Accidental Texting: Finding Love despite the Spotlight Read online

  Accidental Texting

  Finding Love despite the Spotlight

  Kimberly Montague

  Cover images are courtesy of:

  iStockphoto.com Photographers: Owen Price and Joshua Hodge Photography

  Dreamstime.com Photographer: Anna Khomulo

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is completely coincidental.

  Accidental Texting

  Finding Love despite the Spotlight

  01.10.13

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2012 by Kimberly Montague

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Visit my website at www.kimberlymontague.com

  If you are reading this book and you have not purchased it or won it in an author/publisher contest, this book has been pirated. Please support the author by deleting it and purchasing the ebook from one of its distributors.

  For Mom, who helped me dream this one up, refine it, rewrite it, and repeat all over again.

  For Ted, the star of my world and my personal Oscar winner for his hilarious imitations and for everything about him.

  Table of Contents

  Mr. She Meant Nothing

  Morgan… Not Michelle

  Sean—No Last Name

  Non-refundable Deposits

  Sean the Stalker

  Stewie

  You Wanna See How this Plays or Walk?

  The Friend Hat Slips

  Getting in Deeper

  Background Check

  Thanks—giving?

  Digging

  Sean Freaking Wilder

  My Sean

  Why Me?

  Sean Freaking Wilder's Bedroom

  FDA Approved

  More than Twenty Million?

  Panic Button

  Confessions

  The Red Carpet

  The After… Party?

  Vultures

  Brent

  Home Sweet Home

  Not your Typical Girl

  I Should Have Known

  Rebuilding

  Trying to Figure You Out

  You Deserve Better

  Between You and Me

  Who the Hell is this Chick?

  I'll Always Choose You

  Back to Work

  Something to Talk About

  Psycho

  Christmas Dinner

  Thing

  Melding

  Tomorrow?

  Not Gonna Make This Easy

  Personal Reminder

  Puzzle Pieces

  Fitting Together

  Sealing the Vows

  Epilogue

  Mr. She Meant Nothing

  "It's a shame she couldn't hang on to that nice young man. What was his name?"

  My ears flamed, and I closed my eyes as I stood in line, knowing the blue-haired old bitty was talking about me. Cerise was my right-hand girl, my best friend, my most trusted employee, and family all in one. She and I typically stopped for gourmet coffee at Questia's on supply-run days. I was entirely addicted to the Phenomenal ChocoMocha with low-fat whipped cream. Questia's was just a small coffee shop that could technically be considered in competition with my inn. But since they sold my chef, Annalisa St. Croix's, muffins and pastries, it was still good business to patronize them. The only down side to the Phenomenal ChocoMocha was enduring the old bitties who spent all morning occupying the only two tables inside Questia's as they sipped their tea and gossiped shamelessly.

  "Brent Foster was his name." The way Mrs. Martinetti put her hand to the side of her mouth as if trying to hide her words, but then spoke loud enough to be heard over both blenders had me clenching my fists. "He had such strong hands."

  I tried not to let her words sink in, but my subconscious had already internalized them, leaving me cringing at the memory of Brent's "strong hands" and exactly what they'd been capable of. I successfully pushed that aside in favor of focusing on my annoyance at the bitties. Their gossiping had bugged me even before they started targeting me, but now it almost turned me off of my Phenomenal ChocoMocha. Still, I was a grown up and the struggling business owner of The Olde English Inn and Tea Room. I had to be the better person.

  Cerise's shoulder-length blonde hair sliced through the air as she turned to glare at them. I didn't have to look at her to know that her blue eyes had gone steely with anger. As my best friend, she took it as her duty to defend me. I put my hand on her shoulder and shook my head softly as Rachel, the barista, held out our cups. Hoping to avoid any more button-pushing from the bitties, I hurried Cerise to the door. Just as I was walking over the threshold, I took a deep breath, thinking I was home free.

