Chapter One
Everyone has a plan
'till they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson
Cadence Greer gaped at her boss in disbelief. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, Neil. Would you please repeat that?”
He has to be wrong, her mind screamed, while her knees morphed into a consistency quite similar to watery oatmeal.
Neil Dumont took her by the elbow and steered her into one of his leather office chairs. After ordering her to put her head down between her knees, he released a long sigh.
“Cadence, I know this is a surprise, but it really shouldn’t come as a shock.” Neil sat down next to her as he patted her shoulder. She absently wondered if he had a lot of practice comforting hysterical young women, since his daughter was close to her age.
“I know, Neil, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened,” she whispered, sitting up and dabbing at her eyes with her fingers. She couldn’t fully wrap her head around the notion that all her carefully crafted plans for the future suddenly shattered into tiny irreparable pieces.
Neil was a respected founding partner of the prestigious law firm where she worked in Seattle. A family man with a wife of thirty-two years and two great kids, he was someone Cadence admired. Normally, she heeded his advice. However, when it came to Bill Aimes, she had blocked out his warnings and done as she pleased.
Slowly nodding his head, Neil handed her his pristine white handkerchief and cleared his throat, just like he did before stepping before a judge in the courtroom. Cadence knew what that sound meant. The four years she’d spent as Neil’s personal assistant left her well versed in all the sounds he made when he prepared to do verbal battle and win.
“Cadence, I warned you when you began working here to stay away from guys like Bill. I warned you when you two started dating that it wouldn’t end well. I even warned you when you announced your engagement to be careful. I know you, Cadence. You are a no-nonsense kind of girl, so don’t make me sugarcoat this. Bill sent an email out last night to all the attorneys in the office stating he was calling off his engagement to you and eloping with Miss Roberts.”
“But Bill said…” Neil cut her off before she could finish her thought.
“I’m sure he said he loved you, that you were the best thing that ever happened to him, and that he’d spend his life making you happy. What he failed to mention was that he has chased after every skirt in this office while you two were supposedly engaged and Miss Roberts didn’t exactly play hard to get. You really shouldn’t be surprised that a guy like Bill would run off with his secretary.”
“How did I not see this coming?” Cadence asked. She’d started to move on the emotional scale from devastated to angry. “How could he do this a week before our wedding?”
When Bill continually sought her out on breaks, walked her to her car after work, and invited her out for coffee, she was flattered. The hotshot attorney was tall, handsome, successful, and charming.
With a sigh of disgust, she thought about where that charm had gotten her.
For the first time in her life, she felt like an idiot and a failure. If Bill had punched her in the face, she couldn’t feel any more mistreated and hurt than she did right at that moment.
Although she refused to move in with him until after the wedding, Cadence had given notice on her apartment and sold all her furniture. Bill owned a beautiful condominium with posh furnishings and made it clear he didn’t want her hand-me-downs or second-hand finds in his sleek and modern environment.
Now she had nothing.
“What am I going to do?” Cadence stared at Neil with a look of despair in her hazel eyes.
“Take a few days off, let your thoughts clear, and give your heart time to mend. Then come back to work with your head held high,” Neil said in a commanding voice. “You didn’t do a thing wrong, Cadence, except fall for a man who is completely undeserving of your love.”
“Be that as it may, I can’t keep working here. Not with him and his new bride coming back. I just couldn’t do it, Neil.”
“Cadence, don’t be hasty.” The look of determination on Cadence’s face alarmed Neil more than anything else that had transpired. “Once the dust settles, tongues will wag about another juicy bit of gossip and all will be forgotten.”
“Maybe by the others, but not by me.” Cadence stood then began pacing across Neil’s office. “I can’t keep working here knowing I’ll run into him every time I turn around. It would be like rubbing salt in a wound on a daily basis. I don’t have a choice, Neil. I have to leave.”
As she rose from the chair, Neil studied Cadence. She was the best assistant he’d ever had. If she wanted, she would have made an excellent attorney. Her mind was sharp, her demeanor cool and professional, and she noticed the most infinitesimal details — except when it came to Bill.
However, Cadence was correct. Working in the same office with her former fiancé would be a form of torture. He’d love to see Bill kicked to the curb, but the fact that man’s uncle was one of the firm’s partners insured the loser would still have a job when he returned from his honeymoon.
“Cadence, maybe I can make a few calls and find you a position elsewhere.” Neil walked up behind her where she stared out the window into the gray, rain-laden sky.
She turned around and gave him the barest hint of a smile.
