This Time You Read online

  THIS TIME YOU Copyright © 2020 T.M. Cromer

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  ISBN 978-0-9965720-3-3 (EPUB)

  ISBN 978-0-9965720-5-7 (PAPERBACK)

  Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Designs

  Edits: Trusted Accomplice

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For Joye and Jannaya:

  You’ve waited long enough for this one!

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  From the Author…

  Also by T.M. Cromer

  Chapter 1

  The slamming of multiple car doors jolted Margaret Holt from a light sleep. The second the fuzz cleared from her brain, she registered the source—the new neighbor to the west.

  “It must be moving day,” she said aloud to no one.

  The house had been empty since the death of her elderly friend, Opal. The old woman had been a pistol, cracking jokes and keeping active despite gnarled joints from rheumatoid arthritis. Margie sniffed and blinked against the sudden onslaught of tears.

  Margie missed their morning routine the most. She’d send the kids off to school, grab a second cup of coffee, and trot over to hang with Opal on her front porch for exactly forty minutes. One of them would always have a baked treat to share. Afterward, Margie would return home to prepare for her workday. Not that she needed to do much other than comb her hair and sit down in her home office, but it required a change in her mindset.

  Her mornings seemed empty now. They stretched long and were packed with monotony. Same routine day after day.

  Margie reached out with her foot and set her hammock in motion.

  The frame took up an entire corner of her upper deck, but she didn’t care. The stand was out of the way enough to allow the kids free run of the pool deck at their standard mach-5 speed. No matter how many times she yelled, “No running!” her boys ignored her as if she didn’t exist. And some days, she felt as if she didn’t. They only needed her as their personal alarm clock or when they arrived home from school as ravenous little beasts, gorging on everything in the fridge and pantry. She was expected to drop everything to feed the black holes they called stomachs.

  As for her daughter, Kaley, well, most of the time Margie didn’t warrant a second glance. More often than not, she received an eye roll for bothering to speak at all.

  Kids. Pfft. If only her ex-husband were a hands-on dad, maybe she wouldn’t worry about her kids becoming little hoodlums.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother—”

  She screamed and sloshed what remained of her lukewarm coffee on the deck. When she met the contrite eyes of her visitor through the mesh of the screen enclosure, she almost tumbled from the hammock.

  Holy hell!

  For a second, she thought she was seeing a ghost.

  “Sebastian?” she croaked her shock.

  He frowned. “No. Gabriel.”

  She gave herself a mental forehead smack. Of course he wasn’t Sebastian. He couldn’t be. Sebastian Harwick had died over a century earlier. Margie needed to get her mind out of the past and into the present. Still, the resemblance between the two men disconcerted her. It was madness. Like looking down the wrong end of a telescope. Seeing down a tunnel of time.

  In fairness, he must get reactions like hers a lot. The man was divine from the top of his chestnut-colored hair to the tips of his… flip-flops? Her eyes trailed back up over the long length of his legs. He wore designer duds with a pair of canvas flip-flops that had seen better days. Huh. Yeah, even his large feet were flawless. Of course, large feet led her down the path of large—nope, she wasn’t going there. She’d sworn off those after her divorce.

  With an attempt to corral her thoughts and get her wayward blush under control, Margie dropped her gaze from his person. With a little luck, he’d assume her flushed skin was a result of the hot Florida sun. Nevermind it was mid-October and the sun wasn’t as fierce at eight a.m.

  The silence had gone on way too long, and she needed to say something. But damned if she knew what. “I’m sorry. I…” She glanced over his shoulder toward the street in hopes of finding the words, only to discover her daughter was at it again.

  “Aww, fuck.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  Dismounting from a hammock was harder than imaginable, especially when Margie was fumbling to sit up with a coffee cup in hand and was in a hurry to stop Kaley. The wind whipped up at her moment of dismount, and with it, her indignity at fighting her way free of the swinging death trap.

  His hand appeared in her line of vision, offering assistance.

  How the hell he’d moved so quickly was beyond her. With little to no pride left, she allowed him to haul her to her feet. As she stood next to him, she gawked at his height and build. He made her five-foot-six frame look positively petite. A small thrill swept through her at his nearness, and she tamped down a girly sigh.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Gabriel James. Opal’s nephew.”

  His voice hit her like the first sip of coffee in the morning. A perfectly concocted mocha with a hint of yumminess underneath woke her right up and was absolutely delightful. Her body shuddered in appreciation of the rich sound.

  They stood a hairsbreadth away from one another with their gazes locked. The sunlight turned his eyes to a sparkling silver, or maybe it was the laughter lurking in their depths.

