The Fix-Up (Two Harts #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

Love is snuggling with my one-eyed rescue dog.

My man picker was broken.

A truer truth had never been spoken. Everyone—my mom, my sisters, my brother, my six-year-old son, Oliver, the guy who worked the meat counter at the grocery store—knew it.

It was an objective truth. The sky was blue, cheese made everything better, and my man picker was broken.

At twenty-eight, I had receipts to prove it. My receipts had receipts at this point.

Receipt #1:

My first love ran away with me to Los Angeles the day after high school graduation.

Three months later, he ran away again with our next-door neighbor—the model—and every cent we had, forcing me to move into a two-bedroom apartment with six other hopeful actors.

I was the lucky one—I got a whole closet to myself.

Receipt #2:

My relationship with Oliver’s father began after one date.

He was a drummer (ugh, I know) in a struggling band, who was covered in tattoos including one on his face (yeah, yeah, I know ).

After taking me on a picnic in a park (in which I provided the food, the transportation, and the idea), he asked if he could sleep over.

Because he was so tired from his gig the night before, you see.

Oh, he slept over and never left. He also never got an actual job.

Though it turns out, when I found out I was pregnant with Oliver, he suddenly found other faraway couches to sleep on.

Receipt #3:

I have been on thirty-two first dates, nine second dates, three third dates, and one fourth date over the last three years. Which also included:

Not one but two occasions on which my date brought his mother

That one guy who wondered aloud over hamburgers what human flesh might taste like

The seemingly sweet high school teacher who was excited to show me his collection of stuffed animals.

An entire room dedicated to all manner of plushies—hundreds and hundreds of them.

Big, small, oddly shaped, beady-eyed—which he’d named and slept with on rotation, so no one got jealous.

I know, he showed me the sleeping schedule

The man who argued with the manager of the restaurant—to be fair, his steak was well-done when he asked for medium-rare and that was basically a capital offense in Texas—so loudly, he was escorted out of the place in handcuffs, and…

This guy.

Curtis Norfolk, aged thirty-five, an engineer from Nebraska who now resided in Houston. Never married. No kids. Nice smile. Maybe used a bit too much hair product but I could work with that. Owned his condo and liked to travel. Dog owner.

Oliver would love a dog.

The dating site I used had paired us because of our similar life goals: marriage, family, stability, fully funded IRAs.

I was on a mission to find a mate who was nothing like the other guys I’d dated.

No drummers (or guitar players or lead singers, for that matter).

In fact, no musicians. Or actors. Or anyone acting-adjacent.

No jobless losers or professional couch surfers.

No face tattoos. No motorcycle enthusiasts.

No mooches or dudes with strange addictions.

I wanted normal. Maybe that sounded a little boring, but I’d already been through enough chaos. I longed for boring. I wanted an engineer who filed his taxes every year. I wanted Oliver to grow up in a good home where he felt safe and loved.

I wanted Curtis.

Probably.

If this idea of mine made my insides feel a little itchy, so be it. Sunny, my therapist, said that was because I needed to get used to the idea; the itchiness would pass.

I tried to give my all to each of these first dates. It had not been easy today, either. Since the appointment I’d had with the attorney mid-morning, my brain and emotions had been working double-time. But that’s what happened when a person received life-altering news.

This morning, I woke up with not a whole lot to my name, besides my son, of course.

Now, I was a proud house and business owner.

Ollie had left me his house, the land it sat on, and the café.

Ollie Holder, the grumpy old man who, three years ago, had given a job at the Sit-n-Eat Café to a tired single mom who was new in town.

The same man who rented out rooms in his house for Oliver and me to have a place to live.

Ollie, who had treated me like the granddaughter he never had.

I could hardly catch my breath when I heard the news.

A strange buzzing in my ears made it hard to hear anything else the lawyer said.

Afterward, I’d sat in the car for forty-five minutes trying to process it all.

The tears fell unchecked as memories of Ollie’s perpetually grumpy exterior and the kind soul it hid circled in my head.

His death had left a big hole in my heart. In Oliver’s, too.

