Love and Other Mistakes Read online

  Dedication

  Mum and Dad

  Words can never express the impact you’ve had on my life, so I won’t even try—except to say thank you, and I love you.

  God

  You made me, saved me, and love me.

  You’re everything.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Ad

  Praise for Jessica Kate

  Copyright

  1

  Natalie Groves eyed the bag of gingerbread M&M’s on the other side of the office meeting room and prayed for a divine intervention of Red Sea proportions.

  In forty-five minutes, two goons from the head office of Potted Plants 4 Hire would walk through the door and give her fifteen minutes to convince them not to close the Charlottesville branch—the last in this half of Virginia. In forty-five seconds, she might topple out of her office chair, curl up in a ball under this wobbly table, and hide.

  “Natalie.” Frank, one of the salesmen, plugged Natalie’s five-year-old laptop into the projector. A muscle jerked in his sandpapery cheek. Was that meant to be a smile? Hard to tell. “Those corporate idiots won’t know what hit them.”

  Natalie manufactured a smile in return. “Thanks, Frank.”

  He opened the laptop lid. “You look like you’re about to throw up. Just get it over and done with before the presentation.”

  She took a deep breath and ignored the Mexican jumping beans in her stomach. Nothing mattered now except her presentation notes.

  Suck it up, buttercup. This isn’t about you.

  No, it was about eight coworkers’ jobs and her ability to pay Dad’s medical expenses. The bills kept coming, and between her parents’ increasing copay and dwindling savings, money was beyond tight. The past seven years had been a never-ending Monday morning.

  Ever since Dad’s doctor said, “It’s cancer.”

  By rights, their boss, Maria, should have been giving this presentation—not the girl who answered phones. But Maria had an epic case of food poisoning, and Natalie was the one who’d written a business plan to save their office-plant hire service. It was amazing what she’d been able to piece together with half a business degree and a bucketload of desperation. And in return for all that effort, she was the one condemned to public speaking.

  Frank pressed a button on the laptop. Natalie waited for the familiar whir of the fan. Nothing happened.

  Uh-oh.

  She peered over at him. “Did you press the right button?”

  He picked up the computer and shook it. “Three times. Why do you have such an old laptop?”

  Because this week’s budget was down to whatever coins she could scrounge from the back of the sofa. But he didn’t need to know that.

  She dropped the notes on the table and walked toward him, smoothing her borrowed business jacket as she went. She’d hoped a power suit would boost her confidence. She’d even donned black pumps and straightened her rebellious hair. Though it’d started to frizz again when she spent her first hour of the morning scrubbing graffiti off their business sign. Kids always found it hilarious to black out the “ted” in their name and draw illustrations of just what kind of plants they’d prefer to hire.

  But who needed perfectly straight hair when you had bulldog determination?

  Her cell rang, vibrating against the chipped wood veneer of the table. Probably Mom. She paused, tempted to ignore it. Mom knew how important this morning was—someone had better be dying.

  Her mind’s eye flashed to her father’s once strong hand trembling as he’d waved goodbye to her from his patchwork-covered bed yesterday morning. He was technically in remission, but even the Three Blind Mice could see the way he’d deteriorated this year.

  Had that been their last farewell?

  Fear punched her in the chest as she lunged for the phone, swiped a finger across the cracked screen, and hit the voice-message icon. Unfamiliar number, but that did nothing to soothe the throat-closing sensation that enveloped her. She set the phone to speaker. Her normal speakers had decided to take a vacation this week, but her speakerphone remained loyal.

  An unfamiliar male voice glitched in and out, poor reception chopping the message. “Gregory . . . looking for Natalie Groves . . . here, called . . . ambulance . . . corner of Harding and Davis Streets.” Beep.

  She froze. It had to be about Dad. No one would call her about anybody else. But why had a stranger called? Where was Mom? Had something happened to her as well?

  “Natalie.” Frank’s deep voice rumbled across the room. “You should go.” His tone carried a heaviness that told her he, too, assumed it was her father.

  Most folks in this town had heard of her evangelist father. Everyone also knew that each unexpected phone call could be announcing very bad news.

  Or just another false alarm. And those head-office guys would be here in forty-one minutes . . .

  Frank placed a hand on her back and pushed her to the door. “We’ll be fine. It might be nothing, and you’ll be back in time. If not . . .” He paused, having maneuvered her to the threshold, and met her eye. “There’s more important things than this store. Go.”

  She reached into her pocket for her keys. If she missed saying goodbye to Dad, she’d never forgive herself.

  “Thanks, Frank.” She sprinted from the room.

  “And don’t take that hunk of junk you call a car,” he shouted after her as she reached the end of the corridor.

  She paused, and he tossed her his keys.

  “Good luck, Nattie.”

  She nodded and darted out into the parking lot. The muggy late-summer air triggered an instant sweat, and the morning sun made her squint. She hit the beeper and ran past her rusted VW Bug toward flashing headlights. Thank heaven for Frank. He knew her car was as likely to break down as not.

