Forget Me Not: A Lesbian Romance, page 1
Forget Me Not
A Lesbian Romance
Alexa Woods
© 2021 Alexa Woods
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may
not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without
the express permission of the publisher except for the use of
brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely
coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s
imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the
age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Alexa Woods
About Alexa Woods
Blurb:
Can you fall in love all over again with a woman who
shattered your heart?
Ten years ago, Quinn Smyth’s heart was broken. The
love of her life had inexplicably cut her off and left town for
good. Although it took her a while to get over Dallas, Quinn
has finally moved on. Now Dallas is simply a distant memory,
a silly childhood crush, a person she never wishes to see again.
Until she does.
A decade ago, Dallas Tenison was young and stupid. She
made the biggest mistake of her life: she lied to the girl she
loved most and left her behind. Her own heart shattered that
day. Since then, Dallas lives with the jarring knowledge of the
mistake she never had a chance to apologize for.
When a surprise clause in a will left by Quinn’s
grandfather thrusts Dallas back into Quinn’s world, will she
have the courage to finally confront her own mistakes? Will
she find the right words to apologize to her first love, who now
hates her guts? And will Quinn be able to resist the growing
fire for her past love which was never put out in the first
place?
Will these two gorgeous women give first love a second
chance?
This is a standalone steamy F/F enemies to lovers
second chance romance novel with a HEA.
Chapter 1
Dallas
“Hello?” Dallas’ hand gripped her phone harder than
necessary.
She figured it was a stress reaction triggered by
answering the call from an unknown number. She usually let
those ones go to voice mail, so she could decide what to
answer and what to leave. Usually they were telemarketer calls
that she was happy to delete without listening to.
Unfortunately, she was in the middle of walking down the
sidewalk on her way to the gym during her lunch break and
she’d pulled her phone out of her bag without thinking.
“Hi, I’m looking for Dallas Tenison?”
“This is,” she replied, growing more edgy since she
didn’t know who the deep male voice belonged to on the other
end. It was brusque and businesslike. She wondered for a
second if she’d forgotten to file her taxes or something, but no.
She remembered getting her refund in the absurd amount of
two dollars and thirteen cents and having to cash that silly
cheque.
“My name is Jim Johnson. I’m a lawyer with Johnson,
Kashinsky, Ferrison, and Mayler.”
“Umm… Alright.” Dallas’ heart beat wildly. What the
heck was going on? Was someone suing her? If they were,
didn’t they have to serve that stuff in person? Could a lawyer
do it over the phone? Who the heck would want to sue her
anyway? She tried to be a good neighbor. She was a decent
driver. No fender benders lately that she recalled.
“I’m calling on behalf of my late client, Willford
Smyth.”
Now Dallas’ heart wasn’t beating at all. It ground to a
painful stop like an old car dying in the middle of heavy
traffic. Putt, putt, putt, clunk, bang. She imagined the smoke
flooding out of her tail pipe and the honks behind her. She
looked quickly behind her, left, then right, and tucked up into
the corner of an alley between two towering older buildings.
“O-okay,” she stammered. She could hear better out of
the wind and away from the rush of traffic. Even though it
wasn’t far, the buildings blocked out a lot of the extra noise.
She was almost certain she’d heard the guy wrong.
“I know this might be a shock to you, because I
understand that you haven’t been in contact with the family in
years.”
“You could say that,” Dallas rasped. It felt like there
was something blocking her airway, but she was still able to
gulp in a breath around it.
“The reason for my call is that Mr. Smyth left you a
substantial sum of money when he passed. Of course you
weren’t at the will reading before the funeral. I wanted to
contact you sooner, but the family insisted that I wait until
after everything was settled.”
“I- I see.” Of course they didn’t want Dallas there. It
would have been awkward. Horrible. Painful. Maybe. Maybe
it wouldn’t have been painful. Everyone had likely moved on.
