Blake (Found by You Book 6) Read online

  BLAKE:

  A Found by You Novella

  By Victoria H. Smith

  Table of Contents

  Ann

  Blake

  Ann

  Blake

  Ann

  Blake

  Blake

  St. Albert’s Hospital

  Colton

  Epilogue

  BLAKE:

  A Found by You Novella

  By Victoria H. Smith

  BLAKE: A Found by You Novella

  Copyright © 2018 by Victoria H. Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Victoria H. Smith

  Editing by Megan D. Martin, Judy’s Proofreading

  This story is dedicated to my readers who wanted to hear how Ann and Poppa Chandler met as much as I did. Thank you for allowing him and his love to speak to me.

  - Victoria <3

  St. Albert’s Hospital

  El Paso, Texas

  Four years ago

  Ann

  I wasn’t used to good things happening to me, a lifetime of living for others when living for myself should have been the priority. They’d been long and sometimes hard lessons learned, but in the end, they’d been my struggle to make. I’d taken the burden of them with me for far too long, and I was finally starting to see relief of their heavy weight in my time and life ahead. I started to feel their liberation here, in this place.

  I’d worked in St. Albert’s Hospital for a few years now. They’d been short, wonderful years for me and each day my heart selfishly hoped for something it really didn’t want. I didn’t want to see… him again.

  Because that meant he was here.

  He’d be here amongst the sick and suffering. He’d be here amongst the dying. In the past several days, he almost did die. His heart had given out, his big, strong heart I remembered.

  We had not even two days spent together. We only had hours in which a lifetime of memories could be formed. I knew because I took them with me. I took them long after my heart beat for another however faint it’d been. I’d chosen a different path in the end. Perhaps, the wrong path. Perhaps not, but if a lesson was learned in the end was a choice ever the wrong path? The answer to this question I was unsure of. I never had all the answers. I never knew all the right things to do. Like was it right for me to linger in his room long past the hours of his family? Was it right for me to make myself scarce and not let him see me?

  Was it right for my heart to still beat in the way it did when he was around?

  I never knew the answers to these questions. I never knew what was right. I just remembered what it felt like to be in his energy.

  “Anita?”

  As well as how my lungs felt too big for my chest when I realized he remembered me too.

  I’d slipped that day. I didn’t come in when he’d been sleeping or busy with his family. I stayed long past when I should.

  He was different now, no more a man a few years shy of a boy. He’d been so sick when he’d come in, his skin pale and lips a soft pink, but no longer the case.

  Turning, I saw the large and encompassing build of a man, his skin stressed and labored from age but matured. He had matured from his defined jawline to his impressive frame, his blond locks and goatee lacking the luster of youth but not much other than that changed. He was still Blake, the kindness there beneath those pale blue eyes.

  “Ann.”

  His eyes let in more light, as he relaxed into my name. It’d been as if it’d brought him peace.

  As if I brought him peace.

  My chart, his chart, hit my hip and when I came to him from across his hospital room we simply looked at each other, stared into each other. It was as if we were looking for the past.

  Or maybe we were looking for the future.

  Rural Texas, USA

  The Summer of 1985

  Blake

  “This seat isn’t taken by chance… is it?”

  The clatter of the diner cutlery and general banter faded off behind a feminine voice.

  My hand smoothed across the charcoal sketch I’d been working on for the majority of my lunch break, looking up to find the deepest, darkest eyes cast in my direction.

  She was… beautiful and that was honest to God the first thought I had about the woman standing by my table.

  Lashes with the thickest curl framed almond-shaped eyes, her subtle blinks like a peek into the abyss of her liquid-brown irises. She pushed back full ringlets of bushy curls from her hollowed cheeks of the sharpest height and I’d never seen anything like them outside of movies or the magazines the guys at the quarry passed around the job. The content of them wasn’t always tasteful but the girls in the centerfolds always had high cheekbones.

  This girl had them too, the pink band in her hair matched the top she wore that spread out in a V-shape above her chest and exposed the rich tone of her mahogany skin. Staring, I pulled my journal back.

  “Ma’am?” I questioned, not really understanding what she’d asked me. I was at a booth, no free chairs to take or anything.

  Her lashes proceeded in a rapid blink once my voice hit the air and I noticed a subtle smile spread out on her full lips when her head tilted away.

  A soft but present, “Ma’am…?” hummed so light from her lips I figured the existence of the word hadn’t been meant for me, and when she pushed the halo of her big hair from her eyes, she shook her head a little.

  “I really am in Texas,” she said, more to herself than me and I indeed could confirm that for her, myself born and raised in this small town outside of El Paso.

  I never really had a reason to leave the area quite honestly and this one, well she looked far from here. Like a polished penny in a creek, she stood out from this place, her brown boots pretty like her eyes and shining bright with the skirt she chose to go with it all. It bowed out over the thickness of her hips and accentuated the trim shape of her waist as it pushed up to full breasts.

