The nurse touches my arm and shakes her head. “There’s someone named Suzi in there, and her mom.”
“Oh, good.” Even though Amber messed with my head, in a way this baby still feels like a tiny part mine.
Rocco paces, his face a flood of emotions. Mrs. O’Leary pulls a bag of yarn from her giant purse and starts to knit. Maggie and I try to catch up with each other in the hospital waiting room. Even though we texted a lot, talking was tough since Maggie is busy during days and I’m busy during nights. We hold hands, and I tell her more details about the tour. About Tuck and the crazy chick in Baltimore that he hooked up with. About the manager and his sketchy business dealings. I tell her that The Randoms have been performing a few originals.
Her face lights up. “You are?” She kisses my cheek and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so happy to hear that.”
Then she tells me about Olympia. How she does twelve-hour days at the lab, researching and learning from the best animal scientists in the world. I try to follow along, but she’s so damn smart my head starts to spin. It’s still hard for me to focus and think straight in the presence of my Squirrel Girl.
Finally, the nurse tells us we can see Amber. The four of us rush into the room, Mrs. O’Leary leading the way.
With a quick smile, Suzi takes Amber’s mother’s hand, and they leave the room.
Amber looks exhausted. Her dark hair is piled on her head. Her eyes are puffy and barely open. She looks down at her arms, and I follow her gaze. A tiny baby sleeps on her chest. A burst of red hair sticks up straight.
“Aw,” Maggie gasps.
Rocco stares, placing a hand over his mouth.
Mrs. O’Leary bursts into tears. We all look to her. “I’m fine,” she barks. “They’re happy tears.”
Amber holds the baby out. “Do you want to hold Frankie?”
Mrs. O’Leary looks up at Rocco. He smiles down at her.
“Frankie?” she asks.
Rocco nods, and Amber answers. “Frances Joseph. That’s okay, right?”
Rocco holds Mrs. O’Leary steady as she takes a step toward Amber. “It’s an absolute honor.” She reaches out to take the baby.
Rocco’s eyes tear as he looks over Mrs. O’Leary’s shoulder, studying the baby. “He looks just like him.”
Maggie moves to Mrs. O’Leary’s side to look at the baby. She touches his hair. “He needs a brush.”
We all chuckle. I catch Amber’s gaze and smile. “Good job there, Mama.”
She holds her hand out, and I take it. Then she turns to Rocco.
“Rocco?”
He looks from the baby to Amber.
“Would you…be his godfather?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Me?”
Her cheeks turn pink. “I know how much you loved Frank. You knew him better than any of us. Maybe you can tell him about his dad?”
Rocco’s mouth opens, but no words come out. His lip quivers and his eyes water. He takes the baby from Mrs. O’Leary, and his big hand cradles Frankie’s head, making it look the size of a tennis ball. I put a hand on Maggie’s shoulder and hold Amber’s hand with the other. We watch, not a dry eye among us.
Rocco lifts him, so he’s inches from his face, his big hands supporting the baby’s head. He stares into Frankie’s eyes. Rocco purses his lips but even he, maybe the strongest man in the state, a former Mr. New Jersey, can’t fight the tears that fall. “You are such a gift, little godson.” Then Rocco says, “But we have to bulk you up a bit.”
We all laugh.
Maggie
The morning after little Frankie’s birthday, Dave stretches next to me in Meg’s guest room at her father’s penthouse. I touch his forehead and then run my finger over the tip of his nose, down over the beads around his neck, over his bare chest and his naked torso. Thankfully, the guest room is the opposite side of the spacious living space, opposite from Meg and her dad’s rooms. We may have been a bit noisy the night before.
Of course, with only a weekend together, we don’t have much time to catch up, neither emotionally nor physically. And my God, do I miss him.
Olympia is great. I’m learning so much. But saying goodbye at the airport the day I left was tough. We’d just gotten our act together and had to separate. “It’s only for a few weeks,” he’d said.