They probably just didn’t want to see her ass and were pissed
that their grandfather, father, uncle, brother, friend- whatever
Willford had been to each of them- had left her anything at all.
What exactly was a substantial amount of money? She
didn’t want to ask. That would be beyond rude.
Dallas leaned hard against the one building. The rough
stone cut into her back through her designer blazer. It was
black with bright flowers. Dallas loved it and had choked back
the four hundred dollars. She wasn’t one of those women who
loved clothes. She had a few staple pieces for work that she
wore until they fell apart. The rest of her wardrobe was just
comfy clothes and pajamas, yoga pants- stuff she could wear
at home.
When she thought about Willford Smyth, she thought
about his granddaughter, Quinn. She thought about Avery and
Jim Willford. They’d been like family to her. More than
family. They’d loved her like a daughter. Quinn loved her
grandpa. They were so close. Dallas used to think of Willford
as a grandpa too.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry,” Dallas muttered. “I- how do I- deal with it?
Do you just send it to me? Is that why you’re calling? To get
my information?”
“No. I’m sorry, there was a clause in the will. Mr. Smyth
stated that you had to come in person to our office to get the
cheque. He was adamant about that.”
“Umm….” The last thing Dallas ever saw herself doing
was going back to Topeka.
Dallas loved to travel. Just not to Kansas. She’d grown up
there. When she left with her parents ten years ago, she was
certain she’d never set foot in that state again. They lived in
Tampa Bay now. Tampa was her home. She didn’t spend a lot
of time thinking about her roots. She actually spent a
significant amount of effort not thinking about them.
“I- wow,” Dallas stammered. “I- I don’t know if I can get
there. How much is it?” Maybe if it wasn’t a lot of money, she
wouldn’t go. She could just tell the lawyer to donate it to
charity.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” the lawyer informed her.
He had that no-nonsense type of voice that she thought would
actually make for good audio book narration.
“Twenty-five thousand?” she gasped. “Why? Why would
he leave that to me? That’s crazy!”
“He wanted you to have it. He came here two years ago to
have us help him with his will and I remember quite clearly
that he said that he considered you a member of his family and
he hadn’t forgotten about you just because you moved. He
wanted to make sure you were okay, and since he didn’t feel
that he could contact you, he wanted to leave you a sum of
money to help you along if you should need it.”
“I…” Dallas was about to say that she didn’t need it. That
she was doing fine. That she’d made a life for herself and she
didn’t have a use for the cash. “Can I get you to donate it?”
she asked instead.
“I’m afraid that you have to come and claim it yourself. I
can’t do anything with it. There’s a clause against it. You
would have to come get it yourself and then you can do with it
whatever you like.”
Dallas felt like her legs were about to buckle and she
leaned even harder against the wall. “Jeez. Did you help him
put in all those crazy clauses? Since you helped him make the
will? Or is it some random law that says if I’m out of state, I
have to come there and get it myself?”
“I’m afraid that I can’t say much, considering the client
privacy privilege, but I will tell you that Mr. Smyth was very
adamant that you come back to Topeka. It’s a clause and not a
law. I can give you our address if you know when you’d like
to come. The money is safe, as I know you probably can’t get
away immediately. You don’t have to worry about it going
anywhere.”
“Even if I never come?”
“Even if you never come.”
“That’s ridiculous.” The lawyer on the other end clearly
had no idea what to say to that and the line went silent.
“Sorry,” Dallas said and heaved out a hard breath. “Yes, will
you call me back and leave a message with your information
so that I have a record of it? I don’t have anything with me to
write anything down at the moment.”
“I can certainly do that.”
“Thank you. For calling. Um- yes. Thanks. I’ll see when I
can make it there.”
“Take care.” The lawyer ended the call without waiting for
any further exchange of forced pleasantries or any other details
about the will.
When the phone rang again from the same blocked
number, Dallas let it go to voicemail. She was so shocked
about the whole thing she couldn’t even remember the
lawyer’s name or what firm he said he was from.
