Synopsis
Brie O’Malley, successful author and college professor, isn’t sure if she believes in destiny in a universe where a random act of violence extinguished her happy-ever-after. The life she had, the woman she loved, the future she was planning for, were stolen from her the day she and her lover were shot. The only survivor, Brie has “recovered” two years later, at least that's how it seems to others. She is dedicated to her work, volunteering in the community, and researching her next historical novel. Yet she hasn't laughed since the tragedy. Until the day she meets Jordan.
Skateboarding to show her two kids how an expert does it, Jordan Carter can’t believe her bad luck when she collides with beautiful blond Brie and meets her later at the hospital. A carpenter and partner in the family business, Jordan has also struggled to pull her life together after a tragedy.
Neither woman is looking for or expects a second chance at love but each must make a decision about the past that will open a door to the future.
Collision Course
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Collision Course
© 2010 By C.P. Rowlands. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-421-8
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: January 2010
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Lake Effect Snow
Collision Course
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Jennifer Knight, who saw something in this story. To Rad, for offering the contract and also for always being there, within minutes, when I had a question. Also, thanks to Vic Oldham for a read-through and suggestions.
To my only beta reader, Nikki, who didn’t let me down, ever. Not once.
My fellow authors were a brick wall for me, and I thank you all.
Finally, there is only one Cindy Cresap in the world, and this book would not be here without her insight, enormous help, and humor. I’m not sure why, but she never threatened my life. At least that I’m aware of. She is absolutely irreplaceable.
Dedication
For Gloria—For all the summers.
Prologue
“Niki! Whoa!” Brie yelled. Niki had just turned left instead of right. “Aren’t we going to the lake?”
“I’ve got something to show you first, baby. I’m so excited I can’t wait another day.” Niki revved the powerful red BMW convertible up a notch and cut a corner very close. Brie grabbed the armrest and braced herself against the dashboard.
“Damn! Slow down. Please?”
Niki gave her a wild, high-flying grin and slowed the car. “I’m sorry, I’m just so hyped I can barely stand it.” She pulled over to the curb in an area close to the center of Milwaukee. “Look, Brie.” She sat on the top of the seat and held her arms out. “This is it.”
Brie ran her hands through her windblown hair and looked around. “What?” she said. They were in one of the most run-down sections of the city. Almost all of the houses on her side of the street were deserted and in terrible shape: Windows were either broken out or boarded up. One was partially burned. A house across the street still had crime scene tape wrapped across the porch.
Niki didn’t seem to notice, and her energy never faltered. “This is it. Century! The next project I’m taking on for the Willis Foundation!”
Brie took another look around. “You’re going to be…here? You know about the…crime rate here?” She was more than flabbergasted. She was a little frightened.
Niki slid back into her seat and turned toward Brie. “Baby, you know the story. Grandad started the Willis Foundation right after the Second World War. This was the first land he bought in Milwaukee. Fifteen acres.” She gestured in the air. “Brie, our house is done. I’ve finished the design of the sports complex on the lake. This”—she gestured again—“will be the next project. I get to finish Grandad’s and Dad’s dream.”
“You and what army of bodyguards, Niki Willis?” Brie exclaimed. “Listen, I’ll quit teaching and learn to shoot. I’ll come out here every day with you.” She turned for another look at the burned house and then swiveled back to Niki. “I’ll be—” She stopped when she saw the pure happiness and love on Niki’s face. Niki started the car and this time drove toward Lake Michigan.
“Where are your shoes, honey?” Brie said. “It’s against the law to drive barefoot.”
“At home, by the back door.” Niki grinned as she turned the car off the pavement and onto the beach. She downshifted as they moved onto the sand. She navigated the car carefully around several dunes and rolled to a stop close to the water’s edge. The sand crunched under the wheels as she backed the car to a safer spot. Brie adjusted the volume of the music while Niki stretched for the small bucket in the backseat, humming off key.
Brie shook her head at the murdered tune. “Don’t give up your day job, honey.” Their laughter mixed with the music from the car and drifted out over Lake Michigan. The air still held the sharpness of a cool morning as it faded to afternoon summer warmth. Niki handed Brie a glass.
“To us and life. Our life,” Niki said and stood on the driver’s seat. One hand gripped the steering wheel and the other held the glass. “This is the best day of my life. Happy anniversary, Brie.”
Brie looked up at Niki’s small, lithe frame, backlit by the sun. Curly black hair almost touched the white T-shirt. The well-worn jeans were clean. Brie grabbed the windshield for balance, holding her glass to Niki’s, and laughed. “We’re going to fall over, you know.” The sound of crystal clinking blended into the music as they drank and leaned in for a long kiss.
