All For You: A steamy second chance romance

“Yes, it’s right here,” Lily dug around in her backpack on the floor. At last she pulled it out. “Sorry,” she said, passing it to him. She should have had it ready and waiting.

He flipped through it quickly, compared the grainy photo to the face peering up at him, then handed the passport back through her window. “Have a nice trip home ma’am,” he said, turning to the next vehicle in line.

The snow was starting to pile up on the road in little drifts but in the distance she could see blue sky beginning to break through the clouds. Lily hoped it wouldn’t be long before the sky cleared. She hated driving in falling snow.

It reminded her of Wade.

And Wade was someone she was still trying to forget.

Chapter Two

As it turned out, the snow started to clear in the next hour and by the time Lily reached the Trans-Canada Highway the snow was almost gone. She let out a sigh of relief as she turned onto the main highway. The difficult part of the journey was over. Now all she needed to do was stay awake long enough to make it to Bassville. The Trans-Canada was a good highway to travel on, but it was boring. Now she had nothing to keep her mind from wandering.

Lily stopped for fuel in Moose Jaw. She was about to order a coffee at the counter when she caught a whiff of the roasted beans. Her stomach rolled. She turned quickly away and grabbed a coke from the fridge instead before heading back out to her truck.

She made her way back onto the highway and turned up the music. She fiddled with the radio for a few moments until she found what she liked and turned it up a notch louder.

Wade, her boyfriend from high school, loved to have the radio cranked.

She quickly turned it down. She did not want to think about Wade.

She drove in near silence for the next half an hour, but as though called, Wade kept creeping into her thoughts. She couldn’t shake him out of her mind. Snippets of scenes from years past flashed in quick succession. Her and Wade racing their horses across the hills; throwing snowballs at each other until it ended in kisses hot enough to melt the snow; losing their virginity together; driving to prom. Tears started falling down her checks. That last memory was bittersweet. She knew she was leaving; he didn’t. Wade was all smiles that day, never leaving her side. She could still feel the ghost of his hand on her back as he guided her through the crowd. She missed his touch. She missed him so much it hurt. And yet it was her fault she was missing him. It was Lily that drove away. She always made damn sure when she went home for a holiday that she stayed away from anywhere she might bump into him. Maybe he thought she was a bitch, but the truth was, she didn’t think she could survive if she saw him.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks. There was no use crying now. The past was the past. She needed to remember that to get through the next few days. She was heading into a storm she’d been putting off for eight years. She needed to have all her wits about her, and thinking about Wade would make her too vulnerable. She reached down, cranked up the volume on the radio and pushed from her mind all thoughts of the boy she’d left behind.

*

Three bags of Doritos, four cans of Coke Zero and seven hours later, Lily finally reached the outskirts of Bassville. The red and the orange of the sun colored the hills on the road in front of her. The mountains in the background were purple in the evening light.

Her back was sore and her bum was numb, but she smiled. She was finally here. She turned off the highway, skirted the town and headed down a familiar dusty gravel road. Remnants of snow drifts lay as brown crusty bumps in the ditch. The two boxes next to her bumped around on the seat, slamming into her thigh with every lurch of the truck. She’d have a bruise come morning, but she was almost there and she didn’t care. Less than two country songs later she pulled into a short, tree-lined driveway. A magnificent white homestead cheerfully greeted her as she rounded the last corner. Lights shone from the windows, welcoming her home.

The door opened and a quintessential home-grown country girl stood in the light of the doorway for a moment before she hurried down the steps. Lily watched as she half skipped, half ran towards the truck. Lily threw open her door, jumped out and met her halfway. Lily threw her arms around her friend and together they bounced up and down in a circle squealing like a couple of schoolgirls until Lily was gasping for breath and had a stich in her side.

Once they’d finally stumbled to a stop, her friend grasped Lily’s arms and looked her right in the eye, “My God Lil, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

Lily sniffed and wiped the tears from her lashes. “Charmaine,” she whispered, “I missed you.”

Charmaine threw her head back and laughed. “Ah, Lily I missed you too, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t call.”