  Natalie jumped into the driver’s seat of Frank’s SUV and pulled a fast-food bag off the dash before she threw the vehicle into reverse. The scent of stale fries lingered in the air. She twisted in the seat to look out the back window, and a flash of color caught her eye. Discarded Happy Meal toys lay in a child’s car seat, strapped in next to a baby seat. Frank must’ve had his grandkids for the weekend again.

  She rocketed backward, then out of the parking lot and onto the road. She’d go to the address the mystery man mentioned first—it was just around the corner. She might even beat the ambulance.

  If there was nothing there, she’d head to Martha Jefferson Hospital.

  * * *

  A man lay splayed out on the footpath ahead. More than six feet of pale skin and freckles. Unmoving.

  The sharp twist in Natalie’s gut eased as she slowed the S
UV and flashed her turn signal. That man definitely wasn’t her seventy-one-year-old father.

  Thank you, God.

  She swiped a stray tear that had gathered in the corner of her eye, then squinted at the figure on the ground. It sure looked like . . .

  Movement caught her eye. An older man, standing behind the guy on the footpath, holding a baby with one arm as the other flagged her down.

  She whipped the car into a parking space fifteen yards from the man prone on the ground. She couldn’t see his face from this angle. But recognition tickled the edge of her mind. Mouth dry and stomach on spin cycle, she jumped out.

  The older man rushed toward her, Colonel Sanders without the smile. She tried not to stare.

  “Natalie?”

  She gestured to the man on the ground behind the colonel. “What happ—”

  He dumped the baby into her arms. It squirmed and squealed, and she recoiled half a step as the child wobbled in her tenuous grasp. She clutched a handful of blue jumpsuit while the baby arched his back against her, kicked his chubby legs, and reached toward the man on the ground. “What is going on?”

  “You know this guy, right?”

  The Colonel Sanders look-alike blocked her view, so she couldn’t confirm or deny.

  “He was jogging from that building there, back to his car with his kid.” He pointed to the wriggling child in her arms. “And whacked his head against that.” His finger indicated a tree branch that stretched six feet above the sidewalk. “I stopped to check he was okay, but the cut on his forehead bled and he got dizzy and passed out. Guess he hates blood. I called an ambulance, but there’s a crash on the other side of town, and they’ve been held up. So I grabbed the emergency contact card in his wallet.”

  He paused for breath as he held up the card. It was misshapen and discolored with age, like he’d pried it from the depths of a wallet that should’ve been retired last decade.

  Colonel Sanders finally stepped aside so she could see who lay on the sidewalk. The man on the ground shifted, groaned.

  Natalie’s brain begged her eyes to admit they were lying. She scanned the man from head to toe. Brown hair with red highlights that caught the sunshine. Boyish freckles. Broad shoulders.

  Jeremy Walters, her ex-fiancé.

  I’m outta here.

  Fumbling with her keys, she turned to the colonel to return the baby. Instead she encountered his retreating back. “Wait! You can’t leave me.”

  The man spun to face her but kept walking backward toward a truck parked by the roadside. “You have no idea how late I am. He’s only been out for a minute or two. Take him to the emergency room if you’re worried.” With those words, he hauled himself into his vehicle.

  “You can’t go.” Desperation edged her voice as Natalie stepped toward him, trying to hold out a crying handful of baby.

  His revving engine drowned her plea. A puff of exhaust fumes tickled her nose as he pulled out, and she sneezed. The truck drove away as she watched.

  Turn back, turn back, turn back . . .

  It rounded a corner and disappeared.

  Unbelievable. Natalie huffed a breath and swiveled with the enthusiasm of a vegetarian at Outback Steakhouse.

  Jem hadn’t crumpled to the ground. He lay flat on his back, long limbs stretched in every direction. One hand lifted to rest on his bleeding forehead, and his eyelids twitched but remained closed.

  No one would call him a bodybuilder, but neither did he have that gangly look anymore. He’d grown his hair longer than the military-style cut his dad used to do at home every month, and his face sported more freckles.

  But it was him.

  She ground her teeth against the warm rush of memories that poured into her mind. Sure, she hated his guts, but he wasn’t just the guy who’d broken her heart seven years ago. He was the tang of lemonade after they raced their bikes down the street. He was the crinkle of comic-book pages as they hid from his dad under the back porch. He was the smell of lavender in Mr. Holbert’s jewelry shop, where her nineteen-year-old self had pointed to a diamond and said, “That one.” He was every good memory before life got complicated.

  So much had changed—though not all. Blue ink still smudged his palm. Jem without a pen was like a Saturday night without chocolate. Had he fulfilled his journalistic dreams?

  She scrubbed a sleeve across her face. Time to focus. The man burned faster than forgotten eggs on a stove, so she should get him out of the sun.

  Or better yet, leave him there.

  God, what did I do to deserve this?

  Running into the guy who’d dumped you ten weeks before your wedding was always bad, but especially like this. She was broke. Single. Going nowhere.

  He’d take one look at her and thank his younger self for leaving.

