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

by Marisa Logan

  The fundraiser continued for a few weeks after the fair was over, and we passed our goal with more than enough money to spare. By the time the website shut down on the last day, we had enough to pay for all the replacement parts and the installation. Plus there was a new surge of business at the museum after all of the publicity from our fundraiser, and between the new flow of guests and the leftover money from the clock repair, we were even able to hire a new part-time janitor.

  Chapter 10

  A few months later, I stood at the front of a large crowd gathered in front of the museum. Camera crews from the local news stations were there, as were some excited people from the Steampunk World's Fair who'd made the drive out to Brandenburg for the special day. Tom and TJ stood near the front of the crowd, applauding with everyone else as we got ready to flip the switch and start the clock up for the first time.

  I stood beside the head curator as he gave a speech about the significance of the clock, its history, and what it represented for the museum and the community at large. I didn't really need to listen to the speech. I knew what it represented for me, and that was all that mattered.

  “And now,” he said as he reached the conclusion of the speech, “our very own Amy Loch, the person responsible for what we've accomplished here today, will throw the switch and start the clock!”

  I stepped up, greeted by a round of applause. I waved to the crowd, and gave a special smile to Tom. I felt like he and TJ should be up here with me. Getting the clock fixed had really been their idea, after all.

  “Tell me when,” I said, putting my hands on the big lever. No one in the crowd knew that it wasn't really hooked up to anything. The lever was just sticking out of a large metal box. A mechanic up in the tower would turn on the power at the same moment that I threw the lever, giving the ceremonial act the illusion of reality.

  The curator looked at his watch, waiting for the right moment, then started counting. “Ten...nine...”

  The crowd shouted along with him. “Eight...seven...”

  I waved to everyone again, then grabbed the lever with both hands, making a big production out of it. I waited for the countdown to reach the end.

  “Three...two...one...”

  The crowd started cheering as I pulled the lever. At the same time, the clock up above started ticking. The camera crews got the whole thing on tape, ready for the nightly news. I made the rounds, shaking hands with a few VIPs, particularly some of the donors who had given a hefty amount to the fundraiser.

  Before long, the crowd started to disperse. Some went inside the museum to go check out the exhibits, including the all new exhibit upstairs, where the inner workings of the clock were now on display behind a glass case. We'd also posted some historical news articles and pictures going back to the year the building was built, laying out the entire history of the museum and the clock itself. Included in the display was a more recent news article about the fundraising campaign, along with my picture. I'd become a permanent part of history.

  I headed over to the little buffet table we'd set out, making myself a plate for lunch. Tom joined me, while TJ peppered the curator with questions about one of our exhibits.

  “So,” Tom said as he filled a plate of his own. “I've been thinking.”

  “Oh yeah?” I eyed him sidelong while I sucked a bit of mustard off my thumb, wishing I had a free hand for a napkin.

  “Yeah. About the future, and where things are going.”

  I paused and stared at him, my heart starting to race. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean us.”

  I held my plate carefully in both hands, worried that I might drop it. “What have you been thinking about us?”

  He led me off to the side, away from a few guests who were browsing the buffet table. “Well, I've been thinking that I spend a lot of time out here. And we both spend a lot of time driving halfway across the state to see each other. And, well, my lease is about to come up...”

  I licked my lips, studying his face. He blushed and looked down, scratching the back of his head. “The thing is,” he said, “I don't want to move away from TJ. But at the same time, we're getting to the point that this is becoming something serious. And you have your job here and I have mine, but it seems like we could probably figure out some middle ground.”

  “Middle ground?” I asked, frowning.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, for a place. For us. Our place.”

  “Tom,” I said. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

  “I think I am.”

  I smiled. “Well I think I might say yes.”

  I had to admit, it was something I'd already thought about. I lived about five minutes from the museum, which was really convenient for work. But really inconvenient when my boyfriend lived an hour away. But I could see us together in a nice little apartment, somewhere halfway between us. Where we could find a balance in our lives, while taking the next step on our journey together.

  I leaned in to kiss him, though our plates got tangled and nearly spilled. We both laughed, awkwardly shuffling our plates into one hand so we could kiss.

  “Does TJ know?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I asked him how he felt about it before I asked you.”

  “And?”

  “And he loves the idea. He wants to know if he can move in with us.”

  I laughed, covering my mouth with one hand. “Oh, I can't imagine his mother would ever agree to that.”

  “No,” he said, sighing. “In fact, I'm sure she'll raise a fuss about him visiting on weekends once you're living with me. But there's nothing she can do about it. I have my visitation rights guaranteed on paper by the courts, and I'll fight her til the end of days to keep them.”

  I slipped an arm around him and kissed his cheek. “Well, even if he can't live with us, maybe one day we'll be able to give him a new little brother or sister.”

  “Oh?” His eyes lit up at that idea.

