Man Fast: Bergen Brothers: Book One Read online

  Man Fast

  Bergen Brothers: Book One

  Krista Sandor

  Candy Castle Books

  Copyright © 2019 by Krista Sandor

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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

  Copyright © 2019 by Krista Sandor

  Candy Castle Books

  Cover Design by Juliana Cabrera of Jersey Girl Designs

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-7330615-1-3

  Visit www.kristasandor.com

  For Shayne, whose kindness knows no bounds.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Share the Bergen Brothers Love

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Krista Sandor

  About the Author

  1

  Abby

  “Abigail Rose Quinn, are you going to show me the letter or not?”

  Abby startled and nearly dropped her wine glass as the door to the apartment slammed shut, and her cousin shrugged out of her jacket.

  Abby set her glass on the table and stood. “You just walked in the door, Elle. Don’t you want to unpack before you start the interrogation?”

  Elle left her roller bag next to the door and sauntered into the kitchen. “No, I’m in desperate need of alcohol. I can unpack later,” she said, taking a glass from the cabinet and helping herself to the wine.

  “Let me look at you,” Elle said, then enveloped her in a warm embrace.

  It had been a few years since Abby had seen her busy cousin, but not even time could dampen their bond.

  Elle stepped back and gave her the once over. “I was expecting worse,” she said with a teasing grin.

  Abby sighed and sunk back into the chair. Her reprieve had ended. Her time holed up in Elle’s apartment in Denver’s swanky building, dubbed The Dalton, was over. In a matter of hours, she’d have to act like a real person again. A functioning, showered, non-fuzzy-sock wearing twenty-six-year-old woman. She’d had nine days of solitude. Nine days since she packed up her old Volvo wagon and left the life and the love she thought was going to last a lifetime.

  “It’s been really quiet around here,” Abby said, hoping to derail any talk of the letter. “I haven’t seen anyone in the complex’s gym or the pool. It’s just been the doorman and me.”

  “What did you think of Harvey the Doorman?” Elle asked, wry grin still in place.

  Abby tried not to think of the old man with the weary, disapproving gaze. “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “He doesn’t like anyone. He’s the building’s geriatric version of a “keep off my lawn” sign. But don’t worry, he’s all bark and no bite.”

  “Luckily, you had me on the list of approved guests. Otherwise, he looked ready to kick me out.”

  Elle settled into the chair across from her, unwrapped her scarf, and released her hair from a loose bun. As girls, they were often mistaken for sisters with their matching chestnut locks, except where she had her mother’s sage green eyes, Elle’s were a dazzling lapis blue.

  Elle took a sip of wine. “Most everyone in The Dalton spends Christmas and New Year’s at their mountain home or in the Caribbean.”

  Abby raised an eyebrow. “I forgot how fancy you are now. Elle Reynolds, famous travel writer and Oprah’s BFF.”

  Elle snorted. “I’m not Oprah’s BFF.”

  “She recommended your book.”

  Elle shrugged.

  Abby leaned forward. “A studio made it into a movie.”

  “Yep,” Elle said, waving her off like everybody wrote books and had them made into movies.

  “Are you tired? It’s got to be one long flight getting home from…” Abby paused. “Where all did you go?”

  Elle took another sip and closed her eyes. “Prague, Vienna, Cologne, and Strasbourg. Spending Christmas working and covering all of Europe’s most Christmassy cities is about the least Christmassy thing a person can do. If I have to write about another holiday market, I’m going to stab someone to death with a candy cane.” Her cousin opened her eyes and narrowed her gaze. “I know what you’re doing, Abs. You’ve got to talk about it. All these I’m doing fine texts aren’t cutting it.”

  Abby shifted in the chair. “You were working. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Abs, you’re my baby cousin. I love you. You’re never a bother.”

  “I’m three years younger than you, Elle. That hardly counts as a baby.”

  Elle’s expression grew serious. “Stop beating around the bush, wee one. You said he left you a letter. He didn’t even talk to you in person?”

  Abby tried to put on a brave face. But the thought of that letter cut deeper than a flesh wound. That letter and her ex’s careless words cut into her soul. She steadied herself. “It’s like I texted you. Tyler broke up with me. Our lease was up, he’d skipped town, and I knew I couldn’t stay in Jacksonville.”

  “Yeah, I got that part, Abs. But you are the most on top of it, plan for everything kind of person I know. Throwing all your stuff into your car and driving fifteen hundred miles across the country a few days before Christmas isn’t like you.”

  “It’s one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight.”

  Elle cocked her head to the side. “What?”

  Abby released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Miles. I drove one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight miles from Jacksonville to get here.”

  Elle’s expression softened. “You left everything?”

  “Tyler was my everything. We were only in Jacksonville because he’d gotten that job working for his uncle, and the apartment came furnished. It wasn’t like we had all that much.”

