The more time that went by, the more aggravated he got. The more aggravated, the more miserable.

  He’d been such an idiot to lose his heart to Holly. At least with other women he knew what they were after.

  “How have you been?” she asked him.

  He held his hand up. “Just dandy. You?”

  He watched as her eyes filled with tears. “I was so scared. Kat made me believe you were bleeding out and I thought I’d never get a chance to tell you how I felt.”

  “Kat overreacted.”

  “Which isn’t like her. That is why I believed something was wrong,” she said bursting into tears.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “You have a funny way of showing that when we haven’t talked in five days.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You could have called me too,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

  He was taken back by her anger. “I figured you storming out and not contacting me was showing your guilt.”

  “What?!” she screeched loud enough for him to cover his ears. “I thought you believed Jack instead of me. What was I supposed to say?”

  “You were supposed to convince me otherwise.”

  “Why should I have to? I told you the truth. I told you what happened. All you kept doing was asking question after question like you believed him. What else was I supposed to say?”

  She was right. He had kept asking questions. She did explain it, but he wanted more. He wanted to be convinced. He didn’t want to have the doubts he did and was hoping she’d help dissipate them.

  “I didn’t believe it. At least I was telling myself not to, then you stormed out. That smacked of guilt to me.”

  “What would make you think I was guilty? I left because you acted like you believed him. It seemed to me nothing I was going to say would make a difference. I needed to leave because I was so upset. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me again.”

  “What was?”

  “That someone I loved—who said he loved me back—was believing something that was untrue. Who was believing someone else over me. I’d been down that road before and knew how it ended. After five days, I figured it was ending the same way.”

  “So we’re done?” he asked, not wanting to believe that. He knew at some point he’d have to reach out to her, but he was wondering if he could swallow his pride enough to do it.

  He’d started to think he was wrong. That he should have had it out with her before now. At least to get closure. But thoughts of that closure were only breaking his heart preventing him from making that call.

  “You tell me,” she said.

  The tears were just flowing like a wide-open fire hose as she gasped for breath. “Do you want to be done?”

  “No,” she said. “I love you. I thought you loved me back. I’ll take the first step if that is what it takes. What do you want me to do to convince you? Do you need time? I’ll fight for you. I will. But I don’t even know if you are willing to believe me over Jack. You approached us over the toy drive. I didn’t want to do it.”

  He knew that. He suspected that. He knew she had trust issues too. He knew all those things and in his own stupidity he’d forgotten.

  “Come here,” he said, holding his hand out.

  She moved forward tentatively and the guilt on his shoulders hurt worse than the pain in his hand. “I’m so sorry, Brendan.”

  “I should say I’m sorry.” She sat next to him and he pulled her close, tucking her head under his arm. “I didn’t want to believe what Jack said. I didn’t at first. And when you were explaining it, I still didn’t believe it. It wasn’t until you left that I started to have doubts.”

  “Why? I don’t understand that. I left because you were so detached when you were questioning me.”

  “It sounds like we both just misunderstood what the other was saying and doing. We’ve both had trust issues in our past. I fell in love with you because you were so different than anyone else I’d been with and here I thought, holy cow, did I really get played?”

  “I wouldn’t know how to play someone even if I wanted to.”

  “Yeah. I realize that now. The longer we went without talking the more I thought about those things. Then it was a pride thing. I told myself I wanted you to keep me in line. I stepped out of line and you didn’t yell at me or fix it. You didn’t push to try to find out what was going on. That just made me think even more that you didn’t care for me the way I thought. The way I hoped.”

  “And I stayed away because I didn’t know how to get you to believe me. That I wasn’t out to use you. It seems to me I had a harder hill to climb than you.”

  “You did. Or you would have climbed it if I wasn’t such an idiot. I’m so sorry I let you believe what you did. I’m sorry that I wasn’t man enough to take that first step. That I wanted you to hold my feet to the fire and make me do it. But you told me before I was an adult. You weren’t going to be my mother. Here I was acting like a spoiled selfish kid.”

  “You are the least selfish person I know,” she argued.

  He argued, “With everything but myself. You’ve said that before too.”

  “I did.”

  “I’m smart enough to know I need a kick in the ass now. I’m smart enough to not let the best thing that has happened to me walk out the door. And in the future, when we fight, because I know we will, I’ll be a better man and not wait. I’ll not let you think I don’t care. That I need you to make that first step.”

  “I think the smart thing to do is just talk it out. To both put the other first. I can do it if you can.”

  “I can do anything if you’re by my side.”

  “Then I won’t leave it!” she said kissing him quickly.

  Epilogue

  Ten months later

  “I can’t believe you brought me for a sled ride,” Holly said the following December.

  It’d been a great year that she and Brendan had had together. The toy drive was held at Lane’s again. She’d asked why he didn’t find another local business and he said that he didn’t think he’d ever get success like they’d had anywhere else. Maybe in the future he’d consider it, but for now, he’d told her this was where he wanted it to be.

