Chapter 2
Suzanne stood in the living room, looking out through the window at the garden gate. The moment she had met her new courier several weeks ago, her mind had gone into overdrive. She couldn’t say what had possessed her to flirt with the lovely Jen, but over the last few months, Suzanne had found the strength to move on with her life. It may have taken three years and several failed attempts at ‘getting back on the horse’, so to speak, but there was something captivating about Jen. Perhaps it had been her cool, calm demeanour. Maybe it had been her appearance as she had stood so boldly in Suzanne’s garden. Confident, sexy…a little more on the masculine side.
Oh, you know exactly what it was.
Jen reminded Suzanne of the few relationships she’d had prior to her marriage.
Relationships with women.
The years before she’d laid eyes on her husband, the life she had before they’d met and fallen hopelessly in love, a different time. Another existence. Suzanne smiled, looking back on her past with fondness. She couldn’t change how her life had unfolded with John Dixon, and she couldn’t bring him back. But after a lot of therapy, Suzanne knew what she wanted. For fifteen years, she had dedicated her life to John and their work with one another, and now Suzanne was ready to try her hand at dating women again. She didn’t know what that looked like anymore, and yes, she felt unprepared, but Jen had caught her eye the moment she’d arrived on her doorstep…and Suzanne found herself waiting—impatiently at times—for each Thursday to arrive.
Jen .
Women like Jen had always been on Suzanne’s radar back in the day. Before John, she’d had a five-year-long relationship with Jay. Before that, a two-year relationship with Kat. Suzanne had always loved women—she had always been open and honest about that—and that would never change.
She cleared her throat as she looked over her shoulder and towards her office in the corner of the huge living room. Jen would be coming over soon, and Suzanne had to question whether she was making a mistake or not. Yes, harmless flirting had been something Suzanne enjoyed a long time ago, but the bravery she’d found as she stood out on her front step each time they met was unexpected.
Jen seemed lovely; she had to be to offer to come back after work. But mostly, Suzanne was focused on just how attractive she found Jen. Perhaps that was why Suzanne was now having second thoughts. Jen was likely to be involved, and Suzanne knew better than to assume she wouldn’t be. She’d done that before and only ended up disappointed. She thinks you’re married! Still, Jen had flirted back with Suzanne, so there was something between them. Suzanne now had to decide if that something was worth looking into. Perhaps via a drink or dinner.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask…
Suzanne briefly reminded herself of the terrible date she’d subjected herself to recently. God, dating these days was painful. That’s over and done with . Suzanne focused back on courier Jen. Handsome Jen. Muscular Jen. She bit her lip as she smiled, fully aware of what was happening here. Suzanne couldn’t backtrack now.
Are you sure that’s what you want to do?
Yes. She was sure. Still, Suzanne would get some advice from her best friend. She took her phone from the arm of the couch and pressed the call button.
The call connected quickly, surprising Suzanne. “I was just about to call you.”
Suzanne’s brows rose. “Oh. Is everything okay?”
“Of course. I was thinking about coming over after my shift. Maybe with a bottle of wine?” Suzanne would love to have her best friend Tracy over, but she was hoping to be unavailable before the end of the day. “Unless you had plans?”
“I may have plans, actually.” Suzanne’s hands grew clammy when she saw Jen’s van pull up across the road. “I may be out having a drink with someone.”
“I’m sorry, w-what?” Tracy asked, confused. “This is a new development.”
“It’s not a definite, but I’m hoping it’ll happen when I ask her.” Suzanne was aware of just how ridiculous she sounded. In a matter of a few months, she had gone from never wanting to find love again to it being all she thought about. But Tracy had been her friend for a long time. She could be entirely honest with her about anything.
“You have a date? Suzanne, that’s great news.”
“No, I don’t. Not yet, anyway.” Suzanne smiled when she peered out of the window again and at Jen’s van. “It’s my new courier.”
“Hang on. How the hell have you managed to get the attention of someone who literally drops a package off and then runs?”
