Bearly In Love Read online

  Bearly In Love

  by

  Terri Reid

  “Cinderella believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn’t come along, she went over to the palace and got him.”

  Walt Disney

  BEARLY IN LOVE

  by

  Terri Reid

  Copyright © 2014 by Terri Reid

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication 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 owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  The author would like to thank all those who have contributed to the creation of this book: Richard Reid, Sarah Powers, Juliette Wilson, Maureen Marella, and Hillary Gadd.

  She would also like to thank all of the wonderful readers who accompany her through her stories. I hope we continue on this wonderful journey together for a long time. Terri Reid

  The cover photo is from 123 Stock Photos and per the licensing agreement can be found here:

  Copyright: dasha11 / 123RF Stock Photo

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  The phone rang, and twenty-three-year-old Stacy Gage slid the stack of unpaid bills into the top desk drawer, checked the caller ID to be sure it wasn’t another bill collector, and finally picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Is this Stacy Gage?” the female voice on the other end of the phone asked.

  “Yes, this is me. I mean, this is she,” she said, mentally slapping herself for sounding less professional than she wanted. She had been interviewing for weeks, and no one had even offered her a second interview. She had to make the best impression she could on any prospective employer.

  “I received a copy of your resume in response to the advertisement in the Prairie Grove Sentinel,” the woman said.

  “Oh, yes,” Stacy replied pleasantly, hoping the woman would give her some clue as to which one it was. She must have sent out thirty resumes in response to ads in the paper, from secretary to garbage collector.

  “You can sing, right?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, nodding her head in an automatic response. “I was in Varsity Choir in high school and an ensemble choir in college. I’ve also done community theater.”

  “Can you sing soprano?”

  Biting her lower lip and crossing the fingers on one hand, she nodded again. “Yes,” she said into the phone, praying that the notes weren’t too high. “Sure. I can sing soprano.”

  “Okay, great,” the woman replied unenthusiastically. “And you know how to work a cash register? Is that also correct?”

  “Yes,” Stacy said slowly, trying to figure out what kind of job required singing and a cash register.

  “And you are available to begin immediately?”

  She glanced down at the drawer. “Oh, yes, immediately,” she said.

  “Do you have a pen and paper to write down the information?”

  Stacy grabbed an emptied envelope and the stub of a pencil. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “Are you familiar with Adventureland?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, yes, I spent lots of time there when I was in high school,” she replied excitedly.

  “But you haven’t been here since?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, um, I was away. In college,” Stacy said quickly. “But I was hoping to get back soon.”

  “Well, here’s your chance,” the woman said dryly. “Report to the front gate tomorrow morning at seven. Tell them you have an appointment with human resources and give them your name. They’ll give you a pass to get in the park. Go to human resources and ask for me. I’m Dora Fitzenbottom. If you can do what you say you can do, you’ll start tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Stacy replied. “Thank you, Mrs. Fitzenbottom. Thank you.”

  “Don’t be late,” the woman warned.

  “I won’t—” Stacy started to say when the connection was cut off.

  “Well, she seems like the kind of person to run an amusement park,” she murmured sarcastically. “Must be a barrel of fun.”

  “Who’s a barrel of fun, dear?” her grandmother, Adeline Gage, asked as she tottered into the kitchen to put the tea kettle on the stove.

  “Oh, a job,” Stacy quickly improvised, “at Adventureland. I’m supposed to go there first thing in the morning for an interview.”

  “Oh, dear,” Grandma Addie replied.

  “Oh, dear?” Stacy asked, her stomach twisting slightly.

  “You’ll probably need to use the car, won’t you?” Addie asked sheepishly.

  “Yes, I will,” Stacy replied. “Adventureland is about a twenty minute drive away. Why?”

  “Well, I know you asked me not to drive the car,” Addie said. “But, I found some money in the cookie jar, and I hadn’t had my hair done in just ages. So I took the car…”

  Stacy groaned inwardly. She had been foolish to stash the emergency fund of thirty-five dollars in the cookie jar, but she thought that was the
one place her diabetic grandmother wouldn’t look. “That’s fine, Grandma,” she said. “So, how much did you spend?”

  “Well, my hair-cut and shampoo was twenty-five dollars,” she replied, patting her newly-coifed silver hair lightly, “And with the rest of the money, I was able to finally give Courtney a nice tip. Wasn’t it lucky that I found it?”

