Starting Over (Whiskey Ridge Book 1)

by Rachel Hanna

  "Well I'm sorry to hear that, Kelly, because you're such a great tenant. But I need the money, quite honestly. I'm taking care of my elderly mother, who has Alzheimer's, and the upstairs had been empty for so long that it just about made me go bankrupt. And if I go bankrupt, I lose the building which means you lose your space too." There was an eerie silence. Kelly could totally understand what was going on, and she couldn’t really argue with it. Dang it. Plus her lease went for three more years.

  "I'm so sorry to hear about your mother, Helen. I understand. We'll make it work. Don't worry about it," Kelly said before saying her goodbyes and hanging up. She was stuck with Quinn Maverick, and a part of her was irritated by it. But she was much more irritated by the fact that another part of her was a little bit excited to know that she got to look at him every day.

  Chapter 5

  Dragging herself up the stairs, Kelly decided that the only option she had was to apologize for her overreaction and try to make peace with Quinn. She was obviously going to have to share the space for the foreseeable future, at least until she could grow her business such that she could buy her own building. It was a dream, but something she held onto as a personal goal.

  She walked quietly up the stairs, in her bare feet, and realized that his lights were out. She knew he hadn’t left, so he must've been somewhere in the string of rooms that dotted the upstairs.

  When she walked around the corner of one of the rooms, she could hear low music playing. She peeked through the cracked door, eavesdropping completely, and saw him sitting in a chair facing the window to the side yard with a guitar on his lap. He was strumming it quietly, humming something, and the whole sight was making her stomach tense up. Who was this guy? Rough one minute, soft the next. She'd never met anyone quite like him.

  She took a moment to just look at him. He was probably the most handsome man she'd ever seen. She didn't use the word handsome a whole lot. Many guys were good-looking, hot, fine, sexy. And he was definitely sexy too, but he was handsome. Like an old Hollywood movie star, but a little rougher around the edges.

  He had broad shoulders that she could see beneath the black T-shirt he was wearing. He had on windbreaker pants that were black with a white line down each side. His karate uniform, whatever it was called, was hanging in the corner, completely pressed and ironed.

  On the back of the uniform she could see that he was a world champion, which didn't surprise her. She had seen him doing some kicks and punches and stretches the other day, and it was impressive. She had to at least admit that.

  Still, the thought of a bunch of men and women beating each other to a pulp seemed stupid. She knew it was an age-old tradition, but she didn't really understand it that much.

  She stepped a couple of inches closer so she could try to hear what song he was playing when one of the old hardwood floor pieces squeaked under her foot. He jumped, startled of course, and turned around making eye contact with her. Kelly started to flush red, even through her normally pale toned skin.

  "I'm… I'm sorry…" she said, stammering out of sheer anxiety. She hated being caught doing anything she wasn't supposed to be doing.

  "Can I help you with something?" he said, irritation coloring his voice.

  “Can I come in?" she asked.

  "You kind of already have," he said with a bit of a smirk on his face. He waved his hand for her to come in, put his guitar up against the window frame and stood. Damn. The muscles rippling under his shirt were making her mouth start to water, something she would never admit out loud.

  She stepped forward into the room, and he turned on the light. It was one of those lights that hung down from the ceiling with a metal chain attached to it, obviously something that hadn't been updated by the landlord since buying the place.

  "I just wanted to come up and say that I'm really sorry that I overreacted. I realize it probably looked like something bad had happened to me, lying on the floor all sprawled out like that. It wasn't your fault. It's just been tough few weeks for me. Let's just say I haven't been at my best."

  He looked at her for a moment, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. Those full lips. What must they taste like? She mentally slapped herself to get her own attention again.

  "I understand. I've had a lot of hard times myself lately. I really wasn't trying to offend you. I thought something had happened and when I think something has happened to someone, I try to help. But I'll be more careful from now on knowing that you meditate."

  "Okay. Thanks. Look, we obviously have to share the space, and I'll try to be more understanding of the fact that your student group is a little more verbose."

  "Verbose?"

  "Yes. Sorry. It means…"

  "I know what verbose means. I graduated from college, although that might be hard to believe," he said with a grin.

  "Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" She found herself stammering again.

  “No big deal. People often misjudge me. If there's nothing else, I have some things to do," he said, ushering her toward the door. And she found herself hating him all over again.

  * * *

  After working her morning hours, Kelly went home for lunch break. It was a dreary day, much more overcast than would be expected in the middle of May. And it was a greatly affecting her mood.

  She decided to go home and try to get a few things done before heading back for her busy afternoon schedule. There were facials and massages and of course, Cat’s yoga class. She thought seriously about participating to try to burn off some of the stress built up from visiting her mother.

  Her cell phone rang as she walked in the door and put her purse on the kitchen counter. She looked down, but didn't immediately recognize the number so she answered it.

  "Hello?"

  “Oh, Kelly. Hello, love," the man said. She immediately recognized the voice as that of Rio's. What on earth was he doing calling her? The fact that he was calling her "love" meant nothing. He was a Casanova at the core, and he called everyone that.

