Blown Away (A Romantic Comedy) (Five More Wishes Book 1) (10 page)

However…

We kiss for a long time, until all of the stress and the emotion of the day are worked out, and we’re depleted. Worn and sated, we climb into the car, and Cade drives down the street, away from the prison with everything left unsaid. As we reach the road, we see a young woman hitching for a ride.

She has long red hair and is wearing a blue sundress and flip-flops. She’s carrying a large duffel bag, which is bigger than she is. “We should pick her up,” I say.

“She’s probably coming out of the prison.”

“Karma,” I point out. I’m not sure I believe in karma, but we’re in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere, driving a stolen SUV with icy air conditioning. How can we not give the girl a ride?

Cade pulls over and unlocks the door. The woman climbs in but pauses when she sees our orange jumpsuits.

“They’re loaners,” I explain. “Our clothes got dirty. We’re journalists,” I add because she doesn’t seem convinced.

“I’m Cade Reed, and this is my fiancée, Millie Mossberg,” Cade says.

“Fiancée?” I breathe, barely able to get the word out.

“We’re getting married next weekend, and we’re having a baby,” Cade continues. There it is…Closure. I’m overcome with joy. This is what bliss feels like.

“Next weekend,” I repeat. “A small wedding with a few friends and family. And we’re having a baby.” Every word builds on my happiness.

The woman seems happy with the explanation. She puts on her seatbelt and closes her door. “I’m Beryl. Beryl Meyer.”

I gasp. “That’s our baby’s name!”

“It is?” Cade asks. “Are you sure?”

“Where are you headed, Beryl?” I ask.

“To Long Beach to take the ferry to Summer Island. Have you heard of it?”

“It sounds familiar,” I say.

“Are we sure about the baby’s name?” Cade asks, pulling away from the curb.

“What takes you to Summer Island?” I ask Beryl.

“I inherited an inn.”

“Wow, that’s exciting. Sounds like a good story. We write for the Summer Island Gazette. Which inn?”

“The High Tide Inn.” Beryl is beautiful. She’s a natural beauty, like an earth goddess with porcelain white skin.

“That’s been closed for decades,” Cade says. “Real run down. You sure you want to take on that challenge?”

“It’s got to be better than prison. After two years staring at gray walls, anywhere is better.”

I want to ask her why she was in prison and how she thinks she can renovate a dilapidated inn by herself, but my brain refuses to think about anything except for Cade’s roundabout marriage proposal. I touch his leg, and he takes my hand, bringing it to his lips.

“Not too bad, sharing an exclusive, right?” he says.

“Speaking of exclusive, we’re exclusive, right?”

“Duh. That’s what marriage means, Millie.”

“I had to ask. Who knows what you’re planning next for the water tower,” I tease.

“I was sixteen years old!”

I shrug. “Once a dog, always a dog. How do I know you won’t be bringing three women at once to the water tower next?”

“No more water tower. I promise.”

“I don’t know. You’re kind of partial to heights.”

“Not anymore,” Cade says, smiling. “Now, I just have a healthy respect for them.”

I turn around to Beryl. “You’re a witness, Beryl. Cade has given me the exclusive.”

“The exclusive for life,” Cade adds.

I lean over and kiss his cheek. “I never thought this day would come.”

“Me either. I’m blown away.”

Download your copy of
Inn & Out
, the next book in the Five More Wishes series.

Continue reading for the first chapter of
Inn & Out
, the next book in the Five More Wishes Series:

CHAPTER 1

No more kissing. I can’t stand it one more second. This is not at all how I expected to spend my first day of freedom in two long years. I can’t look at any more swollen lips smashing against each other or tongues darting in and out of mouths.

Lots and lots of tongues. It’s like tongues are multiplying exponentially. It’s like a tongue block party. A tongue reunion.

Tongues. Lips. Lips. Tongues.

Normally, this would be a good thing, but I’m not the one doing the kissing. None of these lips or tongues are mine. They belong to Cade and Millie, the ones who picked me up hitchhiking.

Cade and Millie have been smooching in the front seat, while I’m in the back seat witnessing all of the spit-swapping. Six hours of oh, baby in their Mercedes SUV as we travel from Yuma, Arizona to Long Beach, California. Thank goodness Cade is a good driver, or we would have crashed for sure. Talk about distracted driving…sheesh.

