The Reunion: Claire's Rebuilding Contract (Starting Over Series)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  The Reunion

  Claire's Rebuilding Contract

  Book #3 in the Starting Over Series

  By Angelina Rose

  Chapter 1

  Claire Miller looked fine on the outside. To all of her work friends at Hamilton Pediatrics in Dilham, North Carolina, she was a shining example of beauty with her rich, dark hair and copper-colored eyes. Claire often wondered if her facade would ever be uncovered and chipped away, so that people could really see the tormented and the sad woman she had become.

  Her early years were not good ones. Her mother was a drug abuser from as far back as Claire could remember. They lived in a small rural trailer park, and Claire was the only daughter. Her older brother, Bruce, died in a car accident when she was only ten years old, so, she basically lived as an only child.

  Claire had never known her own father, but she was told he was a raging alcoholic who gambled away what little money her family had. Her mother finally fled from him, but all she could afford was the rickety little trailer that had became Claire’s home for most of her younger years.

  Looking back, Claire knew the reason she idolized Hollywood was because it was a world so far from her own. It was untouchable in reality but totally real in her mind. She found herself daydreaming about becoming a superstar one day. She danced and sang in her bedroom holding her favorite blue hairbrush, pretending she was any number of famous female singers. One day, she wanted to walk that red carpet and be important to legions of fans.

  One fantasy Claire had was to marry someone famous. She wanted to be the arm candy of a major Hollywood movie star or performer. She wanted the beautiful clothes, fancy cars and stable life she thought every famous person had. Watching them on TV, she believed they had no problems. They didn’t have to endure watching their mother abuse drugs and sleep all day. They didn’t have to wonder where their father was. They didn’t have to fight off the trailer park drunk who was always trying to touch them.

  As she walked to her car after her reunion with her nursing school buddies, Ashley, Emma and Shelby, Claire thought about what she had just agreed to. At the urging of her friends, she had agreed to use the next two years to find Mr. Right. What was she thinking? As the oldest of the bunch, she wondered what the odds were of her finding some hunk to love her in the next twenty-four months.

  Claire was only forty-three years old, but she had done a lot of living in the last fifteen years since she had seen her friends. Married for eleven years to actor Cameron Callahan, Claire had endured a lot. Her love affair with Hollywood had finally come back and bitten her right on the butt.

  She’d met Cameron on one of her many trips to Hollywood. She would often go there with friends from North Carolina when they had an off weekend. This particular time, she got tickets to an after Oscar party and Cameron was there. He was stunningly handsome with his sandy blond hair and green eyes. Women flocked to him, and for some reason he was focused on Claire.

  At first, she figured he wanted a little one-night stand, but it became more than that once they started talking. In fact, they didn’t have sex for two months after they met, when he traveled to North Carolina one weekend to surprise her.

  They kept their relationship a secret for as long as possible because she didn’t want to be thrown into the tabloids. As much as she wanted to be famous, she didn’t want negative publicity to mess up her new job as a nurse. Things progressed quickly, and the two were married after dating for three years. Of course, she had to move to Hollywood and give up her love of nursing, but that was okay with her at the time.

  Their daughter, Aven, was the best thing that came out of their eleven-year marriage. At nine years old, she was wise beyond her years. Claire often thought about how mature she was compared to herself at that age. Thankfully, her daughter did not have to live in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Claire provided for her after the divorce, and sometimes Cameron would even send money.

  Their marriage was good for the first year until Cameron started getting major movie roles. He was out of town most of the year and missed the important milestones in Aven’s life. He didn’t see her learn to ride a bike or watch her first ballet recital. He missed her third birthday party, and forgot their wedding anniversary many times.

  But, that wasn’t the worst of it. About eight years into their marriage, he began to abuse alcohol. He went in and out of rehab at the request of his agents and producers, but nothing ever helped. He made an ass of himself on TV on several occasions. What people didn’t know was that he had become abusive to Claire. He would get into alcohol-fueled rages and mentally abuse her whenever he was in town. He started losing movie parts, sleeping a lot during the day and partying all night. Of course, he was sleeping with many other women also, and Claire had cut him off from sex for the last two years of their marriage for fear of catching a disease from him.

  He only hit her one time, and that was the last time. Claire had grown up around abuse, and she had promised herself if a man ever hit her, she was gone. And she was. She kept that one promise to herself. She walked out the very night he hit her. Thankfully, Aven had been with her friend, Selena, for a sleepover that night. She’d heard the mental abuse over the years, but had never seen her father violent.

