An Untitled Love Read online

  Davonshire House Publishing

  PO Box 9716

  Augusta, GA 30916

  THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

  © 2015 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Copy Editor: Gayla Leath

  Cover: koou-graphics

  Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

  ASIN: B019J7M8T0

  ISBN-13: 978-0692605356

  ISBN-10: 0692605355

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8

  First Davonshire House Publishing December 2015

  DEDICATION

  For Chip. Thank you for giving me the kind of love that has no title.

  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.

  Write On!

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  The Slice of Life Series

  The Perfect Man

  Friends with Benefits

  A Letter to My Mother

  The Basement of Mr. McGee

  A New Mommy for Christmas

  The Slivers of Love Series

  The Cost to Play

  Thursday in Savannah

  Girl's Weekend

  Beneath the Well of Dawn

  Santa’s Big Helper

  The Davonshire Series

  Courting Guinevere

  Loving Words

  Vanity's Pleasure

  The Blakemore Files

  Being Mrs. Blakemore

  Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore

  Dancing with Mr. Blakemore

  Cruising with the Blakemores

  Dinner with the Blakemores

  Loving the Czar

  The Value of a Man Series

  My Mail Order Wife

  A Weekend with the Cromwell’s

  Other Novellas

  North to Alaska

  The Brute & The Blogger

  A Better Night in Vegas

  Other Novels

  A Menu for Loving

  Turning the Page

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1- Boarding the Train

  Chapter 2- That’s Just Unheard of

  Chapter 3 – The Unsung Hero

  Chapter 4- Understanding

  Chapter 5- You’re Safe Now

  Chapter 6- The Incognito Wife

  Chapter 7 –Weirdo Number 2

  Venture, Georgia was going to be her new home.

  Chapter 8- The Un-Named Wife

  Chapter 9 - Pseudonymous

  Chapter 10 – I’m Only Human

  Chapter 11- Good Morning

  Chapter 12- Unrecognizable

  Chapter 13 - Innominate

  Chapter 14 – X Marks the Spot

  Chapter 15- An Untitled Friendship

  Chapter 16 – Say What Now?

  Chapter 17 - Butchered

  Chapter 18 – An Untitled Love

  Chapter 19- Slow and Easy

  Chapter 20 - Unacknowledged

  Chapter 21 - Whatchamacallit

  Chapter 22 – Let There Be Fireworks

  Chapter 23 - Undistinguished

  Chapter 24 – What a Week

  Chapter 25 – Dinner, Pie and Understanding

  Chapter 26 – Making a Life

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1- Boarding the Train

  IT MAY HAVE BEEN THE craziest idea Orlando Flynn had ever come up with in his life, but it was all he had to work with, so he was going for broke. In the end, he surmised his financials could end up in the same state, yet this had to work. The nearly four hour drive to Kennesaw, Georgia gave him enough time to smooth out his offer and make her believe that his plan was feasible. It was crazy, but again it was the only ace up his sleeve and he was going to play the card he had been holding. All he had to do was ask the question. The worst she could say is no. If she did say no, she owed him her life and he was going to call in his marker.

  He needed this.

  He needed her to get on board and go along.

  The drive up I-75 was pleasant enough for a Friday morning as he listened to classical music to keep his head clear. Self-doubt and reason had left him two days ago when he got the phone call which made him sleep for two nights curled up in a ball in his bed. The sheer amazement of the level of ‘shitty’ that people could be to each other soured his stomach. The nausea was overtaking him as he pulled into a rest stop making a beeline for the bathroom. A greasy egg and bacon sandwich, orange juice and coffee coagulated in his stomach and came up though his esophagus much rougher than it had gone down. The lack of sleep, along with the inability to keep anything in his stomach was becoming more than he could handle. The auto flush on the toilet signaled that it was time for him to get up off his knees and get back on the road.

  Orlando drove slowly as he made the exit off I-75 to the I-575 exchange, making his way up the road to Kennesaw. I hope she will be happy to see me. He hadn’t physically seen Jacquetta Mason in almost a year. Twice a month, like clockwork, they spoke on the phone; she sharing pieces of her life and him doing the same. She was probably the only woman, outside of his mother, who truly knew and understood him. That’s why, when he came up with his crazy idea, he knew it would be a starting point to gaining her compliance.

  He exited the freeway to Douglas Street, making a left on Monroe, a right on Jackson, one more left, if he remembered it correctly, to Baker Avenue to her apartment building. It wasn’t the best neighborhood in Kennesaw, but it was livable. The flowers he held in his hand were droopy because, like an idiot, he purchased them at a little shop outside of his hometown of Venture, Georgia instead of purchasing them fresh in Kennesaw. He had a one-track mind, and to keep the train from derailing he had to keep the engine in gear and his foot on the pedal pushing all of it forward.

