Collide Into You: A Romantic Gender Swap Love Story (35 page)

“He didn’t write back because he was on his way to her.”

Then something else falls out of the envelope that changes everything.

Keira

L
OU
A
NN
FORCES
ME
TO
RETURN
to the office with her. Even though it looks like it will rain any second now, we still walk the entire way. The wind picks up.

Her Blackberry has buzzed twenty-three times since we left the restaurant. I know this because she gave the phone to me and I had to read her e-mails out loud to her.

Twenty-two of the messages are congrats messages. Apparently, five minutes ago, Johnson Brookshire announced his retirement and confirmed that LouAnn Britton would take over the company. Mr. Brookshire was taking a much-needed vacation with his family. I smile, wondering if my words had any affect on the man.

The twenty-third message was from a guy named Terry Richmond. It only read BITCH in bold letters.
 

“Serves him right,” LouAnn says, laughing her head off. “After his hair transplant last year, it looked like a pubic mound had attacked him. Can’t have that disaster running the company. It is a family company, after all.”

I need to remind Dillan to never cross his boss.

“You’re still coming with me, right, kiddo?” LouAnn asks. Even with the wine and the bold laughter and her joyous mood, I sense the doubt in her expression. It’s brief, though.

“Up to the office? Yes, I’m coming up with you.”
If only to at least carry the Blackberry.
I can’t have her firing half of the fourteenth floor five minutes into her new position.

“Don’t be dense, Dillan.” She punches the elevator’s up button. We’re alone as it goes up. “With me. As in, you get promoted, too. It comes with a twenty-thousand-dollar pay increase.”

At first, I’m shocked. Just how much money does Dillan earn in a year? LouAnn’s Blackberry continues to buzz and she takes my silence as a lack of affirmation.

“Thirty thousand,” she states as we pass the tenth floor.

That’s almost my entire yearly salary as a staff sergeant in the Army. I shake my head in disbelief, but there must be something of Dillan left in his own body because I blurt out, “Fifty thousand.”

“That’s my boy,” LouAnn says wickedly as we exit the elevator. She sneers at Sheila, who sneers back, and I follow LouAnn to her office. That’s when I notice that
she
has her Blackberry. I don’t remember giving it back to her.
 

It’s
my
phone that’s been vibrating since we entered the elevator. Checking the missed calls, I see that Dillan has called me repeatedly. I call him back.

“What’s up, Dillan?” I ask, and realize too late that I said that in front of LouAnn. She stops just short of her office, turns, and studies me as if she’s never seen this version of Dillan before.
 

“I found something you need to see,” Dillan says. Through the phone, he sounds out of breath. “Can you meet me at Ellen’s in fifteen minutes?”

My heart does a little flip. He must have found something that will change us back.

“Yes. I’ll see you then,” I say, and end the call. “Got to run, LouAnn. Congrats on the promotion. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Her expression never changes as she closes the gap between us. “You’ve been acting very strange lately, Dillan.” Her statement comes out calmly, casually, but I feel undercurrents of electricity beneath her words. She inspects every inch of my face, my eyes, my nose, everything.
 

After a silent, tense moment—for me, at least—she takes a step back. She knows something’s different.
But who on earth would guess correctly?
 

“Must be the wine and the fact that you’re looking at the most powerful woman in the building. Get out of here. I have a feeling there’s a girl mixed up in whatever’s going on with you. In fact, take the rest of the week off.”

Dillan

A
FTER
THE
PHOTO
FELL
OUT
of the envelope, I knew that I had seen it before. At Ellen’s. I get to the Corner Bakery before Keira does and when the door opens easily, I’m a little dumbfounded and walk in.

I thought for sure I would have to pound on the door for her to let me in.

Strangely, not much looks different from how it did before. Ellen was remodeling the bakery, right? I see the same chairs and tables in the front of the store, the same decorative elements on the wall, and the same counter displays. Movement from behind the chilled glass display counter catches my attention.

Someone’s loading food onto white shelves.

