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Chapter One
I was capable of life on my own. I’d put myself through school, and I sure as hell didn’t need a man. But I wanted one to love me.
I blame Disney. My backstory had all the makings of a classic. Dead mother, deadbeat dad, a heroine with grit, determination, and a little green box that might or might not have magical powers.
The box? Mom gave it to me after my second relationship ended. It was a big, ugly, green thing with a cutout of a toad wearing a crown glued on the top. Below the toad in glitter letters was spelled out, YOU HAVE TO KISS A LOT OF TOADS… Okay yes, my mother was a little odd, but her desire for me to be happy and share the kind of love she never had was intense.
And in her quirky attempt to soothe my eighteen-year-old broken heart, she gave me the box and told me to put something in it that represented one good thing in the relationship. The theory was that when the box was full, I’d get my wish.
I didn’t believe for one minute I could wish my perfect match to appear, but I did what I was told. And maybe Mom really did have second sight, because that big ugly green box was nearly full before I met the one.
And now, my mom must be dancing in heaven or wherever the tragic Disney moms go because at twenty-four years old, I was about to become engaged. I was going to be Mrs. Lauren Winslow King, Mrs. Lauren King, doctor of physical therapy, and wife of corporate pilot Sky King.
I spent a good portion of my savings on the royal-blue silk cocktail dress I wore. But, hey, how often did one get engaged?
I fastened the drop crystal necklace and stepped back from the mirror. Perfect. It drew the eye to the décolletage-hinting V-neck and then down the cinched waist and flared skirt. My hair was piled and plastered into a sophisticated updo. Crystal earrings dangled to my jaw. I felt elegant. I felt like the future wife of a pilot. I checked my reflection one more time and smeared another coat of gloss across my lips. My eyes held that certain I’m-in-love sparkle with a hint of I’m-about-to-be engaged anticipation.
I’d always wanted to get married in the spring. We’d have a small but elegant wedding at St. Mary’s in Spring Creek. I’d have daffodils and tulips on all of the tables and…
Sky knocked on the door. “Come on, Lauren. We’re going to be late. I made reservations.”
“Coming.” My love.
I exited the bathroom and gave a little twirl for him to appraise my dress.
He grabbed his keys. “Let’s go.”
I ignored the tiny pinch in my heart that he hadn’t told me I looked beautiful. After all, he was probably thinking about the question that lay ahead. Our lives were going to change tonight.
Still, a little prompting couldn’t hurt. When he turned to lock the door, I rubbed my hand up his bicep to his shoulder. “You look nice. I love the way the blue in your shirt matches your eyes.” Nice? Had I really used that word? He was dead sexy in a navy suit and blue and white pinstriped button-down.
Sky glanced at my hand on his shoulder and mumbled, “Thanks.” He pulled his aviators from his suit pocket and with two-handed precision, placed them on his face.
My insides twisted just a bit, and I almost asked him if he liked my dress. Honestly, I didn’t need for him to compliment me. I knew I looked fabulous. Right? I rubbed my right hand across the naked ring finger on my left. Besides, nothing would be prettier than the she’s-mine ring I’d soon be wearing.
He was quiet as we drove to the restaurant. Nerves, I supposed.
How was he going to do it? Would he get on one knee in the middle of dinner? What if he dropped down to the floor just after I’d taken a huge bite? I envisioned the whole restaurant staring at me with my mouth full of food trying not to choke as tears ran down my cheeks—thank God I used waterproof mascara. Note to self—must take petite ladylike bites.
When we got to the restaurant, I waited to feel that guiding hand on the small of my back. But his thoughts must have been elsewhere because he walked three steps ahead of me.
Oh well, no bother. After he’d proposed and was assured I was going to become Mrs. King, I’d have a lifetime of hand-on-my-back.
Once we were seated, the waiter handed us menus and took our drink orders. Sky ordered Scotch on the rocks. I expected him to order wine or at least ask the waiter to give us “time” before ordering celebratory champagne. Cocktails before dinner had an air of elegance, though. I ordered a Cosmo and tried not to grin as I looked lovingly at my future husband. I took in his dark hair, cut short on the sides but kind of floppy on top, and the sweet little freckles that dotted his nose. Then there was his perfect mouth with full lips and a smile that made my heart sing. Only he wasn’t smiling. He was twitching and little beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and upper lip.
I’d never seen him so edgy. It almost made me want to blurt out the answer is yes. But didn’t every girl daydream about how her true love would actually say the words? Instead, I sighed, drawing his eyes to me before bouncing back around the room while he toyed with his fork.
The words.
Would he say, Will you marry me? or Will you spend the rest of your life with me?
The waiter brought our drinks.
