Page 7 of Accidentally Mine

I liked that she was discriminating. Claudia would say I was picky when it came to women.

I wasn’t, because there wasn’t a certain set of characteristics I looked for, but there were unexplainable things that drew me in, captivated me.

A je ne sais quoi that didn’t exist in the majority of women I came across.

Whatever it was, this blonde? She had it. She had it off the charts.

I wanted her.

Anita gave me a wink and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me to study the blonde.

I couldn’t see all of her, but I wanted to.

I had the sudden urge to go over and ask her to stand and spin for me so I could take in every inch of her body.

With the bulky sweater off, a thin long-sleeved shirt revealed more, but not enough.

She typed a bit, looked around, typed some more and her eyes wandered again, but they never landed on me.

I wondered if she was waiting for someone.

After a while, she stretched her hands high into the air, arching her back and pointing her breasts out.

I leaned so far forward that my tie fell into my cup of coffee, and when I swiped at it, the cup clattered to its side, sloshing brown liquid all over my shirt.

I slid off the stool and more dripped from the counter onto my pants. “Shit!”

The coffee spill crept toward my newspaper as I reached for a napkin from the dispenser and realized it was empty.

As I turned toward the kitchen to look for Anita, a voice I’d definitely heard before said, “It’s okay. I’ll help you.”

I turned and looked into sparkling turquoise eyes.

My throat went dry.

Suddenly, I was lying on the side of the Pike, the side of my face pressed into lip of the car door where the window used to be, hot blood seeping from the side of my head, my heart beating wildly.

The smell of gasoline was thick and burned my nostrils.

The fog was gone now so that even the moon seemed too bright.

A soft, angelic voice was whispering, “It’s okay. I’ll help you.”

I blinked away the memory as this particular angel handed me a wad of napkins from her own dispenser, but I held them uselessly in front of me.

It was her. Here.

What was she doing here? Now? How had she found me?

She watched me, a quizzical expression on her face, for a beat or two before she pointed to my sopping pants.

“Are you going to get that?”

I blinked rapidly and scrubbed my hands over my face. The wetness of my pants sticking to my upper thighs reminded me I was going to ruin my suit. I dabbed the napkins over the splotch on my shirt just as she put her hand on the pile of napkins to help me. Her hand—soft, smooth, warm—grazed mine.

It wasn’t just electricity. Was much more than just fireworks.

It was like every fucking thing I’d gone through in those two years, the hours and hours of therapy—the agonizing pain, the sleepless nights wondering who the eyes that watched me in my dreams belonged to and whether they were real—had all led up to this moment.

Up until then, I hadn’t really put too much weight on fate. Suddenly, I believed.

She gasped. Did she feel it too?

I found my hand reaching for hers, grasping it. I wanted to pull her closer, ask her all of the questions I’d been carrying around with me. Who are you? What were you doing there? Why did you leave so soon?

She opened her mouth to speak and her brow furrowed. I wanted to hear whatever she had to say. I’d waited all this time to hear it.

Across the café, a baby cried, snapping us back to reality.

She snatched her hand away.

My vision swam, and I felt like a total fool. So she had the same voice. The same eyes. So did probably a million other women in this city. That did not make this one the woman who was there that night.

A glint of fear lit her eyes and her muscles tensed. I was scaring her.

“Wait,” I said, instinctively knowing she was going to flee. I’d never see her again. “What’s your name?”

Her brow wrinkled. Her voice sounded dazed. “My name?”

“Yeah. You have a name, right?” I was past being charming now. I felt desperate.

Her eyes trailed to the Boston Globe , now coffee-stained. She reached for the paper, drawing it closer, the already pale skin of her face growing paler yet.

“I-I…” Her now even wider eyes stayed on the newspaper.

I followed her gaze to the headline about some new strip mall going up in South Boston. My eyes quickly spun back to her, though, afraid that she was just a trick of my fucked-up brain.

She was still there. Now, though, those big blue eyes were pooled with worry.

“Hey,” I started, working through ways I could get her to stay. “This is going to sound crazy, but—”

She pushed away from the counter. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” I said again, but this time, she didn’t listen. She rushed to her table and started to pack her things up, flipping her laptop closed, stuffing it into her bag and throwing her cardigan over her arm. “You don’t have to go so fast, do you?”

“I do,” she blurted, taking a step toward the exit. She stopped as if struck by something, and I hoped she’d say more. Instead, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled ten, and threw it on the table. “I’m sorry.”

And then she was gone, running out the door as if the energy of the people who didn’t take the time to breathe had built up and lit her fine ass on fire.

I stared after her for a minute, trying to make heads or tails of it.

The other customers were watching me as I went back to my seat.

When I got there, I cleaned up the rest of the coffee with the mess of napkins and tossed them in a nearby trash can.

As I picked up the newspaper, I remembered her interest. Something about this article had caught her, scared her.

I fell back onto my stool and read:

Work on the Red Line Village, an upscale shopping experience scheduled to begin construction earlier this month, was halted indefinitely after the untimely death of Lyndon Reece, the owner of Reece Associates, the firm responsible for the construction.

Lyndon Reece has been widely known as the man responsible for turning the South Side neighborhood of Boston from a poor, struggling area of the city to a thriving and desirable location to live, play, and raise a family.

Reece was killed in a construction accident at the site of the new Bayside Hotel in the Back Bay, on May third.

The Red Line Village project was hailed by many and would have brought perhaps hundreds of jobs to the area.

As of now, the future of Reece Associates is unclear.

The firm has not disclosed who will manage the construction company from now on.

Rumors of a business partner remain unfounded.

Lyndon Reece has no living family, except for a daughter who apparently left Boston over two years ago and has yet to return.

Some speculate that the daughter is deceased since she was a no-show for her father’s funeral, but others wonder whether she will now return to claim his inheritance. Only time will tell.

Rapt, I turned the page to continue the article and came face to face with the blonde angel. She wasn’t blonde in the picture, but it had to be her. The photo might have been in black and white, but the light in her eyes couldn’t be duplicated.

Typed under the picture was her name, Rebecca Reece.

Rebecca.

I blinked. Was the woman who’d flown out of here like the place was burning Rebecca, or was that my fucked-up brain playing games again?

Just then Anita swept out of the kitchen, carrying a tray. Her gaze took in the stain on my shirt. “What happened, sweetie? You have an accident? Hang on.”

She turned to the now empty table where my mystery girl had been sitting and frowned. “You scare her away? That girl is wound tighter than a spring, I’m telling you.”

I opened my briefcase and tucked the newspaper inside. Anita was right. The girl was wound up. Mysterious. But something told me that she had a good reason to be.

And I was going to find out why.

I reached into my wallet, grabbed a twenty, and started to leave it on the counter.

“Honey,” she said with a shake of her head. “You’ve already paid.”

I let out a breath and tapped my temple again. “Consider it a tip. Sorry for the mess.” I grabbed my briefcase and gave Anita a wave.

“Going to do some private detective work, huh, sweetie?” she called after me.

I smiled grimly. There was definitely a mystery here. One that begged me not to stop investigating it until it’d been unraveled.