  "Morgan dear, can we ask you just a quick question?" Mrs. Larson's super sweet voice immediately told me this would not make me happy.

  Still, I turned toward her. The glare from her thick, silver rimmed glasses thankfully obscured the eyes I knew were judging me. I pulled up the corners of my mouth and settled my customer service mask over my features. "Yes, Mrs. Larson?"

  "We were just wondering approximately how many, well, how to ask this—" She turned to Mrs. Martinetti then leaned close to Mrs. Achere, giggling annoyingly. "How many male patrons enjoy the amenities that you," she cleared her throat before continuing, "offer them?"

  Bitch! Old, mean, nasty, snaggle-toothed, prune-faced— I took a very deep breath and stepped forward, preventing Cerise from coming back in the coffee shop. Be Mom, I told myself. Just be Mom.

  I really wanted to smack the snickering right off their old, wrinkly faces, but I didn't. I maintained my smile. "It's very kind of you to be concerned about the business, and while we don't keep track of demographics like that, our guests are primarily couples coming to Vermont for a relaxing weekend getaway." I didn't give her the chance to respond and instead, walked right out the door.

  I kept my eyes down at the ground, reciting the familiar kids' rhyme, Step on a crack, break your mother's back, hoping it would keep my mind off the spiteful old women unwilling to keep their mouths shut.

  "Why do you let them say those things?" Cerise asked as she pulled her red wool coat more tightly around her. "Why don't you just tell them where they can shove their noses?"

  I sighed, tired of the conversation already. It was the same one we had almost every morning we went out for supplies. "Because I'm a business owner, Cerise—I can't do whatever I want to. I'm not some kid who can mouth off to everyone she wants—"

  "Hey, I resent that." The way she stared down at her coffee, adjusting the lid told me she wasn't just being dramatic.

  "I didn't mean you. I just mean, ugh." I ran my hand through my hair for the hundredth time and tried to focus on Barclay's pink and red awnings. Jensen of Jensen's Hardware next door to Barclay's had a fit for several months about the awnings, deeming them an eyesore and a public distraction since most of the rest of the main street had hunter green awnings. Castleton wasn't a big town in Vermont, but we were a lively group with plenty of small town issues, some humorous and some not.

  I scrubbed my face with my hand and tried to get my mind back on diffusing Cerise. "I can't be young and impetuous anymore. I have to think about what's good for the business, and right now, I don't think pissing off a couple of my very few customers is going to help me make enough money to keep The Olde English up and running." />
  "Well." She drew herself up, standing tall—well, relatively speaking, since she was still two inches shorter than my height of 5'4". "I'm young and impetuous." She turned from me, moving back toward the coffee shop. She wrapped her fingers around her designer handbag and looked like she might use it as a weapon. "Nothing is stopping me from telling them they're a bunch of mean old hags," she called back.

  "Stop, Cerise. You'll only make it worse." She took two more steps away from me, and I could feel my heartbeat kick up into a light panic. I so did not need this. "Please! Please, Cerise."

  She stopped with her back to me and let her shoulders slump. Slowly, she turned around and walked back to my side. "I just don't understand why you let them get away with it. They shouldn't be bringing Brent up after what he did. And they sure as hell shouldn't be asking how many male patrons you have. I mean come on now. That insinuation is even below their standards. You know they told Alvin that they were glad your mom isn't around to see the way you've turned her inn into a brothel? A brothel, Morgan! Yet they come in every freaking Tuesday and have their stupid quilting meeting in our tearoom."

  I did my best to keep my voice even so as not to encourage her. "I know all about what they said. I also know Alvin stood up for me, right?"

  "Yeah." She laughed lightly, looping her arm through mine.

  Her beautiful red wool coat looked so bright and cheery against my gray one, and I momentarily envied her ability to wear it. With my copper-colored hair and peach skin tone, red just made me look almost blob-like. I stuck with more subdued colors. But that was how we worked, Cerise and me. She was outgoing and ostentatious, and I was happy to stand back a bit and enjoy her energy. I wasn't a wallflower or anything, just a little more conservative than Cerise tended to be.

