“Claire. Claire. It’s your turn.”

Claire jerked back to the real world and tried to focus on what her friend was saying. It was her turn. Oh, yes, Scrabble. They were playing Scrabble. And it was her turn. Unfortunately, she’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts of Tristan that she hadn’t even looked at her letters, much less formed them into an acceptable word for play.

“You were thinking about him again, weren’t you?”

Claire looked from the wooden game tiles to her new friend and neighbor. Jodie was a tall girl. Six feet of long, lanky volleyball center with a heart of gold. She rented the other half of Claire’s duplex. The two of them met when Claire moved in and had become fast friends almost immediately. Jodie was fun, energetic if not a bit on the nosy side. The young university sophomore studied to be a doctor, but Claire felt she was more suited to be a psychic. At least she seemed to always know what was on Claire’s mind.

“Honestly, Jodie, you sound like a jealous lover.”

She shook her long auburn ponytail from side to side. “Just a concerned friend.”

Claire tossed a couple of tiles onto the game board. “Bull.”

“I am,” Jodie said defensively.

“No, bull. That’s my word. Double point space gives me fourteen points.”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“I’m playing the game.”

“That’s my point exactly. You need to be doing more than sitting home playing Scrabble.”

Claire lifted one brow as if to say, you’re here with me.

“Go out with us tomorrow night. The team is having one last shebang before training starts.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Jodie asked.

“For starters, I’ll be the shortest one there.”

“Come on, Claire, it’ll be fun.”

“I can’t, Jodie, I have a test on Monday and—”

“You’re just making excuses.”

“I can’t go clubbing. I’m married.”

“Now I’m glad you brought that up.”

“Don’t start, Jodie.”

“Claire, you’re my friend, and in the few months that I’ve known you, we’ve grown close, right?”

Claire nodded. Since the first time she had seen Jodie, they had clicked, like long lost sisters finally reunited.

“Then as your friend I’m telling you that it’s time to let him go.”

Claire stood and walked over to the counter under the pretense of pouring herself another glass of tea. She wasn’t particularly thirsty, but it gave her hands something to do. “I want to, but—”

“No, buts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of you. You’ve started a new life without him, but you keep hanging on. If you really want to live your life, then live it.”

“Divorce him, you mean.”

Jodie pressed her lips together in a grim smile. “It’s the only way. You’ve got to cut him out of your new life before he takes control of it, too.”

As much as Claire hated to admit it, Jodie was right. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll call an attorney on Monday.”

Jodie clapped her hands. “Fabulous.”

“You don’t have to be so excited about it.”

But Jodie continued to smile. “No, silly. That’s my word. Fabulous.” She placed her tiles on the board. “Let’s see that’s a double score there and an extra fifty points for using all my letters—”

Claire shook her head as Jodie continued to total her points. Maybe with Tristan out of her life she could better concentrate. Who knew? Maybe once the divorce was final she could actually beat Jodie the whiz at Scrabble.

It wasn’t much of a goal, but it was a start.

Esperanza stared at the test strip, waiting the required minute. She shifted from one foot to the other as the seconds dragged by like a centipede wearing ill-fitting shoes.

Finally, the timer dinged. Hesitantly, she peeked at the pregnancy test. Blue. The strip had turned blue. It didn’t seem possible, but in approximately nine months, she was going to be a mother.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t have the words to tell Devin. Oh, she knew the English words, but she didn’t know how her husband would take the news. They had never discussed children. In the entire course of their relationship, they had never discussed much of anything.

She could only hope that Devin would be as pleased with the news as she was. And she was pleased. Ever since she was a little girl, she had dreamed of the family she would have one day.

Ever so gently, she splayed her hand across her still flat abdomen. A little boy or little girl lay nestled there, heart beating, all physical traits already determined. She couldn’t help but wonder at the magic of it all. Would this little bundle of joy have dark eyes like her or electric green like its father? Would he or she be tall or short? Skinny or fat?

Espie smiled then let herself out of the private restroom. It didn’t matter. The baby could be purple and she would love it just the same. She only hoped that Devin would be as excited as she was. Half as excited would even work.

