Trusting Your Heart: Clean Contemporary Romantic Comedy, Interracial Teacher BWWM Romance (Flower Shop Romance Book 4)

by Marisa Logan

  Amanda crossed her arms and turned away from me, refusing to meet my eye. Jimmy sat there quietly, looking down at his hands.

  “I want you both to know that I'm really sorry for the things I've done and said. I really didn't mean to hurt you. Either of you. I think that back then, before we all stopped talking, I used to have a lot of anger in me. I was still hurting over what happened with PJ. I was under a lot of stress. And that doesn't excuse the way I treated you, but that's how it is.”

  Jimmy looked up at me. He had a pout on his face, but at least he didn't look angry.

  Amanda glanced at me and asked, “So, that's it? You say you're sorry, and we're just supposed to leave it at that?”

  I sighed. “I don't know. I don't expect you to just forgive me just like that. But I hope maybe you can realize I'm a different person now than I was back then. I've grown up a lot. I've been trying to be a good mom. I've been back in school finally. I finally met a new guy and we're really happy together. And I feel like I've been maturing and I'm on a good path in my life.”

  “Good for you,” Jimmy said. “But just because you're doing better doesn't make you a better sister.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from snapping back at him. Six years ago, I'd snapped at him and driven him away. I didn't want to do that again.

  “I'm not going to say I'm a good sister. What I'm saying is I want a chance to try to be one. I want to know what's been going on with your lives. Jimmy, I want to get to know your wife and son. Amanda, I want to know what you've been doing, and what your plans are in life. And I want you guys to get to know Ari again. You haven't seen her since she was a toddler, but she's grown into such a bright young girl. Too smart for her own good, even.”

  Amanda chewed on her lip. “I have missed her.”

  Jimmy picked at a strip of wood on the edge of the table. “But how do I know you're not going to...” He trailed off, looking away.

  “I'm not going to be perfect,” I said. “But I'm asking for a second chance. It doesn't have to start right away. We can just get together for dinner sometime soon. And if that goes well, maybe we can all have Thanksgiving together, instead of making Dad go to three different houses like he's had to for the past few years. And we can just give it a shot. And I promise to try to be as good as I can be.”

  Amanda looked at Jimmy, but he wasn't meeting anyone's eye. “I guess,” she said. “I mean, it wouldn't hurt anything.”

  There was a long silence at the table. I looked across at my brother. “Jimmy?”

  He chewed on his lip. I tried to study his features and figure out what might be going on in his mind. I'd never been able to figure him out. But I thought he looked scared.

  When it came down to it, I knew he was the most vulnerable one here. He'd never known how to handle confrontation or complex emotions. He was probably worried that if everything got screwed up again, he wouldn't know how to react. And I didn't know how to comfort him or convince him that everything would be all right. I didn't even know if it would be all right. But I knew that we had to try.

  “Jimmy,” I said, “you don't need to decide right now. Just think about it, okay? I know Ari would like to get to know you. She's really into video games, just like you always were. I'm pretty sure she thinks she could kick your ass at those shooter games.”

  He snorted, his lips twisting in a challenging smirk. I figured that was a good sign.

  “And I think you'd like Conner, too. You guys have a lot in common. I think it'd be cool if you could be friends. At least think about it? All I'm asking for is dinner.”

  He didn't meet my eye. But he nodded. “I'll think about it.”

  Everyone fell into silence. I figured that was probably for the best. We'd made it through the talk without snapping and yelling at each other, and that was probably the most I could have hoped for.

  “So, I'll email you guys about dinner, how's that sound? We can get together at my place. If you want.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said, shrugging. “Sure.”

  Jimmy just nodded without saying anything. I decided not to push him. I knew trying to make him talk when he wasn't ready just made him shut down.

  Amanda headed home, and Jimmy went to go get his wife and son. Before they left, Casey flashed me a grateful smile. I gave her a thumbs up while Jimmy wasn't looking. I knew she was on my side, and I was betting that she'd be able to convince her husband to give me a chance. She seemed to understand him and his emotions better than I ever could. It was probably what made them perfect for each other.

  Chapter 13

  My siblings and I had dinner together twice over the next couple of months. Things were tense, but we managed to work past it. During the second dinner, we even started laughing again when we shared some stories from our childhoods, and we remembered that there could be some good times mixed in with the bad.

  The big test came when Thanksgiving rolled around. Dad offered to cook the turkey, something he hadn't done in years, since he could never get all three of his children together in one place at the same time. But between the three of us, Dad and our stepmom, the grandkids, and of course Conner, it would be the biggest family dinner we'd had for as long as I could remember.

  Conner and I drove down to Dad's house early, with Ari in the backseat playing a game on her phone. She was about to turn eleven, and she had been trying to convince me that she needed an upgraded phone, since the one she had was now considered an obsolete model. I'd told her she'd have to make due with the one she had until I graduated from college and we could collect the rest of the inheritance. Though classes had been going smoothly enough that I was now confident I'd have little trouble graduating on time.