Lily didn’t dare look away from Charmaine, she was a master at reading body language, but Lily knew Charmaine could read the thoughts swirling around behind her eyes.

Charmaine raised an eyebrow. “Umhmm.” she said, clearly knowing something was up, but to Lily’s astonishment, she didn’t ask questions. “Come on inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea.” She linked her arm through Lily’s and led her up the steps to the house. “Do your parents know you’re home?” she asked as she opened the front door.

Lily stumbled slightly. Her parents.

“No,” she murmured. Her parents were going to kill her.

Lily reminded herself that she was too old to worry about what her parents thought.

But she was still their daughter and she hated it when she disappointed them. She hated when they disappointed her too. Not visiting very often had its advantages. She chuckled slightly under her breath. Thank God they didn’t know everything she’d been up to – or rather, what she hadn’t been up to for the last eight years. Otherwise they’d have discovered she was just one great big disappointment.

She’d left town, well fled really, straight out of high school to make it big in Toronto. Her eyes had been filled with stars and she was determined to become one of them. Ha! It didn’t take long for those stars to fade as she was acquainted with reality. A string of dead-end jobs and equally dead-end boyfriends only proved to her that she was nothing better than the small town girl she was desperate to escape becoming when she had left Bassville to begin with.

“I couldn’t believe it when you called, you must have been just down the road,” Charmaine interrupted her not-so-joyful reminiscing. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner you were coming home? Not that I mind, of course I don’t. But Georgie’s room is a disaster, and that’s the only spare space I’ve got. You don’t mind do you?”

“She doesn’t mind?” Lily asked, following Charmaine down the stairs into the basement.

“Oh she’s fine in with Rebecca. They actually get along really well, at least most of the time. Not sure why we gave them their own rooms in the first place. Twins like to be together, you know?”

The basement had changed from the last time Lily had been in there. The walls were no longer the God-awful dark wood paneling of Charmaine’s youth, but a soft cream paint showcasing her children’s framed artwork. Lily stopped to admire the bright orange and yellow suns and purple trees hanging on the walls. They brought a smile to her face and made her stomach clench in fear. Would she even have a house to hang her baby’s artwork in?

She gave herself a shake and followed after Charmaine. It wasn’t just the basement’s color scheme that had changed in her absence. Walls had been knocked down and it was now a large open space. The orange shag carpet was gone as well, her feet sank into the new red wool carpet and she longed to kick off her shoes and dig her bare toes into the plush pile. The light was coming from recessed lights set into the low ceiling; no more dodging hanging light fixtures.

“In here,” Charmaine opened a door at the far end of the room and held it for Lily, patiently waiting for her to catch up.

“You’ve done renovations. They’re nice.” Lily took one last look around the large room before following Charmaine into the bedroom.

Lily peered around Charmaine’s shoulder. She hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a mess. Clothes were strewn from one end to the other, absolutely covering every surface. What was lurking underneath the clothes remained to be seen.

“Oh God,” Charmaine groaned, “I didn’t realize it was this bad. I try not to come in here very often. It raises my blood pressure.” She stood in the doorway for a moment, took a deep breath and started picking up clothes and tossing them in a pile in the middle of the room. “I’m so sorry, but if you help me it’ll be faster.” She sent a guilty look over her shoulder at Lily.

Lily just laughed and started picking clothes up off the bed, adding them to the pile. “I remember what our rooms looked like as teenagers. This isn’t any worse. Besides you know she’ll have a conniption when she gets home from school and finds out you’ve been through her stuff… just like we used to do.” The memories of their childhood together made Lily laugh. It was good to be back. “I can’t believe Georgie and Becs are ten already. Where did the time go? How did we become so old?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. It seems like yesterday I found out I was pregnant with the girls. I was in such a panic.” Charmaine looked up at Lily. “I don’t know how I would have survived without you, you know that don’t you?”

Lily averted her eyes, hoping Charmaine didn’t notice the color draining from her face. Stars popped in front of her vision. She sat down on the bed and folded one of Georgie’s shirts with her head as close to her knees as possible and tried to blink the stars away.