And if Millie wasn’t already pregnant, she would have gotten pregnant from the kissing. I know it’s normally impossible to get pregnant that way, but in this case, I can totally see it happening. This is Mach five, code red, ultimate smooching. This is hardcore.

I guess this is what they call love.

Love.

I’m not exactly an expert on love. Every time I think I’m in love, it’s with a mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger who ruins my life. I don’t know why I fall in love with those losers. I never seem to recognize mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers for who they are until it’s too late and my life is ruined. My warped brain tells me that they’re Prince Charming on a white steed, even though they’re really Darth Vader in a monster truck, behind on the payments.

Yes, that’s right… I’m a bum magnet. The last bum I attracted set me up for a crime I didn’t commit, and I wound up at the women’s correctional annex of the minimum security prison in Yuma. I don’t know why they call it minimum security because they still shoot you if you want to leave for say, an ice cream.

Shooting a person for Rocky Road spells maximum security to me.

But today I’m finally free, and I’m going to stuff my face full of ice cream the first chance I get. Anything to wipe away the effects of two years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit because of a man I thought I loved.

Obviously my love radar is way off base.

I hope that Millie’s love radar is right on target. She seems to be in love with Cade and he with her. They’re engaged to be married, and she’s pregnant with their baby. At the very least, they seem to have the kissing thing worked out.

Despite the annoying public displays of affection, I’m thankful for the ride. They picked me up hitchhiking right outside of the prison when I was released today. I was planning to walk to the bus station, but luckily they’ve given me a ride all the way to Long Beach. It turns out that we’re all going to Summer Island, which is a ferry ride away from Long Beach. Driving in the luxurious Mercedes SUV to the California coast is a much better option than paying for Greyhound. Millie and Cade are very nice, and I hope that Cade isn’t a bum and Millie finds her happy ending.

In other words, I hope that love really exists.

But I wouldn’t bet on love. I’m never getting sucker punched from that particular emotion again. I’m going to duck and weave like Ali. From now on, I’m totally in control over my own life, and nobody is going to screw me over or even screw me. No more screwing. I’m done being screwed.

I’ve had two years in prison to think about it, and I’ve come to the determination that my happy ending means no to all men in my life. No more love for me because in my case, love is always wrong. I thought I was in love, and because of my stupidity, my entire life savings now consists of thirty-seven-dollars and all of my belongings fit into a duffel bag on the seat next to me.

“Here we are,” Millie announces as we arrive at the ferry parking lot. It’s a two-hour ride to Summer Island from here. We hop out of the car.

“You forgot the keys in the ignition,” I tell Cade.

“The Mercedes belongs to the drug smugglers and kidnappers,” he reminds me. It’s a long story, which they told me between kisses, but the upshot is that Cade and Millie are journalists, and they had a run-in with criminals, who they put in prison. Cade and Millie borrowed their car, which is fair because somehow the criminals took their clothes, or at least did something to their clothes, and now they’re wearing orange prison jumpsuits. Cade and Millie are getting more of their share of looks because of the jumpsuits, which takes a load off of me. I was worried that my ex-con status would be written all over me, but at least I’m not dressed in orange with Yuma Correctional written on the back. Next to Cade and Millie, I’m completely anonymous, and that’s exactly how I want to remain.

“I can’t wait to get home,” Cade says to Millie. “Your place or mine? Mine has satellite TV. The whole sports package. Yours just has cable.”

They kiss for a couple of minutes and then argue about the pros and cons of television coverage all the way onto the ferry boat. They sit inside, but I decide to sit on the top deck away from their kissing. Besides, I’ve just spent two years without a lot of fresh air, and now I want to take advantage of every available breath of oxygen.

It’s a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. Seventy-five degrees with a cool breeze. The ocean is pretty calm, and our ferry cuts through the water fast, like a knife through butter. In the distance, I spot a whale. I close my eyes and breathe in the sweet air. Paradise. Freedom. Finally, it’s a moment of serenity after years of sustained stress. I try to relish the moment. My resolve to never let a man ruin my life again and the promise of a fresh start helps me relish it.

