The Stories Between Us (Hot & Steamy Charity Anthology)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Even through the blur of my tears, Central Park in late Autumn is the most beautiful place. Too bad for me I probably won’t have another Fall in this city. The past couple of weeks have shattered my hopes, my dreams, and every one of my fucking spirits.

Still, my view is so gorgeous it can’t be denied.

Luckily, it’s a brisk afternoon and there aren’t many boat renters paddling around the lake.

It not only gives me privacy to sob at my heart’s content but helps keep the colorful scenery unobstructed.

The trees are puffs of reds, oranges, and yellows as they act as buffers for the lake, their colors reflecting on the water.

It all reminds me of the painting that hung in my grandmother’s bedroom as a child.

The same painting that inspired so many of my childhood fantasies.

I’d never been good in crowded rooms. When we had family events at her house, I often hid in her room to gather my bearings or get a moment of quiet.

That painting of Central Park was my only companion.

At six, I dreamed there was castle hidden behind the tree line, a knight waiting nearby to save me from any monster lying in wait in the surrounding forest.

At twelve, it was the place I wanted to have picnics with my best friend, Sammie. As impossible as that was, since we lived in Kansas.

At sixteen, New York was going to be where I went to college after graduating high school. I saw myself attending NYU clear as day, mingling with intellects and artists, alike. Spending my free time in quaint coffee shops with a book or wandering the Museum of Natural History.

College in New York was just another dream that never materialized. Not with my family’s meager income, and my lack of enough scholarships to make my way here. Instead, I took a different route. One that took me years longer to land me in New York City.

Still, a month ago, I landed here from my last job in San Francisco with renewed enthusiasm and that childhood dream tinting my eyesight with a perfect shade of pink. Now though, those rose-colored glasses are shadowed with the doom and gloom of my situation.

This job isn’t going to work out. Once I let the agency know I need a new post, I’ll be packed up and moved to who knows where.

There’s a chance they could find a place here in New York, but there isn’t a guarantee.

Or it could be upstate instead of the city.

That wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it’s not the dream either.

Like with so many other things in my life, this feels like it’s going to be snatched away from me before it’s even really beginning.

Which is why I’m out here in the middle of the lake, crying my eyes out before I have to go pick up the creep’s children.

I have a few hours before I’ll be giving my notice to both him and the nanny agency that I work through.

From there, we’ll see if he insists I stay in the house for the remaining two weeks or if he’ll immediately kick me out.

Neither is a great option.

Tilting my head toward the sky and taking a big gulp of crisp air, I try to steady myself. Try to wrap some metaphorical duct tape around my breaking heart, willing it to hold on long enough to come up with a new life plan.

Somewhere along the shore, a child squeals in delight, yelling “squirrel, squirrel” repeatedly. Light sloshing sounds around me, other boaters enjoying the clear day. Probably couples in love, or men taking a woman out in the hopes that she’ll fall for him. Or maybe just into his bed.

I don’t have much faith in men these days.

A dog whimpers, soft and distressed. It sounds close. Too close since I’m not that near lake edge. Blinking away my tears does little so I bring my hands up to wipe my eyes when my boat rocks to one side.

“Oh, fuck,” I say, grasping the sides. The last thing I want is to capsize, but that would be my luck.

“Shit, sorry,” a man says, startling me. “In my head, that was going to be much more graceful than it was in reality.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Well, you see, Fred there saw you crying,” the man says, pointing toward the pocket-sized dog sitting on an older woman’s lap in a boat now only a couple of feet away.

She sends me a soft smile and a concerned look.

A man of similar age is in the boat with her, trying his best to keep it near with the oars.

“Obviously he sensed you were distressed, and I wouldn’t be a good man if I didn’t check on you. ”

“Or perhaps you wouldn’t be a good man because you just became a stowaway on a vulnerable woman’s boat,” I counter.

“That is precisely what I told him, my dear,” the woman says. “I promise you he’s harmless though. Stupid, but harmless.”

“I have nearly a higher IQ than you and Dad combined,” the man in my boat says.

“And yet no common sense or situational awareness, it would seem,” she retorts, raising a brow at him.

“She speaks the truth,” the elder of the two men says as my gaze bounce from person to person.

“You gave me a name at birth that promised I would have intelligence and nothing else.”

“I object,” the woman says. “Braxton is the name of an artist. And you are that.”

“Braxton Chandler Winterton is not the name of an artist,” he says, his lip curling in disgust.

It’s a nice mouth, wide with raspberry-colored lips that aren’t too thin.

His hair is a rich auburn mass atop his head, a style that says he puts some thought into it, but only enough for it to not look unkempt.

Under the waves that curtain his brow sits deep brown eyes.

Darker than my own by several shades. “It’s the name of spoiled brat with a knack for sexual deviance, or laundry detergent. ”

He's handsome. Very handsome. And something about him is familiar.

I tilt my head as I try to place him, and his mouth moves into a wry smile.

“Oh. My. Devil,” I say as recognition dawns.

“Devil? Not God?”

“I don’t believe in God,” I say absently. “You’re Brax Winterton.”

“A fact I’m well aware of,” he says, holding his hand out to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you…”

“Ida Forsythe. Why are you in my boat?”

