Authors: Barbara Freethy
She might have grown up next door to the Callaways, but she'd lived in an entirely different world—a world of quiet structure and discipline, a world where expectations for grades and achievement were high, and having fun didn't factor into any equation.
Sighing, she pushed the past back where it belonged and walked up the stairs. Time to stop procrastinating.
She rang the bell, and a moment later the front door swung open. She drew in a quick breath as she met her father's dark gaze. At six-foot-four, Stephen Davidson was a foot taller than she was, and had always scared the hell out of her. He had dark brown hair, brown eyes, and wiry frame. Today, he wore black slacks and a white button-down shirt that had always been his uniform during the week. He seemed thinner than she remembered, although he’d always been fit. His sense of discipline extended to every part of his life.
"Surprise," she said, forcing a smile on her face.
"What are you doing here, Sara?"
"It's your birthday on Sunday."
"You should have called."
"You would have told me not to come."
"Yes, I would have done that," he agreed. "It's not a good time."
It hadn't been a good time in over a decade. "Can I come in?"
He hesitated for a long moment, then gave a resigned nod.
She crossed the threshold, feeling as if she'd just gotten over the first hurdle. There would be more coming, but at least she'd made it through the door. Pausing in the entry, she glanced toward the living room on her right. It was a formal room, with white couches, glass tables, and expensive artwork. They'd never spent any time in that room as a family, and it didn't appear that that had changed. Turning her head to the left, she could see the long mahogany table in the dining room, and the same dried flower arrangement that had always been the centerpiece.
The fact that the house hadn't changed in ten years was probably a sign that her father hadn't changed either.
"You shouldn't have come without calling, Sara,” her father repeated, drawing her attention back to him.
"Well, I'm here, and I brought you a present." She handed him the wine.
He reluctantly took the bottle, barely glancing at the label. "Thank you."
"It's very rare," she said, wishing for a bigger reaction.
"I'm sure it is." He set the bottle down on a side table.
She squared her shoulders, irritated by his lack of enthusiasm. But it would take more than a bottle of wine to crack the iceberg between them. "I'd like to stay for the weekend."
"You want to stay here?" he asked, dismay in his eyes.
"Why not? You have the room." She headed up the stairs, figuring it would be best not to give her father time to argue. He was an excellent attorney, who knew how to win an argument. But she was pretty good, too.
When she reached the upstairs landing, her gaze caught on the only two family pictures that had ever hung in the house. On the left was a family shot of the three of them, taken when she was about eleven years old. She remembered quite clearly how desperately her mother had wanted a professional family picture and how hard her father had fought against it, but it was one of the few battles that Valerie had won.
The other photo was of her and her mother taken at her high school graduation. Her mother had a proud smile on her face. They looked a lot alike, sharing many of the same features, an oval-shaped face, long, thick light brown hair that fell past their shoulders, and wide-set dark brown eyes. A wave of sadness ran through her as she realized this was the last photo of her and her mother. Valerie had died two years later.
Turning away from the memories, she moved down the hall. Her room was at the far end of the corridor. It had been stripped down to the basics, a mattress and box spring, her old desk on one wall, her dresser on the other. The bookshelves were empty and so were the drawers. Only a few nails revealed that there had once been pictures on the wall. There was absolutely no trace of her childhood.
She shouldn't be surprised. Her father had shipped her several boxes a couple of years ago, but it still felt a little sad to see how her early life had been completely erased.
Moving to the window, she looked out at a familiar view – the Callaways' backyard. The large wooden play structure that was built like a fort with slides and tunnels was empty now. Like herself, the Callaways had grown up. She wondered if any of them still lived at home.
"As you can see, I'm not set up for guests," her dad said, interrupting her thoughts.
She turned to see him standing in the doorway. "I'm sure there are some extra sheets in the linen closet. I don't need much."
He stared back at her, his eyes dark and unreadable. "Why are you here, Sara?"
"I wanted to be here for your birthday. It's been a long time since we've shared more than an email. We should talk, catch up with each other."
"Why on earth would you want to talk to me?"
The confusion in his eyes made her realize just how far apart they'd drifted. "Because you're my father. You're my family. We're the only ones left."
"Do you need money?"
"This isn't about money. Mom would have not wanted us to end up like strangers. We need to try to improve our relationship."
He stared back at her for a long moment, then said, "There's nothing left for you here, Sara. I wish you well, but we both need to move on. If you stay, it won't go well. We'll only disappoint each other."
Her chest tightened, the finality of his words bringing pain as well as anger. Her father was like a brick wall. She kept throwing herself at him, trying to break through his resistance, but all she ever achieved was a new batch of emotional bruises.
"You're a grown woman now," he added. "You don't need a father."
"Not that I ever really had one," she countered, surprising herself a little with the words. She was used to holding her tongue when it came to her dad, because talking usually made things worse.
"I did my best," he said.
"Did you?" she challenged.
A tickle caught at her throat and her eyes blurred with unwanted tears. She had not come here to cry. She sniffed, wondering why the air felt so thick. It took a minute to register that it was not her emotions that were making her eyes water but smoke.
The same awareness flashed in her father's eyes. "Damn," he swore. "The kitchen—I was cooking—"
He ran out of the room, and she followed him down the stairs, shocked by how thick the smoke was in the entry.
She was on her dad's heels when he entered the kitchen. The scene was unbelievable. Flames shot two feet in the air off a sizzling pot on the stove. The fire had found more fuel in a stack of newspapers on the counter that had been left too close to the burner, those sparks leaping to the nearby curtains.
Her father grabbed a towel and tried to beat out some of the flames, but his efforts only seemed to make things worse. Embers flew everywhere, finding new places to burn, the heat growing more and more intense. Moving to the sink, she turned on the faucet and filled up a pitcher, but it was taking too long to get enough water. She threw some of it at the fire, but it made no difference.
