Big Love

Big Love

a romantic comedy

by

Saxon Bennett & Layce Gardner

This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents eithe
r
are the product o
f
th
e
authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Square Pegs Ink

Text copyright © Layce Gardner & Saxon Bennett

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the authors’ permission.

Editor: Kate Michael Gibson

Katemichaelgibson.com

Cover designed by Lemon Squirrel Graphics

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Chapter One

It was a beautiful Monday morning in midtown Merrell, Minnesota. Most people hated Mondays. Nell Parker didn’t. Nell didn’t know why Mondays had gotten such a bad rap. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t say they wanted to be the first day of the week; the day everybody had to stop their week-ending and go back to work. Even songs were written about how horrible Mondays were. But, to Nell, this Monday was wonderful: It was a beautiful spring day; birds were chirping; the sun was shining; the temperature was a perfect seventy degrees; and Nell was in love.

Nell walked down the busy street with a spring in her step that love had put there. She bounced down the sidewalk, head bowed over her phone, her thumbs texting love notes to her beloved. She stopped at a corner with a crowd of people, her thumbs paused, reading the latest received text. She frowned. She didn’t like what she was reading. Not at all.

Suddenly, Monday wasn’t looking so good anymore.

Then, once again, her thumbs furiously flew over the phone’s keyboard. She stepped off the curb and walked, oblivious to the fact that the little hand on the sign was red and giving the stop signal.

A woman screamed.

A horn honked.

A man yelled, “Hey, lady! Watch out for the manhole!”

But all this was lost on Nell. She was in text-land. All she knew was one moment she was typing to her one true love and the next she was falling.

Just like Alice through the rabbit hole.

Except she wasn’t Alice. And it wasn’t a rabbit hole. And she didn’t wake up in Wonderland.

She fell through the manhole… fell, fell, fell. At first everything was pitch black. Then gray. And then the gray lightened. Until she was floating in a sea of white.

She landed on her butt with a soft thud.

Nell blinked her eyes several times and looked around. Everything was a brilliant white. And she was sitting on giant, white marshmallows.

Suddenly, a red light flashed. A high-pitched alarm shrieked. Nell covered her ears as an electronic voice screeched, “Intruder! Intruder! Intruder!”

Nell managed to stand on the fluffy white marshmallow stuff. In the distance she saw two women running in her direction. Both women had white sheets wrapped around their bodies, toga-style. Gold Crocs were on their feet. One woman had long brown hair. The other was tall and had long, red, curly hair. They were both beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it hurt Nell’s eyes to look at them.

They skidded to a stop before Nell. The brunette waved her arms in the air, saying, “Turn off the alarm! We found her!”

The flashing light and electronic voice stopped.

Nell uncovered her ears. She looked at the two women and blinked against their brightness. She didn’t bother with pleasantries. She was too confused to be pleasant. “Who are you? Where am I?”

The red haired woman spoke first. “I’m Zing. You’re at HQ.”

“HQ?”

The one called Zing nodded. “It’s short for Headquarters. Actually, you’re just outside HQ.”

Nell shaded her eyes. In the distance she saw a pair of tall golden gates. Beyond the gates were several industrial-looking buildings. “What am I doing here?” Nell asked.

The brunette woman answered, “That’s the thing. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Who are you?” Nell asked.

“I’m Annabelle.”

Annabelle pulled a wand out of her white toga and waved it over and around Nell’s body like she was a TSA agent searching for contraband. The wand beeped and burped and binged. Annabelle shook her head and tucked the wand away.

The two women in white looked at each other. “I really mucked this one up, didn’t I?” Zing asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Annabelle said. “She definitely doesn’t belong here yet.”

“You’re sure?”

“The wand doesn’t lie,” Annabelle said.

Zing looked Nell up and down. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Well. . . I remember texting Dove. She’s my. . . She’s a woman. That I’m involved with. . .”

Zing made a hurry-up gesture with her hand. “Yes, yes, yes, we know all about Dove. But what do you remember?”