This is my first trip to Summer Island. Supposedly, three generations of my family have lived on the island, but that’s three generations I never knew. As far as I was aware until two weeks ago, I’ve been family-less. My parents died when I was a toddler, and I was raised by foster parents, who died shortly after I graduated from high school. But two weeks ago, I was informed that I had an aunt. Since I’ve been family-less for most of my life, this news came as quite a shock. At first, I fantasized about Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s house, about shucking peas with her on her porch while we sat in rocking chairs, about her giving me my mother’s wedding dress, which she held for me all these years in an old trunk in her attic. I enjoyed all of these delicious fantasies for a wonderful thirty seconds upon hearing the news of her existence.

But not so fast, oh wonderful happiness bubble. My new-found aunt was already dead. Dead for only a few days. She had been alive for her whole life, and nobody bothered to tell me about her. She never bothered to tell me about her.

But now I know all about her. But she’s dead, and that’s why I was finally contacted about her.

I don’t have any living family members, but it turns out that I have a whole army of dead ones. Since I found out about my aunt, I’ve been told that about half of all the dead people on the island are related to me, and I’m the sole survivor of this once great extended family.

Having such a big, dead family hasn’t gotten me anywhere up until now, but that’s all changed. My dead aunt has left me something. As her sole surviving family member, Eleanor Thatcher has left her home and working inn to me, Beryl Meyer.

It’s my first kismet, good-timing, lottery type of miracle. It’s my chance for a new life. No, I’m not going to run an inn. I don’t want to be tied down to anything, and I have no idea how to be a hotel owner. Instead, I’m going to sell the inn, invest my money, and live on the proceeds. I’m going to get a little place in Seattle or Portland and live a perfect life on my investment. I’m going to find myself. I’m going to be re-born, learn to meditate, and drink vanilla lattes. What a relief to finally have security. What a relief to leave my old life behind me.

After a couple of hours on the ferry boat, Summer Island comes into view, and we dock at the small harbor. The village is quaint and colorful, and I half-expect Opie to appear.

“Would you like a ride to the High Tide Inn?” Cade asks me after we disembark. His lips are swollen and chafed, and his orange jumpsuit is hanging off his shoulders at an angle. Kissing has done some damage. I decline his offer, since I have a meeting at the attorney’s office in charge of my aunt’s will in the center of town before I can go to the inn. Cade and Millie wave goodbye to me, kiss each other one more time, hop into a little golf cart, and putt-putt away. I’ve made it to the next phase of the new phase of my life, and I’m all alone.

The island is swarming with golf carts and the occasional Segway, but I don’t see a car or a taxi.  Luckily, the attorney’s office isn’t far away. Swinging the duffel bag over my shoulder, I take a step off the sidewalk and head down the street, which is lined with colorful, two-story buildings. The buildings’ bottom floors are devoted to cute shops, and as far as I can tell, the second floors are apartments. It’s a lot like Disneyland. I wouldn’t bat an eye if Mickey Mouse popped around the corner to say hi.

At the end of the street, I arrive at a plaza with a dilapidated, dry fountain in its center. Whereas the rest of the village is well-kept, the fountain is a mess. Its plaster is cracked, and there isn’t a drop of water in it. Still, I’m drawn to the massive structure. I take the time to walk across the street and peek inside. The bottom of the fountain is covered in a layer of coins, as if everyone on the island has tossed change into it, like it has some kind of magical powers to make dreams come true. Even though the fountain’s dry, it’s a wish magnet. To prove my point, a tall, muscular man joins me. He stands across from me at the fountain’s edge, and he’s looking down in it, just like I am. After a moment, he closes his eyes and tosses a coin in. It falls with a clank, as it hits the dry plaster and some of the other coins. He looks at it for a second and then seemingly content, he walks away.

Oh, why not?

If the fountain is so popular for wishes, I might as well give it a shot. I take one of my last coins out of my bag. Closing my eyes, I focus on my wish. Please let me sell this inn and get the money I need for my investment so that I can find myself and spend my days at coffee houses with hipsters and learn how to meditate and do whatever hipsters do with crystals. Please let me sell the inn. Please let me have money. Please let me get a credit card and basic cable. Please, please, please. I tentatively toss the coin in. It barely makes it over the lip of the fountain, and rolls down the side, making its way around the other coins until it finally rests by the muscly tall man’s coin. They lay there side by side…my dull nickel and his shiny quarter.