A darling handyman, p.1
A Darling Handyman, page 1
A Darling Handyman
Darling Men
Book One
Lark Holiday
Glass Elephant Press
A Darling Handyman
Copyright © 2023 by Lark Holiday
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Cover: Best Page Forward
Editing: Ryan Edits
Description: Best Page Forward
ISBN: 979-8-88801-001-3 (ebook)
ISBN: 979-8-88801-002-0 (paperback)
ISBN: 979-8-88801-005-1 (large print)
ISBN: 979-8-88801-004-4 (audiobook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023912998
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To Papa, who was here when I started this story. I’m glad it took this long to write. I’m glad that there were so many days I skipped writing so we could go for a long drive instead. Even if I was slightly terrified by your driving at times. Even if we had nowhere to go. I’m glad we wasted so much time. My only regret is not wasting more.
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Want more small town romance?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
Natasha Owens awoke with a start. Sitka spruce trees tapped on the thin glass of the trailer window as she held her mother’s quilt to her chin and blinked into the night. The last bit of winter held on with a chill in the air.
A sliver of moonlight found its way through the trees and cut across the inside of the trailer, teasing a glimpse of Natasha’s life. The handle of a glass tea cup. The title of a romance book. The wooden tray where her wedding ring sat.
Once in a while, Natasha would try the ring on. But whereas it had once felt like part of her body, it was now heavy and unfamiliar. Whenever she picked it up, a perfect circle sat in the dust.
She’d spent years as a widow. Not that people called her that. It was too simple a term to describe how they felt about her, a bizarre old lady who lived alone in the forest and saw glimpses of the future.
Natasha didn’t see the stares as much as she felt them. As if she wouldn’t—she had the sight after all. Though most of the locals doubted her. Only when people needed her sight, did they believe in it with all their hearts. Desperation could make a person cling to any scrap of hope, much in the same way winter refused to release its hold on this island.
Natasha sighed, staring into the dark. Wind whistled through the treetops, and a few stray pine needles landed on the roof, as lightly as the steps of a cat’s paw.
She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, that was the curse of the sight. She didn’t choose when it happened, or even what it would be about. Sometimes the sight faded away for so long she doubted she had it at all. But it always returned, bright and snapping, calling for her.
Natasha rose from the bed and grabbed an afghan to wrap around her shoulders. She flicked on a light, suddenly feeling vulnerable alone in the dark. The lit room was a glowing beacon in the forest, but then again, who was here to see?
Sitting down at the small formica tabletop, she shuffled her cards, the worn edges tugging at her heart—her mother had given her these cards.
“The most important thing is to tell the truth,” her mom had told her, caressing the side of Natasha’s face.
Natasha reached up to touch her cheek now, the skin looser and more wrinkled than in that memory. She was certain no one felt old in their hearts, but she did feel her age when the cold of winter sucked the life from her body and made her bones ache.
She knew she needed to find a home besides this old trailer, but knowing she needed something didn’t magically make it a possibility. This island was a place without options.
She laid out the cards, noting each image. Her dream she’d awakened from was still at the forefront of her mind, and Natasha knew she was fooling herself. She didn’t need the cards, not really. And yet, they were the only tool she had to reassure herself. It wasn’t like she could ask anyone else.
There was nowhere and no one in town for her. The place was folding, collapsing on itself like a dying star.
When Natasha had first seen Darling all those years ago, it had been love at first sight. Cheerful buildings had sat in a row like Fabergé eggs. Everyone had been excited to meet the wife of Charles Owens, the direct descendant of the town’s founder. His bloodline had even been a maternal line, and for that Natasha had thought it stronger.
Those first few years had been as if blessed by God. Charles had been happy to steal her away from Sitka, and he’d built her a beautiful home here. But that was then. Now she was one of the few left—tragedy or temptation having lured the others away one by one.
“You don’t end up here by accident,” Charles had said on a day when they’d sailed out to sea and were gazing back at the shoreline. “You have to want it.”
Natasha had wanted nothing more than Charles and, of course, children. They’d had twins, a boy and a girl, and the day they were born had been the happiest day of her life.
She’d thought the saddest would be when Charles had left this earth.
She had been wrong.
Natasha closed her eyes, trapping a tear.
But her vision had not been about Charles.
She turned over the card she had been waiting for. Death stared back at her.
Natasha knew as well as anyone that humans assigned meaning to everything, good or bad, to suit their agenda. This was the danger of sharing with others what was to come. What she saw had already happened, yet people believed they could change it.
