In the Long Run

  In the Long Run

  Haley Cass

  Copyright © 2021 Haley Cass

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Rachael -

  For all of the times you felt like you were holding me back in writing, you never saw how much you were really giving me in return. You made me realize romance novel love isn't just fictional. You're the Hannah to my Caroline, the Taylor to my Brooke.

  Mostly, you're the Rachael to my Haley.

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people I have to thank for supporting me through the crazy process of writing this book. Kate, Elizabeth, Shelley, Sam - thanks for always putting up with my crazy ideas while also trying to keep me focused. It's not an easy job but someone has to try to do it.

  A huge, huge, unbelievable thank you to my patrons - Cassidee, Chrystal, Jordyn, Nicola, Betsy, Jacquelyn, Kaza, Regina, and Sarah. Thank you all for taking this chance with me and joining me on this wild ride called... my writing life?! You are amazing.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  Chapter One

  Brooke Watson didn’t like San Diego. She’d decided that about two days ago when she’d arrived for the conference.

  She didn’t enjoy conferences, either. She’d decided that twelve years ago, after attending her first one.

  She definitely did not like conferences in San Diego, especially when they put her on the spot to do a presentation she hadn’t been prepared for, after having been at said conference for three days already. Could no one give her a heads up in that time?

  You’d think.

  Brooke was good behind the scenes; actually, no, she was fucking great behind the scenes. She’d worked her way up to running her city’s financial department by thirty and was managing the city by thirty-seven.

  In front of a crowd, with no preparation, though?

  She mustered up a smile that she was certain looked more like a grimace for the bartender as he poured her a Sprite – accompanied with a strange look, but whatever – and she was more than grateful that he walked away quickly to tend the other side of the bar.

  Generally speaking, she didn’t love fancy bars, either. Fancy bars in a city that was too big for her liking, where the music was way too loud. And why did they have the music pumping this loud, anyway? It was only three o’clock in the afternoon!

  If she didn’t know for a solid fact what time it was – confirming with both her watch and her phone – then, given how dimly lit they kept this establishment and how loud they had the music, she’d think she was at a club at two in the morning. The name of this place escaped her, but she wondered if this was this place’s niche or something. Or maybe this was just a thing here. Could be, considering she was far from the only patron here so early.

  She didn’t even really go to her own bar back in Faircombe, Tennessee, but the sight of it was much more comforting than this one. Lowkey, quieter, locals only.

  She scowled, then groaned, propping her elbow up on the bar and pressing her still-too-warm cheek against her hand.

  This was the closest bar to the convention center where she had just utterly humiliated herself in front of all of her… somewhat peers.

  It wasn’t like she worked with other city officials often enough to really consider them her actual peers. She really only ever saw them at these types of things.

  And normally at these conferences, she was way different than what she’d just put on. She didn’t stumble over her words or drop ridiculous index cards she’d been given to do the presentation – because if she’d been asked to do a presentation in the first place, it would have been memorized! It also would have been short, concise, and to-the-point. None of that rambling, filler crap she’d just made a fool of herself trying to do.

  Then again, she’d never been tasked to present at one of these conferences, either. Her very first time rising above the mark and that was what she’d done…

  “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all of the world, did Brooke Watson walk into mine?”

  If it were possible to make herself even smaller sitting at the corner of this bar, she would have. As it was, she pretended she didn’t hear her name and hunched closer over the bar. The music was definitely loud enough that she could easily pretend she hadn’t heard anything.

  She resolutely was not turning her head to look at whoever was attempting to invade her alone time. Right now was her time to sit here and be annoyed and humiliated in peace. After all, she had to get back to the conference in an hour to give her own actual presentation and she needed that hour to be able to gather herself.

  She definitely didn’t want to talk to anyone from the damn conference. Considering that was the only reason she was even in this city in the first place, whoever was seeking her out had to be –

  “No, really. Brooke?” The voice – low, with a rasp and a comfortingly familiar twang she could recognize now through the music – was infinitely closer, as a hand touched her elbow.

  Instinctively, she jerked her arm down and away from the touch, even as she resigned herself to the fact that she couldn’t abjectly ignore her intruder anymore.

  Breathing in through her nose, she prepared herself to put on some semblance of a look like she wouldn’t rather bite off her own tongue than face whomever was standing there.

  Only to lose the expression entirely, eyes widening in genuine surprise as she turned.

  Taylor Vandenberg stood close enough to her that Brooke could feel her body heat.

  Taylor Vandenberg, in all of her Taylor Vandenberg glory, right here in a bar in Southern California, in the middle of the afternoon – Brooke narrowly managed to bite back a snort at the thought. Yeah, somehow that aspect didn’t come as much of a surprise.

