Outside The Lines

Acknowledgments

My name may be on the front of this book, but Outside The Lines has truly been a group endeavor and never would’ve found the page without the support, love, and unending patience of the following people.

As always, Maureen Walters and Elizabeth Radin at Curtis Brown have been the best champions a girl could ever ask for. I owe you both so much. My critique partners, Alyssa Alexander, Tracy Brogan, Robin Covington, Avery Flynn and Jennifer McQuiston, your reads and feedback (and pep talks and bourbon) are my lifeblood. You not only make my words stronger, but my life sweeter.

To Dana Carroll, Robin Gansle, and Amanda Usen, you have each touched this book in your own magical way and I thank you (also, I owe you cookies!) To John Carnes-Stine for keeping my life on the Internet sane, I offer my undying affection (and also, more cookies!) To my three incredible daughters who so happily warm my office with their laughter when I need it most, I adore you (but you may not have cookies if it is before dinner). And to my amazing, patient, and unfailingly patient husband, you are the light that leads me through it all.

Lastly, to Noah, Violet, Jason, Serenity, Blake and Jules, and to each of you who eagerly read their stories and beg for more. I am so humbly grateful to share this last “line” novella with you! Click on, but don’t read hungry. 

CHAPTER ONE

Julianna Shaw inhaled the exotically spicy-sweet scent emanating from the commercial grade oven in the back of Mac’s Diner, fairly certain someone had engaged in a screw-up of epic proportions. With a smell like that, she had to be in heaven. And Lord knew a restaurant manager from the north side of Brentsville, complete with a half-dozen foster homes and a high school GED under her belt, wasn’t getting past the checkpoint at the pearly gates.

Not even if she bribed good old Saint Peter with a tray full of the pastry her best friend-slash-boss was currently sliding from the oven.

“God, Serenity. I swear I would rather have your cinnamon rolls than sex.” Jules’s thoughts blew past her brain to mouth filter in typical streetwise fashion as her born-in northie accent curled around the words. The staccato clip of each syllable was little more than a subtle shift, one easily dismissed as coming from New York City rather than its smaller, poorer cousin three hundred miles upstate in north Brenstville.

Jules had been able to recognize it from the womb.

“I hate to point this out,” Serenity said as she placed the sheet pan on the adjacent tower-style cooling rack and bent back down to retrieve tray number two from the deep belly of the oven. “But if you’re craving my cinnamon rolls over getting down and dirty, you’re probably having sex with the wrong guy.”

Jules flipped through the pantry inventory stuck to the clipboard in her hand, balancing the numbers in her head against the snort on her lips. “Easy for you to say. You’ve been wearing the perma-glow of a well-bedded woman
ever since you got back from protective custody with Detective McHot-Hot. The rest of us should be so lucky.”

Okay, so the situation a few months ago had been a lot scarier than Jules let on, with
Serenity having witnessed a brutal crime right here at Mac’s and her now-boyfriend Jason Morgan eventually putting his life on the line in a showdown with the perpetrator. But they were both safe now, with the bad guy solidly behind bars, and what’s more, Serenity and Jason were crazy about each other. It was stupid to live life dwelling on what-ifs and could’ve-beens.

If Jules was going to do that, she’d have driven herself bat-shit crazy eight years ago.

“I’m not sure luck had much to do with it.” Serenity’s wistful voice snapped Jules back to the confines of the kitchen, and oh great. She had that dreamy look on her face, the one that meant she was going to start waxing poetic about fate and true love and all that fairytale rot if Jules didn’t intervene. Not that Jules wasn’t happy for Serenity’s deep-down bliss— if anyone deserved to fly that flag, it was her best friend. But the whole happily-ever-after thing just wasn’t going to happen in Jules’s camp.

After all, lightning never struck the same place twice
. And it damn sure never struck a girl from the wrong side of the city line.

Jules pushed back from her spot at the stainless steel work station across from Serenity’s, slapping a smile over her face that felt li
ke a forgery. “Okay, Loveypants. Save it for your boyfriend. Those rolls aren’t going to ice themselves, and we still have to go over the pantry inventory to so I can place this order with the distributor tomorrow morning.”

Serenity rolled her dark brown eyes.
“No wonder you’d rather eat cinnamon rolls than get laid. You’re all work, you know that?” She nudged the oven door back into place with a bang, maneuvering a tray of flawlessly golden-brown cinnamon rolls onto the cooling rack with a battle-tested pot holder.

“What’s the story I’m thinking of? Something about a pot and a kettle and a restaurant owner who’s full of crap? You’re the biggest workaholic I know, Serenity.” Or at least, she used to be.

But her best friend simply shrugged. “I’m not saying Mac’s isn’t important to me. That would be ridiculous. It’s just…not the only thing in my life anymore.”

Jules lowered
the inventory clipboard to the counter with an ungraceful clack, yanking on the hem of her bright green tank top before grabbing a clean apron from the stack by the dishwashing station. “I’ll stick with feeding people. No offense,” she tacked on. “But I like being busy here.”

Being busy at Mac’s
meant making enough money to pay the bills, which was sweet enough by itself. But add to it the down-to-her-toes satisfaction of filling people’s bellies six nights a week? God, it was priceless.

Especially since Jules knew
all too well how it felt to go hungry.

“W
ell, if busy is your thing, I’m about to make your inner workaholic’s month. Quite literally.” Serenity grabbed a wide-rimmed mixing bowl full of icing from the counter, not missing a beat with her words as she gave the glossy white mixture a healthy stir. “I just got a phone call from the charity liaison over at Brentsville Hospital. Do you remember the bid we put in to cater their Carnival for a Cure?”