But how was she going to tell him? She supposed she could just blurt out the news, but that method didn’t seem special enough.

She sat back at the draft table, glancing down at the designs she had been working on all morning. Never in a million years would she have ever believed that she would be designing quality women’s clothing. After all, she had been a chambermaid since she was fourteen. Still, here she was in her very own office, pretending that she had been formally trained in the field of women’s fashions.

She sighed to herself and doodled on the corner of the design, unable to gain back her enthusiasm for finishing it. Perhaps she was struggling because all she could think about was the life growing inside of her. Maybe if she were designing infant sleepers she would be more into her work.

That was it! She would design a few children’s garments to rid herself of this baby fever. Then she would give the drawings to Devin. It was the perfect way to tell him about the baby.

A baby. It was a wonderful gift from God. A blessing.

Now, if she could only convince Devin it was true.

Claire took a deep breath, sighed heavily, then signed her name to the papers. Somehow she thought it would be different than this. Somehow she thought that freedom from Tristan would make her feel better. But there was only empty. She had hoped against hope that he would change his mind about the two of them, that he would realize that he wanted her to be a part of his life. But Jodie was right. Claire had started a new life without him and she needed to sever all ties. And that included their marriage.

Claire braved a smile as she handed the batch of papers back to her attorney. He was a short man, stout and round and jolly. He looked like Santa Claus in a power tie.

How ironic, she thought. That a man who was credited for giving so much was giving her freedom—and just in time for the holidays. Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Jodie said from behind her. Claire had brought her next door neighbor along for moral support, but she had a feeling that Jodie had agreed to make sure that Claire didn’t back out.

Claire nodded and looked to her lawyer. “When will he get the papers?”

Mr. Barron shrugged his rounded shoulders. “It’s hard to say, exactly. Depends on the Sheriff’s Office. Should be sometime before the holiday.”

“And then?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t crack. It was crazy. She was crazy for loving a man who didn’t love her back. She needed to let Tristan go before he destroyed the new life she had created for herself.

“We set a date and go to court. It shouldn’t be overly complicated. Given the situation with the will and the fact that you aren’t asking for any alimony or share of Mr. McFarland’s personal holdings, the proceedings should go very smoothly and very quickly.”

“And then you’ll be free.” Jodie smiled encouragingly.

“Free,” Claire repeated. Free to get on with her life. Free to be Claire Campbell McFarland—or at the very least discover who she was. Free to pursue her newly found dreams, her new mission in life. Free.

“Free,” Claire said again, this time with more feeling. Finally, she was going to be free. It was just what she needed.

Devin rubbed his fingers across his tired eyes and leaned back in his uncle’s chair. There was no way he could think of it as his chair, even if it did belong to him now, along with all the problems that McFarland Manufacturing encountered on a daily basis. And, man, did he have problems. The latest involved the employee’s restroom and sixteen bolts of sample fabric from Mexico. Someone had stuffed a wad of paper towels into the washroom’s sink and left the water running. Naturally, it overflowed and the water—clean as it was—ran under walls and spilled onto the material in the storage room next door. The bolts were ruined. Devin supposed that he should be thankful. At least now he knew that the material didn’t do well in water. Not only did it shrink, the bright colors of the plaids ran together leaving him with sixteen bolts of drawn-up, mottled brown mess.

Absently, he rubbed his chest and retrieved a small amber-colored pharmacy bottle from the top drawer of his desk. Who knew that his life would come to this? Only a few short months ago he had been lying on the beach and gambling away his family’s money in some of the most famous casinos in the world. Now he was married with a prescription for Zantac.

Chronic heartburn, the doctor had said. It was allegedly caused from too much stress. Stress with his job, stress at home. Devin didn’t know how Tristan did it.

Of course, his brother didn’t have to watch everything he said in front of his newly bilingual wife like Devin did. Oh, no, Tristan had taken the easy way out and flown to Belize. They’d probably never see him again. After all, his watch alone would bring him enough money to live on for years down there. So Tristan had headed south, leaving Devin to take care of all of these problems by himself.