  In the rearview mirror he checked his teeth. His breath was still tart from the pit stop. He frowned at the stench when he blew into his hand and inhaled sour. Orlando rummaged through the truck’s arm rest finding a piece of peppermint. The question surged through his head but he refused to think about when and where he had acquired said candy. It was gummy and gooey. It reminded him of the candy at the bottom of his mother’s purse. I have no idea where this came from but my breath needs it.

  Entering the building, another stench drifted up his nose as the smell of unwashed bodies saturated the elevator he was forced to ride in to get up to the 8th floor where she lived. Nervous knees knocked together as he stood outside her door, his fist suspended in midair wanting to knock but afraid of his own screwed up logic that had gotten him this far.

  Knock fool.

  Lean forward, let your knuckles make contact with the wood and knock.

  Two minutes later he was still standing there when the lady across the hall, who had been watching him through her peephole, yelled what he was also thinking. “You need to go ahead and knock fool! Why you standing there like an idiot with those droopy ass flowers. You came this far—knock already,” she yelled.

  Based on his conversations with Jacquetta, he knew who she was. Orlando half turned to take a look at the nosey cheerleader’s door.

  “Thank you Ms. Bonner,” he told the nosey neighbor.
>
  “How the hell you know my name?”

  On the other side of the door, his voice was also heard as a surprised Jacquetta opened her front door to find Orlando Flynn on her doorstep.

  With flowers.

  Arguing with her nosey old neighbor.

  He was failing miserably at feebly trying to prove he wasn’t an agent of the government sent to spy on her.

  “Orlando...” Jacquetta said softly, “What are you doing here?”

  “You know this man ‘Quetta? He ain’t a government agent sent here to spy on us about not having Obamacare?” Ms. Bonner wanted to know.

  “No Ms. Bonner, he is my friend,” she told the floor watch dog.

  She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside the door, closing and locking it behind her. At the same time her phone rang. Jacquetta held up a finger, asking him to hold fast as she answered the phone. It was of course Ms. Bonner.

  “No ma’am, I am fine. He is a dear friend,” she said waiting, trying to get a word in edgewise. “No, I don’t know why he was standing there for two minutes waiting to knock... yes, he should have called first...yes, you are right, men have changed. Oh you did...he has a suitcase in his truck... I didn’t know he was planning to stay the night. I know, yes, you are right, it is the oldest trick in the book,” she said as she took the sad, limp flowers from his hand. “Yes ma’am, I am putting them in water now,” she told the old lady.

  After a few more yes ma’ams and no ma’ams, Jacquetta hung up the phone to stare at him with more than a mild curiosity. “I can’t wait to hear what crazy ass idea you concocted in that head of yours that made you get up at six in the morning to start driving to Kennesaw,” she said as she looked at her watch. It was a few minutes after 10 am.

  “Can I at least get a hug and an I’m so glad to see you Orlando!” He said as he held out his arms.

  She stepped into the mass of body that was her friend and got enveloped in a warm embrace. She rose onto her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his jaw as she patted him on the back. Pulling away she told him, “I just put on some coffee, come and let me pour you a cup while I listen to this crazy idea of yours.” She made her way to the kitchen and poured a hot steamy cup of Joe for him, and gave it to him black and sweet, just the way he liked it. A half a cup was poured for herself, since she’d already had two this morning.

  “How do you know it is a crazy idea?”

  “You drove for four hours with a bunch of half dead flowers,” she said flatly. “What, no box of chocolates or a diamond ring?”

  The expression on his face made her stop in her tracks. “I can’t wait to hear this...hold up, let me sit down so when I pass out, I don’t hit my head,” Jacquetta told him.

  He watched her small frame take a seat on the couch, one leg tucked neatly under her as she held her coffee mug with both hands. The smile that lit up her face was part of the reason why he was here. Jacquetta was genuinely a good person with a kind heart. She was also a loving woman who took care of those around her, making everyone she came into contact with feel included. Her emotions were also genuine which showed through her art. The woman was a helluva artist.

  “Can’t I come check on my friend?” he asked coyly.

  “Nope. You want something big. You may as well spit it out so I can tell you no, feed you lunch and send you back home,” she said to him. Her eyes were watching him over the rim of the mug.

  “Not gonna happen, my friend. You owe me a huge favor and I have shown up in person to collect on that debt,” he said.

  Jacquetta sat the coffee cup down and leaned back into the couch, her chin resting upon her knuckles, while one hand was on her hip.

  “This better not be some delayed booty call Orlando...cause that shit ain’t gonna fly,” she told him.

  “No...,” he said, thinking hard. “You think I would drive for four hours, all the way up here to ask you to have sex with me? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!”

  “Then why are you here?” she wanted to know.

  “Oh, I came to take you to get a blood test,” he said with a sheepish grin.

  “What, do you need half of my liver or some bone marrow or something?” She frowned as she leaned forward, listening to him with her full attention. Her face registering the level of disbelief she knew was going to accompany whatever request he had in that head of his.

