The Miracle Girl Read online

  THE MIRACLE GIRL

  A novel by

  T. B. Markinson

  Published by T. B. Markinson

  Visit T. B. Markinson’s official website at tbmarkinson.wordpress.com for the latest news, book details, and other information.

  Copyright © T. B. Markinson, 2015

  Cover Design by Erin Dameron-Hill / EDHGraphics

  Edited by Jeri Walker

  Proofread by Kelly Hashway

  e-book formatting by Guido Henkel

  This e-book is copyrighted and licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

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

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  Prologue

  I straddled the naked woman on my bed. Claire’s indigo eyes gazed into mine, her expression a mixture of satisfaction tinged with longing.

  She let out a contented sigh. “Why didn’t we do that years ago?”

  I brushed some loose strands of hair off her cheek. “I wanted to from the beginning, but I never knew how to tell you.”

  Her knowing smile riled me.

  “When did you first want to?” I motioned to the tangled sheets.

  “To sleep with you?” She raised an eyebrow.

  I tickled her sides. “Come on. Spill.”

  She squirmed underneath me. “Okay. Okay.” She put a palm up to indicate surrender. “For some time now. After Andrew and I broke things off last year, I knew I wanted more with you. I just …” She looked away briefly before pinning me with her eyes. “I didn’t want to complicate our friendship in case …” She shrugged while fidgeting with the knotted friendship bracelet on my left wrist.

  I nodded. That was the big reason why I never confessed my love. And my fear of her not feeling the same. In the past, girls had felt overwhelmed by my intensity. When I loved someone, I loved them with a passion. Fearful that I would drive Claire away, I tamped that intensity down to the best of my abilities, denying how much I wanted to be with her.

  In a moment of weakness earlier that evening, I had kissed her on the cheek. Surprisingly, Claire kissed me back on the lips. Before I knew what was happening, we were ripping each other’s clothes off.

  “Crappy timing, really,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow, remember?” Her voice hardened as she spoke.

  “I won’t be gone that long.”

  Her narrowed eyes told me otherwise.

  “Why don’t you come with me?”

  Claire pushed me off her. “What? Go to Europe for six months?”

  “Yes! We’ll have a blast.” I wasn’t peeved in the slightest that she had shoved me off. Claire could always be kinda prickly. When she turned around I finally saw all the color seeping out of her face like shower water slipping through the drain.

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m going with you.” Claire stood and yanked on a T-shirt. In her hurry she put on mine instead of her own, but I didn’t think it was the right time to bring that to her attention.

  Her colorless face spooked me. But the drastic change in Claire’s demeanor caused bells to jingle in my head. It felt like twenty church towers resided inside me, and each and every one had a demented Quasimodo pulling desperately on the cords for the bells announcing the end of the world. “What’s wrong? Why are you getting dressed?”

  “This was a mistake. I’m sorry. I should have known.” She fumbled around looking for her jeans.

  “What was a mistake? This?” Once again, I pointed to the bed.

  Earlier that night, both of us had walked across the stage to receive our degrees. I received one in journalism, and Claire a business degree. She had some job interviews set up for the following week, while I was heading to Europe to backpack for six months. It was my graduation gift from my parents. They had started putting money into a college account before I was born, and when I received a full four-year ride, they decided to give me the money when I graduated. My desire was to see a bit of the world before I started a career.

  Claire let out a long breath. “I’m sorry, JJ. I love you. I really do. But I need more stability in my life. Not a gypsy.”

  “Gypsy!” I couldn’t help laughing at the idea and fell back onto the bed. I wasn’t loaded, but I’d never struggled financially. When I returned from Europe my father had a job lined up for me at the Denver newspaper where he worked. He was a sportswriter and arranged for me to start in the advertising department. Not my ideal job, but it was a job nonetheless during times when not many graduates had one lined up. At least it wasn’t the mailroom.

  “I shouldn’t have started something I knew wouldn’t go anywhere. This was too risky.” Claire sat heavily on the couch on the far side of the room, shaking. My studio apartment didn’t allow much room for escape.

  “This? You mean I’m a risk?” I placed a hand on my chest. “Or do you mean being with a woman?” I slipped her T-shirt over my head and wrapped my arms tightly around my chest, suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable in the small space.

  “You know I don’t give a crap about being with women or with men. You’re not the first woman I’ve slept with. You know that.”

  “Yes, but you’ve never had a serious relationship with a woman. You’ve only been serious with Andrew.”

  Andrew had been Claire’s boyfriend during most of her undergrad. He was a bit of a prick, but I tolerated him for Claire’s sake. I never let on that I was in love with Claire, and Andrew never suspected.

  “Andrew asked me to marry him. I wasn’t sure at first, but …”

  A huff of air tore from my body as if someone had struck me across the chest with a baseball bat.

  When Andrew graduated last year, he had decided to sow his wild oats. Apparently, he was now changing his tune, but this was the first time I had heard of it.

