Chance Encounter (Take a Chance: Prequel) (2 page)

“
What kind of
property?”

“
I don’t know. I’ve never
been there. It’s rural, that’s all I know. She says I’ll work
harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, but the air’s clean, she
grows most of her own food and she says she’ll help me when the
baby comes.”

He picked up one of her smooth hands. Turned
it over and ran one of his leather-tough fingertips over the soft
skin. He doubted that palm had ever held a broom. “You up for hard
work?”

She sent him a glare as steely as he imagined
she knew how. “Do I have a choice?”

She took her hand back and he was surprised
how much he missed the feel of it. “Okay,” she said. “Your turn.
Your story.”

“
One hard luck story’s
enough for one day.”

“
I disagree. Besides, the
same is true for you. I’m a stranger on a bus. You can tell me
anything.”

He turned his head and met her gaze. “Short
version. Drugs ruined my folks. I got taken away. Bounced around
from foster home to foster home. A couple were good places, one
family even wanted to adopt me.” He tried to keep the sourness out
of his tone. “My mom wouldn’t let them have me. Maybe she thought
she’d clean up some day. She never did and well, there are good
foster homes and not so good ones.”

Her face softened with sympathy but she kept
her mouth shut. “I ran away from the last place when I was fifteen.
Been on my own ever since.” He held up the paperback. “Got my
education from books and the school of hard knocks.”

She waited but he was done. The details
weren’t pretty and this girl needed pretty in her life.

“
So, where are you
headed?”

“
I’m heading to Eugene.
There’s a guy there can get me a job tree planting. Money’s good
and it keeps me outside. I like being outside.”

“
Eugene. That’s about
three stops before me.” She dug into her bag and pulled out two
granola bars. Handed him one.

“
You got enough?” he asked
before accepting. Where he’d come from, enough was never
guaranteed.

She smiled. Nodded.

He leaned right across the aisle and grabbed
the army surplus pack that contained all his worldly goods. And it
wasn’t half full. Dug around and pulled out a pack of well-used
playing cards.

“
What do you want to
play?”

“
I don’t know any card
games.”

He taught her to play double solitaire and
they beguiled an hour or so that way.

When she leaned toward him and her Farrah
Fawcett blond hair swung, he caught her scent. Sweet and sexy at
the same time.

After they tired of cards,
he settled back with his book and she dragged out a novel
called
Ordinary People
. She caught him glancing over her shoulder. She said, “We’ll
swap books when we’re both done.”

“
Deal.”

They settled comfortably side by side as the
bus lumbered on.

Daphne smiled when she watched Jack’s book
slip out of

his grasp and plop softly to his lap. His
breathing had been growing deeper and slower for the last few
miles.

His face was turned her way as he slept and
she found herself studying him. He seemed wary when he was awake,
as though at any second something bad could happen and he needed to
be ready. But in sleep, he was still. Vulnerable.

She grabbed her notebook and slid a pencil
from her bag stealthily so as not to wake him. She’d never be a
great artist, but she’d been sketching since she could remember.
She’d drawn caricatures last year for a college fundraiser and
they’d been a real hit.

Maybe that’s what she’d do, she thought, as
her pencil moved swiftly, set up a stand on a street somewhere and
draw caricatures for tourists.

The bus bumped to a stop with a clank and a
roar that woke Jack with a start. He glanced swiftly around as
though assessing the immediate area for danger.

“
We’re in Myrtle Creek,”
she said softly. “The bus stops here for half an hour.”

“
Right.” He stretched.
“You want a coffee?”

She slid a hand to her belly. “Not good for
the baby.”

He nodded but she could see he had no idea
about what to feed a pregnant woman.

“
Could I have some
tea?”

“
Sure thing.”

“
I’ve got some sandwiches
and fruit to share.”

He shook his head and his dark hair brushed
his shoulders. “I can’t take that kid’s food.”

“
I packed a ton of food,
but wasn’t hungry.” Until now.

“
Okay.”

He climbed off the bus with his pack. Then
she decided to stretch her legs too and use the washroom. She
grabbed her bag, not because she was worried about anyone stealing
anything, but because she wanted her make-up.

Even as she scolded herself, she took a few
minutes to wash her face and brush her teeth in the bus station and
she swiftly applied cosmetics in the smudged mirror that had a
crack in one corner.

She brushed her hair until all the tangles
were out and it swing in a loose curtain.

When she got back onto the bus, Jack was
already there. He stood so she could squeeze past him then handed
her the paper cup of tea. She could see from the way his glance
lingered on her face that he liked the look of her. She felt a
flicker of the old Daphne. The one who could make guys quiver
watching her apply baby oil to her skin at the beach.

She dug out the egg salad sandwiches and was
glad she’d packed extra. There were two apples and four bananas.
Plus oatmeal cookies and some single serving cans of apple
juice.

“
What if she turns out to
be a crazy old bat?” he said suddenly.

“
Who? My great
aunt?”

He took a bite of apple, crunching into the
fruit with strong white teeth. He nodded.

“
I’ll sell caricatures on
the street. Not in Hidden Falls, Oregon, obviously. I’d have to go
to Seattle. No. Too cold. LA maybe.”

“
You can draw
faces?”

She pulled out the notebook, flipped it open
to the drawing she’d made of him sleeping and showed him her
work.

“
Wow. That’s amazing,” he
said, studying the sketch the way she’d once studied paintings at
the art galleries her parents had dragged her to in New
York.

With a flourish, she signed her name and
dated it. Daphne Naigle, June 17, 1976. Carefully, she eased the
paper out of the notebook and presented it to him.

