ve repeatedly turned me down for a real date or anything.”

  I lift my head and stare straight ahead, refusing to let him see the embarrassment in my face. “I didn’t tell them because it’s not a big deal.”

  “And that’s why you ran out of the house before they knew what was going on. Makes total sense.”

  Now I look over at him. He gives me this cocky yet adorable smile. “I’m going to punch you in the face,” I say with a grin I can’t seem to hold back.

  He smirks and adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. “I look forward to it.”

  Tyler takes us nearly an hour out of town into the neighboring city of Lawson. This place has a population of fifteen thousand according to the street sign and I never realized how much I missed McDonald’s until I’ve gone a couple weeks without seeing one.

  Tyler shakes his head when I tell him this, complete with an eye roll when I mention how I could eat nothing but French fries for dinner and be happy. “I’m not taking my fake date out for a dinner at a fast food restaurant.”

  The way he calls me his date, even though it’s said in a joking way, sends a shiver down my spine. His stupid sideways grin makes my chest tighten and his thick arched eyebrows look so sexy when he lifts one of them in my direction. I have to keep telling myself that this is not a real date and I am not interested in him in a boyfriend-like way.

  Because liking him in that way would only lead to heartache. With the stupid exception of that drunken night with Jason Hightower, I’ve never been one for having a friend with benefits. But I’m starting to wonder if I could be that kind of girl.

  “Well?” Tyler says, waving his hand in front of my face. I jump back into reality and realize that he’s been talking to me for the last few seconds.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I ask, feeling the blood rush to my face.

  “Italian food. Do you like it?”

  I nod. I could go for some pasta right now because a bowl of fettuccine alfredo always makes me feel bloated and gross. Nothing will stop my dirty mind from pondering the idea of a friends-with-benefits situation quite like a belly full of pasta.

  We end up at a family-owned Italian place with glossy grey walls and several golden and bronze statues lining the walk from the hostess table to where we’re seated by a window. A grand piano sits in the corner of the room collecting dust.

  “Do you know how to play?” Tyler asks when he sees me looking at it.

  I shake my head. “Not a clue.”

  His sly little smile turns suspicious so I narrow my eyebrows at him. “Do you play?”

  He breaks a breadstick in half and takes a bite. “Mhm.”

  I sit back in my chair. “Really…I find it hard to believe that a country cowboy like you would know how to play a classy instrument.”

  He swallows and points the rest of the breadstick at me. “You know you don’t have to add the word country in front of cowboy. I think cowboy is a country enough word all by itself, ya know?”

  I roll my eyes and he continues. “I mean, I don’t go around calling you a city girl Houstonian.”

  “Oh please, I’m not that much of a city girl.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “Is your face not plastered all over every street sign in Houston?”

  I shrug. “Not anymore. I bet Maggie had every real estate billboard replaced the second she heard I had her daughter.”

  He grabs another breadstick and I take one too, just for something to do with my hands instead of twisting my fingers around each other. “I’m guessing there’s a story there,” he says a little tentatively.

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing dramatic,” I say with a wave of my hand as I bite into the breadstick which is real
ly, really good. “I just had a nervous breakdown and quit my job, packed up my shit and tried to leave town without anyone knowing but then my niece showed up, pregnant, and wanted to come with me. So I took her and then told Maggie, her mom, a few days later.”

  “Only a city girl Houstonian would think that’s not dramatic.”

  I shrug. “Miranda’s just barely a legal age but I’m starting to feel that she’s much better off in my care than in her mother’s.”

  With his elbows on the table, he brings his fingers up to his lips. “I wasn’t talking about Miranda.”

  With a sudden realization, and remembering why he even asked me on this date, I draw in a deep breath of air and let it out in a long, annoyed sigh. “Fiiiine. What would you like to know?”

  “Hey we’re just friends here. It’s not like we’re on a real date and need to hold back bits about ourselves so we can stay mysterious and desirable or anything.”

  “Riiiiight.”

  Tyler laughs. “Nervous breakdown, eh?”

  The waitress brings our food and I’m grateful for her interruption, but the bitch is so great at her job, she has our plates in front of us and our drinks refilled quicker than it takes for Tyler to forget that he asked me a question. I swirl fettuccine around my fork and consider making up some silly story about a mental breakdown that’s not a big deal; something he can chalk up to me being an emotional girl and never ask about it again.

  But the problem with that is that I’m a pathetic liar, especially when put on the spot. Plus—ugh, hell—it might actually benefit me to talk about this with someone. I don’t exactly have a best friend anymore to discuss my problems with and Miranda has her own crap to worry about and doesn’t need to have my emotional baggage unloaded on her.

  I swallow, set down my fork and look at Tyler from across the table. He hasn’t touched his food and he’s staring right at me. “I’ll tell you,” I say, taking another deep breath. “But I’m going to need more time than it takes to eat dinner.”