The Stronger You Lesbian Romance EBook Bundle (EBOOK BUNDLE)

• Traumatic Past/Healing Journey
• Slow Burn Romance
• Found Family
• Strong Female Lead
• Age Gap Relationship
• Workplace Romance
• Forced to Choose (between dream and love)
• Single Parent Romance

Chapter 1

DANI

I'm not drunk.

Well, I'm a little drunk, gazing intently at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. My hands and my head feel a little heavier than normal, and when I look at myself, the woman who stares back does so through hooded eyes and with a hazy smile. Through the door of the bathroom, I can still hear the music and laughter from the rest of the bar. The other patrons aren't ready to call it a night yet.

There's a knock at the door that startles me, and I look over at it. "Yeah?"

"Just checking you haven't fallen in."

I snatch up my purse from the sink and unlock the door, stepping back outside where my friends are waiting. Abby is leaning against the wall, nodding her head rhythmically in time to the music, and Beth is standing beside her, checking her phone.

"Your cab's here, right?" I ask, and Beth nods, stuffing her phone into her pocket.

"It's outside. Are you coming with us?"

We walk outside into the street, led by Abby, who's still dancing. The cold air is refreshing as it hits my face after the hot, stagnant air of the bar. We step out onto the sidewalk together, and I take a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment. It's better than a glass of water, and it helps to perk me up a little.

"Are you sure you don't want to get in the cab with us?" Abby asks.

She's drunker than I am. As we stand there on the street corner, she sways a little, struggling to find her balance on the sidewalk. Her mouth is set into a thin line that I've only ever seen on people who are drunk but trying not to look like they're drunk, and despite the effort she's putting in, she's struggling to focus on me. The last two tequila shots she insisted on doing before we left must have hit her.

"I only live a few blocks away," I assure her with a small smile. "You just focus on getting yourself home in one piece, okay?"

She hums in agreement, shooting me that hazy smile that only comes from someone who's drunk enough to pass out on the spot. "Mm, will do."

Beth, the eldest of our group and de facto mom-friend, is (as usual) the most sober out of everyone, and as she sees Abby stumble out towards the curb, she grabs her arm and tugs her back. She sighs heavily and shoots me a withering look, one that I've seen countless times before. "Sure you don't want to join us?"

The offer is there to help her almost as much as it's to help me, I realize with a small smile. If I get into the cab with them, I can help her deal with our mess of a friend.

Never leave your drink unattended and never walk home alone at night.

Those were the two optimistic pieces of advice my mother left me with when I started college, and just like every other night that I'm out drinking, they rattle around in the back of my head like a ghostly warning. Normally, it's advice that I listen to.

But the cool October air feels so good on my skin. It's a shame to waste one of the last nice nights of the year, right? It might be the last time I can comfortably walk home without shivering for another few months.

I shake my head, smiling. "I'll be okay."

"If you're not going to take us up on the ride, at least send me a text when you get home."

"I always do." I can see the cab they called already driving down the street, so I wave them goodnight and turn in the opposite direction to head back to my apartment.

The cool night air is sobering, and if Beth had been able to shoulder the burden of walking Abby home, maybe it would have helped her a little. I'm already feeling better than I did back in the bar, more alert and awake.

These streets are so familiar to me; I could probably walk through them with my eyes closed. There's the bookshop that's going to be converted into a Starbucks in a few months. Across the street is the little boutique that sells overpriced jewelry. Up ahead is the little independent coffee shop that's going to be put out of business when the Starbucks rolls into town. And up at the corner is---

The hairs on the back of my neck are standing to attention suddenly, and I feel an inexplicable shudder run down my spine. I can't explain it, but something just feels so deeply wrong. It feels like every nerve in my body is alight; every muscle locked up.

Something here isn't right.

It's the inescapable feeling that I'm not alone in the darkness. I don't know how I know, but I'm not alone on this street any more.

I've just passed the alley between the bookshop and a craft store, and there's something about that darkness that I don't like. It's unsettling.

Was that a footstep?

I'm sure I just heard something. I turn my head just a little, trying to look behind me without turning around fully, and my hand drifts to the clasp of my purse. What's in there? Do I have anything I can use to defend myself?

There's not much in there. My money, credit cards and keys. Probably a lipstick, maybe a screwed up tissue or two.

My fingers brush over the cold metal of the clasp, and something moves out of the corner of my eye. A figure, white against the darkness. Coming towards me.

Something knocks into me, and I go flying. I hit the sidewalk, and pain explodes across my body as I make contact. The concrete scrapes the delicate skin of my palms, and my knees feel like they're on fire. I screw my eyes up tightly and bring my knees to my chest, balling myself up. Maybe if I'm a smaller target, whoever this is will go away?

It doesn't work. Of course, it doesn't work.

Someone grabs my shoulders and forces me onto my back. I need to get help; I need to let someone---*anyone---*know what's happening. My mouth drops open to scream, but nothing comes out. All I can manage is a whimper.

Please, don't let this be what I think it is. Please, not like this.

There was a news article on my phone this morning about a woman who was raped and murdered on her way home from a late night shift at Burger King. It was across the city in one of the more dangerous areas of town. I scrolled past it without finishing the article. I scrolled past it because that could never happen to me. It could never happen here.

