A Dash of Destiny in Fortune's Bay Read online

  Table of Contents

  A Dash of Destiny

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  A Dash of Destiny in Fortune’s Bay

  A Fortune’s Bay Novella

  Jenni M Rose

  Copyright © 2018 by Jenni M Rose

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

  Cover Art by Qamber Designs and Media

  Editing by Indie Editing Chick

  Contents

  A Dash of Destiny

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  A Dash of Destiny

  In Fortune’s Bay

  Travel to Fortune’s Bay from the comfort of your home and drink in the crystal-clear waters.

  The sun always shines in this fictional small tourist town, found in southwest Florida.

  And soulmates always find each other.

  1

  It was perfect.

  Violet stepped back and studied the shape and size. All spot-on. She was sure it would be a crowd-pleaser.

  Well, not a crowd per se, but one nine-year-old girl would hopefully be pleased, at the very least. With any luck, she’d be satisfied enough to eat her lunch.

  For weeks, Violet had struggled to create anything that Lily Atwood would eat. Who knew kids could be so picky? After too many trials and errors to count, Violet hoped she finally found the key to getting Lily to eat something.

  She expertly flipped the pancake and revealed the perfect likeness of Pikachu, one of Lily’s favorite Pokémon.

  Smiling to herself, she began plating the meal, setting some fruit on the side, and grabbing a carton of milk.

  She had to give it to Lily’s dad, he was persistent, if nothing else. He’d tried everything on the menu at Violet’s food truck, hoping Lily would take to something, but Batten Down the Hashes wasn’t exactly known for normal food. She liked to mix it up and make masterpieces.

  It just so happened that some people were unappreciative of such fine mastery of the culinary world. What did she know about what nine year olds ate? Violet mentally shrugged.

  She wasn’t about to put plain pancakes on the menu for just anyone, but for Lily, she’d do it.

  The kid was fun to have around. She might be a picky eater but she was a dreamer and she never stopped talking, which Violet could relate to. Sometimes, if Lily’s father, Gabe, got caught up talking to someone, Lily would sneak onto the truck and chat for a while.

  Lily was a deep thinker. She asked a lot of questions about a lot of things. Violet had never asked, but had heard around town that Gabe Atwood was a single father, Lily’s mother not around at all. It wasn’t her place to ask; instead she gave Lily a place to be herself and ask what she needed to.

  With a flourish, Violet rang the dinner bell and called Lily’s name, knowing it was her favorite part.

  “Lily,” she yelled like a cook at a cattle ranch. “Is there a Lily here?”

  The girl came racing around the side of the truck, her face bright and flushed.

  “For me?” Her arms were outstretched before she even finished her question.

  Unable to contain her own smile, Violet lowered the paper plate out the window and into Lily’s waiting hands.

  If she could bottle the look of wonder on Lily’s face, she’d be a zillionaire. Pure and sweet, the girl was unabashed in her happiness. The joy in Violet’s heart grew at seeing Lily’s reaction and she filed the memory away, knowing it would undoubtedly brighten any dark day.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s Pikachu!” Lily laughed. “How’d you make him? How’d you do that?”

  Violet shrugged. “I’ve been practicing. Next time you come, I’ll make you something else. Maybe the Millennium Falcon or Bart Simpson or something.”

  “Who are they?”

  Okay, too young for that, Violet thought.

  “Why don’t you make a list of things you like and I’ll see what I can do?”

  “Lil?”

  Violet jerked to stand straight when Gabe’s voice came from around the side of the truck and Lily lost her smile.

  “Right here,” she told him. “Vi made me pancakes.”

  Violet wanted to melt out of sight when he came into view. He looked just as good as he had ten minutes before when she’d handed him his breakfast sandwich. He was partial to the breakfast grilled cheese on sourdough, though he’d never told her one way or the other if he thought it was good or not.

  Generally, he growled his order in her direction, slanted her looks of disgust, and moved on.

  He looked down at Lily’s pancakes and back at her, his face tightening.

  She bet he’d be good looking if he smiled once in a while. His backside was out-of-this-world spectacular, but he’d be way better off if he figured out how to remove the pole someone shoved up there.

  He looked back down at Lily. “Go sit and start eating. It’s almost time to go to Grandma’s.”

  “’Kay, Dad.” She peeked back up at Violet. “Thanks for the pancakes.”

  “Make that list,” Violet called as she ran off. “Anything you want!”

  “Anything she wants, what?”

  The tone of his voice rubbed her last nerve. She was a good person. Caring and giving, she was kind and always had a smile on her face. She had no idea what she’d done to piss off Mr. Tall, Dark and Dickhead, but his accusatory tone annoyed her and she was totally over it.

  “Drugs, of course,” she said, probably sounding deranged. She didn’t even bat an eye when people at a table turned around to stare at her. “Mostly she’s just looking for Ritalin. I’m sure third grade is really stressful.”