“I answered that already,” he says, dismissing my question. “You, too, are cursed with a ridiculously pretentious sounding name. What am I to make of that?”

“That sometimes life shows you a coincidence in the form of an unsuspecting stranger that still doesn’t understand why a New York Times Bestselling author is in her boat.”

“I much prefer the title of Wall Street Journal Bestselling author, but that is neither here nor there. How is that you don’t believe in God, but you do the devil?”

“Who says I do?”

“Well, the assumption is that if you don’t say God because you don’t believe in God, but you do say the devil, that you must, therefore, believe in the devil. That’s simple extrapolation.”

“Except that I never said I don’t say oh my God because I don’t believe in God. I simply stated that I don’t believe in that particular deity.”

“Of course,” he says, sitting on the bench seat opposite me. His smile now amused. “Except that it was said in response to my questioning of your term. Again, one would assume.”

“Assume away,” I say with a shrug. “It still isn’t what I said. I’m fine here, you can go back to your own boat.”

“It appears that I cannot,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine until I’m the one to tear them away and look around at our surroundings.

We’ve slowly floated closer to the center of the lake, the boat holding his parents now quite a distance away. His mother still surreptitiously looks our way.

“Surely, you can swim.”

“Now who is assuming?” Brax appears more amused as he stares at me. Again, I wipe at my face, trying to erase any remnants of my tears. I bet my mascara is streaked down half my face by now. “Will you tell me why you’re on a shitty rental boat in the middle of the lake crying your eyes out alone?”

“Not alone,” I say, gesturing toward him.

“Not an answer,” he counters, now looking more concerned than entertained.

“I think I’ll be leaving New York, and I only just got here,” I finally answer with a heavy sigh.

“Why is that?”

“Because my employer.” I say the word as if it tastes sour, which it does. “Is a creep who would rather watch me shower than tend to his children.” Brax stiffens, his spine straightening from a casual curve to ramrod straight.

“Explain.” The word is a demand, and I find myself hardening some, as well.

“I was hired to be his nanny. He’s a widower with ten- and eight-year-old sons.

The boys are great, but the father is a creep.

He rarely has a conversation with me without leering eyes and sexual innuendos.

I lock my bedroom door at night, but I heard him try the knob, so now I have to wedge a chair under it, too.

I’ve hardly slept in weeks and only with a knife hidden under my pillow. ”

The tears stream again, and I stop talking to try and get myself under control in front of the most famous horror writer on the planet.

“You can’t stay there.”

“I know,” I cry. “I can’t leave though, either. There’s a contract, for one. Besides, I can’t really afford to move anywhere close while I finish out my two weeks’ notice. Nannies don’t get paid much, you know?”

“I don’t know, actually,” he says, reaching out to take one of my hands, rubbing a thumb over the top of it as he tries to soothe my nerves. “Where does this employer live?”

“In some posh, sterile, modern monstrosity on West 57th.”

“Gross,” Brax says, his smile returning. “I know of someone who lives near there. They have a spare room. Would that help your situation?”

“Moving from one stranger to another,” I say with so much skepticism.

“Okay, yeah. But I promise this person only has your best interests in mind and would never cross personal boundaries.” His thumb still creates circles on my skin. Like creating a little whirlwind drain for my mind to follow. Deeper and deeper.

“This person is you, isn’t it?” I get the words out before I lose all sense completely.

“Yes, but to be fair, I live in a six-story, twelve-bedroom brownstone. I’m certain you could find a place to hide from me even if I were trying to find you. Which I wouldn’t be. Because I may be a lot of things—a creep is not one of them.”

“That’s hard to believe with you when you sit on a stolen seat in my boat,” I say. In response, he grins, but it’s…endearing. Charming, disarming even. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes,” he answers simply.

“Why such a large house then?”

“I have no family here,” he says, looking away from my face for the first time.

He looks distant for a quick moment. Long enough for me to recognize that he has a story to tell.

Not long enough for me to read anything more.

“And too much money to know what to do with. Real estate seemed a good investment.”

“Are those not your parents?” I gesture toward the other boat that is even farther away now.

“Yes, but they’re visiting from Michigan.

My mother always wanted to come out on these silly boats.

I tried reminding her that her furball, Fred, is a pampered little shit who’s never learned to swim.

Yet, she insisted. My father and I are both over the moon for the woman, we indulge her. So, here we are.”

I can tell by how he looks at her that he’s not lying. For some reason, his adoration of her makes him more endearing. It makes him feel safer. Which is ridiculous; I’m sure even serial killers love their mother.

“How can I trust you?”

“I saw a damsel in distress and rushed in to help, at my own peril, I might add. I could have easily ended up slipping, hitting my head, and sinking to the bottom of the lake,” he says after a moment.

I’m reminded of my six-year-old self and the dream she had.

Is Braxton Winterton the knight I’ve been waiting for my whole life?

Maybe my fantasies were premonitions disguised as fairy tales.

Maybe fate led me here to the Folley family a month ago and the boathouse today.

I didn’t walk into the park with any plan other than to find a quiet space to think, after all.

What I found is a chance encounter with one of the most famous novelists of my time.

Who could either be offering me a lifeline or something more dangerous than the situation I’m currently in.

“And honestly, in your situation, how can you not?”