Unplanned: An Accidental Pregnancy

College Romance (The Unstoppable

Series Book 4) Danielle Hill
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 UNPLANNED
_______________________________________

UNSTOPPABLE #4

DANIELLE HILL
 Copyright © 2022 Danielle Hill

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, resold, or distributed in any form, or by
any electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from the author, except
for brief quotations within a review. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or
distribute it by any other means without permission.

This book is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the
product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Danielle Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover Designer: Angela Haddon Cover Designs

Editing: Magnolia Author Services

For all the happy accidents who turned out to be the best thing that ever
happened to someone.
 Contents

Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
What to Read Next?
Stay In Touch
Also by Danielle Hill
About the Author
Acknowledgements
 Prologue
___________________

NOVA

"CLOSE YOUR EYES, Nova! Close your eyes!"

Hands folded around my face, yanking me backward, the sound of
rapid breaths and a pounding heart made louder by the loss of my
sight.
"Oh, god. No... no," my mother whimpered over my head.
"Momma?"
"It's okay, Nova," she rasped, her voice frayed.
She didn't sound okay. She sounded sad or scared. Or both. "It's...
it's okay. Just keep your eyes closed. Just keep—oh, God. Just…
keep ‘em closed—"
Her voice cracked on a broken sound I’d never heard from her
before as she edged us backward. I wanted to open my eyes. I
wanted to see what was making her cry, and then I wanted to tell
her everything was going to be alright.
Because I'd heard Momma cry lots of times before.
I'd seen her rage and yell. Fall to her knees and dig brittle
fingernails into the threadbare carpet as she screamed at the top of
her lungs and tears spilled over her face.
I’d seen her laughing like she might never stop, too, her entire
body shaking with it. Or her tawny hair and amber eyes wild as she
chased me around the house and made me squeal.
And sometimes… sometimes I’d seen her staring at the wall,
making no sound at all. Her down days. That’s what she called
them. Days where she was there, but not really. Where she didn’t
even look at me as she shoved a box of broken crayons and some
torn sheets of paper into my hands. She’d put her head under the
comforter without saying a word and stay there until I turned and
left the room.
She’d stay in bed all day on those days. Until the sky turned dark.
But I didn’t disturb her. Not on those days.
I’d smother my belly with a pillow when it grumbled. When it
became too loud to ignore and my stomach began to ache, I’d tiptoe
to the kitchen. Clamber up onto the counter to grab my favorite
cereal, then eat it straight from the box with my eyes fixed to the
cartoons playing on mute behind the cracked screen of our TV.
Because when Momma was being quiet, I was supposed to be
quiet. Until she was ready to talk again.
I’d heard every one of her sounds.
The good ones. The bad ones. Even the ones that didn't make any
noise.
But I'd never heard this sound.
This broken one.
"Momma," I said again, louder this time, my voice small but
insistent.
Her grip tightened, fingers squeezing around my head until it hurt.
I reached up to pull them away. She fought me, crying. Holding on
to me tighter as her body shook with big, wracking sobs that
vibrated through my back.
Her hands slipped, moving until they covered my nose and mouth,
cutting off my air. My chest shuddered with panicked breaths. My
heart raced.
Then it got darker, and she was falling to her knees with me in her
arms.
My fingernails scratched at her flesh until she snatched her hand
away with a hiss and I tumbled from her lap, landing hard on my
elbows.
Sweeping clumps of tangled hair back from my face, I scrambled
to my knees and blinked twirling spots of color from my eyes until I
could see again.
First, I saw Momma. Cross-legged on the floor with her hands
clutching at her hair. She rocked. Forward and back. Her make-up-
smeared face pale as she stared at something above my head, her
wide golden eyes filled with tears. And horror.
I frowned. Then turned…
"No! Don't Nov—" she screamed, reaching for me too late.
Much too late.
This time when she grabbed me and pulled me into her chest,
when everything went black and my heartbeat pounded like an
unstoppable train in my ears, I stayed there. I clasped my hands
tight around her bony body, my fingers clutching the worn fabric of
her tank, as I pressed my face into her and tried to make it go away.
I squeezed my eyelids as tight as they would go, hoping, hoping…
yet knowing somehow that no length of time would ever erase that
image.
What I didn’t know, as my mom wrapped me up in her thin arms
and tried to shield me from the harsh realities of our life, was that
was the last time she’d ever try to protect me from anything.
Including her.
 Chapter One
___________________________

NOVA

“MOM?”

The house was too quiet as I climbed the stairs and made my way
down the hall, the soles of my sneakers soft against the laminate
floor. I stopped at the last door and nudged it open. The empty
room confirmed my suspicions, causing my shoulders to sag with an
all-too familiar sense of disappointment.
The rumpled bedsheets still bore the imprint of her body, but a
hand to the fabric found it cold to the touch, telling me everything I
needed to know.
Long gone. She’d probably taken off minutes after I did this
morning, her addiction winning out over her desire to get clean, or
any maternal affection she once had for her only child. I lowered to
the floor with a weary sigh, the crushing weight of defeat draping
heavily across my shoulders like a cast-iron blanket.
My head sank bank into the wall with a dull thud, while guilt
settled like an anchor in my gut, spearing me to the floor. There was
no escape from it, even knowing I couldn’t do or give any more than
I already had.
My mother was a lost cause I couldn’t figure out how to quit
fighting.
When she’d turned up a few days ago and begged for my help, I’d
dropped everything. Taken off work to stay by her side, hoping this
time would be different from all the others, even while trying to steel
myself for the inevitable.
Now she was gone again, and honestly, I should have been numb
to it.
 The gripping ache in my chest and lump blocking my throat
suggested otherwise, though. I swallowed over them, but the tell-
tale sting of frustrated tears behind my eyelids prompted me to
crush my hands into fists and jam them against my eye sockets.
Don’t cry, Nova. Don’t you dare cry.
Even if I couldn’t bring myself to give up on her, I couldn’t allow
her to drag me down into the gaping hole of despair she left behind
in her wake every time she skipped town, either.
Every couple of months, she’d show up. Usually because she
needed something. Money I didn’t have, a place to stay. Sometimes
she’d stick around for a week or two, a month at most. Then I’d
wake up to find her gone. Until the next time.
A never-ending cycle. Around and around, we went.
But every now and then, she’d come home and ask for help.
Swear she wanted to get clean. The cynical side of my brain told me
nothing would change, that we’d heard it all before, but despite
everything, the dreamer in me had yet to die.
So, when she asked for help, I was powerless to deny her.
Hope had a way of holding the impossible up in just the right light
to make it look achievable, all the while knowing she was about to
rip out your heart and squeeze it to mulch between her fingers.
“Nova?”
I pushed to my feet at the sound of the front door closing,
brushing my hands over my cheeks to wipe my face bare.
“Nov?”
“In here,” I called, lifting my head to the sound of approaching
footsteps.
Maura appeared in the doorway a second later, dressed in a pair
of light wash skinny jeans and a thin black sweater. Her blond brows
closed together upon finding the space empty, and then…
resignation.
A split second. That’s how quickly hope could die.
We’d been waiting for it. We always were.
“She’s gone,” Maura stated flatly, her pale-blue gaze finding mine.
I cleared my throat with a curt nod. “Looks like it.”
“Did she take anything?”
 I shrugged a shoulder, glancing around the room. “Nothing
important.”
We’d long since learned to make sure not to leave money or
valuables where my mom could get her hands on them. Not that we
had much of value lying around the house, anyway. But if it could be
sold, and wasn’t nailed down, she’d take it.
“Nov—” Maura began, but I cut her off with a firm shake of my
head and walked over to the bed.
With a silent nod, she joined me, wordlessly helping to strip the
sheets from the mattress and erase all traces of my mother from the
room. My room. My bed. The same one I’d camped beside on the
floor, so I’d be close to my mother if she needed me. Close enough
to wipe her brow with a damp cloth, clean her vomit, and quiet her
desperate cries as the symptoms of withdrawal ravaged her body.
Pain bloomed in my chest as I pictured her face streaked with
tears, her weathered skin clammy as I’d wrapped my arms around
her convulsing body. The moment she’d looked me straight in the
eyes and begged me to end it. I shuttered my lids and shook it
away.
I could feel Maura’s eyes on me as we worked, heavy with
concern in my periphery, but this was far from our first rodeo. As my
mom’s best friend since childhood and the woman who’d stepped up
when my mom had checked out, Maura Jacobson had been there
through almost all of it. She knew words were worthless. All the
platitudes in the world couldn’t alter reality, or the harsh truth of it.
My mom would either come back one day and finally get clean, or
she wouldn’t. And we both knew what that meant.
Taking the material from Maura’s hand, I bundled it into a tight
ball against my stomach as I stared at the unmade bed and
wondered if there would be a next time. Or if this was the time she’d
stay away for good, and we’d never see her again.
The selfish thought I failed to bury—that sometimes I just wished
it was over so we wouldn’t have to live in this constant state of
limbo—compressed the air within my lungs. A black shadow of
remorse that wrapped around my throat like phantom fingers, until I
couldn’t take a full breath and darkness pooled around the edges of
my vision.
Because our truth was inescapable.
It didn’t matter how much I wanted to; I couldn’t save my mother
from herself.
Some days, it was all I could do to hope she wouldn’t take me
down with her.
 Chapter Two
___________________________