  Her dark chestnut brown waves that had always looked unfairly good were still long, cascading down her back and over her shoulder as she grinned down at Brooke from where she stood, hand cocked on her hip. Her red shirt was designed to hang off one shoulder, clingy around her collarbones, as it snuggly fit tucked into dark jeans. Effortlessly stylish and ridiculously hot.

  Of course.

  Taylor’s eyes glinted in question at her. They appeared unfathomably dark here in the bar, but Brooke knew with the proper lighting, they’d be just a shade lighter than her pupils, and they seemed to grin
all on their own. Her eyes, they did that – reflect teasing or laughter. Even if the rest of her face was covered, you’d know Taylor was grinning at you with just a quick glance.

  Even if they didn’t see one another with any sort of regularity anymore, not for a long while, Brooke was very familiar with that teasing, mischievous glint. It was aimed toward her enough in her youth to be unforgettable.

  The thought of it made her scowl all over again as she shook herself out of the surprised stupor.

  “What are you doing here?” she finally asked, clearing her throat as she tilted her head up.

  She knew that even if she wasn’t sitting, she’d have to tilt her head up to meet Taylor’s gaze.

  “I’m living here.”

  Now that alone begged a handful of questions, but Brooke was not in the mood to ask them. Really, she wasn’t in the mood for company at all, including a surprise appearance from Taylor.

  Brooke arched a disbelieving eyebrow even as she turned back to her drink. “I didn’t think you lived anywhere in particular.”

  Taylor – unsurprisingly – was entirely unaffected by her dismissive tone. She pulled out the stool next to Brooke’s and fell into it in a move that was far more graceful than it should have been. She had on leather boots that rose up high enough that it was the thick fabric of those boots that brushed and settled against Brooke’s own slack-covered legs.

  Brooke stared at the point of contact and squirmed back in her seat as her stomach seemed to squirm, itself. But as her chair was wedged against the wall, she really had nowhere to back up to.

  “Well, I’m living here, for now. But I thought the for now was implied.” She crossed her legs, drawing her foot up Brooke’s calf as she did so, and then settled just there.

  Brooke wiggled her leg against Taylor’s slightly, gaining the slightest of centimeters of her space back, before giving up with a sigh of defeat. With Taylor’s legs pressed against hers and her chair scooted in so close just by nature of the setup of the bar, she’d have to move before Brooke could get out on her own. Her body was still close enough for Brooke to feel her warmth, and yet – it didn’t feel intrusive. It felt uncalculated and easy, even if it was closer than Brooke would have typically allowed someone to sit.

  It was uncomfortable for the very frustrating, betrayal response her body had from a simple touch. Taylor’s touch wasn’t uncomfortable beyond the fact that it was totally encompassing.

  It was always like that.

  Brooke scowled at the thought and took a sip of her soda.

  “You drinking a Sprite? God, I love that some things never change.” Taylor stroked her hand down Brooke’s arm, before she lifted it to get the bartender’s attention. Eyes still on Brooke, she shook her head with a smile. “You walk into a bar and order a Sprite.”

  Brooke narrowed her eyes and stared down into the little bubbles of carbonation. “I do have a drink every now and then, sometimes.” Very sparingly, she admitted to herself, even as her voice took on a defensive edge.

  She wasn’t going to tell Taylor that there was some part of her mind that took comfort in seeing all of the bottles behind the bar; they reminded her of her childhood. Not that it was a good thing, but in a city that was too big and unfamiliar, a place she felt far from at ease in any way, after embarrassing herself, she’d needed some sort of comfort. And this… happened to be the first thing she’d stumbled across.

  Taylor flashed the bartender a bright, brilliant grin of appreciation as he approached. “I’ll just take what my friend, here, is drinking.” She pointed at Brooke.

  He provided and didn’t give her a strange look for the order, Brooke noted. Then again, she was pretty sure that no straight man in the world – literally – had ever given Taylor a look of anything but adoration right off the bat.

  As soon as her own drink was secured, she turned back to Brooke and continued speaking like she hadn’t just stopped for two minutes.

  “I came back from a month in Kuala Lumpur a couple of weeks ago and have been here since. There’s a gallery I often sell to in Point Loma, so San Diego’s become a pretty consistent stopover for me in the last few years.” She took a sip of her drink, watching Brooke as she did so. “Ben’s never mentioned it, I guess?”

  Brooke thought of the many, many things she and Ben talked about. As her lifelong best friend, they brought up just about anything that was relevant in life – though much of that in the last year was about his divorce.

  He rarely mentioned Taylor’s whereabouts to her. Or discussed Taylor much at all, anymore.

  “Hasn’t come up,” was all she said as she frowned into her glass.