  Conner held the pumpkin pie in his lap in the passenger seat. It was store-bought, since I still wasn't much of a cook, but I doubted anyone would complain. “I'm really nervous,” he said when we reached Dad's neighborhood.

  “Why? You've met everyone before.”

  “Not all in one group like this,” he said. He hadn't been to the dinners with my brother and sister, since we'd been focused on strengthening our family bonds. This would be the first time he was part of a real family event with all of us.

  “You'll be fine,” I said. I reached over to squeeze his knee. “Everyone loves you. Especially me.”

  “I love you too,” he said. And while he'd said those words before, there was something more tender in his voice today. Something that made me feel like we were moving towards a new stage in our relationship. We still hadn't started talking about marriage or anything like that. And maybe we wouldn't for years. But I was confident that Conner was going to be in my life for a long time.

  When we got to Dad's house, I started helping him and my stepmom in the kitchen. Conner and Ari went off to play Xbox, and when I went in to check on them later, I saw that Jimmy had joined them.

  Jimmy and Conner were trash talking each other with friendly grins while they hacked each other up with some kind of chainsaw machine guns. I watched them playing their game and I smiled, glad that they were starting to bond, even if the virtual violence of male bonding was strange to me. But then again, Ariella snuck up behind both of them and stuck a grenade to one of their backs, blowing them both into a million pieces. So if it was a strange sort of bonding, at least she was a part of it, too.

  When dinner was almost ready, my stepmom asked me to go upstairs and fetch some extra chairs from the storage space. Since the boys were still too busy killing each other, I decided I could haul the chairs down by myself. I headed upstairs, then into the upstairs bathroom, then opened the little crawlspace door tucked away next to the bathroom sink. I flipped on the light and crawled inside, wondering what the early 1900s architects had been thinking when they designed this house.

  I crawled back among boxes of Dad's old junk, then moved his Festivus pole out of the way (Dad had always been a big Seinfeld fan). Right next to the folding chairs I found an open box, and I caught sight of a picture
of Grandma lying on top of it.

  I picked up the picture and looked at it. Grandma looked like she was in her twenties, and she had a smile on her face like I'd never seen on her when she was alive. I sat there staring at the picture, wondering what her life had been like back then. I wondered what had changed when she grew older to make her so strict and unforgiving. I sighed and shook my head. I still regretted never having the chance to get to know her. Though I knew it was long since too late for that.

  But as I dug through the box, I realized that it might not be so late after all. I pulled the box out and carried it downstairs with me, forgetting all about the extra chairs. I set it at the end of the dining room table and started pulling stuff out.

  “What are you doing with that?” Dad asked when he saw the box. “I forgot that was up there.”

  “Just wanted to see what's inside,” I said. I pulled out a few more pictures, then a folder with a watermarked certificate inside. It was Grandma's security clearance for when she worked at the FBI. I looked through the rest of the papers in the folder, then showed them to Amanda. “Looks like that's one mystery solved. Grandma was a secretary. She needed a security clearance because she was the one typing up all the top secret documents.”

  “Whoa.” Amanda flipped through the pages, a wide-eyed look on her face. “Go Grandma. And here I was thinking she was a secret agent at Roswell or something.”

  I dug deeper into the box, then pulled out something that I handed to Jimmy. “Looks like Grandma had an old coin collection.”

  He started pulling the coins out, checking their dates and looking them up on his phone. “Some of these are actually pretty rare,” he said. “They might be worth something.”

  Ari stuck her head over my shoulder, which reminded me of just how tall she was getting. Another year or two and I'd be stretching up to reach her. I dug out an old photo album and set it on the table in front of her. I flipped the book open and said, “Now, see, Ari. These are called 'photographs.' Back before everyone had smartphones and Instagram, you had to get them developed as hard copies like this.”

  “Mom, stop,” she said, smacking me on the arm. “You're such a dork.”

  I laughed, and we sat down for dinner, flipping through the old photo album while Dad carved up the turkey. We passed pictures around, trying to make guesses about who some of these people were and what they had meant to our grandmother. Dad managed to fill in a few of the answers, but a lot of the people in the pictures were strangers even to him.

  We passed around the old memories, sharing in good times, old and new. I reached under the table and held Conner's hand. I wondered if one day, he and I would have children of our own, then grandchildren, who might one day dig my old cell phone out of the attic and start flipping through the pictures, wondering about the people who had been part of my life.

  I decided today was a good time to make sure I preserved these moments, so that even after I was gone, they wouldn't be forgotten. I made everyone gather round, then set a timer on my cell phone's camera and perched it against Grandma's box. I hurried over to join my family, Jimmy on one side, Conner on the other. And we posed for the first family photo we'd shared in half a decade. Though I was sure it wouldn't be the last.

  THE END

  Bonus Book 2 -- Time For You

  A Sweet Contemporary Romance Novella

  J.L. STARR

  Copyright © 2016 by J.L. Starr

  All rights reserved, worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Book Description

  Being assistant curator at a historical railroad museum isn't as glamorous as Amy Loch once thought it would be. There are stressful grade school tours, janitorial duties she has to help out with, and a broken clock that the museum can't afford to fix.