  “Rio. What on earth could you be calling me for? Aren’t you living it up in Hawaii with your new girlfriend?" she said, the sarcasm and irritation evident in her voice.

  "Kelly, don't be angry with me. I'm calling to check on you and make sure that you're doing okay. How goes everything?" he said, his broken English much more disgusting to her now.

  "I'm not your problem anymore, Rio. And you can tell Abigail the same thing. Goodbye,” she said before hanging up. The nerve of some people!

  She decided that she needed something a little stiffer than coffee, but didn't drinking wine in the middle of the afternoon make her sad and pathetic? Of course, that wasn't a problem because she was feeling pretty sad and pathetic right now anyway.

  She reached into the cabinet and grabbed a wine glass and found an almost empty bottle of wine left over in the refrigerator from the last time she and Rio went on a date. Good wine doesn’t go bad that quickly, right? She didn't care. She wasn't exactly a wine connoisseur and didn't really care if it tasted good. Right now she was just in search of alcohol to numb the pain a little bit.

  A couple of hours later, she was pulling back into the parking lot, ready to work. She had taken a hot bath, her second of the day, and drank a glass of wine. It was ecstasy. Well, the only kind of ecstasy she was going to feel for a long time.

  When she pulled into the parking lot, it was sheer mayhem. Cat was standing beside her car, her hands up in the air in exasperation because someone had parked too close to her. Kelly got out of her car and started walking towards her.

  "What's wrong?” Kelly asked.

  "These karate parents are crazy!" Cat said. "This sadistic soccer mom pulled right beside my car, looked at me and went inside. Can you believe that crap?" For a yoga teacher, she was anything but serene. Cat was feisty, sexy and outspoken. It was probably a lot of the reason why she couldn't keep a man.

  "I know. This is ridiculous. I talked to the landlord and she said we could use the side
yard for few more parking spaces, but I don’t think that's going to be enough. Maybe she didn't have any idea how many clients he really had, but I can't talk her into cutting his lease."

  "Cutting my lease?" she heard Quinn Maverick say from behind her. What was he doing in the parking lot?

  "Mr. Maverick…"

  "Please, call me Quinn. After all, if you're going to talk about me behind my back, we should at least be on a first name basis." The smirk on his face made her want to slap him, then kiss him and then slap him some more.

  "I wasn't trying to talk behind your back."

  "Well, it sure seems that way. Anyway, I can't believe you would call the landlord and try to get my lease canceled. That's a pretty crappy thing to do." He started to walk past her but she snapped.

  "Wait just a minute!" she said. "You came into my territory. Before you got here, we had plenty of parking and plenty of quiet. Now we have to deal with all the noise and the stomping and the shouting and the parking situation…" she said, the wine having worn off and the hot bath having not been enough.

  He stopped and turned, smiling. "I guess our little cease-fire is over? Either way, you don't have to like that I'm here. But you do have to accept it because I have a legal right to be here. In fact, it's just as much of a legal right as you have. So unless you want to cut your own lease, I suggest you leave mine alone. Good evening, ladies,” he said as he walked off and up the stairs into the building.

  "Gosh, he's so hot," Cat said, practically purring again.

  "Really? He's a jerk. He's a complete and utter waste of space, and I can't stand him!" Kelly said as she started to walk towards the building.

  "Methinks the lady doth protest too much!" Cat called to her. Kelly was not as surprised by the quote as she was to the fact that Cat knew anything about Shakespeare.

  Chapter 6

  Kelly didn’t have children yet, but she was quite sure Quinn Maverick operated like one. Fairly quiet most of the day, but as the evening arrived he got louder and louder.

  He was so loud that she was learning a lot of new Korean words just listening to him teach classes upstairs. The stomping and yelling was almost too much to take. Her serenity was broken now, and she was sure her clients would start leaving soon.

  Only, that wasn’t happening. Over the last few days, some of them had come and signed their children up for karate classes. A few of the fathers, who never came into the spa but paid for their wives to enjoy its services, had signed up too. Midlife crisis much?

  Yep, Quinn must have been a good salesman too. She imagined that he probably sold women that way too. He probably had all kinds of dates every night of the week, feeding women lines to get them to do what he wanted. Of course, she had nothing to base this on, but it was fun to think about while she stewed over how much she despised him.

  As she sat in her office, waiting for Cat to finish her evening classes, she wondered if she would always be alone. Always the one without kids, without a husband or even an ex-husband. Some of her friends were already on their second marriage. She was so behind.

  She could hear Maggie’s voice echoing in her ear. “You know, online dating has worked for a lot of my friends…” she would say, often, in her sing songy little voice.

  “Mags, I don’t have any interest in meeting some loser who’s probably sitting on his sofa in his sweat pants eating a pint of ice cream.”

  Lately, she realized that she was, in fact, that loser.

  The laptop was sitting open in front of her, practically calling her name. Surely there were no eligible bachelors she didn’t know already in Whiskey Ridge. Everybody knew everybody else in the town. Online dating couldn’t possibly work for her simply on that basis alone.