NOVA

I RAISED A brow over the bar, spearing Jake with a blank look
until he did as requested and filled the shot glass to the brim with
tequila.
“You’re gonna get my ass fired,” he muttered, sliding the drink
toward me.
I picked it up and threw it back, wincing lightly as the liquid hit the
back of my throat. Then I set the glass back down on the scuffed
surface.
“Oh, please.” My best friend, Gabriella Murphy, dropped onto the
bar stool beside me. “Half the people in here are underage.”
Jake faced her and tipped his chin. “Yeah, but I know you two
are.”
Gaby arched a near-black eyebrow. “That’s got nothing to do with
it and you know it. You just can’t get your head around the fact
we’re not fourteen anymore.”
Jake narrowed his dark-green eyes but refrained from responding
to the accusation. Instead, he retrieved the empty glass and held it
up. “You’re both done.”
Gaby scowled as Jake made his way to the other side of the bar to
serve a bunch of rowdy students. My gaze trailed around the room,
taking in the few familiar, but mostly unfamiliar faces. I’d attended
Lakeview University for two years, but hadn’t been too heavily
involved in the social aspect of college. With a GPA to maintain and
bills to pay, partying wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence for me.
Situated a short walk from Lakeview U, though, the town I grew
up in drew a big college crowd and Harvey’s was notorious for
serving almost anyone with a fake ID. Which was probably why the
place was rammed with students returning to school after summer
break in preparation for classes starting up next week.
The doors swung open, and I watched three guys walk through.
One short, with a shock of stark red hair and a heavy smattering of
similarly colored freckles. The second had light brown hair with a
long, narrow build. My gaze strayed to the third guy and narrowed
on his face. Tall with a wide frame and rumpled dirty-blonde hair
that looked like either he or someone else had spent all day pushing
their fingers through it. He weaved his way through the crowd with a
confident swagger that should not have been as sexy as it was.
“How are you holding up?” Gaby asked, pulling my attention back.
Blonde guy forgotten, I cleared my throat as the events of the
past few days re-surfaced with a vengeance. Apparently, the
numbing effect of the alcohol had yet to kick in.
“I’m fine.”
“Nov.” Gaby sighed. “It’s me. Put on a front for everyone else if
you have to, but not with me.”
I swallowed, feeling my throat constrict.
Gaby—all five feet nothing of her with enviable curves and a
squat-honed behind people would pay a skilled surgeon a crap ton of
money for—had never let me hide. Not even from the beginning.
Back in freshman year of high school, when I’d carried a chip on my
shoulder the size of a small crater and a backpack housing a
lifetime’s worth of bad memories, she’d forced her way into my life
when all I’d wanted to do was spend my days fading away into
obscurity.
Somehow, she’d sensed I needed someone before I knew it
myself. I doubt I’d ever have admitted it.
Life taught me at an early age not to rely on anyone. The less you
expected, the harder it was for people to let you down. But over the
years Gaby had proved she was here to stay, and I’d be forever
grateful to the little girl with the uber shiny black hair and her
dogged persistence. Glad she’d continued to plonk herself down
beside me every day at lunch, hand me one of her mom’s
homemade cookies, then regale me with endless commentary about
her life, despite the fact it took me two months to build up the
courage to respond.
“I know,” I murmured, lowering my gaze to the bar where the
blunt edge of my un-manicured fingernail scratched at the chipped
surface. At Gaby’s continued silence, I shrugged. “There’s nothing
really to say, Gabs.” Nothing we hadn’t said a hundred times before.
“Just because you expect someone to hurt you doesn’t mean you
don’t still feel the pain, Nov. It doesn’t mean you don’t still need to
talk about it, either. As strong as you are, you’re only human.”
My hand stilled for a beat, a ripple of emotion rendering me mute,
motionless.
“You know I’m here for you, right?”
Concerned brown eyes awaited mine when I finally glanced up. I
drew in a breath before offering her a faint smile. “Of course.”
“Good.” She squeezed my hand, the edges of her black bob gliding
over her shoulders as she nodded. “When or if you’re ready, I’m all
ears.”
My lips curved a fraction higher, before I tapped my fingers
against the bar and brought my head up to catch Jake’s attention.
Who was clearly ignoring me.
“What I really need,” I muttered, “is tequila.”
Gaby chuckled beside me, her hand briefly rubbing my arm before
she cupped her palms either side of her mouth and screeched,
“Jake! Get that cute ass over here!”
I laughed when Jake’s mouth pinched in at the sides. His
shadowed jaw rolled as he sauntered back over and planted both
palms down on the bar in front of us, one dark eyebrow raised.
“What now?”
“That’s a shocking attitude for someone in the service industry,
Jacob,” Gaby admonished. Then, without missing a beat, she sucked
her lower lip between her teeth and dipped forward until Jake’s gaze
landed exactly where she wanted it.
Four years older than us, Jacob Marsden dated Gaby’s cousin Rina
throughout high school, until Rina moved to Texas for college six
years ago and never came back. He was friends with Gaby’s older
sister, Eva, too. Along with Rina, they’d all belonged to the same
social circle in high school. Which meant Jake had always seen Gaby
as the baby. A fact she’d bemoaned for as long as I’d known her,
mostly because she’d been crushing on Jake since she was fourteen.
Something she’d never made a secret of. In fact, she’d boldly
proclaimed at Eva’s high school graduation party that Jake could do
better than her cousin. Without an ounce of timidity, she’d told him
when he realized that himself in a few years’ time, he’d know where
to find her.
Jake had laughed off the numerous advances from our
overconfident little sass queen over the years. But by the time he’d
returned home from college, Gaby had turned eighteen, developed
killer curves and an even more lethal attitude, and suddenly, Jake
wasn’t as unaffected as he used to be. Not that he’d voiced the
opinion or overstepped the invisible mark that existed between
them. Just meant he wanted to.
Jake straightened, running a palm over the scruff along his jawline
as he cleared his throat and tried to peel his eyes from Gaby’s ample
cleavage.
“Come on, Jake,” Gaby simpered, lowering her voice to a throaty
whisper. “We’ve got fake IDs like everyone else here. Just pretend
you don’t know us for one night. Please?”
His throat worked as he swallowed, and when his forest green
gaze rose to my best friend’s rich brown one, something flickered
across his eyes that suggested he wouldn’t be opposed to the idea
of them both being someone else for the night. Amused, I wagged
my head and wondered how much longer they’d dance around each
other before Jake finally gave in to what they clearly wanted.
“Fine,” Jake muttered as he grabbed the tequila bottle. Without
breaking eye contact, he tossed it up to spin through the air, caught
it upside down by the neck in his right hand, then filled two glasses
to the brim, and slid them across the bar in one fluid motion.
The breathy sound that spilled from Gaby’s mouth tugged Jake’s
lips up into a cocky half-smirk. He turned with a wink and sauntered
away.
“Fuck,” Gaby breathed, heavy-lidded and flushed. “I think he just
made me come without laying a finger on me.”
 I reached for the shot glass. “Doesn’t he do that every night?”
A playful elbow nudged my side. “Keep your voice down.”
“Oh, please.” I scoffed before swallowing the tequila. “Like he
doesn’t already know.”
“Probably,” she conceded with a shrug, then downed her shot and
winced. “I’m just wondering when the fuck he’s ever going to do
anything about it.”
My mouth curved into a sympathetic smile as my best friend
slammed the glass down on the polished wood with a bang. I had
more than enough problems of my own to contend with, but for
tonight, I was content to focus on someone else’s.
 Chapter Three
_______________________________

NOVA

“NO MEANS NO, Gabriella.”

“Why are you being such a dick, Jacob?” Gaby raised her brows
and leaned forward over the bar.
“Because it’ll be me who ends up carrying your drunk ass home,
that’s why.”
Gaby pushed up as Jake dipped down onto his forearms, putting
them mere inches apart. “And would that be such a bad thing?”
Jake stared at her for a moment, his eyes running over her face
and pausing briefly on her mouth. “You know it would, Gabriella.”
Gaby bit down on her lower lip, her eyes hooding. “You don’t
know what you’re missing, Jakey.”
Jake’s jaw flexed, his fingers rolling into loose fists on top of the
bar.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered, finally reaching my limit after
watching them flirt like a couple of horny high schoolers for three
hours. “Just screw each other already.”
Jake jumped back like I’d slapped him, then cleared his throat
roughly and stalked away.
“Uh... what was that?” Gaby asked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, rubbing two fingers against my forehead.
“The sexual tension was just… a lot.”
“He’s interested, right?” Gaby spun to me but kept her eyes on
Jake. “Tell me I’m not imagining it.”
“Oh, he’s interested. He’s been interested since he came home.
Whether he’ll act on it is another matter.”
“Should I push it? There’s his past with Rina, and he still harps on
about my goddamn age. It’s like he can’t stop seeing me as the gap-
toothed kid with scuffed knees and pigtails.”
I shrugged, hopping down from the bar stool. “First, Rina doesn’t
even live here anymore, and she hasn’t for years. Not to mention
she dumped Jake via text six months after moving to Texas. Second,
he thought you were too young when you tried to kiss him at your
sweet sixteenth. Believe me, he does not see a little girl with pigtails
when he looks at you now. I’m pretty sure I know exactly what he
sees. There’s a big difference between hooking up with a sixteen-
year-old girl when you’re twenty and hooking up with a twenty-year-
old knockout when you’re twenty-four. And the man knows it.”
Gaby’s eyes sparkled. “So, you’re saying I should go for it?”
I laughed. “Babe, you’ve been going for it since you hit puberty.”
She spun to me with a brow arched and a devious glint in her
dark-chocolate eyes. “Oh, he ain’t seen nothing yet.”
With an amused head shake, I hopped down and made my way to
the bathroom, reaching for my phone when it buzzed in my pocket.
As soon as I saw Maura’s name flash up on the screen, I hesitated
to answer.
Maura knew I was out tonight. She was the one who encouraged
me to forget all the other crap and act like some carefree Lakeview
student for a few hours. Before school started up again next week
and I wouldn’t have time for much besides studying, tutoring, and
work.
So, here I was, acting like a normal twenty-year-old, as if I didn’t
have an addict for a mother who kept ripping my heart out, or an
academic scholarship I couldn’t afford to screw up.
Which meant Maura wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency, and
for us, emergencies only ever involved one person.
Head down, I pushed through the bathroom door and watched
the call ring out. My chest rose painfully, heart pounding as I waited
for it to start up again. A minute later, a text came through, and I
paused briefly before swiping the message open.

Maura: Sorry to call Nov. I don’t want to spoil your night

with Gaby, but Benny just called to tell me they picked Britt
up an hour ago for shoplifting and she’s down at Lakeview
Police Station. I wanted you to hear it from me in case
anyone caught wind of it. Don’t worry about it for tonight,
though. They won’t press charges and she’s sleeping it off in
a cell. We can sort everything in the morning. Forget it all
for tonight and have fun, hon xx

I stared at the message for a few seconds, unblinking.

