Taking Heart

TAKING HEART

by Wilette Youkey

Seven weeks have
passed since bakery-owner Ren lost her boyfriend to a skiing accident and his
organs were sent all over the country for donation. Now she must fly to Denver
to empty his apartment and find a way to finally say goodbye
.




Minor celebrity
Eric Sorenson is looking for something, but he's not sure what. Ever since his
heart surgery he's felt incomplete, so he's been scouring the country in search
of that elusive element
.




The two meet on the
plane to Colorado, but what Ren finds in the enigmatic Eric takes her by
surprise and she begins to wonder if it possible to find love beyond death.

Taking Heart
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, and events is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright ©
2012 by Wilette Youkey.
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 permission in
writing from either the author or the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote a brief passage in a review.
 

First Edition.

Cover design by
Wilette Youkey.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, thank you to my family, always and forever. I've been
blessed beyond compare to have you all in my life.
A special
thanks to my husband, who made the creation of this book possible.

To my beta readers: Beth, Gillian, Shannon, Charlene, Nemeriza, Lara
and Christa. Thank you for your wonderful help. Your ideas and suggestions have
been invaluable in the novel-making process.

To Mary, for your editing and endless
patience with me.
You are
just
one of the best people I know.

Thank you, Dalya Moon, for the use of the word
chowderbucket
.
Your little potty mouth is a constant inspiration to me.

To the folks at the Writers’ Café who are always ready with a wise
word and a helping hand (and oftentimes silly pictures): thank you.

And finally, thank you to my readers, for whom I write these stories.

This book is
dedicated to my sisters, Liza and
Jeline
.

While they may not
have the same personalities as
Ren’s
sisters,

they
are still
nevertheless two of the most important people in my life.

chapter
one

Renee Lawton was no stranger to Colorado, but as she stood in Terminal 1
of the Chicago O’Hare airport she felt as if all of her blood cells were
straining against her skin, struggling to redirect her tired body back to the
refuge of her bed.

She was not ready to go back to Colorado, would rather not tear open
wounds that have barely scabbed over, but she had no other option.

“Can I help you?” the clerk at the check-in desk asked, his jaw set in
that stressed way most of his kind wore during peak travel season. Ren wanted
to tell him she was sorry for flying on a busy weekend, that she would rather
have a triple root canal, but talking expended energy that she just did not
have.

Ren handed over the printed piece of paper with her ticket information.
“If I could, I’d also like to use my miles to upgrade to first class.”
Why
the hell not?
She had accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles flying to
Denver over the years, it seemed only appropriate she use them on her final
visit.

“Do you have any luggage to check?”

Ren looked down at her leather overnight bag and shook her head.
Everything she needed for the two-day trip was contained in that one small
piece of luggage. She wondered if she would return with another bag, wondered
if she could even bear to take anything back with her at all.

An hour or so later, after trudging through the security line and the
overlong concourse, Ren was finally able to sit and settle at the departure
gate. One glance around confirmed that the flight would be full. She set the
bag by her feet and pulled out her iPod, eager to shut out the rest of the
chattering, animated world. Around her, people were moving away from or
hurrying towards loved ones, but of all those thousands of people, she bet
nobody else was also heading to the mountains to clean out a deceased
boyfriend's apartment.

Deceased. Expired. Dead.

Ren blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from leaking out and
exposing her secret. All of a sudden a song began to invade her thoughts, and
she ripped the buds out of her ears as if made of acid. It was too late; a
memory of Ben Blair popped into her thoughts, of one of their last times
together at the ski lodge in Winter Park.

Ben had been mouthing the words to a popular song in that charming way he
had of looking dorky and adorably cool at the same time. Ren had always envied
that about him, his talent to let go and let loose. That night, aided by the
music, Ben stood in front of the entire lodge and danced like a carefree fool.
He had asked Ren to join him but she'd refused, afraid of embarrassing herself
in a roomful of people.

Oh, how she wished now that she’d accepted that outstretched hand, had
not let embarrassment hold her back from dancing with the love of her life.

Ren shut her eyes tightly, willing the memories away. It was no use
because the memory, like the sorrow that came with it, was now a part of her
DNA.