“Lily?”

Charmaine’s voice sounded far away. Lily took a deep breath and a long blink before looking up at her friend’s worried face. Blackness closed in on the edges for her vision. She blinked again and shook her head, trying desperately to clear it. She was not going to faint. Nausea rose up and she gave up the fight of trying to fool her friend and lay down on the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Lily! Are you all right?” Charmaine dropped the clothes in her hands and rushed over to Lily. She sat down gingerly next to her.

Her hand was cool on Lily’s hot skin.

“What’s happened? Are you sick?”

Lily managed a small groan before closing her eyes. She didn’t have the strength to go into details. Soon, she told herself, but first she needed to sleep.

*

Charmaine was still sitting next to her when she opened her eyes. She slowly sat up and looked at her friend. There was no more delaying. She had hoped she wouldn’t need to have this conversation for a few months yet, but from the look on her friend’s face, there was no use trying to get out of it.

“Are you all right?” Charmaine asked quietly.

She seemed nervous. A stab of remorse pierced Lily. She shouldn’t have made Charmaine worry. She should have told her when she called to tell her she was on her way.

“I’m…” The words stuck as a lump in her throat. What was she going to do? Panic threatened to overwhelm her again and when she tried telling her friend she was fine all that came out was a huge racking sob.

Charmaine wrapped her in her arms and rocked her like a baby. “It’s all right, it’s all right.” she murmured softly. She let her cry for a while, then, when Lily had finally got her sobs under control, Charmaine grabbed her hand and held it. “It’s okay, you can tell me anything,” she said, looking her in the eye.

Another deep breath. She could do this. She had to. She had to tell someone, and she knew she couldn’t tell her parents.

Not right now.

Not yet. Not after all these years.

Not after the lies she’d spun.

Not after the lies they told her.

Lily hung her head and shame washed over her. How could she have made such a mess out of her life? She was the top of her class in high school and had held the belief she could do anything she set her mind to. Her life in Toronto taught her differently. But she was unable to let go of her pride along the way and she had let her parents believe she was doing well. There was no way she could go home to them like this. Not when she came with absolutely nothing to show for all the years she’d been away. Well, nothing except for the little being she carried inside her.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

Chapter Three

Lily sat in her friend’s kitchen, sipping a cup of tea ‘to steady her nerves’ as Charmaine put it.

“What am I going to do, Char? I’ve got no job, no place to live and now I have a baby on its way.” An unexpected wave of protectiveness ran through Lily and she pressed her hand to her belly.

“You know you can stay here with Bradley and me for a while, just till you get on your feet. As for a job, there’s bound to be something around. Even with the economy how it is, there just aren’t that many people here. Surely there’s something. I’ll ask around when I’m in town tomorrow. I know Beth is looking for someone at the Cat Whiskers Café.” Charmaine paused to raise her mug to her lips, “Don’t worry, Lily, we’ll find you something.”

A small amount of pressure eased from her shoulders. At least she had somewhere to stay for a few days. Not that she expected Charmaine to cast her out, but it was nice to be invited. “Do you mind if I come with you to town? I’d better go see the doctor and I want to get some olives from the store, I’ve been craving them for days.”

Charmaine laughed, “Oh dear, you’re getting cravings already? It wasn’t until I was showing that I got mine. I always craved peanut butter and pickle ice cream when I was pregnant. Olives aren’t so bad.”

“Well, I was also hoping to buy some cooking chocolate as well so I can melt that and then dip the olives in it before I eat them.”

“You want to cover your olives in chocolate, and you didn’t know you were pregnant until this week? What kind of stuff have you been eating for that to be normal?”

Lily blushed, “Deep down, I knew. I just didn’t want to know. Look at me,” Lily spread her sweatshirt-clad arms wide, “what the hell am I going to do with a baby?” She had nothing to offer a tiny human. No job, no career, no home. She was going to be a horrible mother. She couldn’t even get her own life in order and now she was going to be responsible for another person. That’s what scared her most of all.

“Love it, honey, that’s all you can do.”