I sipped my Cosmo. “Mmm. This is delicious. Thank you for bringing me here.”
He gulped his Scotch, and I wondered how much liquid courage he needed. Surely he knew the answer.
I reached my hand across the linen tablecloth to cover his.
I figured a go-ahead signal couldn’t hurt. “Everything okay, Sky?”
He withdrew his hand from beneath mine and wrapped it around the nearly empty glass and smiled. “I just have some things on my mind.”
I’ll just bet you do. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Lauren…” He leaned back in his chair and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket.
My heart skipped a million beats. Here it comes.
He pulled out his phone.
Okay. False alarm. But timing was everything, right?
He tapped out a text and shoved the phone back into its place.
The waiter set a loaf of fresh hot bread on the table. “Are you ready to order?”
Sky answered for us. “Can you give us a few more minutes?”
The bread smelled like heaven, but I didn’t want to have a mouth full when he popped the question. I picked up my menu instead and perused the selections. I didn’t want him to think I knew what tonight was about although when he offered to fly me to Houston for a talk and gave me the name of the restaurant, it was pretty obvious. I had decided on the pan-seared salmon when he cleared his throat. I looked up and sat my menu down.
I’d expected to see his eyes shining full of love. The man across the table from me looked terrified.
I laughed, just a little, to lighten the mood. “Sky?”
He slammed back the rest of his drink and set the glass on the table with a thud. “Lauren, things have been a whirlwind since we met.”
“Yes. It’s been wonderful.” My heart pounded.
Here it comes. I leaned forward and stretched my hands halfway across the table—in case he wanted to cover them with his.
But his hands were in his lap. Was he fidgeting with a little velvet box?
“The thing is. It’s been fun. A lot of fun.” He winked, and my insides warmed in reply. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. The life of a corporate pilot is not what I want for a family.”
“It’s not?” Okay this was a weird way to start a you-are-the-love-of-my-life speech, but I went with it.
“No. When a corporation has financial troubles the first thing to go is the flight department. I want more stability before I start a family.”
“Okay.” I could not control the sappy grin stretched across my face.
He not only wanted to marry me, he wanted kids. Could life get any better?
The waiter appeared at our table. “Can I take your orders?”
Sky gave him an annoyed look and snapped. “A few more minutes, please.”
“No problem. Another Scotch?”
“Yes, make it a double.”
The waiter disappeared, and I glanced at the blue and burgundy paisley carpet to see if Sky would have to kneel on crumbs.
Sky wrapped his hand around his glass and jangled the ice. “I got a job offer with a company who trains corporate pilots.”
“So, are you going to keep flying?” Why did I ask that? I didn’t care as long as he came home to me.
“Mostly in a simulator, but I’ll still fly some charters. The headquarters are in Atlanta.”
“Oh. So, you’re moving to Georgia?” Okay, I could do that.
“I leave in two weeks.”
“That’s so exciting.” I stretched my left hand further across the table, but he didn’t take the hint, and a little voice in the depths of my consciousness went Huh?
But I told that little voice that Sky was not the type to make a scene in a restaurant adorned with crystal chandeliers and linen tablecloths. He was going to wait for a more intimate moment.
He heaved a huge sigh. “This was so much easier than I expected. I’m so glad you understand.”
The warmth and flutters that had been soaring through my system began to sputter and stall. “What’s easier?”
He fixed a smile and tilted his head to the side. “Telling you that I’m moving.” The words slid out of his mouth like he was explaining the concept to a very confused and simpleminded person.
“Yes?” Wait.
Where was the rest of this speech? You know the one where he said he couldn’t live without me and couldn’t wait to marry me and whisk me off to Atlanta?
“Some girls would have made a scene. I knew you weren’t that type.”
“Why would I make a scene? Atlanta is just a flight away. We can be together in a couple of hours.”
When I said that, his face distorted into a weird monstrous version of himself in which his mouth didn’t know whether to snarl or laugh, and his eyes reflected a kind of confused anger. “This has all been fun and games for both of us. But it’s never been serious.”
And then that soaring feeling nose-dived straight to the base of my gut as his words trickled through the fog of high expectations and filtered down to familiar disappointment. “So, you don’t want me to come to Atlanta?” And marry you.
He slumped back in his chair. “Great.”
My face must have contorted to something weird, too, because I felt like I’d been slapped and sucker punched at the same time.
The waiter set down his drink but one glare from me and he backed away without asking about our order.
Sky crossed his forearms and pressed them into the top of his head and leaned back. “This isn’t going how I’d imagined.”
