All I Want Is You (2 page)

But she protested. “No, your predicament
is
my problem, I'm
making
it my problem, and I'm going to find a way to fix it.” Though even as the words left her mouth, she had no idea how. She only knew that she loved her Grandpa, and that they'd both suffered enough the past few years, and that she wasn't going to let him suffer further. It was one thing for her own security to be at risk—­but when it was her Grandpa's health and comfort at stake . . . it instilled in her an instant resolve to somehow—­
somehow
—­repair the situation.

When she disconnected with him a few stressful minutes later, her heart pounded too hard in her chest. The last time she'd gotten a phone call that brought bad family news, she'd found out her parents were dead. This wasn't that—­far from it, thank God—­and yet as she tried to slow her breathing, she found herself yanked back in time, reliving the devastation.

“Um, everything okay?” Bethany asked doubtfully.

“No,” Christy said. “In fact, right when I thought things couldn't get much worse, they did. In a huge way.” And maybe offering to take on her grandpa's money problem at the same time she had plenty of her own was crazy, but how could she do anything else?

With the TV still on mute, both girls stayed silent and Christy realized the house had begun to shake slightly—­from a train passing by on the tracks at the end of the street. She mostly didn't even notice the subtle vibrations anymore, or the sound, but right now it felt like a tiny little earthquake rocking her already delicate world. She'd experienced such a lack of control ever since her parents' deaths, a sense of not being able to save anyone, including herself—­and if she could just find a way to help her grandpa keep his life the way he wanted it, she already knew it would help
her
life make some kind of sense again.

And that's when the old frosted glass light fixture suspended from the ceiling above came crashing down onto the coffee table, exploding into a million slivers of glass. Neither girl jumped or screamed—­they both simply flinched, stayed still, then looked at each other. Christy supposed it took a lot to shock either of them now.

“From the vibrations,” Christy said. “From the trains. It must have been working its way loose little by little, every time a train went by, all this time, for who knows how many years.”

“And tonight it reached its breaking point,” Bethany said.

“It could have seriously injured one of us,” Christy observed.

“It still could,” Bethany replied, surveying the bits of glass all around them. “But we'll just move slowly, be careful. It'll be fine.”

Christy nodded. Yes, it would be fine. It was only a broken light.

But some things
wouldn't
be fine. Some things weren't so easy to fix or clean up.

“Maybe that was a sign,” she murmured.

“What kind of a sign?”

“Maybe I've reached a breaking point, too,” Christy said.

Bethany just blinked. “What do you mean?”

And Christy could barely believe the words that were about to leave her lips—­but she said them anyway. “Maybe you're right. Maybe the time has come to give up and give in. Maybe I do need to find a rich man.”

 

There were doors all round the hall,

but they were all locked.

Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 2

“N
OW,
I
don't mean it could be just anyone,” she was quick to add. “And I wouldn't ever marry someone I don't care about. But . . . maybe it's time to . . . narrow my dating pool to financially solvent men and start going to more upscale places.”

She went on to explain about her grandpa's situation. “He has six months, so maybe that's enough time to find a guy who fits the bill and will be so crazy about me that he won't mind bailing Grandpa Charlie out.”

“And if it makes your own life a little easier in the bargain, that's good, too,” Bethany pointed out.

Christy let a tired sigh escape her as she admitted, “It
would
be a relief not to feel so on edge and worried all the time.” So even if she didn't feel a hundred percent great about this change of heart . . . well, at least it brought with it the idea of hope, for her and her grandfather both.

“Though . . . I think you might have to do more than just narrow your dating pool.” Bethany set her laptop aside. “If you're serious about this, you're going to have to be more aggressive about dating than you usually are.”

Yet Christy rolled her eyes. “Who has time to be aggressive about dating? I barely have time to brush my teeth some days.” She purposely worked long shifts at the mall—­it was the only way to make enough to get by.

“I'm saying you'll have to
make
the time,” Bethany told her. “You might have to set your jewelry aside for a while. I know working on it makes you happy, but right now is about . . . survival.”

Christy swallowed, practically gulping. She wanted to accuse her friend of being overly dramatic, but this
was
about survival. For Grandpa Charlie anyway.

So they spent the rest of the evening brainstorming what Bethany started calling Operation: Rich Dude. They sat on the old couch, legs crossed, facing each other, and came up with plans for putting Christy's quest into action. And to her surprise, as they talked and strategized, Christy even began to feel energized by the idea, the same way she felt energized by making jewelry and dreaming of becoming successful with it.

And Bethany was a great cheerleader. “You can do this!” she said with the enthusiasm of a coach about to send her team out onto the field.

