by Ginger Scott
Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Rochelle Paige Popovic and Elle Christensen. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Passion, Vows & Babies remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Rochelle Paige Popovic and Elle Christensen, or their affiliates or licensors.
For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds
The Perfect Couple
Ginger Scott
Contents
Welcome Letter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Acknowledgments
Welcome Letter
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Passion, Vows & Babies Kindle World! In this combination of my Passion & Vows and Yeah, Baby series, we’ll bring you new books by some truly amazing authors. From sexy stories of married couples fighting against outside forces to keep their happily ever after, to unexpected pregnancies that lead to forever afters… the Passion, Vows & Babies world is full of over the top alphas, sassy heroines, insta-love, wedding bells, and growing families. Although the wide cast of characters in both series have managed to find love, there’s plenty more out there who could use Passion, Vows & Babies in their lives—like the couple in this story!
If you’re familiar with the Yeah, Baby and Passion & Vows series, you’ll see a familiar face (or more) in this story. I am so excited this author agreed to bring their storytelling talent to the Passion, Vows & Babies Kindle World! However, please keep in mind that this book is entirely the work of the author, and I didn’t have any part in the process of writing this book.
For more about the world, stop by the Passion, Vows & Babies website: http://www.fionadavenport.com/kindle-worlds/.
Happy reading!
Fiona Davenport
(Elle Christensen & Rochelle Paige)
Chapter One
Chase
The entire thing felt gross.
Will readings have this way of bringing out people’s true colors, I guess. My aunt Char actually fist pumped when the attorney read that the 1952 Buick would be hers. All my mom wanted was my grandmother’s serving set and the quilts she won blue ribbons for at the county fair. I get that—those things are meaningful. She’s not looking to profit; she’s looking for something to hold onto. I was glad when those things went to her.
That, however, was three hours ago.
Two dozen of us, mostly relatives I didn’t even know I had, are stuffed into this tiny wood-paneled office with shag orange carpet still marred with a coffee stain that’s probably been there since the day I was born. Grandma Evelyn had her quirks, though. And she trusted Sherman and Wilburn to do all of her legal business for most of her life. I wonder what she’d think knowing that some big, fancy firm was sweeping in to take over the small practice and turn it into a satellite office for a real-estate development that would line Rider Springs’ hills with loft-style apartments and a fake Main Street that might put the town’s real one out of business.
“I need to get some air. Just let me know about the watch or plate or spoon or…whatever gets left to me,” I whisper, leaning into my father as I do.
His arm shakes with a silent laugh as he waves me by.
My parents almost didn’t come to this. My dad’s never been much into material things. Hell, he threw away most of my trophies as soon as I graduated high school. I brought him the first baseball I hit into the stands when I made triple-A ball, and when I asked about it the next Thanksgiving, he wobbled his head for a bit and finally admitted that he gave it to the neighbor kids. I didn’t take it personal. I knew he was proud. He’s always been proud. Even when I got cut two years ago and had to trade in my baseball pants for a business suit.
I stare down at my feet as I walk through the tight row of chairs and out the door to the small patio outside. The air hits me with a blast of cold. Illinois Octobers come at you hard and fast. One day it’s summer, and then you blink and open to falling leaves. In a way, it’s a welcomed break from LA. I’d almost forgotten what seasons feel like. I just wish I’d remembered when I packed my bag for the Springs. The thin thermal shirts are shit against this wind.
Leaning against a wall, I pull my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and thumb through the texts I’ve missed. Most of them are from Lauren. She broke up with me three weeks ago, and I’ve heard from her every day since. She wants me to chase her, because that’s what I’ve always done. I eternally apologize for picking my friends over her, for not taking her to the theater, for not being romantic or intimate or whatever the fuck psychology term she threw at me from her latest grad school class.
I’m not chasing her this time. In a way, the future psychologist in her should be proud—I’ve learned from my failures and have broken “bad patterns.” The more I think about our relationship, the more certain I am that we never really liked each other much at all. We were a convenient couple. Two busy people who made each other less lonely at night, and who got drunk at the bars on weekends.
Dragging my finger along my phone screen, I check every message that’s from her and delete them all without reading, stopping before I get to the one from my boss, Matt. I don’t have to open that one. I know what it says. There’s a slot opening up during the morning drive time at the radio station where I’ve been working. I heard Madman Steve was retiring. He’s been the morning sports guy in LA for years. I probably don’t have a shot in hell, but Matt thinks management will put me on as part of the crew. It’s a good way to get my foot in the door for bigger things.
I glance at the time as I slip my phone into my palm to put it in my back pocket. It’s almost five, and my stomach has adjusted to the Central Time Zone. Kicking off from the wall, I try to focus on the faces of the people on the other side of the glass, looking for my dad. All I can see are wide eyes and wringing greedy hands waiting for this Isaac Harvey guy to dole out the next treasure. The whole thing feels more like a raffle.