She sighed a shivery, trembly whoosh of breath that almost broke her
resolve not to cry. She was just beginning to curse her lack of foresight in
cleaning out her iPod post-Ben when she noticed a tall, dark-haired guy
approach the gate counter. She couldn’t be sure why he caught her attention; he
was just someone in his late-twenties wearing jeans, a red button-down shirt,
and black loafers. He was, in all respects, nothing out of the
ordinary,
except for the self-assured way he carried himself
that reminded her of someone else.

She looked away, hoping that one day she’d stop searching for traces of
Ben around her.

Still, she stole glances at the guy, noting that he was wearing his
sunglasses indoors on a cloudy Chicago day. Definitely not something Ben would
do.

After a short exchange of words with the gate agent, the guy leaned into
the counter aggressively, no doubt trying to appear intimidating.

But the smaller man behind the desk remained unmoved, bored even. “Sir, I
appreciate that you buy first class tickets every time you fly with us. Really,
I do. And I’m sure the suits in their big offices are writing you a lengthy
thank you note at this very moment. But the fact is that you did not purchase
the seat beside you, leaving it open for someone else to purchase.
Which they did.
So I’m deeply sorry to inform you that, as
painful as it will be, you will have to sit next to somebody for the next
couple of hours.”

The tall guy's nose flared under the sunglasses and he said a few angry
words before pushing away from the counter and stalking off into the busy
terminal—towards the bar, if Ren had to guess, to drink his immense woes
away.

She wished she had his problems instead.

Ren found her seat quickly enough at the front of the plane, but had to
extend a little to reach the overhead compartment. She settled into her plush
aisle seat and stretched her legs out in front of her, relishing the small
pleasure of a little extra space all around. Yes, she decided, cashing in her
accumulated miles was definitely worth the extra room.

“Excuse me.”

Ren’s eyes traveled upwards from the black shoes to the designer jeans to
the red shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a smattering of chest hair, and stopped at
the inexplicable sunglasses.

She managed to smile up at him.
Please let him have the wrong seat
number.

“Can I please get to my seat?” the guy said with artificial sweetness.

With a defeated sigh, Ren stood up and allowed the man ample passage to
his window seat. She caught the faint scent of his cologne as he passed, which
would have normally brought up images of oceans and grassy dunes, but instead
reminded her of urbane metrosexuals who thought they were hot stuff.

Once they settled back in their respective expensive seats, Ren
immediately put the earphones back on to avoid any chance of conversation. The
next three hours were going to be hell.

Eric Sorenson closed his eyes and took a deep breath to stave off the
impending headache and rubbed the bridge of his nose under his sunglasses. What
was otherwise an unexciting day of leaving his hotel in Chicago and flying to
Colorado had been interrupted by an irate phone call from his mother, who had
given him a tongue-lashing for not calling for the last month or two or three.
His excuse, as always, was that he’d been busy, but with what, he couldn’t
fully articulate. How could he put into words that vast, empty feeling he awoke
with in the recovery room, as if the surgeon had taken out some vital organ
that was crucial to his enjoyment of life?

After recovering from the surgery, Eric had burned through a hell of a
lot of money to scour every corner of the USA, from Miami Beach to San Diego,
to find this missing thing, and still came up empty. He should have known
better than to search for the meaning of life on a beach full of nearly naked
bodies. Still, one could hope. He was, after all, Eric Sorenson, the heir to a
foreign shipping dynasty, and above all, notorious partier and staple paparazzi
target.

He wasn’t a celebrity in the true sense, however. He wasn’t an actor or
singer or even reality star, only that his best friend happened to be an
insanely famous actor who was also infamous for constant partying. Eric had
only become a celebrity by default, famous by association.

At the beginning of the year, the pair had been photographed in various
bars with various women in various states of undress, and of course, the gossip
blogs and magazines had immediately labeled them raging alcoholics. Eric's
mother, who had probably heard the reports from his media-savvy sister, had
been frantic in her phone calls, urging Eric to enter rehab as soon as
possible. He hadn’t of course, because he really hadn’t needed it, but it took
some convincing to ease his mother's worries.

Shortly after the plane departed the airport, the stewardess stopped in
the aisle with the drink cart in tow. Eric smiled up at her like a kid on
Christmas morning. “Jack and Coke, please.”