Chapter 3 

Jackson turned off the light and laughed at Natalia’s antics and the moment the water turned off he managed to compose himself. 

The second she opened the bathroom door her sweet scent hit Jackson’s nostrils. He breathed in the delicious fragrance and shifted his body in the Queen size bed.

Natalia made her way into the living room and plopped down on the couch doing her best to get comfortable. 

Jackson started laughing to himself remembering her screaming over a spider.

“I’m glad you find me amusing,” yelled Natalia from the couch. 

“And what was that dance you were doing? You looked like a court jester on crack.” He continued laughing and couldn’t seem to control himself. “I wish I caught that on video! Jumping up and down with your legs moving like the earth would swallow you whole.” 

Natalia did her best not to laugh. “That dance is a very famous dance, it’s called to kill a tarantula, you should learn it.” 

Jackson laughed even harder and almost fell off the bed. Every time he stopped he started laughing again. “Thanks, I’m all set. I wouldn’t want to steal the thunder from you.” 

It was quiet for a few seconds when Jackson began laughing again. “A tarantula! It has teeth! Oh my god!”

Natalia rolled her pillow around her head to drown out Jackson’s laughing and just as she closed her eyes she felt something across her cheek and screamed.

“Oh, my bad, it was my hair,” said Natalia moving the golden strand from her face.

Jackson laughed at Natalia. “There’s no spiders in there, I’m sure you checked everywhere. They’re probably hiding from you anyway.” 

“I hope so,” said Natalia closing her eyes too tired to fight to stay awake.

The morning sun came in through the living room window waking Natalia from her deep sleep. She opened her eyes, stretched, and pulled on her robe. With a sigh, she padded her way into the bathroom and began getting ready for her first day at her new job.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she marched into her bedroom, lifted up all the bedding deciding that the washing machine will annihilate any spider remains. Once satisfied with her progress she fixed her hair and makeup and dressed in a black jersey knit dress with her new black boots. 

“Good morning,” said Jackson looking at Natalia standing there with her beautiful golden hair cascading down her back in huge loose curls. Her manicured eyebrows accented her bright blue, almond shaped eyes while her small button nose and beautiful high cheekbones added to her allure. Her thick full pink lips were glossed to perfection with a body that was graced with curves in all the right places. Surely her beauty could rival Aphrodite herself. 

Feeling his eyes on her, Natalia turned and smiled shyly at him. “Good morning Jackson, I’m headed into town today. I’ll stop off at the real estate office and see if they have anything else available.”

“Good luck with that Natalia, this was the only place listed, the rest of the places are expensive and not as nice. But please, go and see.”

“Duly noted. If you’re hungry there’s food in the refrigerator, pantry, and cabinets. Knock yourself out.” 

“Thanks. I’ll be at work all day and won’t be home till around six or seven,” said Jackson.

“Enjoy your day,” said Natalia taking a seat at the kitchen table. Turning on her iPad, she checked her emails and choked when she opened the email from Thomas.

Natalia, 

I don’t remember discussing your leaving me. I thought we were together for the long haul. I made one little mistake and I’m sorry, please forgive me.

I want you home by tonight, I’m not joking. If you’re not home, I’m coming to find you. Trust me, you don’t want that 

Love, Thomas

Jackson walked over to Natalia with concern taking in her nervous demeanor. “Is everything all right? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” 

Natalia closed out her emails, turned to face Jackson with a fake smile while lifting up her chin in defiance, “I’m fine, my tea is a little too hot and ended up burning my tongue.” 

“I hate when that happens,” said Jackson pouring some coffee into a mug and fixing it. Once satisfied, he pulled out the chair across from her and sat down with a thump watching her knowing something in the iPad clearly terrified her. Finishing up his coffee, he pulled back on the chair and said in a masculine voice, “I have to get going. Have a great day.”

“You too,” said Natalia glancing up at Jackson. “Stay out of trouble if you can.” 

Jackson turned to Natalia and raised his eyebrow at her. “If you get a chance today, go buy yourself a cell phone. You never know when you will need one.” 

“Is there a phone store around here?” 

“Google it, I’m sure there’s a bunch. Just make sure you pick a good service provider that has antennas in this area,” said Jackson winking at Natalia. 

Jackson laughed as he closed the door and made his way out to his Dodge Charger. He paused for a second and copied down Natalia’s license plate and headed off to work. 

