Page 1 of Single Girl in the City
Chapter One
Happy Things:
Snickers bar
King-sized Snickers bar
Abilene Woods had barely secured her Good Samaritan hat and already she was having a crisis of faith.
It wasn’t that Abi didn’t know how to perform a random act of kindness. She was terrified that she’d do it wrong. After everything that had happened, after the two terrible tragedies she was partially responsible for, screwing this up wasn’t an option. Which was why she’d been searching for signs ever since moving from Alabama back to Portland.
She wasn’t sure what she’d imagined they’d look like. So when no shooting star lit the way and no kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies took flight, Abi did what any good former kindergarten teacher would do: she flipped the universe the big one, then crafted aneed a good deed? sign-up sheet and posted it on the bulletin board at the tea shop where she worked.
Miracle of miracles, when she arrived at Sip Me that morning, she’d found not one, not two, but three posted wishes waiting to be granted—and not a one began withFor a good time call …
So today, Abi was going to make a few lives a little easier. Not bad for her first day in the saddle.
Spring had finally arrived with a light drizzle and a gentle breeze, which carried the scent of dogwood blossom from the surrounding trees. Abi’s first stop was at Food Hub and Grub, where she loaded her cart with all the wish-making essentials. She cruised the chip aisle, rescuing a bag of Cheetos, and rounded a display of pecans, which readwarm roasted nuts,before turning down the self-care aisle where she found the last item on her list.
Palms sweaty, heart racing, she glanced right, then left, then up at the security camera overhead. Crossing her fingers that a security guard wasn’t zeroed in on her aisle, she snatched the box and shoved it into the cart, sure to hide it beneath thehappy birthdayconfetti.
She was reaching for another box and that’s when she saw him. The one man she’d come to Portland to meet and had spent the past month avoiding.
Owen Easton. The biggest wrong she had to right. And the biggest flirt on the western seaboard. Dressed in faded jeans and a navy peacoat, he looked like an underwear model and an MMA champion collided, making him one hell of a sexy bad boy. And his smile–oh lordy—that smile, which was impossible to ignore, did things to her insides. Dangerous things that worried her.
He glanced her way, making direct eye contact.
Pretending she didn’t see him, which only made his smile bigger, she crouched down low like a soldier crossing through enemy territory and dashed toward the cash register—the six birthday balloons floating overhead acting as a homing beacon that followed her every move.
She considered ditching the cart and running for the hills, but then she’d blow her first chance to make a real difference. A chance to help a stranger in need and, hopefully, bring some much-needed balance to her out-of-control world and prove that she was moving in the right direction so Karma would get off her back.
Telling herself to pull up those big-girl panties and there was nothing to be embarrassed about, she loaded up the conveyor belt. Tossing in a king-sized Snickers for strength, she kept her eyes glued to the person in front of her. When it was her turn, she waited impatiently for the cashier to scan each item. Then it happened, the moment she’d spent the past ten minutes obsessing over and stressing about. The cashier stopped when she got to the box of condoms and glanced up when she saw the second.
Abi flashed a bright smile. The cashier lifted a judgy brow, holding Abi hostage with a single look. The woman wore her silver hair in a twist, a Food Hub and Grub apron withpatriceembroidered across the top, a magenta tracksuit that was bright enough to be seen from the Ozarks, and an expression that had Abi shifting in her shoes.
“You looking to get lucky?” Patrice asked.
Abi felt her face heat. “Excuse me?”
“The lottery’s up to thirty million.” She scanned the condoms. “You going to buy a lotto ticket?”
“No, ma’am. Just the items in my cart.”
“You sure?”
Abi craned her neck, looking forhim, relieved when he was nowhere in sight. “I’m sure.”
“You got thirty million dollars?” Before Abi could answer, the clerk said, “Didn’t think so. How many tickets?”
Abi shifted her weight from foot to foot. She had been short on patience her entire adult life, a sentiment she shared with her pint-sized students. Her need to be in constant motion stemmed from a childhood of waiting on everyone else and going nowhere fast. Today’s impatience was more of a desperation born from an innate, life-or-death need to escape before Owen located her.
“I’ll take one,” she said, and then because she was Southern born and bred, she added a honey-sweet, “please.”
This seemed to pacify Patrice. “What numbers, missy?”
“Whatever numbers the machine spits out will be fine, ma’am.”
Patrice gasped, a horrified hand clutching her chest. “You can’t live your life by chance. You’ve gotta take charge.”