  She’d argued about it with him, but he’d overruled her and she’d given up. There was no talking him out of things, she’d realized.

  Long gone was the man that told her to hold his feet to the fire. He didn’t need it anymore. He did a good job on his own.

  “I wanted to do this sled ride last year but so many things seemed to get the way.”

  “It probably wouldn’t have meant as much anyway,” she said. Their relationship was too new back then and she would have thought he was just showing off. Now she knew it came from the heart.

  “I thought so too. So we get to sit here and enjoy the ride through the park with some light snowfall on a rather balmy day.”

  “Can you believe we’ve been dating for a year?” she asked him. She knew she could hardly believe it herself. Her trust in do-gooders had been restored. Not only that, she’d come to realize that video games weren’t just for kids and men. Brendan had taught her how to play a few and she’d found them fun, entertaining, and a competitive way to blow off steam.

  “Sometimes it seems like we’ve known each other for years. Other times I can’t wait to find out more.”

  She’d felt the same way. Funny how they had so much in common that she could have never imagined possible before.

  “At least I don’t get on your nerves. I’m sure I will at some point,” she said, laughing.

  “No more than I will yours. But I want that to happen,” he said. “I want us to love and fight. To make up and do it all over again. To have a family together...”

  All those times her heart raced when she was with Brendan were nothing compared to what it felt like now. “What are you saying?”

  He turned to face her, picked her hand up in his. “I’m saying that I met you during a toy drive, but you gave me the biggest gift of all. The gift of love. I’m saying I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. I want us to have kids together. And I want you to continue to make me a better person.”

  “I want those same things,” she said, knuckling a tear from her eye.

  This time he took a box out of his pocket and flipped the lid, the size of the diamond all but blinding her. “Holly Lane, will you marry me? Will you make Reese and Rosie officially brother and sister?”

  She burst out laughing. “Yes! Anything for our furry babies.”

  “Only for them?” he asked, leaning in to kiss her.

  “For us too. Always for us.”

  The End!

  Check out the new series, Paradise Place.

  Cupid’s Quest is the first book in there series.

  Prologue

  Ruby got out of the car and pulled her backpack from the backseat that had been sitting next to her, flung it over her shoulder and put her head down while she waited for the social worker to open the trunk for her larger duffel bag. That was it, all her possessions were portable and had been for the past ten years.

  “You’ll like it here,” Missy said. Missy Carter was her eighth caseworker. Seemed no one stayed at this job for long.

  “Whatever,” Ruby said. Missy was young, she was eager, and she was clueless. Give her a year or so—maybe even six months—and she wouldn’t be so peppy dealing with her clients.

  The two of them walked up the creaky stairs to a chipped white front porch that had seen better days. Out of place in the corner was one spray-painted black rocking chair. There was room for plenty more, but that solo one told her all she needed to know about this house.

  While they waited for the front door to be answered, Ruby looked around the neighborhood. It was pretty much like most of the other ones she’d lived in. Not completely run down, but not nice pretty suburbia. Yeah, wouldn’t that be sweet? If ever!

  When the door was opened, Ruby got a look at her new foster mother. She was probably in her fifties, tall, stocky and rough around the edges. That had to be her chair that no one was allowed to sit in while she escaped from the wards under her roof.

  “Mrs. Wilson, this is Ruby Gentile. I’m Missy Carter,” she said, putting her hand out. “We spoke on the phone. I’m so glad you’ve got room for Ruby.”

  “Always room for kids,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Call me Candy. Everyone else does.”

  “Thanks, Candy,” Missy said.

  “Come on in. Shoes off,” Candy said to Ruby. “You walk in the door, you take your shoes off. We’ve got rules here and I expect them to be followed. If you do that, we’ll all get along just fine. If not...”

  Yeah, Ruby knew what the “if not” meant. It meant she’d be moving once again. All she wanted to do was find a place where she could stay long enough to make it through her last two years of school, which was starting in three weeks. Another school district she was changing to.

  Ruby slid her old sneakers off and left them by the door where a few other pairs were taking up residence. Four that she suspected belonged to other kids by the range of sizes. She continued to stand there in the doorway, not making a move until she was told. Been there and done that and wasn’t about to assume a damn thing.

  “Would you like to show Ruby around before we talk and fill out paperwork?” Missy asked Candy.

  “Sheri!” Candy yelled at the bottom of the stairs that they were facing as they stood in the foyer of the older home.

  Ruby remained until she was told otherwise, heard a door open above them, and a teenage girl close to her age came to the top of the stairs. “Yes?”

  “Ruby is in with you. Show her your room and explain how we do things here while I meet with the caseworker.”

  She couldn’t even call Missy by her name. Yep, Ruby knew how it was going to be here for sure.

  “Come on up,” Sheri said, a smile on her face. Not even a forced one. Maybe Ruby was wrong. Most kids didn’t smile in foster homes. They just wanted to get by.

  Ruby turned to Missy. “Thank you.”