Never leave your drink unattended and never walk home alone at night.

"Give me the bag."

I open my eyes at the sound of my attacker's voice and look up at him. He's young. Too young to be doing something like this; too young to be stalking women in the night and attacking them on their way home. He should be in high school or college with those wisps of soft brown hair and that barely there stubble.

He's just a kid, just like any of the kids I see hanging out at McDonalds in the afternoon. He's so young that he hasn't even filled out the baggy jeans and big coat that are hanging off him. He's just a boy.

"The bag!" he repeats, raising his voice. It shakes, whether from anger or fear I can't tell which. "Give me the fucking bag!"

He pulls a pocket knife from inside the big coat and jabs it towards the strap of my bag, which is slipping from my shoulder. I was given this bag as a birthday present from my friends last year.

The knife catches the light and glints dangerously, and every muscle in my body locks up at once. I want to run. I want to get away from him more than anything in the world, but I just can't. I can't bring myself to move even an inch.

He reaches down and snatches the bag from me, and I flinch away from him instinctively. He flips the bag open and peers inside for a few moments, looking at the contents.

I could run now. He's distracted by the bag, so if I can make it to my feet, I can run. I'm near my apartment, maybe a couple of blocks. But even now, even while he's distracted, I can't move. My feet feel like they're encased in lead, far too heavy to move.

And even if I could run, there would be no point. I don't have the keys to my apartment. They're in my purse, and there's no way I can get that from him. So instead of running, I just stay there on the floor, trembling helplessly as he digs through my purse. Then when he's satisfied, he drops to a crouch in front of me.

"What else have you got?"

The knife shakes a little in his hand as he pushes it closer to my face, and I recoil instinctively, whimpering. I have nothing else to give him---I only ever carry the bare minimum amount of cash around with me, and I don't have anything else of value.

I don't want to tell him that.

If I admit I've got nothing else to hand over, what will he do?

"What else, bitch?!" he yells, his voice cutting through me. I push back against the wall of the nearby building, shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut. God, I just want this to be over. I just want to open my eyes and be alone on the street. I want this all to be some kind of vivid, fucked up nightmare.

"Nothing!" I sob. "Nothing! Nothing!"

He grabs my wrist so tightly that it hurts. His hand is slick with sweat as he tugs on my arm, pulling me towards him. I want to fight back, I want to get away from him, but I can't do anything. I can't fight, I can't run. I can't even scream.

He leans in close, peering at the gold ring on my middle finger intently. The breath catches in my throat as he twists my hand this way and that, so that the ring catches the street light above us.

Somehow, despite the fear that's locked every other muscle into place, I find my voice. "Please. Please don't take it."

He looks up from the ring on my finger and meets my gaze. Under the streetlight at this distance, I can make out the color of his eyes; they're a washed-out sickly gray, a ghostly imitation of someone else's. They narrow a little as he looks at me for a moment, and then he jabs the knife into the air close to me. "Give it to me."

"Please," I whisper, shaking my head. "My mom gave me this ring, please don't---"

"Give it to me!" he yells, his voice cracking with the strain. "Now!"

Just give it to him.

It's a ring, it's not worth my life, and I know that. I know that I should just slide it off my finger and give it to him, but I can't bring myself to move. So instead, when he realizes I'm not about to hand it over, he takes it.

The knife clatters against the sidewalk when he drops it, freeing up his hands so that he can rip the ring off my finger. The metal tugs against my skin, and he pulls the ring off so forcefully that, for a moment, I feel like he's going to dislocate my finger.

He inspects it for a moment before stuffing it into his pocket, satisfied with it. It's worth more than the money on my cards and in my purse, and it's the only thing of any actual value that I have on me.

Please, I beg silently. Please, just leave me alone.

He's taken everything I have. I've got nothing more to give him, and I'm completely useless. I've seen his face, I'd be able to pick him out of a lineup if the police were ever to catch up to him. Does he know that? Does he know it's a risk to leave me alive?

Is he going to kill me for that ring?

I don't know how long I wait there on the floor. It feels like forever, but eventually he backs up. His footsteps get faster, and then they fade into the distance as he gets further away from me, before disappearing around the corner.

He's gone, and now that I'm alone in the silence of the side street, it's like a rope around my neck that's been keeping me silent has loosened. I finally let out the shaky sob that's been building up in my throat and collapse back against the wall.

I'm alive.

He left me alive.

I can't stay here. I can't stay curled up on the sidewalk like this. I'm vulnerable. He could come back. I need help. I need to call for help.

My phone.

I pat at the pockets of my jacket desperately as I hunt for it, feeling for the familiar lump against my hands. Thank God he didn't tell me to empty my pockets, or I'd have nothing.

My hands shake so much as I pull it out of my pocket that it slips from my grasp and clatters against the floor. I scrabble at the ground to pick it up, the concrete coarse against my fingertips as I snatch it up and click the power button over and over again, as quickly as I can.

The screen lights up as it goes through to 911 and rings. Please, someone pick up.

It rings once, twice, three times with no answer. How long am I supposed to wait here, with the cold seeping through the seat of my jeans?