  I smirked, giving him a teasing look. “I'm not saying any time soon. But it's definitely something I want.”

  “Me too.”

  A few weeks after that, we'd found a place to live. I packed up my things, leaving the apartment I'd been in since I got out of college, and loaded everything in a truck to take to my new home. I left behind most of my old, worn out furniture, though I brought the bunk bed to put in TJ's room for when he visited, and to maybe have a place for another kid to sleep one day soon. Tom and I hung my paintings around the apartment, alongside his family photos and other memorabilia. And we set up a new art studio in one corner of the dining room, near the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. On nicer days, I moved my easel out onto the balcony and painted under the shade of the elm tree outside our apartment.

  And when I started painting another clockwork doll, she wasn't broken. All of her gears and cogs were perfectly in place, everything fitting together in clockwork precision. I realized now that the clock tower hadn't been the only thing in the museum that was broken, but all of the parts were mended now, and I was ready to keep on ticking, all the way into my new, bright future.

  THE END

  Bonus Book 3 --From Southern Girl to Crimson Star

  (Clean Version)

  A Contemporary Romance

  J.L. STARR

  Copyright © 2016 by Marisa Logan

  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

  Jenny Campbell grew up sheltered from the world, forbidden from dating or even wearing skirts that come above the ankle. Not allowed to work, she spends her days taking care of her siblings and spending time on her computer where she befriends
someone as geeky as her.

  She's always been drawn to stories of adventure and sensuality, especially those in her favorite comic book series, Crimson Star.

  After she sneaks off to a comic book convention dressed as the comic's main character, she starts off on a path that leads to her own adventures, and finds the confidence to break free and go for what she truly wants.

  This is a 26,000 word contemporary novella with no cliffhanger.

  Content Warning: Although this is a clean version, it contains mature subjects.

  Chapter 1

  As their last opponent fell to the ground, Anastasia leaned into Wilhelm's embrace. She melted against him as his strong, protective arms wrapped around her. With him, in his arms, was the only time she could shed the cloak she used to protect her emotions during her job as an international super spy and expert computer hacker. She knew she could open herself up to him, let him inside her life.

  “Anastasia,” he whispered.

  She looked up into his eyes. He leaned down. She held her breath, her lips parted, waiting for him to—

  “Jennifer! Get off that damned computer and come down here. I need you to set the table.”

  Jenny sighed, rolling her eyes at her mother's impatient tone. “Coming, Mom!” She skimmed the pages of the collaborative fan fiction she was working on with her friend Jeremy. It was a shame she had to stop. She had just been getting to the good part.

  Just like in real life, her mother always managed to get in the way of her romantic aspirations.

  She quickly finished off the paragraph: —to kiss her like she'd never been kissed before.

  Then, at the bottom of the page, she added in an out-of-character note to Jeremy: OOC: Sorry I had to cut this short. Mom's on my case again. You can pick up the next chapter with the kiss!

  She submitted the post to the online forum, a comic book fan site and collaborative writing group, then closed the window. It was just as well, she decided, that she hadn't been the one to write the kissing scene. She'd never even been kissed. She'd read enough books and seen enough movies (not to mention online videos that her mother hopefully did not know about) to know how to describe a kiss on the page, though she was always worried that she didn't get it right. She just hoped that one day she'd get the chance for some “empirical research” on the subject.

  She headed downstairs to set the table. By reflex, she grabbed six plates out of the cabinet. Then she caught herself and put one back. She moved past the head of the table, where Dad used to sit, and laid out the rest of the plates one by one. While she worked on getting the rest of the table set, her mother kept pestering her the entire time.

  “Don't forget to get your little sister washed up before we eat. And where is Mark? He'd better not be outside. I told him to keep his butt inside the house.”

  Jenny called to her sister, “Katherine! Go find Mark, please, and tell him dinner is ready.”

  “I asked you to find him,” her mother said. “I swear, Jennifer, sometimes it's like you don't even listen.”

  Jenny sighed and hung her head. She didn't bother arguing with her mother. She could have explained that she was still busy setting the table, and couldn't do two things at once. Or that Kathy was sitting around doing nothing when she was supposed to be doing her schoolwork. But arguing with her mother just made her get snippy.

  She quickly finished with the table setting and headed through the house to round up her siblings. She found Kathy lounging on the couch, playing a game on her phone. Jenny lightly popped her on the back of the head and said, “Dinner, skreb. Go wash your hands.”

  “Don't touch me,” Kathy snapped, batting Jenny's hand away. “And stop calling me 'skreb.' You're the skreb.”

  Jenny headed down the hall and found her youngest sister coloring in the bathroom. “Cassie, what are you doing? Your coloring books don't belong in here.”