Still, life can change in the course of a few weeks. In only a few weeks, Dave and I met, got together, broke up, and fell in love. “We have a lifetime before us,” he’d said. “And before you ask, I made that up. I didn’t read it in a book.” I kissed him goodbye and left for my internship.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.
And so it did.
I watch him as he opens his eyes. “Hey, beautiful. Is this another dream?” His morning voice is groggy and sexy. My entire body heats, and my toes curl.
I drape myself over him, pretending we have forever, not just a few hours. “Not a dream.” I kiss him. He responds. Just as we’re about to get crazy, we’re interrupted by a call. Chase wants us to meet him at Sheridan in a couple of hours.
Dave grumbles. “But I want you to myself.”
I sigh. “Maybe it’s about the new place. Come with me, and then we’ll spend some time on our own.”
Ben cooks us an awesome breakfast and drives the four of us to Sheridan. Campus is quiet—everyone’s on summer break—and the only cars in the lot are the basement floormates’.
I hold Dave’s hand, keeping him as close as possible. In the basement, drop cloths cover the floor, and open paint cans line the hallway. Fans blast from either end of the hall, and the lights are bright. Chase stands in the middle of it all with Juliet. They’re wearing smocks of some sort and organizing brushes.
“What’s going on CC?” Ben asks. “Another project?”
Rocco and Pooja step out of room four, also dressed in smocks. Chase walks toward us. “Well, our time at Sheridan has ended. We have to cover the mural.”
He holds a smock to me. I don’t make a move to take it. “This mural is a tribute, Chase. We’re not covering it.”
Juliet joins us, handing Dave a smock. “Chase and I have talked about this, Mags. In a couple of weeks, there will be new students here. They’ll be starting just like we were in September.”
I shake my head. The whole conversation pisses me off. “Yeah, but we went through so much here. This place is a tribute to Frank.” I pull Dave’s smock from his hands and throw it on the ground. “We’re not covering it.”
Dave puts his arm around my shoulders. “It’s okay, Maggie.”
I twist out of his grasp. “It’s not okay. This place means too much to me. To us. Doesn’t it?”
Win and Rodrigo enter the hallway from the opposite end. Rocco gives them a brief update as I stew.
Pooja walks to me. “Maggie,” she says, her voice low. “This place isn’t what’s special. It’s the people and the memories that are special. We’ll always have that.”
I point to the ceiling. “You’re honestly going to cover all of this up? Chase did such a beautiful job.” I turn to Chase. “You’re okay with erasing it?”
Chase runs a hand through his hair. “I’m proud of this hallway. I hope it gave us all some peace when we needed it. Sometimes art isn’t permanent. Things come and go from our lives, but we always have memories.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about the mural or Frank. He gestures down the hallway. “It’s not fair for the new freshman to have to live in our memories, in our lives.”
Ben reaches for my shoulder. “I agree with him, Mags.”
I fold my arms over my chest. Winston walks to me, and I feel Dave stiffen behind me. “Maggie. This place will always be special, to all of us. We all found people and lost people here. But one thing about life, one thing you taught me, is that we have to move on. We can’t hold onto dreams from the past. We have to move to the future.” He smiles weakly.
“I guess I did sort of say something like that.”
Megan moves in front of Win and takes my hands. “Listen, roomie. You don’t need Chase’s mural because you’ll always have us. The real us.”
Meg smiles, and I can’t help but return her grin. I turn to Dave. “I don’t want to lose this year. Not the bad parts or the good. This is where we fell in love.”
He puts his arms around me, holding me, and whispers in my ear. “I’m so grateful we met and started out here in Sheridan. But we have so many other places to go.”
He keeps me wrapped in his arms, but Meg touches my back. “Help us close this year out?” she asks.
I turn in Dave’s arms and look at my floormates. “On one condition.”
With all of us working, including Poppy and Darcy, who’d joined for the occasion, the walls are covered in no time. Except for Frank. We leave him until the end.