  “Your hair looks lovely, and Courtney did a great job,” Stacy said, her heart sinking. “Do you remember how much gasoline is in the car now?”

  “Yes, that’s what I was going to tell you,” Addie replied. “The little orange light, the one that tells you that you are low on gasoline, came on when I was driving home. I meant to tell you earlier, but it skipped my mind.”

  Stacy wasn’t surprised. The doctor had warned her that in the early stages of Alzheimer’s her grandmother would forget things. But dammit, she swore silently, she really needed the car.

  “Well, I’ll need to get some money so I can put a little gas in the car,” she explained. “Do you know if there is any money? Anywhere in the house?”

  She’d only been home from college for a few months, and as soon as she got home, she could tell things weren’t as good as her grandmother had portrayed when they spoke on the phone. Bills had been piling up. Her grandmother’s checking account had been depleted, and Grandma Addie, who used to be so detail-oriented, had let things just slip away.

  “Well, I could check Paul’s suits again,” she suggested.

  Grandpa Paul had been dead for six years, but his clothing still hung in their bedroom closet.

  Stacy shook her head. “No, we’ve checked those suits a couple of times,” Stacy said with a quiet sigh. “There’s nothing there.”

  “That’s funny,” Addie replied. “He used to always keep spare change in those suits.”

  Stacy smiled sadly. “Yes, Grandma, he always did.”

  “Well, I’ll go up and check again,” her grandmother said absently, turning around and leaving the kitchen. “I’m sure I can find something.”

  “Grandma, I’m going to run out for a few minutes while you check, okay?” Stacy called after her.

  “That’s fine, dear. Have a good time.”

  Glancing at the clock, Stacy realized she only had twenty minutes before the recycling center on the edge of town would close, and she knew there were at least four leaf bags filled with aluminum cans in the garage. They would at least get her enough gas money to drive back and forth to Adventureland to get the job. She’d worry about the following days after that.

  Pushing open the door that led from the kitchen into the garage, she glanced around the neatly organized area. The leaf bags were sitting next to the door; thank goodness Grandma hadn’t put them out with the trash.

  Taking the thin elastic from her wrist, she wrapped her long hair in a ponytail and walked through the garage to the front door. On the wall, on hooks she remembered helping her grandfather install, was her bright red bike. She got it when she was twelve, the summer her parents had died. Taking a moment, she pushed a finger against one of the spokes and rotated the wheel. It spun easily, reminding her of a roulette wheel at the county fair. Take a chance, test your luck. With a deep sigh, she shook her head. She didn’t need to test her luck. She already knew that it was the bad kind.

  Lifting her bike from the hanger on the wall, she wheeled it to the garage door. The electronic door opener had long since stopped working, so Stacy grabbed hold of the steel handle, twisted it up and then pulled on the horizontal, steel, support bar. Slowly, and with a lot of groaning, the door slid up on the track. She rolled her bike out, laid it on the lawn and then went back for the four, large, black bags of cans. Taking a piece of twine from her grandfather’s work bench, she twisted and tied the bags together and laid them over the bike, straddling the back tire. She checked to make sure the bags weren’t dragging against the ground. She’d hate to rip a bag and have dozens of aluminum cans rolling down the street behind her. But when she looked, she saw they were at least four inches above the concrete.

  She ran back and pulled the garage door closed but was startled when she heard a car’s horn directly behind her.

  “Hey, Stacy, need a ride?”

  More than a little surprised, Stacy turned to see Lorraine Mills, a girl she’d known since high school, sitting in a red, Mercedes convertible parked at the curb. Lorraine, Miss Likely-To-Do-Anything-She-Wanted, had never been Stacy’s friend and actually had made it one of her high school objectives to humiliate Stacy in every way possible. But they were adults now, and Stacy could sure use a ride.

  “I’m sorry,” Stacy said. “What did you say?”

  Lorraine tossed her hair and smiled again. “It looks like you’re going to the dump,” she said. “I wondered if you needed a ride.”

  “Sure,” Stacy said, reaching to grab the bags from the back of the bike.

  Lorraine smiled at her and started driving away. “Well, I saw the recycling truck a couple of blocks back,” she called back. “I’m sure they’d be happy to bring you to the dump.”