Devin did as best he could. As soon as one crisis was solved, another popped up, and always looming in the distance was the biggest problem of them all. McFarland Manufacturing needed something new, something spectacular, something that they had never had before. He knew this; it was obvious even to his untrained business eye. He even knew that McFarland needed to grow or it would die. Discovering solutions for washroom plumbing problems and the like was just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

He just didn’t know what direction it needed to grow in. But Tristan did. He’d bet his entire inheritance that his brother knew—

“Dev-in.”

He glanced up, shaken from his thoughts by his wife’s heavily accented voice. He tried to smile, tried to keep pretending that everything was fine, but he couldn’t help but feel that Esperanza only added to the number of stresses that he faced each day. It wasn’t enough that he was saddled with the company with no knowledge of how to take care of it, he had a wife too.

“Yes?”

“May I…may I speak at you for minutes?”

Devin nodded at tried not to cringe at his wife’s English or her subservient attitude. “What’s on your mind?”

She seemed to think about it, tilting her dark head this way and that. “I want to sh-show something.”

“To me?” Devin asked, for the first time noticing that she held a folder in her hands.

She nodded.

“What is it?”

Esperanza dropped one hand to her belly, and Devin bit back the urge to offer her an antacid.

“It is designs.”

“New ones?” Lord, he felt like he was playing twenty questions in reverse.

She hesitated for a moment, the hand clasping the folder tightening until her knuckles were white.

“Show me.” Show me the designs. Show me something good. Please, God, show me something that will turn this ship around. Or, at the very least, keep it from sinking.

Like a child being forced to hand over a favorite toy, Espie handed Devin the folder. His fingers brushed against hers, and she jumped back as if she had been burned. Or perhaps it was the ringing of the phone which startled her.

“McFarland,” he snapped into the receiver. “No, this is Devin. Devin McFarland. No, Tristan’s not here. No, I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Devin listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line. “Quite frankly, Mr. Williams, I doubt very seriously that Tristan is ever coming back to McFarland Manufacturing.”

Frustrated, he tossed the file onto his desk. “Well, I understand that you worked exclusively with my brother in the past, but I’m running the company now.”

He talked to the man another fifteen minutes before finally convincing him that he was as capable as his brother of handling his accounts. Now if he could just convince himself.

Once he finally hung up the phone, his wife had vanished. His stomach burned when he realized that he hadn’t even noticed her leave.

Whatever it was that she wanted to show him couldn’t have been that spectacular, or she would have hung around to see him look at it.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes again, and reached for the folder that Esperanza had brought him.

Tristan gazed out over turquoise water the exact shade of his wife’s eyes. It was times like these when he missed her most of all. The times when he was awake. He sighed and rattled the melting ice in his glass.

“Problem?”

He turned to the man behind the bar in the tiny thatched-roof beach pub. “No, there’s no problem. Why should there be a problem?”

The bartender shrugged. “Just asking.”

“I know a lot of people tell their problems to bartenders, but really, man, nothing’s wrong.”

The man wiped up a wet ring off the scarred wooden bar, then tossed the towel onto his shoulder. “So you say.”

“Can I get another one of these?” Tristan lifted his glass.

The bartender grabbed a fresh glass off the rack and started mixing.

“A little less mai and a lot more tai,” Tristan quipped, draining what was left in his glass. “Yeah, this is just what I needed. A whole lot of sunshine and a little bit of rum.”

“Well, that we have. But I have to tell you, you won’t find the solution to your non-problems in the bottom of a bottle.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes at the man. “What are you? Some kind of shrink?”

“I used to be.” He slid the new drink in front of Tristan.

“What happened?”

“Too much pressure. Helping people with their problems, having them always asking me for advice.”

Tristan laughed and took a sip of his new drink. “Isn’t that what you do now?”

The bartender smiled. “Yeah. But here I don’t get paid for it. Twisted, huh?”

“Nah,” Tristan said. “Twisted is having to get married to get your inheritance then having your wife walk out on you.”