So Christy nodded her agreement.

But Bethany looked disappointed. “Repeat it,” she instructed. “Tell me you can do this.”

“Oh—­okay,” Christy said, catching on. “I can do this!”

Bethany smiled. “That's better.”

Yet then an old feeling of sentimentality crept into Christy's bones—­along with the imagined bliss of how it would feel to find that
real
,
perfect
Mr. Right, that guy who so gets you, that guy who makes your heart flutter and turns everything inside you soft and warm. And this new plan was a pretty far cry from that, no matter how they tried to spin it.

And as was so often the case, her feelings must have shown on her face because that's when Bethany said, “What's wrong?”

Christy sighed. Met Bethany's eyes with her own. And asked, “What about falling in love? Where is love in all this?”

“Eh, love,” Bethany replied with a characteristic shrug of her thin shoulders. “Love is . . . a chemical reaction. It's like a drug—­it makes you lose control. It doesn't sound that great to me, frankly. And like I said earlier, I'm not sure falling in love is even real.”

“Oh, it's real,” Christy said quietly. “I've seen it. In my parents. And my friends in Destiny. My friend Amy is so in love with her husband, Logan. And my friend Anna nearly swoons when she talks about Duke.”

“Duke?” Bethany balked.

“He used to be a biker,” Christy explained.

Bethany, for a moment, looked intrigued. Almost fascinated. But then she came back down to earth. “No money in being a biker. Unless it's the illegal kind.”

“No, he's not rich,” Christy confirmed with a shake of her head. “But he's
hot
. And he loves her. And he makes her crazy happy.”

Yet again Bethany just shrugged it off. “Lotta different ways to be happy. And I'm guessing your friend didn't start out broke or have a grandpa in need. And besides, I told you earlier, it's not like you can't love the guy. You just need to find an upwardly mobile one to be all gaga over, that's all.”

“And I need to find him in the next six months,” Christy reminded her.

Bethany nodded, her more resolute expression returning. “So you really can't afford to be overly picky,” she pointed out, ever practical. “But we just won't worry about that yet. Now back to the plan.”

H
AVING
decided Christy should start hanging out in some classier places, the next night they dressed up and went to a ritzy bar downtown and ordered expensive Cokes—­because they were cheaper than expensive mixed drinks or expensive beer. The following night they drove to Hyde Park, a better suburb than the one where they lived, and repeated the process. When guys approached them, Bethany pretended to be shy and let Christy do most of the talking.

Each night, Christy chatted with a few different contenders—­some handsome, others not so much, but all of whom gave the impression of being well off. And though she found herself generally uncomfortable flirting with guys for whom she felt no real
zing
or attraction, she did it anyway—­especially when Bethany's kick under the table reminded her she had to.

Before the second night came to a close, she'd given out her social media contact info to three guys—­deciding to keep her phone number to herself for now since they were, all, in fact, strangers “and could still be ax murderers for all we know,” she pointed out to Bethany. “You don't have to be poor to be a serial killer.”

Another part of their plan involved the mall where Christy worked. Before and after shifts, and on breaks, they'd decided she should hang out near jewelry stores. She was supposed to approach any wealthy-­looking male shoppers by asking them if they knew where Victoria's Secret was.

“What if that just makes them think I have a boyfriend?” she'd asked Bethany.

“If they're interested, they'll ask. And you'll say no.”

“Then why I am buying something at Victoria's Secret? That would make me appear to be a girl who
plans
on casual sex.”

Bethany gave her typical shrug. “I'm not sure the average man would find that an undesirable trait, at least at the first-­meeting stage. But if you feel the need to explain, just . . . say you like the feel of nice things against your skin.”

Christy had cringed slightly—­fearing that was pretty much synonymous with saying she liked casual sex—­but when the time came to enact the plan, none of the men she spoke to took the bait. And she soon realized that men in nice jewelry stores were there shopping for their wives or girlfriends.

Having discovered the big flaw in the plan, she then switched her attention to men's suit departments and before her first break there had passed, she'd had a pleasant conversation with a guy who told her he'd just passed the bar exam. And she didn't even have to bring up Victoria's Secret—­instead
he
had asked
her
for an opinion on which suit to buy. His name was Jared and he was actually pretty cute, and it wasn't difficult to flirt with him. And as she told him how to find her online, she began to think maybe this really was going to work out.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

A
FTER
a week of friendly discussions and strategic online banter, Jared invited Christy to a company dinner for his law firm at a fancy restaurant the following Wednesday night. She got off work at five thirty and he was picking her up at seven. With rush hour traffic, that would cut it close, but she could make it. She also had plans to meet a guy named Tim for drinks on Friday. Bethany was proud of her, and she was pretty proud of herself, as well.
I really
can
do this. I can save Grandpa Charlie—­and me, too. And there's nothing wrong with it—­I will totally fall for one of these guys and that'll make it all okay.