  “I thought he was working for his dad.”

  “No, that was in Atlanta last year.”

  Elle frowned. “Come on, Abs. What happened? You’ve been with the guy for years.”

  “You say it like it was a prison sentence,” she shot back.

  Elle took another sip. “Ever since you graduated from college, you’ve supported Tyler while he went off on all these crazy tangents. Painting. Photography. Didn’t he even think he could be a professional graffiti artist? And all while you worked your ass off.”

  Abby’s cheeks burned, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. Humiliation permeated every cell in her body. God, she was an idiot. What she’d thought was being a supportive girlfriend looked a hell of a lot more like being a doormat.

  Elle poured more wine into their glasses. “Drink all of that and then start from the beginning.”

  The beginning.

  Over the past nine days, she’d played and replayed the moment her life fell apart. What could one more time hurt?

  She drank the wine then set the delicate glass on the table. “It was the last day before winter break started. It was a great da
y. I’d just finished up that long-term substitute teaching job. The principal wanted to keep me on, but the teacher whose class I’d taken over was coming back from maternity leave.”

  “You were teaching first grade, right?”

  Abby nodded, and a warmth edged out the emptiness in her chest. She loved teaching—the schedule, the routine, the consistency. “Yeah, but we moved around so much for Tyler, all I could really do was substitute teach these past few years.”

  Elle shook her head. “What a douche! He was damn lucky to have someone like you.”

  The heat was back, warming her cheeks. “I guess he didn’t see it that way.”

  “So, what happened? You got home and…”

  Abby could see her old apartment door. The white paint peeling near the hinges. The knocker just the slightest bit crooked. She tried to muster up a smile. “There was an envelope taped to the door with my name written in Ty’s handwriting. It was red. At first, I thought Tyler had gotten me something. Isn’t that silly! I thought it was a card or something sweet like that to celebrate the last day of subbing.” Her voice cracked, and she took another sip of wine. “I was so excited. I opened it right there in the hallway. I should have known better. He’d never, in all the years we’d dated, given me a card.”

  Elle grabbed the bottle and poured more wine into their glasses. “Drink.”

  Abby downed the alcohol. She needed the liquid courage to get through the next part. She hadn’t spoken about the breakup yet, and nine days worth of ruminating on every aspect of her life with Tyler had left her numb.

  She stared at the table and traced an invisible line across the smooth surface. “He wrote that our life was boring. He said he couldn’t stomach another Friday night staying in and watching The Notebook. He said he hated selling insurance for his uncle. He said he realized he didn’t love me and wanted more out of life. He’d left town while I was at work and took off for Costa Rica with the secretary from his uncle’s company.”

  Elle shook her head. “Jesus, Abby, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I was so busy with work. I’m sorry you had to spend Christmas and New Year’s alone. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this all by yourself. Did you try calling your…” her cousin trailed off.

  “My dad,” Abby supplied. She gave her cousin a placating smile. “Last I heard from him, he was in Alaska working on a fishing boat. I did try calling, but the cell number I have for him says it’s not in service.”

  “I really liked your dad growing up, but he changed so much after your mom died.” Her cousin’s eyes went wide. “I don’t mean he’s a bad guy, Abs.”

  “It’s okay. I know what you mean.” Abby maintained her placating smile and tried to stop the memories of her parents from permeating her thoughts.

  A battle she never won.

  She could feel the sand between her toes. She could taste the taffy from their favorite shop on the beach, smell the hint of coconut in her sunscreen, and see her mother and father, red-cheeked and windblown, after a morning spent sailing down the Florida coastline. She was fourteen years old, and that was their last day as a family of three. The next day, her mother went to cross the street on her morning run and never made it to the other side—struck by a drunk driver at six thirty in the morning.

  That was the day everything changed.

  After only a few months, her father, once the most dependable man she knew, couldn’t hold down a job. They bounced from place to place. By sixteen, she handled all of their finances, paid the bills they could cover each month, and made all the moving arrangements when her father lost his job.

  Another move. Another job. Another pitstop on the road to nowhere.

  She could see the sorry expression on his face, and the melancholy, faraway look in his eyes. He ceased being her father and was now simply a man who’d lost his anchor and drifted through life. He wasn’t cruel, just detached from a reality where her mother didn’t exist.

  She could still hear the earnest, sadly hopeful lilt to his voice.

  It’ll be different this time, Abigail Rose.

  It never was.

  Elle tapped her fingers on the table, bringing Abby back from her walk down memory lane. “I’m going to tell you something, and I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

  Before Elle could continue, Abby connected the dots. Her mind, laser-focused on a truth that had been staring her in the face for years. Her life with Tyler was a lot like her life with her father after her mother passed. Tyler, jumping from job to job. The two of them, moving from place to place. Abby, always the responsible one. She raised her hand and stopped her cousin from speaking. “I know what you’re going to say, Elle. You’re going to tell me how much Tyler is like my dad, right?”