I find my dad, but his eyes are closed, which makes me chuckle. As I glance down the row from him, though, a gaze hits mine, and my lungs practically hiccup. I haven’t seen Nicole Laramie in ten years, but in this flash of a second, I relive every moment I shared with her before we graduated from Rider High. Light brown hair hangs over both shoulders, but the gold glasses that used to leave red marks on her nose are gone. Her hands are balled into fists, clutching the ends of her sweatshirt sleeves, and her teeth keep grabbing at her lower lip, a nervous tick she’s had since as long as I can remember.
I raise my right hand a little, and my mouth follows, smiling on one side. It’s a fairly pathetic greeting, and either she doesn’t see me, or she’s ignoring me, because her stare doesn’t waver, almost like she’s in a trance.
My grandma loved her. I kinda shit on her when we were teenagers. She had this strange way of talking, almost in circles. It was like she was full of words and didn’t have the breath to get them all out. She would give these answers that were more than enough and add to lectures, correcting our teachers. I didn’t make fun of her like most people did, but I didn’t stop them either.
I pace around the small rock garden for another twenty minutes until I hear people start to rifle out of the building, cars starting quickly as they leave satisfied or pissed that someone got what they thought they deserved.
“Chase, the attorney needs you to sign a few things for your i
nheritance.” My dad’s brow is pulled in tight as he shirks his shoulder back toward the lobby inside, urging me to follow.
I wonder how much money Evelyn left me.
The attorney stands as soon as I enter the room, rounding his desk and holding his palm out for me.
“Chase, I presume,” he says.
“Yeah…that’s me.” I glance to my dad, who’s wearing a tight smile, and then to my mom, who’s now standing beside him with her purse tugged close and her mouth pinched in on one side. Just over her shoulder I see Nicole sitting in the back row, her stare still fixed out the window on the place I was just standing.
“I’m Isaac.” His words startle me as I realize we’re still shaking hands.
“Right, the attorney.” I scratch at my head and weave my fingers into my hair as he laughs out once.
“I was done reading wills years ago. This was the last piece of business from Sherman and Wilburn, and no offense, but I’d like to hurry this up and be done if that’s alright with you?” He backs up as he talks until his hand rests on the desk.
My mom’s posture grows visibly stiff, and her eyes narrow. This is her mom’s dying wishes he’s rushing. I squeeze her arm and roll my eyes.
“It’s been a long day for us all, so yeah, just…what do I need to sign, or…do you need me to give you my bank information?”
I hear both of my parents breathe in deep.
“You’re not getting money, Chase. Or at least, not immediately. Once you sell the house of course…”
“Grandma left me her house?” I can feel the deep wrinkle of surprise on my forehead, and my other hand joins the one already on my head. “Shouldn’t that go to Aunt Char or Uncle Doug or…you mom? Why would she leave it to me?”
My mom only shrugs, I think maybe a little shell shocked herself.
“Right, well, I need you to sign a few documents for the deed and title, but like I said…” I take the pen from his hand and step close to the desk as he keeps talking. “You’re free to sell it…if that’s what you both decide.”
I’ve barely made a dot with the pen’s ink when that word freezes my hand. Both. My eyes slide to the right of the page, and I realize that I’m not the only signature.
“It seems Evelyn left the house to you and Nicole,” my dad says, his nostrils puffing out a short burst of air from nervous laughter.
“Why would she do that?” My words come out loud, and I try to fix them fast because I don’t want to sound rude, but Nicole isn’t family, and a house is kind of a big thing to leave someone. “I just mean, like I said…should this have gone to Mom? Or aunt…”
“She left me the garden.” I flash to her the second she speaks. Her voice is a mixture of the girl I used to run through the sprinklers with and a grown woman full of confidence. It surprises me, but it also scratches at something inside my chest, like when you see your favorite holiday movie on TV or taste your favorite home cooked meal again.
“Garden.” I repeat that last word, then turn back to Isaac. “Can you actually leave someone a garden?”
“She owned the land. It’s half an acre, and according to the county, even the earth under that house was hers to give.”
Isaac goes on to say something about the document I’m signing, but I only half listen, instead just pushing the pen around the paper while my mind spins ahead searching for the right words to negotiate a sale with a girl I don’t really know anymore. The minute I click off the pen, Isaac pulls the page away, hands me an envelope and slides everything else into a briefcase he slaps shut and swings from the desk in one motion.
“Chase,” he says, holding his hand out one last time. I shake it on autopilot and by the time I turn around, he’s already in his car and pulling away from the law offices. I turn to the right to face my parents.
“What the hell just happened?”
My dad can only lift his shoulders in response, stuffing his hand in his pocket in search of his keys.
