All or Nothing: A Trust No One Novel (40 page)

“My flatness was realistic!” I spit the words out so hard, it strains my stitches. “I came in here to get rid of my scars, not get fake boobs.”

The nurse winces. I realize, too late, I have insulted her. For a split second, I actually feel sorry—until she thrusts her chart under my nose.

“There it is in black and white.” Each syllable gets a finger tap for emphasis. This nonsense has gone as far as she’s going to let it.

I quickly scan the chart. “And you’d be right if my name were Christine McDaniel. But it’s not!” The chest ache becomes a throb. My heart races along with my mind. How in the hell could this have happened?

The nurse rushes from the room, leaving me, Angeli, nose job girl, and her mother in silence. Nose job girl mouths, “Oh my God” to her mother as if Angeli and I aren’t six feet away. Glaring at them, Angeli yanks the curtains shut around my bed.

An Excerpt from

GET THERE

by Megan Hart

(Originally appeared in the print anthology
A Red Hot Valentine’s Day
)

No one ever said long-distance love was easy, and, after being apart for two years, Edie and Ty are more than ready for some time together—especially on Valentine’s Day. But as their erotic journeys come to a scintillating conclusion, they’re about to discover that getting there is half the fun…

AN AVON RED NOVELLA

I
could get there by bus. Watch the country go by in ribbons of brown and green as we pass by towns the names of which don’t matter, because they’re not yours. The clatter-clack will lull me to sleep and I’ll dream of you. The mountains will become your breasts, the hills the slope of your hips, and the valleys… the valleys will turn into that sweet valley between your thighs, and I’ll wake with an erection hard enough to bore tunnels. And then, when I get there, all I’ll have to do is lay you down and fill you up with all of me.

Because you’ve already filled me with all of you.

E
die Darowish folded the note card closed and pressed it to her smile for a second before putting it aside in the “keep” pile. That one was twice the size of the “toss” pile, but she couldn’t bear to throw away even one of Ty’s letters. It didn’t matter that in just a couple weeks they’d be together again, this time for good. Having Ty in person would be infinitely better than having only his words, but these letters were important, too.

He always said his strength was with drawing and not prose. He sent her lots of sketches, sometimes cute and funny cartoons and other times breath-stealing sensual line drawings, so the rarity of his written communication was doubly precious. Not to mention sexy as all get-out. Ty might claim he was better with pictures than with words, but reading over what he’d written to her just a few months ago, Edie disagreed.

The file box in front of her was still half full as she sifted through the memorabilia she’d collected over the past two years. She pulled out a handful of receipts from restaurants and hotels, places they’d gone on vacation. Each was a memory and a story all its own, but she tossed most of them in the trash. There really was only so much she could take with her all the way from California to Pennsylvania, and living with Ty would mean she didn’t have to keep every scrap anymore.

Edie worked until her joints ached from sitting cross-legged on the floor, but when she was done, she ended up with a bulging manila envelope of letters and drawings and a garbage bag stuffed with the rest. Not bad for a few hours’ work. She got up, stretching, and looked around at the stacks of file boxes she’d seal with tape and ship to the new house.

She’d already sold her furniture except for the Art Deco Waterfall armoire, dresser, and vanity that had been hers since childhood and had already been shipped off along with most everything else. The rest hadn’t been worth much. She’d lived in this apartment for seven years and hadn’t ever bothered to do more than make it a place to sleep and eat and work. She had a truck from the local thrift store scheduled the day before her flight to come for all that was left and an appointment at the car dealership to sell her car, too. She’d buy a new one in Pennsylvania. Ty planned on driving a moving truck, his car towed behind, from Maine. They were going to get there on Valentine’s Day.

Edie’s stretch turned into a little dance as she thought of it. They’d been officially a couple for two years but had never managed to spend a Valentine’s Day together. Christmas and New Year’s, yes, and once a memorable Fourth of July, but February was a bad time for both of them to get away. Not this year, though. This year she’d be with him, and no matter what they did, it was going to be romantic because they were together.

She’d stripped her apartment down to bare walls and floors, but she hadn’t yet dismantled her office. She’d gotten rid of the desk and boxed up most of her paperwork and binders, but she wouldn’t be able to completely pack up her laptop and her current projects until she was ready to move. A glance at the clock told her it was time to talk to Ty.

A scan of her instant messenger friends’ list showed her he hadn’t yet logged on, so she checked through her e-mail and visited the
Runner
message board just to keep herself updated. As usual, the new threads had accumulated during the day while old ones got bumped to the next page. Edie didn’t read all the messages, most of which were squeals about the show’s longtime star, Justin Ross, and this season’s new costar, Tristan Winsam. The boys got most of the attention at the board with only a handful of threads dedicated to the show’s other aspects, but one header caught her eye.

Runner Wedding, did you hear?

Her cursor hovered over the thread, but Edie hesitated before clicking. She liked checking in to keep up with what the fans were saying, but she ignored most of the board’s messages because reading about how stupid her plotlines were when they didn’t involve Justin taking off his shirt, or how much fans hated the episodes she’d written solo wasn’t exactly great inspiration. Finding the threads that praised her and her work on the show’s long-running mythology, or the fact she was the one to introduce the love story into the plot, were a thrill, but she’d been burned a few too many times to risk wading through the less-than-complimentary reviews just to find a nugget of squee.

Curiosity won out, and she clicked.

And laughed.

And blushed.

