Wanting to Remember, Trying to Forget (Meet the Shepards #1) Read online

  Wanting to Remember,

  Trying to Forget

  Jacqueline A. Francis

  Copyright

  Wanting to Remember, Trying to Forget

  Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline A. Francis

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  ISBN: 978-0-620-69797-2

  Professional eBook conversion by www.MYeBook.co.za

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, a very big thank you to my husband. He is the inspiration for all the love and passion I put into my writing. We have our very own friends to lovers story and after fifteen years together, he still makes butterflies leap in my stomach. I also have to thank him for putting up with me when I become crazy and obsessive with my books.

  Next, to my amazing sisters who have been such an incredible support to me. Thank you for all your input and valuable feedback. You guys rock!

  To all my friends, especially the ladies at work (you know who you are): Thank you for all the encouragement. Our crazy conversations inspire me more than you know.

  To Dave (from www.myebook.co.za) for assisting me through the whole publishing process and dealing with my unending questions. Thanks for being so patient and accommodating. You made the whole experience less daunting.

  To whoever did the casting of Teen Wolf: Thank you! I found my Max and my Kevin in that series. I guess in saying that, I also have to thank the actors for lending their faces to my imagination for the duration of Meet the Shepards series. Not going to say who they are because they don’t know that I was secretly holding auditions for the scenes playing out in my head *blushing*. I think I found Jordan in the earlier seasons as well.

  And then last but definitely not least, to You, the reader. Thank you for your support. In this day and age, time is precious and I am so grateful that You are simply taking time out of your busy schedule to read my book.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  January

  February

  March

  April

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  Playlist

  Note to Readers: Get in My Head

  Prologue

  Danny crouched over on the dusty motel room floor, crying as her world fell apart around her. He was kneeling down right beside her and yet it still felt like he was light-years away. “Max, please don’t…” The words came out as hiccups through her sobs. “Please don’t leave. It doesn’t have to end this way. It doesn’t have to end at all.”

  He ignored her begging, reached into his pocket, and took out a small, blue suede box. “This was for you. I have no use for it now.” His hand wove into her short, dark hair and he pulled her closer to place a long kiss on the side of her head. Dropping the box in front of her, he stood up and headed for the door. He picked up his other bag before he slowly turned to face her again. “Maybe you want to remember, Danny…but I’m trying to forget.”

  “Max!” she called out, but he was already gone.

  It couldn’t be over. Seven years. How could it be over?

  She slowly reached for the suede box and when she opened it, fresh tears spilled out of her. Removing the exquisite diamond ring from the casing, she clutched it to her chest. He was going to propose and now it was over. It was her fault. He had played a part but mostly it was her fault. From a blazing fire to dead ashes, that was what their relationship had become.

  How could two people who loved each other so much, destroy something beyond repair? She felt like someone had wrapped both hands around her heart and was squeezing it so tight she couldn’t breathe.

  Memories of the years they had spent together flashed through her mind and she still could not believe that it had ended. It baffled her. She couldn’t understand it.

  Sometimes the only way to understand why a relationship came to an end, is to go back to the beginning…

  The beginning of the current year.

  January

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  The shout came from across the room, very nearly scaring Danny out of her skin. Her body jumped involuntarily and it was only her cat-like reflexes that saved her precious vase from a near-death experience. She had to face him sometime. Fake smile, enter stage right.

  She turned around slowly, cautiously, and faced Max with a sheepish look, which she tried to hide with innocence in her wide hazel eyes. She knew even before she fully turned around that he wouldn’t buy it. Why would he? If she were in his shoes, she wouldn’t have been softened by the pathetic attempt to plead not guilty. In fact, she would have slapped that stupid grin right off her face. It was a good thing that Max wasn’t the type to hit women.

  “Nothing,” she said, trying to spread her smile further, but the sheer lack of authenticity in that smile was beginning to make her cheeks hurt.

  “Don’t lie. I caught you red-handed.”

  He was a tough nut to crack. It was time for more drastic measures. Drop smile. Enter adoring puppy dog face. “But, Max—”

  “No buts, Danny. There is no way that thing is going in there.”

  Widen eyes. Pout lips. Tilt head to the side. “Pleeease.”

  “No!”

  Round up the guilt-invoking troops. Mission failed. Accept defeat gracefully. “You’re such a jerk, Max.”

  Danny sighed and reached for a sheet of newspaper. She had been unpacking her last box and if Mister I-hate-any-form-of-art hadn’t shown up, she could have placed the vase in the living room cabinet and Max, being the unobservant person that he was, would not have even noticed it.

