Authors: Charity Hillis
Tags: #romance, #fairy tale, #contemporary romance, #cinderella, #once upon a desire
Midnight Run
Once Upon a Desire
By Charity Hillis
MIDNIGHT RUN
By Charity
Hillis
Published by Charity Hillis
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2015 Charity Hillis
Cover Designed by Quixcy Designs, 2015
This book is a work of fiction. Characters,
locations, and events are products of the author’s mind, or have
been used in a fictitious manner. The author acknowledges the right
of all trademark holders for products mentioned in this work of
fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or to
actual events, is purely coincidental.
License Statement:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
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this author.
Sometimes, Nora felt like
the only reason she bothered getting up in the morning was her
daily run.
Cold mist swirled across the trail, making
Central Park feel ghostly and foreign, and Nora’s feet hit the
ground with a rhythm as familiar as her heartbeat. She’d stopped
running with music after her first 5k; the songs that had once
pushed her to keep going when she didn’t think she could take
another step became superfluous as the runner’s high took over.
Now, the city provided her soundtrack, and her runs were almost
meditative.
Somewhere across the park, a dog called out a
greeting, but Nora couldn’t see him. The dense fog still obscured
her surroundings, making it seem as if she were running in a dream,
and Nora wasn’t sure how long the other runner had been following
her until he pulled up alongside her.
She heard him before she saw him; the echo of
footsteps that didn’t quite match her own, and then, suddenly, a
tall figure with jet black hair loomed up at her elbow.
She gave him a quick nod as he pulled
alongside her, her brown ponytail bobbing with the motion, but the
guy barely glanced in her direction.
Maybe he didn’t notice me
in the fog
, Nora thought, fighting down the irritation that
flared as the other jogger moved ahead without acknowledging her at
all.
But the run had turned sour, and Nora was
distracted as she finished her final loop around the park. By then,
the fog had started to lift, and the air was sharp and smelled like
snow. Drenched in cold sweat, Nora hurried through her cool-down
and rushed to catch her train, glancing at the cloudy sky
nervously. The sun had started to rise while she ran, but the
buildings around her blocked it from view. It would be tight, but
she should still have time to hit her apartment and shower before
her shift.
And besides
, she thought grimly,
it’s not like
anyone will notice if I’m a few minutes late.
***
She was wrong; they noticed. Books and Brew had been
getting increasingly popular, and now that NYU was back in session,
the coffee shop was slammed by the time Nora punched in, thirty
minutes after her shift was supposed to start. Her manager, Todd,
tugged on his moustache and glared at her pointedly as she took her
place behind the register, and Laurel, one of the other baristas,
rolled her eyes.
“Looks like the princess is late again,” she
announced to Caity, another girl behind the counter.
Caity snorted. “What’s the matter, Nora? Did
your morning run turn into a walk?”
Nora felt her cheeks heating up, but she
tried to ignore the girls and their barbs. Self-consciously, she
pushed her tortoiseshell glasses higher on her nose and tried to
smile. She usually got along pretty well with everyone, but from
the moment Laurel and Caity had been hired, it was almost like they
had it out for her. Nora wasn’t sure what she’d done to piss them
off, but that didn’t stop them from tormenting her.
Luckily, there wasn’t enough down time for
the girls to do more than snipe at her when she first came in, and
Nora was soon up to her elbows in lattes and coffee grounds,
juggling three orders at once all while trying not to slip on the
old, cracked tile floor. The college kids liked Books and Brew
because it had atmosphere; the mismatched walls gave off a funky
vibe, and the broken ceramic tile that covered the floor, left over
from a long dead business that had filled the space before the
coffee shop existed, made everything feel a bit old-fashioned.
Cleaning the cracked tiles, however, was hellish; coffee and
spilled milk had a way of collecting along the grout lines, and the
floor looked pretty disgusting at the end of each day. If Nora
hadn’t taken to scrubbing it on her hands on knees after the shop
had closed every night, she was pretty sure the health inspector
would have shut them down already.
When there was a break in the customers, Todd
pulled her away from the counter. “Some kid tossed his cookies in
the front corner,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the offending
spot. “Grab the mop and take care of it, would you?”
Nora bit her lip. “Shouldn’t we let his
parents clean it up?”
And isn’t it, like, a biohazard?
Todd rolled his eyes and ran his hands over
his salt and pepper hair. “They’d left before I noticed. Chop,
chop, Nora, get on it.”
She cringed, but she nodded. With a tug, she
tightened her ponytail before tackling the job, but the elastic
band snapped and dropped to the floor. Her hair, which had still
been wet from her shower when she headed to work, cascaded around
her face in loose waves, and Nora reached for the spare elastic she
always wore around her wrist. Her fingers only met skin, however,
and Nora remembered with a sinking sensation that she’d been too
late to grab a spare hair tie that morning.
Her eyes swung back to the counter, and for a
moment, she debated asking one of the other girls if they could
lend her one, but she dismissed that idea almost immediately.