When Wednesday rolled around, though, work was hectic. A co-­worker called in sick, they were uncharacteristically busy, her boss was in a snippy mood, and she cracked a heel on her only pair of black pumps, leaving her to spend the last few hours limping around lopsided.

Worse yet, the shoes were an integral part of her dressy date outfit! So despite not having time, as soon as she clocked out, she limped speedily to a discount shoe store on the mall's lower level, just praying they'd have a cheap, attractive pair she could replace hers with. The good news: They did. The bad: They hurt like hell to wear.

Frazzled and running late, she bought them anyway.
After all,
what's a little more suffering on top of the rest?
Surely, after everything else she'd managed the last few years, she could handle a pair of uncomfortable shoes.

Bad traffic slowed her down getting home—­of all the days for a wreck on the interstate—­and by the time she found a spot to park on the street a few doors up from her house, she had less than forty minutes before Jared arrived.
But that's okay—­that's plenty of time.

Blessedly, there was no sign of Mrs. Hart. And Bethany was working 'til nine tonight, which meant she'd have no distractions getting ready. She smiled as she climbed the concrete steps that led onto the front porch, convincing herself that everything would go her way from this moment forward.

Which was when she slid her key into the lock, turned it to the left—­and nothing happened. As was often the case. But she was used to this—­it was no biggie—­so she jiggled the doorknob, jiggled the key, twisted it with a little oomph . . . and still nothing. And weirdly, it felt different than usual; the part of the door where the lock was located felt . . . loose, almost as if the lock wasn't, in fact, locked at all. So why wasn't the door opening?

She repeated the process twice more—­and got the same result. Which left her staring down at the doorknob, perplexed. Okay, what the hell was this about?

But stay cool. Nothing's wrong here. Everything's fine.
Everything's going your way—­starting now.

She tried the key in the lock yet again, willing it with all her mental might to work this time.

But it still didn't.

Jiggling and pushing harder still, Christy slowly but surely began to draw an odd conclusion. She'd gotten a text from Bethany today saying the landlord had finally come to do repairs they'd requested two months ago. Bethany had been on her way out, but the landlord had assured her he'd lock up when he left. And the entire time they'd lived here, Christy had been aware there were other locks on the door, higher up, that they didn't use and which she'd never been given a key for. As she'd suspected, their usual lock
wasn't
locked. And she could lean the door inward just enough to determine that one of those other locks
had
been locked—­by the landlord obviously. Who apparently did have a key.

All of which meant . . . she couldn't get into her own apartment. Forty minutes before her big, potentially life-­altering, disaster-­deterring date, and she couldn't get in!

Yanking out her cell phone, she called Bethany. Two minutes later, she'd found out her friend didn't have a key to those other locks, either. But she did have the landlord's number.

Five minutes after that, Christy had finished a frustrating conversation with the landlord's wife, who explained that he was still out for the day and he'd forgotten his cell phone this morning and couldn't be reached—­but that Christy should feel free to call a locksmith.

Christy hung up five
more
minutes later, nearly hyperventilating now, after talking with a locksmith who'd informed her he could have someone there in about two hours.

It was less than half an hour before Jared was scheduled to arrive. And lord, what if he was five or ten minutes early? The truth was, she didn't even really like the idea of Jared seeing where she lived, but he'd insisted on picking her up—­so she simply
couldn't
have him showing up to find her locked out of her own house, looking bedraggled from a rough day at work and clearly having no control over her life. On top of everything else, she'd worn her new shoes home and her toes were already pinched in agony.

She needed a plan. She needed to think outside the box. She couldn't blow this opportunity. Because sure, maybe he would understand—­but he might also get a bad impression of her, and she simply couldn't let that happen. Too much was riding on this.

I have to get in this house. I have to. In fact, I'm going to. No matter what it takes.

Beginning to look around for ideas, she spotted the house directly across the street, two doors up from the Harringtons. She'd never talked to the guy who'd moved in just a few months ago, but she'd seen him plenty of times in passing, and he'd looked kind of rugged, at least from a distance, which probably also meant he was strong. She'd seen him carrying around toolboxes and two-­by-­fours, too. And maybe the idea that had just popped into her head would sound crazy, but she just didn't have time to worry about that right now. Precious seconds were ticking away.

Without giving it another thought, she marched across the street on her aching feet, climbed the few steps to his wide, awning-­covered front porch, and rang the bell.
Please be home, please be home.