Cathy Yardley - L.a. Woman

graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a double major in art history and mass communications. In the span of her seven years since graduating, she has been an advertising lackey, an advertising sales lackey, a crazed production manager, a bored marketing manager, a bemused budget analyst and a temp. Strangely, neither major provided useful information for any of these pursuits.

As a writer, though, she’s grateful to finally see the point to all that schooling. And all those jobs. And, basically, her life.

To the family of my heart: Pat Johnson, Katrina Healey, Mike Johnson, Chris Becker, Greedi James. I love you!

And to Liisa and Joey, the coolest people I’ve ever known. Thanks.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter 1: Waiting For the Sun

Chapter 2: Take It As It Comes

Chapter 3: People Are Strange

Chapter 4: Unhappy Girl

Chapter 5: Break on Through

Chapter 6: The Changeling

Chapter 7: Roadhouse Blues

Chapter 8: Love Me Two Times

Chapter 9: Strange Days

Chapter 10: Wishful Sinful

Chapter 11: Light My Fire

Chapter 12: Hello, I Love You

Chapter 13: We Could Be So Good Together

Chapter 14: When the Music’s Over

Chapter 15: Crystal Ship

Chapter 16: Love Her Madly

Chapter 17: Unhappy Girl (Dance Remix)

Chapter 18: Ship of Fools

Chapter 19: Five to One

Chapter 20: L.A. Woman

Sarah looked nervously around the apartment. “You know, this wasn’t how I pictured this. At all.”

She heard Benjamin sigh. “I’m at the office, sweetie. Is this going to be long?”

Sarah sighed. “I just…felt a little lonely. Felt like calling.”

“Well, you’ve been down in Los Angeles for a whole week. How are you doing? Feeling, you know, acclimated?”

“There are cardboard boxes up to the ceiling, but at least the bed’s in. Thank God Judith and David were able to help me.” She paused. “That wasn’t…I mean, I understand you had to work last weekend, too.”

“Don’t even get me started.” She heard an impatient rustle of papers. “Judith…who’s she again?”

“She’s my friend. From college. She got married to David, moved down here—let’s see, that’d be three years ago. Remember? I took you to her wedding.”

A pause. “The Chinese girl?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “That’s the one.”

“Huh. Well, anyway, it’s not like you’re completely alone down there.”

Sarah leaned against the arm of the couch. “It’s not the same, and you know it,” she teased, glancing out the window. It was looking fit to storm, she noticed. She thought that it never rained in Los Angeles. Maybe that was a myth. She hoped it wouldn’t storm. “I just can’t wait until you’re down here, tucked up in bed with me—picking out some more furniture, this place is very bare—you know. Settling in.”

As soon as she said the words, she winced. She hadn’t meant to say settling. This wasn’t about pressuring him to marry her…even if they had been engaged for four years. This was about her being a good girlfriend, helping him out.

Really.

“Well, what I’m saying is, sure, you miss me…but it’s not going to, you know, kill you or anything.” He laughed, warmly.

She felt a prickle of alarm. She knew that laugh. She’d been at a business party, and he’d made that laugh to one of the decision-makers of a computer company he was trying to sell semiconductors to. He’d walked away with the account.

“I’m not going to die if you’re not here, yeah, but I’m going to be miserable,” she said, hoping that didn’t sound too whiny. On second thought, she was in a city with millions of people she didn’t know. A little whining was probably not out of place. “So, how did Mr. Richardson take you going through with the transfer, anyway? You figured he’d be mad, but you thought once you’d signed with the L.A. office, there wasn’t anything he could do…”

He sighed deeply. “Turned out I was wrong there, actually.”

The prickle turned into a pang. “What happened?”

“Richardson’s being a dick,” Benjamin replied, his voice acidic. “He knew. He knew I’d try to sneak out of the office. With numbers like I bring in, though—I underestimated what he’d do to keep me here. He doesn’t want to lose one of his highest Northern Cal reps to Southern Cal.”

“But there isn’t anything he can do about it, right?” she pressed. “You’ve already agreed with the sales manager, what’s-his-name, right?”

“Sarah, he pulled the vice president in…and he told me, point-blank, that if I tried to leave Fairfield, I wouldn’t be moving to another district—I’d be moving to another company.”

Sarah blanched, and quickly sat down on the couch. “But…you’ve already signed a lease down here!”

I wouldn’t have moved down if you hadn’t!

“He knows it.” Benjamin’s voice dripped bitterness. “He pulled me aside privately and said that he’d work on Richardson, but they’re, you know, friends.” He all but spat the word out. “He said just give him a little time.”

“How much time are we talking about?” Sarah tried to keep her voice calm. She gripped the cordless phone like a life preserver. “A few weeks?”

“More like two months.”

“Two months!”

“You think I’m happy about this?”

Sarah started pacing. “Two months. Okay. That’s like…that’s like summer vacation. That’s not too bad.”