  These were all things I tried not to notice, wanting to be a gentleman but the way she looked at me made all those obvious observations I noticed about her hard to ignore.

  She was looking at me like a new penny too.

  Perhaps realizing that, her lashes flashed away, those high cheekbones going round with her grin.

  “I’d like to share a table with you if I could,” she said, pushing all that hair away from her face again. When she did, the diner’s light showed brightly through the massive curls around her, the tone of her hair actually more of a light brown.

  Her lashes flashed up. “I never do this, ask to sit with people I don’t know, but this place is rather busy.”

  I lifted my head, suddenly aware we weren’t the only two people in the room, the diner’s patrons both at tables and the counter. Some had even taken standing as an option to sip their coffee and I wasn’t surprised. The diner was a direct line to most of the businesses in town. That’s why I chose to eat here on lunch, the location a hop and skip away from the rock quarry.

  “Could I sit with you? Only if you have room of course. I’ve been traveling a long time.”

  The bag appeared behind her like an apparition, the duffle on wheels large and jam-packed to the full extent of its bindings. It went with her outfit too, a light pink like peonies in the wind.

  She smelled as such when I to
ld her she could join me, my nod, then smile following that flowery smell. Her scent was an array of many, like a full and constant meadow in the air normally thick with workers and flapjacks. For the lunch hour, the short-order cooks had cheese sandwiches on the grill and I moved the stuff across the table for my companion.

  She was a pretty little thing and kind of bashful, as she wouldn’t keep my eye contact for nothing. Making it easy for her, I waved down Maybelle so she could take the girl’s order. She’d come and gone from my table, my plate of chicken fried steak cleaned long ago, so her eyes went wide when she noticed me gesturing to her. She’d already given me my check, but despite doing that she came over, her hands on her hips. A square tag reading “Maybelle” fastened to her wide bosom and she grinned at me upon stopping by my booth.

  “Hungry again already, Blake?” she questioned, jostling me like she always did. She’d been serving me for years at this place, us all in here really well acquainted since this was a small town.

  “I’m all right, Ms. Maybelle,” I admitted. My momma’s influence to regard all women senior to me properly was strong within me. I missed my momma a lot, both she and my pop gone too soon. They passed in a car accident shortly after I’d entered high school, my great-grandmama raising me into a man in the end.

  I opened my hands to the woman across from me, the one who now held my gaze with a soft smile.

  Unnerved a bit by the sudden attention, I scratched the back of my neck with my finger.

  “She, uh… hasn’t ordered.”

  The attention gratefully moved away from me and to the girl, my hand moving to my lap as I watched her order. She wanted a lemonade and an iced tea, wanting to mix the two herself. I thought it’d been kind of a sweet order, different and all that. Before Maybelle left she offered me another coffee, which I took her up right away on. I had a long day at the quarry yet, my days there some of the longest before I clocked out.

  I’d been working there since I graduated high school, many of us had. It was a big place with lots of jobs, easy decision for me.

  My hand moved across the table, the girl with the big brown eyes and cheekbones from those centerfolds looking at me. Fluffing her curls restlessly with a hand, she managed to make them bushier. Girls around here did that as well.

  “Your name is Blake?” she asked me, her framed eyelashes covering her eyes a little and I felt the extent of rude for not introducing myself right away. I guess things had happened quickly.

  “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled, unfortunately always mumbling. My momma used to get on me for sounding like I had cotton in my mouth. She had me in speech therapy for a time but I must have frustrated her with all that by not getting better because at some point she never kept me going with it.

  My fingers moved on the table.

  “And you, um…?”

  Her eyes did this thing, crinkling hard in the corners yet soft at the same time. The look had my insides feeling all bunched up and I wondered how much of my lack of proper speech had anything to do with my actual capabilities.

  “Ann, well, Anita,” she told me from under her hair. Moving, her curls bounced all over the place and my mind moved with the images of what they’d do when she danced, how her smile would be while she danced.

  She shrugged. “I’m Ann. Short for Anita, but yes, Ann’s fine.”

  Ann.

  I liked that, both of the versions, and I nodded. Her gaze studied me again and I really wasn’t used to people paying that much attention to me day to day. I never gave them a reason to I guess, keeping to myself and doing my work.

  But for some reason, she fixed in my direction, her dark eyes shifting from that of my clean-shaven face, neck, and lower. Her vision wandered over my shoulders, then across my chest, the name tag “Blake” I knew to be covered in the debris and aftermath from working countless days in a rock quarry. I brushed most of it off before coming to lunch but never had been good about getting all of it.

  Her sudden appraisal of how I looked had me fidgeting, this girl, clean as a shiny whistle, in front of me. Her smart clothes and city looks were a far cry from the dust and grime that covered an old set of work bibs and dirty-blond hair that was always just a little too long. It fell unruly just past my ears and no doubt had just as much dust as my bibs. Like my clothing I always brushed off before leaving my job for lunch but I wasn’t kempt in the slightest.