Benny was a cop who’d moved to Lakeview from Pennsylvania five
years ago. He and Maura started dating about six months after he
arrived. I’d lost count of the number of times he’d picked my mom
up off the street out of a pool of her own vomit. Or arrested her for
petty theft, or driving under the influence, then let her sleep it off in
a cell.
She’d left this morning, but she hadn’t gone far.
Not far enough.
The bitter thought crept into my head from the murky pits of my
battered soul like a bucketful of ice-cold water, throwing me off
guard and sending a flood of emotion rushing up my throat. I had a
goddamn right to those fleeting thoughts, however harsh they were,
and I knew I did. Yet every single one hit like a hammer blow to the
gut. Every damn time.
I fastened a palm to my mouth to curb the rolling sob before it
had the chance to break free, just as the bathroom door burst open
and slammed against the wall. My breath caught when the blonde
guy I’d seen earlier walked through. He took two steps before lifting
his gaze, then pulled up short at the sight of me. He blinked a few
times before stepping back to yank the door open again. Glancing
quickly at the sign, he frowned, then tapped a finger against the
wood.
“Uh... you a dude, or what?”
“What?”
Hazel-green eyes ran a path over my face, then down the length
of my body, lingering on the tight-fitted logo tee stretched across my
breasts for a few seconds too long.
“Do you mind?” I snapped, pulling the pervert’s attention back to
my face.
 “I do not.” His lips kicked up on one side as he continued his
perusal with a slow head wag, his gaze dropping to where my high
waisted leggings molded to the shape of my lower abdomen.
“Definitely not a dude. Which means you’re in the wrong bathroom,
sweetheart.”
“What?” I repeated, disoriented.
Without missing a beat, blonde guy tapped the door front again.
“This bathroom is for people with dicks. Unless you have yours
wedged up your ass…”
I glanced at the sign with a frown, noting he was right.
“Ladies is down the hall.”
I nodded, staring at the door, my phone a ten-pound brick sitting
heavily in my palm. I knew where the lady’s room was. I’d been
coming to Harvey’s for years.
“Okay. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a shit ton of
beer and my bladder’s about to burst, so…”
Blonde guy let the door fall shut and his sentence fall away as he
moved toward the urinal I hadn’t noticed. Probably because I was
too busy reading about my mom being locked up. Again.
The woman who’d ran out on me this morning after I’d taken
three days off work to help her. Whose brow I’d mopped, whose
vomit I’d cleaned. The woman who made me believe her empty
promises time and time again.
Who’d given up and left the first chance she got, so she could go
get high.
Who’d rather shoot up than stay with her daughter.
Who’d—
“You’re just gonna watch me piss?”
My gaze cut across the room, but I couldn’t find my voice. It was
smothered somewhere beneath the landslide of raw pain I was
desperately trying to keep a lid on.
I just needed a minute to work through it.
I just needed… god, just one damn night.
One night.
With a shrug, blonde guy spun to the wall, fiddled with the zip on
his dark wash jeans, then presumably took out his dick and peed. All
while I stood mute, staring at his back with my heart pounding in
my ears, and my shitty world caving down on top of me. Suffocating
me soundlessly.
I felt invisible. Like I was drowning. Thrashing and screaming for
help, but no one could hear me. No one could see me. I flinched
when a face appeared in front of mine, and I suddenly found myself
staring into a set of mossy-green eyes, streaked with browns and
golds and ambers, like swirls of color on a painter’s canvas.
“Hey? You okay?”
My heartbeat slowed.
Okay?
Most days. Yeah. Today…?
Even after years of therapy, my mother could still show up out of
the blue and throw my entire existence into turmoil.
Dark blonde brows closed together as the guy waited for a
response. I blinked up into his eyes for another silent second before
shaking my head no.
I didn’t know the person standing in front of me. Would probably
never see him again. If I was going to fall apart, let all my crazy-
glued pieces scatter across the bathroom floor, this was the place to
do it. A moment of awkwardness with someone I didn’t know beat
the litany of questions and looks of concern I’d face from Gaby or
Maura if I had a mini breakdown in front of either of them. They
didn’t need to worry. I was okay. Or, at least, I would be okay. Soon.
Again. Just… not right now.
“Should I call someone?”
Startled, I blinked when blonde guy bent at the knees and aligned
our faces. Our gazes pulled together like magnets, and when gentle
fingers touched my face, a sudden spark of awareness fired through
me like a bullet.
Or maybe a meteor shooting across a pitch-black sky. A tiny streak
of light illuminating the dark.
My stomach clenched with something that felt worlds away from
the sinking sensation of defeat, and I was gripped with an intense
urge to chase it. Somewhere rattling around in my murky brain, a
voice urging me to stop and think went ignored.
 Because I’d wasted half my life thinking. For once, I wanted to do
the opposite of think.
I wanted to act on impulse. Be young and free. Stupid and
reckless.
My eyes flickered over the handsome face hovering inches from
mine, crinkled with confusion. The chiseled features and angular
jawline. Mussed blonde hair, and the kaleidoscope of fall colors
churning in his narrowed eyes.
He would be the perfect distraction. A life raft in unforgiving
waters. I could break apart in his strong arms, and he wouldn’t even
have to know he was keeping me together.
Tomorrow, I’d succumb to reality. I always did. Tonight, though, I
just wanted to escape it.
I needed something to cling on to until I found the strength to
swim.
My lungs inflated, then fell, words tumbling from my lips in a spill
of warm air. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
A set of thick blonde eyebrows drew inward. “What?”
“Are you in a relationship with someone?”
“Uhh, no…?”
I took a step back and flicked the lock on the bathroom door.
“Are you into women?” I held his gaze, and he arched a brow.
“Fuck, yes.”
Sawing my teeth into my bottom lip, I glanced down. My heart
pounded as nervousness slid through me like hot treacle. I wasn’t a
virgin, but this wasn’t me. I’d never propositioned a total stranger in
a bathroom before. The last person I’d slept with was a guy from my
statistics class almost a year ago, and that had just kind of
happened.
Like most things happened to me.
But this right here was something I could control. Something I
could choose and dictate and decide. A decision I could make on my
own terms, in a world where it sometimes felt like everything was
spinning just beyond my reach.
My mother had been leaving me for as long as I could remember.
I’d hardened myself to it, but I might never truly be okay with it.
Acceptance was the only option available to me.
This would be my choice. A way to take my mind off my problems
that I could forget all about tomorrow and never have to think about
again. They said to act like a typical college student? Well, this was
about as close as I was ever going to get.
Looking up through my lashes, I blew out a breath. “Are you into
me?”
“The fuck...?” He swept a hand through his blonde hair while I
stared up at him.
Without giving myself time to consider what I was about to do, I
reached for the bottom of my shirt and tugged it over my head.
“Shit!”
Face and voice expressionless, I stood in front of him and waited.
Confusion mixed with desire in his hazel-green eyes as they
volleyed back and forth between my face and bra-covered breasts.
“Okay,” he choked, swiping a hand over his face. “I’ve got no idea
what’s going on here.”
“Just… kiss me,” I breathed, bringing his head up sharply.
Maybe girls weren’t usually this direct. Maybe I was doing this all
wrong. Who the hell knew? I just knew I was standing in a
bathroom on the verge of drowning, and I needed someone to save
me without knowing what they were doing, or why.
“What?”
“I just...” I paused, the unfamiliar experience of being so openly
vulnerable forcing my eyes shut. “Just… make me feel something.
Something else. Please.”
His head dipped as my voice cracked, two big palms moving to
close around my face.
“Look, I’m a guy. You’re standing here in your underwear asking
me to kiss you so I’m hard as fuck and it’s taking literally everything
I have not to bend you over and pound you into that wall, but... I
honestly don’t know if that’s what you really want or need.”
To my embarrassment, tears seeped from between my closed lids
and spilled over my cheeks.
“Hey. Fuck. I... uh...”
 “It’s fine.” I spun away and reached for my discarded top. “I
shouldn’t have assumed you’d want to.”
“Shit. It’s not because I don’t want to. Believe me,” he said,
coming around to take my wrist. “You’re seriously hot. Your tits—
damn. In my head, I’ve made you come three times already.”
A strangled laugh rose in my throat, falling from me as I lifted my
watery gaze to his. “You’re everything I need… for a few minutes.”
He stilled, his eyes sweeping between mine, that cut jawline
rolling with indecision. “How drunk are you?”
I shook my head. “I know what I’m doing.”
“How old?”
“Twenty. You done asking questions?”
He smirked. “Not yet. You usually ask random guys to kiss you in
the bathroom?”
“First time.”
His eyes widened. “First time?”
“First time I’ve done this,” I clarified, waving a finger between us.
“Not my first time having sex.”
His eyebrows knitted. “Why me?”
I swallowed and looked down at my feet. “Why not?”
He was silent for a long time before he asked, “What happened to
you?”
Just like that, tears pricked again. Tears I’d spent years getting
under control. I looked up at him through them, practically begging
when I murmured, “For one night, I just want to forget all about it.”
He nodded once, blinked. Nodded again. Then he stepped forward
and grabbed the sides of my face.
We met in a kiss of quiet desperation, his mouth providing the
escape I needed as his tongue swept over the seam of my lips and
plunged inside. We didn’t speak as we stumbled back into the wall,
working our pants loose until his cleared his ass cheeks and he
roughly dragged mine off.
One muscular arm banded around my waist, hiking me up off the
ground as I wound my legs around his hips. He eased back to reach
between us, holding me in place with his lower body as his gaze
locked onto mine, and his fingers hooked around the fabric of my
panties.
“This is what you want?” he asked, voice rough, eyes sweeping
between mine. I nodded, breathing raggedly as he ran his tongue
over his lips. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I breathed, sensing he needed to hear the word.
His fingers slipped beneath the fabric.
“You’re wet,” he rasped, skimming the tip of a lazy thumb through
my folds.
I dragged in a breath, nodding blindly as my core clenched.
His jaw pulsed as he removed his hand, grabbed a packet from his
pocket and put it to his mouth. He tore it open with his teeth before
handing it to me and settling both palms under my ass. I reached
down to slide it over his length, then placed my hands on his
shoulders and held my breath.
He rolled forward slowly, nudging me just once, then paused and
pulled back.
“Wait. What’s your name?”
“What?” I gasped with a frown, wriggling my lower body to get
the friction back.
“Your name? You have one, right?”
“Do I need one?” I clipped, frustration and need coiling through
me. So close. He was so goddamn close.
“Kind of thought everyone needed one.”
I huffed out a breath. “Do I need one for you to screw me?”
He tipped his head, eyes thinning a little. He stared at me a while
longer, then shrugged with a muttered “guess not,” and drove into
me in one smooth thrust.
My head fell back with a relieved cry as soon as he filled me,
meeting the brick wall with a thud I barely felt as every muscle
spiraled tight with need.
Need. I needed this. I needed to be somewhere else.
Wherever he could take me for a few minutes.
My eyes closed, and my head spun. Then he pulled back and
drove forward again, slamming my back into the wall. My lids shot
open when he pressed into me and placed his lips to my ear, his
voice a delicious rasp that curled through every cell in my body.
“My name’s Danny.” His breath heated my skin. “Just so you know
what to scream.”
My mouth parted on a gasp as his hips drew back, then forward
again, spearing me. Sensation sparked a path through my
bloodstream, building until my muscles quivered and my head spun.
I clasped on tight to his broad shoulders as he pounded me into the
wall in relentless thrusts, just like he’d promised. Then, for some
unknown reason, I heard myself blurting into his shoulder, “Nova.”
“What?” he grunted, pulling back to look at me without pausing
his motions.
“Nova,” I choked again, my eyes squeezing closed as another
wave of pleasure rocketed through me. “My name’s Nova.”
“Huh.” He caught my face with one hand, his lower body rocking
as he said, “Nova what?”
“What?” I swung my head from side to side, catching my lip
between my teeth as a wall of sensation crashed into me.
“Nova what? Scotia? Super? What are you named after?”
Opening my eyes halfway, I parted my lips in a soft cry. “Why do I
have to be named after something?”
He lifted a shoulder, then slammed forward again with a grunt.
“You don’t.” His brows pulled down, lids heavy as he chased down
his release.
When he went to open his mouth again, probably to ask more
inane questions, I swooped forward and covered it with mine,
driving my tongue between his lips. With one more brush of his hard
pelvis against the pulsing bundle of nerves between my thighs, I
blasted apart around him, crying out into his mouth, and biting down
on his lower lip as my body squeezed his. Less than a second later,
his jerking hips pinned me to the wall while he ground into the space
between my thighs.
Open-mouthed, we poured silent cries into each other as we rode
out the waves of ecstasy cresting between us, then finally stilled.
My heartbeat raged in my ears as I dropped my head into the
crook of his sweat-covered throat, still wrapped tightly around his
body while he pulsed inside me.
And that’s when it hit me what I’d just done.
That and the realization that eventually, I was going to have to
look at him. Talk to him. This perfect stranger I’d had sex with in the
bathroom at Harvey’s, after failing to drown my sorrows with tequila.
What the hell did you say to someone you’d never met before but
had let screw you up against a dirty bathroom wall?
Oh. My. God. What did you do, Nova?
“Shit. That was...” Danny started, then stopped, seemingly lost for
words.
I gulped over the burning lump of humiliation forming in my chest
and lowered my feet to the floor, averting my gaze when he slipped
out of me. Easing from his hold, I turned my back and scrambled to
collect my clothes from the floor, stepping silently into them. With a
quick finger comb of my hair, I collected it into a ponytail, then
stared at the back of the door while he discarded the condom in the
bin.
“Hey,” Danny murmured, coming up behind me. He didn’t touch
me, but I felt the heat coming off of his body, so I knew how close
he was.
I cleared my throat and backed up a few steps, turning to face
him as I reached the door and flicked the lock open.
His brow lifted, idle amusement dancing in his hazel-green eyes.
“Do I get your number?”
I caught my lip and shook my head. “No.”
A laugh snorted from him. “Fuck, I feel so used.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled the door open, meeting his gaze as I
said, “Thanks.”
He dipped his head with a wink. “Anytime, Princess.”
“There won’t be another time,” I tossed over my shoulder, then
walked out without looking back.
His low chuckle followed me from the room along with his
assured, “We’ll see about that, Super-Nova.”
I ignored him, shaking my head as I hurried over to my best
friend and practically yanked her off the bar stool.
 “What the fuck?” Gaby sputtered as she teetered on her tan ankle
boots.
“We have to leave,” I clipped, hauling her behind me toward the
exit. “Right now.”
“What?” She swiped her glossy black hair out of her eyes as she
fell into step beside me, tugging the hem of her black tube dress
down over her thighs. “Why?”
“Uh,” I hemmed, biting my lip as I edged us closer to the doors.
“Because I just had sex with a guy in the bathroom and I really
don’t want to see him again.”
“What!” she screeched, pulling me to a stop.
Sighing, I clasped her hands in mine and pleaded with my eyes.
“I’ll explain. I swear. But not here.”
Questions blared in her eyes, but she followed me when I spun
and pushed through the doors.
“Okay. Start talking. How the hell did you have time to fuck a guy
in the bathroom? You were gone, like, ten minutes.”
Head still swimming, I gnawed on my thumbnail and lowered my
lids as I questioned my sanity. Who does that?
“You give the term quickie a whole new meaning.”
I grimaced.
“Do we know him?”
I shook my head.
“Is he hot?”
Facing her, I sighed and dropped my head to one side. She
obviously wasn’t going to stop asking questions, and we were far
enough away now that I was sure he wasn’t coming after me. Not
that I thought he would, but I felt better with every step I put
between myself and the bar.
“I dunno, Gabs. He’s cute.”
“Cute?” she demanded, her dark eyes narrowing. “You fuck a
random stranger in the bathroom, he better be more than just cute,
girl.”
A long groan broke from my throat, and I started walking again,
tapping the heel of my palm against my head. “Yes, he was hot.
Okay? Tall, built, blonde, these green-y hazel eyes. But I still
shouldn’t have done it. It was a stupid knee-jerk reaction.”
“To what?” Gaby asked, taking my arm to slow my steps.
I exhaled, flicking a glance up at the handful of glittering stars
scattered across a backdrop of inky black. “Turns out my mom’s still
in town, after all. She got picked up for theft a few hours ago. Now
she’s down at Lakeview County.”
“Goddamn,” Gaby muttered, her mouth tight.
“Yeah. That’s why I…” I trailed off with a sigh, splaying my hands
out by my sides helplessly. “I just wanted to be a regular fucking
person for one night. Just pretend my problems didn’t exist for a few
minutes, but I know that’s not how I should have handled it.”
Gaby cocked her head, her gold loop earring curving into the
hollow between her neck and shoulder. “Hey, don’t do that! If
anyone needs a release, it’s you. You think you’re the first person to
hook up with some hot stranger in a bathroom? Please. That’s a
weekly occurrence for some people.”
Who? Sex workers?
My lids fell closed.
Gaby wouldn’t judge me, but she didn’t need to. I was judging
myself enough for the both of us. Except I couldn’t even summon
the energy to do that right.
It was over, done. With any luck, I’d never see the guy again, and
I’d forget it ever happened. I’d forget all about the night some
random guy named Danny took me away from my life for a few
minutes. Because come sunrise, my mom would still be in a jail cell,
she’d still be a junkie, and I’d have more important things to think
about… like the fact my life would probably always be a train wreck.
One encounter wouldn’t change anything.
Nothing ever changed.
Except I was wrong.
Sometimes things did change.
Sometimes… they got worse.
 Chapter Four
____________________________