She had seen the way the locals who had sought her out for guidance held their breath when she flipped over the Death card, as if their days were numbered. But it almost never meant that. Not in her experience. More often than not, it meant a new beginning.
So Natasha gave no feelings to what she had seen. She only knew two things for sure. Andre was dead. And Sarah was coming back to Darling. Change would be there soon. Both hellos and goodbyes.
A narrow yellow beam came through the window as the sun reached out to warm the treetops—tomorrow was here.
Natasha flicked off the light, keeping the afghan around her shoulders as she climbed back into bed.
“A new day for Darling,” she whispered, as her eyes fluttered closed.
Chapter One
Sarah
Sarah Carter hated when she proved herself right. She should’ve stuck to her no dating at work policy. Then she wouldn’t be late to work with a hangover from hell. She fought the temptation to bang her head against the wall and ask herself why she’d done it. But Sarah had been begging life for answers for the past five years, and it hadn’t done any good. After all, it wasn’t as if answers would change what had happened.
The morning was on a definite downward trajectory. After inching along in LA traffic, suffering a throbbing headache, and praying her boss didn’t notice she was late, Sarah finally arrived at the coffee shop. There was just one problem—the woman standing at the counter was trying to kill her.
That was the only plausible explanation as to why the perky blonde in yoga pants was ordering the entire right side of the menu. There was no way she would actually eat all that. Based on her tiny waist and unblemished skin, the woman probably subsisted on three organic almonds and a glass of sparkling water a day. She looked like almost everyone else in Los Angeles—pretty plastic people, too perfect for problems.
Sarah tapped her fingers against her thigh. Every minute felt like a lifetime. She had a million things to do at the office, and she hadn’t planned on spending twenty minutes waiting to get a black coffee and something to eat.
She shifted to her other foot, trying to remember the breathing exercises she’d read about in that magazine. She forced her breath out, feeling light-headed after two rounds. Maybe she wasn’t getting it right. The exercise was supposed to calm her down, not render her unconscious.
Her phone rang, and Sarah clenched her jaw. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually turned her phone off. But time was money, and work never stopped.
She hadn’t grown up dreaming of being a headhunter. Then again, she hadn’t had an inkling that she w ould end up in Los Angeles either. Competition in the industry was fierce, but Sarah had something most people didn’t; a complete lack of a personal life. She gave every free minute, every spare ounce of energy, and all her brain power to the job.
Sarah reached for her cell phone and winced when she saw the caller ID. Even worse than work—it was her parents. This was the fifth time they’d called this week. Like the other four times, Sarah didn’t answer. She told herself she would answer their tenth phone call. Hopefully that would buy her a few more days.
She didn’t have the energy for that conversation right now. Even thinking about it made her shoulders slump forward with exhaustion. Her parents always wanted to know the same thing: When was she coming home?
No matter how many times Sarah told them she was never coming back, they didn’t stop asking. It was like watching someone get in an elevator and push the button over and over again, convinced that maybe this time it would go side-to-side instead of up and down. Like the elevator, Sarah wasn’t built that way.
Her phone went silent, and her stomach twisted with guilt. Her parents were the ones who’d made sure she had had enough cash to get a place to live the minute she’d gotten to Los Angeles. Sarah had been hysterical, desperate to leave everything behind. If it hadn’t been for her parents, she would’ve been living on the street. She knew they loved her. But avoiding home had nothing to do with her parents. They didn’t understand. Sarah could never go back, not after what she had done.
Finally, the woman at the counter stepped away, and the rest of the line lurched forward like caffeine-deprived zombies.
Sarah placed her order and, in less than ten minutes, walked out with her coffee in hand. She blinked into the sunlight that reached through the smoggy sky. Her vision blurred for a minute before she could pull down her sunglasses. Sarah hadn’t slept more than four hours a night for the past couple of months.
She needed a break. But rest came with time to think, and that was something Sarah strictly avoided. Because no matter how often she wondered why everything had happened like it did back in Alaska, she never seemed to have an answer.
Sarah pushed back the double glass doors, shivering as she walked through a blast of cold air. The sweat disappeared from her forehead. Heat this early in the year promised a long, hot summer. Sarah dreaded the stifling weather already.
