My Last and Never, page 1
My Last and Never
Toni Lynn
My Last and Never
Love Saves
Copyright © 2020 by EG Publishing
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright preserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitious-ly, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Edition. November 22, 2020
Published by EG Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-948377-89-8
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
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From the Author
Chapter One
“If he’s got a shifty stance and a shifty attitude, then he’s shifty, and you can’t trust him.”
Cord “the devil” Barrett, CIO of Butler hotels, sat next to Jane Smith in the hospital. Liam and Travers had already left for the day and would be back later. Three months ago, Jane had walked into their lives literally from the street as well as into their hearts. Both she and her dog were now full-time residents at the hotel. When she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital, she and her dog Mr. Butterscotch were given the best of care.
“I know you had some reservations about Darren,” Cord began.
“Reservations? Don’t go using them big words to try and throw me off the course. Did you hear me stutter? No, you didn’t because I knew that boy was no good.”
It was hard to argue with her in lieu of the current predicament he found himself in. Cord had a thief in his company, and the worst of it was he was the one who had brought him in.
“Jane, you can roast me later. I need you to get better,” Cord said as he brushed her hair back from her face.
“Pshaw! You all went and got all scared and put Mr. Butterscotch and me in this fancy hospital. Sometimes I just forget to eat. Now that you all have someone else feeding Mr. Butterscotch, I forgot to feed myself. You know, before when we were on the street we always ate together.”
Cord sighed and gave her a faint smile.
“Before you were living on the street. Now you live in one of the best hotels in the city. There is enough staff in that hotel, so you don’t have to feed Mr. Butterscotch.”
“And it’s just that kind of thinking that has gotten us here. If I took care of my baby like I normally do, I wouldn’t be here,” she snapped back as she crossed her arms over her chest in the hospital bed.
Holding his hands up and then gently laying them on her folded ones, he gave up.
“You’re right. I’ll make sure only you take care of Mr. Butterscotch when you come back.”
“You’re going to handle that slimy toad you have working for you?”
“I wish it were that easy.”
“He’s wrong. He’s stealing business from the hotel. Get him! While you are at it, you need to handle that woman, Roxanne too!”
“Again, I wish. Darren is doing it in such a way that he could say it's just chance that the other hotels underbid our best offers. As for Roxanne, there’s nothing I can do with the mistakes that have been made.”
“Who’s going to believe that foolishness, and who gives up hope?”
Cord sat back in the visitor chair.
“A lot of people want to believe there is hope, but sometimes a man just can’t afford to hope.”
“You talking about those stuff shirts that have been sniffing around the hotel. There’s always going to be rats around, a good thing because everything has a purpose. They are just waiting for scraps. You can’t let them in, though. You build a good shelter to hold you through the night. You, Liam, and Travers, you all get your heads together and figure it out. Hope isn’t optional, Cord. It can make or break a person. You remember what I said now.”
Cord never thought the day would come that he would find himself being lectured by a senior woman in a bed on how to be the CIO of Butler hotels, but here he was, and she was making sense.
“I’ll find an answer, Jane,” Cord replied in a low voice.
Jane reached out, and her cold weathered hands lifted his chin up.
“Boy, don’t play this old lady. You know the answer to the questions, and all of them start and end with a woman.”
“Crusty Crone, do you think that fits you?”
There was no way this conversation was going to go well. The only thing that kept her from yelling was that it was coming from her 10-year-old son, Peter. She couldn’t very well get upset with the question when she claimed to have an open discussion household, could she?
Well, she could, but as Joy Frost, the anchor of the church community and a single mom trying to balance it all, she had learned that having moments of impropriety were not allowed. But she had to admit today did feel like it might be an exception.
“Why do you ask dear?” Joy said as she sat down at the small circular table big enough for three but currently set for just her and Peter. Peter was shoveling his cereal into his mouth. Joy felt like her smile was plastered on her face.
“You’ve got that look, mom.”
“What look?”
“It’s the look that says you are smiling so hard you start to look like the joker,” he said through mouthfuls of cheerios.
Joy blew out a breath and tried again.
“Okay, who said I was a Crusty Crone, and what is that anyway?”
Peter swallowed the cereal and then wiped his hand across his mouth.
“The Crusty Crone is the end boss in a video game. It’s when you’re playing a video game, and you’re on the final quest. She’s the baddest of them all. She starts out pretty but the longer you fight her, the more she changes, and she eventually becomes the Crone.”
Joy just moved the spoon next to her bowl to the right.
“And they say I’m the Crusty Crone?”
“Some people do. Do you think you’re becoming the crusty crone?”