The facts weren’t exactly spot-on, but that was all right. She didn’t really want the
Runner
fan community knowing exactly where she and Ty were moving or when they were getting married. She might not be as popular as Ross and Winsam, but she’d learned her lesson about the lengths fans would go in order to get close to their idols. Some of them wouldn’t hesitate at trying to get close to one of the show’s writers in hopes of getting an introduction to the stars.

The comments following the initial post were full of congratulations and speculation, but one thing stood out. All the posters knew that Edie, one of
Runner
’s senior writers, and Tynan Murphy, illustrator of the first three
Runner
graphic tie-in novels, had met on this very message board during a promotional discussion about the novels before they were released. Which of course led to the inevitable rumors that Ross and Winsam actually read and posted on the message board and had even asked one of the fans out on a date last year.

When she got that far into the conversation, Edie, who knew for a fact neither of the boys bothered reading the boards, logged off. She’d never thought she and Ty would make gossip headlines, but it just proved again how rabid the show’s fan base was, that they’d grab up and tear apart any scrap of
Runner
-related information. Not that she really minded, in the long run. The show had been her bread and butter for four years, after all. And it had introduced her to Ty.

See the latest?
Ty’s message window popped up with a familiar
doink
sound.
We’re big news on the board.

I saw. I didn’t know we were getting married on set, or that Justin
and Tristan were going to be your dual best men. When did you plan
to tell me that?

Ty’s smiley face emoticon could never replace the sound of his laugh, but seeing it, Edie smiled, too. Typing couldn’t replace the sound of his voice, either, but they’d agreed daily instant message sessions were better than expensive long-distance phone bills or staticky cell-phone calls. Maintaining a long-distance relationship would have been impossible without the Internet, but then without the Net, they’d never even have met.

Can’t wait to wake up with you in the same bed,
she typed.

Can’t wait to wake up with you in the same time zone.

With Edie in California and Ty in Maine, their conversations were never long enough. The time differences had always played havoc even though they were often able to set their own schedules. Even when they were able to get together physically, adjusting to the time changes had been interesting.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
No more falling asleep on me when I want to get frisky?

No. I promise.

Just a couple weeks.

Seems like forever.

And it did, though not compared to how long it had been during the six months between the night Ty had slipped the diamond-and-emerald engagement ring on her finger and the day she’d finally learned the network had decided this would be
Runner
’s final season, or the month following that before she’d found a new job. Writing for a popular spoof-news show based in New York wasn’t going to be anything like writing for a popular sci-fi program, but the location had sold her. Not quite midway between them, but close to her family in Pennsylvania. When a prominent Philadelphia newspaper had expressed interest in running Ty’s work on a semi-exclusive basis, the move had been a no-brainer. They’d bought a house in suburban Philly. It was going to happen, at last!

Everything work out okay with the realtor?

Edie could type almost as fast as she could talk.
Yep. She got my stuff delivered and will have the keys waiting for us at the office. All utilities will be on, too.

You mean we won’t have to make our own heat?

Perv.

You like me that way.

I love you that way,
Edie typed.

They chatted a bit longer about their work, about the new house, and the wedding plans. All the sorts of conversation any engaged couple had, the only difference the distance still between them. Too soon it was time for them to log off.

But Edie had one more question for him before she did.

So
, she typed,
how are we going to get there?

We could get there by train
.

And then he was off line.

Edie tapped her finger thoughtfully on her computer mouse as she read over Ty’s last message. Train? She tried to think if she’d ever been on a train aside from the one at Disneyland.

“You bugger,” she murmured.

The blue glare of her computer bathed her desk. She stared so long her screensaver, a slideshow of pictures pulled from her photo library, kicked on. She watched Ty’s familiar grin fade into a stock shot she’d used while writing the time-travel episode. The couple in the picture were now somebody’s grandparents, but back then they’d been young and in love, their attraction palpable even through the layers of time and digitization. He wore a World War II–era navy uniform and she perched on his lap, one hand on her head to keep her hat in place.

“Train, huh? All right, buddy. Here’s your train.” With a grin of her own, Edie bent over her keyboard and began to type.

“A
ll aboard!” The conductor walked up and down the platform, shouting the words over and over.

Edie stood as the gust of wind buffeted her skirt around her legs and threatened to take her hat, that cunning little number with the half veil. She’d bought it because she knew Ty would like it. But now she was here, and where was Ty?

“All aboard! Miss, the train is boarding. If you mean to be on it…” The conductor gave her a thorough looking-over, the sort a gal couldn’t miss.

Edie looked up and down the platform once more. She saw a couple soldiers being kissed and wept over and a single sailor in white slinging a duffel bag over his shoulder. But not the right sailor. Not Ty.

“The train—”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” she said, and climbed aboard with her ticket clutched in one gloved hand.

She’d booked a sleeper car. The tiny compartment had a bed that folded up along the wall, two small seats facing each other with a minuscule table between them and a few hooks where she could hang her coat. The floor vibrated as the train pulled out of the station. Through the window, Edie watched the gray gravel turn to green grass as the train picked up speed.

Tears threatened, and she lifted her chin, determined not to cry. Her mascara would run. But, oh, what did it matter if Ty wasn’t there to see it?

And then, he was.

The door bumped open and she turned as Ty stumbled in, hat in one hand and hair askew from the same wind that had tugged her skirt. Panting, he pushed the door shut behind him and took her in his arms. Then his mouth was on hers and her arms were around his neck.

“Thought I wasn’t going to make it, huh, doll?” Ty drew back from her mouth just long enough to grin before diving back in.

Edie pushed him away, just a bit. “That was awfully mean, Ty. I was worried!”