  But, it didn’t stop her from filling out a profile and taking a selfie before she could talk herself out of it. And it didn’t stop her from clicking “publish” on said profile. And it certainly didn’t stop her from sitting there, second guessing what she’d just done and feeling a bit nauseous.

  Even still, she closed the laptop and smiled. At least she had done something to move her life forward.

  * * *

  It wasn’t twenty-four hours later when Kelly received her first response on her dating profile. Honestly, she thought it would be sooner than that, so she was starting to feel like the girl in school who never gets asked to the dance.

  The guy looked nice enough. Sandy brown hair, a chiseled jawline, blue eyes. He was wearing a blue sweater in his photo which meant it ether wasn’t all that recent or he hadn’t gotten the memo that spring was here.

  He lived two counties over, closer to the metro Atlanta area, but it was still only about an hour drive for him to come see her. His profile said he was in school to become a pharmacist and that he loved dogs and Chinese food. Hopefully not together, she thought.

  “Hi, Kelly. I read your profile, and it sounds like we have a lot in common. Want to chat sometime?”

  That was it. Simple, to the point. Normal.

  For some reason, it didn’t really resonate with her, but maybe she could use him as practice, whatever that meant. She messaged back:

  “Hi, Peter. Nice to virtually meet you. I’d love to chat sometime. Here’s my number…”

  Peter called six minutes later. It made her a little uneasy to think he was desperate, but he explained that he was studying for his finals and saw her message pop up on his computer while he was doing some research. He welcomed the break, or at least that’s how he explained the quick callback.

  Of course, what guy is going to fess up and say, “No one wants to date me, so when I saw your message I pounced like a puma on a bunny rabbit”? Do pumas even eat rabbits?

  They talked for about half an hour and planned a date for the weekend. She wasn’t really nervous, but she wasn’t overly excited either. Hopefully he was more on the boring end of the spectrum and not on the ax murderer end of it.

  The plan was to meet at Leighton’s, one of the snazzier restaurants in town. Just off the main square, the restaurant was built inside of an old mill and had high-class Southern cuisine. She’d only been there once because it was pretty expensive, but Peter found it online and asked if they could meet there.

  So far, so good. At the very least, maybe it would get the sexy Quinn Maverick’s face… and other parts… out of her mind for awhile.

  She’d never admit it out loud, but seeing him day in and day out was proving to be difficult. The man was sexy. There was no getting around it. The stay-at-home mothers were flocking to the place, signing their munchkins up by the droves, just so they could stare at him.

  And she couldn’t blame them.

  But he was also her arch nemesis right now. She couldn’t give in, and this Peter guy was the perfect diversion. He was handsome, in a “bring him home to your mother and your grandma” kind of way.

  Sure, being a “pharmacy student” wasn’t nearly as sexy as being a “super ninja black belt smoking-hot karate instructor” was, but beggars couldn’t be choosers at this point.

  “So, wait, let me get this straight. The super serious and always careful Kelly Cole is going on a date with a perfect stranger tonight?” Maggie said when Friday finally arrived on the calendar.

  “Don’t pick at me,” Kelly warned as she closed her laptop and prepared to head home to get ready. She was leaving early, for once.

  “I think it’s great. Ask if he has a brother,” Maggie said with a giggle. “A sexy, tall brother with a fat bank account and a tight butt.”

  Leave it to Maggie to make her laugh when she was getting more nervous by the second. “If he has one of those, I call dibs on him.”

  Kelly drove home and did what all women do before a date. She chose the perfect outfit - a pair of white capri pants and a red flowy top - and tamed her unruly hair. With a bit of makeup to jazz up her normally natural look, she was ready to go.

  The drive to Leighton’s was short, but every drive in Whiskey Ridge was short. You could practi
cally throw a baseball from one end of the town to the other. Well, maybe that was over-exaggerating things a bit, but it was close to the truth.

  “Kelly?” Peter said as she walked into the front door at Leighton’s. Boy, he was as punctual as anyone she’d ever met, especially since they weren’t supposed to meet for another fifteen minutes.

  But she was early too, so what did that say about her?

  He was taller than she’d imagined, probably at least six feet. He wore a pair of beige slacks, a button up white shirt and a red tie. She half expected him to wait the tables rather than sit at one.

  “Hi. Nice to meet you,” she said, accepting the small bouquet of flowers he’d brought for her. Nice touch. “Oh, thanks so much for the flowers…” she barely got out before the inevitable sneezing fit started.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “All….er…gies…” she managed to say between sneezes. Yep. She was highly allergic to flowers, especially when someone placed them directly near her face.

  “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry… I had no idea…” he stammered as he grabbed the bouquet from her and managed to then cut her hand with one of the rose thorns.

  Blood pooled in the palm of her hand as she continued sneezing in the waiting area of the posh restaurant. People were starting to stare, and her watering eyes made it appear as if she was crying.

  Perfect first date.

  “It’s okay,” she finally managed to say after the manager gave her some tissue. And a Band-Aid. And a Benadryl pill from the first aid kit.

  Note to self: Don’t drink wine tonight or else you might fall asleep at the table.