  “Was that what this was? You slept with me to get back at Andrew for fucking around before he decided it was time to settle down? Are you trying to even the score? Or did you need to find out something first?”

  Claire threw a random shoe at my head and missed by a mile. “Fuck you. At least with him I know where I stand. You aren’t really the commitment type. When’s the last time you were in a relationship that lasted longer than three months?”

  “That’s because I was in love with you. No one has compared.” I walked up to Claire and wrapped her in my arms, convinced I could talk some sense into her like usual. She always spooked easily, and normally I could talk her off the ledge. At first, Claire melted into my embrace, but the moment didn’t last. I felt the muscles in her shoulders tense, indicating she had made up her mind to toss me aside without ever giving me a chance. I wanted to laugh in her face if she thought Andrew would treat her better. No one would ever love her as much as I did.

  Claire leaned away, putting her palms up to indicate she wanted space. “You can’t even commit to your name.”

  “What?” I didn’t attempt to hide my confusion.

  “JJ? To this day I don’t know what the initials stand for.” Claire pinned me with a knowing look like she had cracked some secret code.
r />   “Jamilla Jean. You never asked. Everyone calls me JJ.” When I was called to accept my degree earlier that night, the announcer had said JJ Cavendish. That was how everyone knew me.

  “That’s a lovely name. You should grow up, Jamilla Jean.” Claire slipped on a black boot.

  “Me? You want Andrew to take care of you. That’s why you’re doing this. You think I’m too much of a risk. Why? Because you actually love me. You can’t tell me that you love Andrew. If you did, you wouldn’t have seduced me earlier.”

  “I seduced you?” She ran her hand angrily through her hair. “This is why I didn’t want to go down this path.”

  “This path,” I parroted. “You can lie to yourself, Claire, but you can’t lie to me. I see it in your eyes. I know you’re in love with me. I also see the fear.”

  Claire bit her trembling lower lip.

  “No one will love you as much as I do, and that scares the crap out of you.” I reached for her arm, but she pulled away.

  “Love isn’t the answer to everything. What about stability? Permanence? For as long as I’ve known you, you’re always in motion. Never settling down. What kind of life can you offer? Do you think we can survive on love? Do you want me to always wait while you go off on one of those adventures you’re always talking about? You’re the one who wants to gallivant around the globe, searching for stories. Me, I want normal. A home, family … roots.” She shook her head remorsefully. “I just don’t think it’ll work. And with you running off to Europe and leaving me behind …” Her words trailed off, but not her sentiment.

  “So that’s that. You’d rather settle with Andrew.”

  “Settle? Andrew has a great job with a lot of prospects. What can you offer? We both know you won’t stick around long at the advertising job your dad got you. You and advertising? You and a job‌—‌can you convince me you won’t dash off the first chance you get? Jesus, for the past four years, you’ve hopped in your car come every chance to find some type of adventure.” Claire’s piercing eyes waited for my response.

  I didn’t have one.

  “That’s what I thought. You’re always full of promises and grandiose ideas, but actions. Actions. Stop saying you’re going to be someone. Do it!”

  I stumbled back, as if Claire had hit me with an uppercut, gasping for breath. Eventually, I found the strength to roar, “Get out!”

  The triumph in Claire’s eyes faded into shame. I could see this wasn’t how she wanted things to end. But my wounded pride wouldn’t take the words back. Part of me screamed to rush to her, force her to stay and talk things over. The other part said run. Run far away.

  When I heard the click of the front door, I felt as if my leg muscles disintegrated. I sat on the floor in a pile of our remaining clothes and flashed back to the moment when she had kissed me. God, it had felt like everything was right with the world. I finally had Claire.

  My Claire.

  Four hours later, she was gone. Gone for good, it seemed. I clutched her sweater and smelled her perfume and the all-too-familiar scent of Tide. Her clothes always smelled like Tide. All these years, her mom did her laundry. It wasn’t a secret that Claire wasn’t a self-sufficient woman. She’d gotten through college well enough, but her parents lived only an hour away. Every weekend Claire dropped off her laundry, which her mother washed, ironed, and folded. And her mother prepared home-cooked meals that Claire pulled out of the freezer each night. Her father managed her checking account. Claire had never been accountable for anything in her life.

  Let her marry Andrew. He had a promising engineering career ahead of him. He was stable, and Claire liked the way that made her feel. She had said it again and again over the years. She was never hot and heavy for Andrew, but comfortable around him. That was what she wanted. Comfort. Stability. Easy. Three things I never wanted. I craved passion, thrills, and momentum.

  Maybe it was best to make a clean break. College was over. Like she said, time to grow up.

  I wiped my eyes, determined to be strong. A small object by the door caught my attention. It took me a second or two to finally figure out what it was. Claire’s matching friendship bracelet, the one we made our first summer together when we were co-counselors for a day camp. Since the day we had made them, neither one of us had taken them off. That was her parting gift: a clean break.

