by Anna Cove
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Author's Note
Other Books by Anna
Just Jada: A Lesbian Romance
Anna Cove
Copyright 2017 by Anna Cove
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Trademarked names may appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark.
www.annacove.com
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CHAPTER ONE
JADA
"This place is amazing, isn't it?" The girl in the buffet line next to me piled her paper plate with cheddar cubes and grapes. She drew out the word amazing, as if she experienced real wonder at the sight of this crumbling hall with its cavernous ceilings, far too large for a gathering of this size.
"Amazing as a potato."
"Excuse me?" The girl turned toward me, the skirt of her floral dress flaring out, exposing her bare knees. She wore no makeup. Her wavy hair was half-clipped at the back of her head. She looked too casual, too young, too hippie for this event. Definitely not someone I would expect to see here.
I put on a charming smile. "I mean, potatoes are so versatile. You can fry them or mash them, whip them if you like, or bake them to make chips."
"You know what?"
In her hesitation, I imagined what she might say. You're ridiculous. You're odd. What are you smoking? "What?"
"You're absolutely right. And you can plant one in the ground with a bunch of little eyes on them, and you get dozens. Why do they call them eyes, anyway?"
Wow. So Flower Power not only bought into my bored wonderings, she upped the ante on them. Could it be she was the only interesting person here?
It wouldn't be hard. I'd made the mistake of arriving early, thinking my father would be present, or perhaps some of my coworkers. But I recognized precisely no one, so the girl was my only entertainment. "You would have to know what a raw potato looks like to answer that, so you're speaking to the wrong person."
"You don't know what a potato looks like?" The girl popped a piece of cheddar into her mouth and chewed it slowly. A reddish eyebrow arched up.
"Not much of a chef."
"What do you do?"
What an odd question. Wasn't everyone at this event a therapist of some kind? I regarded her more closely. Cheap cowboy boots covered her bare ankles. Freckles sprinkled her nose like someone who had actually seen the sun. Maybe she was in the wrong place. "You're here for the New York Mental Health Organization conference?"
"Yep." She turned toward me, wiped her hand on her dress and stuck it out. "I'm Erika Jones. I'm in forest therapy."
I choked on the sip of sickly sweet punch I'd just taken and tried to cover a laugh as I turned away. Before I turned back, I attempted to arrange my face in an interested smile, but it probably just came off as mocking. "Forest Therapy."
The brightness in her eyes flickered like a light in a high wind storm. Her gaze dropped down to the buttons of my blouse for just a moment before rising again, little pink circles forming in her cheeks. "Yep. You know. Becoming one with the forest, disconnecting from our devices, all that."
Had she just checked me out? I straightened my shoulders and twisted slightly to pick up my plate from the table, and when she thought I wasn't looking, her eyes dropped to my breasts again.
Thankfully, like the bride at a wedding, my father's entrance saved me from any awkwardness her gaze may have caused. He brought a whole gaggle of people with him, mostly women.
"I've gotta go. It was nice meeting you, Erika." I stepped around her.
"I didn't get your name," she called to my back.
"Jada," I said without turning around.
Huh. I'd given her the name my friends and family used for me rather than my business name. Probably because she was hardly a professional. Plus, I would never see her again, so what did it matter?
I chuckled to myself, dumping the plate of warm cheese into the trash before I reached Dad's harem. When my father's eyes landed on me, I gave him a little wave. If he saw, he didn't acknowledge it. I had to wait in line like everyone else.
As I did, a woman came up to me. "Hi—Dr. Garcia. I'm Colleen Hannigan from the University at Albany. Do you remember me from the NCCC convention a couple of years ago? I introduced myself to you after your program on young minority women—it was truly inspired."
"Yes, absolutely, I remember you," I lied. I hadn't inherited my father's uncanny memory nor his ability to make someone seem like his best friend, even when they'd just met him. I could read people well, but responding to them was another issue altogether. I smiled to make up for it.
Colleen Hannigan leaned toward me conspiratorially. "Are you excited about the Calver announcement today?"
"Thrilled. I can't wait to hear," I said, remembering there was a Colleen Hannigan on the committee for the prize.
"Prepare yourself." A frown flicked across the woman's face.
"Why?"
"I've said too much." The woman disappeared off to the buffet from whence I'd come. Perplexed, my gaze followed her track. Along the way, my eyes caught Erika standing alone and off to the side, popping a piece of cheese into her mouth. Her face and body were open, but she was so different from everyone else that she stuck out like a princess at a barbecue. What the hell was she doing here?
And what the hell had that frown on Colleen's face been all about?
My father would know. He was on the board of the New York Mental Health Organization, too, and would be aware of what was going on at least, even if he wasn't on the committee.
