HERE TOMORROW 7 PM PST. JULIA GABRIEL AUTHOR OF: THIS REMINDS ME OF US (SEE NEW EXCERPTS)

HERE

TOMORROW

7 PM PST.

JULIA GABRIEL

AUTHOR OF:

He's waited four months for this day … for his wife to wake up … for everything to go back to normal … a normal life she can’t remember … a life that might not have been as perfect as everyone thought ...

Deputy fire chief Oliver Wolfe had everything he ever wanted. A beautiful wife, two adorable (if rambunctious) sons, a job he loved, a comfortable home, and family and friends in his hometown of St. Caroline, Maryland ...

… until the day he has to stand by helplessly and watch his wife’s unconscious body gets cut from the mangled wreckage of her car.

Serena Wolfe was a blissfully happy newlywed with a tall, dark, and handsome firefighter for a husband and a honeymoon baby on the way …

… until the day she wakes up from a coma to discover that she’s actually thirty years old and has two adorable (if rambunctious) boys, a house, and friends … none of which she can remember.

That’s alarming enough. But Serena might have had a secret former life … which she also can’t remember …

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He smiled a wary smile. He’d rehearsed a thousand things to say for when this moment finally came and now he couldn’t remember a single damn one of them. 

She looked around at the room, taking it in. “I’m in a hospital,” she said. She locked eyes with him. “I didn’t lose the baby, did I?” 

Ah damn. He had hoped to avoid this particular conversation right off the bat. 

“Yes,” he answered quietly. “We did. But we can try again.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she reopened them, they were full of sadness. “But we’ll never have another chance at a honeymoon baby.”

He threaded his fingers through hers, gave them a gentle reassuring squeeze. “Well, no.” He was puzzled by her comment. “But we already have our honeymoon baby.” Another reassuring squeeze.

“I thought you just said that we lost the baby.”

Oliver leaned toward the bed and brought their clasped hands to his lips. He kissed her knuckles, trying to collect his thoughts and arrange them into some order that made sense here. 

“We lost the new baby. But Mason and Cam weren’t in the car with you, sweetheart. They’re at home right now, safe and sound. Mattie is watching them.”

“I’m not talking about those kids. I’m talking about our baby. We got pregnant on our honeymoon. Accidentally, but still …” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you remember?”

He felt the earth begin to shift beneath him, the bottom starting to drop out of what was left of his life, of what he had come to regard as his normal life. 

He scooted the chair he was sitting in as close to the bed as he could get it. “You were in a car accident, love. Almost four months ago. You just woke up.”

“I was out … for … four months?”

He nodded. 

“But we haven’t been married much longer than that.”

“We’ve been married, eight years. Mason is seven and Cam was born five years ago.”

She shook her head back and forth on the wrinkled pillow. “No. That’s not—”

“They can’t wait to come, see you. They miss you. I’ve missed you, too.”

In her dark eyes, he saw a spark of fear ignite. It matched the spark of fear in his gut. She just woke up. That’s all. She’s a little disoriented. 

“Four months ago?” She shook her head. “I don’t remember being here that long … I don’t remember being here at all.” The fear in her eyes was more than a spark now. 

“You’ve been in a coma all this time.” Oliver stood over the bed and gently cupped her face in his palms. “Baby, I am so glad you’re awake.” I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen. 

He leaned down and kissed her, tentatively at first but then deeper, fueled by the desperation and fear that should have disappeared with her waking. He forced himself to break the kiss before the desperation and fear became obvious. He looked into her eyes. Months in the hospital had not been kind to her. She was thinner than he’d ever seen her. Her glossy black hair was dull and matted about her head. But she was beautiful to him. Their life together had been beautiful. Their family together was beautiful. Until the day of the accident, Oliver Wolfe had nary a complaint in the world. 

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Becca Trevor’s life is falling apart. She’s lost her job, her boyfriend’s in jail, and her mother’s quilt shop has just caught fire — with her in it.

To make matters worse, town golden boy Jack Wolfe has returned — looking better than ever … but can their budding relationship survive the secret Becca’s been keeping for years?

Becca never intended to come back to pretty little St. Caroline, Maryland and her family's quilt shop. Growing up, she was 'the wild child' … and the black sheep of the family … and the girl who couldn’t get anything right.