“Thanks, Neil, for the offer, but no thank you.” She shook her head and rolled back her shoulders. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m leaving. I’ll start over somewhere else.”
“Where will you go? What will you do?” Neil knew she grew up in a middle class home in the suburbs. Her parents worked hard to help put her through college. An only child, Cadence had been by herself since her parents moved to southern Mexico a year ago. They’d been saving their pennies for years to live out their dream of retiring early and moving somewhere tropical. Still, Cadence never thought they would actually go and leave her behind.
Alone.
Maybe that was part of the reason she had rushed to marry Bill. She needed to fill the quiet left by the departure of her parents. Cadence talked to them once a month and emailed them frequently. She also spoke of an aunt who lived out in the sticks.
“What if you go spend some time with your aunt in Oregon? I bet she’d take you in until you can decide what your next step should be,” Neil suggested with fatherly concern.
“Aunt Viv?” Cadence instantly warmed to the idea. Of course! She could spend some time with Aunt Vivian and Uncle Joe in Grass Valley before she made any further mistakes or decisions.
Cadence smiled at Neil. “That’s perfect, Neil. Thank you for the suggestion. I hate to leave you without an assistant, but the sooner I cut my ties and leave town, the better off I’ll be. Besides, I only have my apartment for another three days. I was going to stay at the hotel with my parents until the wedding.”
“You know I hate losing you, Cadence. You’ve been a top-notch assistant. If there is ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.”
Cadence held out her hand and offered Neil a handshake, but he pulled her into a warm hug. “You’ve become like a daughter to me and all I get is a handshake? I think not.”
She released a shaky laugh, hugged him back, and brushed at more tears.
“I better go pack up my desk and get out of here.”
Before she finished cleaning out her desk, Neil walked by and dropped an envelope into the box she filled with her personal belongings.
“You be sure and keep in touch.” Neil smiled as he stood in his office door. “I want to know you landed on both feet and are doing just fine.”
“I will, Neil, and thanks again.”
Cadence picked up the box and her purse, hurrying out to her car. As soon as she set the box down in her apartment, she opened the envelope. Neil not only paid her for wages due, but also included a hefty bonus that would help her start fresh somewhere else. A note from him simply said, “You’ve more than earned it.”
Tears flowed as she sagged onto the one chair left in her apartment. When they subsided, she took a cleansing breath, picked up the phone, and began calling people to tell them the wedding was off.
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The city’s skyline receded to a blur in her rearview mirror and Cadence released a long sigh. Things could not get any worse unless she suffered the same fate as Lot’s wife for looking back and ended up as a pillar of salt. With the sky pouring down a steady drizzle of rain, the salt would quickly wash away and leave no trace behind.
She wished, once again, that her white-knuckled grip around the steering wheel were instead around Bill’s neck. What kind of man runs off with his secretary days before his wedding?
The kind who isn’t worth crying over, as Aunt Vivian had told her multiple times during the last few painful days.
At twenty-seven, she was homeless, jobless, and jilted.
In her worst nightmares, Cadence would never have pictured herself in her current predicament. She was too serious, too organized, too grounded to let something like this happen.
Yet it had.
At least the last three days had passed in a blur. By the time she notified all her family and friends of the situation, returned the gifts, and reclaimed what funds she could from the canceled wedding plans, she was ready to leave and forget she had ever heard the name Bill Aimes.
As she drove south on the freeway toward Portland, she contemplated her journey to the middle of nowhere to stay with her Aunt Vivian in a self-imposed exile until she could figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
With one more glance in the mirror, Cadence mentally waved goodbye to the only life she’d ever known, resolved to face an entirely new one with tenacity and courage.
She made a quick stop in Portland to do a little shopping before she finished the drive to Grass Valley. Her aunt assured her there were no malls, and suggested she might want to pick up a few things before heading east on the freeway.
When Cadence got back on I-84, she was the owner of new jeans, casual tops, a pair of hiking boots, and a heavy waterproof coat.
She’d always dressed professionally. Her wardrobe consisted of the power suits and silk blouses she wore to work and slacks with cashmere sweaters for casual days. Not a single thing she owned would be very useful in a country community, as Aunt Viv repeatedly pointed out.
A couple of hours later, Cadence pulled off the freeway and turned south on Highway 97. She drove through the small towns of Biggs and Moro before she came to Grass Valley, population one hundred and seventy.
A sigh escaped her as she parked the car in front of her aunt’s pride and joy, Viv’s Café, and went inside.
Goodbye Seattle, Starbucks, and Nordstrom.
Hello greasy spoon.
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