  “Mark kicked me out of our room,” she said. She was leaned over on the ground, the coloring book laid open before her. Though Cassie didn't actually color in the pictures. She always drew around them, adding her own drawings into the white space surrounding the pages.

  “Clean that up and wash your hands,” Jenny said. She headed down the hall to Cassie and Mark's room. The little house only had three bedrooms, so ever since Cassie was born it had been Mark and Cassie, the two youngest, in one room, with Jenny and Kathy sharing another. Though the one blessing Jenny had in her life was that Kathy fell asleep on the couch as often as not, lending Jenny some semblance of privacy from the fourteen-year-old scourge that was her little sister.

  “Mark!” Jenny tried the door knob and found it locked. She pounded on the door with her fist. “Mark, come on, Mom says it's time for dinner.”

  There was no answer, as usual. Jenny grumbled and fiddled with the door knob, then headed to her room to grab a hair pin. She knelt in front of the knob and jimmied it open. She'd done it a thousand times, especially since Mark had hit puberty and started isolating himself all the time. Being the only boy in a house with four girls had to be hard on him, though he was such a pain in the ass that Jenny had little sympathy for him.

  She opened the door and looked around. There was no sign of her little brother. She checked in the closet and under the bed, then opened the window and looked out into the backyard.

  She didn't see him at first, until she twisted around and peered up. Mark was sitting on the carport that hung over the side of the house, reading a book.

  “Damn it, Mark, get your ass down from up there before Mom throws a fit. You're getting too big, and one of these days that thing is going to collapse right out from under you!”

  Mark ignored her, as he usually did these days. “Mark!” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down so Mom wouldn't hear. “Seriously, I'm not about to get in trouble for you again. You know you're not supposed to be outside.”

  “My friends are allowed outside,” he said, still not looking up from his book. “It ain't like I'm going nowhere. I ain't even left the house.”

  “Yeah, and you know Mom won't give a darn about that.” Jenny grumbled and climbed out of the window, her long skirt getting tangled around her legs. She hated wearing long skirts, but her mother always had something to say about her becoming too “worldly” and “tempting all the young boys” if she wore anything above her ankle. It irritated her that even at the age of nineteen, she wasn't able to pick out her own clothing.

  She reached up onto the carport and grabbed Mark by his ankle. He squealed and tried to kick her away, but she pulled him down and caught him, though just barely. He was getting big enough that pretty soon she wouldn't be able to wrangle him anymore. “Get inside!” she hissed, pointing to the window. “And go wash up. You've got tar on your hands again.”

  Her little brother grumbled, but obeyed. All of the Campbell kids had learned at a young age not to toe the line. And it was even worse since their father had died. He'd been the only one who could keep their mother's temper in check.

  Jenny eventually managed to get all of the kids cleaned up and settled down at the dinner table. Sometimes she felt like a second mother to them. God only knew she did more for them than their actual mother did. The youngest, Cassie, even sometimes slipped and called Jenny “Mom.”

  When the meal was served, Mom led them through saying grace. Jenny tuned out the words. She didn't have the heart to tell her mother that she no longer believed in God.

  “Amen,” Mom said at the end, crossing herself. Only Cassie mimicked the gesture.

  While they ate, Cassie rambled on about some cartoon show or another, while Mark and Kathy kept poking at each other and throwing things whenever Mom wasn't looking. In between keeping them all in check, Mom said, “Oh, Jenny, I forgot to tell you. I'm going to the hairdresser's and then to dinner with your Aunt Margie tomorrow, so you'll need to keep an eye on the little ones.”

  “What?” Jenny froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth. “Mom, no. The convention's t
omorrow.”

  “What convention?” Her mother barely looked at her, busying herself with helping Cassie with her napkin.

  “The comic convention. I told you months ago.”

  “I don't remember anything about that.” Her mother gave her a suspicious look. “Well, you'll have to go another time. I already made an appointment.”

  “There is no 'other time,' Mom. The convention is only in town this weekend. I already bought my tickets.”

  “Tickets?” Mom frowned at her. “What tickets? Where did you get money for tickets to some comedy show.”

  Jenny clenched her fists under the table. “Not comedy, Mom. Comic. As in, comic books?”

  “Oh, that crap again?” Mom waved a dismissive hand at her. “Look, taking care of your little brother and sisters is more important than going to read some comic books.”

  Jenny closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep her cool. “It's not just for comic books. Some of the authors are going to be there signing autographs. And there's a panel on—”

  “Well whatever it is,” Mom said, giving her a stern look, “it'll have to be another time.”

  “Why can't Kathy watch the kids?”

  Kathy got a panicked look and lowered her head, clearly trying to stay out of this.

  “Because she's just a child,” Mom said.

  “I'm fourteen!” Kathy protested.

  “It's not like they can get into any trouble,” Jenny said. “Geeze, Mom, you don't even let them out in the backyard to play anymore.”