  Waving over her shoulder, Lorraine laughed riotously at her own joke.

  “I hope you get your mother’s moustache,” Stacy muttered as she repositioned the bags on the back of the bike and then sped down the driveway, hoping to make up for lost time.

  Chapter Two

  She always thought it was strange that the drive to the dump took you through some of the nicest areas of town. The town had expanded south, and the new golf course and subdivision surrounding it had followed the expansion. So, the route to the dump that used to be down country roads now twisted and turned through brick estates with manicured lawns and high-end cars in the driveways.

  Stacy always peddled as quickly as she could through this area. Some of the people who had attended high school with her, like Lorraine Mills, lived in this area, and she didn’t want to give them an opportunity to look down their noses at the poor half-breed again. But one house in particular caused her heart to beat a little faster and her stomach to twist.

  The Guthrie Mansion sat on the highest hill in the subdivision and was the biggest home in the county. Their front lawn dwarfed the city park and probably had just as many statues, she thought as she drove by. But it wasn’t the house, the lawn, or even the tennis courts along the side of the house that drew Stacy’s interest. It was the occupants, or rather one occupant. Henry Guthrie.

  Henry was two years older than Stacy and had been the most popular boy in school. He was athletic, smart, good-looking and rich. He was way out of her league, she admitted to herself. But somehow, for three magical summers, he had been her best friend. Of course, they had been much younger; she had still been in middle-school. And he had been spending the summers with his grandfather, Stacy’s next door neighbor. But she still remembered how he treated her, with care and consideration. She smiled as she remembered the punch in the nose he’d given Kyle Lattimore when he’d called Stacy a half-breed. No one had ever stood up for her before that.

  Sighing, she pushed her legs harder as she neared the crest of the hill. She glanced at the house, and her heart flipped over. She knew she would never forget, even though it was nearly ten years ago, that he was the one to kiss her for her first time.

  It had been a cloudless, star-filled night. His grandfather had built a fire in the fire pit in the backyard and had walked back to the house for marshmallows. They were alone, crickets chirping in the background and the rest of the neighborhood still and quiet. They had been watching a meteor shower, and as she lifted her head to watch a shooting star soar across the sky, he had bent down and placed his lips on hers.

  Running her tongue quickly over her lips, Stacy sighed. Well, get over it, she told herself. That was a long time ago. Now he’s Prairie Grove’s most eligible bachelor, and I’m…. She paused for a moment. Well, I’m just me.

  Glancing once more at the house, she shrugged and took advantage of the downhill grade, peddling as fast as she could to mak
e it to the recycling center on time. She was a half block away when she saw a uniformed man grab hold of the twelve-foot-high, chain-link fence and begin to pull it across the entrance. “No!” she yelled, pushing down on the pedals to further increase her speed. “Don’t close! It’s a life or death situation!”

  The middle-aged man stopped and looked at her, shaking his head. She sailed into a skidding stop and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she panted.

  He put his hand out, blocking her way into the center. “Wait just a moment, missy,” he said. “You’ve got to convince me that this really is life or death, or you ain’t getting in.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I’ve been home from college for three months. I live with my grandmother because my parents died when I was twelve. I find out, once I’m home, that somehow my grandmother has lost all of her money, and her bills are way behind. I’ve had to plead with the bank not to foreclose on the house because of an unpaid tax bill. I have a job interview tomorrow, but my grandmother just took the car out and used all the gas. There is no money in the house, and the only way I can make it to the interview is to return these cans, get the cash, and pray that it’s enough money to make it there and back.”

  She took a deep breath and waited.

  “Well, I’ll be damned if that ain’t a life or death story,” he said, pushing the gate back to its moorings. “Come on in. Let me measure those cans and see if we can’t get you your gas money.”

  She nearly cried with relief. “Thank you so much!”

  She walked her bike to the weigh-in station and pulled the bags off the back.

  “You drink a lot of soda,” the man said. “Maybe considering your current financial state, you ought to consider giving that up.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t drink soda. These are cans I’ve collected from all over town,” she said. “I get up early in the morning and ride my bike around, collecting cans.”

  “Early in the morning?” he asked.

  “Well, before the maintenance workers get out and before people go to work,” she said. “I don’t really want any potential employers seeing me.”