“You’re early,” a small voice says. “The celebration doesn’t begin until six.”

I try to see who is talking, but it sounds like it belongs to a small girl. Ellen’s granddaughter, maybe. A blonde head pops up from behind the glass display counter. She looks about ten.

“Is Ellen here?” I ask.

“Oma’s in the back.”

“Oma?”

“Ellen is my grandmother. My
oma
. That’s the German word for grandmother.”

I’m happy to hear that. I smile and advance toward the counter. It has something that interests me. From my notebook, I pull out the photo that fell from the envelope, the photo that made me pick up the phone and call Keira a dozen times.

On the counter sits a black-and-white photo of an American soldier and his young bride. I place my photo beside it. A small laugh escapes. It’s the same photo. Now, why would Ellen have this exact photo? And on her counter, no less?

Behind me, the front door dings open and Keira rushes in, but stops. She chose my second-most expensive blazer, a plaid shirt, no tie, and black trousers. My eyes hurt after looking at her. She wasn’t kidding, in her letter, that she had to sneak out clothes. She snuck the
wrong
clothes. It’s a testament of my love for her that I do not immediately make fun of her.

Keira stays near the door. She wants to know how I feel about
her
letter.

“Stay there, Keira,” I say gently. She looks terrified of showing me how she feels. All I know is that I’m tired of running from her instead of running toward her. It takes me longer to get to her than I thought it would—Keira has shorter legs—but when I’m in front of her, I’m happy. I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.
 

I don’t care what form I’m in. We both could be slug worms for all I care and as long as I am with her, I’d be the happiest slug worm in the world.

“Do you hate me?” she asks quietly.

“Never,” I say.

“I’m sorry for everything.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I say. “Here.” I hand her the photo, but she looks confused. Her expression says,
Why are you showing me a photo and how can it change us back?
 

I bring her up to speed on the letters, including how and why the letters ended up together, and then, once we get to the counter, I point out the framed photo at the counter.

“Oh, my God,” Keira says. She looks back and forth between the photo in her hand and the one on the counter. “This can’t be true…” She trails off.

“Hello Keira. Hello Dillan,” Ellen says as she comes out from the back of the bakery. She looks at the object in Keira’s hand. “I see that you found the photo of my parents, William and Greta Hall.”

Keira

E
LLEN
UNTIES
HER
APRON
AND
comes around to our side of the bakery. I notice a small girl standing behind the counter.

“Oma,” the girl says, slowly. “Please tell me that you haven’t gone and done
it
again?”

Ellen chuckles. “My granddaughter is something else. For some reason, she thinks her
oma
is a witch.” She turns to the girl and says something in German. The girl storms away in a huff.
 

Ellen directs us to a purple table outfitted with turquoise chairs. As we take our seats, Ellen’s granddaughter returns and loads food into the chilled glass display counter. The scent of baked apple pie hangs in the air.

“Coffee?” Ellen asks us.
 

We both answer
no
so fast that I think we gave the speed of light a run for its money.
 

Ellen laughs again. “They had quite a love story, didn’t they? He married her the same day he landed in Frankfurt. He didn’t even change out of his uniform before he left his job, signed out on leave with the base commander, bought a ticket at the airport, and boarded the plane.” She takes the photo from my hand and stares at the image. “My mother, in her earlier years, was a Gypsy. She is something of a witch, or, if not that, then she has a touch of enchantment in her. She has always been a romantic and she passed that on to me, too. It’s tough to resist a good love story.”

She looks between me and Dillan, as if to illustrate her point.

“Is that why you swapped us?” I ask. “You wanted to see another happily ever after, or something like that?”

“Well,” she says, slightly more seriously. “From the look of things, the fact that you haven’t changed back yet, I don’t know if this story ends up a happy one. Dillan, you’ve been on my radar for several years. I’ve been waiting to find your match, and she didn’t show up until you, Keira, stormed into his life and turned it completely upside down. The electricity between the two of you was so charged that morning that I couldn’t ignore it.” She observes us quietly for a few seconds, then she touches our hands. “Nothing’s changed on that front. The electricity is still there.”

