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Chapter 1
Nora
I DON’T BELIEVE in fortune tellers. But as I step out of my office building late Wednesday night to discover that my car has a flat tire, my mind nonetheless immediately goes back to the words scrawled across the slip of paper from the fortune cookie I got with my Chinese takeout at lunch today: You will experience a grave misfortune.
“In bed,” my coworker Stella had added with a cackle; to which I’d replied, “If you’re referring to the fact that I’ll be losing one hour of sleep this weekend due to the horror that is Daylight Savings Time, then you’re correct. That is a grave misfortune in bed.”
Rather than laughing at my hilarity, Stella rolled her eyes and told me I needed to get myself a husband. This seems to be her answer to most problems though, as evidenced by the fact that she’s been married three times already and had a date with potential husband number four last night.
I, on the other hand, had a date with my knitting needles and an old episode of Psych last night. And guess what– it was lovely.
I shake these thoughts away as I survey my flat tire and debate what to do next. It’s late, almost nine o’clock, so the building is largely deserted. Other than my car, there are only two others still parked in the lot. One, I know, belongs to the nighttime security guard Frank. And the other one, the fancy schmancy BMW, belongs to my boss Ian Warfman.
He’s the reason I’m here so late in the first place. He announced earlier this week that he was looking for someone to take over the plastics circuit, and I want that route. Getting it would almost triple my sales potential. As any pharmaceutical sales rep will tell you, there’s a lot of money to be made in plastic surgery.
Unfortunately, having been working in the geriatric realm for the last few years, I know very little about the medications being sold to plastic surgeons. So I’m having to up my game, really show Ian that I can work hard enough to make up for my knowledge deficit.
But now I’m stuck here alone at night with a flat tire. I’m too tired to wait for AAA and the amount that I know how to put the spare on is zero. Wait, that’s not true; I do know that there’s something called a jack involved. Pretty sure I don’t have one, though.
A memory sharp and bitter strikes me: Jack, my Jack, pulling over to help me the last time I got a flat tire, almost five years ago.
It had been a crazy hot day, and I’d already been waiting for roadside assistance for almost an hour, so I decided I could figure this out on my own. Like Mia Hamm before me, anything a man can do I can do better, right?
Wrong.
I couldn’t even find the spare tire.
I was busy searching for it when Jack arrived on the scene, looking like he walked right out of my secret cowboy fantasies in his boots and hat.
When he asked if I needed a hand, I bit back my first response (yes, I need a hand: specifically yours on my waist, pulling me in for a kiss), in favor of asking him if he was planning on killing me and burying my body on the side of the road.
This got a good laugh out of him.
“Seeing as then I’d have to arrest myself, I’ll pass on that plan,” he replied. “I’m a homicide detective,” he added. Then he showed me his badge. I think I lost my heart to him that very moment.
And he never gave it back.
There’s something he should truly be arrested for.
The thieving jerk.
Back in my present day reality, I huff out a breath.
Forget Jack Reynolds. It’s been three years since he walked away from me, and what’s that saying? Good riddance to bad rubbish. Jack Reynolds certainly qualifies as bad rubbish. Hot bad rubbish, but bad rubbish all the same.
Okay, time to call an Uber and get the heck out of memory lane.
I fumble for my phone in my purse, managing to stab myself with my knitting needles in the process.
“Ouch!” I cry, withdrawing my hand and sucking in a breath when I see the pinprick of blood on my pointer finger. A pinprick that quickly morphs into a big, fat glob of blood. Honestly, I purchase extra sharp metal needles so I can make my sweet grandma a shawl for her birthday using lace wing yarn (arguably the softest yarn) and this is the thanks I get?
A profusely bleeding finger and a flat tire? Not that—I suppose—the flat tire has anything to do with the knitting needle. Although, one of these knitting needles surely could puncture a tire. That’s how sharp they are.
“Everything okay out here?” Ian’s familiar wheedling voice interrupts my wound tending (read: attempting to stop the bleeding with various items from my purse with little to no success, unless you count the fact that thus far I’ve managed to keep any blood from getting on my clothing. Instead most of it is on the parking lot floor.)
Sadly, this moment does not scream, “Look at this competent employee whom you should promote to the plastic surgery route!”
“I’m fine,” I hurry to assure Ian. “Just cut my finger. That’s all. Tiny little flesh wound. But ah-ha!” Finally my other hand emerges victorious from my purse with a bandaid. “Look at that, I’ll be patched up and good as new in two secs.”