Suzanne had to wonder the same thing. “I don’t know. But she’s been coming here for a month now, and every time we see one another, it feels as though there is something there. She’s…coming over soon to take a look at my internet.”
“Your internet? Is that a euphemism?”
Suzanne laughed at that. Tracy found a joke in everything . “No. My internet really is playing up.”
“So, call your broadband provider, Suzanne. This courier could be anyone, and you’re inviting her into your home.” Tracy sighed. “Just because she’s a woman, it doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous.”
“I know that, but she seems really nice.”
Suzanne’s heart rate spiked when Jen left her vehicle. She no longer wore her high-visibility jacket, just a plain white T-shirt and a pair of jeans. If Suzanne recalled their previous encounter as well as she believed, then Jen had also fixed her hair a little. Though, Suzanne didn’t know why. She loved the unkempt look.
“I’d better go. She’s about to walk through my garden gate any second now.”
“Suzanne, please be careful. And if you get the chance, call me when she leaves, okay?”
Suzanne left the living room and stopped for a moment in the hallway. “I will. Talk to you later.” She ended the call and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. She took a breath, turned to the mirror on the wall, and stared back at herself. Suzanne was sure she was ready to live her life. She had done the right thing by focusing on herself and where her life was at prior to today. She had waited until she was in the right headspace, refusing to put her emotional state on anyone else. Now she was ready. It was time to live again.
Suzanne puffed out her cheeks and gripped the door handle. She opened the door, smiling back at Jen who looked like a deer caught in headlights. Still, that attraction she felt every time they met was only far more intense than before. Seemed that was a common theme whenever this woman was standing in her front garden.
Jen raked a hand through her short, light brown hair as a blush settled on her cheeks. “Hey. Did you still need a hand with that internet?”
“Mmhmm.” Suzanne grinned, genuinely surprised that Jen had come back here at all. She could have driven straight home, but she hadn’t. That meant one of two things in Suzanne’s mind. Either Jen had enjoyed the flirting on the doorstep lately, or she just had a heart of gold. Perhaps Suzanne would get lucky, and both of those things would apply to Jen. “I would really appreciate the help.”
“Sure.” Jen stepped inside when Suzanne silently invited her in, then shoved her hands in her pockets, where she stopped and stood in the hallway. “Did you call your provider?”
No, she hadn’t. Even though it had been the logical and sensible thing to do, Suzanne had taken one look at Jen this afternoon and decided she specifically wanted her help. Not some engineer. “I didn’t. I thought maybe it could be something I’ve done wrong.”
“Okay, well, if you just show me to it, I’ll see if I can figure it out.”
Suzanne nodded and held out an arm towards the living room door. She felt Jen following behind her, but Suzanne chose not to glance back. The longer she admired that strong physique, the sooner she would be spewing out words she wasn’t quite ready to verbalise. “The modem is on the floor beneath my desk. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about where anything else is.”
Jen removed her boots before she walked onto the cream carpet, then got to her knees beneath Suzanne’s desk. Oh, I’d like to see her on her knees for other reasons. “Gorgeous house, by the way.”
Suzanne stared down at Jen, at her impressive backside, and cocked her head. “Thank you.”
“Are you some kind of interior designer? It looks like something out of one of those home and living magazines you see at the doctors.”
“I am, actually,” Suzanne said, pulling the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. “But this place in particular was all my husband’s doing.”
Jen sat back on her knees, holding onto a wire. “Maybe you should have asked him to take a look at this.” She glanced over her shoulder at Suzanne. “The power wire was disconnected.”
“O-oh.” Suzanne instantly felt ridiculous. Would Jen think that she had purposely removed the power cable to get her attention? “I’m so sorry.”
Jen dipped her head under the desk again and reconnected it. As she got to her feet and turned to Suzanne, that handsome smile beamed back at her. “I’m not. It means your internet is back, and you don’t have to wait for an engineer.”
“Thank you, Jen. I do appreciate you coming back after work.”