Brie took a quick breath as Niki’s fingers slipped inside her braless dress. Her breasts hardened against the touch. It had been like this from the first. “Niki! God, yes.”
“Thirteen years, Brie. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”
Brie’s stomach muscles twitched as Niki caressed the skin, then moved lower. She gasped. “Put the top up and seats down, now.”
“Here,” Niki said and handed her the glass. She jumped over the car door onto the sand. “Set the glasses down, honey.”
The desire Brie saw on Niki’s face made her heart race as she sat down and secured the glasses in the cup holders. “That noise? Is that the waves?” Brie said over her shoulder.
A dirt bike roared from behind a dune and the smell of hot exhaust flooded the air. Niki started to turn as a gunshot echoed and she fell. The next shots hit Brie. The sharp crack of the shattered windshield and her screams echoed together across the water. Seagulls, startled into flight, wheeled between Brie’s eyes and the sun.
Chapter One
Two years later
A light wind cooled Brie’s face and she looked up from her book, suddenly aware of the sounds around her. Tree branches scraped above her, their dry leaves adding a little harmony. Kids behind her played soccer and their l
aughter floated past her.
Her foggy mind drifted. This Milwaukee park next to Lake Michigan had been hers forever. She’d always found it odd that she’d grown up, moved away, then ended up living in the same neighborhood she’d started out in. When she and Niki had bought the house across the street from this park, she felt as if she’d traveled in a circle.
The noise from the soccer game caught her attention again. She’d played soccer here too, learned to skate and ride bikes as well. The breeze swept through the elm, oak, and pine trees in front of her.
The last of the yellow wild lilies nodded in the light wind. She and Niki had planted those five years ago in the middle of a dark, moonless night. They had brought them from their nearby house in a wheelbarrow with flashlights. Then they had planted wild daisies and tiger lilies on the other side. Those flowers, like many in her own yard, had been dug up in the woods in northern Wisconsin. It was illegal to dig up wildflowers in this state and carried a hefty fine if you were caught. The park had left them alone and probably assumed some good citizen had donated them from a local nursery.
Niki, always stretching boundaries. The day they’d been shot, she’d been driving barefoot. Brie tilted her head at the yellow lilies. Our flowers, baby.
Several children ran past her, startling her. Brie adjusted the open textbook in her lap, a book she had written for her own class. She tried to concentrate on the words but the printed page blurred, and she rubbed her damp eyes. Were these tears ever going to stop? Disgusted, she tossed her apple core into her brown sandwich bag just as a gust of wind carried the paper sack off the bench. She bent to retrieve it and a skateboard rolled dangerously close to her head.
“Hey,” she yelled at the glimpse of red shorts and cropped white T-shirt disappearing quickly over the hill, out of her vision. “Darned kids,” she said to no one in particular as her heart raced. “Darned everything,” she added, standing and brushing sandwich crumbs off her short black skirt.
“Brie,” someone called and she saw her sister Valerie walking toward her.
“How’d you know I was here?” Brie said.
“That blond hair of yours is like a laser, and you’re not exactly short.”
“Like you?” Brie said but smiled. At almost five-eight, Brie was easy to spot in most crowds. “Did you come directly from the hospital?” She looked at Val’s blue scrubs.
“Mom has the boys, and I wanted to see you so I came by on my way to pick them up.” They began to walk toward Brie’s house. “I stopped by your house first. Your yard looks gorgeous. Niki’s flowers.”
“I mowed this morning,” Brie said. “She’d have loved those blue ones. I think they’re called blue wood asters and I can’t ever tell anyone where we got them. I remember planting them.” She looked at her house, smelling the freshly cut grass, and cleared her throat as her eyes threatened to fill again.
“Okay, illegal but lovely.” Val grinned, but the roar of a dirt bike rose above her words. Brie stepped back in a panic…right into the path of a skateboarder. There was a sharp pain and suddenly she was on the rough concrete of the sidewalk.
A woman’s worried voice said, “Are you all right? Omigosh, I am so sorry.”
Brie’s eyes locked on the red shorts and tanned skin. Children talked excitedly in the background. Was someone hurt?
“Did the bike hit someone?” Brie heard her words slur and closed her eyes as strong arms gathered and lifted her.
“A bike? No. There wasn’t a bike. Hang on. Your sister’s bringing her car.” The warm arms holding her increased their grip and she was deposited on the front seat of Val’s big SUV.
“Thank you,” Brie mumbled and looked up into gray eyes. Deep concerned gray eyes with long black lashes.
“Don’t move.” Val used her nurse voice as the car seat reclined. “I’m driving you to Urgent Care.”
“What happened? I heard a dirt bike.”
“No, there wasn’t a bike,” Val said. She moved away but Brie heard her talking to someone. The SUV moved and Brie’s eyes opened to the ceiling of Val’s car. “Did someone get hurt?” she asked.