  Missy put her hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “You’re welcome, sweetie. I’ll be in touch.”

  She nodded her head and went up the stairs and to her new bedroom. It was small, had bunk beds and one single in the corner. She’d never had her own room anywhere and didn’t expect that here either.

  “I’m on the top bunk,” Sheri said. “I like it there. Suzie is in the single. She is out in the backyard playing. She’s ten. That leaves you under me.”

  “No problem,” Ruby said, walking over and putting her backpack on the plain tan bedspread. They had different colored bedspreads, but they were definitely simple and cheap. At least the second-story room had an air conditioning unit in the window, even if it wasn’t on, though it would be nice if it were.

  Sheri must have caught her gaze. “We are allowed to put it on for four hours a day when we go to bed. So we turn it on at eight and off at midnight. I’ve found that it cools the room down enough to fall asleep and then stays decent most of the nights.”

  “It’s better than I’ve had at other homes.”

  “They are strict here, but if you follow the rules it’s not so bad,” Sheri said.

  “Who lives here?”

  “Candy and her husband, Colin. He works construction and is gone a lot. He’s nice enough, keeps to himself for the most part. We are just people in and out of his house in his eyes.”

  “How many kids?”

  “You are the fifth. There are two boys in another room. They are set up for six and try to keep it three boys and three girls. The house is big, but they keep us in these two rooms.”

  “It’s fine,” Ruby said. “Are you always this happy or told to be this way with the caseworker here?”

  “I normally am. I’ve been in some bad places,” Sheri said, sitting on Ruby’s new bed. “This is one of the better.”

  “So tell me the rules other than shoes by the door.”

  “Meals are always the same time. She makes one thing and if you don’t like it, well, then you pick around it, but she won’t make you something different. If you miss a meal, then you are on your own.”

  “We are allowed to get our own food if we miss it?” she asked.

  “No. If you want to play a sport and miss dinner, then what you get is the nightly snack we all have around seven thirty.”

  “Everyone gets the same thing there too?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Sheri said. “But it’s food and I’ve been hungry before so I’m not complaining.”

  Ruby had been too. Plenty enough times. “How long have you been here?”

  “A year. I’m sixteen. I’m hoping I get to stay until I’m done with school.”

  “Me too,” Ruby said. “I just turned sixteen. Two more years.”

  “You’re lucky your birthday is over the summer. Mine is in April. Wherever I am, I pray they let me stay to finish school when I turn eighteen.”

  The magic number when the payments stop and foster families normally want the bed opened up.

  “Are we allowed to get jobs?” Ruby asked, knowing that was the first thing she planned on doing. There was a bus stop around the corner, perfect in her eyes.

  “Yep. But you have to find your own transportation and still follow the curfews.”

  “I’ll make it work,” Ruby said. She had to. She’d been doing that since her mother overdosed ten years ago and she started to get shuffled around.

  All she wanted to do was have a home of her own someday. A family who was there for her or cared about her would be nice, but a home was her number one priority.

  His Plan

  Twelve years later

  Josh Turner let himself into his apartment, walked to his bedroom that barely fit the king sized bed he refused to do without. He opened the drawer in his nightstand and put his gun in there, then his badge on top, his holster hanging on the hook behind his door.

  Once he was changed out of his tan pants and button-down shirt, he put on shorts and a T-shirt, and grabbed the extra key to his apartment that he kept on a chain. He slipped it over his neck and went to the gym to run for thirty minutes, then lift some weights for another thirty.

  Just like always, a few women from the apartment building were eying him while he worked out, sending him flirtatious smiles and little waves.

  He returned them, being friendly and all, but continued on with his workout. No way he was getting involved with anyone that lived in the same building.

  An hour later, he stood staring into the open freezer trying to decide what to warm up of his grandmother’s frozen dinners. He grabbed the small casserole of lasagna and popped it in the oven and went to shower.

  Dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt twenty minutes later, he pulled the oven open to check on his dinner and noticed that one side was cooking faster than the other. He turned the dish and shut the door again trying to hide his frustration. Between the oven, the water dipping in his bathroom sink, and the draft through one of the windows that wouldn’t shut properly in his spare room, apartment living was getting to him.

  When he accepted the transfer ten months ago he grabbed the first available apartment that met his needs and signed a one-year lease, but now he had some decisions to make.

  He grabbed his phone when it rang, noticed it was his grandmother and felt the grin fill his face. “Hey, Grandma.”

  “Josh, am I interrupting anything? Did you just get home?”

  “No, I got home a little after five, worked out and now I’ve got your lasagna warming in the oven.”

  “You’ve got to be getting low on food. It’s been three weeks now.”

  He went to visit his grandparents once a month in Poughkeepsie. They had raised him after his parents were murdered when he was eight. He owed them everything he had in life. For keeping him sane, for giving him a stable life, for being his world when the world he’d had crumbled beneath his feet while he hid in the closet and heard the screams of his mother and his father fighting back the intruder.