Ready to Love Again (Sweet Romance #2)

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Authors: Keren Hughes

Ready To Love Again

The Sweet Romance Series, Book Two

By Keren Hughes

Ready To Love Again

First Print Edition: April 2015

Limitless Publishing, LLC

Kailua, HI 96734

www.limitlesspublishing.com

Formatting: Limitless Publishing

ISBN-13: 978-1511529310

ISBN-10: 1511529318

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

For those who have loved and lost;

may you find love again one day.

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Barren. That was what I was thinking as I looked at my surroundings. My new apartment—if that’s what you could call it—was ugly; empty and devoid of anything that makes a place home.

I stood in the bedroom–cum-lounge–cum-dining room. I looked around at the four stark magnolia walls and the furniture that looked old and stale, as I took in a breath of musty air. No wonder this place had been so cheap to rent. It was a shithole.

The place I now get to call “home” is nothing more than a bedsit. One room where I sleep, live, and eat, one tiny, dingy kitchen and one shoe box size bathroom complete with mould along one wall.

I had wanted to move somewhere far away and fast. This had been the only place I could afford and obviously the landlord had sent me pictures of it in its best light—though standing here, I found it hard to believe there was a “best light”.

The landlord, Graham, had asked for the least amount of rent and deposit up front. Now I could see why.

It was five hundred miles across the country from Portsmouth, where I lived, so I had been unable to come and view the place before moving. I regretted that deeply as I took another breath of the unclean air.

Taking a step towards the only window in the room, I wished I had a rubber glove to touch the handle. As I lifted it, the window needed an extra hard push to get it open. I put my head out and smelled the fresh air of the outdoors. Not as fresh as I was used to, of course. I used to live in Portsmouth, but in this city the air was full of more pollution and toxins—but anything was better than the inside of this dump.

First of all, I set about the task of opening all the windows, then I took a seat by one of them on one of the chairs from the dining table. They were wooden, so though I feared sitting on something unclean, it seemed like the best option.

Watching the world race by outside my window, I saw people were busy coming and going—from where, I wasn’t sure. Most were in business suits, and it was a good bet they were on their way to or from work. Work. That was something I had to find. I only had so much money in my account and though my rent was cheap, there were going to be bills to pay, so that would eat my small savings very quickly if I didn’t do something to boost my money.

I sat and pondered things for a little while longer before closing the windows and getting my bag and keys from the dining table. I walked outside and locked my front door. My belongings weren’t worth much, but I didn’t want to chance having something stolen, so I made sure to double lock the door. I didn’t want to start from scratch, it was already going to be hard enough.

As I strolled along the sidewalk, I saw the little store I thought I had noticed on the way in here in the cab. I entered the store and was greeted by a sales assistant with a smile.

“Can I help you, miss?” the blonde-haired girl asked with a smile.

“I just need some cleaning supplies and directions to somewhere I can buy something like a camp bed roll,” I replied as I smiled in her direction.

“Sure thing, follow me to the cleaning supplies aisle,” she responded as she made a move from behind the counter and led me to a small aisle crammed with bleach, rubber gloves, polish, window cleaner, toilet brushes—all the things I would need for my cleaning binge later. The girl handed me a basket and I thanked as her as she made her way back to the front of the store.

I filled my basket with all the cleaning supplies you could name, including an oil that you could put a few drops into hot water and leave in a room for a couple of hours to get it smelling fresh.

Hot water. Dang! I would need a kettle too. How else would I get hot water for coffee without splashing out on a coffee machine, which would be so much more expensive? For now, I would have to live on instant coffee and maybe even start drinking hot tea if instant coffee wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I purveyed the goods in the store and came across some tea bags, sweeteners, and instant coffee. I have used sweetener for a while now, as they contain no calories and I am trying to lose some of the excess weight I put on recently. I also found milk, which I would be using instead of the non-dairy creamer I was used to.

This really was turning out to be a culture shock. But how else could I escape the ghosts of my past? I couldn’t stay in the place I had once called home for a moment longer. I had put the place on the market but hadn’t wanted to stick around and wait for a sale. I gave them permission to give the money from the eventual sale to my mother so she could deposit it into my account. The sale I was hoping for still hadn’t happened, so I had to move with what little money I had and hope to get more soon. I wanted the stay in my current accommodation to be as brief as possible.

I got to the till and asked the girl if there was somewhere I could purchase a kettle. As they aren’t used all that much, there couldn’t be many people that stocked them. But as luck would have it, she told me they sold them at the same place as I would find the camp bed roll.

I paid her for my purchases and thanked her for directions as I bagged my goods and headed out the door back to my new home.

I put my purchases on the worktop in the kitchen. Putting the milk in the fridge didn’t seem a good idea until it had gone through a proper cleaning, so I left everything in the bags and locked up, ready to make my way to the camping store.

The guy at the store was immediately chipper when he saw me. He was falling over himself to help me and he showed me where to find everything I needed.

“Thank you, Clark,” I said, reading his name tag.

“No problem, Miss…” he seemed to be waiting for me to offer my name but I didn’t.

“You’ve been really helpful,” I said as I handed over the money for my goods.

“All part of the service.” He beamed a mega-watt smile my way.

He was cute, in a geeky kind of way but definitely not my type and I was not in the market for a man right now. So I smiled back and hoped that it reached my eyes instead of the façade of a smile I was used to putting on recently.

Clark helped me bag everything up before asking if I had a car he could help me to.