DANNY

“SHIT,” I MUTTERED for the tenth time as I emerged from the

bathroom and nudged my way back through the bar, still trying to
figure out what in the actual fuck just happened.
“Where’ve you been? Taking the world’s longest dump?”
“What?” I glanced over at my roommate, Brian Ridley, as I
shuffled my ass back into the booth seat, my gaze sweeping over
the crowd in search of long, golden-brown hair that felt like silk
caught up between my fingers.
I gave my head a slow shake, rubbing my hand over my stubble-
coated chin.
Nova. If she’d given me her real name, that was.
“Hey, asshole!”
I jerked out of my head when a set of fingers snapped in front of
my face, meeting my second roommate, Lex Barton’s, curious look
with a smirk that might be permanently attached to my face.
“What?”
Lex cocked his head, squinting as he ran his gaze over me.
“What’s going on? What’s with the weird, smug look on your face?”
Closing my hand around the neck of the beer bottle, I lifted it to
my lips and took a long pull, then planted it back down on the table
with a grin. “Just banged some chick in the bathroom.”
“What?” Bri asked, his gray eyes narrowed.
I leaned forward. “I just fucked some hot as shit woman in the
bathroom when I went for a piss.”
Bri and Lex exchanged a quick glance, stared at me without
speaking for a few seconds, then the assholes broke out into
raucous laughter.
 “Fucking sure you did.”
I stretched back with a glare and crossed my arms over my chest.
“The fuck would I lie about that for?”
“No idea cause there’s no way we’d buy it,” Lex said, wiping away
tears from his eyes. “Did you fall asleep on the toilet and dream that
shit up?”
If I couldn’t still feel her on my dick, I might be tempted to think
the same, especially since she was nowhere to be seen. But fuck
that shit. She was as real as the two assholes sitting opposite me.
She’d just felt like a dream around my dick… coming all over me up
against the wall. Daaaamn. I reached down to adjust myself, then
raised my middle fingers to Bri and Lex.
“Fuck you both. It happened.”
“So, where is she?” Bri asked, looking around.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
He peered at me for a few more seconds, then gave his head a
slow shake. “Bullshit.”
“Whatever.” I shrugged as if I didn’t give a rat’s ass that some
chick had jumped my bones in the bathroom and not one fucking
person was there to witness it. Then I grabbed the bottle in one
hand while my eyes did another thorough scan of the room and
came up empty again.
The fuck did she go?
Girl took ghosting to a whole new level. Fucking brutal, really.
It wasn’t like I was planning to drop down on one knee and
propose, but her number might have been nice.
I paused with the bottle at my lips, a frown carving into my
forehead when it registered that I was acting like a little bitch. Some
seriously smokin’ piece of ass just bounced all over my dick and
wanted absolutely nothing from me in return. I’d literally just lived
out every guy’s fantasy and instead of reveling in it, I was gonna sit
and stew like a psycho clinger because she took off without leaving
her number? Fuck, no. The hell was wrong with me?
Yeah, I was a good-looking son of a bitch, but shit like that didn’t
happen every day, not even to me. My lips curved as I tipped my
head back and took a long swig of beer.
 Guilt free sex with zero strings attached?
Seemed almost too good to be true.

___________

I slung my bag down by my feet and slid my phone out of my

hoodie pocket. Holding it up, I snapped a selfie with my middle
finger held up in front of my face, then sent it to my best friend
since pre-K and absent third roommate, Jason Connolly. Absent
because his shitty driving skills almost got him killed a few months
ago. My phone buzzed with an incoming notification less than three
seconds later.

JASE: Missing me, Daniel?

ME: Nah. Just wondering when you’re planning on getting
your lazy ass back here. Really milking this car accident
bullshit now, dude.
JASE: Oh yeah. Fucking love being tortured in physical
therapy three days a week. Living the dream over here,
asshole.
ME: Yeah, yeah. Go cry to your girlfriend while she waits
on you hand and foot, and sucks your cock on demand, you
big pussy.
JASE: Jackass.
ME: Dickhead.

I flicked my gaze up with a smirk, ready to throw another few

insults just to remind him how awesome my company was, when my
eyes caught on a flash of shiny golden-brown hair I’d recognize with
my eyes shut at this point.
After a week of scouring, if only to prove Bri and Lex wrong, even
I’d wondered if this girl wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Without
stopping to think about it, I pocketed my phone, grabbed my bag
up, then started walking to meet her.
 About ten feet out, she swept her hair back from her face, looked
up, then stopped dead when her gaze clashed with mine. Her bright
amber eyes went wide as she froze like a deer in headlights. I
watched her catch her lip between her teeth. Could almost see her
brain spinning in her eyes before she dropped her head, turned on
her heel, and took off in the opposite direction without so much as a
wave.
Shock rendered me immobile for a solid thirty seconds as I
watched her run out on me for a second time. Then I was just plain
pissed. Yeah, I’d lived the dream. Fucking blah blah blah. But my
ego wasn’t on board with the fact we’d fucked, and not only had she
not wanted a repeat performance, this girl didn’t seem to want to
set eyes on my fucking face ever again.
What was I missing here?
If it felt that good against a bathroom wall for five minutes, it had
the potential to be epic with an hour and a bed. This chick should be
begging for more, not hauling ass in the opposite direction. What
the hell was wrong with her? And what was the deal with the snub?
What did she think? I was gonna chase her ass down and beg for
another go round or something? Yeah, it was good, but I didn’t have
to hound women for sex.
Irritation clouded the already limited rational side of my brain, and
I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch.
Fuck it.
Damned if I was just gonna stand back and let her keep running
out on me like I was the biggest mistake she ever made in her life.
Not a chance, sweetheart.
I was the asshole who did the running around here. It was me
who banged and bailed.
So, I was just gonna catch up to her cute ass and let her watch
my goddamn back disappear in a crowd for once.
The irony of the situation didn’t escape my notice as I lugged my
backpack tighter over my shoulder and chased down the first girl
who’d ever used me purely for sex and didn’t seem to want another
thing to do with me.
 Something that, incidentally, seemed to make her the perfect
fucking girl.
 Chapter Five
___________________________