Joy could feel the need to jump up and say, ‘give me their names, every one of them, and their friends, and I’ll get their little doggie too!” As soon as she heard the doggie part, she stopped and sat back in her chair.
“Doesn’t look good.”
Joy looked back to her son, who resumed shoveling cereal into his mouth.
“What do you mean that it doesn’t look good?”
“I’m just saying when you aren’t sure about something, you sit back and sigh a lot!”
“Are the kids at school bothering you?” Joys asked in the most neutral tone she could find.
“No, besides, they talk all the time, and it goes away. Besides, our science teacher explained to us about changes in the body,” Peter said as he slurped the milk in the bowl. Changes in the body? Joy was not prepared to have a conversation about sex with her son. In fact, she wondered if she had missed the notice that this was going to be covered.
Clearing her throat, Joy sat up and looked at Peter, wondering how he could be thinking about changes in the body. His dark swath of brown hair covered his head. He barely had the physic to play basketball and would probably never have the bulk needed for football, much less anything else, but here we are.
“Peter, did you have any questions about the changes in the body?” Joy heard the words come out of her mouth, but internally she was praying. Lord, please let him have no questions and no interest. I’ll find a way to do more to help the flock; I just don’t think I’m ready for this yet.
“No, I don’t have any questions. Mr. Johansen explained it all. He said that it may seem like you are the Crusty Crone now, but you wouldn’t turn ugly. You’re just going through hormonal issues. Girls get them all the time, and that’s what makes them special and unpredictable.”
Just then, a car honked outside. Peter jumped up from the table and kissed Joy on the cheek.
“It’s my ride. I’ll see you after school. Love you, mom.”
Joy was still sitting in the chair, looking at Peter’s vacant chair, thinking over what her son had said. Her? She was the one going through body changes? Joy mulled the thought over in her head. Breathe, she had to remember to breathe in and to breathe out.
“Crusty Crone,” she murmured to no one in the house. Joy had to take a hard look at herself. She didn’t lead an inspiring life. She woke up, got Peter ready for school. Cleaned up the kitchen and then went to the church to take care of its electronic records, that any high schooler could review, were up to date and the data entry done. She walked through the church tried to help out as much as she could. Joy came back home, readied dinner, waited for Peter. They did his homework, ate together, watched television, bathed, and went to bed.
Joy dropped her head into her hands. She had just itemized the last 11 years of her life. Peter was a gift in her life, and most times, he was her sanity, but Joy, the woman, was dying and, if the crusty crone comment was correct, becoming bitter in little snippets. Joy wished she could say she didn’t know what they were referring to, but when Joy thought about how mean spirited she had been to Elissa and Liam not even a couple of months ago, it wasn’t so hard to believe.
The evidence was staring her in the face. She couldn’t refute them because the longer she thought about it, the more the evidence of how the crusty crone would poke her head out at church functions stacked up, forming a brick wall of accusation.
How had she gotten here? Really? Joy hated that little voice of truth that never left her alone and seemed to show up at all the wrong times. Okay, she knew how she had gotten here. That was the problem. She knew exactly what had happened, and it was the oldest story in the book. She fell in love he dumped her. She ran into a rebound marriage, and when she got pregnant, he dumped her too. Joy had been hiding in her hometown instead of rebuilding her life, and it was starting to show how unhappy and unfulfilled she was.
It didn’t help that today was her wedding anniversary. Just another reminder of something she couldn’t keep together. There were days that if she didn’t have Peter, she wouldn’t know what to do.
The phone rang. Joy picked her head up and looked at her phone, but she couldn’t pick up the phone because disbelief was staying her hand. She hadn’t even heard his voice, and she was held in place. Then the ring went silent, and not even twenty seconds later, she listened to the static and then the message.
“This call is for Joy. You know who it is. I need you. Call me. My number hasn’t changed.”
How did Cord Barrett manage to pull that off? He just called her as if ten years hadn’t passed since they last spoke. If memory and gossip served her correctly, he was Mr. C.I.O of Butler hotels these days.
Cord “the devil” Barrett.
He had earned the nickname of the devil because he could negotiate with anyone. When that man started to speak, he was like a magician weaving a spell. Joy had fallen for those magnetic brown eyes that lured you in but promised nothing. He was the man who taught her love wasn’t enough. Both of them were up and coming coders working in the sweat pools of Butler hotels. They had been eager and full of themselves. They never showed any interest in the office unless it was competitive. Everyone had told her that she was good, and Joy had foolishly believed that her accolades straight out of college would mean something in a good old boy industry.