  “No, I am healthy as a horse,” he said as he winked at her with the sly innuendo that he was hung like one as well. His smile seemed to brighten as he looked at her once more with a twinkle in his eye, delivering the words that physically knocked her over, “No, I came to marry you!”

  Chapter 2- That’s Just Unheard of

  THE SILENCE BETWEEN them was so loud, Orlando swore he heard a rat urinating on a cotton ball. She said nothing after she fell over on her side on the couch, immobile, for five minutes total. He knew this because he set the timer on his watch as he monitored her reaction. She was looking at him like he had lost his damned mind. A muscle in her right jaw twitched at the three minute mark, but other than that, Jacquetta had not moved.

  Nor had she blinked.

  When the six minute mark approached, he held up his hand. “Let me explain. I was thinking I could stay until Sunday as we worked out the details of getting you moved to Venture. We can go get the blood test done today and when I come back on Friday with the rental truck to move you, we can get married before we hit the road.”

  Jacquetta still had not blinked.

  “I mean, when I spoke with you two weeks ago, you said you weren’t seeing anyone, right?” he asked.

  Finally, arguments were starting to fill the void in her head where his words had sucked out the reasoning with his request. “Yeah and two weeks ago you were engaged to be married to Becca.”

  “Becca is now pregnant by some French dude named Beauvais, or some shit, and she is coming home in two weeks,” he said.

  “And marrying me is going to do what, help you save face?”

  He threw up his hands. “See I knew you would understand!”

  She was shaking her head. “No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all how taking home a black woman to your highly conservative family and town is going to help you save face.”

  “If I walk in with you as my wife, no one, I mean no one will ask me questions about Becca, that French asshole, or feel sorry for me that I got dumped via text message,” he said.

  For a minute Jacquetta saw the pain in his eyes and the vulnerability. She asked, “And if I marry you to save face, what happens in a year when you are healed? What do we do then?”

  The look on his face was priceless as he said with pride, “In a year you will be painting rabbits on the wall of the nursery for the arrival of our first child!”

  This was the point when Jacquetta became lightheaded and a grabbed a pillow on the couch to tether her back to this world. The world Orlando was residing in did not seem to be based in any form of reality. “I don’t believe you Orlando. I can’t even sit upright now I am so bowled over by all of this,” she said as she lay the back of her hand across her eyes.

  Orlando moved over to the couch, taking her hand in his. “‘Quetta, we love each other... right?”

  She partially sat up on the couch. “It’s not the same kind of love. I am not certain it is the kind of love I would have even agreed to be tested to give you a piece of my liver. The kind of love we have it...it...it’s just not the same.”

  “Which is what makes it perfect. We both have had the kind of love where we gave everything and we both have been crushed by selfish people who have used us...I mean honestly. I paid for that woman to travel a bit before the wedding... and she goes and gets knocked up on my dime! Now she is coming home to rub it in my face... I am not going out like that!” He said adamantly. The fire and passion in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “So you want to rub it in her face that you are coming home with something exotic as well?”

  “
You and I know each other. We have the kind of love that, you know, I will walk through a maelstrom of bullets to protect you...there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” he said to her.

  She was looking at him. “... And I took on a swarm of Afghan rebels to save you, but that is not enough to build a marriage on with you Orlando,” she told him.

  “It is more than enough for me, because if there is one woman I trust in the world more than my own Mama, it is you. I will never wake up a day in my life wondering if my wife loves me for me,” he said, his mouth getting dry. “You have seen me at my best. You have seen me at my worst and you still love me,” he said.

  “But I have not seen you in the role as my man. My rescuer, my friend, yes, but as the father of my children... Orlando, I can’t see it,” she told him.

  “You have seen me naked on more than one occasion...,” he started to say.

  “Yes, but I was pulling shrapnel out of your ass cheeks, so I was not looking at the goods like, ‘Oh yeah, I want some of that’,” she said.

  Suddenly he stood. He kicked off his shoes, pulled his shirt over his head and was reaching for his belt buckle. Jacquetta jumped up off the couch. “Wait, hold up Orlando, what do you think you are doing?”

  He didn’t stop, but yanked the belt open, and pulled down his pants, underwear included. He stepped out of his jeans and stood before her wearing nothing but his socks. Jacquetta started looking around the room like three angry bees had just flew into the window fighting like ninjas. Orlando, obviously unfazed, grabbed her coffee mug, went to the kitchen and started refreshing her coffee.

  Stuttering a bit as she spoke, not believing what she was actually seeing, “...uh...ah...well...Orlando, I mean why...uhmm... are walking around my apartment wearing only a pair of socks?”

  “Because this is how I walk around in my own house. I also wanted you to have a chance to check out the goods so you will know what you will be working with for the rest of your life,” he told her as he stood before her with a fresh cup of coffee.