And she definitely never intended to see Jack Wolfe again. Those fifteen minutes she’d spent with him at a graduation party seven years ago? Unforgettable—for a whole lot of reasons.

Jack was the golden boy of St. Caroline. Smart, Ivy League-educated, law school-bound. He’s home from California for a family emergency, a situation that would not be improved by the news that he’s not the hotshot corporate attorney everyone thinks he is. If he can keep his real job a secret until the end of summer, he’ll still be golden and no one else will be the wiser.

But Becca has an even bigger secret of her own ... one that will change Jack's life forever ...

The smell of smoke tickled Becca Trevor’s nose. Not again. There was no smoking allowed in the bar but the jerk down at the end seemed to believe he was above the law. Just like Brandon had thought he was, right up to the minute he was arrested for embezzling money from the custom motorcycle shop he worked for. That was last week and hell would freeze over before she borrowed money to bail him out.

She sauntered down to the end of the bar. She wanted to be casual about this, non-confrontational. She paused halfway down to wipe up a non-existent spill on the bar top.

“Sir, there’s no smoking in here.” She smiled prettily at him.

He waved his lit cigarette in the air. “You don’t have an ashtray.”

Of course, we don’t. It’s no smoking.

She pulled another bar glass from beneath the counter and filled it halfway with water. She set it on the bar in front of him. Water splashed out of the glass when he rammed the cigarette into it. She calmly wiped it up and took away the glass. This was the second time tonight she’d done this; a third time and it would be a comedy routine.

“Can you at least get me another beer?” he growled at her.

“I sure can.” She pulled another draft of what he was drinking and slid it in front of him. After all this trouble, he wasn’t going to tip anyway. The troublemakers never did.

She tried her best to ignore him for the next fifteen minutes until a young woman climbed up onto a stool two seats away from him. It was the only empty spot at the moment or Becca would wave her elsewhere. The bar was busier than she had expected for Memorial Day. From what she could glean from snippets of conversation here and there, the baseball game at the stadium a few blocks away had been called for rain in the fourth inning. It looked like a lot of people had come here instead.

“What can I get you?” Becca asked the newcomer. She wasn’t a regular. After three months working here, Becca knew all the usual folks.

“Just a sparkling water with lemon, thanks.” She glanced worriedly at the door every few minutes. Clearly, she was waiting for someone. Maybe a blind date.

Somehow Becca wasn’t surprised when the smoker leaned around the man sitting next to him and tried to strike up a conversation with the young woman. “They don’t let you smoke in here, you know.”

The woman nodded and gave him a weak smile. “I don’t smoke anyway.”

He dropped down off his seat and squeezed into the narrow space between her and the next patron. Becca could see the woman’s posture tense. “Let me buy you a drink. What’s that, soda? You need something better than that.” His words were beginning to slur. He waved at Becca.

“No thanks,” the woman said firmly. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“Well so am I, sweetheart. Don’t mean we can’t enjoy a drink while we wait.” He waved at Becca again. “Two more beers down here, barkeep.”

Barkeep? How about wench while you’re at it? Becca pulled another draft and placed it in front of the man.

“I’m fine,” the woman said, holding up her barely-touched water. “I don’t want one.”

“Just one, sweetheart. Your date will thank me later.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Becca saw a businessman-type vacate a seat at the other end of the bar. “Why don’t you sit down there?” she said quietly to the young woman.

“What the hell!” the man shouted. “Can’t you just mind your own business and pour drinks? That’s what you’re being paid for.”

The young woman slipped off the stool and practically ran to the empty seat. Becca watched her until she heard the sound of breaking glass and then a sharp prick on her upper arm. She spun around. The entire room was still now, every conversation in the place paused.

“Look what you made me do now, bitch!”

People were backing away from the bar quickly, leaving Becca and Asshole Man in a standoff. The man had slammed his empty glass onto the bar, shattering it. Shards were scattered everywhere. That was what she’d felt prick her arm.

“Joe!” Another voice broke in.

“About time you got here. Your bitch of a bartender won’t pour me the drink I ordered.”