Then an opportunity came, and Joy and Cord had worked on a new reservation system that would give the company a competitive edge. Management promoted Cord. To Cord’s credit, he had told them it was a team effort, and they had offered to promote her as his assistant.
Pride made her leave and go out on her own. Cord had asked her to be patient. He asked her to think about them. Joy couldn’t see herself ever being able to leave Cord’s shadow, and so she gave her two weeks' notice and went to work for the competition.
She left Cord and all of her girlish dreams of the two of them staying up late nights coding together and having a family that would learn how to communicate in the binary code of zeroes and ones before they learned how to speak.
She had heard about his rise in Butler because Butler hotels was an up and coming hotel chain. She’d even heard that he’d hooked up with one of his fraternity buddies to improve her initial code and make the reservation system more intuitive and streamlined to make decisions on profit and margins. After that, if Joy were honest, she’d admit she had stopped reading about him. When Cord picked up a “frat brother,” it just confirmed what she thought all along.
After that final nail in the coffin, she focused on being the best she could be. She put aside all thoughts of the devil. It went well for a while. She went to work for the competition. They didn’t seem to care that she was missing a third leg, and she moved on. Of course, in retrospect, Joy could see how she was a slow learner when it came to men. She met Peter’s father, and once again, she was part of a team making new code. When he found out that she was pregnant, he told her to choose career and him or Peter, and that ended that.
Every so often, she had spoken to her family in Chusada, and the only thing she asked them was not to mention the Butler hotel. She eventually moved back and had been licking her wounds and curling up from life ever since. She could see it now, and it seems that others could too if the crusty crone jab was any indication.
Joy looked around the pale yellow kitchen. The refrigerator was covered with work by Peter. His tests, pictures, and notes to her. The church had recently offered her an office and a little more pay. It was steady and safe. It was very stable, and more than what everyone thought about her, what really mattered to Joy was what was best for Peter.
That was the problem with Cord. He brought about second thoughts and doubt.
Despite the urge that she had to pick up the phone and give Cord a call, she would have to ignore it. Peter was what was important here. Joy could take a moment or two and languish in the dream of being able to pick up the phone and tell Cord no. She might even spend a little time today daydreaming of what it would be like to do a real job involving computers instead of the same monotonous task she had been doing at the church. As the reality of the moment settled about her, so did a cloak of hopelessness settle over her shoulders. Just as she was about to get some coffee, the phone rang again. She wasn't going to let this one go to voicemail. She was going to handle this upfront and right away.
“Hello, this is Joy Frost, and you are?” Joy waited for the modulated tunes of the magician to come through the phone, and instead, she heard an older gentleman saying I'm so glad I found you.
“Oh, oh, I'm so sorry I thought you were someone else.”
“So it seems. I'm glad I'm not that person because it seems like you were ready for him.”
“And how do you know it was a man?”
“I'm a widow of 35 years, and I have daughters. I know that tone, and I usually feel bad for the man who's on the receiving end.”
“Forgive me for being rude, but may I ask who's calling?”
“My name is Gregory Butler, and I'm trying to reach out to you before Cord Barrett does.”
The Butler name and Cord's mention in the same sentence was enough to set Joy on edge.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Butler, you're late. When Cord wants to do something, he usually doesn't wait, and he's already called me this morning.”
“Did he offer you a job?”
“He said he needed my help.”
“Well, I want you to know that while it's true, he is the CIO, the job he's about to offer doesn't have any long-term prospects. I'm afraid Mr. Barrett is just grasping at straws. I wanted to reach out to you just to make sure that he wasn't pulling down innocent people with him at the same time.”
Joy could believe a lot of things about Cord, but that he would be one to pull someone down with him wasn't one of them.
“We haven't kept in close touch over the years, so I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”
“And that, my dear, should tell you everything that you really need to know. It seems as though Mr. Barrett is having a problem at the company, and he wants someone to take the fall for it. I'm sure that's why he decided to come knocking on your door. I mean, we both know it's not as though there are a lot of opportunities for computer jobs showing up at the church accountants’ door.”
Before this phone call, Joy wouldn't have thought it was possible. However, Mr. Butler had proven to her there was someone she could dislike more than Cord. Whoever the older gentleman was on the other side of the phone, he was someone who was seasoned and knew how to get straight to the matter and cut a person to the quick.
“My current workplace is my current choice, thank you. “
“Yes, well, I've been to the town of Chusada. My brother moved there after he got married, actually. I suppose it takes all types of people in the world, and if you're the type of person who likes to live there, then you definitely would not have been a fit for Butler hotels.”