  Yep, he was definitely Sebastian—in two-hundred-dollar jeans and a pricy brand-name t-shirt. It should be impossible, but her eyes, her nose—shit, all her senses—were telling her this was him. Unless she’d finally gone off the deep end and conjured him. For years, she’d dreamed of Sebastian, and now here stood his clone. She wanted so badly to touch him. To reassure herself he was real. To prove her mind hadn’t snapped.

  “My daughter,” she blurted. “I… she…”

  Margie was becoming seriously pissed at her inability to form a coherent sentence around him. What in the world was wrong with her? She cleared her throat and tried again.

  “I just saw her walking toward… a jeep. Down the block. She should be at school. I have to… go.” Yeah, babbling was no better. If she didn’t get control of herself soon, he’d think she was a total spaz. Which wasn’t far from the truth.

  She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Excuse
me. I really have to stop them before they leave.” Proud of herself for managing a full sentence without stuttering, she stepped around him.

  “Just a sec.” Gabriel held up a hand. He shifted to observe the teenagers locking lips in the front seat of the vehicle. “I’m assuming those two are the delinquents you want stopped?”

  At her nod, he put two fingers to his mouth and released an ear-piercing whistle. The two men unloading boxes from a pickup in Opal’s driveway swiveled their heads toward Gabriel at the sound. He jerked his chin. They immediately caught on to what he was asking them to do. The taller of the two trotted toward the jeep and yanked open the door.

  Kaley jumped out of her side. Her red face promised to give him hell, and with hands on her hips, she made good on her promise. A loud, heated discussion ensued.

  When her daughter took a swing at the tall man closest to her, Margie inwardly winced. Violence had become Kaley’s go-to reaction when angry lately.

  Taking a step back, he cast an inquiring look their way.

  Of course, Margie might’ve mistaken disgust at the situation he found himself in for inquiry. At a chuckle from Gabriel, she glanced upward.

  “Setting your friends up to feel the wrath of a demon posing as a fourteen-year-old girl amuses you?” she asked dryly.

  “They’re my brothers, and you have no idea.” He grinned down at her, his silvery eyes twinkling with mischief.

  She bit her lip to prevent a laugh.

  An outraged cry from her daughter brought Margie’s head snapping back around.

  Kaley swung both fists as one of Gabriel’s brothers held her off, his arm outstretched with a hand on her head. Her face was quickly approaching scarlet—a direct contrast to her pale-pink hair color—as her frustration grew from being unable to reach him with her shorter arm span.

  Margie groaned and raced toward the mayhem. The last thing she needed was an assault charge against her hot-headed daughter. Before she cleared the screen door, the harried but bravehearted man swung Kaley up over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. His long, purposeful strides ate up the distance to where Margie and Gabriel waited.

  The foul language Kaley showered on him could be heard the neighborhood over. Margie cringed. Who knew her child had such an extensive vocabulary? She couldn’t even be mad at the guy for manhandling her daughter. If it were her, she’d have dragged Kaley back by her ear.

  As he got closer, the resemblance to her grinning neighbor became more obvious. He stopped, grimaced, and arched his back like he’d been shot—or stabbed—before charging forward, a black look clouding his features.

  She rushed to open the screened door as an apology formed on her lips. Any other time, she’d rip the arms from someone manhandling her child, but he’d done what she couldn’t and had stopped Kaley from whatever nefarious plans she’d concocted for the day. Cleaning up her last day of hooky had cost five-hundred dollars and a month of community service.

  Gabriel’s brother reached the edge of the pool and tossed Kaley in the water. As he turned to leave, he growled, “Chase your own hellcats next time, Gabe!”

  There might’ve been mention of antiseptic needed for the bite on his back. Margie couldn’t be sure, and she missed her chance to thank him as he stalked past her.

  The whole unbelievable incident lasted less than five minutes, and she struggled to process what had just happened. She turned her gaze to a laughing Gabriel, who lounged against the stucco wall. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kiss him or hit him. He’d unknowingly set her up for weeks of hell because Kaley carried a grudge like it was nobody’s business.

  Margie settled on gratitude. “Thank—”

  “You ruined my life!” Kaley came out of the pool like an angry water sprite. Long pink hair streamed down either side of her pissed-off, red face. She sputtered her outrage.

  Wow! Straight to the ruined-my-life stage. Typical teen drama.

  “You’re fourteen!” Margie yelled at her retreating back. “There’s no kissing boys at fourteen!”

  Kaley stormed away, dripping water all over the pristine tile floors. It also didn’t matter she could’ve easily used one of the towels hanging over the rack by the back door to dry off. No, Kaley had a point to make. She had to prove to her mother she didn’t give a rat’s ass about all the hard work Margie had put into cleaning the house yesterday.