  Elle gave her a sly, knowing grin. “I was going to tell you we were out of wine,” she said, tilting the empty bottle and peering into the opening. Then her cousin glanced up. The women looked at each other for a beat before breaking out into laughter.

  Maybe it was the wine or the relief of her admission or even being with Elle. Maybe she was just at a point where it was easier to laugh rather than to cry, but for the first time in days, Abby felt a resolve she hadn’t known in years.

  Elle swirled the last few drops of wine in her glass then gasped.

  “What?” Abby asked.

  “Where’s the letter?”

  Abby cocked her head to the side. “Why?”

  “We’re going to burn it.”

  “Burn it?”

  Elle nodded. “Yes, like the Dali Torch Festival in China.”

  “Wait…what?”

  Elle stood and started rooting through a cabinet. “I wrote a piece on it, back in August. It’s a huge fire festival to honor a man who drove out the locusts using a pine branch set on fire. People celebrate by throwing pine resin onto the flames and making fireballs. It’s really amazing.”

  “My problem isn’t locusts, Elle. It’s the men in my life.”

  “Yeah, we need to drive away your bad luck. That’s what the fire’s for.” Elle pulled out a giant candle. “Come on, this will work.”

  Abby joined her cousin at the sink. Elle set the candle in the basin and grabbed a lighter from a nearby drawer.

  “Where’s the letter?” she asked, lighting the candle.

  Abby cringed and pulled it from her hoodie’s pocket.

  “You keep it with you?”

  Abby’s shoulders drooped. “It all seems so surreal. Tyler’s gone. I’m here in your apartment in Denver. I look at it every few hours just to remind myself all this is real.”

  Elle put out her hand, and Abby turned over the worn red envelope.

  “Abs,” Elle said, eyeing the crinkled paper.

  She gave her cousin a weak smile. Over the last nine days, she’d read that letter at least a thousand times—the words seared into her heart.

  Elle gestured to the letter. “May I?”

  Abby nodded.

  Elle opened the envelope, slid the paper out, and scanned the sheet. “Oh, hell no!”

  “What?” Abby exclaimed.

  “He used the wrong your.”

  Abby cringed again. “I know.”

  “Abs, you can’t be with a guy who doesn’t know the difference between the possessive your and you are. As your cousin and as a writer, I just won’t allow it. I’ve got to burn it. Are you ready?”

  Abby nodded, and Elle dipped the edge of the letter into the flame. Slowly, the fire consumed the paper, and Tyler’s words disappeared into an orange, crackling glow. It was hypnotic and, within seconds, Tyler’s words burned to a crisp. Elle dropped the letter into the sink, and they looked on as the last bit of red paper disappeared into a scattering of scorched fragments.

  Abby met her cousin’s gaze. “Thank you, Elle. Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

  Elle squeezed her hand. “You can stay as long as you like, you know that. I’ve got the extra bedroom, and I’m gone for weeks on end for work. It’s no trouble. See, your l
uck’s already changing. I only wish I didn’t have to leave the day after tomorrow for New Zealand. Denver’s great. I’d love to show you around the city.”

  Abby grinned. “I don’t think I’m going to have much time for sightseeing.”

  Elle raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “I got a job teaching at a private school in Denver.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, I submitted everything I needed to get an initial teaching license in Colorado when I got into town. Then I started applying for substitute teaching positions online. A couple of days ago, this job popped up on one of the educator job boards. A teacher at this private school called Whitmore Country Day was supposed to return from some sort of medical leave but decided last minute that she wasn’t coming back. The principal interviewed me over the phone this morning and offered it to me on the spot. It’s first grade.”

  Elle pulled her in for a hug. “Abby, that’s awesome! A real full-time teaching job!”

  Abby tried to tamp down her excitement. “It’s probationary for the rest of the year. But yeah, the principal said it could be permanent if I did a good job.”

  “Then you’d get to stay in Denver!”

  Abby smiled, unable to hide her excitement. In the back of her mind, she’d worried she was crazy for leaving Jacksonville and showing up on her cousin’s doorstep. But Elle’s expression said she couldn’t be any happier to have her there.

  “That’s my plan. I won’t be in your hair long, Elle. I just need to save up a little, and then I can get a place of my own.”

  “Stop it! Like I said, you are welcome here for as long as you like.” A devious look flashed in her cousin’s eyes. “And we can find you a delicious Colorado boy to help knock any thoughts of Tyler out of your head. This building is teeming with hot guys. There are a few jerks, but I’ll give you a heads up on which ones to avoid.”