by Dawn Douglas
Table of Contents
Title Page
Praise for Dawn Douglas
Rainy Days and Roses
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Zelda stomped downstairs and grabbed her jacket from the coat stand, shaking with emotion as she pulled it on. Dan watched her, still in his robe and pajamas. Rage sizzled through her at his calm expression.
Oh, she was jealous all right. In fact, green with envy didn’t even begin to cover it. She’d spent half her life wanting Dan Walker, and he treated her like some sort of sweet little pet. She was sick of it.
“Going out?”
With a venomous look in his direction, she wrenched open the door, only to gasp in shock. The rain had seriously picked up again. Small hailstones pelted down viciously, and in her hurry, she’d pulled on her hoodless, lightweight jacket. But she was damned if she’d turn back now.
“You’ll get soaked,” Dan said. “For God’s sake…”
Ignoring him, she stepped outside and slammed the door. It was a childish thing to do, but the gesture gave her a single moment of deep satisfaction. Immediately, she was not only wet but freezing cold. Gritting her teeth, she proceeded down the path.
Elsie was hurrying in from the lane. She pushed open her gate, latched it, then caught sight of Zelda. “Why don’t you go back inside and wait for this to pass, my love?” she called out. “You’ll be soaked through.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Zelda replied, as a gust of wind drove icy shards of hail into her face.
Behind her, she heard Dan open the cottage door to shout, “What the hell are you doing? You’re going to catch pneumonia.”
She decided to ignore him.
Praise for Dawn Douglas
AN ACCIDENTAL KISS
“The plotting and characterization is believably well-done, and Marcy and Frank are so down-to-earth that you can’t help but like them.”
~*~
“Beautiful love story that tugged at my heart strings.”
~*~
PARIS ROSE
“Dawn Douglas created such a wonderfully empathetic experience that I was in turmoil with Lucy and Nick right up until the final page.”
~*~
“Ms. Douglas’s talent shines, as does her ability to hit romantic highs, make readers laugh, and express heart-wrenching emotion.”
Rainy Days
and Roses
by
Dawn Douglas
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Rainy Days and Roses
COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Dawn Douglas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Debbie Taylor
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Champagne Rose Edition, 2015
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-811-2
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To Lara, Conor, Ivy, and Will
Chapter One
Zelda Marshall woke in her warm, rumpled bed and decided to have whatever the hell she wanted for breakfast.
One positive feature to having your life unravel was that things like healthy eating and wardrobe choices ceased to matter. She yawned, thrust her feet into a pair of grubby pink slippers, and made her way into the kitchen. The bedroom floor was strewn with laundry, and the family room was a disaster area. It could all wait until another day.
She yanked open the freezer door, extracted a gallon of sweet and salty peanut chocolate banana ice cream—her current addiction—and gouged an extra-generous portion into a bowl.
After she plopped onto the couch, she dug in. Then, although she knew she shouldn’t, she reached for the current copy of Denver People magazine and turned to page fifty-two. Newlyweds Zach and Lacey Charbonneau beamed at her from the glossy pages showcasing their trendy converted loft apartment in downtown Denver.
Uninterested in the exposed brickwork, granite kitchen, or the amazing views from the massive, arched windows, Zelda gazed numbly into the smiling eyes of Zach Charbonneau, remembering. She turned the page and blinked at an image of him serving his wife breakfast in bed. Lacey giggled up at him, adorable in a pair of pink satin pajamas.
Zelda thrust the magazine away and closed her eyes. She saw Zach down on one knee, asking her to be his wife, the restaurant bursting into applause when she nodded.
A morsel of chocolate melted sweetly on her tongue, followed by a sharp, salty burst of peanut. It was one thing after another this year so far, as if she’d had a curse laid on her by an evil fairy. She’d lost the will to get dressed each morning, leave the apartment, or even attempt to function like a normal person. Unfortunately she was almost out of ice cream, so she might have to go out at some point very soon.
Today was her birthday—a fact that seemed to make everything a thousand times worse. There was nothing to celebrate. She was an unemployed, single, slightly overweight twenty-six-year-old chef who had completely lost her zest for life.
The doorbell rang, and Zelda groaned. She really didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to pretend to be cheerful and positive. She just wanted to be left alone with her sweet and salty peanut chocolate banana ice cream. Was that too much to ask?
Another insistent ping rang through the apartment. With a sigh of despair, Zelda put down the bowl of ice cream and heaved herself up off the couch, feeling the wobble of extra pounds around her tummy and backside.
It was probably one of her parents, determined to jolly their loser daughter through the day even though her life was a train wreck. Scowling, she wrenched open the door and blinked into the bright sunshine. A tall man with messy black hair and piercing brown eyes stood on the doorstep, looking at her uncertainly. Why did he seem so familiar?
