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    Chance Encounters
    Chance Encounters
    Chance Encounters
    Ebook83 pages1 hour

    Chance Encounters

    By T.L. Hammond

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Trinity Walker believes in one-night stands. She believes in convenient encounters between strangers who find themselves in the same space at just the right time. And, as a business owner in a small North Carolina town, she doesn’t believe in wasting time or asking too many questions when something good falls right into her lap. With little time to spare, she just doesn’t put relaxation and love at the top of her to-do list.
    Darren Bixby lives right across town and spends his days working multiple jobs, including, occasionally, driving for the town’s rideshare program. He expects a lot of great things to happen in his life because hard work always pays off, but he never expected something as amazing as Trinity Walker to happen. He’s instantly attracted to her unusual beauty, but will she trigger something within him that changes the rest of his life?
    Sometimes two people live within minutes of one another for years and never cross paths until just the right moment. Those chance encounters have the power to alter mindsets and push lives down a new path. Will Trinity Walker and Darren Bixby give in to temptation and take the ride, or back away and retreat to safety?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateJul 25, 2020
    ISBN9781094411590
    Chance Encounters

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      Book preview

      Chance Encounters - T.L. Hammond

      Part One: A Ride to Remember

      She could have slept in on that Monday morning with raging winds and intermittent bursts of cold rain, but Trinity’s brain wasn’t accustomed to relaxation. The concept of taking it easy was a foreign one. She hadn’t grown her marketing business from a one-woman operation in her basement office to a well-respected startup in the small town of Davies, North Carolina, by sleeping in, and no car accident was going to take her focus off her next big goal.

      I promise, Mama, she had told her mother on the phone the night before. I won’t set my alarm. I’ll just get up whenever I wake up.

      After waking up at five a.m. for more than a decade, it just so happened that she woke five minutes before her alarm clock would have sounded had she set it. Rolling to a sitting position on the side of her bed and staring around the room in the dark, she considered trying to go back to sleep for a few more hours. She knew it would make her mother worry less, but she had fulfilled her promise, and she was sure her brain was going to do nothing but buzz with worry about what was happening at the office anyway.

      She leaned over and flipped the switch to turn on her bedside lamp. A soft light splashed up the wall and across the plush black-and-white rug stretched out over her hardwood floor. Making one last decision to get the day started, she pulled her red cotton nightshirt over her head.

      Her feet stepped into the soft rug, carefully manicured nails dotting the carpet temporarily with bright pink polish. She caught her figure in the dresser mirror and stopped to admire the round curve of her ample rear end, leading down to legs that were just starting to show some muscle definition. If nothing else, climbing the tall, dark staircase to her office at least four times a day was starting to pay off. She ran a hand over her breast, watching the nipple perk up as if someone was ready to give her a little attention. Not today, girl, she thought, peeling her eyes from the mirror and heading for the shower.

      She had her morning routine down to a mere fifteen minutes by that time in her life. A quick shower with floral-scented gel. Shampoo and conditioner every other day. A few minutes to partially blow-dry her hair. A few more to yank a pair of blue jeans from a hanger, followed by a hoodie or T-shirt, depending on the weather. Either boots or athletic shoes to ensure comfort, and she was out the door.

      That day, however, her car wasn’t in the garage as usual. It was at a tow yard across town, waiting to be hauled away by the insurance company. An elderly man had blown through a red light the day before, hitting the back end of her Malibu and sending her off the road and speeding toward a telephone pole. She had turned the wheel sharply to avoid a head-on collision with the pole, but it bounced down the passenger side and broke the car’s back axle.

      Now Trinity sat on her couch staring at the black television screen, wondering how long it had been since she had turned it on. Did she even know where the remote was?

      Shrugging off the useless thoughts, she turned to her cell phone and the job of downloading an app and summoning a rideshare. Her small town had established a community rideshare program the year before, giving jobs to some of the locals and solving transportation issues for a growing population of teenagers, single moms, and senior citizens.

      Trinity had once rolled her eyes at the thought of depending on someone else to get her safely to and from work, but now she was glad to have the option. With no family in town and no hint of a social life outside of a slew of one-night stands, she had no one to call for a personal favor.

      Less than thirty minutes later, headlights flared from the end of her driveway. It was faster than she’d expected. Thankful that there was at least one other hardworking early riser in her sleepy town, she double-checked that everything she needed for the day was in her laptop case, stepped out onto the front porch, and locked her door before scurrying down the driveway toward her ride.

      Section Break

      When Darren’s phone first beeped with a rideshare opportunity, he almost rolled over without even looking at it. Who ordered a ride before six in the morning? It had never happened in his year of offering rides on the side, so the beeping notification drew him out of his sleep. His eye cocked halfway open in the direction of the phone, but it took a few more seconds for his hand to slowly extend upward and pull it from the top of his headboard.

      Trinity Walker. The name didn’t ring a bell, and he thought he knew just about everyone in Davies. He let the phone drop to his pillow, followed by his hand, and waited to see if someone else would give the lovely Ms. Walker a ride. He could hear the wind ripping against the side of his house, with a few raindrops here and there. After a few minutes, he picked the phone back up and opened one eye just enough to see the screen.

      She was still waiting, and she probably would have waited at least a couple of hours more had he not taken a deep breath and maneuvered his thumb over the accept button. He grabbed a T-shirt off his bedroom floor, slipped into his ripped blue jeans, and then slid on his old steel-toed boots. He didn’t even need a light to yank a ball cap over his head and make his way into the kitchen. As he collected his keys from the table, he watched the wind pull at the cushions on the outdoor furniture positioned on his back deck.

      He’d built that deck himself five years ago after purchasing the small house just outside the city limits and rebuilding nearly everything from the foundation up. The deck was his reward for working three jobs and securing his own home at the age of twenty-two. His intention was to quit a job or two and use it to spend more time just kicked back in complete relaxation.

      His phone chirped with a reminder that Ms. Walker, the early-morning delight, was waiting for her ride, and he snapped back to a reality where that relaxation was never going to happen. He had quit one job and then replaced it quickly with the rideshare program. It was supposed to be a

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