“How did you imagine it would go? You tell me you have to talk to me, fly me to Houston, take me to a nice restaurant…”
He dropped his arms to his sides leaving a tuft of hair sticking straight up. “I just thought … I don’t know what I thought.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Look. I didn’t plan for things to go this way. You’re a great girl and I’ve had fun, but…” He took a deep breath. “Try to understand. I didn’t plan this.”
“Didn’t plan what? The move? It’s pretty clear to me that you did. You applied for the job—that’s planning.”
He stared into his drink. “Lauren, I met someone.”
“You what?”
“I met someone.” He looked up at me with a love-sparkle in his eyes—the love-sparkle that should have belonged to me. “She’s everything to me. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, raise kids.” He smiled and gave me a shrug. “You understand, right?”
I understood that he’d said things that I’d dreamt of hearing, only they were for somebody else. I picked up my drink and tried to move air in and out of my frozen lungs. My brain methodically went through what had just happened. This was not an engagement dinner. This wasn’t even a let’s-take-it-to-the-next-level dinner. This was a breakup dinner. My lungs went back to their job of keeping me oxygenated when the last cog slipped in place. He flew me to Houston to dump me. I managed to casually sip my drink while my mind went through a jillion vengeance scenarios.
“I feel so much better now that it’s all out in the open. Laney suggested I talk to you over dinner.”
The scenario involving extreme pain clicked. Of course, I’d never actually cut his balls off with a dull knife, but I let the anger associated with the idea grow to almost erupting.
Forcing myself to remain in control, I propped my elbow on the table and waved my drink at him. “Laney told you to bring me here. Does Laney know that my things are at your apartment?”
His smile grew wide as he bobbed his head up and down. “She knows I love her. Besides, I couldn’t ask you to stay in a hotel.”
“No, you couldn’t ask that.” The sarcasm in my tone couldn’t disguise the rage that had filled every corner of my soul protecting me from the hurt that was sure to follow. “Instead, you flew me here to tell me you’ve been cheating on me! Who does that?” My voice rose to just below a shout.
I wanted to throw my drink at him, but I wasn’t the make-a-scene kind of girl.
And then I was that kind of girl. I stood and tossed my Cosmo in his face, followed by his Scotch, and both of our waters.
He grabbed his napkin and wiped his face. “Jesus, Lauren, I didn’t cheat. I just met someone else.”
“Did you sleep with her?” He didn’t answer he just kept wiping his face. I looked around the restaurant. All eyes were on us. “Then you cheated.”
From somewhere behind me, I heard a lady say, “Yeah he did.”
The maître d’ walked toward us.
My throat was so dry I wasn’t sure words would actually come out of my mouth.
I dropped my tone and forced them between my teeth. “You are going to settle the bill and take me back to your place to pick up my things so I can fly back tonight.”
“But there will be a charge for changing your flight.”
“Do you really want this crazy, angry woman staying in your apartment tonight?” I wanted to run from the table, but I’d already made a mighty scene.
Instead, I forced my head to hold steady on my neck, smoothed my dress, and focused on the entrance as I strode runway-style to my escape.
It didn’t take long for Sky to join me. “They comped the drinks.”
“Great, then you have money for the Uber I’m going to take to the airport.”
“Lauren, I’ll take you to the airport.”
“The hell you will!”
Thank God I was too angry to cry because I’d be damned if he’d see tears from this girl.
I set my jaw and faced him. “The only reason I’m getting in a car with you now is because I have to get my bag from your apartment. As soon as I know you have changed my flight and paid for the Uber, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to breathe the same air as you, ever again.”
And so it was. We drove to his apartment in silence and guess who was sitting on the sofa when we got back? Of course she was a petite little blonde.
When we walked in, she looked up from the couch and smiled. “How’d it go?”
I rolled my eyes at Sky. “She trusts you, huh?” I walked past her to his room, but my suitcase wasn’t where I’d left it.
“I moved your things to the spare room.” I faced the voice. She leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded across her chest and a smug expression fixed to her face. “I moved your things out of the bathroom too. They’re on the bed.”
I moved past her without speaking. I shoved my bathroom items into my bag, zipped it and rolled it to the den. Sky had changed into a Polo, but I noticed pink spots on his trousers. Good, I hope it stains.
I gave him my best bored expression. “Did you book an Uber?”
“Yes, and I emailed you the new ticket.”
I grabbed my things and headed outside to wait for my ride.
I stood by the curb and forced myself not to cry.
Sky’s voice sounded from behind. “Lauren?” I turned, and he stood with his arm around Laney. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to hurl my suitcase at him. But it was way more important for me to stay in control, so I didn’t say or do anything. I just turned my back on them.