But I’d gone back to work until we closed at two and Oliver got home from school, and I had to feed him, then cry in the bathroom for fifteen minutes thinking of Ollie’s last gift to us (but quietly because I didn’t want to worry Oliver), then get ready for this date, and then finally hustle Oliver off to my brother’s house for the evening.

Single mom life, amirite?

Frankly, I was exhausted and if I could have gotten out of this date, I would have.

But I was committed to this whole idea of finding a nice guy and settling down, even if romantic luck was not on my side (like I said, broken man picker).

I was so done with the guys in the shallow end I always seemed to attract.

Like the guy I’d dated when Oliver was about a year and a half old.

That ended after he’d gotten arrested for smuggling exotic animals.

Sadly, he was not my first boyfriend with an arrest record.

So, I’d put on actual makeup, shaved my legs, tamed my long blonde hair into loose curls, plucked that one stubborn chin hair, and put on a pale-pink dress with fluttery cap sleeves and strappy sandals.

It was a far cry from the jeans, t-shirts, and tennis shoes I wore six days a week at the café. I was kind of feeling myself.

I worked hard to feel good about my body these days.

I came from a family of Amazons—big, strong, strapping Amazons.

Amazons who were part milkmaids or Vikings or something.

My brother was six five, one of my sisters was pushing six feet.

I was but five nine. But I used to be a willowy, waif-like five nine.

The kind that could fit in sample sizes and ordered side salads at restaurants as a meal.

Then I’d gotten pregnant at twenty-one and I didn’t quite lose all the weight.

I started eating real food, and yes, even dessert.

I was more a size twelve or fourteen these days than a size two.

I was so much happier, even if it had taken me a while to get used to this new me.

I appreciated it now. This body had grown a whole human child, and it could make the best muffins on this and that side of the Mississippi.

I strolled into my favorite restaurant, the Texican, only five minutes late. For me, that was practically early. Being on time had never been one of my strong points.

Unfortunately, I knew the second I saw Liliana’s face the primping was all for nothing.

Liliana and her husband owned and operated the Texican, a perfect blend of Mexico and Texas on a plate.

Seeing as how it was halfway between Houston and Two Harts, the small town I lived in, it was where I tried to hold all my first dates.

I’d probably paid for most of the mortgage on this place at this point.

Liliana eyed me over the top of her reading glasses. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but that look was easily in the seven figures.

“Is he here?” I asked.

“Yes, he is.” Her voice practically dripped with displeasure. She was tiny, the top of her head barely hitting my shoulder, but she had a backbone made of steel and reinforced by hard work. Everyone knew Liliana was not one to mess with. Me included. “Ellie, mija , your man picker is broken.”

“But he’s an engineer,” I whined, slumping against the counter, careful not to upset the bowl of complimentary bunuelos —fried pieces of tortilla covered in cinnamon and sugar and scarily addictive. I picked one up and took a bite.

Liliana harrumphed.

“He’s a homeowner.” I stuffed the rest of the bunuelo in my mouth and tried to keep the desperation from my voice. “He’s never been married. He’s a dog person.”

She shook her head. “He is not the one.”

“But—”

“No, not him.” She patted me on the cheek. “I had to put him at the table by the bathrooms.”

“The bathroom table? He’s that bad?”

She leaned in and lowered her voice. “He is crying.”

“He’s what?” Maybe he was in touch with his feelings? Please be that. Please be th?—

“He’s crying and staring at photos of a woman on his phone.”

So not that.

Curtis wasn’t hard to find. I just followed the sniffling. Nor was it a challenge to get the story out of him. The woman on his phone? His ex-girlfriend. The crying? She’d texted him a picture of…her cat.

“That’s Sugar-Bear.” He pointed at a photo of an orange tabby with a supremely bored expression on its whiskered face.

“How long were you together?” I asked, determined to give this date the old college try.

“Three beautiful months.” He sniffled again and glanced forlornly at the cloth napkin he’d already repurposed as a tissue.

Three months? I’d had rashes that lasted longer than three months. “How long ago did you break up?”

He swung his red-rimmed eyes in my direction. “Nine months ago.”

A whole human person could be conceived, grown, and hatched in less time than he was taking to get over this woman. The saddest part? I was a little jealous. I doubted I’d been the cause of such heartbreak in a man.