  Unfortunately, the news of Cameron and Claire divorcing had been all over the press. They were on the front of tabloids and talked about on blogs. She was amazed her nursing school friends hadn’t ever known she was married to him. Even if they had, they were very good at acting like they didn’t know.

  Embarrassed after her bitter divorce, Claire moved back to a small town in North Carolina so she could start over. Living in Hollywood for all of those years had taken her nursing career from her, but she was able to start again at a pediatrician’s office in Dilham. She was thankful to have a job, although she had been offered money from the media on several occasions to tell the story of being married to Cameron. She couldn’t do it. He was still Aven’s father.

  As she pulled into her driveway a few hours after the reunion in Atlanta, Claire wondered what her future had in store for her. She wanted to believe she might find Mr. Right within the next two years, but her gut kept trying to convince her he didn’t exist anymore. After all, if he wasn’t in Hollywood, then what were the odds that she could just meet him while living her normal, average, single mom lifestyle?

  Chapter 2

  “My baby has been coughing all night!” the hysterical mother said as she appeared at the front window of Hamilton Pediatrics. Claire was normally in the back tending to patients, but she had wandered up front for a few minutes while Natalie, the front desk worker, went to the restroom.

  “Calm down, ma’am. We will get you back as soon as possible. Dr. Ellison is working with another patient right now. Please have a seat over there, okay?” Claire didn’t know how Natalie did it. Dealing with overwrought parents at the front desk was not her idea of a good time. Of course, they didn’t get much calmer when they went back to see the doctor, but at least the doctor was in charge at that point.

  Natalie ventured back from the restroom, completed the woman’s paperwork and sent her back to room two. Thankfully, Claire wasn’t the nurse in room two.

  “How was your reunion, by the way?” Natalie asked Claire as she finished up some paperwork she’d started.

  “It was great. I loved catching up with my friends. Turns out, we are all div
orced now.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Natalie asked with a laugh as she looked up from her papers.

  “Sure feels that way,” Claire said.

  Just as their conversation ended, a woman came barreling in the front door soaked to the bone with rain. Her umbrella was torn apart and she looked like she had just been in a war.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?” Natalie asked as she poked her head through the pass through between the lobby and the front desk.

  “It is awful out there!” the woman responded. “Did you know we are under a tornado warning?”

  “We are?” Claire asked. She was worried about Aven who was one county over with her babysitter, Amelia.

  “Until three o’clock. I heard there has already been a tornado touchdown over on Weaver Road and across Bainbridge Highway,” the woman reported.

  Claire’s face went white when she heard Weaver Road. That was where her house was. There were dozens of homes on that road, so she prayed it wasn’t her home.

  For several hours, the staff waited out the tornado warning and listened to the radio for updates. As soon as the warning was over, Claire asked for permission to leave and check on her house. Dr. Ellison was kind enough to allow her to leave for the rest of the day.

  As she drove down Weaver Road, she was shocked at what she saw. Trees were down, some houses were destroyed and others remained untouched. Her stomach churned as she got closer to her small, yellow house. When she rounded the corner, her heart sank.

  A tree was positioned across what was her living room. Her other favorite tree was lying across the driveway. Her neighbors were already walking around her property trying to pick up personal belongings for her. She was thankful for those people who had taken her and Aven in when they moved there after such an awful time in their lives.

  “Claire! Honey!” Ellie Gibson came running across the yard when she saw Claire pull up. Ellie was a 60-something year old woman with bright red hair and even brighter red lipstick. She had been so kind of Claire and Aven, even baking them the occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  “Ellie… Look at this…” she stammered as she got out of the car with her mouth gaping open. She could not believe the damage to her home until she looked around and realized her home was spared. Several of her neighbor’s homes had been completely flattened while hers was only damaged. She should be thankful, but she wasn’t exactly feeling that right now.

  “I know, Claire. It’s terrible. John and Susan lost their house. Evan and Jake, well theirs is almost caved in. Paul’s house didn’t have any damage at all. It’s so weird how it jumped around like it did… Where is Aven?”

  “She’s with Amelia. I called and they are fine. No major weather in their area. She’ll have to stay with Amelia while I get the house repaired…” Claire said. Ellie was well aware that Claire had no real family who could take care of Aven for so long. Thankfully, Amelia was more than willing to have Aven stay with her for days at a time. She had kids of her own, and Aven was like one of the gang.

  “Well, I am glad she’s safe.”

  “Me too. Has anyone been inside my house yet?” Claire asked, unable to take her eyes off the tree sticking out of her living room.