Your bitch of a bartender? Becca looked at the large man walking down the length of the bar. Shit. It was the owner, a man she’d never been introduced to but knew by sight. The sight right now was not that of a happy man. There was also, for Becca’s immediate prospects, an unhappy familial resemblance between the owner and the asshole grinning ear to ear at her now. Across the room, the assistant manager hovered by the hostess station, too chickenshit to intervene.

Becca knew what was coming. She could see it unfolding in the minutes ahead of her like a slow-motion scene in a movie. She was going to be unceremoniously fired in three … two … yep, one. Strangely, all of a sudden, she really didn’t care. First Brandon. Now, this. She calmly grabbed her purse from beneath the bar. Right as she pushed open the heavy door to the street, she heard the owner say, “We can manage with just the other bartender tonight.”

What other bartenders, idiot? He was too cheap to have more than one per shift. But whatever. She was out of there.

Outside the bar, it was raining cats and dogs. Becca raced to where her car was parked down the street. Inside, she let her body sink into the cloth seat and closed her eyes against the sight of rain sluicing down the windshield. No good deed goes unpunished. Story of my life, starring Becca Trevor. Once again, she was unemployed. Her boyfriend—well, ex-boyfriend now—was in jail. Also the story of my life: poor choice in men.

She opened her eyes, inserted the key into the ignition and pulled out onto the rain-glossed street. She had packed a lot of mistakes into twenty-five years on this earth. What was one more? She’d go home, heat up a package of ramen noodles and fall into bed. Plenty of time to worry about her lack of gainful employment tomorrow.

She turned the final corner into her neighborhood—and slammed on the brakes. There was trash strewn all over the street in front of the apartment building. She glanced at the beige brick building’s tiny lawn. Boxes and furniture sat on the swampy grass. A television. Piles of soggy clothes and … Becca killed the ignition and burst from the car.

… and quilts.

All of her quilts had been dumped onto the lawn. In the freaking rain!  And the television … that was her television, and the furniture too. She’d been evicted. Shit! Brandon always paid the rent. She gave him her half in cash, he deposited it in the bank and then wrote a check to the landlord. She was going to have to do that now since Brandon was in jail, but the rent wasn’t due for another two weeks. Unless Brandon hadn’t been paying the rent. And why did that idea not surprise her?

She gathered up an armful of her clothes and ran it back to the car, dumping it all into the back seat. They’d have to be washed later, but no time to worry about that now. She raced back to the grass, her sodden shoes squishing with each step. They’d been evicted! Damn him! She picked through the mess on the ground, searching. Most of it was ruined. The television, certainly. The toaster. The box of now broken dishes. She picked up the book she’d been reading to relax and decompress before bedtime, then let it drop from her fingers. It, too, was soaked clean through.

She kicked at a mound of fabric, Brandon’s favored brand of boxer briefs and athletic socks. Laundry, done! A bitter laugh escaped her lips before she remembered the one thing she absolutely needed to find. Her breath caught in her throat as she leaned down to dig frantically through piles and boxes. She owned nothing of value in the first place. Even if she did—and even if it weren’t totally waterlogged by now—there wasn’t enough room in her compact car to fit everything.

But the quilt. She needed to find the quilt she was making as a thirtieth wedding anniversary gift for her parents. She was so close to having it ready, and the anniversary party was in two weeks. Only a third remained to be quilted, then the binding sewn on and it was done. Not that Becca was planning to go to the party. She couldn’t afford to take the time off, but she could spring for shipping it.

She wasn’t finding it here in the mess on the lawn, though. She ran into the building and took the stairs two at a time, not caring about the noise she was making. It didn’t really matter now if other residents complained to the building manager.

Damn it all. The locks on the apartment had already been changed. She leaned her forehead against the cold steel door. She’d never be able to get another quilt done before the party. It took her eighty to a hundred hours to complete one. She slumped down onto the floor and buried her face in her palms. When had this happened? They must have been waiting around the corner for her to leave for work that morning.

She sat in the hallway, listening to the rain pound the sides of the building and considered her options. No job. No apartment. No boyfriend. No reason to stay in Ohio. She pushed herself up from the floor. It was just after two in the afternoon. If she hit the road now, she could be home in St. Caroline before midnight. 

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