*

Lily replayed her friend’s words over and over in her mind on the drive into town the next day. Charmaine was right. All she could do was love her baby. And in a funny way, she already did. It seemed impossible to her to love something that didn’t entirely exist yet, at least not as a whole human, but the little group of multiplying cells growing in her belly already held her whole heart. And she’d do anything for it.

Finding a job so she could care for it was the first thing on her list. Then she’d work on finding a place to live.

Charmaine pulled up in front of the Cat Whiskers Café. There was a large ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window.

The building had been recently painted and she could hear music pumping from the speakers when she got out of Charmaine’s minivan. This place sure brought back memories. She spent a whole lot of time here as she was growing up. It was always the place to be when she was a teenager. From the look of the clientele she could see through the windows, that much hadn’t changed, but it wasn’t just full of pimply faced kids anymore, it seemed that everyone from town had stopped in for lunch. She was sure she could even see Suzy Little sitting next to one of the speakers.

“Is that who I think it is?” she asked Charmaine, pointing at the little old lady with purple hair.

“Suzy? Oh yes, she loves it in there. She declares it’s her very favorite place to eat. Of course she’s fallen in love with Beth ever since Beth catered for her birthday party last year and put all the other ladies of the nursing home out of sorts. You know how she loves the attention.” Charmaine smiled. “Come on, let’s see if Beth still has that job available.” She opened the door and herded her three youngest kids into the welcoming café.

The aroma of freshly ground coffee hit Lily as soon as she walked through the door. The tea she’d drunk earlier at Charmaine’s threatened to wash Beth’s floor. She covered her mouth, shoved Charmaine’s kids out of the way and dashed back outside.

She ran a few steps and dragged deep breaths into her lungs, trying to settle her stomach. Cold sweat ran down her face from her forehead and she shivered as the cool breeze rushed up the street. It was still cold out even though it was supposed to be spring.

Spring. Concentrate on spring, she told herself. Flowers, green grass, new babies… no, that is not what she wanted to think about… rain, thunderstorms, little birdies, newborn lambs, newborn calves, newborns…

Oh God, she couldn’t do this. She leaned against the building, gasping for breath. She was seeing stars again. How was she going to get any work if she was going to lose her lunch every time she smelled coffee? Everyone lived on coffee in this western town.

“Lily, are you all right?”

She jumped at the hand that touched her shoulder and she spun around.

“Beth?” she whispered. She hardly believed her eyes. She hadn’t seen her friend for years. “You look exactly the same,” she blurted.

Beth’s tinkling laugh filled the street.

“Thanks… I think.” She looked at Lily and asked again, “You okay?”

She realized she was still leaning against a wall of a building. She straightened up and looked around. She’d made it past Bill’s Barbershop and Tony’s Hardware. She didn’t realize she’d run so far from the café. She thought she’d only just made it out the door. She took a step away from the wall and straightened her skirt. “Um, fine. I uh, just don’t like the smell of coffee right now.”

Beth tilted her head and looked at her for a moment, just long enough for Lily to grow uncomfortable, then shrugged. “Well, you should meet Helga then,” Beth said, “she doesn’t like coffee either at the moment. She used to live on the stuff, now she gags at the sight of it.”

Lily didn’t know what to say and after a few moments of awkward silence Beth pulled her into a hug.

“It’s so good to see you again. I can’t believe you’re finally here. Charmaine mentioned you might be coming home, but when you didn’t show up for Christmas, I thought you must be busy. Are you? Busy, I mean?”

Lily missed this. The happy chatter of close friends who want to know anything and everything of each other no matter how much time has passed since they last saw each other. But Lily wasn’t ready to let her secret out and because her life hadn’t exactly turned out the way she’d planned, she didn’t really want to head down this road right now.

“Who’s Helga?” she asked, instead of answering Beth’s questions. “You said she doesn’t like coffee either?”

“Helga Hansen, surely you know she was shooting a film here last year? Your mom would have mentioned it I imagine… and it was in all the papers, not to mention the magazines. Do you still read them? Remember when we were teenagers and we’d pool our money together to buy the latest DIRT edition? I was still getting it up until last year.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“They published some unfavorable reports about Helga.” Beth’s usual happy look turned hard.