  “No. I don’t think its safe, honey,” Ellie said putting her arm around Claire. “We’ve already called some disaster professionals to come out here and co-ordinate the cleanup. A couple of neighbors know tree guys, and they are on the way too,” Ellie said. She had lived in this neighborhood for almost twenty years, and she knew how to gather the troops when she needed them. Still, tornadoes were rare here, and this was a big blow to everyone.

  ***

  “Ms. Miller?” a man said behind Claire as she foraged around in her front yard the next morning looking for personal belongings of hers or her neighbors.

  “Yes?” she responded as she turned around. The first thing she noticed was how incredibly handsome this mystery man was. He had thick dirty blond hair with a slight wave, blue eyes that pierced her soul and a rock solid, manly body that you only see in old cigarette advertisements.

  “I’m Jack Stone. My crew will be repairing your roof once that tree isn’t sticking out of it anymore,” he said with a slight smile. “We work with your insurance company.”

  “Oh. Great. Thanks…” Claire often wished she had her friend, Ashley’s, gift of gab. Stammering was more her thing.

  “The tree guys are down the street, but they should be up here in a bit to remove yours,” he said as he wrote something down on a piece of paper. “Once they remove it, give me a call on my cell.” He handed her the paper, and her hand brushed against his.

  “Will do. Thanks,” she said smiling for the first time in a few hours. He had a welcoming face, and she felt strangely comfortable with him in her yard. Maybe her hormones were going wonky again. She was forty-three after all, she thought to herself.

  Claire spent the next few hours working with her neighbors to clean up their yards. She watched as the tree guys removed the tree from her house and yard. She had loved those trees. In fact, they had been two good reasons why she bought the house. She would have to find a way to break it to Aven that her two favorite climbing trees were now gone forever. Claire sighed at the thought. Her daughter had lost so much over the years. No grandparents, no father, a cross-country move. And now her two trees. She imagined Aven sitting on stage with Dr. Phil as a teenager working out her issues.

  “Ms. Miller?” he said again. Jack Stone was behind her again.

  “You really have to stop sneaking up on me like that,” she said when she turned around. “I’m a bit jumpy lately,” she said smiling an exhausted smile.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I was just joking. And please, call me Claire. Ms. Miller was my mother,” she said turning back around to continue searching. Romance was the last thing on her mind today. She had found so many things on her lawn including her daughter’s first baby doll missing its head, her neighbor’s bank statement and what appeared to be a full box of condoms that certainly didn’t belong to her.

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  “With the roof? Of course,” she said with a chuckle.

  “No. I mean help you search through this stuff?” he asked.

  “Seriously? I can’t pay you to help me…” she said.

  “I wasn’t asking you to pay me.” He stood there waiting for her to approve his offer.

  “Well, okay. It’s your time. I don’t want to hold you up from doing other things,” she said.

  “I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said smiling.

  “Wow. That’s unusual. I don’t know anyone who has that much time on their hands.”

  “I own this business. I can do what I want. And right now I would like to help you,” he said as he knelt beside her and starting scouring the ground for anything that shouldn’t be there.

  They worked together quietly for about half an hour before he found a stack of papers caught in her front bushes. They were her divorce papers, only he didn’t realize at first what they were. Upon seeing Claire Miller vs. Cameron Callahan, he realized just who she was.

  Jack had followed the story of Cameron’s downfall on the news and in magazines over the last few years. Everyone knew he was a raging alcoholic, and there had been reports of abuse. Could this be the woman he abused like that?

  Chapter 3

  As Claire stood staring at her house, she wondered how in the world she was going to get it fixed and get Aven home as soon as possible. Luckily they were on Fall break right now, but Thanksgiving was coming soon and she wanted her home. Jack Stone had been helping her in the yard all day, but she wondered when he was going to start on her roof.

  “Claire, my crew will be here today to work on the roof,” he said as he came back from taking a phone call.

  “Great. I am anxious to get my daughter back home as soon as possible,” she said.

  “Is she with her Dad?” he asked.

&nb
sp; The hair on Claire’s neck pricked up as he asked the question. She was sure he meant no harm by it, but it still made her skin crawl.

  “No. She’s with a friend of mine.” She didn’t offer any additional information. She knew she owed this virtual stranger nothing. It brought back bad memories of former friends giving private information to the media so she could end up seeing it on a tabloid. Trust no one. That was her motto.

  “Hungry?” he suddenly asked.

  “What?”

  “Are you hungry? It’s after lunch,” he said pointing at his watch.

  “Um. Well, I guess I need to eat…” she stammered again.

  “Your power was off too long, so anything in your refrigerator is no good. Let’s take a break and grab something,” he said pointing at his truck.

  “You want me to just go with you? No offense, but I don’t really know you,” she said cocking her head and studying his face.