  Oh, she hadn’t known he’d go nuclear so quickly. His face turned red and his lips tightened to the point she could barely see them.

  “Excuse me?” he ground out.

  “We were talking about cartoons, you oaf,” she hissed, slapping her dish towel on the counter. “For pancakes.”

  “You could have just said that.” He put his hands on his hips, and she nearly patted herself on the back for only dropping her eyes to his crotch for a second. He may be a Neanderthal with a horrible attitude, but his body was smoking hot.

  “You didn’t have to make your question sound like an accusation.”

  “I didn’t,” he argued.

  “You did, so.”

  He rolled his eyes, shaking his head at the same time. The woman was exasperating. If she didn’t make such an amazing breakfast, he’d have stopped coming to her truck weeks ago. He’d tried it because another guy on his crew told him it was the best breakfast he’d ever had. Fortune’s Bay had a pretty good diner so he’d been skeptical, but had made the trip to Providence Park to give it a shot.

  He’d nearly left when he saw the line snaked around the parking lot but had stuck it out. It had struck him as curious that most of the customers were men but he’d attributed it to the time of day.

  Until he got to the front of the line.

  Violet Hart was like sunshine that beamed from inside her truck. Wild red hair, barely contained in a hat, bounced when she moved as did the breasts
under her T-shirt. Short and curvy with the face of an imp, she screamed trouble. Her mischievous green eyes had danced as he ordered, as far as he could tell with nothing more than the happiness that lived within her.

  It was unnerving. People weren’t that happy for no reason.

  She’d taken his name for his order and winked at him. His body’s reaction to that wink—a rush of blood south and an instant hardening—had him scowling at her.

  This was not the kind of woman he’d ever get involved with. He wanted strong, smart role models for his daughter, not bubbly sexpots who worked on food trucks. A woman like her was not part of his master plan to settle down in Fortune’s Bay.

  She was nice to look at, but he wasn’t interested, so he’d given her his best back-off face and had been short with her ever since. Eventually, her winks had turned to glares.

  Today, her glare had become a sneer.

  Pardon him for wanting to know what strangers were talking to his daughter about.

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything, Violet,” he reasoned.

  She crossed her arms, pushing her breasts up and deepening her cleavage. He didn’t think she knew she was doing it, but he sure did.

  “You sounded like you were. I’m just trying to help Lily find something she likes to eat here. I don’t like when you bring her and there’s nothing for her.”

  He didn’t like it either but he was sure, if he just kept trying, she’d eventually find something she wanted.

  “You could have just told me what you were talking about instead of trying to piss me off.”

  “You could have just assumed I was talking with Lily about something innocent because I’m not the monster you think I am.”

  He inhaled through his nose, praying for patience. The woman would never stop arguing with him, he was sure of it. In the weeks since he’d been eating at the truck, they’d argued over everything from the ply of the napkins she supplied to the amount of pepper she put in the eggs.

  “Let’s agree to disagree,” he held up his hands and took a step away.

  “Whatever,” she mumbled and turned her back to him, talking under her breath. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he was sure it was something unpleasant about him.

  If Lily wasn’t so fond of Violet, he’d have chosen a different spot for lunch, but the pair had struck up a quick friendship. His daughter, without a mother, was eager to find women she could connect with and like any child, she jumped in, feet-first, when she found a winner.

  Lily loved Violet.

  He tolerated the bond but was always on the lookout, making sure it didn’t get too deep. He knew women like Violet. Lily’s mother had been one of them, always one foot out the door with a new adventure around the corner. That’s how he ended up a single father, making a home for himself and Lily on his own.

  He had no intention of letting his daughter make the same mistake he did, getting involved with someone who never had an intention of sticking around.

  “Stubborn, hard-headed, Cro-Magnon,” Violet muttered as she closed up and wiped down her work stations. “Thinks he can come here and look down at me.” She paused and thought on that for a second. “Up at me. No, still down at me. Like I’m some kind of kid-stealer, degenerate, bad influence. Of all the stuck up…”

  Her litany continued as she scrubbed, her dislike of Gabe Atwood propelling her forward. The look he’d given her, like she’d been offering Lily candy laced with razorblades or something.

  Who the hell did he think she was, anyway?

  He was an anomaly, one disbeliever in a town full of optimists. She was the epitome of adorable and she damn well knew it. There weren’t many people in the world that could stay mad at her for long and she liked it that way. Her outlook on life was sunny, she went with the flow, and was easygoing. The town of Fortune’s Bay loved her and who could hate that?

  Apparently, Gabe “Stick in The Mud” Atwood, that’s who.