The women pressed close around him as he held court like King Henry VIII. He'd had almost as many wives as that nefarious man. You'd think that would stop some women, give them pause when they were about to throw themselves at him, since they would probably end up beheaded or dead, metaphorically of course. The reputation didn't seem to hurt him. Such was the power of the male celebrity.
I grew tired of waiting and knifed through the women. When I got close enough, my father reached out his hand. "Ah, here she is—my lovely daughter. Let her through so I can give her a kiss, won't you ladies?"
The women closest to me fanned out, audibly sighing as they watched us meet. Dad drew me close in a tight embrace, whispering into my ear. "We've got a problem."
"Oh, Dad, I've missed you so much," I said, for the benefit of our audience. To him I whispered back. "I can see that. What's going on?"
"The committee had a late-night meeting."
"What do you know?"
"I can't tell you here. Act calm."
My father pulled away, holding me at arm's length—a much more comfortable distance for me—his features placid, unreadable. "You're looking won
derful as usual. Ladies, can you give me a private moment with my daughter? Catch me after the award announcement."
One woman actually moaned as we swung around to leave. I couldn't help but roll my eyes.
My father frowned. "You should learn how to keep some of your emotions on the inside, you know."
"I can keep emotions on the inside."
"You've never been able to hide from me, Luisa."
"That's because you have a computer for a brain and you're my Dad." Saying the word Dad felt odd in my mouth, too informal, but he didn't remark on it. See? I could hide my emotions just fine. Right now? I totally wasn't feeling inconsequential.
Once my father brought us to a quiet corner and put his back to the crowd, his face dropped its habitual smile. "It's not looking good."
"The Calver? I thought it was in the bag," I said, the hard pit of determination in my stomach an almost tangible thing, as if the piece of cheese I had eaten was turning to stone.
"It was, but the committee called a secret meeting and I didn't know about it until this morning."
I blinked. How could that be? We'd been preparing for this for over a year. "I did everything you told me to do."
"Except that conference in Phoenix."
"What?"
"You missed the conference in Phoenix."
"I had just come from Norway. I couldn't just turn around—"
"Of course you could have." Dad's lips barely moved as he spoke. The smile returned to his handsome face, his salt-and-pepper hair never moving because he never got that physically agitated. I'd inherited my temper from him, but not his ability to let it simmer under the surface for his benefit.
"I was all kinds of jet-lagged. I would have been a mess at that conference."
"You could have met Dr. Nally and it would have changed the trajectory of your career."
"You don't know that."
"The woman who did meet Dr. Nally at that event? She partnered with him and won a research grant for fifty thousand dollars."
"Yeah, well, this one is worth a hundred thousand and it isn't bound up in research and I haven't lost it yet."
"No, but you've lost your temper. People are watching."
Indeed, a few conference attendees nearby slid us furtive glances. I did the best I could to prove Dad wrong and pasted a smile on my face. My gaze ranged through the crowd, landing on that girl Erika again, who was still standing alone.
"Look at this. Garcia royalty," said a man I didn't recognize. I laughed at his terrible joke, blanked out the rest of his words, and excused myself as soon as I could while still being polite.
This world sucked.
If I didn't have to be here among these people with their fake smiles and fake attention, I would have run. Psychologists were the ultimate fakers, actors disguised as real people. Pretending to listen. Pretending to care. These thoughts ripped through my mind as I wound my way through the crowd toward the girl who ate all the cheese. Erika. She didn't have a fake bone in her body.
Before I arrived, Colleen Hannigan stole her attention, drawing her into the thick of the crowd. I started pushing through, but before I could reach them, earsplitting feedback sounded from the stage.
My shoulders wrenched upward as I turned toward the sound. An elderly man with hair like gathered spiderwebs and knobby fingers adjusted the microphone. He was Walter McNabb, President of the New York Mental Health Organization and sage of the mental health field. "Hello, out there."
The crowd quieted. Warm bodies pressed around me.
Dr. McNabb made a few passable jokes, then blabbed on for half an hour about the duty of the New York Mental Health Organization to maintain its high standards in patient care.
Blah, blah, blah, I thought through it all, my stomach cramping. Let's get to it.
"Anyway," he cleared his throat. The crowd stilled. My heart paused knowing what was next. "I realize you're all waiting for the announcement of the Calver."
This was it. I would either win the prize for my research this year and get the $100,000 or I wouldn't. Someone touched my shoulder. I turned to see a fellow psychologist colleague waggling his eyebrows. Terror gripped my stomach.
"But we've run into a little difficulty."
The cheese pit of determination in my stomach turned. It wasn't stone after all. It was one of those sour gummies, burning and too sweet.
"The committee was split on the decision—three-to-three. We argued about what was best to do."