“You, dufus. You got hurt. Someone on a skateboard ran into you.”
“What’s next?” Brie said softly. She rubbed her eyes against the lurking tears.
“Weren’t you on duty at Omni last night? Have you been to bed yet?” Val asked.
“I slept when I came home, got up, mowed the yard, and went back to sleep.” Brie saw a big smear of blood on the palm of her hand. “Where did this blood come from?”
“You were down and out like a stone.” Val parked the car in the Urgent Care lot and examined the blood on Brie’s hand.
“I didn’t get a good look at that kid, but his mother was with him.”
Val threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, brother. That was no kid that hit you, cookie, and that’s probably her blood on your hand.” She was quiet for a moment, still holding Brie’s hand. “Honey, when did you get so thin? You’re melting away.”
“It’s your imagination,” Brie said. “I weigh the same as last week.”
“Your eyes look older than our mother’s.” Val sighed and took the keys out of the ignition.
Brie turned her head away. “My eyes weigh the same too. I’m making progress. I’m past spontaneous weeping in public places. Well, almost.” Her side began to ache and she shifted against the pain. “Don’t you think we should go inside?”
Chapter Two
“Watch out,” someone yelled. Jordan stopped instinctively, avoiding a load of bricks moving by. She had rushed to the construction site, late. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to have another accident.
“Must be my day,” she said, jamming the hard hat farther down on her head. She adjusted the tool belt on her hips. She hurried through the partially framed house, looking for her uncle. Finally she saw him, standing over a table with blueprints.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to drop the kids off and change clothes,” she said. “Where are we?” She bent over the table to have a look at the plans.
Her uncle, John Kelly, shifted an unlit cigar in his mouth and took a hard look at her. He stubbed a big meaty finger on the blueprint. “We’re here, and what the hell happened to your eye?”
“I was working with Tyler on the skateboard in the park earlier today and ran into someone,” she said absently, concentrating on the papers in front of her.
“You’re going to have a shiner. Here, look at me.” He tilted her chin and turned her head for a more thorough look. “Have you been fighting? Skateboard, my ass. It’s going to be a beauty…and you’ve got a cut.”
“It was a skateboard. I was on it and this woman just stepped right in front of me.”
“Your mom’s going to kill me. She’ll never believe you didn’t get it here. I want you over at Urgent Care as soon as we finish, and I mean it.” He laid a brick on the blueprints to keep them from blowing away in the wind. “We won’t need your expertise until Friday, so you’ve got a few more days to put ice on that baby.”
Jordan groaned. She’d just dropped Tyler and Jenna off at her mother’s and she didn’t want to go back. “Can’t you find something for me to do here, at least until after dinner?” They grinned at each other. It’d been this way since her dad had died.
“Your daddy would make you go,” John said, his grin widening.
Jordan sighed. She’d go. Her father and John had begun this firm the year she was born. Three years ago she’d come into Kelly Construction as a full partner, but she still had to take orders from John.
“Wait,” John said. “There is one thing. Go upstairs and look at the framing on the bathroom in the master bedroom. Take a measurement, will you? I just walked by there and I don’t think that southwest corner is right. Something’s off.”
Jordan took the steps, two at a time. The breeze whistled through the wood on the second story as her boots echoed on the floor. She loved this phase of building. Everything smelled good
and the possibilities were everywhere. She stopped, bracing herself in a framed window, looking out at Lake Michigan. She was going to be stiff after the collision in the park. Gently, she pulled on her back and arm muscles, then pushed forward, easy and slow. If she’d been paying attention, none of this would have happened. She’d been looking at that house again, the English cottage on the edge of the park, and that woman had stepped right into her, then fallen like a rock. Had she fainted? Women. Always fainting or screaming. She’d never understand her own kind. Well, they also don’t pay attention, Jordan.
A sudden wind sliced pain across her cheek and eye. “Ow,” she said softly, kicking her boots against the wood. She didn’t look at women very often, but this one was unusual. Different, she thought. When she’d picked her up, Jordan had immediately thought of a wounded animal. She hadn’t weighed anything.
Jordan pushed on her muscles one more time. It had all happened so fast that she hadn’t even caught the woman’s name, but something about her had hung in her mind all the way to work. “Huh,” she said, thinking of the anatomy drawings that hung on her studio wall. The woman’s stomach had been firm with just a hint of feminine hips. It was that graceful bone structure that she always noticed.
The wind kicked up some dust in the yard below and she turned. “My God, this house is huge,” she said, then laughed at herself. Every time she walked through this house she said the same thing. She went into the master bedroom, took out her tape measure, and began to compute the framing on the southwest corner.
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