The bartender whistled low and under his breath. “Sounds like something out of a movie.”

Tristan nodded. “Yeah, I guess it does.” A horror flick.

“I thought you said you didn’t have any problems.”

“I don’t.” Tristan took a long drink and tried not to think of Dallas, Claire, and everything else he’d left behind. The problem was, the further he got away, the more all those things came to mind. Why, just yesterday, he imagined that he saw Claire, Bruno tucked under one arm walking down the beach. It turned out to be just a blonde haired woman with a rolled up beach towel, but for a minute there… “I no longer have to worry about getting the Board’s approval. I don’t have to worry about getting up every day of the week and going to work. And I absolutely don’t think about what I would have done with my share of 36.3 billion dollars.”

The bartender stopped polishing the glass in his hands and stared at Tristan.

“Nope,” Tristan continued. “I don’t have to worry about anything now but drinking mai tais. And that’s the way I want it.”

The bartender turned knowing eyes to Tristan. “You keep telling yourself that and you just might start to believe it.”

Sounded like a good plan to him. Now if he could just forget about Claire…

Devin released a frustrated sigh and leaned back in his uncle’s leather chair. It seemed like that was all he could do of late. That and butt heads with the Board.

He’d pitched them Espie’s idea of an infant’s and children’s line, even showed them all the wonderful sample drawings she had given him, but they’d shot him down cold.

“McFarland is a women’s clothier. We’ve always been a women’s clothier and we’ll always be a women’s clothier,” one senior member had emphatically stated.

“Now that’s thinking outside the box,” Devin mumbled in retrospect. He’d tried every way he could, but he couldn’t convince the stagnant members that this was the way to go. If Tristan had presented the idea, the old geezers would have probably jumped at the chance to set up a new line. But Tristan had flown the coop.

“Mr. McFarland, your brother’s on the phone.”

Devin looked up from the file as Gladys, his brother’s old secretary, summoned him from the door to his office. Along with the mantle of McFarland Manufacturing, Devin had inherited his brother’s assistant. And why not? His brother had left everything else to him.

“What did Tristan do? Call collect?” Devin asked.

Gladys shook her iron-gray head and smiled. “No sir. He called from the mansion. Isn’t it wonderful? Tristan’s come home.”

Devin smiled and picked up the phone. He was saved.

Tristan looked around him in disgust at the people milling around wearing their tuxedos like badges. It was the third biggest party of the year. After the Christmas Cotillion and the New Year’s Bash, Cherry Holiday’s Thanksgiving Celebration was the hit of the holiday season. Why had he come here?

Moreover, the question was, why had he come back? He’d been happy in Belize. Really happy. He stared down into the depths of his cocktail glass. The mai tais had been a  sight better too. Robert—the bartender he’d befriended—had made them just like he liked them, strong. He made a face at his drink that was little more than a splash of rum in powdery-tasting lime juice and made his way over to the bar.

He handed the glass back to the barkeep. “Shot of tequila,” he ordered. “Double.”

As the man did as he asked, Tristan turned to survey the ballroom full of elegantly dressed people. Everyone strutted about, danced and chatted, like every move they made was of the greatest importance, and yet what did it all mean? What was it all for? Surely there was something more out there.

But whatever it was, he hadn’t found it in Belize.

“You look like crap.”

Tristan turned at the sound of the familiar voice.

“Hello, to you too, Ian. Yes, it is a fine evening, thank you.”

Ian shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, my friend. It’s good to see you again. It just looks like you slept in your tux.”

Tristan smoothed at the wrinkles in the fine cloth of his jacket. He supposed it was a little unkempt, but he hadn’t had much use for it down south. “Only on Tuesdays,” he quipped.

“Is that the day you shave as well?”

“Not exactly,” Tristan said slowly as he ran a hand across his extreme five o’clock shadow. Okay, so it had been a day or four since he’d last used a razor. What was the big deal, anyhow? He’d bathed before coming to this party. Wasn’t that good enough?

Tristan tossed back his drink and swallowed with barely a grimace. “I’ve been busy.”