She finished the laundry and managed to put her room back together. Looking at the time she grabbed her things and stepped outside and inhaled. 

“It smells like snow!” she said excitedly while buttoning up her coat. She loved being outside and smiled, looking at all the little homes of all different shapes and sizes deciding walking to work was the way to go.

She made her way to the main street and shivered as the temperature began to drop. Shivering, she walked into the real estate office and spoke to the first person to help her.

“Hello, I’m David Kelly, how may I help you?”

“Hi David, I was here yesterday and rented the beautiful white cottage on the water. It seems the place has been rented to myself and a gentleman named Jackson O’Malley, neither of us are friends,” said Natalia as she removed her gloves and shifted her position. “So perhaps you have another cottage available?” 

“Yes, I remember you, I’m the one that put the cottage on hold for you,” said David ushering Natalia over to his desk. “Please sit down, let’s see what we have.” 

Natalia waited to see what David would come up with but nothing seemed to be available.

“I honestly don’t have anything at the moment in the price range you’re looking for, however, I do have some beautiful places for rent that are triple of what you’re paying if you’re interested.” 

Natalia looked at the homes and frowned. “I honestly don’t want to go over my budget. Eventually I would like to buy something, which is why I took that particular cottage in the first place. They are renting with the option to buy.” 

“Let me see how we somehow rented the cottage to two different parties. It just seems so odd,” said David shuffling through all the paperwork on his desk. “Oh, perhaps this will help, both you and Mr. O’Malley called the office at approximately the same time. It says here that Mr. O’Malley received a promotion at work and was transferred to this location from Salisbury, Maryland.” He looked at the paperwork and noticed that the girl they fired yesterday is the exact same girl that handled his paperwork. His face turned beet red as he continued reading.

“Is everything okay?” asked Natalia watching David begin to fidget in his seat.

“Miss Greco, I apologize, clearly you were the first person to rent the cottage. It seems somehow the young lady we fired yesterday became extremely spiteful and ended up renting the cottage to Mr. O’Malley even though it was rented already. I’m so sorry, this has never happened before so I’m not exactly sure how to handle this.”

Natalia watched as David began to get extremely nervous and began shaking. 

“Listen David, it’s clearly not your fault, please calm down. I’m not going to make a complaint or cause a problem. Just keep me in mind if anything should become available.” She stood up and shook his hand and walked out the door and over to the restaurant.

“There you are Natalia!” said Angus; “I’ve been getting phone calls and reservations since I opened up.” He moved closer to her and hugged her. “I’m so happy you’re early, I have a feeling we’re going to be busy.” 

Natalia smiled at Angus. “I told you I’m excellent at marketing. I hope you’re not mad at me but I offered a ten percent discount coupon for the entire month of January. 

“Mad? I love the idea,” said Angus as he took Natalia’s coat.

Angus stood there smiling as he towered over Natalia. He stood approximately 6’ 2” with short blond hair he kept spiked to perfection, round hazel eyes, a straight nose, perfect teeth with thin lips and a square jaw. His look was more on the rugged side with a warm personality, which made him easy to approach. 

“I’m so happy you’re not angry with me, but in order to attract customers, you have to give something to get something,” said Natalia nervously.

“I am grateful that someone actually took the time to do this for me. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while, just kept postponing it.” 

“Oh thank goodness. I was a little nervous.” Natalia laughed as she walked behind the bar and began setting it up. “Is my attire okay? I never asked about what you expect me to wear.” 

Angus looked at Natalia. “I think I’m going to let you decide what you want to wear. The bartender should stand out and you my dear definitely stand out.” 

Once she finished setting up the bar to her liking Angus introduced her to his wait staff and before they knew it the place got busy. Natalia with the help of Angus learned how to take food orders and put them into the system and before long she managed to handle each and every customer with warmth and affection. 

At the end of the night the wait staff tipped her out and began cleaning for the next day. Angus walked over to Natalia. “This is an extra bonus for you. Thank you so much for bringing life to my restaurant in such slow times.” 

Natalia smiled up at him. “Thank you so much. I’ll see you tomorrow, same time, same place.” Looking at her watch she realized how late it was and quickly left the restaurant. The cold snowy night air enveloped her causing every fiber of her being to shiver. She moved into the street and walked as briskly as possible doing her best not to slip and screamed as someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her off her path.