Jules’s pulse
peppered her veins with an equal blend of surprise and excitement. “Uh, I spent five days straight writing the proposal for that bid. Hell yes I remember it.”

Rather than host yet another black tie yawn-fest to raise money for its spotlight charity this year, the powers that be at Brentsville Hospital had finally wised up and decided to go for som
ething fun, something casual and community-based rather than just a fancy dinner, open bar event that only the topmost tier of Brentsville society could attend. As soon as Jules had seen the event plan for a carnival, she’d known Mac’s was a perfect fit to cater the whole shebang, and her detailed, cost-conscious yet quality-heavy proposal had backed up the sentiment, page by meticulous page.

“
Well, congratulations,” Serenity said, tossing the pot holder to Jules with an ear-to-ear grin. “We won the bid. You are officially the head caterer in charge.”

“Whoa, what?” Jules fumbled the heavy-duty red and white cloth, clutching it against her chest to keep from dropping it to the kitchen tiles. “That’s crazy. Mac’s is
your
diner. You put in the bid.”  

“Yes
, but you wrote it. You did all the heavy lifting, Jules. It’s only fair that you should get the glory. Unless…” Serenity slid the bowl of icing to the counter, biting her lower lip as she closed the space between them to arm’s length. “Look, I know we joke about the workaholic thing, but getting this event from paper to practice is going to take a lot of time and energy, and you did just run the diner for me for an entire month while I was stuck in protective custody. If you need a break, I’ll understand.”

“Are you kidding?” The
response auto-piloted past the self-doubt knotted in Jules’s chest. “The hospital board always picks a great charity to spotlight. Plus, the PR from this thing would boost Mac’s into the stratosphere. It’s a total win-win.”

No
matter what the unease currently getting good and comfy in her gut said to the contrary.

But come on, Serenity’s work ethic mad
e titanium look like a cone full of cotton candy. Of course Jules had assumed her best friend would take point while she managed things quietly behind the scenes. It was what they’d done for the last four years, exactly the way Jules liked it.

Except…
this event would take a solid six weeks to coordinate, and Serenity hadn’t been kidding about the time commitment. It wasn’t like Jules had anything pressing on her social calendar—unlike Serenity— and letting the woman down when she’d taken a chance on giving Jules this job four years ago was a non-option. How hard could it be to be in charge of one teensy little charity carnival?

“Of course I’ll do it.”

“There’s the fiery redhead I know and love!” Serenity’s eyes glittered with excitement as she pulled Jules into a tight hug. “I mean it, Jules. You really do deserve the credit for this one. Not that you’ll take it. But go ahead and grab that last tray of cinnamon rolls from the oven and I’ll give you all the details.”

“Sounds great.” Jules re-gripped the pot holder
in her fist as she pulled her shoulders into a determined line. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy with the spotlight, and yeah, her reasons for that were solid. But she
had
come up with a kickass proposal. She could do this, no sweat.

“Oh, hey. Did they choose the charity yet?
When we got the event plan, they hadn’t decided for sure.” Jules bent down low in front of the oven, curling the pot holder around the lip of the full-to-capacity baking sheet. She balanced it in one hand, the weight testing the muscles in her forearm with a squeeze of exertion as she pulled it from the mouth of the oven.

“
The liaison told me when she called. Actually, this year’s charity is a bit personal for the hospital,” Serenity said, and Jules tugged her brows down in confusion.

“It is?”

“Yeah. They chose the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I guess the president of the board of trustees lost her youngest son to the disease eight years ago, so...”

No way. No
way
.

Shock bolted through every one of Jules’s limbs
, blotting out the rest of Serenity’s words. Jules shot to her feet, but in the split-second of surprise-soaked haste, she forgot to allow for the straight-from-the-oven sheet pan still in her grasp.

“Shit!” T
he abrupt movement clapped hard at her balance, sending a spear of dread through her as she scrambled for nothing but dead air. The kitchen spun out like a stop-time movie, one gut-clenching frame at a time, as she wobbled inevitably. Once. Twice.

And then
the four-hundred degree aluminum sheet pan crashed directly into her skin.

A searing bolt of raw-electricity
pain licked from the point of contact on Jules’s forearm all the way to her shoulder, singeing every nerve ending in its path. The guttural cry clawing its way from her chest lost out to the metallic clatter of the tray hitting the tiles, but it was too late. The poker-hot pain sprouted Ginsu knives for teeth as it ransacked her bones, and as tough as she was, sweat bloomed a hot path over Jules’s brow.

She didn’t have to look to know it was bad.

“Jesus, Jules!” Serenity scooped a swift hand beneath Jules’s elbow, and even though the move was feather-soft, it vibrated a sharp path to her sternum. “Let me see.”

“It’s fine,” came the automatic response, colliding with Serenity’
s swear, but her best friend had a zero-tolerance policy for both burns and bullshit in the kitchen.

“Not fine.
Nate!” Serenity sent the holler down the back hallway toward the break room, but before Jules could get a protest down the chain of command to her mouth, their night cook had poked his head past the door jamb.

“
Yeah boss?”

“I need you in the kitchen, stat.
And call Robin to see if she can cover tonight’s shift until I get back. I’m taking Jules to the ER.”

Jules shook her head, the argument finally dislodging itself from the confines of her throat. “It’s just a little burn. No harm, no foul.” And no way was s
he setting foot in Brentsville Hospital. Not now, anyway. How could she have been so stupid?

Of course Frances Fisher was still on the board of trustees.
Old money died hard.

And old power, even harder.

“Sorry, hon.” Serenity matched Jules’s head shake, and whoa, when had she grabbed her keys? “But you’re going to have to sell stubborn someplace else. Namely, someplace with a medical staff. Let’s go.”