“How was Belize?” Ian asked in a tone that sounded more like his friend.

“Sunny and seventy degrees.” Yet another reason he should have stayed. Why had he come back anyway?

“We found Claire.”

Tristan tried to pretend that his heart didn’t skip a beat. “Great,” he said without any conviction. “She’s still here in Dallas.”

Tristan nodded.

“Going to school at one of those trade colleges.”

“That’s real nice, Ian.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded like hardened steel.

“And here are the divorce papers.” He held a thick fold of papers toward Tristan.

So that was what this was all about.

He stared at the papers not wanting to touch them. But Ian wasn’t relenting. Reluctantly Tristan accepted them, tucking the fold into an interior pocket of his tux jacket.

“You can sign them whenever.”

Tristan clenched and unclenched his jaw. Yeah, he should have stayed in Belize. He turned back to the bar. “Hey, pal, what’s a guy gotta do around here to get another drink?”

“Tristan, I don’t think you should have another.”

Tristan sneered at his friend. “Today, the part of Tristan’s mother will be played by Ian Anderson.”

“Tristan, brother. Cherry Holiday told me you were here.”

Tristan turned as Devin greeted him, pressed and shaved like all of the other guests at the holiday shindig. Funny, but his brother seemed almost happy to see him. “Leave it to Cherry to be the spreader of good news.”

“Can I talk to you about something?”

“As long as I can drink while you do it.” He shot Ian a killer look.

Ian glared back. “Come by when you’re sober enough to sign them,” he said, then walked away blending instantly into the crowd of neatly pressed tuxedos.

“Sure,” Devin agreed. “You see, I have this really great idea for McFarland. Well, Esperanza did, and I need your help. The Board won’t give me the go ahead and—”

“No.”

Devin faltered. “No?”

“No.”

“But you haven’t heard the idea yet.”

“I don’t work for McFarland any longer.”

As Tristan watched, Devin turned red. His face tightened, and his fists clenched. He looked shocked, almost angry, which was really strange. Devin never got angry. Even when he was forced into the holy bonds of matrimony, he just laughed it off. “I beg your pardon?” he gritted through his teeth.

“I don’t work for McFarland any longer,” Tristan repeated.

“I see.”

“Good.” Tristan nodded agreeably.

“I expect you to get your things out of the mansion immediately.”

It was Tristan’s turn to look shocked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“Oh, yes, my hearing is fine, I just didn’t understand you.”

“Well, brother dear, I’m kicking you out. You’re on your own.”

“No problem,” Tristan said. “I’ll have my things out tomorrow.”

“Tonight,” Devin countered. “I want you out of my house tonight.”

Claire eased her tired body into her old claw-footed tub and sank into the warm, bubbly water. The bath was more for her soul than anything. After a hard week of studying, she needed to nurture her spirit. Mid-terms were over and in just a few short weeks, her first semester as a full time college student would be complete.

She leaned her head back against the tub’s rim, sighing contently as she listened to the rain beat against her roof. The weatherman had called for a chance of early snow, but it seemed Mother Nature didn’t have Dallas scheduled for a white Thanksgiving.

Snow or no snow, tomorrow everyone would be carving their turkeys. Christmas loomed in the not so distant future, then once again the ball would drop in Times Square. Claire could hardly believe another year had passed. But this time, she wouldn’t be depressed. This year she had finally gotten her life together, and she was proud of herself.

After next semester she would graduate with a degree in hospitality management. She had already applied to several cruise lines. Jodie was right. It was time for her to move on, and she had decided to travel. She had always wanted to see the world. She had no one to answer to, now was her chance.

In the last couple of months, she had learned to look at things in a different light. She had lost her grandmother, the woman who raised her. She had lost Tristan, the only man she would ever love. But she couldn’t look at these events as tragedies any longer. Now they were opportunities. New doors were opening to her, and she was going to take full advantage of her newly found freedom.

A sharp knock sounded on her front door.

Claire jerked up straight in the tub, sloshing water over the sides.

“Claire! Open up. I know you’re in there.”