  Taylor snorted a laugh, her hand falling to Brooke’s thigh and patting gently. “Yeah, I imagine it hasn’t. Granted, I haven’t really spoken to him about it. Mostly to Jo.”

  Taylor’s hand stroked down her leg to land right above her knee, stealing Brooke’s attention again as her eyes settled on the touch. Brooke could feel the warmth and, absurdly, the outline of all of her long fingers even with the light touch through her pants.

  She’d forgotten how incredibly tactile Taylor was. Always had been. Which was kind of crazy for her to forget, given how easily her touch always ignited this feeling low in her stomach. A feeling Brooke resolutely ignored as it was entirely unwanted.

  She reached down and batted Taylor’s hand away at that exact feeling starting to form. Absolutely not.

  Taylor took that in stride as well and instead of having a physical connection, she turned completely on her stool and leaned an elbow on the bar as she stared intently at Brooke.

  Stared expectantly, as if she were waiting for something.

  It made Brooke somehow feel like the teenager who was missing that something when it came to whatever was on Taylor’s mind, all over again. As she often had been.

  When sixteen-year-old Taylor had come out to the town of Faircombe, Brooke had been twelve and had only understood the meaning of the word lesbian as it pertained to what she’d seen on television and movies. Well, and what she’d heard people say.

  Which, in the mid-nineties in a small Southern town, wasn’t much and it wasn’t all that flattering, either.

  All she’d known then was that her best friend’s unfairly pretty older sister with a devil-may-care attitude who enjoyed causing a stir, liked girls the way the other girls in Brooke’s classes liked boys. And that for some reason, despite how much Brooke did not necessarily like Taylor, her body got all… jumbled when they were in the same room.

  When Taylor would give teenage Brooke that look, teenage Brooke would blush and her stomach would tie up in equal parts nerves and annoyance as her voice was completely stolen from her. She’d spent much of her youth walking away from Taylor as fast as possible whenever Taylor would give her a teasing look or bright smile, or sometimes a playful wink.

  She wasn’t quite so tongue-tied as an adult.

  Even if she did feel that same annoyed and nervous combination twist together in her stomach. Brooke guessed she was just biologically engineered to be ridiculously attracted to Taylor. It just felt like another joke the universe played on her; here’s someone you are magnetically attracted to, except the joke is! You find her absolutely vexing.

  “What?” She finally muttered the word, refusing to shout even with the music as loud as it was.

  Taylor’s irritatingly perfect smile broke out over her face as she slowly tilted her head. “I told you what I was doing here. Now it’s your turn, because I asked you first. And I hope it’s a good story because, frankly, this might be one of the dead last places I would have ever expected to find you.”

  I’m sure that you were never looking, Brooke’s mind supplied, unhelpfully.

  “I’m at a conference.” The clipped response left her mouth and she pursed her lips at the words. God. This freaking conference.

  Taylor’s eyebrows arched as she leaned a bit closer in. Close enough that Brooke could smell her subtle perfume, and tha
t alone had Brooke pulling even further back. No.

  Her voice was a playful whisper, eyes dancing, “You know that isn’t a great response, right?”

  “I hate small talk,” was what came out of Brooke’s mouth, because – you know? She really did.

  “Small talk becomes big talk if you actually engage with someone,” Taylor supplied, staying right in the same spot. Giving Brooke that same coaxing smile.

  The coaxing smile that did not actually work on her. It didn’t.

  It was just that she knew Taylor was never going to turn around and walk out of the bar without this, that had her sighing. “I’m at a conference,” she repeated. “For local officials – city managers, councilmembers, administrators, and the like – of up-and-coming small cities.”

  Momentarily forgetting herself, she groaned at the thought of the fool she’d made of herself. “Or, I was at the conference. And I’m going to have to go back, unfortunately.” She let her head fall into her hand as she glared at the bar. “And you’re right. This is the last place anyone should expect to find me. I doubt you’ll find me here ever again.”

  Not in this city if she could help it.

  “No one hates San Diego,” Taylor intoned, laughter in her voice as she arched an eyebrow at Brooke.

  She held her gaze evenly, not giving an inch. Because she wasn’t kidding.

  “You’re such an individual.” Amusement was written all over Taylor’s face, dark eyes seeming to spark up lighter with it. “The sun and surf of Southern California not cutting it at your standards? If you tried it out, the vibe here might do you some good.”

  Brooke cringed. “You’re forty-four years old. Don’t say vibe like that.”

  Taylor winked and ignored her. “Okay, so that explains what you’re doing in sunny San Diego. It doesn’t explain what the hell you’re doing in this bar.”

  “What are you doing in this bar?” she countered, her stomach twisting at the thought of the disaster spectacle she’d been a part of that had driven her here.