  Though the job does have its perks. Such as when she touches the heart of a sweet little boy, then catches the eye of his father.

  Without even searching for romance, Amy finds herself forging a connection with someone she never expected. After a stroke of serendipity brings them together, Amy discovers a chance to mend a hole in a broken family, and, with the help of her new friends, restore a piece of history.

  This is a clean contemporary romance.

  Chapter 1

  “Look out!” I called back to the train passengers as we came around a bend in the track. “There's bandits!”

  Nearly a hundred second-graders hollered and squealed as the “bandits” hopped onto the train in a feat of daring acrobatics, firing their cap guns. Of course, the train was only going about five miles per hour, but for the kids, this was always the most exciting part of the trip.

  “Hands up, ye varmits!” John called out, waving his toy gun at the nearest kids. Their hands shot up, even as they giggled and pointed at him. John's costume was about as cliched as a railroad bandit could get, right down to the red neckerchief he was using as a mask. “This here's a robbery!”

  “Oh no!” I called out, staying in character while I worked on the train's controls. “Can anyone save us?”

  As if on cue, one of the braver kids rushed forward and karate chopped John's hand. John played it smooth, crying out in faux-pain and dropping his gun. The kid grabbed it and fired several times, shouting “Bang, bang!” in time with the popping of the caps.

  The kids applauded. John dropped to his knees and pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, waving it around in the air. “I surrender!” he cried out. The other bandit dropped his gun and threw his hands into the air, to avoid meeting John's cruel fate.

  The train pulled back up to the museum's rear entrance while the kids were still applauding. “Okay, passengers,” I said, putting the parking brake on and standing up to get their attention. “It's time for lunch, and then we've got a special show all about the history of the American railroad. Find your partners, and follow Rebecca. She'll show you to the cafeteria.”

  The kids started getting off the train, along with the handful of parents who'd come along as chaperones. Their teacher, Mrs. Szabo, stood waiting at the door to count heads as the kids walked past her in pairs. The museum always implemented a buddy system for school trips, so that the kids would help keep their partners accountable. It usually worked. Usually.

  Towards the end of the line, I noticed a little blonde-haired girl walking alone. I checked her paper name tag, in the shape of a train, naturally, and saw her name was Laura.

  “Laura, dear,” I said, bending down to meet her at eye level. “Where's your partner?”

  She looked away, shy, and tried to walk past me. I followed her and moved in front of her so she had to stop. “Laura, I asked you a question,” I said, using my calm, patient, yet authoritative voice.

  “Are we missing someone?” Mrs. Szabo asked. She looked up and down the train, but there was no one still on board.

  I crouched down in front of Laura and touched her arm. “Laura, sweetie, who was your partner?”

  She kept looking away, refusing to make eye contact. But I didn't let her off the hook. Finally, she whispered, “TJ.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Szabo said. “Of course.”

  I stood up and raised an eyebrow at her. “Does he do this sort of thing a lot?”

  She sighed and nodded. “He tends to run off when he's upset. Usually he hides in the woods behind the school. Or wherever else he can squeeze himself into. He's got...family issues at home.”

  “I'll go find him,” I said. “He can't have gone far. The tracks are enclosed, and there's a fence. I know a couple of places he could be hiding.”

  Mrs. Szabo took Laura by her hand and led her off to the cafeteria with the rest of the kids. I started searching the tracks to
find the missing TJ. There were a lot of props in the different settings where a little kid could easily hide. Most of the area was in an old west theme, with a rickety old saloon, a corral filled with plastic horses, and a little farmstead with haystacks and an old barn. There used to be an Indian encampment with teepees, but we'd taken it down after receiving some complaints from a local Native American tribe that it wasn't historically accurate and it reinforced inaccurate stereotypes about their people. There was a mine shaft there now, with an old miner mannequin bent over a stream, panning for gold.

  I headed for the mine first, cleaning my glasses on my shirt as I walked. Most of the other buildings were nothing but false fronts, held up by wooden frames around the back. But the mine shaft was the size of a small shed, with wooden planks across the front blocking off the interior. We used the inside for storage of old equipment.

  “Hello?” I called out as I opened the entrance. Inside I saw the old teepees and unused Native American mannequins, along with some gardening equipment and tools that the maintenance guys kept out here. And huddled against one of the teepees was a little boy, presumably the infamous TJ.

  I crouched down in front of him, keeping my distance. He sat there, watching me, with his knees hugged against his chest.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.” He sniffled. His eyes were a bit red and tear-stains marked his cheeks.

  “Are you TJ?”

  He nodded.

  “You know it's lunch time?” I smiled, hoping to coax him out without having to get tough on him. “Are you hungry?”

  He looked away, staring at the wall, but he nodded.

  “Do you want to come with me? I can bring you to the cafeteria. We've got really good hot dogs.”

  He shook his head.

  I sighed and tried to think of a new approach. I'd had enough experience with emotional kids working at the museum that I knew sometimes you couldn't push them. “Was someone picking on you? If they were, you can tell me.”