When there’s nothing left to paint, Rocco looks up at the ceiling. We wait, with the whir of the fans as the only sound. He looks to Pooja and then back to the mural. “I think I should be the one to cover Frank.”
We watch him roll the thick, white paint over the faint portrait of Frank. Pooja’s face is covered in tears.
I walk next to her and squeeze her shoulders. “You know, he came to me in a dream.”
Meg joins us. “Me too.”
Ben says the same, and then Dave holds me around the waist. “I saw him too. He wanted me to be with you.”
I smile and spin in his arms. “I’m glad you listened.”
“He hasn’t come to me,” Pooja says. “I understand why.”
I lean my head on her shoulder. “Maybe he’s waiting until you forgive yourself.”
She sighs. “That may never happen.”
And then, as Rocco paints the ceiling, the rest of us group hug. Maybe we cry a little. Maybe we cry a lot. We pray for Frank and then update the others on baby Frankie. We laugh about the baby’s red hair. Before we know it, Rocco’s done.
A glance down the hallway makes me cringe. It looks horrible. Boring and lifeless. But I know the new residents will bring it life and make it their own.
There’s only one spot of color in the entire hallway. The one area I’d insisted they leave.
Over our doors, Pooja’s words that Chase painted to guide us through our worst time, were left untouched.
Unity, Honesty, Love.
Pooja and Rocco stand, their arms around each other. “We can get through this, Pooh Bear,” he says.
She smiles weakly. “Yes. I know we can.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her lie.
I walk to room three and touch the door. Then I lean my back against it. Dave stands in front of me, but instead of creating the usual butterflies, his handsome face settles me. “Are you okay, beautiful?”
I shrug. “I’m going to miss Sheridan Hall.”
He leans in and kisses my ear. “Me too. But I can’t wait to start this new chapter with you.” Then he looks to my floormates. “With all of you.”
THE END
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SHE DREAMS IN COLOR,
Book Four of the Sheridan Hall Series!
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Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading SHE WANTS IT ALL! I hope you enjoyed Dave and Maggie’s story.
This book is dedicated to the writers and readers who have supported me throughout the series, especially the #ameditingcrew. The Crew is a bunch of awesome authors, who found each other on Twitter, migrated to Facebook, and created a safe space for comments and questions, as well as lousy first drafts, collaboration, and cheerleading. Thank you, Crew, for being there throughout my work on this series: Joel Bain, Jennifer Acres, J.P. Dailing, Anniston Jory, Larissa Weatherall, Heather Van Fleet, K.D. Proctor, D.K. Dailey, and Cindy Dorminy.
Thank you to the BookFish Books Team for the time and effort you’ve put into the Sheridan Hall series: Tammy McKee, Erin Rhew, Heather Powell, Julia Byers, Joel Bain, Anita Carroll, and everyone behind the scenes, wading in the Pond and supporting me. I’m forever grateful.
Even though I don’t let my mom read these books, and I’m waiting to officially dedicate my first non-romance book to her, this book is for her, too. Thank you for instilling in me a love of reading and writing.
Always, all my love to my husband, Joe, and our boys for tolerating my second job as an author, providing coffee and hugs, and not thinking I’m (too) crazy.
Thank you to my dear friend, Anita Dupree, who unknowingly gave me the idea for “Second Floor Dave.” She told me the story of her son moving into the second floor of his college dorm his freshman year. Also, because she’s awesome, smart, motivated, beautiful, and someone I’ve admired for many, many years.
And finally, to you, the reader. I still can’t believe people actually read the words that I’ve written. Thank you for your time, support, and encouragement. I hope to see you back for Book 4 (which I better get to writing…)!
SHE DREAMS IN COLOR
Chapter 1
Pooja
Sweat runs down my face as I kick the heavy bag hanging in the garage of our new townhouse with everything I got. The thing barely moves, but in my head, I’m tearing it to pieces. Each smack of my foot against the thick leather vibrates through me, filling me with energy, confidence, and hope. This bag has nothing on me. I’m in the zone, a rhythm of kicks that manages to be strong and musical. Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, it hurts but it feels right at the same time.