  She shifted on her feet. She’d give up anything, even pumpkin-spice M&M’s, to jump in the car and meet the head-office representatives. She had a store to save.

  But there was a baby in her arms, and she couldn’t plop him on the ground and leave.

  Jem lurched to a sitting position. “Oliver!”

  Natalie jolted.

  The motion seemed to catch the corner of Jem’s eye. He swung his head toward her and squinted into the sun. When he jumped to his feet, he swayed.

  “Whoa.” Stepping forward, she grabbed his arm with her free hand, then dropped it.

  Jem leaned back against the tree trunk—the one supporting the branch that had put that red gash on his forehead. After a few seconds, he raised his gaze and did a double take.

  “Natalie?”

  2

  Jem blinked against the waves of dizziness as he stood and tried to focus on the five feet six inches of woman radiating resentment toward him. Gorgeous as ever.

  Even if her brunette hair was frizzing and his nine-month-old son’s flailing hand was smearing her pink lipstick.

  He steadied himself against the tree behind him, pressed his hand into the scratchy bark to check he was really awake. Natalie was standing in front of him. For the first time in seven years. And she’d found him passed out and drooling on the sidewalk.

  Terrific. Just the look he’d been going for.

  He fought for focus as his vision narrowed. “Olly. Is he okay?” A bubble of panic popped inside him. He’d been holding Olly when he whacked his head, saw the blood, and the dizziness swallowed his consciousness. Had he hurt his son?

  Natalie looked at Olly, fussing in her arms. She held him out. “Here.”

  That wasn’t a “Yes, he’s fine.” Nausea flooded Jem for a second time. He tried to blink away the fuzzy static on the edges of his vision as he reached for his son.

  Just before their hands met, she jerked Olly back. “You’re not going to drop him, are you? You’re white as a ghost. He’s fine, by the way.”

  Jem blew out a relieved breath. When a new parent asked if their kid was okay, the only two responses should be “Yes” or “We’ve already called the chopper.”

  He slid down the trunk till his backside hit the ground. “Just let me sit for a minute, get the blood back to my head.” And restart my heart.

  He rested his throbbing forehead on his knees and willed the rushing in his head to go away. Olly was okay, so now he needed to deal with problem number two: salvaging his first conversation with Natalie in seven years, two months, and—if memory served correctly—about three weeks.

  In the thousands of times he’d pictured this moment, he’d envisioned the full spectrum of scenarios, from the sting of her slap to the sweet taste of her kiss. But not one of those scenarios had included a tree branch and a throbbing skull, nor the distinct possibility of throwing up at her feet.

  If he could stay conscious for five seconds, he could figure out why she was here and how he could stop her from punching him in the teeth. From the sparks shooting from her green eyes, he was in imminent danger.

  Maybe he should let her hold Olly till he got his reflexes back.

  After a minute, hi
s tunnel vision cleared and equilibrium returned. He sent up an emergency prayer for help, faced Natalie, and offered a small smile. “Let’s start over. Hi.”

  She plopped Olly onto his lap. “Let’s not. Goodbye.” She spun toward an SUV parked by the sidewalk.

  A jolt of loss shot through him. He’d missed this woman for years and today had woken up on a warm concrete footpath to find her holding his son. She couldn’t vanish now.

  He scrambled to his feet, off balance with Olly in one arm and residual dizziness swirling in his brain. “Hey, wait! Where are you going?” He managed to get to her car without falling over.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m late for an important presentation.”

  He leaned against the side of the car and studied her face. She’d matured from his bright-eyed college-student fiancée into a professional twenty-six-year-old woman. Freckles faded. Eyelashes as dark as ever.

  And he didn’t buy her excuse for a second. The Natalie he’d known would swear off sugar before she’d speak in public.

  Not that he could blame her for avoiding him. He’d be mad at him too.

  She opened her door, and he placed a gentle palm on it. “Hold on. Just let me give you a heads-up. I’m moving back to town. Moved, actually. Yesterday. The boxes are at Mike and Steph’s.”

  Reconnecting with his brother, Mike, and niece, Lili, had been the best part of yesterday. His sister-in-law, Steph—not so much.

  Natalie paused. Her brow furrowed, her lips pursed, then the flash of emotion disappeared. “Whatever.” She jumped up into the SUV and started it without closing the door, then looked over her left shoulder, away from him, like she was checking for cars. Her hand reached toward the door handle that his body blocked.

  Not so fast. He owed her a proper apology, and he couldn’t exactly yell it at her fleeing car.

  He edged closer to her, almost leaning into the vehicle. “You’re just going to leave me here with a concussion and a baby?”

  She whipped her head around so quickly her long ponytail slapped him across the eye socket. “You’re really going to say that to me?”

  Ouch. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

  She pushed him back from the door and slammed it shut, but the window was down. He poked his face through it. Her perfume filled his senses—that and the salty scent of what looked like old McDonald’s on the passenger seat. “Which road is the hospital on again?” he asked in his most innocent voice. “I’ll take myself there, but I can’t remember.” He gave his forehead a dramatic rub. “Must be the knock to the head.”