“You know her then? What’s she like? Just like in the movies?” Lily couldn’t stop the curiosity from coursing through her. After all, she’d wanted to be an actress too.

“I’ll introduce you to her. She’s really nice.”

“Is she still here, in Bassville?” Surely not. Why would a big movie star stay in small town Canada?

Beth looked at her strangely for a moment again. “Don’t you know?”

Lily thought she must be missing something. “Know what?”

“Helga’s marrying Ben this weekend.”

“What?” Lily felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under her feet. How had she missed the news about a movie idol marrying her friend’s brother?

“Come on, Lily, I’ll make you some mint tea. It always settles Helga’s stomach when it’s upset. And if you’re lucky I might have one of my cinnamon buns left. If Helga hasn’t stolen the last one.” Beth looped her arm through Lily’s and pulled her along the sidewalk back to the Cat Whiskers Café.

Lily hoped she didn’t have to bolt for the door again.

The interior of the café was welcoming and warm after the coolness of the breeze outside on the street. Once Lily choked past the smell of the coffee she was able to detect the mouthwatering aromas of Beth’s treats. Front and center in the display case was a lone cinnamon bun which Beth whipped onto a plate and presented to Lily.

“Enjoy,” Beth said with an easy smile.

Lily had been away too long. She hoped to reacquaint herself with friends before the rumors started flying about her enlarging belly. She knew from the past how vicious the local gossips could get with someone who’d ‘fallen from grace’, as her mom was apt to say. Ironically, her mother was one of the biggest gossips in town.

She slid into a stool at the counter and tucked into the cinnamon bun in front of her. God, it was delicious. A groan of pleasure growled in her throat.

Beth and Charmaine chatted over coffee but Lily was too preoccupied by the sweet bun to pay any attention to what they were saying until she heard her name.

“Lily’s looking for work. Do you know of anyone looking for help around town?” Charmaine said between mouthfuls of blueberry pie.

Lily blushed. Trust Charmaine to get straight to the point. Lily had planned on asking Beth once she had finished her tea and bun. She reluctantly put down her fork. She might as well listen.

Beth was smiling. “I could really use some help around here. I’ve been advertising for ages but, besides some school kids, no one’s applied. Mark helps out when he can and Shirley Jenkins from Hobart helps on Wednesday through Saturday. But the rest of the time it’s mostly just me and Samantha. It gets hectic all right.” Beth looked at Lily and her smile grew. “What do you say, Lil? Want to come and work for me?”

Lily couldn’t think of anything better and was about to accept when a customer placed an empty coffee cup next to her on the counter on his way out the door. “Thanks Beth,” the man said before turning away.

Lily’s stomach heaved. The cinnamon bun threatened to reacquaint itself with the plate and Lily clasped her hand over she mouth in a desperate attempt to keep it down.

Beth grabbed the offending coffee mug and thrust an empty metal mixing bowl in front of Lily’s face in one smooth movement.

Lily quickly found out that cinnamon bun and mint tea do not taste very good on a return trip. Charmaine yelped and jumped down from her stool away from any splashes.

“Here you go,” Beth said, handing Lily a napkin as though this sort of thing happened all the time. “I’ll get you a glass of water. Just sit there a minute and get your bearings.”

Beth went into the kitchen to fetch the water. Lily sat at the counter with the busy café in shocked silence behind her. She’d never been so embarrassed in all her life. When Beth returned, she gratefully took a sip of the water as Beth removed the bowl. “I don’t think working here is a good idea at the moment.” Her voice was raspy and acid rose again in her throat but she choked it down. “I think I should go.” Her stool scraped against the tiles when she stood up. The room tilted for a moment but Charmaine grasped her by the arm and glared at anyone and everyone who dared to look their way.

“Come on,” Charmaine said. “Fresh air will do you good.”

The cool breeze blowing down the street took Lily’s breath away. “I can’t believe I just did that.”