AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In addition to the gorgeous view and the beach house style, The Terrace could be modified to accommodate their smaller-than-usual guest list. Lorna, the sales rep, said that they could close off the lower level and have people enter on the second floor, which was designed for less than twenty-five people.
“And you’re saying that if we do it on a Friday afternoon, it will reduce the rental fee by twenty percent, right?” Kat reconfirmed.
“That’s right,” Lorna assured her. “As long as your event is over by 4 p.m., you get what we call the matinee price.”
That was particularly appealing under the circumstances. Kat, an independent private investigator, was on a tight budget these days. She had missed several weeks of work over the summer, the result of a horrifying encounter in which hitwoman Ash Pierce kidnapped, tortured, and nearly killed her, all as part of an elaborate plan by Pierce’s client to punish Kat’s best friend, Jessie Hunt.
Though she had mostly recovered now, her finances hadn’t. Things were tough. It didn’t help that her fiancé, Mitch Connor, was struggling too right now. Formerly a deputy with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, he’d recently left the job when he moved to L.A., ending the long-distance part of their relationship.
While he awaited hiring approval from the LAPD, he was working as a security guard at a movie studio, which wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded. She could tell from his hunched shoulders and general demeanor when he got home each day that the gig wasn’t satisfying his professional needs.
Nor was it filling their coffers. The job paid okay, but nowhere near what he had made as a sheriff’s deputy or hoped to as an LAPD officer. Until the hiring approval came through, they were really pinching their pennies.
As Kat walked over to the bay windows of The Terrace to look out at the beach and the ocean beyond, she sighed in resignation. She and Mitch knew that when he moved from the small mountain town of Lake Arrowhead, two hours northeast of L.A., that the first few months would be challenging.
In addition to the difficulties of paying the bills and combining their financial lives, they were having to adapt to living together after over a year of traveling back and forth on weekends and holidays. It was definitely an adjustment.
After first meeting when Kat went to Lake Arrowhead to help Jessie out on a case, they’d hit it off. Their tentative flirting had turned into dating, and then just two months ago, a proposal from Mitch.
But when they agreed that he should move here, Kat had secretly worried that the “best behavior” energy they seemed to adopt on shorter visits would crumble under the weight of daily life. She feared that arguments over laundry and dirty dishes might sap the romance from their lives.
But the opposite had happened. It turned out that Mitch, in addition to being a jovial, mountainous, sandy-haired specimen of a man, was the same kind, decent person in everyday life as he was on long weekends together.
She often wondered how she’d gotten so lucky. After all, she hadn’t had a ton of romantic success in recent years. She knew part of that was a result of the time she served in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger. That was where she was injured in an IED explosion that left her with damage both internal and external, including multiple facial burn marks and a long scar that ran vertically down her left cheek from just below her eye.
Mitch didn’t seem to care. He said he liked her lack of makeup and the loose ponytail she tied her dirty blonde hair in. He told her that she was beautiful in a casual “I don’t give a crap” way, and she knew he wasn’t just blowing smoke.
And unlike her, he seemed to have total confidence that this would all work out, even if his work life was temporarily unsatisfying. When she had doubts about pressing ahead with the wedding under their current circumstances, he wouldn’t hear anything of it.
"We'll find a place you like," he had said just last night, "and we'll book it. It will be an amazing wedding, and you'll look back on it happily. All these momentary struggles will seem charming in retrospect.”
And today, they'd found a place that she didn’t just like but loved. If they could make it work, she really wanted to get married here. Mitch came over, wrapped his arm around her waist, and stared out at the ocean with her.
“What are you thinking?” he whispered.
“I’m thinking that I love this place,” she whispered back, “but I’m not sure we can swing it.”
He squeezed her gently as he leaned in and gave her a kiss on the neck.
“Of course we can,” he told her. “I’ll work some more overtime at the studio. That’ll help make up any shortfall.”
“But you hate that job,” she said, looking up into his gray eyes.
“It’s temporary,” he insisted. “I’ll be part of the Los Angeles Police Department by February, and then we’ll be flush.”
“Mitch,” she replied, “it’s not like you being a cop is going to suddenly make us rich.”
“No, but remember, I won’t be coming in as a rookie,” he told her. “Because of my experience, I’ll be around midrange on the pay scale. And by the time we're ready for kids, I’ll be eligible for a promotion.”
“Kids?” she said, her eyes widening.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, “I didn’t mean to get ahead of myself there.”
“No, I like it,” she said. “You just took me by surprise a little.”
“How are we doing, folks?” Lorna asked pleasantly from across the room. “Are there any more questions I can answer for you?”
“I have one,” Mitch said, turning around, “what’s your availability like next spring?”
