It Happened on Maple Street

When they’d made it out of the car and limped their way to a house, they’d called Mike. Their brother had come to get them and then spent the night in the emergency room while Tim’s broken collarbone and various other injuries were tended to. Mike had let both of them know then that there better not be a second time.

Taking his foot off the brake, Tim eased the car forward slowly, a few feet at a time until he was back on the road. Wide awake now, he knew one thing. He couldn’t risk his brother’s wrath for his stupid

choices. It was time for him to look for his own car.

Six

I DIDN’T READ ROMANCES ANYMORE. They paled in comparison to the real thing. I didn’t need to imagine my Harlequin hero, or find him on pages of books written by women privy to all of the things I could only imagine. I didn’t need to imagine anymore.

I had the real thing.

I just had no idea how to keep him for more than the moment. I loved our moments, but I needed a future. And I needed it fast.

Before I became something I would hate for the rest of my life. A loose woman. Harlequin heroines did not have sex before they were married. They married for convenience and a lot of other wrong reasons, but they didn’t have sex without marriage.

If I was going to write for Harlequin, I had to be worthy of a Harlequin heroine. I had to be a Harlequin heroine.

Those women were my mentors.

My moral compass.

I had to live up to them.

And I was thinking of Tim no matter what activity I was engaged in.

“Run errands with me?” My friend, Rebecca, was staying with me again. She’d had a run in with her brother-in-law and didn’t want to go home to her room in her sister’s house.

Rebecca knew me. Better than most. And I’d been neglecting her.

“Sure,” I said, jumping up from the gold chair in the corner of my bedroom, the room I’d been allowed to decorate myself, the room that I’d shared with Rebecca for most of our senior year.

Tim might call. I didn’t want to miss him.

But Rebecca was lonely. She had issues. We’d been friends since the fourth grade.

And her father had died when she was five; he’d been a teacher, just like Tim’s. She’d had a hard life. I cared about her. Before Tim, I’d been there for her 100 percent. What kind of person was I if I suddenly ditched her?

“Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

We usually took Rebecca’s car. It was bigger and she’d had her license longer, but I wanted to use my gas so she could save hers. I was going to miss Tim’s call, but I was being a good person.

My heart wasn’t appeased. It yearned for Tim.

Rebecca needed to stop at the card shop. I talked about Tim all the way there.

“He thinks President Kennedy’s assassination was orchestrated by one of his own.” I stated the virulent news where I knew it was safe.

“Wow, he was?”

“I don’t know. Tim thinks so.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

I had no idea, either. But I wondered if he was right. I’d heard the supposition before. But for the first time in my life, I was considering the possibility.

Tim was changing me.

And that scared me.