Nell shrugged. “I was walking. Texting Dove. I was crossing a street and. . . Omigod! I fell through an open manhole!”

Zing grimaced. She turned to Annabelle and said, “My bad. It’s all my fault. I wasn’t looking. Last I saw she was waiting at the corner with all the other people. I figured she was safe. I forgot to take my ADD meds today. How was I supposed to know she’d fall in a hole?”

Annabelle frowned and shook her finger at Zing. “You’re in deep doo-doo. Bertha isn’t going to like this.”

“You think I’ll get another demerit? ‘Cuz one more demerit and. . .” Zing pointed down. “I get demoted.”

Nell’s head felt as if it were going to explode. She sputtered questions as fast as she could think of them. “Demoted? Your fault? What’s going on here? Where am I?” Then her eyes widened. She looked at Zing. Then at Annabelle. Then at the marshmallows, which she now thought looked a lot like clouds. “Am I in heaven? Am I dead? Are you angels?”

But before Nell’s questions could be answered, a big, booming voice said, “What the hell is going on here?!”

“Uh-oh,” Zing said. “I’m in trouble now.”

“Who was that?” Nell asked in a whisper. “Was that. . . God?”

“That’s our boss,” Annabelle said. “Her name is Bertha.”

At that moment, Nell saw a faraway figure striding out of the gates and coming toward them. The figure was a woman. A big, black woman with an imposing Afro. She was also wearing a white toga and gold Crocs. She had a frown on her face.

“That’s Bertha?” Nell whispered.

“Yep,” Zing said. “And she’s not happy.”

“Why? What did I do?” Nell asked.

“It’s not you,” Zing said. “It’s me. You see, I’m your guardian angel. And I was supposed to save you from that manhole.”

“You’re my guardian angel?” Nell asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. I’m dreaming or something. This can’t really be happening. Angels don’t wear Crocs.”

Zing laughed. “All angels wear Crocs. Who do you think invented them?”

Bertha strode up to them and commanded, “Stop talking! You know it’s against the rules to converse with your human.”

Zing and Annabelle straightened their backs and saluted Bertha.

Nell looked up at Bertha. She was big – at least six feet tall. “Listen,” Nell sputtered. “Can I wake up now? I’d really like to wake up now. I want to go home.”

Bertha dismissed Nell with a wave of her hand, saying, “You. Human. Stay here.” She looked menacingly at Zing and Annabelle. “You two. May I have a word with you over here?”

Zing and Annabelle followed Bertha over to another cloud out of Nell’s earshot. Nell watched as Bertha shook her fist at Zing and appeared to be shouting.

They can’t be angels, Nell thought as she watched them argue. They don’t have wings or halos. And where are the harps?

That was the last thought Nell had before she was falling again. Falling, falling, falling. . .

***

When she landed, Nell opened one eye just a tiny bit. She saw Zing and Annabelle sitting in a corner of a white room. She was lying in bed. Her head felt huge. And, boy oh boy, did she have a headache.

She listened as Annabelle and Zing talked to each other in low tones:

“You can’t stay,” Annabelle hissed.

“I have to. Look at her,” Zing said, pointing at Nell. “I can’t leave her now.”

Nell quickly closed her eyes so they wouldn’t know she was awake.

“This is my fault,” Zing continued. “If I’d been paying attention she wouldn’t be in the hospital with a big bandage around her head. Did you know they shaved a part of her head to put in the stitches? I’m responsible for that baldness as well.”

“Hair loss is the least of your concerns.” Annabelle sat down heavily in the plastic hospital chair. “Remember Bertha is furious with you.”

“I don’t care about Bertha. She can be as mad as she wants. If I’d been paying attention like I was supposed to, Nell Parker would be making the world’s best donuts with a full head of hair.” Zing lowered her head and sniffled.

Annabelle sighed and studied her large wristwatch. “Well, you have exactly twenty-three hours, fifteen minutes, and seven seconds before you have to be back at HQ.”

“Or what?” Zing said, “I turn into a large, round, orange-colored fruit?”