My heart pounded against the wall of my chest. Spit it out, Grandpa.
"We decided to go down a sort of unconventional route. You see, we didn't want to split the money in half which would make it a much less prestigious prize."
"But—" I said out loud.
The man hesitated for what felt like minutes before he delivered the next statement. One glance at my father told me all that I needed to know, though.
I hadn't won.
...
ERIKA
This was the last place I belonged, among these stuffy sophisticated people. I'd thought there would be more people like me, more from upstate, more alternative therapy practitioners, but everyone I had met was a psychiatrist or a psychologist. They had fancy degrees and their blazers were more expensive than my entire wardrobe. You couldn't find a sense of humor among them.
Except for that Jada girl. She definitely had a sense of humor, and she was one of the younger people in the crowd. Unfortunately, she had found no interest in me, scurrying away as quickly as she could. I didn't blame her. Even my name was boring.
Oh well. The building was beautiful enough to entertain me, an old bank in Manhattan turned art gallery. Fabric hung on the walls as wallpaper, glinting in the light, leading up to the crown molding with some of the most ornate carvings I had ever seen. The coolest part was the three-foot-thick door—the original entrance to the vault—at the opposite end of the room.
To have something so thick, so solid as these walls surrounding me, was rare. I felt protected, even though it was only temporary.
I hung around the edges of the room examining the artwork, feeling like a freshman invited to a senior party as a prank. Why had I come? It had cost me fifty dollars for a train ticket and a full day of work. Sure, the Catskill Mountain House had given me the time, but they weren't paying me for the pleasure. I was only a contractor after all.
I walked back toward the crowd, intent on finding the exit. I had hours and hours of people-clogged city and a cramped train until I reached the fresh mountain air of home, and the sooner I got started, the sooner I would arrive.
A woman in her seventies, a touch of the hippie in her chunky jewelry, smiled at me as I passed. "Are you Erika Jones?" she asked.
"Yes." I stopped, surprised someone in this crowd knew my name, and offered my hand shyly, not having had time to build myself up to an introduction. "How do you know who I am?"
"You're the forest therapy woman, right? My name is Colleen Hannigan. I'm a therapist with the Hannigan Group."
"Wow, sounds prestigious."
"I'm so glad to finally meet you," she said, ignoring my comment. "I want to pick your brain about what you do. About its benefits."
"Absolutely," I said, feeling my shoulders relax with the release of tension. Forest therapy? I could talk about that for hours. Freud and cognitive behavioral stuff? Yeah, I touched on that right before I'd dropped out of school, but hadn't studied those subjects enough to hang with these people.
"I understand that the forest is supposed to reduce anxiety. How does that mechanism actually work? Is it scientifically sound?"
"Well," I said, and just at that moment, Jada appeared in the crowd. She was a head shorter than many, but slid her way through the throng with the ease of a cat.
"Erika?"
"Sorry," I said, pulling myself away. "I'm used to being among trees. There are so many people here. Yeah, so, the benefits. Well, one benefit we're finding is that the simple act of detaching oneself from devic
es helps calm the mind. If you leave your phone behind, you're not constantly listening for a notification."
"I could use some more of that and totally see the benefit of it." Colleen nodded and folded her arms.
"As for the scientific claims, I'm not certain enough research has been done to completely support this, but in the certification program they talked about the chemicals the trees—"
"Hello, out there," came a voice over the microphone.
"Emitted," I said, finishing my sentence.
Colleen gave me a glance and a nod, but she turned her body away from me and angled it toward the old man at the podium. We were done, apparently, and this man was someone I should pay attention to.
About five bodies ahead, the curls at the back of Jada's head shone. She was gorgeous, the kind of pretty I hadn't often seen at home. Pulled together, fashionable. Wealthy, no doubt.
I forced myself to redirect my attention to the man at the podium whose name was Walter McNabb. He spoke about the honor and trust people put into therapists. He used many large words starting with psycho- and neuro- to say: What we do is special.
Then he started to speak of the prize and he had my full attention. I'd applied for it this year, the first year they opened it up to non-degree professionals, but only because the money was too good to pass up. I almost couldn't imagine what I would do with $100,000, but now that I was here, I realized I didn't really have to know. I wasn't going to win anyway, not among all these hyper-qualified people.
"The committee was split on a decision," he said.
Just then, I felt a light vibration at my pocket. Who could that be? It wouldn't have been work. They knew I was in a conference all day. I ignored it, but then my brain started working.
What if it was Dad? What if he was in trouble and he was trying to call me and he couldn't reach me? What if he had an episode? The image of him stricken in our living room sent my fingers flying into the pocket of my dress.
When I pulled it out, it was ringing again. "Hello? Dad?"
The crowd erupted in applause and I missed whatever the person on the other line said.