  At least not like her.

  “You’re from the city?” I questioned, hoping she’d stop her gaze for a time and I could settle my nerves a little. I didn’t run nervous usually. I guess today was different.

  My change of direction had her focusing on something other than me for a moment and when her drinks came she mixed them, choosing to slide her lemonade into the iced tea. She ordered one of the diner’s grilled cheese sandwiches before Maybelle went ahead to her other tables. I smiled when she used her straw to stir her lemonade-tea combination. I recalled that mix being called an Arnold Palmer.

  She smiled.

  “What makes you think I’m from the city?” she asked, not looking at me and my finger moved in the direction of her bag on the floor.

  “Well, you said you traveled,” I said. “And then there’s your accent.”

  It rang up north, far north and away from here.

  The crinkling deepened in her eyes and her lips twitched up. She nodded.

  “New York,” she said and like I believed far from here. She grinned. “But I’m traveling from California. Just graduated from UCLA, heading back home now.”

  A college girl, talk about something shiny and new.

  And definitely far from here.

  I never went to college, no reason for me to. We all just kind of got lost here after high school, expected to start jobs and live our lives. Many of my friends and classmates got married right away and settled in. I figured that’d end up being me too when it all panned out. When the time was right for all that, that was.

  “The train I was on actually had a layover here,” Ann continued on. Her straw darkened with a sip of her Arnold Palmer. “So I guess I’m a Texas resident for the next day or so. I plan to find a motel after eating something. I just wanted to rest for a little bit I guess. The train was hot and I’m tired.”

  “And you’re traveling by it to New York?” I asked, eyes widening. “You’re not traveling by plane?”

  Lord knew it’d be easier. She’d get to her destination in hours and not the days such a trip would take.

  Ann didn’t answer right away and I realized rather quickly I put my foot in something I had no business doing. My finger shot behind my neck and I restlessly moved my nail bed against the back.

  “I, uh…” I mumbled again, my gaze sliding away. “I’m sorry. Wasn’t my place. I guess I’m just curious.”

  In the end, invasively so, but if Ann was put off by what I said she didn’t show it.

  If anything, she only smiled again.

  “No, you’re right,” she said, her dark skin hinting at a blush across her chest where the tone was more fair. It crept up the side of her neck and her hand went there, her delicate fingers painted in the same pink as her bag and top.

  “I’m just scared of planes,” she admitted and just about half her drink went down with her sip. Her confession had her bashful and moving, I let her know she didn’t need to be.

  “I guess we both are,” I admitted too, but not as brave I gazed out the window to my hometown. I’d been restricted by the invisible walls of this place, old shops and local businesses around the destiny I chose. I never saw fit to leave, but if I had the desire I believed I would see the world. I just needed a reason to see it for.

  Ann was suddenly quiet, but then again, so was I. My gaze sliding, I caught her in another one of her fixated stares, but this time she studied something beneath my hand.

  The moleskin notebook lay opened, and having no time, I couldn’t push it away before she noticed. She’d already seen it and I hadn’t wanted to be rude by r
emoving it quickly.

  Noticing I noticed her staring at it, she tried to pretend she hadn’t been doing just that—staring. This had been made easier when Maybelle chose that exact opportunity to arrive with her food but even after the plate had been presented and the waitress gone, the existence of the moment rang loud between us. I still had my hand on the notebook.

  And it was still open with the contents inside.

  “You’re an artist,” she chose to say, nibbling on her grilled cheese. She swallowed. “I had no idea I was sitting across from one.”

  No sarcasm ran in her voice and our friendly banter up to this point gave no relationship in which such joking would be appropriate I supposed.

  Her seriousness, her genuine seriousness about what she said regarding my sketching had my hand moving across the pad. Left-handed, I always caught charcoal on the underside.

  “They’re just things I fool with,” I said, shrugging off the pages I worked on literally every spare moment I had. I shook my head, strands of my hair sticking to my brow. I pushed them away. “I like to sketch when I have the time.”

  And that’s one thing I did have here. I had time after hours and even on the clock though I made sure my boss never knew. The pad was small enough to keep in my coveralls and my pencils never took up much space.

  Ann swallowed another bite of sandwich she ate and as her gaze kept sliding I figured it was rude to not show her.

  My fingers lifted from the soft and detailed lines of a dollhouse I imagined, the magazines of cover girls and pinups not the only ones that circulated around the quarry. Sometimes I was fortunate enough to come across a wood-working magazine. That’s where I’d seen the dollhouse. It’d been one of a much similar design and once I figured out the issues I had with it, I created it. Two stories, it even had a little garage, something cute a kid would like probably.

  Rather hesitant, shy like she’d been so far, Ann moved her body in the direction of the sketch. Her subtle scent moved with her and I wondered how well she could take me in. After all, I’d been greedily indulging in her, how good she smelled.