“Can I help you?” she inquired, her voice flat and unfriendly.
“Zelda...is that you?” He cocked his head to one side and scrutinized her.
Recognition sparked at the sound of his voice. She stared, her mouth turning dry. Suddenly, for some reason, her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Dan,” she whispered.
He nodded, and his mouth lifted into the lazy smile she’d fallen in love with once, what seemed like a hundred years ago.
Zelda froze, unable to say a word. He’d disappeared from her life years before, and she’d given up hope of ever seeing him again.
“Can I come in?”
As she nodded mutely, he stepped inside, closed the door, and enfolded her in his arms. And just like that, the years fell away.
She was nine and sobbing her heart out because her bid f
or class president had failed, and he was thirteen and promising her everything would be okay. The years spun by, a blur of hot summers, fun, and heartbreak. She was fourteen and telling Dan awkwardly, her heart pounding, that she was in love with him, and he was telling her, very kindly, that he’d decided to go and live with his mother in England. Most of the following year had been spent watching the mailbox, waiting in vain for a reply to one of her desperate letters. No reply ever came.
“What are you doing here?” She took a step back and smiled shakily. “I don’t believe this!”
“Your dad gave me your address.” He grinned. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course I don’t mind.” She remembered the good times and not the fact that he’d broken her heart.
“Happy birthday, Zeldie.”
Hearing him call her the special nickname only he used, made the years fall away again. Her face warmed. God, she’d been so desperately in love with this man.
“Thank you,” she said softly, embarrassed, and annoyed her father hadn’t called to warn her that Dan Walker of all people was on his way over. She could have cleaned up. She could have changed out of her pajamas and at least put on some makeup.
Suddenly, she was disturbingly aware that the years had only added to Dan’s physical attraction. He’d filled out, and his body was broader, tougher-looking. The brown eyes gazing at her, held something they’d lacked when she knew him, something sad and serious.
Awkwardly, she averted her eyes.
“So are you doing anything special today?” he asked.
“Take a wild guess,” she said, knowing how obvious the answer was as she led him into the family room.
Her whole dusty, neglected apartment littered with pizza boxes and crumpled tissues and magazines, screamed “loser” just as she did in her ice cream stained pajamas.
“Your dad said you were going through a rough patch,” he glanced around, saying nothing about the mess. “What’s going on? Want to talk about it?”
“I—I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Why don’t I make us some tea while you hop in the shower? Then we’ll figure out where to start.”
She blinked at him. Was this really happening? Was Dan Walker, a man she hadn’t seen in a decade, actually in her family room calmly suggesting she take a shower? Or was this one of those surreal dreams that made absolutely no sense?
“Okay,” she heard herself say.
“Is the kitchen through here?” He pointed toward the tiny space she hadn’t cleaned in weeks.
Zelda nodded.
“Off you go, then.” He shooed her away, smiling playfully.
Her knees turned to jelly as she headed for the bathroom. Behind the locked door, she peered at her reflection and gasped.
On one side of her head the curls were squashed flat, and on the other they sprouted in wild disarray, giving her the appearance of a demented clown. A pimple was burgeoning on her chin. Chocolate smeared one corner of her mouth.
An awful thought popped into her mind. Had he suggested she take a shower because she stank?
Dragging off her pajama top, Zelda cautiously sniffed an armpit, then sagged in relief. She didn’t stink. That was something, she supposed, stepping beneath the hot spray of the shower and shampooing her hair. After lathering up with copious amounts of pomegranate and honey shower gel and rinsing, she stepped out, rubbed herself dry, applied deodorant, and threw on jeans and a big red T-shirt. She lassoed her curls into a ponytail, dabbed concealer on the offending pimple, and stared critically at herself in the bathroom mirror.
Her skin was the color of milky coffee, her eyes dark brown. She’d been told they sparkled when she was happy. Her nose was slightly turned up. In other words, she was cute. An interesting blend of an African-American dad and a mom with roots in Scandinavia.
Not for the first time, she wished she was beautiful instead of merely cute. So beautiful that seeing her for the first time in years, Dan would have fallen back in amazement and said disbelievingly, “Zelda?”
Taking a deep breath, she emerged from the bathroom.
He was in the family room and had taken it upon himself to dispose of the pizza boxes and other assorted trash. The low table in front of her couch gleamed as it hadn’t in months, and upon it he’d set two cups of steaming tea.
“Hey,” he said softly, looking up at her.
She sat beside him on the couch, picked up a cup, and blew gently before taking a sip. “I still can’t quite believe this.”
“Little Zelda. You were like my baby sister.”
She nodded sadly. And that was probably how he’d always see her—as a cute younger sister.
“So what have you been up to lately?”