“It’s called a pumpkin. No pumpkins are involved. You know what happens and you don’t want that.”

“What are you talking about?” Zing asked.

Annabelle gaped at her. “You’ve never read
The
Guardian Angel’s Handbook
?”

Zing shook her head. “I’m not much of a reader. I figure if the book’s any good, it’ll be made into a movie.”

Annabelle said sarcastically, “You never cease to amaze me.”

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do—amaze people?” Zing glanced over at Nell and said, “In times of crisis.”

“Actually, you’re supposed to save people first. Then you can amaze them.” Annabelle pulled a big, thick book out of the folds of her toga. “I suggest you read this while you’re waiting for your human to wake up.” She tossed the book at Zing. It landed on the floor with a thud. Zing wasn’t much for catching things and Annabelle wasn’t much for throwing them.

Zing pushed the book with the toe of her Croc. “Well, I suppose I do have some time to kill.” She picked up the book and studied the cover. “Hey, it has my name on it.” She ran her fingers over the embossed cover. Her name looked good in print.

“That’s because it’s your book. Remember, you have less than a day to fix this,” Annabelle said, standing. “By the way, why are you dressed in pink? It clashes horribly with your red hair. And the stripes aren’t doing much for your hips.”

Zing had long, brilliant,
curly red hair and sparkling green eyes. She was lovely in an Amazonian kind of way—tall, well built, with a sculpted Grecian face. In human standards she was drop-dead gorgeous. “This is a candy striper uniform. It was all I could find at the last minute.”

Annabelle looked puzzled. “Candy?”

Zing explained, “They’re volunteers at the hospital. I get to sit with her in case she wakes up. They don’t like them to wake up alone. Nell is an orphan and her best friend, Carol, is running the bakery right now.”

“I forgot about her parents dying. The family seems to have gotten a bad shake.” Annabelle looked down at Nell with compassion, touching her hand. “She didn’t mean for this to happen,” she whispered to Nell.

“I really didn’t. If she pulls through, I promise to be better. I swear,” Zing pleaded.

“Tell that to Bertha.” Annabelle shook one finger at Zing, saying, “Read the book!”

And just like that, Annabelle disappeared. Nell wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her very own eyes.

Zing looked at Nell. “Oh! Hello, there. You’re awake.”

Nell touched the top of her head. It was swathed in bandages. And it hurt like hell. Nell stared at Zing’s pink striped smock. Her eyes were still a little bleary. She looked down at her green gown and then around the room. “I’m really in the hospital?”

Zing nodded.

“I had a dream I was dead. I thought I’d gone to heaven.”

“That was no dream. It was a close call, but it wasn’t your time.” Zing pulled her chair closer to Nell’s bed.

“Hurts,” Nell moaned.

“You have a whole bunch of stitches and you’re missing some hair but it’ll grow back. No worries. That’s the beauty of hair. It always grows back, you know, unless you have that pattern baldness thing. Yours just got shaved off because of the stitches. You have sixteen of them.” Zing knew she was blathering but couldn’t stop herself so she went on, “You fell in an open manhole. You hit something on the way down that cut open your head. The doctors said it was lucky you didn’t break your neck. I am so sorry. It was all my fault.” Zing took Nell’s hand and was the perfect picture of penitence.

“Did you trip me?” Nell asked. She was studying the IV thingy they’d stuck in the top of her hand. She looked around the room again,
trying to take it all in. She looked back at Zing.

“Uh, no. I didn’t trip you.”

“Did you leave the manhole cover off?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then how can it be your fault? I’m the one who was texting and not looking where I was going.”

“I should’ve been there to save you,” Zing said. “That’s my job.”

“You really are my guardian angel?” Nell whispered. She looked around the room like she suspected somebody was spying on them and continued, “You’re not a dream or a hallucination?”

“I really am,” Zing said. She held up the guardian angel handbook as proof. “See? That’s my name right there, printed in gold.”

Nell accepted this without question. She’d heard of a lot weirder things that ended up being true.