Grabbing the mop, a yellow “wet floor” sign, and a pair of
elbow-length rubber gloves, Nora pushed her way through patrons to
the pile of puke on the floor. Her stomach churned, and she glanced
at the counter again, wondering if there was any way she could get
out of it. Laurel caught her eye and smirked, and Nora sighed,
tucking her hair behind her ears. There was no way anyone else
would clean up the mess, especially not since Todd had specifically
told her to do it, so she might as well stop dawdling.
Pulling the chairs out of the way, Nora
slopped water over the floor, wrinkling her nose at the smell. She
wasn’t sure which was worse; the vomit, or the stale mop water.
I must have forgotten to empty the bucket last night,
she
chastised herself.
And of course nobody noticed.
Reaching under the table, Nora slid the mop
back to the wall, hoping she could reach most of the mess. There
wasn’t really room to move the table out of the way, not during
business hours, and Nora didn’t relish crawling into any leftover
vomit when she was finally able to give the shop a good cleaning
that evening. Bending over to check under the table, she pulled the
mop back and heard a startled “Oomph” from behind her.
As she whirled around to apologize to whoever
she’d just hit, her foot skidded on the wet floor, and Nora
flailed, her arms wind-milling as she started to fall. She gritted
her teeth, anticipating the sharp pain that waited for her tailbone
when she hit the floor, but it never came. Large, warm hands
wrapped around her upper arms, pulling her upright with a jerk.
Trying to ignore the pain in her shoulders, Nora looked up and
caught her breath.
Her rescuer had to be one of the most
gorgeous men she’d ever seen.
No, scratch that,
she thought
as her eyes took in his sinewy, powerful frame.
The
most
gorgeous. He towered over Nora, and his short dark hair and
chiseled jaw made him look like he’d walked out of the pages of a
magazine ad.
Gray eyes met hers, and the tan skin around
them crinkled as the guy smiled. “Careful, hon. That floor’s pretty
slick.”
Nora’s heart fell out of her chest. He had a
perfect southern drawl, like something out of a trashy soap opera,
and his inky hair and deep tan completed the picture. For a moment,
she wondered what he’d look like in a pair of tight jeans slung up
with one of those wide, beefy belt buckles. She stared at him
stupidly before she shook herself and forced a smile.
“Thanks; I was just mopping, and then I hit
something—“ she swallowed. “Did I hit you?”
He shrugged. “No harm done.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. Can I buy you a
coffee or something to make it up to you? I swear, we don’t usually
put our customers in danger or anything,” she babbled, pushing her
glasses high on her nose nervously. She was aware of how ridiculous
she sounded, but somehow unable to stop the flow of words. “I mean,
whatever you want, just to say I’m sorry.”
His smile stretched wider. “Back home, I’d be
the one buying you coffee. But I guess that’s New York for
you!”
Embarrassed, Nora tried to backpedal.
“Where’s home?” She asked, plopping the mop back in the pail and
watching his expressive face.
“Texas,” he drawled, his accent even thicker
when he said the word. “What about you? Seems like just about
everyone I’ve met in New York is from somewhere else.”
Before she could answer, a tall, chic blond
slipped up to Tex’s side and slid her arm around his waist with a
quick glance at Nora.
“Sorry I’m late, sweetie,” she purred, her
perfectly made-up lips pouting sweetly. “I got held up in that
meeting.”
Shifting his attention away from Nora, the
gorgeous guy gave the blond the same heart-stopping smile he’d
offered to Nora. “No worries, darlin’.” He glanced back in Nora’s
direction, his eyes bright. “Thanks for the chat, hon.”
Nora nodded, her throat thick. “Any time. Um,
be careful; the floor’s wet.”
The Texan laughed like she’d made a joke, and
Nora flushed, remembering how’d he’d caught her. “Of course,” he
offered solemnly. Before he turned away again, he gave her a quick
wink, and Nora’s cheeks grew even hotter.
She watched as they walked toward the
counter, the blond’s black heels making her legs look even longer
in her charcoal pencil skirt, and the Texan’s tall, dark frame the
perfect contrast to her leggy beauty. He didn’t put his arm around
her or anything, but the blond’s territorial expression made it
pretty clear that he was off limits. Nora sighed and dragged the
mop and bucket back behind the counter.
From the back, she strained to listen,
catching the Texan’s slow drawl as he ordered drinks, but Nora
didn’t come around the counter to help. She dawdled with the mop,
dumping out the murky water and refilling the bucket. By the time
she came out front again, the Texan and his date had left, and Nora
breathed a sigh that was half relief and half disappointment.
He wouldn’t have been interested in you,
anyway,
Nora thought crabbily as she looked down at her lean
runner’s body.
Guys like that want girls who know how to wear
makeup and a pair of high heels and walk like they own the
world.
Nora had never known how to pull that kind of confidence
off; the only time she felt even remotely powerful was when her
feet were pounding the pavement.