NOVA

SHIT!
My feet couldn’t move me fast enough across the quad as I did
everything except break out into an all-out sprint to get away from
my ten-minute bathroom hookup. Dots of perspiration actually
beaded across my forehead, and the sound of my elevated heart
rate echoed in my head.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that we might cross paths again.
But of course, he’d go here, and of course, I’d have to damn near
walk right into him when I was least expecting it. Because that was
just my shitty kind of luck.
“Oh my god,” I muttered under my breath when I snuck a glance
back over my shoulder and saw him following me, his determined
stride dwarfing my smaller steps. He was gaining ground fast, and I
wanted to talk to him about as much as I wanted a case of the
bubonic goddamn plague.
My heart pounded in my throat as I glanced around in search of
an escape and came up empty. “Shit, damn… shit!”
I barely had time to bemoan the lack of any obvious way out of
this awkward ass situation before thick fingers closed around my
bicep and tugged me around to meet a set of irritable hazel-green
eyes.
Wow. I inhaled a sharp breath as I met his gaze. I’d kind of
forgotten how mesmerizing his eyes were. Predominantly green but
flecked with streaks of gold and bronze like thin metallic
brushstrokes sweeping from his pupils out through his irises. Pretty.
Okay, what?
 Swallowing, I gave my head a small shake and pushed the
thought away. “Oh... hey.”
Danny cocked a brow. “Didn’t see me back there, huh?”
“Yeah. Uh, something like that.” I ran my lips together, dropping
my gaze to where his hand encircled my arm. “I… forgot something
I had to go back for.”
His lips thinned. “You’re the worst fucking liar I’ve ever met.”
Frowning, I huffed out a breath and tugged out from his hold,
slamming my defiant gaze into his dubious one. Because seriously,
what did this guy want from me? Like I wasn’t humiliated enough
already? I lifted my shoulder in a shrug.
“Look. This is really awkward for me. Surely you understand why
I’d want to avoid it?”
Danny’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, like he couldn’t
comprehend why I might not want to stand and chat with the guy
I’d screwed in a bathroom last week without so much as asking for
his name.
“Seriously?” I asked, wide-eyed, when he didn’t respond.
“Don’t get what the big deal is.” Danny shrugged, his gaze roving
over my rapidly heating cheeks. “We fucked. What’s so awkward
about that?”
“We fucked in a bathroom three minutes after we met,” I
reminded him in a hissed whisper, my eyes darting around to check
for passers-by who might overhear. “That’s not... I don’t…” I shook
my head as I trailed off, unsure how to explain what had happened
that night. “That’s not me. Normally, at least. I don’t know what
came over me, and I’m sorry if you think differently, but it’s not
something I want to remember. And you are kind of a walking
reminder of the stupidest decision I ever made.”
Danny blinked as he crossed his muscled forearms over his broad
chest, and my mouth went dry. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a chore to
look at him. If I didn’t factor in the whole mortification, please
ground, open up and swallow my hoe-ass whole thing that
happened in his presence.
“Don’t sugar coat it or anything,” he muttered.
 With a sigh, I tossed out a hand. “Oh, please. You’re not really
offended—”
His cheek jumped. “It fucking feels like I am.”
“Really?” I straightened and folded my own arms over my chest.
“Why?”
Danny’s thick eyebrows pinched together as he stared at me.
“Because it’s… because I... because...” He frowned, then glowered
down at me. “I just fucking am.”
“Oh, my god.” I gave a broken laugh. “You’ve never been on the
receiving end of rejection before, have you?”
He poked a finger at me. “Hey. You came on to me.”
“I know,” I said with a solemn nod. “I was in a bad place that
night.”
Danny lifted both brows, the undisguised look of affront on his
handsome face more than just a tiny bit amusing. “Keep kicking a
guy when he’s down, why don’t you? Want me to get you a shovel?
That way you can just beat me around the fucking head with it.”
My lips pulled into an apologetic grimace, and I reached out to
place a light hand on his cotton-covered forearm. “Sorry. I just didn’t
want to give you the wrong impression.”
“Pfft. No chance of that,” he muttered, then drew up with a sigh
and planted his hands on his hips. “Look, I’ll do you a deal. You let
me record you saying you begged me to bang you in the bathroom
so I can prove to my boys it happened, and I promise you’ll never
have to see my face again.”
I dropped my hand to my side and hit him with a solid glare.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Aw, come on, Super-Nova!” he called after me when I swiveled
and stormed away.
“Stop calling me that!” I clipped out over my shoulder.
He bounced on his feet before jogging to catch up with me. “Tell
me your real name, then.”
“What?” I paused and faced him with a scowl. “That is my real
name.”
His mouth curled down. “For real?”
“Yes, for real,” I bit out. “What the hell’s wrong with my name?”
 He hiked a beefy shoulder. “Just sounds a little... unfinished.”
“Unfinished?” I muttered, before breaking into motion again.
“Yeah. Well, my mom was probably high when she named me.”
“That sucks.”
“Yep.”
“You gonna do that recording for me, Nova?”
I shook my head and mumbled a string of curses under my
breath. “Can’t believe you blabbed to all of your friends.”
“Pfft. A gorgeous chick throws herself on my dick out of nowhere.
Of course, I’m going to tell every fucker I know. But they all think I
made that shit up. Which is where you come in.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Will you do it?”
“No.”
“You owe me.”
“I owe you?” I slanted him a sideways glance. “How the hell do
you figure that?”
“For one,” he said, ticking off one finger. “I gave you the ride of
your life that night. And two, you really hurt my fucking feelings just
now.”
I stopped walking to tilt my head. “Hurt your feelings… or bruised
your ego?”
His full lips bent into a smirk as he admitted, “Both.”
Snorting, I gave my head a shake and pivoted away. “I’m sure
you’ll survive.”
“Do I at least get your number this time?” Danny called out
behind me.
“No, and quit pretending you want it.” I spun to look at him as I
walked backward a few steps. “We both know you wouldn’t even use
it. You only want it because I won’t give it to you.”
He dropped a palm atop his messy blonde head and grinned at
me. “You’re a goddamn head fuck, you know that?”
“Well, lucky for you, you never have to see me again.”
I caught his muttered, “Yeah, lucky fucking me,” before I turned
and walked away from him for the last time.
Or at least, what I hoped was the last time.
 ___________

Luck?
That bitch was every bit as cruel as hope, and apparently, they
both hated me.
“What?” I asked as I blinked up at Maura two weeks later, my
gaze locked on the empty tampon box in her hand.
“I said, I just used the last of the tampons.” She gave the box a
shake. “I’m going to the store to replace them since I’m assuming
you’ll be needing them soon. You must be a few days late, huh?
We’re usually synced up. Are you stressed with school?”
I pushed myself up into a sitting position with a frown, the pen in
my hand slipping unnoticed to the bed.
“Didn’t even realize,” I mumbled, my gaze straying to the wall
calendar above the small work desk tucked between the closet and
the door. I hadn’t even flipped the stupid thing over since July. Fat
lot of good that was. I cleared my throat and turned back to Maura.
“Uh, what’s the date today?”
With a slightly quizzical look at me, she dug her hand into the
pocket of her black skinny jeans and retrieved her phone, tapping
the screen with her thumb. “Fourteenth. Everything okay?”
I held her concerned gaze for a few seconds, before blowing out a
quick breath and flashing her a brief smile. “Yeah, fine. Everything’s
fine.”
Shifting to my feet, I avoided her gaze as I moved to the desk and
grabbed my jacket. I shrugged the faux-suede material over my
shoulders and stuffed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans.
“You’re heading out?” she asked, following my movements with
light-blue eyes.
“Yeah.” I nodded, tugging the ends of my tangled hair over the
collar of my jacket. “Forgot to check a book out from the library that
I need for this assignment.” I inclined my head to the papers spread
out over my comforter before grabbing them up and shoving them in
the open backpack laying by the side of the bed. “Might as well just
stay and finish this there. I’ll grab a sandwich while I’m out, so don’t
worry about dinner.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Okay.” Maura held up that goddamn box again
and said, “Would you mind picking up some of these then?”
I looked at the box without breathing for a few seconds, then let
out a rushed breath and nodded. “Sure.”
Without alerting Maura to the anxiety slithering through me, I
threw the backpack over my shoulder and exited the room, only
stopping when I’d slammed the front door closed behind me. Panic
rendered me boneless for a second, and I fell back into the wall at
the side of the building.
With trembling fingers, I pulled my phone from my pocket and
tapped the screen to life. One look at my calendar had my breaths
coming faster, my lungs struggling to keep up with the escalating
pace.
I was more than a few days late.
I was a whole week late.
Also known as the latest I’d been my entire menstruating life. The
only other time I’d been more than a couple of days late was two
years ago, when my mom overdosed and nearly died. That was
probably stress. This was… I must be stressed. Had to be. Was I?
My brow puckered as I tried to take stock of what the hell I was
even feeling.
Barely two weeks into my junior year at Lakeview, my workload
was manageable. I’d reduced my hours at the diner to weekends
and two weeknights after working full time over the summer. My
mother had stuck around for a few hours after we’d picked her up
from the police station, then with broken apologies and a plea for a
few bucks to tide her over until she got to where she was going—
wherever the hell that was—she’d left with a goodbye for a change.
She’d even sent a text from an unfamiliar number last week saying
she was okay. Wasn’t sure okay meant the same thing to her as it
did to me and Maura, but at least it meant we weren’t constantly
wondering whether she was alive.
Honestly, I felt less stressed today than I had in a while.
Or at least, I had… until about five minutes ago.
 Maybe the absence of stress was throwing me out. God knew it
wasn’t exactly the norm.
But what if…
Stop, Nova. Quit freaking out for no reason. One week is nothing.
One week is fine. Plus, we used a condom. But did I put it on right?
Shit, did I? What if I didn’t? Why the hell had he given it to me,
anyway? What was he thinking?
Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact you jumped his bones in a
bathroom before exchanging names might have given the guy the
impression you knew your way around a rubber.
Shit. This was bad.
Okay, calm down, Crazy.
Right.
I clamped my teeth together and started walking, tugging the
keys to the geriatric car Maura had given me when she upgraded a
couple of years ago out of my jacket pocket. Not that I wasn’t
completely grateful, but a new car was right up there on the wish
list. For now, though, I hopped inside and sent a quick prayer to the
ignition gods as I slotted the key in. A plea that was answered with
a deep rumble when the engine turned over, and I breathed a sigh
of relief. The will it-won’t it start today game was always fun to play.
I won about fifty percent of the time. Luckily, the bus stop was close
by if I needed an alternative. But today, I desperately needed luck
on my side.
Twenty minutes later, I glanced down and groaned when my cell
rang in my hand.
Sometimes, I could swear Gaby had a built-in radar that sent out
an alarm whenever I was trying to keep something to myself.
“Hey, Gabs,” I answered breezily, discreetly tucking the thin
rectangular box under four boxes of tampons I was determined to
need over the next few months.
“What’s up, babe?”
“Up?” I shrugged, my gaze darting around the small pharmacy,
lingering on a box of condoms. I reached out and grabbed those,
too. I would goddamn will my period into existence even if it left me
flat out broke this month. My bank balance would tell me I couldn’t
afford condoms I had limited plans to use. But if buying them
somehow convinced the gods of responsibility that I intended to
make better choices from here on out, and persuaded them to not
screw me over, it was worth a shot.
“Nothing’s up.” I kept my tone even. “Why would something be
up?”
“Maura called me,” Gaby said, and I cursed my surrogate aunt
under my breath. “Said you freaked out about tampons and took
off.”
Shit.
I should have known Maura would have noticed something was
off. The woman missed nothing.
“Spill,” Gaby demanded, and I shut my eyes briefly before pressing
a hand over one side of my face.
“It’s nothing. Maura mentioned tampons, and I realized my
period’s a little late.”
“How late are we talking?”
Lowering my voice to a whisper, I cast another furtive glance
around the absurdly quiet store and pressed the phone closer to my
mouth. “Just over a week.”
“Hm.” Gaby went quiet. “Bathroom guy?”
God, I was never gonna live that down. “Yes, obviously, if it’s even
a problem. But a week means nothing. Right?”
“I’m sure you’re right, but it couldn’t hurt to take a test and rule it
out.”
Exhaling, I nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Good. You want company?”
“I…” I trailed off. My first instinct was always, always, to deal with
my problems alone. Even living with Maura since I was ten, and
after everything my mother had put us both through over the years,
asking for help, relying on people… it didn’t come naturally.
“Never mind. That wasn’t a question. Where are you?”
A weight eased from my shoulders as Gaby took the decision out
of my hands. I loved the shit out of my best friend, mostly because
she knew when to ask, and when to just thrust herself into my
business.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
But Luke still persisted in saying that his work was his life and that it was the
most interesting of all subjects to him. Happily there was a friend of his staying
at Rydal with whom he went long excursions, leaving Rachel to the luxury of
beauty and her happy thoughts. These excursions she felt were the only
things that interested Luke or turned his thoughts away from his parish, with
the exception of the many books he had brought with him making their
luggage over weight. Rachel had sighed as she had caught sight of him trying
to force them into his suitcase; but she knew he would not be happy without
them.