"Move aside," her dad shouted, grabbing two hot pads.
"What are you doing?" she asked in confusion.
He tried to grab the pot and move it to the sink, but she was in the way. He stumbled, dropping the pot in the garbage. She jumped back from an explosion of new fire.
"We have to call 9-1-1," she said frantically. But there was no phone in the kitchen, and her cell phone was in her bag by the entry. "Let's get out of here."
Her father was still trying to put out the fire, but he was getting nowhere.
"Dad, please."
"Get out, Sara," he said forcefully, then ran into the adjacent laundry room.
"Wait! Where are you going?"
"I have to get something important," he yelled back at her.
"Dad. We need to get out of the house." She coughed out the words, but she might as well have remained silent, because her dad had vanished through the laundry room and down the back stairs to the basement. She couldn't imagine what he had to get. There was nothing but gardening tools and cleaning supplies down there.
She started to follow him, then jumped back as the fire caught the wallpaper next to her head, sizzling and leaping towards her clothing.
"Dad," she screamed. "We need to get out of the house."
A crash echoed through the house. Then all she could hear was the crackling of the fire.
Excerpt – A Secret Wish
(The Wish Series #1)
© Copyright 2012 Barbara Freethy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Chapter One
Liz Kelly stepped up to the waist-high ledge that ran around the tenth-floor roof of St. John’s Hospital. Although the roof was a popular retreat for doctors and nurses on break, it was quiet on this Friday night. Just past seven o’clock, anyone not on duty had already left the building, trying to get one last warm and sunny weekend in before fall turned into winter. She loved the view from the roof, especially as night settled over the city. From her vantage point, she could see the cable cars chugging up and down the steep hills of San Francisco, the colorful sails on the boats in the Marina, and the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge blazing through a bank of fog hovering over the ocean.
The view always inspired her. Up here she felt like she could be anyone and do anything. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to turn the inspiration into action. As soon as she went back inside, she returned to her old ways, to her safe, risk-free existence that was getting her nowhere. She liked being a nurse, but the rest of her life was in shambles. She’d lived with a half dozen roommates in the last decade, changed apartments three times, and had just been dumped by her boyfriend of three years.
What annoyed her most was that Kyle had broken up with her. She should have been the one to break up with him. He’d fallen far short of her expectations, but she’d never been able to pull the trigger on their relationship. She’d always been afraid of being thirty and alone. Well, that’s exactly what had happened. But tonight was the start of a new decade. She needed to get it together, take a risk, and stop being paralyzed by fear of making the wrong decision. She had to take charge of her life and stop letting her future be defined by her past. She needed to do something...
What that
something
was, she wasn’t quite sure, but she intended to find out.
Mental pep talk over, she opened a small bakery box from Faith’s Fancies and slid out a miniature gourmet cupcake dotted with pink icing and chocolate stars. Chocolate was her passion, especially rich, dark chocolate. Taking a pink candle out of her purse, she stuck it in the icing, and raised the cake to the starlit sky. “Happy birthday to me.”
Her muttered words seemed to mock her newfound resolve, so she raised her voice and shouted, “Did you hear that, San Francisco? Today, Elizabeth Karen Kelly is thirty years old and ready to take on the world.”
She smiled, feeling silly but also energized. She pulled out a pack of matches from her bag and lit the candle, holding her hand around the flame so the wind wouldn’t blow it out while she was thinking of a wish.
As much as she wanted love, she was also scared of being vulnerable. She’d loved her father and he’d turned out to be a horrible person. She’d loved her mother and had been left behind. She’d picked Kyle because he was solid and stable and seemed like the anchor she needed in her life. But Kyle hadn’t just held her down; he’d held her back.
If Prince Charming couldn’t find her, perhaps she needed to find him. Drawing in a deep breath, she made a secret wish.
Someone for me to love
.
A gust of wind came up, blowing out the flame before she could do so. Probably a sign that her wish had not been heard. She felt an unexpected surge of disappointment.
That was the problem with hope… it made the fall back to reality even worse. She should know better. She pulled out the candle and licked the icing from it.
“Is that it?” a man asked.
She jumped at the unexpected voice, the cupcake flying out of her hand and over the side of the building. She stared in bemusement at the man who’d appeared out of nowhere. He was tall, with sandy blond hair, and was dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt with
Stanford
emblazoned across the front, and a brown leather jacket.
“You scared me,” she said, her heart beating way too fast.
“Sorry.” He gave her a smile. “So was that the extent of your celebration?”
“Uh.” She glanced over the ledge, realizing her cupcake was long gone. “I guess so, since you made me drop my cake. What are you doing out here? Didn’t you see the sign that said
Employees Only
?”
“I don’t pay much attention to signs.”
“So you're a rule breaker.”
“When necessary. I needed some air. Sorry about the cupcake,” he added.
“It was going to be really good, too,” she said with a wistful sigh.
“How old are you today?”
“I’m thirty – the big three-O. I don’t know why they call it that. It’s not as if O stands for orgasm.”
Good grief. Had she said that out loud? For some reason, good-looking men made her jump into nervous conversation.
He gave her an odd look, probably wondering who would want to give her three orgasms.
She put up a hand. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t asking for volunteers.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”
“Yeah, right. You looked like a deer caught in the headlights.”
His smile widened. “Not true. So why are you out here by yourself on your birthday? You’re too pretty not to have friends.”
Her cheeks warmed as his gaze swept across her face and figure. She couldn’t help wishing that she’d retouched her makeup, taken her brown hair out of its practical ponytail, and changed out of her loose, ill-fitting scrubs. Not that it mattered. She’d probably never see him again.
“Good line,” she said. “You’re a charmer.”
“You don’t like compliments.”