  Margie put her hand to the back of her neck and attempted to rub away the knots forming there. “I’m sorry. Kaley’s hit that age…” There was no excuse for the type of behavior her daughter had exhibited today. Instead, she went with, “Thank you. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  Butterflies fluttered low in her abdomen as he continued to gaze down into her face. What must he be thinking? It surprised her he wasn’t already running for the hills. He had no idea of the hornet’s nest he’d kicked.

  “If you’ll hand over the key to my house, we’ll call it even.”

  If he’d picked her up and thrown her in the pool, Margie couldn’t have been more surprised.

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  Gabriel stared down at his new neighbor. Her deep blue eyes were large in her heart-shaped face, and she’d forgone mascara. Those thick, dark lashes were all her own. Natural beauty appealed to him, and he appreciated her lack of cosmetics.

  If he were being objective, he would’ve said her nose might be a tad on the long side, but it didn’t affect the overall symmetry of her face or her girl-next-door prettiness. Gabriel dropped his gaze to her mouth. Her full lower lip was held captive by her straight white teeth. As he watched, she released it with a puff of breath.

  “Key?”

  “Was I wrong to assume you had the spare? I could swear Aunt Opal mentioned you had a copy. That is, if you’re Margaret Holt.”

  She closed her eyes and rubbed a spot between her brows. “Right. The spare key. One sec.”

  Margaret rushed away in a flurry of movement, and Gabriel smiled. She was amusing without trying. He found it difficult to resist the temptation to check out her shapely ass, encased in a pair of capri-style yoga pants.

  “Uh, Gabriel?”

  He jerked his attention away from her backside and lifted his gaze to her flushed face. She twisted to hide her butt from view, and he bit the inside of his cheek to curb his laughter. A lot of women were self-conscious about their body, but she should be proud of her assets. The woman had a mighty fine ass.

  “I can bring it over in a few minutes if you don’t want to wait.”

  “I don’t mind waiting for you, Margaret.”

  “Right,” she said in her breathy voice, ducking into the house.

  “You going to stand here and flirt all day, or are you going to help us unpack the truck?”

  Gabriel spun around to see his brother Greyson standing on the other side of the screened enclosure, with his arms folded across his muscled chest.

  “Seems you and Gordie have it handled.” Gabriel glanced back through the kitchen window and at the dark-haired woman who’d captured his interest.

  “She’s pretty in that messy-mom kind of way. The topknot and yoga pants are the crowning touch.”

  Even though he’d had a similar thought, Gabriel scowled at Grey. “For a messy mom? She’s beautiful regardless.”

  “Oh.” Margaret’s soft, startled voice wrapped around him and squeezed. The one breathy syllable shot straight to his groin.

  He narrowed his eyes at his grinning brother. The bastard had set him up. Grey must’ve caught a glimpse of her returning and decided it would be fun to mess with him.

  “Here it is. Your key.” She held it out with a barely discernible tremble.

  A small surge of electricity shot up his arm as his hand touched hers.

  Their gazes connected, and the air grew charged.

  “Thanks.” Gabriel didn’t mean to sound terse, but he didn’t want to give Grey any more ammunition. The teasing would be merciless as it was. He softened his tone. “Nice meeting you, Margaret. I�
��m sorry I interrupted your morning.”

  She tilted her head sideways toward the sliding door. “No, you and your brothers did me a favor. I’d never have reached Kaley before they drove off.”

  He gave her an impersonal smile and followed Grey across the lawn. Maybe he was being fanciful, but he imagined her eyes burning into his back as he walked away. A quick check behind showed her zeroed in on his ass. He chuckled to himself. Life was about to get more interesting in this Palm Coast cul-de-sac.

  Chapter 2

  Margie saw brief glimpses of Gabriel over the next few weeks. Sometimes when he lounged on his front porch and lifted his mug in a friendly salute. Sometimes when he left or returned from work. And a few times when he tinkered in his garage, organizing tools or carting another box inside his house. He always gave a friendly wave and a knee-weakening smile.

  Today, she once more reclined in her hammock and did her best not to glance his way, failing miserably. A leggy blonde in a form-fitting dress sashayed up his driveway where he met her halfway and caught her as she flung herself against him. The woman’s seductive laughter floated across the lawn, and Margie wanted to gag on her yogurt.

  As if he sensed her stare, Gabriel glanced her way. She averted her face so fast, she popped her neck. How embarrassing was it for a thirty-seven-year-old woman to be caught spying on an intimate moment? She pretended fascination with a raft in her pool.

  “Mom! Scotty’s hogging the remote again!”