The anniversary of their wedding took place while at the Lakes. Rachel
wondered if the day meant anything special to her husband, and waited some
time before she reminded him of it. They were walking on their way to
Grassmere when she said:

"Luke do you remember what day this is?"

"To-day? No, what?"

"You mean to say you don't remember?" said Rachel incredulously.

Luke looked concerned.

"I have not forgotten anything important in the parish I hope."

"Important! Yes, indeed it is important; but nothing to do with the parish. In fact
you have forgotten the most important day of our life, anyhow, I count it so.
Don't you remember the fifteenth of August last year?"

"I'm afraid I don't. What happened? The School treat?"

"Something much more important than that. It was our wedding day."

Luke laughed.

"Our wedding day! Why I feel as if I had always had you. Is it really only a year
ago? I was afraid at first that I had forgotten some important engagement."

"So you have. It is the most important. It was my first waking thought."

"What creatures you women are, always making so much of anniversaries."

Rachel laughed.
"I am afraid after all you are a thoroughly prosaic man. I thought you were full
of romance and beautiful things when I married you. You must not grow
prosaic or we shall be just like all the other dull couples that we so often
meet."

"How can I think of anniversaries when I have 6,000 souls under my charge."

"You can think of them very well, that is to say if marriage is the sacred thing I
always thought it was. Don't you remember the words in Aurora Leigh?"

"'Beloved, let us work so well

Our work shall be the better for our love,
And still our love be sweeter for our work.'"

"Don't give up loving, Luke."

"Give up loving!" said Luke amazed. "Why, you are all the world to me."

"Then tell me so sometimes," said Rachel. "Wives need to be told. If not they,
the husband and wife I mean, drift into such commonplace, humdrum,
phlegmatic married couples."

Luke laughed. He had not noticed the slight tremor in her voice.

"By-the-bye," he said, "I hope I shall get a letter from West to-morrow about
the estimate of the new gas stove to be put in the chancel."

Rachel, who had been watching the changing shadows on the mountains,
now turned and looked at him. Was he really thinking about gas stoves! Then
she laughed, and he vaguely wondered what she found to amuse her in gas
stoves.

They were silent till they arrived at the end of the Lake.

Then Rachel said, "Just look at those lovely pink clouds and their reflection.
Isn't it perfectly heavenly?"

On getting no answer she looked again at Luke; but the expression of his face
convinced her that the beauty was quite lost upon him; his horizon was still
filled with gas stoves.
Rachel loved the quiet times she had when Luke and his friend went for
excursions. She would sit in the little garden belonging to the house in which
were their rooms, and try with her paint brush to produce the wonderful effects
of cloud and sunshine on the hills opposite to her. She had not touched her
paint brush since her marriage, and she revelled in sketching. While she
sketched, her thoughts were busy with the past and future. She looked back in
her year of married life and was conscious of the change it had wrought in her.
She found it almost difficult to believe that she was the same girl who had
lived such a happy uneventful life in her country home. In those days her time
had been taken up with riding, driving, gardening and tennis. She had had few
thoughts for anything outside her home. She had very little knowledge of the
world and its sorrows; and scarcely any suspicion of its sins and wickedness.
It seemed now to her as if she had been living in a happy dream.

But what she had learned from the little parish work that she had done, and
from the pained expression again and again on her husband's face, was
enough to make her realise something of the strain and stress of life and of its
misery and sin. She would gladly have been without the knowledge that she
had gathered since her marriage, had it not been, that she was able to realise
more what it all meant to Luke, and to sympathise with him. Life seemed a
different thing to her to what it had been at home, and it made her long to be
able to stretch out a helping hand to those who were tasting its bitterness. But
she was willing now to wait till the way was made plain for her to do all that
she longed to do; and till she was more ready for the work.

For she realised now how unfit she had been for the work in her early days of
married life. She had known very little of God, or of the help that came from
above. She had learnt so much from Luke of which she was ignorant before,
of the things which matter. Although he was by no means perfect in her eyes,
and thought too little, she felt, of the things which she ranked of importance,
yet, she knew he was very far above her in spiritual matters. She felt ashamed
of her poor prayers, when she knew he spent hours in his study in communion
with his God. His love of his people was more than she could understand; his
passion for souls and God's work absorbed him almost to the elimination of
everything else. He was more in earnest than any clergyman she had ever
met, and even when on a holiday, he never forgot that he was God's
ambassador and was on the look out to help travellers to the Radiant City. His
faults and weaknesses arose, after all, she said to herself, from mere
forgetfulness and absentness of mind. It was not that he was neglectful of her
or of the little things of life which to her made just all the difference, but he
simply did not see them or what was needed. But oh! He was good—good all
through! And she could not imagine any mean or small ignoble thought
entering his mind. Though she had been disappointed when she found the
anniversary of his wedding day counted as nothing to him, she knew all the
time that next to his God, he loved his wife. It was just because of his love for
her that he thought it so absolutely unnecessary to remind her of it.

How much she owed to Luke she was beginning to realise more than ever.
The very fact of him being so terribly distressed at the meeting of his men the
other night, convinced her, if nothing else had done so, of his love and
adoration for his God and Saviour. That those for whom Christ had suffered
and died had begun to doubt His Word and His Divinity pained him beyond
expression. Luke might forget things which wore of lesser importance, but he
never forgot his God. Gwen might imagine that he was slow to think of the
little duties which would have been appreciated by his wife if they had been
fulfilled, but Rachel knew that it was not laziness, or selfishness that caused
them to be neglected, but simply that his mind was full of greater things and
spiritual needs.

It was in human nature to wish that he did not live quite so much up in the
clouds, as she expressed it, and being of a truthful nature Rachel did not hide
the fact from herself, that to have recognised these duties, and to have done
them, would have made her husband a finer man; but she had come to the
conclusion that he was one who found it difficult to think of more than one
thing at a time, and it was far more important for him to be occupied with
spiritual matters than with temporal.

Indeed she would not have had it otherwise.

Watching the changing shadows on the hills caused by clouds and the sudden
bursts of sunshine, it seemed to her that the view before her was a picture of
her life. Shadow and sunshine, and perhaps she would not have realised the
glory of the latter had it not been for the shadows that sometimes eclipsed it.
And after all, she thought to herself, the sunshine, representing love and
happiness, far outweighed the disappointments of life. She had everything to
make her happy; and a future, the hope of which flooded her soul with joy
whenever she thought of it. And January was not very far off! The
homesickness and the loneliness of which she had often been conscious
would be over then.

Both Luke and his wife were the better for their holiday, and returned home
with fresh vigour for their duties. And though Mrs. Greville shook her head
over the extravagance of going so far away, she could not but agree with
Rachel that her son looked another man.
It was a good thing for Luke that he had been refreshed and had returned
hungry for work; for he found himself in the midst of a fierce battle with the evil
one. Unbelief was spreading, and his congregation gradually diminishing. One
or two of his best workers were leaving the town, and two of the four men who
had left the Church Council on the night of the discussion on the amusement
question, had attached themselves, while he had been away, to a
neighbouring church, where they considered the young people were better
looked after. But Luke's faith had been renewed, and he determined not to
give way to depression or discouragement, knowing that that was the
atmosphere in which the devil did some of his worst work.

So the summer wore away, giving place to autumn and winter, and on January
the first, his little son was born, and they called him Patrick, after his maternal
grandfather.

CHAPTER XIX.
GWEN WRITES TO THE BISHOP.

"I don't know what is to be done about Rachel," said Gwen, as she stood
looking at her sister Sybil weeding in the garden.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that she won't live long at the rate that she is working."

"Don't be silly, Gwen."

"I am not silly; I am only thinking of what Rachel is doing in that horrible
Trowsby. No girl could do all that she is doing and not pay for it. There is Luke
in the first place who seems to require no end of her attention; then there's the
baby and the house; and now she is doing Mrs. Greville's work."

"Of course it's unfortunate about Mrs. Greville being ill; but there is no reason
why she should not get better. And after all Rachel likes parish work."

"But when she had the time for it they gave her none to do; and now that there
is that troublesome baby who is always needing her, she is called away from
him to do her mother-in-law's work. But you don't care Sybil, I get no
sympathy from you."

"I care very much, but I'm not going to worry over what can't be helped. And
after all it's nobody's fault but Rachel's. She chose to marry Luke and must
abide the consequences."

"I can't imagine what made her do it, when she could have had Archie. He is
worth a dozen Lukes."

"I don't agree with you. Luke is worth more than Archie."