It would have been perfect if the Uber had pulled up at that exact moment. But as things happened in my life, it didn’t arrive for two eternities. And worse, Sky and Laney stood behind me and waited. I felt like a frickin’ idiot standing there with the happy couple behind me. When the Uber arrived, they waved goodbye like we were best friends.
My heart splintered into a thousand pieces, and they stood there with grins on their stupid faces waving.
The ride to George Bush International took forever. My whole body demanded that I break down and let a tsunami of tears flow. I held my breath until the surge of tears subsided, then exhaled slowly. I would not cry. A few tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, and I had to lean my head against the back of the seat to keep my nose from running. But I made it all the way to the airport.
It wasn’t until after I’d passed through security and found my gate that the tears refused to be denied. I sat with my weekender by my side and pulled my phone out of my purse. I had to tell my roomies I was coming home early.
I called Abby because Jessica was probably with her boyfriend, and I just couldn’t handle anymore happy couples.
Abby’s voice sang through the receiver. “Soooo. What does the ring look like? Text a picture.”
That was all it took. No amount of holding my breath or clenching my gut could keep the tears from flowing. I sobbed right there at gate sixteen.
“Lauren? What happened?” She had that did-somebody-die panic in her voice.
I’m sure I looked like a lunatic. I hadn’t bothered to change. So there I was, in my cocktail dress, bawling my eyes out at eight o’clock at night in the middle of an airport. “He … he dumped me.”
“That bastard!”
I felt scrutiny from my gate companions and wanted to crawl under the row of fused-together seats.
Instead, I stared at a mummified French fry beneath the chair across from me and blubbered, “I’m coming home. Can you pick me up?”
“Of course.”
I didn’t know how she managed to understand my flight information between my nose blows and sobs. After clicking off my phone, I fished for another tissue out of the pack I’d stashed in my purse in case I cried with the proposal. What an idiot I was.
I kept my gaze glued to the floor. I couldn’t bear to look at the questioning eyes of the other people in the seating area.
A pair of kid-sized hot pink Toms appeared in my field of vision. I looked up to see a five-year-oldish girl staring at me. She was completely bald and had that too familiar gray skin tone of someone undergoing chemo.
She held her hands behind her back and swayed her little body nervously. “I like your dress. You look like a princess.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say without sounding too snot filled.
She held out a half-eaten sugar cookie and said, “Do you want a bite?”
Tears flooded my eyes again. “No, thanks,” I croaked between eruptions.
Where were her parents? I looked for a mom to attach this kid to, but nobody seemed to be missing an offspring.
The girl hopped up on the seat next to me and patted my knee. “Mom says sad tears are just a way to clean your heart for happy tears.”
I was a major ass. This kid was fighting for her life and there I was crying because some jerk dumped me.
I smiled at the girl and tried to get my emotions under control. “Your mom is a smart lady.”
“She cries a lot. She’s scared.” She took a bite of her cookie and swung her feet. She shrugged and said, “I tell her there’s nothing to be afraid of, but she doesn’t listen.”
“Sophie!” An anxious mom ran across the waiting area. She glanced at me and said, “I’m sorry. She doesn’t know a stranger.”
“It’s okay. She’s a sweetheart.”
The mom held her hand out for Sophie. The girl jumped from the chair and took her mom’s hand. I watched her skip across the waiting area, bobbing her little bald head and said a silent prayer for her and her mom’s shiny clean heart.
By the time we were called to board, I was out of tissue and thankfully out of tears. I couldn’t get that little girl out of my mind. When I was in physical therapy school, I’d worked with amputees, kids with spina bifida, kids with leg length discrepancies. If there was an orthopedic disorder, we dealt with it. I loved that internship. How had I gone from working with the joyful spirit of kids to the cranky sports rehabilitation clients? Okay, so they weren’t all cranky, but the majority complained a lot. How had I gone from a girl full of hopes and dreams of a marriage, complete with kids and dog, to the girl who’d had thirteen failed relationships?
One thing for sure, my heart couldn’t take another battering. I needed a break until I figured out why a smart, capable woman like me had a propensity to choose completely crap men. It was time to take a break from dating. It was time to face a life away from the dream of a husband, kids, and a dog. It was time to concentrate on my career.
But my heart cried out along with the rest of my body, We want someone to love us.
I shushed my stupid heart and stood in line to load on the plane. The worst was behind me. All I had to do was find a seat and maintain my composure for sixty minutes. I could do sixty minutes. Sixty-five minutes if I counted the broken-armed-cowboy at the front of the line struggling one-handed to pull up his boarding pass on his phone.
Seriously dude, couldn’t you have retrieved your pass when they called us to stand in line?
Deep breath and release. Composure. One hour. It wasn’t like my life was going to be altered because of some ill-prepared cowboy in front of me.
End of Excerpt
