SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT

By
Dora Desden

Copyright © 2013 Blue Ribbon Books

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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Chapter One

The first real view that Abigail Dawes had of New York City was of its sizzling skyline as her taxi emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel. The city rose up before her on that hotter than hot June day, the sun glinted off the windows of the mammoth buildings and the light dazzled in her wide eyes. She was in awe, amazed by the sheer brilliance of the place and the reality of her situation. She had finally arrived.

           
 
“Wow, it’s really how it looks on TV,” Abby said then laughed quite a breathless laugh at herself. “That sounds so dumb, but it really is.”

           
 
“It really is, ma’am,” Her cab driver said politely adding his throaty chuckle to hers. He seemed fresh out of a TV show too, with his thick New York accent and his beaten up Yankees cap.

           
 
“First time here?” he asked her.

           
 
“The very first,” Abby replied.

She was glued to the window, drinking in the people, the sights, the sounds with all the fervor of a true tourist.
 
But I’m not a tourist
, she thought gleefully to herself,
 
I live here now. This is home.
 
She even briefly considered whipping out the camera she had nestled somewhere deep in her suitcase but decided she better not instantly brand herself as the bright-eyed, small town girl that she admittedly was. Besides, the car was whizzing down the crowded streets far too quickly for her to get any good snapshots in.

The taxi turned a sharp corner, the driver eager to beat the light while Abby and her two suitcases rocked and slid in the back seat. A chorus of car horns bleated in their wake and Abby tried in vain to still her over-anxious heart. Her stomach somersaulted with a familiar fear that she knew was irrational but couldn’t help it.

“Can you slow down a bit?” She called up to the driver. “I’m not in any rush.”

The driver met her eyes a moment in the rear view mirror. “No problem. My apologies ma’am. I’m too used to my passengers being in a big hurry. I’ll slow it down so you can go ahead and take everything in.”

“Thank you,” Abby breathed out in a small relieved squeak.
 
 

She turned back to the window and take everything in she did. New York City did not disappoint. The city had a pulse and it beat all around them, alive with speeding cars and the daring pedestrians who didn’t hesitate to walk in between them. The sidewalk beside them was just as busy. Bodies weaved past each other in front of shop windows and bright store fronts lit up, even in the middle of the day, with garish neon signs.

And the people were just as colorful! Abby actually spied an old woman in a cross walk with pink hair, and not the pink hair of old age, but real dyed blazing pink hair. Businessmen in immaculate three-piece suits shared the same space as teenage boys in ripped t-shirts and basketball shorts. The women were glamorous in sundresses to beat the heat and every one of them seemed to strut, tall and thin and self-confident, as if life was a never-ending runway.

Abby suddenly felt rather plain in her jeans and an old retreat t-shirt. She didn’t have on her sky-high heels, only a well-broken-in pair of sneakers. On her head, to shade her from the sun, she wore her mother’s wide-brimmed gardening hat. The hat smelled faintly of her mother’s favorite perfume and Abby had decided to wear it as a comfort for her big move-in day but suddenly she felt that it made her look dowdy.

Stop being so vain,
 
Abby told herself.
 
None of that matters. You don’t need a pair of expensive shoes to follow your dreams.

The taxi turned down a narrow street that was only slightly less congested with people and slowed to a stop. Abby looked up, across the street and into the window of the narrowest pizza parlor she had ever seen.

“Here we are ma’am,” her taxi driver said.

“This is it?” Abby said doubtfully. “Are you sure this is the right address?”

“This is it,” he said and pointed to a small door just to the right of the pizza parlor’s large picture window. Etched in white on the door’s glass pane was the street address she’d been given by her landlord for her new apartment building.

“You rented an apartment in this city sight unseen? You’re a brave girl.” The cab driver chuckled.

“I am,” Abby said back. She decided to take that particular comment as a compliment. “How much do I owe you?”

Abby paid the hefty price on the meter and added as generous a tip as she could afford. She gathered up her cross-body purse and grabbed a suitcase in either hand before pushing open the left hand door. Immediately a burst of sweltering summer heat rushed into the car. She stepped out and the humidity greeted her like a thick brick wall, so strong that it made her head swim. Abby stepped forward dizzily, trying to balance her heavy suitcases and stay on her feet, and it was only dimly that she heard the cab driver’s gruff voice call out, “not that way!”