While Suzanne had intended to continue flirting, she was too mortified to bother right now. She knew exactly what had happened. During lunch, she had knocked over her cup of pens, resulting in a spillage down the back of her desk. They must have dislodged the power cable.
Jen lifted a shoulder. “It’s no problem, really. I was only going home.” She cleared her throat as she stepped past Suzanne and moved towards the hallway. When Jen turned back to Suzanne, she wore that soft smile Suzanne had been drawn to on a few occasions now. “So, I guess I’ll see you next time I have a package for you. It was nice to put a name to a face, Suzanne.”
“Could I…buy you a drink to say thank you?”
Jen’s cheeks reddened. “You really don’t have to do that. It was no trouble at all, and I had to head back this way to get home anyway.”
“I’d like to…”
Come on, Jen. Let’s have a little fun . Suzanne wanted to say that out loud, but she wouldn’t. Jen probably wasn’t interested, and she was likely involved already. While getting carried away with herself, Suzanne hadn’t stopped to contemplate that for a moment. Well, she had, but she still found herself flirting regardless.
“Unless you’re not single?”
Jen narrowed her eyes at Suzanne. “I am single, but you’re not.”
“Widowed,” Suzanne said quietly. “I’m widowed.”
Jen winced, then held up her hands. “O-oh, I’m sorry. That’ll teach me to assume.”
“I can see why you did assume. No harm done.”
Jen looked down at her feet as she nodded slowly. “Then, yeah, I could go for a drink with you. If you’re sure you want to?”
Suzanne smirked. “Oh, I want to.”
“Why, though?” Jen was entitled to ask that question. It likely wasn’t every day that another woman flirted with her on the doorstep. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Well, no. But isn’t that the point of getting a drink together? To learn more?”
“I mean, yeah. I guess.” Jen suddenly seemed flustered. Perhaps a little hesitant.
Okay, be bold again . Suzanne cleared her throat. “And as for the why. Well, I was attracted to you the first time you came here. Surely you picked up on that, no?”
Jen blushed further as she wrapped her hand around the back of her neck and puffed out her cheeks. “Kinda hoped that’s what was happening.” Jen looked back up at Suzanne, those hazel eyes soft and inviting. “All I know right now is that I’d be a fool to turn down that drink with you.”
“Are you free tonight?”
Jen snorted. “I’m free every night. But, yeah, tonight is good. I don’t work Friday so won’t have to call it a night early.”
“Perfect.” Suzanne reached for a scrap of paper on her desk, jotted her number down, and handed it over to Jen. “Text me your number, and I’ll let you know the plans. Does that sound okay?”
Jen looked down at the paper in her hand, then back up at Suzanne. “Y-yeah. Sounds great.”
“Then I’ll…see you this evening.”
Jen looked back down at the paper again, seemingly shocked. Suzanne couldn’t fathom why, though. She definitely wanted to get to know Jen. And maybe it would all turn out to be a mistake—this was an unexpected meeting of two people, after all. But what if it turned out to be great? Suzanne was at a point in her life where she was willing to take that risk. She had nothing to lose at all.
“This…” Jen held up the paper in front of her. “You’re not joking about tonight, are you? Like, you really want to get a drink together?”
Suzanne frowned. “No, I’m serious.”
“R-right. Okay. Then, I’ll text you once I’m home.”
Jen stopped in the hallway at home, trying to get her head around the fact that someone had just asked her out for a drink. She could be way off the mark, and Suzanne may simply be thanking her for today, but it didn’t feel that way. Suzanne had continued to flirt, just as she had whenever Jen was working.
Maybe women are just like that these days…
“Is that you, love?” Denise called out from behind the closed living room door. “Jen?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Mum.” Jen scrubbed a hand down her face, dumbfounded by the turn of events today. “I’ll be in now.” She kicked off her boots and gave herself another moment or two to understand what was happening here. While she was thrilled that Suzanne had shown an interest in her—she was gorgeous, after all—Jen wasn’t sure how much her past was going to interfere with anything that may progress. Because it would, one way or another.