“I was only coming for a camp bed roll and a kettle, I didn’t think I’d need the car,” I said.

“Oh, well let me help you,” he said as I heard a set of keys jangle behind the counter.

“Oh no, I can’t expect that of you, you’ll lose customers.”

“If they really need something, they’ll be back. My grandpa taught me to always help anyone in need and you are in need of a lift, you can’t simply carry all of this home,” he chirped as he ushered me out of the store and locked the doors behind us.

Clark led the way to a little red Pontiac in the small parking lot and opened the trunk for me. He piled my goods into the trunk and then opened my door. I got in the car with a sheepish smile. I really was grateful for the help. I hadn’t been able to look for a car yet, as I had only just arrived. I didn’t want Clark to know that though.

“So where do you need taking?” he asked as he got in the driver’s side and started the engine.

I gave him directions to the street my new place was on and soon we were pulling up outside.

“Thank you so much, Clark,” I said as he retrieved my bags from the trunk.

“Anything to help a damsel in distress,” he replied with a wink.

“What makes you think I’m damsel in distress?” I asked a little sharper than I had intended.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Miss. I just saw what you purchased and put two and two together. I’m very sorry for the assumption.”

His eyes dropped and so did his smile.

“It’s okay, Clark. I guess I am in a bit of distress,” I admitted softly.

“Oh,” he sighed.

“Yeah, I’ve just moved here and the apartment is not at all what I was hoping for.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Places round here aren’t all that great.”

“Trust me—anywhere, even a park bench—would be better than this,” I said as I opened my front door.

Ashamed to show him in, I volunteered to take the bags from his arms but he walked right past me and the gasp was audible as he took in his surroundings.

I quickly walked in and reopened all of the windows.

“My first stop was a store for cleaning products. Next was your store for the camp bed roll to sleep on until I can get a better bed,” the words came tumbling out of my mouth.

“I can see why. No offence. I hope the rent on this place is cheap because that can be its only redeeming feature,” he said as he looked around the bedroom area, then the couch in the lounge and the dining table.

“Yeah, it was a cheap deposit and cheap rent. The landlord sent pictures of it before I signed the lease but it almost seems like they were pictures of somewhere else.”

“Oh. You didn’t view it before signing?” he looked a little puzzled.

“I couldn’t,” I admitted.

“Oh?” he questioned.

“Yeah, long story, but I moved five hundred miles away from my home to come here for a fresh start,” I admitted sadly.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t want his or anyone else’s pity.

“It’s okay. I can spruce this place up and make it feel more like home,” I said, my cheerful tone forced.

“I’m sure you will. Now where do I put these things and where are your cleaning supplies?” he asked with a grin.

“Umm…you can put them on the dining table, I guess. The cleaning supplies are all in the kitchen, why?”

Clark walked into the kitchen and emptied the bags on the counter. I observed him with curiosity for a moment before walking into the kitchen behind him. There was no door between the kitchen and the main room, in fact the only two doors in the place were the front door and the one to the bathroom.

Clark was busy looking things over, opening cupboards and drawers. I pondered what he could be doing for a moment.

“Do you have an iPod?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

“Yes. Why?” I questioned.

“Because we need music!” he exclaimed.

“We?” I asked.

“Yes, we! Now do you have an iPod dock or a Bluetooth speaker?”

“No, sorry.”

I was still musing his ‘we’ remark.

“Okay, back in a minute,” he said before striding across the room and letting himself out the front door.

His car pulled away and I got to the window just in time to see the tail end of the Pontiac turning the corner.

I paced the small room, wondering what on Earth Clark was up to now, but I only had a few minutes to myself before someone knocked on my front door.

I opened the door to see him brandishing something in a box my way.

“We sell these at the store, luckily for you!” He beamed at me as he strode purposefully into the kitchen.

“What is it?”

“A Bluetooth speaker, of course!”

“Oh!” I couldn’t think of what else to say.

“Well, what are you standing there for? Get your iPod.”

I rummaged around in my bag for my iPod Touch and passed it to Clark. He turned it on, turned on the speaker, connected them via Bluetooth, and selected an album from my eclectic collection.

“I just love this song.” Clark flashed me that mega-watt smile before turning to the array of cleaning products that now littered the worktop.

Panic! At The Disco’s album
A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out
started blaring from his speaker as he passed me a pair of rubber gloves, a cloth, and a bottle of cleaning fluid.

He donned a pair of gloves himself and began to sing along as he strode off to my bathroom with all the supplies he would need.

“Clark!” I called out after him.

What was he doing? He’d only just met me and was planning on helping me clean?

“What?” he shouted over the music.

I walked into the bathroom and saw him cleaning the bathtub.

“Don’t what me! What on Earth are you doing?”

“Well, what does it look like?”

“I know what you’re doing but what I don’t know is why.”

“Because you are never going to get all this done today on your own. You’re new to the area, hundreds of miles from home and friends. It’s very slow for me at the store, so I shut up for the day and put a sign in the door saying that service would resume as normal tomorrow.”

“But…but—you don’t even know me. I haven’t even told you my name!” I exclaimed, exasperated at his kindness.

“Tell me then,” he replied, turning to look at me for the first time since I had walked into my bathroom.

“I’m Alyssa,” I said as I extended my hand, rubber glove and all.

“Nice to meet you, Alyssa. Beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”

“Thank you. I’m not going to lie, I am astounded at your generosity.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said as he turned back to the tub.