But she only had time to vaguely register the sound before the cyclist came barreling towards her. In surreal slow motion she saw herself in the path of oncoming traffic, saw the look of dismay on the cyclist’s face, saw the glint off his helmet and the metal of his bike as it all came barreling treacherously towards her.

               
 
Then she felt strong hands gripping her arms so tightly she would bruise, a swirl of cologne engulfed her and all at once she found herself tumbling, suitcases and all, towards the sidewalk.

               
 
The cyclist whizzed by undeterred, but not before yelling a string of curse words that thankfully dissipated before they reached Abby’s ears. 
 
She sat sprawled and stunned on the curb, her hands cut and covered in New York City grime.

               
 
I’m okay,
 
Abby thought, her heart racing.
 
Thank you Lord. I’m okay.

           
The large, strong hands reached down for her and Abby found herself looking up at her hero.
Handsome,
she thought at once, even as she was pulled to her feet, and she felt her pulse begin to race all over again.
Insanely handsome.

The man was slim and impossibly tall, she realized as her face became level with his chest. Up close his face was smooth and chiseled. His eyes were such a light blue they might have been clear, and as a neatly cut fall of  dark blonde hair fell across his brow he pushed it back in one frustrated, movie star-like sweep. His lips were perfectly plump and pink and Abby belatedly grasped the fact that those lips were moving and he was speaking to her.

“Are you alright?” She realized he was saying as her sluggish mind finally caught up with reality. “Miss? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” She looked down at her cut hands, trying to collect her thoughts which was hard to do with the gorgeous stranger staring down at her. “I’m not hurt. Just a little roughed up.”

The stranger stepped away from her and Abby felt suddenly bereft. The cab driver had gotten out and stood by his car. Leaning on the passenger door, he glared at her with a healthy mix of concern and irritation.

“I told you not to get out that way ma’am. Never get out on the traffic side,” he chastised.

“I’m sorry,” Abby said, feeling completely mortified. She glanced across the street and even the diners in the pizzeria had paused in their meals to watch the commotion occurring in the middle of the road. She felt herself blush even deeper.

Her handsome hero stepped in front of her again blocking her view of the audience they’d earned. This time Abby noticed the dress shirt and tie he wore. He was unruffled despite the heat and the activity. She also noticed the bemused smile he wore as he approached her. In his hands he held her mother’s hat. Abby rubbed her bare head, further mussing up her ponytail. She never even realized the hat had fallen off.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt? I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. I didn’t mean to. I just had to get you out of the way of that bike,” he said.

“You saved me,” Abby murmured, knowing she sounded like a goofy, love-struck teenager. She couldn’t help it. Everything was on auto-pilot. “Thank you so much.”

He stepped towards her and placed her hat gently back on her head. She looked up at him and their eyes met for a moment that seemed to stretch on for eternity. Abby watched as the smile slowly faded from his face and suddenly he looked stricken. His brow furrowed as though he was in pain and Abby felt all at once that he was searching her face for something that she could not give him.

“Really. I’m tough,” Abby said, trying to joke. “I’ll live.”

“You will.” He leaned towards her, so close that she could see each one of his impossibly long curling eyelashes above those cornflower-colored eyes. He reached out and incredibly gently, tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

He knelt to pick up her suitcases which thankfully had stayed shut.
That’s just what I’d need
, Abby thought,
all my clothes strewn across New York City for everyone to see.

“Thank you,” she said as she took them from his hands.

“Do you need help with those?” Suddenly he wouldn’t look at her. He seemed to be focusing everywhere else but on her, looking instead at the impatient cab driver, or across the street, or straightening his already straight shirt and tie.

Did I do something wrong?
 Abby wondered.

“I can take it from here. I got them this far,” she said. He was certainly handsome but she wanted to display better sense than letting a strange man follow her up to her apartment with her bags, no matter how good-looking he was.

“You’re sure?” he asked, looking at his feet.

“I’m sure,” she said, sensing suddenly that he wanted to get away.

Gentlemanly duty taken care of, her stranger-savior nodded at her politely, the dark blonde hair falling in his face again and shielding his expression.

“Thank you again!” Abby called to his retreating back as he turned to the cab driver. In a strange, clipped tone he requested an address then climbed in through the door from which she had just exited.

The taxi sped off a moment later and Abby found herself alone on the sidewalk, bags rubbing at her raw hands. Even across the street the diners had returned to their meals and she was no longer a spectacle, but just another blip on the huge radar of New York City.

I didn’t even have the sense to ask for his name,
she thought with a sigh as she made her way to the crosswalk and on towards her new life.