  Fortune’s Bay was a funny place. Violet had traveled extensively in her life, her parents both obsessed with adventure. She’d celebrated her second birthday wearing nothing but a loincloth in the wilds of Africa and had learned to cook on a dude ranch in Montana. She loved the road and the wide-open possibilities life held, but the second she’d driven over the town line and into Fortune’s Bay, her heart had stuttered, as if it just couldn’t beat the way it once had. It restarted and began beating to a new tune, one that urged her to do things like fix up her grandma’s old house or stand with her toes on the edge of Destiny’s Ridge to breathe in the salty sea air.

  Never one to deny a whim, Violet did all the things her heart told her to do, including buying a food truck and whipping up new things for people to delight over.

  Her favorite thing by far, about Fortune’s Bay, was the history, though. She’d never been so fascinated by something, so captured. Luckily, there were tons of books about the town’s history and she devoured every one she got her hands on. The tale of Anastasia Roberts, female pirate, and her crew, founding Fortune’s Bay and hiding treasure somewhere in town, brought in hordes of tourists. Along with Destiny, the spirit that helped unite lovers that were meant to be, the town had a reputation far and wide for being whimsical and even a bit magical.

  She’d written a few blog posts about lost loves and hidden treasures that had been picked up nationally, drawing more attention to Fortune’s Bay and its legends. Freedom was always nice but money helped, too.

  Thinking about something other than Gabe and his brown eyes, narrowed in her direction, helped calm her.

  He was the guy she avoided at all costs, generally. Looks-wise, he was perfect. Tall and lean, his dark features reminded her of Fortune’s Bay long history of pirates as early settlers. She wondered if he was a long, lost relation to one of them.

  He reminded her of chocolate. Not the commercial kind you got at the grocery store checkout but the good kind you had to have shipped in. Dark and bold but bitter at the same time. Something you thought you craved only to realize it wasn’t what you thought it would be.

  Definitely an acquired taste.

  Violet took out her supplies for the following day. Prepping was key in food service but it was a skill she did not come by naturally. She had to work at it every day, more a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of girl, one who pushed her boundaries and tested her own limits. Prepping and planning were work and when it became work, the fun slowly seeped out.

  After everything was clean and sanitized, she took out the vegetables she needed to prep for the morning.

  The more creative the menu, the more thorough the prep work. When it was part of the creative process, the prepping made sense at least. The end result would all gel together, which would fill her with such pride.

  She cut chorizo and peppers, big plans for a hash bowl swirling through her thoughts. She’d cut some avocados, throw in some green chilies, and top it all off with a fried egg.

  As she cut the red pepper, a strange wind gusted through the truck, followed by the sensation of something inching up the back of her neck, as if there was a bug crawling its way into her hair.

  She wasn’t the girliest girl around but she acted out of instinct, without thought. Her body jerked, her shoulders rising as she did a little shimmy, hoping to dislodge whatever creepy-crawly was on her.

  It persisted and she imagined a spider, inching into her hair, ready to nest, but there was another sensation too.

  She looked down and her vision wavered.

  That was blood.

  Actually, that was a lot of blood. It was pumping out of her finger which strangely, wasn’t as long as the last time she’d seen it.

  Yeah, she was pretty sure that white thing was her bone but she couldn’t look anymore. If she did, she’d probably throw up and throwing up in an open wound would be bad.

  She grabbed a towel and wrapped it haphazardly around her finger. The blood soaked through almost immediately and everything got hazy again, black spots clos
ing in on her.

  She’d never been very good with the sight of blood. Once, her sister had fallen off her bike, and Violet was the one that ended up in an ambulance, the sight of blood making her fall and smash her face on the pavement.

  Eyes to the ceiling, she took a step toward the front of the truck. Maybe some fresh air would help, then she’d drive herself to the clinic to get patched up. No problem.

  But as she took a step, she stumbled a bit and looked down. That was when she saw the tip of her finger on the cutting board, nearly lost among some diced chorizo.

  It wasn’t gradual then—no colored spots marring her vision or feeling vaguely lightheaded.

  The dark came fast and hard and Violet pitched forward, completely unaware.

  2

  Gabe listened as Lily regaled him with details about some Pokémon she was sure was the best one. Supposedly it sang some kind of song that put other Pokémon to sleep and, apparently, his daughter could talk non-stop about it.

  He loved Lily more than life itself. When her mother had shown up one day, all of Lily’s things in her arms and a pitiful excuse about not wanting to be tied down on her lips, he hadn’t hesitated. From the day Lily was born, she’d been the center of his world.

  The older she got, however, the less he understood just what made Lily tick. He didn’t know if it was that she was a little girl and his knowledge on all things sugar and spice were sorely lacking or that they were just on different wavelengths. He’d grown up playing sports and craving being part of a team. Lily struggled to make friends and had no interest in sports of any kind. While he tried to limit her screen time, she reveled in videos and books about Pokémon and other creatures that didn’t exist.