She sighed. “If you’d dropped by one year ago, you might have been quite impressed. I was engaged to Zach Charbonneau.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“His family is quite well known around here. Zach has ads—”
“Oh, God. Tell me you’re not talking about that lawyer guy with the massive billboards of his ugly mug plastered all up and down the highway?”
“Ugly? Zach?” Zelda looked at him, not sure if she should feel offended. “Are you kidding me? He’s gorgeous.”
In addition to being gorgeous, her ex was a successful lawyer from one of the most prominent African American families in Denver. It could have so easily been her, cavorting around in Denver People for a photographer, one of the beautiful people.
“So why’d he dump you?”
The forthright question didn’t hurt the way Zelda would have expected. It was actually nice to not have her emotions tiptoed around as if she might go off like an unexploded bomb.
“He said he wasn’t sure we were right for each other.” Her shoulders slumped. “He said he thought he was falling in love with someone else.”
She put down her tea and scrambled for the copy of Denver People, which Dan had placed neatly with a pile of other glossies to one side of the couch. It fell open to reveal the well-thumbed spread of Zach and Lacey.
Dan inspected the pictures with a grunt, looking distinctly unimpressed.
“Then I lost my job at Charbonneau’s Restaurant,” she went on. “It’s owned by Zach’s mother. She said she’d give me good references, but she no longer felt I was a good fit.”
Zelda closed her eyes. Losing her job had hurt so damn much. She’d loved being a sous-chef, loved being a part of the team at one of Denver’s top restaurants, loved everything about it.
“You okay?”
She began to nod, then changed her mind. She might as well be honest.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m so depressed I can barely function. My whole life is coming apart at the seams. When my parents told me they were splitting up last month, I just—I just...” She shook her head and gave up trying to find the words as her eyes filled with tears.
There was no way to describe how that night felt, her parents sitting her down to explain that after thirty years of marriage their love had simply run out. She’d assumed they’d always be together, that their marriage was as strong and unmovable as a mountain.
“Your dad told me about them.” Dan took her hand in his.
Zelda looked down in surprise. His grip was gentle, yet firm, his hand large and sun tanned, his fingernails blunt and clean. And he wore a gleaming gold wedding band.
She stared at it, mesmerized.
As a teenager, writing anguished letter after letter to England, she’d been terrified Dan would find someone to love. And of course eventually he had. Yet in some strange way it still hurt, as if a part of the tender, vulnerable girl she’d once been still lived on inside her.
She forced a smile. “Well, enough about me. I see you’re married, Dan. When did that happen?”
He went still.
Zelda’s hand was cold as he removed his, and shifted, ever so slightly, away from her.
“She died,” he said quietly.
>
“Dan.”
She reclaimed his hand and without thinking, lifted it to her lips and kissed it. “I’m so sorry. And I’ve been sitting here going on and on about myself. When did this happen?”
“A year ago.” His voice was distant.
“What was her name?”
“Faith.” In one sharp movement, he was on his feet. “I need to get going.”
Zelda’s hand fell away from his. She wanted, more than anything, to wrap her arms around him, but she just stood there, blinking back tears that were no longer for herself, groping for words and finding none.
He strode to the door, and she trailed after him. “Thanks for dropping by.”
It made no sense, but there seemed to be a big, painful knot in her stomach, as if he was abandoning her all over again. She felt sick and frightened and alone, ten times worse than when Zach had left her. But just like before, there was nothing she could do. Dan had come back to bid her a final, proper goodbye, and now he was leaving her forever.
He opened the door, then hesitated and turned, his expression serious. “Would you like to have dinner somewhere tonight?”
Zelda blinked. The knot in her stomach gave a lurch.
“That sounds great.”
Chapter Two
This was in no way a date.
It was merely connecting with an old friend and doing a little catching up. Reassured, Dan let himself out of his father’s house and began the drive toward Zelda’s apartment, suddenly unable to keep a smile from his face.
He could remember the first time he saw Zelda close up, frowning as she handed over a can of soda because once again his mother had forgotten he existed and locked him out of the house after school. At that time, Zelda was just the chubby little kid who lived across the street, but over the years she and her parents, Alex and Joanne, had come to mean so much more. He was a child of divorce, and the Marshalls provided him with a place he could hang out and feel safe, a place where there was laughter, rules, and hot meals. And a little girl named Zelda he came to see as a sister.
Dan would always regret he hadn’t handled her teenage infatuation more wisely, but he’d been young himself and clueless about how to deal with the explosion of adolescent passion. So he made a swift exit from her life and then ignored the stream of Charlie-scented letters. What could he say to a sixteen-year-old girl who swore she’d die of a broken heart if he didn’t marry her? He’d ignored Zelda’s letters, but not because he didn’t love her. He’d just lacked the skills, at twenty, to say that although he loved her too, in his mind she was just the chatty, opinionated little girl who’d been trailing him around for years.