“Mom was eccentric. You know that,” my mom says, taking the thick envelope from me and feeling inside, pulling out a key a few seconds later. “You’re in charge now. I imagine there’s a whole line of the worst parts of my family tree lined up in that new driveway of yours. Wanna make them wait? Or should we head over and let them take their things?”
My eyes focus on the key my mom holds in front of me. I take it between two fingers and instantly wonder if Nicole has one, too. I turn to ask her, but she’s gone from her seat. I rush out to the lobby and then the parking lot, and she’s gone from there too.
My phone buzzes against my skin, and I pull it from my pocket to see Matt’s name. I don’t answer because I know he wants to talk about strategy for my interview. All I can think about is how I can unload this house for cash that will get me out of an apartment with two roommates and into a car that doesn’t require a quart of oil every Thursday. And why my grandmother would leave a garden to Nicole Laramie.
Chapter Two
Nicole
“That grandson of mine is a damned fool.”
There have been thousands of conversations between Evelyn and me over the years, up until her passing two weeks ago. But for some reason, the one that keeps playing over and over in my head is one from twelve years ago.
I was fifteen, and I’d spent the day helping her hang spider webs and change out her normal porch lights for purple and orange ones. The woman loved Halloween, and I think my parents were glad they didn’t have to buy the bags of candy. I spent every Halloween over there that I can remember—even long after Chase decided trick-or-treating was for babies. For whatever reason, though, that year was different. He’d come over with a group of his friends, and they were all piled in the bathroom lining their faces with fake blood and tearing holes in old T-shirts with razor blades so they could pretend to be zombies and scare other people in the corn maze on the edge of town.
It was the first time in two years that Chase and I had really talked. I helped him get his blood just right, and some of his friends were so impressed with my make-up job, they asked me to do theirs. I’d even been invited to join the fun, and I was about to give in and go, when Ariana Chisholm grabbed Chase’s hand and didn’t let go. He’d had lots of girlfriends, even when we were kids. Chase was cute, and it was like he was born knowing how to flirt and make girls melt. He’d done it to me a dozen times, even though I never said a word about how it made me feel. I couldn’t put words to it. We were best friends, and that line felt dangerous to cross, but God did I love lying awake at night and pretending we were something more.
Ariana was a real girlfriend, though. I could tell. She was going to get a lot of the firsts Chase had left to give. I hated it. I hated Chase for picking her. I hated me a little, too, because I never said anything before. So I stayed home, and our lives drifted more and more apart, until Chase became the last person I told my secrets to.
Evelyn called him a fool, but I was pretty foolish myself. I’m sure she had a grand fantasy when she wrote that will that she’d force the two of us together again and magic would ensue. Seeing him is surreal. It wasn’t anything I’d ever expected to do again. But it’s far from magical. It’s strangely painful.
The cars were at the house when I arrived, so I pulled into my garage next door and waited in the front room, watching them all from the window. I heard everything on that list, but people left with things that weren’t meant to go home with them. One woman carried out a pair of lamps, and another entered the house with an enormous duffle bag that went in empty and came out barely able to be zipped. I would have said something, but Chase’s parents were on the porch waving people in and out and didn’t seem to mind. I think maybe they just wanted the parade of greed to be over, even if it meant losing a few household items and trinkets.
When the last car pulled away, I stepped back outside and walked over to the garden, bare of anything but rows of tilled dirt. The ground was hard. I hadn’t been over to plant anything with Evelyn all summer. I was so bus
y with research and applying for the international aid program that I never had a spare weekend for shovels and seeds. I regret that now. Evelyn and I had our best talks when we were planting, and I can’t help but wonder if she would have told me she was sick.
I can feel Chase and his parents’ eyes on me before I turn to see them standing on the back porch. I push my hands in my pockets and look down at my feet, feeling them take root, and the memories that swim over me calm my insides before I walk over to join them.
“Nicole, we didn’t get to talk much at the reading. You look lovely.” Mrs. Pennington holds each of my shoulders in one of her palms and squeezes me once before pulling me into a hug. Her embrace feels nice, but there’s fragility there, too.
“I’m so sorry about your mom,” I say, wanting to know if she knew about Evelyn’s illness or if it was a secret she hid from us all. The Penningtons live nearly three hours away from this place now. Chase’s parents moved from Rider when he went off to college. I rarely saw his mom next door, though I know the two of them were close. It was usually Evelyn going to visit. I took her to the train stop a few times, but mostly she walked to the depot herself.
“Thank you.” Her smile never quite meets her eyes, the weight of mourning still heavy on her face. I recognize it.
I shake Chase’s dad’s hand, and he covers the top of mine with his other palm. His touch is warm, and it makes me remember all of the times I wished Chase’s parents were mine. He holds onto me for an extra second, I think almost sensing that I needed him to.
“I’m shocked they left the furniture alone.” The timber in Chase’s voice as he steps from the house behind me strikes familiar nerves along the back of my neck, and I avoid direct eye contact when I turn around to face him.