"Archie of course has his weak points, but for all that he is a dear. But if he did
not suit her there was Sir Arthur, who was head over ears in love with her, and
asked her twice to marry him."

"Yes, he was a nice man, and yet she chose Luke. I thought it silly of her at
the time, but I am not sure that I have not changed my mind."

"But why?"

"Because he is such a thoroughly good man. Of course Rachel recognised

this about him. She could trust him; and after all that is what a woman wants
to be sure about before she marries."

"Oh, he is trustworthy I grant; but I don't like him. Rachel ought to have
someone quite out of the common."

"He may be a better parish priest than a husband; but it is not from want of
devotion to his wife; it is from a certain denseness—I don't know what to call
it. You don't understand him Gwen."

"I certainly don't."

"I am not sure however that he ought to have married. He is so wrapped up in
his parish. Or he ought perhaps to have married someone different to Rachel
—a real parish worker. I sometimes wonder if his parish does not stand for
more in his estimation than his wife. But for all that he is good."

"I don't call him good."

"Well you don't understand him, that's all. He would do anything in the world
for anyone who wants his help."

"Except for his wife."

"That is what I say; he is rather dense, and probably doesn't suppose she
needs his help. I remember when I was at Trowsby, he sat up all night with
one of the men of his Bible Class who was dying. No nurse could be got."

"Well of course that was nice of him," said Gwen grudgingly, "but I doubt if he
would think of sitting up for an hour with his own refractory baby to give
Rachel a night's rest."

"I own he is a little blind about those comparatively small matters, but for all
that he is a good man and Rachel knew it, and that was why she loved him
enough to marry him."

"He is so blind that he is killing her with his neglect," said Gwen warmly.
"Mother must not be told, but I shall write to the Bishop."

"Don't be silly Gwen."

"I love her much more than you do. You are evidently satisfied to leave
matters alone without trying to remedy them; and as both father and Uncle
Joe are dead there is no-one whose opinion I should care to take except the
Bishop's."

Sybil rose from her kneeling posture and rubbed the earth off her gloves.

"I wish you would be more sensible," she said, "and see things in their right
proportion. As for me I tell you that I envy Rachel."

"Envy her!"

"Yes, because she follows out our Lord's command so wonderfully. She
denies herself daily, takes up her cross, and follows Him."
"Yes," said Gwen slowly. "She is the one person I know who makes me feel
ashamed of myself."

"And it seems to me," said Sybil, making her way towards the house, "that
instead of commiserating her on her hardships, and pointing out to her, as you
do, her husband's imperfections, we ought to encourage her. She has to live
the life, why should we make it more difficult for her. Why try and rob her of
the 'Well done' that she will hear by-and-bye."

"That may be all true; but it does not mean that we are to stand still and see
her die. I shall certainly write to the Bishop."

The Bishop smiled as he read the letter that lay on his hall table next morning.
He knew Gwen, and had no doubt whatever that in her love for her sister she
had exaggerated matters. He sent her a kind answer reminding her that no life
was perfect. There was almost always some drawback or other.

"All our joy is touched with pain;

So that earth's bliss may be our guide,
And not our chain."

He owned that the trials that Rachel had apparently to meet, if Gwen had
reported their correctly, might not be very good for her bodily health, but they
were the means of strengthening her soul, of helping her to grow in grace,
evidence of which was not wanting. That after all it was worth enduring
hardness, if it resulted in becoming a better soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He ended his letter by expressing the wish that his little friend Gwen knew
what it was to take up her cross and to follow Christ.

But the Bishop did not put the thought of Rachel and her husband away from
him. He determined to run over to Trowsby before long to see if Gwen's report
had the element of truth in it.

The first few months after the baby's birth had been supremely happy for
Rachel. Little Pat had supplied all that she had been conscious of lacking in
her life. Notwithstanding the fact of their increasing poverty, she was able to
fight successfully the anxiety which would have depressed her in earlier days.
She was so engrossed with the thought of her child that other cares were put
into the background. That the balance at the bank grew steadily less she
knew; but it was no use allowing this fact to weigh down her spirits, and when
she now and then had to face it, a glance at the lovely little flushed face lying
on the pillow in the cradle, filled her heart with such rapture that anxiety fled,
leaving her with a smile of happiness on her face.

She was astonished that even his baby son had not the power of engrossing
his father's attention for more than a minute. He would take a look at the child,
lay his finger on his cheek, and smiling at the little laugh that issued from his
lips would turn away and run up to his study. Even the baby fingers had no
power to keep him! How he could resist them Rachel could not imagine. "It is
perfectly shameful the little notice you take of your son," she said one day
laughingly. "It's a happy thing that he has a mother to look after him, poor little
man."

"I thought mothers always looked after them in the crying stage," he
answered. "Just wait and see how I shall fulfil my duties when he is older."

"I doubt it. Did you see the account of the baby sea lion that was born in the
Zoo the other day? The mother undertook its education, teaching it to swim.
The father avoided all responsibility. There are hosts of fathers like that."

"Wait and see," answered Luke. And then the door bell was rung sharply and
Rachel little thought that a new chapter in her life's story was about to begin.

Luke had come in late after a heavy day's work in the parish, and the
conversation just related had taken place at the supper table. He, rose to
open the front door, and Rachel stood listening to a man's voice that she did
not recognize. What she heard made her run into the hall and clasp her hands
round her husband's arm, as if to shield him from the blow she knew the news
would be to him.

"When did it happen?" he was asking in a quiet tone of voice. His very
quietness made Rachel aware of what he was feeling. Under any strain he
was unnaturally still.

"She was took about half an hour ago, Sir," said the man. "And the doctor, he
say it would be as well for you to come round as soon as possible, and Mrs.
Luke too. It's difficult to get a nurse just at once. But he say, that it ain't a really
bad stroke. She can talk a bit, but is quite helpless on one side."

"We'll come at once," said Luke, reaching for his hat which hung on the peg.
"You'll follow directly, won't you?" he added.

Rachel's thoughts flew at once to the baby who was sleeping peacefully
upstairs, but who might wake any moment. She had never left him for more
than a few minutes before. How could she leave him for an indefinite time in
Polly's care! Polly was as good as gold, but had had no experience with
babies. She was devoted to Pat, but her very devotion was likely to take an
unwise form. She would probably give him anything he cried for, whether it
were advisable or no. Rachel's heart sank at the prospect of leaving her little
baby in her care.

"Is it quite necessary that we should both go?" she asked faintly.

Luke, forgetful of his little son, looked at her in surprise, and there was a tone
of reproach in his voice as he said:

"Surely we must not fail my mother at this time. I am quite sure that she would
feel it very unkind if you did not go to her."

"I will follow you," said Rachel.

She ran upstairs and looked at her boy. He was fast asleep in his crib. She
always loved to look at him asleep; her whole heart went out him now as she
leant down over him, giving him into God's keeping. She would have to trust
him to the One Who loved him better than she did, but it was difficult not to be
over anxious.

"Polly," she said, as after putting on her coat and hat, she went into the
kitchen to give parting directions; "if I don't get back in time to give baby his
bottle, be sure that you don't make it too hot, and that he doesn't take it too
quickly. And if he cries, mind you don't give him anything but pat him gently
and sing to him; then perhaps he won't notice that I am not with him."

"I'll be ever so careful of him, Ma'am," said Polly. "He shan't come to no harm
I'll promise you."

And Rachel left the house determined not to give way to her fears.

She found Luke kneeling by the side of his mother's bed smoothing her hand
and talking in a soft comforting tone of voice. His mother was lying with closed
eyes, occasionally murmuring a few words.

"I'm going to try and find a nurse," he said in a low voice, "now that you have
come. The doctor has given me several addresses. They have no-one at
liberty at the Nurses' Home. I shan't be long."
Left alone Rachel took his place by the bedside, and for many minutes she
knelt in silence. Then Mrs. Greville opened her eyes. When she saw who was
with her an added look of anxiety crossed her face.

"Baby?" she murmured.

Rachel smiled reassuringly at her.

"I've left him with Polly," she said. "Don't be anxious about him. Polly is very
fond of him and will take good care of him."

Mrs. Greville closed her eyes again. But though Rachel had spoken so
reassuringly to her mother-in-law, she had hard work not to let her mind dwell
on the occupant of the crib in the nursery at home.

She was touched at Mrs. Greville's anxiety for her boy, and that even in this
first hour of her illness she was thinking of him rather than of herself. That she
loved her grandson had been evident to Rachel from the very first. She was in
fact wrapped up in the child; and was in consequence creeping into a warm
place in her daughter-in-law's heart, the daughter-in-law who had never yet
been able to frame her lips to call her "mother." Mrs. Greville had noticed the
omission but had said nothing about it either to Luke or to his wife. It hurt her
too much to mention it. But as Rachel knelt by her bedside holding her hand
Mrs. Greville recognised the fact that the girl, who she had at times rather
despised, had a strength in her, after all, that, made her glad to have her at
this sad time, and when Luke returned with a nurse, he found her peacefully
sleeping.

Rachel was thankful to be able to slip out of the house, and ran all the way
home. After all, her fears had been unnecessary. Pat had had his bottle and
was asleep again with Polly sitting by his side.
 CHAPTER XX.

NO LADY HEAD OF THE PARISH.

And now began a very strenuous life for Rachel.

Mrs. Greville had been as good as a curate to Luke; and she was now laid
aside unable to do any work at all. She lay thinking and worrying over the fact
that she was no longer any good to her son. The worry did not help her to
recover from her illness. In fact the doctor told Rachel that so long as her
husband's mother allowed herself to be consumed with anxiety she could not
hope to get strong. Was there no-one, he asked, who could help in the
matter? Surely there were some ladies in the parish who could divide the work
between them?

Rachel knew that no more workers were to be had. In fact several had given
up their districts. They so entirely disagreed with the Vicar in his determination
not to allow the parish hall to be used for whist drives and dancing, that they
felt out of sympathy with him, and had left the Church.

Those who remained were already too full of work to undertake anything
further.

Luke came home from seeing his mother one day, in the depths of despair.

"She is worrying herself to death," he said, "over the Mother's Meeting and the
Sunday School." Then he looked across at his wife, who was playing "Dickory,
dickory dock!" with the baby. Her face had been full of love and happiness, but
at his words the smile faded. She knew what was coming.

"I suppose," he said, then he hesitated.

"Well?" asked Rachel.

"I suppose you couldn't manage to take my mother's place?"

"To superintend the Sunday School and the Mother's Meeting?"

"Yes. It would lift such a burden off her heart. You see she is one of those
people who worry unnecessarily, and I can't tell you what a relief it would be to
me to be able to tell her that her place has been supplied."
"I don't quite see how I can, with baby," said Rachel.

"But there is Polly. She likes looking after him."