  I snatched her bracelet from the floor and then yanked mine off. While rolling both of them in my fingers, I made a decision.

  Yes, it was time for me to grow up. Leave my college love behind. Move on with my life.

  The next morning I boarded a plane and never intended to see Claire again. It wasn’t until the plane took off that I realized I had made a terrible mistake, but it was too late. Or so I thought.

  Running was easier.

  Chapter One

  I stood in my new office. The view, while nice, wasn’t spectacular. In New York City, I had an incredible view of Central Park from my Fifth Avenue office located on the twenty-seventh floor. Here, in Denver, I could see the foothills of the Rocky Mountains from the third floor. It wasn’t the view that bothered me. It was the new job.

  Mile High News was a dying newspaper. The higher-ups at Beale Media Corp almost believed it was a foregone conclusion that the doors would close by the end of the year. It was the first of February and, by the looks of the trees, everything seemed bleak. But, Cora Matthews, the woman in charge, had sent me here, her “miracle” girl, just in case this office could be turned around. My deadline was December thirty-first. Cora, who was not only my boss, but my mentor and friend from my first days with the company, wasn’t even giving me a full year.

  I sighed, resting my head on the cool glass of the window, hoping it would soothe the tension.

  This medium-sized paper employed three hundred people full-time and had dozens of part-time workers and freelance journalists, not to mention all the carriers and delivery drivers who pulled themselves out of their warm beds at ungodly hours in all types of weather to deliver papers. Over a hundred thousand subscribers relied on us for their news. In New York at The Beale Chronicle, one of the oldest papers in the country still in existence, I had a staff three times the size, and the print circulation was closer to a million with several million online subscribers worldwide. But Denver was different. I was born and raised here. These people were my people, and I felt a greater responsibility to save Mile High.

  I had left Colorado twenty-something years ago after graduating from college. Since then I completed my masters in journalism at Columbia, and five years later, under Cora’s direction, I received an MBA from Harvard. Hard to believe I’d started as a freelance travel writer. Cora was the one who gave me my first break. She saw my passion for travel and loved my ability to weave stories in a way that always pulled in readers. Cora also saw I understood the business. After three years, I was working full-time for the New York paper. I still went on travel assignments, but she’d started to trust me with the business side. Now Beale Media Corp was grooming me, Cora’s Miracle Girl, to take over some day. Failing in Denver wouldn’t look good.

  That wasn’t the only aspect that drove me to succeed. When I left, I was a no one. A scared kid who wanted to be someone. Now I was someone and wanted to prove that in my hometown.

  My father no longer worked at Mile High, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel a strong connection to the paper and to the people who worked their asses off every single day to put out an entirely brand new product seven days a week. Most people didn’t think about that. All the offices all over the country had deadlines throughout the day that had to be met, no matter what. Each time a paper was sent to the presses was a miracle in its own right. Coordinating the news, advertisements, obituaries, classifieds, flyers, local announcements … the list went on and on … was not an easy process. And staffs managed it every single day, 365 days a year.

  Today was my first “real” day on the job, even though I’d been cramming in as much i
nformation as humanly possible ever since I heard last week I was being transferred home.

  Home.

  Another sigh escaped my lips.

  I had left Colorado the day after I finished my undergraduate degree and never looked back. It was too painful to remember that last night with Claire. The first and last time we made love. The night she told me I was too much of a risk.

  Now, standing in my office in Denver I felt like an outsider. Over the years I had lived in New York City, Boston, London, and Chicago. Plus several short stints in cities all over the world. Occasionally, I came home to visit my parents, but as was more often the case, I flew them out to meet me in whatever city I was in at the moment. It was less painful that way. Colorado reminded me of Claire.

  As soon as the plane had touched down at Denver International Airport, the idea of Claire infiltrated my heart and soul. Everywhere I looked, I saw Claire. Every scent reminded me of a past memory. Every sound. Jesus Christ, I was becoming a walking cliché for lovesick fools. I stifled a groan.

  I laughed out loud when I remembered her telling me to grow up and accept my name, Jamilla Jean. My parents had stuck me with a stupid name to avoid a family dispute, but no one had ever called me by my real name. No one. Jamilla Jean was a mouthful. My parents felt compelled to name me after both of their mothers. Even though they put the names on the birth certificate, I was branded JJ since the day I popped out. My grandmothers understood since neither of them liked their names either. They never broke the unspoken agreement. Having their names on the certificate was victory enough, but why they desired to have me named after them was a mystery. Aiming for a bit of immortality, I guessed.

  I looked at the foothills and wondered what Claire was doing right then. Did she ever think of me? Did she ever wonder what if?

  Over the years I had dated off and on. At one point I thought I’d found the one, but the relationship fizzled after three years. Nothing spectacular happened. We just both woke up and realized we were trying to force something that wasn’t there in the first place. I was finally at peace with the reality that I would be alone with the exception of the occasional fling. Not everyone found their soul mate, or more aptly, not everyone was able to hold on to them.