It couldn’t be!

“Claire.” The words were slurred, but the voice was unmistakable. “Claire!”

She sank back down in the tub and squinched her eyes shut. Maybe if she stayed really quiet he would think no one was home.

“Claire.” Tristan continued to pound on her front door, his voice growing even louder.

“Blast it,” she muttered, stepping out of the tub. She quickly toweled herself halfway dry and slipped her arms into her red silk robe. Her bare feet padded across the hard wood floors as she hurried to the door. With any luck, she would get there before Tristan woke the entire neighborhood.

“Claire!”

“All right. All right,” she said, opening the door with the chain still in place.

She could only see a small part of him through the four inch crack, and that small part looked worn and tired. His hair was plastered to his head and dripping rainwater into his eyes. He was in bad need of a shave, and his tuxedo was soaked through to his skin.

“Claire.” Her name resounded like a prayer.

“What are you doing here, Tristan?” She steeled herself against his answer. She had just gotten her life in order and she didn’t need him coming around with pitiful pleas to help him gain back his inheritance to louse everything up for her.

He smiled, his lips crooking up in a lopsided grin. “Bruno missed you.”

For the first time since opening the door, Claire noticed the tiny black poodle Tristan held in his arms. The poor pooch was wet and shivering, from fear or cold she didn’t know which, but her heart melted a little at seeing her one-time, faithful canine companion.

“Can we come in?”

Claire pulled her robe a little tighter around her. “Bruno can.”

“What about me?”

She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then slowly opened them again. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No,” he said quickly, a little too quickly. “Well, maybe just a little.”

But Claire noticed that his alcohol intake was not enough to insulate him from the cold. Like Bruno, Tristan was shivering from the chilly winter rain.

Against her better judgment, she closed the door, then slid the chain open. “You can come in. But only long enough to get warm,” she quickly added.

Tristan smiled that heart-stopping smile of his and stepped into her duplex.

“The bathroom is down the hall, first door on the right. The towels are in the cabinet under the sink.”

Tristan nodded and started off in the direction she had indicated.

While he was gone, Claire piled logs into the fireplace and lit them. Soon a cheery fire snapped and crackled and cast dancing golden shadows around the room.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

Claire turned as Tristan re-entered the room wearing her oversized pink fuzzy robe. Gone were the wet garments that he had been wearing. “I hung my things on the curtain rod to dry.”

Claire dumbly nodded as Tristan settled down on her secondhand sofa as if he truly belonged there. Bruno nestled in his lap and heaved a great doggie sigh of his own.

The sight unnerved Claire. “I…I’ll just go make some coffee,” she said and hastened to the kitchen. Just one cup, she told herself, then he was outta there. She would run his clothes through the spin cycle, toss them into a very hot dryer and then he was on his way.

“I got the papers,” he called as the coffee gurgled and chugged.

“Papers?”

“The divorce,” he returned, his voice sounding a little quieter, a little more distant.

So that was what this was all about. She should have known.

Quickly, she poured them both a steaming mug of coffee, grabbed a piece of last night’s leftover pot roast for Bruno, and headed out of the kitchen.

One cup of coffee, she chanted to herself and no matter what else he said, he was gone.

She rounded the corner into the living room and stopped short. Tristan was sprawled across her couch, his head tilted at an uncomfortable-looking angle. His eyes were shut, mouth open.

“Great,” she muttered to herself as Bruno watched her with those big brown puppy dog eyes. “Just great.”

She set down the tray and approached Tristan, fully intending to wake him and send him packing, wet clothes and all, but her resolve slipped as she neared his side. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and she could afford to be a little more charitable.

With a shake of her head at her own weak foolishness, she covered Tristan with an afghan, scooped up Bruno, and went to bed herself. She would deal with Tristan and whatever he wanted in the morning.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.    

A MILLION TO ONE

Copyright 2023 by Amy Lillard 

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.    

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.  

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

previously published as All You Need Is Love copyright 2013 by Amy Lillard

significant changes have been made to the original manuscript resulting in new copyright status