  She shook her head, smiling wide. "He looked Mrs. Larson up and down like he looks at you and ran his finger down her arm. He said, 'Really? Is that why you're there every week, Betty? You just tell me your usual day, and I'll be glad to patronize the business.' Mrs.Larson nearly died." She shook her head, smiling. "Damn, I wish I'd been there."

  I wiggled my shoulders as a chill of disgust ran over my spine. "Gross. I don't even want to think about that."

  She raised her sculpted eyebrow at me. "What? Alvin with a seventy-year-old woman or Alvin with anyone that's not you?"

  Okay, this was not where I wanted the conversation to go. I was almost more willing to go back to discussing the sex lives of the old bitties, but I knew the look Cerise was giving me. She would never just let it go. "We're just friends," I explained slowly. "You know that."

  "With benefits." She smirked.

  "Stop!" I stepped away from her and pulled my jacket more firmly around my shoulders. "That's exactly how rumors get started."

  She shrugged, tilting her head to the side and letting her hair fall in front of her eyes. She quickly brushed it back behind her ears. It was one of the things I loved most about Cerise—she was beautiful, but she wasn't constantly out to impress people. If her hair was in her face, she pulled it back instead of suffering through it hanging in her way so that it looked perfect. In that way, we were both incredibly similar. We were both intent on being who we were regardless of what others thought.

  She gave me her knowing smile. "Come on, I know you two have hooked up. You may not kiss and tell, but I know you too well. You're getting it from somewhere, and the way he protects you tells me it's from him."

  I looked around to make sure no one heard her, but thankfully no one was around us. It was sometimes unfortunate that with her unflinching ability to be exactly who she was and not care what others thought came her tenacity to speak her mind when I so did not want to hear it. I shook my head, purposefully allowing my red curtain of hair to fall across my burning cheeks. "There's nothing going on between Alvin and me. We're just friends."

  "I call bullshit." I was about to argue again, but she put up her hand. "I'll let it drop since you've had a tough morning, and I know it's likely to get worse."

  I let my head hang for another minute as we walked, understanding exactly what she meant. In a matter of hours, I'd be sitting down with Petey, who was my finance man in addition to being my longtime friend and father to the most adorable twin girls. He kept track of the insurance money I got when Mom passed away, my investments—not that I had many to speak of—and the business. I knew we'd be sitting down to determine how much more in the red I was with the inn, but I couldn't think about that yet.

  I grabbed Cerise's free hand and pulled her toward my SUV. "Hurry up, you're dragging this morning. I told Annalisa we'd be back by nine." As we moved more quickly, I thought about Alvin and felt immediately guilty. Yes, I was sleeping with him, but I shouldn't have been. He was a great guy and such a good friend, but he wanted more than I was ready to give in terms of emotions. My mind needed to stay in the game of running the inn. I didn't have time for distractions. Okay, that wasn't the whole truth. The real problem was that, as sad as it sounded, I just didn't love him, not romantically anyway. After everything that happened, maybe I wasn't even capable of love anymore. I hadn't felt that tense excitement for a guy since Brent— I shook my head and refused to let my brain go there, focusing on walking without stepping on cracks again. It was childish, I know, but it helped a little.

  We reached my car and slid out of the cold breeze. Fall in Vermont was always a bit chilly, but it was only a few weeks until Thanksgiving, which meant snow would arrive any day. The temperature outside was certainly reflecting that. I kicked up the heat and patted the dashboard. "Come on, baby, show me that kick-ass heater."

  Cerise held up a die-cast truck that belonged to one of Petey's girls, who I loving called the "adoratwins." "Look what I found."