Unlike yoga, which sometime over the summer, stopped feeling right. Yoga had been everything to me, my source of mental and physical stability, healing my mind, body, and soul with reflecting and contemplation. But being home this summer after the worst year of my life, I was sick of reflecting. I was tired of being centered. I didn’t want to think, think, think, about healing and flow and grace. All I wanted to do was feel.
Now kickboxing gives me all the feels. Each movement, each kick, each bead of sweat that drops onto the garage floor in this terrible New Jersey, early September heat, is what fuels me. I’d spent the summer at classes—my hard-as-steel quads were my proof—and I pounded the heavy bag like it held all of my demons.
Sixty-one, sixty-two, I was going for one-hundred left-leg side kicks. Either I’d get them, or I’d die trying.
“Don’t just use your leg, use your body,” the voice comes from behind me.
Without turning around, I know it’s Ben’s brother and our new landlord, Evan Riley. I give the bag one final kick, then stop, bending at the waist and holding onto my knees to catch my breath.
“You’re using too much leg for your kicks. Channel your core strength and you’ll have so much more power.”
I try not to listen to him, as I pick up my water bottle and face towel.
The deep voice lowers. “I don’t want to scare you off.”
As much as I want to turn around and tell him that he doesn’t scare me, being around him makes my stomach twist. Not because he’s textbook gorgeous, or because of the way his voice sounds so throaty and sexy, but because I can’t see his colors. There’s only been one other person whose colors I couldn’t see. Someone who I convinced myself I was in love with. Turned out he was an abusive, psychotic, and sociopathic murderer.
I was duped by Cameron, excited to finally not see someone’s colors. I thought he was special because of it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Thankfully, Cameron’s behind bars after pleading guilty. His sentencing date is right around the corner, though, and in thirty years, he’ll be free. When Cameron Weston is sentenced to thirty years, my life clock starts to tick, because when he gets out, I’m pretty sure he’ll kill me.
This is another reason I kick the bag. Yoga won’t help me defend against a killer.
With Evan behind me, the air feels heavy from his presence. I glance over my shoulder. Standing at the edge of the driveway, his arms stretch over his head as he hangs onto the edge of the opened garage door, putting his long body on display. He watches
me with his penetrating, icy blue eyes— eyes that are a bit too blue to be described as kind. His strong, angular face looks like it was carved out of cold, hard marble. His tool belt hangs over worn jeans, and his T-shirt clings to his chest, but rides up at the waist as his arms stretch over him. He’s sweaty, tan, like he’s been doing manual labor in the hot summer sun.
Evan shifts uncomfortably, releasing his grip on the door, and crossing his arms. “I’m just here to hook up your washer and dryer.” The new appliances sit on the far end of the garage, near the door to the inside of the townhouse’s basement.
When I see Evan, all of those feelings about Cameron come flooding back. I refuse to be duped again by anyone, including the seemingly stable, beautiful Evan Riley. I take a step toward the door that leads from the garage to the basement of the townhouse.
“You always leave when I try to talk to you. I’m starting to get a complex. Maybe we can try to be friends?”
Again, I brave a glance at him. Nothing. No color, no emotions for me to read. He rubs the back of neck, then meets my gaze. “Tell me what to do.” Those blue eyes tilt down at the corners intense, staring, wanting reassurances from me. Reassurances I can’t give.
Looking away, I wipe the sweat off of my face and hide my quivering bottom lip in the towel. “There’s nothing you can do,” I murmur, as I head inside on shaky legs, not sure if I’m unstable because of the company or the workout. “I’m sorry.”
Since last November, when Cameron killed Frank, shot Ben in the arm, and almost kidnapped me and my best friend, I haven’t been sure of much. But one thing I know is that Evan Riley is a mystery to me, and people who are mysteries are the ones who end up hurting me the most.
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She Wants It All: Book Three of the Sheridan Hall Series Page 31