  Yes, it was his place. She got that. Yes, he was doing her a HUGE favor by letting her move in. She got that, too. But did he have to be so anal about every goddamn thing?

  It had taken her a good few days to unpack and she had had the foolish notion that she would save the best for last. She held onto every last ornament so that she could have the explicit joy of placing them in the perfect spot, their new homes. Then came Maximillian Augustus Shepard with his dark cloud of interior decorating death and rained—correction, poured—on her parade.

  She had decided to move in with him when Mister Coopers, the vice president of Banner and Coopers, had thought it best to move their offices from the upper side of town to the coast.

  Thanks for that, boss! Now how about a monster truck so I can drive over the fifty million cars that stand between me and the shiny new offices you couldn’t wait to move in to?

>   She had been born and bred in Los Angeles, California, and had lived in this very neighborhood all her life. After she graduated from UCLA, she had moved for this job only to uproot her entire life and move right back because of something as dumb as traffic. She had borne the pain for almost an entire month but last week, right after she returned from spending Christmas at the Shepard’s, she had been struck with an ingenious idea.

  Her best friend just so happened to live three blocks away from their new offices. Her best friend just so happened to be living in a two-bedroom place alone. Hey! Here’s an idea. Why not move in with this best friend? It’ll be fun.

  Huh! As it turns out, her best friend just so happened to be the most pedantic man on the planet. But it was bearable. She could live with looking at beige every day. It was better than commuting for hours Monday through Friday. Danny did not have many hobbies, but she was pretty sure that dodging crazy, road-raged drivers during peak hour traffic was not at the top of her list of fun things to do.

  But there was one thing she did know. Leaving work at five and reaching home twenty minutes later was probably the best feeling in the world.

  Thanks, Max, you bland, beige-loving, pedantic lifesaver, you!

  Okay, he wasn’t that bad. Max had been her best friend since college. Six years and still going strong. She could barely keep a plant alive for more than a week, but maintaining a friendship with Max was absolutely effortless. He was the most easy-going person she had ever met. Apart from, of course, his complete fascination with anything that would be interpreted as colorless to the female eye.

  He liked his apartment dreary and well—beige. He refused to let her add anything of color. He refused to let her add anything with a feminine touch. He said no to everything. The beautiful waterfall painting? No. The gorgeous hand-made sculpture of an African God? A big, fat no. And now her lovely bedazzled vase, which she interpreted to be a hell no!

  Even pillowcases. Who argues over pillowcases? What was wrong with him?

  “How about I put it at the back so you don’t see it?” she suggested as a last attempt before she wrapped the vase in newspaper.

  Max eased his long body into the one-seater sofa and lifted a slice of pizza from the box on the little table beside him. “Uh…how about no?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have no culture, you know that?” She quickly wrapped up the vase. “And don’t eat that. It’s been out since last night.”

  “I know,” he said as he took a bite of cold salami and cheese pizza.

  “That’s gross!” She placed the vase back in the box before looking at him apprehensively. “Are you sure you don’t mind me moving in with you?”

  He grinned. “Yes, that is the question you should ask after you’ve unpacked your last box.”

  “I’m serious, Max.”

  “Of course, I don’t mind. I mean, which guy in his right mind wouldn’t want a violent, absent-minded, junk collector living with him? It’s a no-brainer.”

  Her face drooped and he offered her a stale slice of pizza as a peace offering. “I’m just kidding,” he said softly. “I don’t mind at all.”

  When she rejected his peace offering, he set the box back on the side table, and sat back to enjoy his hardened, cheese-encrusted slice. “I think we just have to decide on chores now.”

  Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “I could cook.”

  “N-o-o-o! No cooking for you. You should be banned from all kitchens.”

  Danny narrowed her eyes, feeling slightly indignant. “Hey, I can make a really mean grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “Yeah, that’s about all you can make. And even that repeats itself on you for two days afterwards.”

  She sat down on the two-seater beige sofa adjacent to the one he was on, kicked off her shoes, and pulled her legs up underneath her. “Well, in case you forgot, I made that for lunch yesterday and you’re still smiling.”

  Max finished off his slice of pizza and licked his fingers. “I’m smiling,” he said matter-of-factly, “because I have a sexy smile and I like to flaunt it.”

  Danny choked, trying to hold back a smile. “Oh, yeah. With your one dimple. I think you were last in line when God was handing out dimples and when he got to you, he was just like, oh, I’m sorry. I only have one left.”