Was that call even real?
Dallas stared at her phone. There was a missed call
notification and a red circle by her voice mail. It was real. The
call. The lawyer. Willford leaving her this huge amount of
money. Willford passing away. Willford was dead. That hit
Dallas the hardest. She felt her legs give and leaned hard
against the building closest to her. It was crazy how, while she
was standing there, the world went right on rushing past the
alleyway.
She remembered Willford as a sweet old man who
loved his family more than anything in the world. He never
would have admitted it, but Quinn was his favorite grandchild.
When Dallas and Quinn started dating, Willford was the first
to welcome her. He did that eagerly, with a big smile, a firm
handshake, and one of his signature cherry suckers that he kept
stashed in just about every part of the house and often in the
pocket of the grey and black checkered shirts he used to wear.
Dallas found herself rubbing at a spot on her chest
without even realizing she was doing it. There was this
horrible throbbing there, but of course, no matter how hard she
rubbed that spot just above her heart, the ache didn’t fade
away.
Willford was stubborn. He said that about himself all
the time. He loved Quinn and he wanted what was best for her.
Dallas never had been able to say goodbye to Willford when
she broke up with Quinn and moved away. She’d lied to
Quinn. She didn’t think she could lie to Willford as well. He
would have seen right through it. Dallas hadn’t said goodbye
to Quinn’s parents either. To Quinn’s sister, Danica, or to her
brother, Billy. They were all so close. Dallas thought of them
all like an extension of herself. Like her own brothers and
sisters, like a second set of parents.
It hurt Dallas to think that Willford was gone. A man
she had once liked, respected, and thought of as a grandfather
of her own. He was gone. He’d died and he was buried, the
funeral already over, and she’d known nothing about it.
Thinking about that was just as painful as thinking
about how she’d ended things in Topeka. Breaking up with
Quinn was the hardest thing that Dallas had ever done. She’d
lied. She’d broken her heart. She’d hurt so many people
because she thought that was her only option. She’d learned
the hard way that sometimes people change their minds.
Sometimes people come around. Her parents had changed
their minds. They had come around. They’d accepted her for
who she was eventually- after years. It was hard. It was still
hard. They still had their issues. All those years later though,
the damage was already done. Dallas couldn’t go back. She
couldn’t go back to Topeka. She couldn’t go back and pick up
all the pieces of Quinn’s shattered heart and the life they’d
never have together.
What made Willford think that it was possible?
Willford wasn’t just stubborn. He also had a great
sense of humor. His dry wit could entertain people for days.
He was wickedly intelligent too, and could talk for hours on a
surprising amount of subjects.
When Dallas was younger she’d really thought that
there was a possibility that Willford knew everything. She had
a slightly eerie sensation standing in the alley, that he’d been
able to see her, even long after she was gone. That he was able
to understand her pain. Or maybe he just knew from
experience that people made mistakes. Dallas was young. She
was naïve and inexperienced. She chose her real family over
Quinn and the family who had come to love her. She thought
she didn’t have a choice. Maybe Willford knew that there was
always a choice. Maybe he hoped that it was never too late.
Maybe he was just trying to give her the peace she’d never
been able to find.
Or maybe he just wanted her to drag her ass back to
Kansas, suck it up, and get on with it.
Either way, Dallas knew she was going to have to go.
She couldn’t just leave twenty-five grand sitting in some
lawyer’s trust fund. Even if she didn’t use the money, she
could think of at least a dozen places that she could donate it
to for other people to put it to good use. She could help change
someone’s life with it. That was a good reason to get her crap
together, get on a plane, and get it done.
Unfortunately for her, she had saved her holidays up at
work. She could take time off. That wasn’t even an issue. Her
parents would now understand. Even if they didn’t, they
wouldn’t interfere with her going back. She had a cat, and a
few plants in her condo, but her mom could come to take care