“
Is this really for me?”
He sounded like he wasn’t in the habit of getting presents. Her
heart turned over. He studied the sketch for a long time, careful,
she noted, not to let the apple anywhere near it. “You are really
talented.”

“
Thanks.”

He dug into his pack and searched around. “I
need something to keep it flat,” he said.

“
Here. Keep the whole
notebook. I’ve got a fresh one in my bag.” He eased the sketch back
into the notebook and pushed it into his pack.

“
Now I need to give you
something.”

“
You gave me
tea.”

He gave her a mock serious look. “Something
to remember me by.”

“
I think I’ll always
remember you,” she said. “You made me feel better on one of the
worst days of my life.”

He reached out and took her hand. Held it
strongly in his. “You are going to be okay. You’re stronger than
you think you are.”

“
Are you sure?” She wished
she could believe that.

His smile was so reassuring, she felt a flood
of confidence. “I know it.”

He let go of her suddenly. “I’ve got it.” He
dove back into his pack, rooted around. “Hah.” He came out with a
pebble sized round of blue-green sea glass. He held it up and
squinted. “I knew it. I never pick shit up off the beach, but I saw
this and for some reason I needed to bring it with me. It reminds
me that something can be broken and then get tossed around a lot
and what comes out at the end is amazing.”

She nodded, hoping he was right and her
jagged edges would smooth and that being beaten up by life could
turn out well.

“
It’s the same color as
your eyes. Blue and green at the same time.”

He presented the small egg shaped glass to
her as though he were giving her a diamond ring.

“
Thank you,” she said. “I
will always treasure it.”

For a second, their gazes held. She felt the
glass warming in her hand, felt the connection to this beautiful
damaged young guy sharing her bus ride.

His gaze dropped to her mouth. She felt him
wanting her. Felt a corresponding rush of emotion.

“
Scuse me,” a voice
interrupted them and he pulled away to turn to the kid standing in
the aisle trailed by a younger brother. “Could we borrow your
cards? Mom forgot ours.”

“
Yeah. Sure.” He passed
the cards to the kid.

“
We’ll bring them back. We
won’t lose any. Promise.”

Even though they hadn’t kissed, she felt as
though they had. After that intense moment, things shifted. She
felt like she and Jack had moved to a deeper level with each
other.

They talked about places
they’d been, places they wished they’d been, TV shows they liked,
movies they’d enjoyed. Argued about the merits of the movie
American Graffiti
as
art. He made her laugh. He was like no one she’d ever known before.
He seemed decades older than the college boys she knew. And he
might not have as much book learning but she discovered a kind of
wisdom that made her think.

“
We’ve got about two hours
until your stop, four to mine.”

“
I kind of wish this trip
would never end.”

She caught her breath. Felt a blush begin.
He’d said those words like he meant them.

Impulsively she turned, “I wish—“

He put a hand over her mouth, as though he
knew what she was going to say. “No. Don’t ever wish the past was
different than it is. It’s always what brought you here. And here
is where you are.”

She nodded slowly, knowing he was right and
somehow she was going to make her life work.

Somehow.

He said, “We’ve got some time. You can help
me choose my new name.”

“
You can’t just choose a
new name like it’s a pair of jeans.”

“
Can so. I do it all the
time.”

“
But for real?”

“
If you want to get fancy
about it, you can write to the government and legally change your
name.”

“
So you can call yourself
anything you want?”

“
Absolutely.”

She toyed with the sea glass, rolling it in
her palm. “Rockefeller. Jack Rockefeller. That has a nice ring to
it.”

“
Rich bastards who oppress
the poor? Please.”

“
Ghandi? King?”

“
No. I want it to be my
own word. My mantra. You know?”

“
Like, Hang
Loose?”

“
Jack Hang Loose.” He
seemed to consider the possibility. “It’s better than Rockefeller.
But I want something that inspires me. Like Dream or
Goal.”

She thought about him with his playing cards
in his pack, how he’d jumped a bus to see a guy who might have a
job.

“
Gamble. Life is a gamble
and sometimes when you gamble you win.”

He grinned at her. “Jack Gamble. I like
that.” He touched the sea glass in her palm. “Sometimes gamblers
get lucky.” Their gazes locked and once more she felt that strong
pull of connection.

She looked down at the sea glass. “The most
amazing things happen by chance.”

He gripped her hand, the pretty glass trapped
between their palms. “Chance,” he said. “That’s it.”

“
Chance? For your
name?”

“
I took a Chance to grab
this bus.” He leaned a little closer. “If I fell for a girl, I’d
ask her to take a chance on me.”

The words hung in the air as the bus grumbled
and wheezed to yet another stop. “Eugene,” the bus driver
grumbled.

No. They couldn’t be at Eugene already. “This
is your stop.”

He held her gaze. “Is it?”

The moment hung, suspended like a sudden
rainbow.

“
I’m pregnant,” she
reminded him.

He smiled his sweet smile. “I know.”

“
The father’s
black.”

His eyes widened for a flicker of a second.
“I don’t care.”

He reached out, touched her face, and then
slowly leaned forward and kissed her.

When the bus pulled out once more onto the
highway, they barely noticed.

The End

(Actually, it’s the beginning!)

Take a Chance series:

Meet the Chance family, Jack and Daphne and
their 11 grown kids, all finding their way through life and love
with passion, humor and some help from the sibs.

Kiss a Girl in the Rain
, Take a
Chance Book 1

Iris in Bloom
, Take a
Chance Book 2

Toni Diamond Makeup Mysteries:

There’s nothing pretty about murder. Meet
Toni Diamond, makeup consultant to middle America. She’s got an eye
for beauty and a nose for trouble.