“How much more time do we have?” Dillan asks.
 

Ellen removes her hands, but Dillan moves in and takes mine. A smile spreads on Ellen’s face.

“It varies. It isn’t a precise charm. I had hoped you would have changed back by now. You two…” She clicks her tongue. “You two are probably my most stubborn pair. I sense there are a few loose ends that you first need to tidy up. While you’re early, I’ll get some food in your bellies. I hope you’ll stay for my little get-together, but, if you don’t…” She winks.

Ellen stands up. There’s no way I’m letting her off this easy.
 

“That doesn’t explain the letters or the photo or how all of it ended up hidden away in a wall for years.”

“Oh, about that.” She chuckles as if it’s of no consequence. “My dad, after he had been promoted to colonel, worked for the Secretary of Defense many,
many
years ago. He brought the letters to show a friend who was something of a historian. As the story goes, this friend was going to catalogue the letters and include the story in a book he was writing about American soldiers marrying German girls. Well, my mother, the little minx that she was, wasn’t having any of that. He might have gotten the letters out of the house and into his office at the Pentagon, but my mother wasn’t about to let anyone
read
them. Her last letter to him still mortifies her to this day.” Ellen smiles. “I was fifteen years old when she created some sort of charm to hide the box. She said it worked, but I always wondered what became of them. Now, I know.”

I take a deep breath.
 

Her explanation would sound ridiculous if she hadn’t already displayed her knack for creating her own charms. As it stands, I can’t challenge her answer. On the other hand, I certainly cannot use it in my report to my boss.
 

So now I know
why
the letters were grouped together and
how
they ended up in a wall of the Pentagon.
 

I’m fairly optimistic that nothing classified was revealed in the letters. But I still owe an answer to General MacWilliams on that front and I won’t be able to fulfill that obligation until I can read the letters myself.
 

I should be upset that Dillan removed the photo from the general’s secure office, but, strangely, I’m not.

“It’s a strange coincidence that your parents’ letters turn up in the course of my military duties,” I tell Ellen before she can get too far. “In fact, it’s the only reason I’m even up here in Washington, DC.”

“A strange coincidence, indeed,” she says with a coy smile.

I really don’t like being played with, and that’s how I feel right now.
 

“Were you somehow involved in
that
?”

Ellen returns to the table. “I can only do so much, Keira. Something like
that
is beyond my abilities. If you want to know my opinion, I’d call it
fate
. If I were you, I wouldn’t get in fate’s way.”

Dillan

I’
M
STILL
HOLDING
HER
HAND
. Keira hasn’t pulled away, even as Ellen retreats to the back of her bakery.
 

Someone—probably Ellen—turns on some music, and the sounds of cleaning, cooking, baking, and other innocuous noises waft in and out after the granddaughter brings us a plate loaded with pastries, cookies, and a lone piece of apple pie.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” the girl says emphatically. Her hands are on her hips and she looks at us like we are a pair of idiots. “Oma doesn’t do the swap thing unless she’s sure about it. She’s never failed. Which one of you is the dimwit?” She squints and looks at Keira. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Keira asks defensively. The look on her face tells me that she’s annoyed with herself for being annoyed at a ten-year-old.

“Normally it’s the guy who screws up everything. You’ll have company soon. Anyone who’s ever received one of Oma’s charms shows up for the anniversary party.”

The girl skips away and I turn to Keira. “I don’t know if things can get any weirder.” I’m still holding her hand. For some reason, I’m scared that she will pull away. I don’t know if I can handle her rejection right now.

“Yeah, I know.” She nibbles on one of the plainer pastries. If she’s feeling anything like I am, then she won’t have much of an appetite.
 

“About your letter,” I say. She stops chewing. “You said you had a crazy idea…” She looks relieved, like she’s glad I didn’t bring up what the rest of the letter said.