  She watched the smile drop off his face and the laughter came bubbling out of her. She had teased him about that dimple since the moment they met. The same joke had been revised and innovated over the years. But she had to admit, it was one adorable dimple.

  He had a naughty sort of face, not rugged, but boyish, and God had placed that dimple on the perfect spot on his left cheek. That, coupled with his thick, brown hair and mischievous brown eyes brought him just to the border of not being a complete geek. He had all the ingredients to make up a world-class nerd. Tall. Skinny. Shy. But that one dimple was his saving grace. One could see that he was a sci-fi movie junkie, but at the same time he was still kinda cute.

  Okay, that was a lie. He was good looking. Actually, he was very good looking. But he was just such…a dork!

  “I’ll have you know,” Max said when her laughter subsided enough for him to be heard, “this one dimple attracts a lot of women.”

  “So what you’re saying is that it’s your personality that eventually has them running in the opposite direction? Maybe if you had two, they’d consider staying more than a week.”

  “No, I’m content with one.” He stretched his arms arrogantly and clasped his hands at the back of his head. “Statistically, they say men with one dimple – on average – have bigger penises.”

  She abruptly stopped laughing, as if she had just been slapped with a wet mop. She took a moment or two to recollect her thoughts. “What?”

  Max watched how the confusion played with her face, how the words came to her lips, but froze on the tip of her tongue. Cute, he thought. She was so damn cute.

  Her one eyebrow lifted and her mouth dropped slightly. “Okay, that has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

  And there it was. She said it. The incentive for him to say anything so undeniably stupid was simply to hear her say that. It wasn’t so much the words, but the look on her face that accompanied that statement. After six years, he knew every single facial expression she made, but this particular one was his favorite. A very close second was seeing her smile. She had one tooth that overlapped another at the corner of her mouth that could be seen ever so slightly each time she smiled. Everything about her was so adorable, so loveable, so…perfect.

  And she had just moved in with him. What the hell was he going to do now?

  * * *

  Danny walked out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth and headed straight to the kitchen. All she wanted to do was climb back into bed, but her brain instructed her feet to move in the direction of the heavenly smell of coffee. She stopped in front of the living room and took a step back to admire the view.

  The puppy-dog face had not completely lost its mojo. She had managed to convince Max to take down those dreaded beige blinds and replace them with elegant lace curtains. The sunlight came streaming in now, washing over the furniture, painting the room with a warm glow. She smiled triumphantly. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nevertheless.

  She had also managed to steal a moment to sneak her Egyptian vase into the living room cabinet and as predicted, Max had not noticed it…yet.

  A week had passed since she moved in and it wasn’t as bad as she originally expected. She still missed the smell of her old apartment and she still had to get the hang of adjusting the water in the shower to the right temperature, but that was the end to her list of cons. The list of pros were much longer. This apartment had the most magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean and she was definitely getting used to the distant sound of the waves breaking against the shore before she fell asleep at night.

  The apartment was an adorable little place with just enough room for the two of them. A medium sized kitch
en was situated just right of the entrance and the open-plan living room to the left. There was a round dining table behind the two-seater sofa in the living room. However, eating at it was not its main purpose. Max only used it for work. The table was his idea of fine art—boring and lifeless.

  She wouldn’t mind it as much were it not for the fact that it was the first thing she saw when she walked in. She definitely needed to go shopping for a tablecloth.

  Max’s bedroom was at the end of the short corridor and her bedroom and the bathroom were neatly placed on either side of the hallway, standing right opposite each other. The pro was the short distance between the two that definitely helped when she was running late in the morning.

  Her favorite restaurant, Rocko’s Pizza and Pasta, was down the road, but having Italian food at such convenience would definitely turn into a con as soon as her butt started jiggling.

  Oh! And let’s not her forget her new roommate. She did have trouble adjusting to coming home to an apartment that was not empty, but she had to admit that having a hot meal waiting for her was worth the small sacrifice of having complete solitude. Max was phenomenal. She had always known that he was a neat man, but living with him had really opened her eyes. He never left dirty clothes or wet towels on the bathroom floor, he never left the toilet seat up, and he never went to bed unless every last dirty dish was washed, dried and packed away.

  They had settled into a comfortable routine of doing their chores. She did the dusting and sweeping, he took care of the laundry, and they both took turns washing dishes on alternate days. He cooked every night, except Friday nights because some daft paranormal series that he never misses was screened every Friday night. She didn’t mind, though. Friday nights presented the perfect opportunity to brush up on her culinary skills. One lesson later and she was already feeling like she was on the path to becoming the female version of Jamie Oliver. It was working out pretty well…so far.