"Dickory, dickory, dock," sang Rachel again, "the mouse ran up the clock." But
while playing she was not only thinking of the anxiety which would be hers if
she had to leave baby constantly under Polly's care; but she was wondering if
her own health would stand it. She must keep well for Luke's sake as well as
for baby's, and lately she had felt sometimes at the end of her tether. She had
already undertaken a district of her own and various other duties, and what
with the cooking and the house, not to mention all the work that little Pat
entailed, she had felt that if she did not soon have a rest she would break
down altogether. Yet here was Luke, looking at her with his anxious pleading
eyes; and she had never failed him yet, how could she fail him now?

"Dickory, dickory, dock," sang Rachel as she ran her fingers up Pat's little arm:

"The mouse ran up the clock,

The clock struck one,
Down the mouse ran,
Dickory, dickory, dock."

Baby crowed with merriment, and Rachel looked up gravely at her husband.

"I'll see what I can do," she said quietly.

Luke's face beamed.

"Thank you dearest," he said. "I'll go round at once and relieve mother's
mind."

Rachel sighed as she heard the front door close after him.

She looked down gravely at the child in her arms.

"I wonder if I have done right," she thought. "Anyhow my little baby I won't
neglect you for any number of Mothers' Meetings or Sunday Schools. You and
Daddie must come first."

Then she sang again—

"The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
Down the mouse ran,
Dickory, dickory, dock."

"Ah! Me! The life of a clergyman's wife is difficult," she sighed.

And besides all the work and care, poverty stared her in the face. She could
not help fancying that Luke's great coat was turning green; and that he was
growing thin, notwithstanding all her efforts to provide him with nourishing
food. That he was unconscious of it himself she felt sure.

He was quite unconscious also of the necessity of not giving away money
unnecessarily. Generous by nature, people had soon found it out, and he
could not resist giving when asked. Now that his mother was no longer able to
give him advice in the matter, and to restrain the impulse which was so strong
in him, and which was a beautiful trait in his character so long as he did not
allow it to interfere with his duties as a husband and father, he had been freer
than usual with his money. He had no idea that such was their poverty that
Rachel who now had taken upon herself to keep the accounts, and to pay the
bills, went without nourishing food, in order that there might be enough for him
and his little son.

He never noticed that when he had meat for his dinner Rachel ate bread and
cheese, and that the various dishes that she invented to help to give him a
good appetite she did not share with him. Now and then she laughed to
herself to see how extraordinarily oblivious he was as to what was going on
around him. She was thankful that he never noticed that she looked tired, and
was growing thin. It would only have added to his anxiety. But she hoped she
would not break down, for his sake and the baby's.

And now this fresh work had come upon her. It was not even as if she had
been trained up to it. If only they had let her begin when she was stronger, it
would have been easier.

A few days after she had given the promise to Luke, Mrs. Stone called. Rachel
had rather begun to dread her calls, for though she was always loyal to Luke,
and had more than once proved herself to be a good friend, if there was any
complaint to be made by the parishioners, Mrs. Stone was always the one to
be asked to make it known to the Vicar and his wife. People knew that she
was on intimate terms with them, and felt that she was the best person to
plead their cause. By now Rachel had become conscious of this, and as Mrs.
Stone sat down and began to enquire about Mrs. Greville and to ask after the
baby, Luke's wife felt confident from the rather uneasy expression of her face,
that the real cause of her call was yet to be made known.

It was not long before she learnt what it was. "I want to know," said Mrs. Stone
as she rose to go, "if it would be possible for you to come more regularly to
the working party?"

"I am almost afraid I really can't manage that," said Rachel. "I have about as
much as I can do."

"Well you won't mind me having asked you, I know," said Mrs. Stone. "I
thought it was only kind to let you know that people are complaining a little."

"Complaining of what?" said Rachel rather sharply.

"I don't like to hurt you. But they say that now Mrs. Greville is laid aside there
seems no lady head of the parish. I think that it would do a lot of good if you
could just manage that monthly engagement. Even if you only came for an
hour."

"I wonder how many of those people realise what it is to have an incompetent
servant and a baby to look after," said Rachel. She felt indignant. "I was not
engaged to act the part of a curate. When I married I promised to love,
cherish, and obey my husband. I didn't promise to do all the parish work that
other women ought to be doing."

Mrs. Stone had never seen Rachel anything but calm and bright: and was
much distressed at the result of her advice.

"My dear, I am so sorry to have pained you," she said. "Of course we ought
not to expect the impossible from you."

Rachel, overwrought and very remorseful, burst into tears.

"I ought not to have said that. I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "Only just now I feel
as if I couldn't do a thing more. Please forget it. The fact is," she added, "I
have to say a dozen times a day, 'Lord I am oppressed. Undertake for me.'
But it was very very wrong of me. I will certainly come if I possibly can. Of
course for Luke's sake I ought not let it be said that there is no head of the
parish, and I really love that kind of work."
Mrs. Stone went home flushed and distressed. She saw that Rachel was just
on the verge of a breakdown, and blamed herself for not doing more to take
the heavy burden of the parish off her shoulders.

CHAPTER XXI.
THE BISHOP LOOKS INTO THE KITCHEN.

Mrs. Greville's illness not only gave Rachel more work to do in the parish, but
took up a certain amount of her time in visiting her and seeing that she was
well looked after. And her mother-in-law, being such an active woman was not
an easy patient to do with. Her incapacity to help her son was trying in the
extreme to her, and she was one of those people who look on illness as a
humiliation. The atmosphere of the sick room was not a happy one.

Moreover, Rachel found that visiting her meant various little extra duties to
perform, as there was someone or other always on Mrs. Greville's mind.
Would Rachel give Mrs. Jones a look as her heart was constantly giving her
trouble; and Mrs. Jacob was probably in great need of a grocery ticket. She
would like to know also if Mrs. Grayston's baby had arrived, and how she was.
And by-the-bye, she had promised to lend a book the day before she was
taken ill to that poor crippled man in Rainer Street. Then two or three women
ought to be looked up who had not lately been to the mothers' meeting. And
though Miss Sweet had not told her, she felt sure that her young man was
going to spend the week end with them soon, and that in all probability she
would not be likely to take her class at the school that Sunday. Someone
ought to be found to take her place.
What all these commissions meant to Rachel can be imagined; but she knew
that if her mother-in-law had the faintest idea of how tired she felt and how
terribly full her days were she not have asked her to do this extra work.

Curiously enough, Mrs. Greville, after that time of anxiety about Rachel
leaving the baby alone, had scarcely mentioned Pat; indeed Rachel wondered
at times if she had forgotten him. Anyhow, she had quite forgotten how difficult
it was to leave him so often with Polly, who indeed had other work to do.

What tried Rachel more than anything was that when her mother-in-law was
getting better, she suddenly relapsed into her old habit of thinking her
incapable. She would say "No, you had better not go and see Mrs. Guy. She
is a woman that needs careful handling. You'd probably offend her, ask Mrs.
Stone." Or when Rachel had taken pains to make some appetising little dish
for her, denying herself perhaps an egg for breakfast so as to be able to spare
one for her mother-in-law, Mrs. Greville would worry at her extravagance,
reminding her that she was the wife of a poor parson, and that if she were not
more careful she would land him in debt. Rachel put all these uncomfortable
moods down to illness, but it did not make her life easier.

One day after a specially trying time, she hurried home to find to her surprise
the Bishop sitting in the drawing-room.

The sight of his dear familiar face was almost too much for her. She clung to
his hand without speaking.

In a moment he saw that Rachel was overdone.

"Come and sit down my dear child," he said. His tone of voice was so full of
kindness and sympathy that Rachel nearly gave way to tears.

"You have come just at the wrong time," she said, with a faint laugh in which
the Bishop detected the tears that were not shed. "I am so tired that I can't feel
as glad as I know that I am to see you."

The Bishop looking at the girl, was shocked at the change in her. That she
was not only tired, but seriously ill, he saw at a glance.

"You have been working too hard," he said quietly. "What have you been
doing?"

"Oh don't let's talk of it. I want to forget it all now you have come. You will stay
to lunch of course, but I can only offer you pot luck."
"No, I can't stay to lunch," he said rising, "but I am going to tell that nice little
maid of yours to bring you some beef tea or milk. You need it."

"Beef tea!" exclaimed Rachel laughing. "Why, only invalids can go in for such
luxuries and I certainly am not one."

"I am not quite so sure of that. Anyhow you need something at this moment
and you must let me go and see what there is to have, while you sit still."

"Oh you mustn't pity me," cried Rachel. "I can go on quite well if no-one
notices me; but sympathy just weakens me. You really mustn't be too kind."
Rachel had risen looking distressed. Then she dropped into her chair again
and covered her face with her hands. "I wish you hadn't come," she sobbed.

"No, you don't. You are very pleased to see your father's greatest friend. You
mustn't talk nonsense," said the Bishop with a smile. "Don't you suppose I
understand? You needn't mind me finding this out. You must let me try and
help you, and get you something. Polly will help me."
 THE BISHOP STOOD IN THE TINY KITCHEN

FACING THE DIMINUTIVE POLLY.

Rachel sat still while the Bishop made his way into the kitchen. She was so
played out that she had not even the energy to wonder what he would find
there. She just lay still with a restful sense of being looked after.

The Bishop stood in the tiny kitchen facing the diminutive Polly.

"Your mistress isn't feeling well," he said, "and I want to know what there is in
the house that she would fancy. She must have something. Have you any
soup or bovril?"

Polly overwhelmed with the importance of the occasion turned red. That she
had never seen bovril or knew what it was the Bishop discovered before she
had answered, "That there ain't no such stuff anywheres in the house, Sir. We
don't eat bovril and there ain't no soup," she added.

The Bishop smiled.

"Well, what are you going to have for dinner?" he asked.

"Master, he is to have a chop," said Polly, "and Mistress she say she'll have
some bread and cheese to-day."

"And what are you going to have?"

Polly flushed crimson and hung her head.

"Mistress, she say that I'm to have the leg of the chicken that Mrs. Stone
brought us two days ago. There's just one leg left and the Mistress won't take
it herself. It ain't right that I should be eating chicken while she eats cheese."

The Bishop loved little Polly on the spot. He was thankful that there was
anyhow one person in the house who thought of Rachel. What had Greville
been about to let his wife get into such a weak state.

"You may enjoy the leg of the chicken with a clear conscience, my girl," said
the Bishop, "for I feel sure your Mistress would not be able to eat it to-day.
There's milk I suppose?"

"Yes Sir, there's baby's milk," said Polly doubtfully, "but I don't think Mistress
would like me to touch that. She's very particular about his milk."

"Well I want you to run round to the grocer's and buy for me a bottle of bovril.
Run as fast as you can and I'll tell you how to make it. Where is the Baby?"

Polly put her finger up and listened.

"I do believe he's just awake," she said. "I'll bring him down if you'd be so kind
as to look after him while I go to the Grocer's."

The Bishop carried the baby into the drawing-room and laid him on Rachel's
lap.

"That will do you good," he said smiling at her.

The sight of her baby in the Bishop's arms brought the happy colour into
Rachel's face.