“Actually, it might be three,” he corrected. “It all depends on Richardson. Goddammit!” He paused, then lowered his voice, obviously remembering he was at work, even if it was a weekend. “Goddammit. I’m so sick of this little town!”

She looked out the window. The clouds were definitely heavy-looking, and some drops pelted the window. She turned on a light. “I don’t suppose…well, couldn’t you just get another job down here? Does it have to be with Becker Electronics?”

“Are you crazy? The job market’s terrible. I’m a proven commodity here,” he said, harshly. “I’m not giving all that up and starting over!”

“Just a suggestion,” Sarah replied, heading him off. I just want you down here. That wasn’t going to happen—not on his end.

“I could break the lease, move back…”

“You already gave up your apartment.”

“I could move in with you…”

“Sarah, the apartment’s in my name. I don’t want you fucking up my credit that way, okay?”

Well, it wasn’t my idea in the first place to sign it, now, was it?

She didn’t want to fight. She’d just have to make the best of things. “Okay. Three months by myself. That’s not so bad,” she said, even though it sounded more ghastly every time she thought of it. “I guess I can get a lot of things planned in the meantime.” Like the wedding. He’d promised that it would be by the end of this year. He hadn’t mentioned specifics, but she knew he wouldn’t, so no sense rubbing his nose in it—especially with this Richardson business.

“Four at the absolute outside,” he said, not helping at all. “Man. I envy you.”

“Really?” Sarah smiled. “Why?”

“By the time I get down there, you’ll practically be a native. You’ll know all the places to go, you’ll already have a job, you’ll be genuinely…”

“Wait a second,” she interrupted. “I don’t know that I’ll find the job I want in three months, Benjamin, so you might not have a leg up on me there.”

He laughed—it was that selling laugh again. “I know you wanted to take some time to figure out what you’re really interested in doing, but that’s hardly realistic now, is it?”

She paced a little more quickly. “But that was part of the agreement. I’d move down to L.A. and get your house ready for you, and then you’d cover the bills for a few months while I figured out my, er, direction.”

“After three jobs in four years, honey, does it really matter now if you get a job you don’t like?” His voice was smoothly persuasive. “You can always quit it later, when I finally move down.”

Sarah felt like banging her head against the wall. “The point is, Benjamin, I don’t want to keep quitting jobs. I feel so…planktonic!”

“Planktonic?” This time, the laugh sounded more natural. “Is that a word?”

“I just want to stop floating around,” she said. “I want some stability.”

He sighed, more irritably this time. “That’s not exactly something I’m supposed to provide for you, Sarah. Is it?”

“You’re missing the point.” She frowned at the phone. “I’m usually so unhappy at work. I mean, there’s got to be something out there I actually enjoy.”

“Nobody really enjoys their job,” he dismissed out of hand. “Okay, maybe me. Still, it’s not like you’re going to be able to pay rent without a job, right? So now’s hardly the time to be picky. And bills…they’ll be coming up soon, too.”

“How much will you be able to help out?”

Another one of those long pauses. She was beginning to really hate those.

“Sarah,” he said slowly, “I’m not living there, remember?”

She blinked. “But you said…”

“Things have changed.” His tone was just this side of curt. “You wouldn’t honestly expect me to pay for the rent when I’m not moving down there.”

“Yet,” she said, bristling. “You’re not moving down here yet.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t think that,” he continued stubbornly.

“You’re right, Benjamin.” Her voice was cold. “I would have moved down here with what little savings I have, on a whim, all ready to pay rent even though you said you’d cover it, not knowing you wouldn’t move down here until I’m already unpacked and signed to a year lease. Of course! What was I thinking?”

“I paid the deposit and the first month, so please don’t give me that ‘I’m stranded here!’ bullshit,” Benjamin answered. “You’re the one who was saying, ‘Oh, L.A. will be so much fun’! You were the one who told me you’d love to move down there!”

That’s because you wanted to, you idiot!

She’d already let her temper get too far ahead of her. She didn’t want to fight…especially not with eight hundred miles and a telephone connection being her only hold on him. “I’m sorry. I…it was unexpected. I wasn’t expecting you to pay for everything.”

“Yeah, well, imagine how I felt.”

She was trying to. Very, very hard.

Three months—and getting a job. In a city where she didn’t know anybody except Judith.

Sarah closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She wasn’t going to cry. He hated her crying and could sense it in a few seconds. “So are you going to visit me?”

“I’m in the middle of a killer quota, and we’re not even to threshold, much less target this year…”

Meaning no.

“Sarah, I can tell you’re getting upset about all of this. Believe me, you’ll be so busy, you won’t even think about me.”

Considering every decision she’d made up to this point was for the sole purpose of getting him to move in with her—to get him that much closer to the altar—that seemed highly unlikely. “I miss you already,” she said.

He sighed. “You know, I think this will probably be really good for us,” he said instead.

“How do you figure?”