She dipped her chin as she passed the security guard in the lobby. The man in uniform didn’t give her a second glance. For the last several years, Sarah had been the first one in this building every morning. The security guards had ceased to notice her, as if she had become part of the building itself. She could be a decorative fiddle-leaf fig for all they cared. It wasn’t like back home, where everyone was in her business.
Sarah hit the button on the elevator before forcing herself to turn around and take the stairs. Her job didn’t leave a lot of time for the gym, so taking the stairs was the extent of her daily exercise.
Gasping as she reached the sixth floor, she was thankful no one else was there yet. Everyone in this town was a fitness model. She didn’t need a judgmental look to know she was not. But Sarah didn’t care about fitting in. After growing up in a small town where nothing went unnoticed, she only cared about blending in.
Just as Sarah closed her office door behind her, a trill came from her purse. With a choice word, Sarah set her to-go order down on her desk and reached for the phone. A quick glance at the caller ID told her she couldn’t ignore it.
Her boss, Desirae, didn’t waste time on chit chat. “Look, I know it’s Friday night, but I have a potential client for you who wants to meet as soon as possible. Tell me you don’t have plans.”
Sarah’s shoulders drooped as she thought about the bottle of chardonnay chilling in her fridge. “I don’t have plans. Let me grab a pen—”
“No need,” Desirae interrupted. “I’ll send you an email with everything. I have you booked in for Monet’s tonight.”
Sarah crossed her arms. It wasn’t her boss’s fault that she assumed Sarah would drop everything for work, it was Sarah’s for doing exactly that every time Desirae asked.
“Monet’s sounds great.” At least that part was true. The restaurant was one of the best in the city.
Desirae let out a sigh. “Thank you. Trust me, this guy is worth big money.”
Sarah ended the call and reached for her coffee. As she leaned back in her chair, she gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the city skyline. Sarah knew she needed to stop taking last-minute work meetings. She should be out there, trying to have a life that went beyond a single date. But work kept her busy, too busy and too tired, to get attached to anyone. Sarah liked it that way.
That’s a sign of PTSD, keeping busy all the time, her brother had told her.
As if that was news to her. Of course, she had PTSD. She had lost everything. Her brother, in his perfect little world, thought life was so simple. He didn’t know what had really happened. No one did.
The sun shone down over the city. Sarah could see the faint reflection of her face in the window, floating over Los Angeles. This was where she belonged now. This was where she would stay.
Her stomach growled, and she turned back to her desk. She opened her laptop and reached for her food. Sarah took a bite of her breakfast sandwich and groaned. It was cold.
It was going to be one of those days.
Peering in the visor mirror, Sarah touched up her lipstick and brushed a few errant strands of hair out of her face. She had pulled out all the stops for tonight’s meeting. She was even wearing her nice heels, the ones that made her feet hurt after just two hours.
When Sarah was certain everything was in place, she opened her car door to hand off her keys to the valet.
A chime came from her clutch. Sarah pulled out her phone to silence it when she saw Aaron’s name. Her stomach twisted up. He’d texted when she’d gotten home from work, asking when he would see her again. Sarah had told him tonight was off the table and sent him a picture of her all done up.
Sometimes she really hated herself. She needed to end things, not lead him on. Sarah had no plans to ever be in a relationship again, much less with a former client.
Smoothing out her dress, she took a deep breath and headed through the heavy double doors.
This client must be a big deal, or Desirae wouldn’t have called in whatever favor it took to get a last-minute reservation at Monet’s.
Sarah breezed into the restaurant like a celebrity on the red carpet.
Fake it till you make it.
Except she had been faking it for so long, she wasn’t sure what was real anymore.
Sarah smiled at the hostess. “Reservation for Carter.”
The willowy blonde scanned her computer. “Right this way. Mr. Carter has already arrived.”
Sarah frowned. That didn’t make sense. The lack of sleep must finally be catching up to her. “My name is Carter.”
The hostess blinked at her, her eyelashes fanning like palm fronds. “Right,” she said in a voice that made it clear she didn’t care. Then she stepped out from the podium and led Sarah past the lobby into the belly of the restaurant.
They passed by men in suits and women in couture. Servers presented bottles of wine older than Sarah and ground fresh pepper over filet mignon. The atmosphere was exclusive, luxurious, and everything Alaska was not. She had wanted to get as far away as possible from everything that reminded her of home, and she couldn’t have picked a better place.
The hostess gestured with her hand. “Your table.”
Sarah’s face fell. Her mouth was dry, and her words stuck in her throat.