  I loved Petey's twins and babysat them often. When I was with them, the adult world could fade away for a few hours. I smiled fondly as I took the truck from Cerise. The girls loved trucks, and I loved them for it. Despite his wife Fran's attempts, Petey made sure they weren't total girlie girls. They watched baseball games with him and played catch with a little purple football. Petey was a great dad. Unfortunately, thinking of the girls and Fran and Petey, just brought my mind back to what I knew he was going to suggest in our meeting later… I should close the doors of the inn and sell the thing that was most important to my mom.

  I couldn't, though. The inn was Mom. It was such a massive piece of her that I just couldn't bear the thought. So I didn't. I needed to stay positive, be tough. I needed to get on top of this issue and make it work. I needed to ignore the stress, push it aside and focus on business. I needed to bring in more customers and make things happen. I needed… I needed… a break. I let out a heavy sigh and let my shoulders fall a little. For three months, I'd been seriously struggling with the inn, and before that, I was barely breaking even. It was so much to take on, and there was no relief from the massive weight on my shoulders, and it all just made me miss Mom even more because she would have known exactly what to do.

  "Morgan? Earth to Morgan?"

  Pulling myself from my internal pity party, I looked up at Cerise. "Huh?"

  She was pointing at my purse. "Your phone?"

  The chirping noise finally registered in my brain, and I fished it from my purse, navigating to my incoming text messages as we sat at a red light.

  I'm sorry. She meant nothing. I was just lonely, and you weren't here. Forgive me or I'll die.

  "What the—" I mumbled, rereading the message.

  "What? I wanna see." Cerise pulled my arm to the side and looked at my phone, huffing as she read the message. "Or he'll die, Morgan. I'd forgive him. Who is he?"

  "Beats the heck out of me. He must have the wrong number." The light changed, and I handed the phone to Cerise. "Tell him it's a wrong number." A little farther down the street, I glanced over to see her smirking and typing away. "What are you doing? Don't play games, Cerise. It never turns out well. Just tell him it's a wrong number."

  "Don't give me that,"
she argued. "Remember Maria the Metallica tickets? That was a wrong number gone right."

  "That was luck," I countered. And it had been—pure luck. Maria was a friend of mine in college who'd been left this voicemail by a complete stranger instead of the hot chick he'd met in some bar or club—I couldn't remember which. It led to him taking Maria, Cerise, and me to a Metallica concert with the tickets he'd purchased for bar-girl and her friends. He was humorously pissed that she'd given him the wrong number, but recovered quickly enough to flirt with Maria immediately. But we were young then, barely even legal. Four years of maturity had passed, and I couldn't afford to be silly and do things on a whim anymore. I put my hand out for my phone. "I can't sacrifice the energy or brain power for this right now, Cerise. Just tell him it's a wrong number and let it go."

  She looked sadly at me. "Morgan, I'm really worried about you, okay? You're so wrapped up in the inn that I'm afraid if it doesn't work out—"

  "It'll work out," I said forcefully. It had to.

  "See, that's exactly it. You need to step back. You need to just take your mind from it for a few minutes. It might just give you some perspective or a new direction or something. You've tried everything else, can't you try letting go for five minutes to give this obvious cheater a little crap? At the very least, it might make you laugh. When is the last time you let that happen?"

  Damn, I thought to myself. She actually had a point. Not that that was unusual—she was smart and had good instincts—it was just inconvenient timing. But five minutes and texting some stranger who probably deserved being given a hard time seemed like an acceptable concession. I put my hand back on the steering wheel and nodded. "You have until we get back to the inn then you let Mr. Wrong Number go."

  "Deal." She swiped her finger across my screen, speaking the words she was typing. "I'm gone for two seconds, and you can't keep your dick in your pants!"

  I smiled a little. "Harsh, Cerise."

  She shrugged, grinning. "Hey, sounds like it's true." My phone chirped again. "Oh. Listen to this." She read, "Michelle, please. I feel awful about this."