Maybe her mum could give her some direction about all of this. She always had been the one in the family who spoke sense. Quite frankly, her mum was the only one who seemed to care about Jen and her life since her release from prison.
She walked through into the living room, the warmth hitting her immediately. She may have only spent thirteen months behind bars, but she’d missed her home comforts, and she was still getting used to them since her release. “Hey, Mum.”
“How was work, love?” Denise came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel as she stopped in the back living room. “Same as usual?”
“Well, I thought it was going to be the same as usual, but it turns out it was potentially better than I expected.” If Jen had to push through each day knowing she would see Suzanne more often, she could live with that.
Denise lifted a brow. “Oh?”
“I…think someone asked me out on a date this evening.”
“You think?” Denise laughed. “I know you’ve been away, Jen, but you must know if they asked you out on a date or not.”
“I’ve been delivering packages to a woman each week for about a month now. She’s always been a little bit flirty, you know? But today she asked me to take a look at her internet. Then she asked if she could buy me a drink to say thank you.” Jen rubbed at her jawline, utterly confused. “It probably is just a thank you drink, but it seemed like she was flirting with me. She said she’s interested in me, but I don’t know how she can be. We don’t even know one another.”
“Well, then. I guess you won’t know more about one another unless you go for that drink, love.” Denise pulled out a chair at the dining table. “Have a seat. Dinner is ready.”
Jen decided to relax and have dinner before she thought any more about Suzanne and her offer. The problem was that she was finding it hard to think about anything else. Since Ruby’s death and then the demise of Jen’s relationship at the time, she hadn’t looked another woman’s way. She’d had a few dates; usually when she was completely out of it on whatever substance she chose to use, and there was a small handful of women she had slept with. For someone like Suzanne to just take a sudden shine to Jen…it felt very unusual.
“Hey, Mum?” Jen looked up at Denise as she placed her plate down. Fillet steak would always go down as a winner in this house. “Oh, this looks great. Thanks.”
“I enjoy cooking for you now that you’re home. It’s something I took for granted in the past.” Denise sat facing Jen and smiled as she eyed the various side dishes already set out on the table. “So, you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yeah, um.” Jen looked down at her food and cleared her throat. “Do I tell her about the past? Where I’ve been until recently?”
“I don’t think that’s something you have to worry about for now, Jen. Meet with her and see how the evening goes.”
Jen nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. But down the line, if something did come of it…what then?”
Denise’s brows rose. “Well, I’m not sure. I don’t believe the tough time you’ve had lately has any bearing on who you are. Perhaps it’s not something you need to tell her. Would you expect to know something like that if it was you in her position?”
Huh. Would Jen want to know? “I think it would depend on why they were behind bars. Obviously, some things would be a deal breaker.” Jen pushed her food around her plate, sighing as she looked up at her mum briefly. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Nothing you did could be considered a deal breaker, love. Part of me is happy you were sent to prison because it took you out of that terrible situation you were in, but then the rest of me just wishes I could have healed you myself.”
“I only had myself to blame. I didn’t want help from anyone. That’s all on me.”
Denise lowered her cutlery and lifted her glass of water. “Perhaps, but you needed help more than anything.”
“Life is different now. I’ll never go back to the place I was in. I’m just really conflicted about this woman. I’d never want anyone to think I was lying to them or deceiving them, but I also don’t want to go there tonight and start off by telling her I have a criminal record. She’ll probably walk out on me.”
“Love, you need to take it slow and relax. If something comes of it with this woman you’re meeting, we can face it when the time comes. But for tonight, just bloody enjoy yourself. It’s about time life started to look up for you.”
Jen could only smile. Her mum was right. There was no point worrying about anything until things developed. And that was highly unlikely, given who Jen was and who Suzanne was. She probably just wanted to blow off some steam and let go for the night. Whatever the reason for the invite, Jen was going to make the most of it. She didn’t know the next time another woman would look in her direction. If Suzanne wanted to have fun, then Jen—foolishly— was on board with that. Moving forward, she may not be entitled to anything more…no matter who she was with. “Thanks, Mum.”