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Big Sky
Kitty Thomas
Copyright 2012 © Kitty Thomas
All rights reserved.
Digital Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or shared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hard work of this author makes new books possible.
BIG SKY
ONE
Veronica rolled over to the unimpressive view outside her window: another building far too close to her own. On the mornings when she woke abruptly, it felt as if the building might collide with hers, as if the concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads were a rumbling sea that would toss the buildings to and fro, annihilating anyone in its path.
She stumbled to the kitchen and poured a cup of burnt coffee then went back to the window in an attempt to glimpse the tiny bit of sky she could see from just the right angle. The morning was dreary and overcast—one of those days where the sky would share its contempt for the world by being bleak but unproductive. It would be a day without sun or rain, just an unending and depressing blob of gray.
It was possible the angst was less from the weather and more from the pile of bills on the kitchen counter. Veronica Cason was a Big Deal ad executive. Yes, that’s in capital letters, thank you. As a Big Deal she should be in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park. But Veronica had always lived outside her means. Extravagantly outside them. It didn’t matter how much those means were, she’d never seen a credit card she couldn’t max out, and she had a rainbow of them that fluttered out of her wallet in a fan of spending power.
She’d started in a penthouse, and when her credit bills had swelled to a wave that would otherwise swallow her, she’d downshifted into a tiny apartment with no sky. And this was where she’d stayed for the past five years while she’d tried to curb her overspending without success. After all, it took more work and more money to make an ugly apartment habitable. These were justifiable expenditures. A raise could be on the horizon, then perhaps she could finally dig out of the collection call nightmare.
The interest rates on some of the cards were so criminal that if she only paid the minimum, she’d continue to owe more than she started out with—her debt climbing higher with each passing year. She could consolidate, but that was most of her paycheck, leaving her on Ramen noodles, which she didn’t need. Though her finances were a wreck, she did mange self control in her diet. After all, she thought it was pointless to buy stylish clothes in the big girl sizes. When she felt the urge for ice cream, she just bought another dress and pair of Manolo Blahniks. Fat or destitute were the only options her mind would consider, and cardboard box felt more encouraging than size fourteen.
A piece of paper glared from the pile, a bright orange rectangle, a corner of which peeked out from the sea of perfunctory white and light blue. It was an eviction notice from her landlord. Mr. Tuttle had become clever—or so he thought—with his increasingly bright warning notices: pink to neon green, to yellow, to finally orange when he’d dropped the hammer and given her thirty days to get out. That had been twenty-seven days ago.
But it was fine. She had a plan. She’d just use her next paycheck to secure another crappy apartment. She’d get on eBay and start selling off all the ridiculous things she’d acquired. The seriousness of the situation had finally struck home. Her denial had run out only moments before her lease. She had nobody but herself, and she’d systematically sabotaged her security. She could have determined why, but a shrink was a luxury she couldn’t afford right now—even with a co-pay.
Her father had left when she was six, and her mother had moved to Rome without a forwarding address. She couldn’t ask friends for help. Anyone who could be defined loosely as a friend, she worked with, and she couldn’t let them know where she lived now—let alone the fact that she was about to be homeless on a six-figure salary. It was too ludicrous and humiliating. Going back to bed and waiting for the building next door to collide and crush her was beginning to sound like an appealing option.
Veronica put the cup on the counter. Screw this shit. She was going out for breakfast.
* * *
The dineracross the street from Brampton and Simmons Advertising Agency had an inexpensive breakfast that Veronica wouldn’t feel as guilty about putting on her credit card. She reached out for the door, but a large, tanned hand—no tiny sliver of sky for him—got there first.
“Let me get that for you, ma’am.”
Veronica looked up, annoyed to see what looked like the Marlboro man, complete with a cowboy hat, holding the door for her.
“Do you live in a corn field? I can open my own damned doors.” Had it been a business man in a suit, and had she been carrying something big and heavy, she wouldn’t have protested, but they were far fromLittle House on the Prairie, and she wasn’t too feeble to open a door.
He raised an eyebrow. Not amused. Not angry. Just... observant. Creepy. He was attractive in a sun-worn way, but the assessing look he gave her made her want to crawl under a table and hide. Or maybe that was just her life.
She glared at him and finally he took a step back, his hands raised in the air as if he were an outlaw caught without his gun. She rolled her eyes and went inside.
It was a seat-yourself sort of place, so Veronica took a spot by the window. But there was no view.. The monolithic buildings rose out of the ground like oppressive guardians, with only a small bit of gray sky visible between her office building and the building next door.
She ordered scrambled eggs and hot tea and tried not to stare at the Marlboro man who had seated himself a few booths down where he could watch her.
The act unnerved her. She felt stalked, but she’d pulled out the feminist annoyance at not being treated like an equal who could open her own doors. Scurrying like a mouse to a corner booth out of his line of sight would seem to make light of her independence. Instead, she pulled out her smart phone to check her email.
Five minutes later, the bell over the door dinged, and in walked Sandy Mitchell. At best, the woman was a frenemy. They worked together—if one could call their constant battlefield behavior workingtogether.
“Ronnie!” She smiled and waved with the fake brightness that was her calling card. Her modus operandi was to kill with kindness. She looked smart in an aquamarine suit that brought out her impossibly blue-green eyes. Without invitation, she sat across from Veronica and flipped her blonde hair. At least she was mostly blocking the Marlboro man now. Or at least she was serving as a distraction—something else to look at besides tanned, muscular arms, tight jeans, and cowboy boots.
“Just coffee for me, thanks,” she told the waitress when she arrived with the eggs and tea.