Another ring. Please, someone pick up. Please.

I bring my knees to my chest, hugging them tightly. When I close my eyes, all I can see is the headline I scrolled past this morning so carelessly. Is this how that poor woman felt?

Finally, the ringing stops, and I raise my head.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Chapter One

The first time Abs saw the kid who lived across the hall from her mom, she thought nothing of her. Neighbors seemed to come and go, but her mom, who had lived here since Abs had left home twelve years ago, never seemed to mind. Abs and the girl just nodded to each other like how neighbors do and then went their separate ways. She barely even registered the full bag of groceries that hung in the girl's hand, but when she thought about it later, she realized it was another one of those signs that she should have picked up on much sooner.

But she didn't. She didn't pick up on the signs, no matter how glaringly obvious they should have been—to her, of all people. When she saw the girl coming home after dark on her own, Abs just assumed she was mature for her age. She just thought she was a 'good kid'. Quiet and respectful, and always willing to help her parents.

It wasn't until garbage day when Abs suspected something was up. She offered to take the trash out for her mom on her way out of the building, and that was when she spotted the girl from across the hall. Gracie, her mom had said her name was. She was coming out of her own apartment with a black garbage bag in her hands, practically dragging it along the floor because it was too heavy. Gracie closed the door behind her, and hoisted the bag up with both hands to carry it as she headed towards the stairs. As she did so, Abs heard a noise coming from inside the girl's bag.

The hollow sound of glass knocking against glass.

The sound caught Abs's attention as she followed behind the girl towards the stairwell—a gentle clink as the bag swayed with every footstep. It was unmistakable.

Sure, it could have been something else; it could have been jars of pasta sauce, or glass milk bottles, or a whole bunch of other things. It wasn't necessarily bottles of alcohol.

But it sure sounded like it. It sounded exactly like those bags Abs would haul out to the recycling late at night as a teenager, long after her father had passed out in an armchair with his mouth open in a snore.

Abs followed the teenager down to the garbage disposal. There wasn't a trash chute in her mom's building, so all the residents had to go to the first floor to dump their garbage in the dumpster by the alley. The two walked down the stairwell in silence, with Gracie leading the way until they reached the fire escape door that led outside.

"You want me to take that out for you?" Abs offered. She knew the dumpster was close enough so the girl could most likely just throw it in, but she felt bad for the kid. She knew how heavy those garbage bags could be when you were young, especially after lugging them down three flights of stairs.

Gracie looked around in surprise, as though she'd somehow forgotten that Abs was there. She looked her up and down, a little suspiciously, before finally nodding.

"Sure."

Abs bent down to grab the bag from Gracie's hand, lifting it up easily. It was heavy, but she managed to lift it as though it weighed nothing at all.

"Mind holding the door open for me?" Abs asked, before stepping out into the alleyway.

The chilly night air bit at her face as Abs stepped out into the darkness between the apartment building and the weak light that hung over the dumpster. With the ease and grace of someone who'd done this a hundred times before, Abs swung the first bag up and into the dumpster, closely followed by the second.

Before stepping back into the building, Abs looked up and down the dark alley. To her left, the alley led out onto the street where the distant lamps cast an orange glow. To her right, the alley came to an abrupt dead-end where the building stopped. She couldn't even tell how far back that was though, because none of the lights stretched that far. Beyond the circle of light that came from the open fire escape, the rest of the alley was an inky dark void.

Yeah, Abs decided. She definitely wouldn't have let her own teenage daughter, if she had one, down here to take out the trash at night. Hell, she didn't even feel that safe out here.

"You coming in?" Gracie called from the doorway. "Or should I just leave you out there?"

"I'm coming." Abs drew her gaze from the darkness of the alley and turned back to Gracie, who was waiting for her, half hanging out of the doorway. Abs stepped back inside, letting the door swing shut behind her, and double-checked that it had locked.

The two began walking back up the staircase towards their floor, side by side, in an uncomfortable silence. Gracie had her hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her jeans, with her head bent down low to avoid eye contact.

"You're Gracie, right?" Abs said finally. The teenager just nodded silently. "I'm Maria's daughter, Abby, but everyone calls me Abs."

"Oh, right?" Gracie's voice sounded distant, like she wasn't even really paying attention. "Fire."

"Guess that makes us sort of like neighbors, huh?" Abs chuckled nervously. She had no children of her own, and no siblings either, which meant no young nieces or nephews. She always felt so hopeless at talking to anyone under the age of eighteen.

"Do you live with your mom?" Gracie asked.

"Well, no," Abs admitted.

"Then we're not neighbors," Gracie said flatly.

Shit, okay, kid. Fuck me for trying to make conversation then.

"I guess not," Abs agreed, deciding it was best to just keep her mouth shut. Gracie clearly didn't want to talk, and it was understandable. If she was a teenager, she probably wouldn't have wanted to talk to the weirdly, friendly adult daughter of her neighbor, either.

As they reached their floor, Gracie turned to Abs, looking her in the eyes. "Thanks for doing that."

"No problem." Abs offered a friendly smile, one Gracie didn't bother returning. "I'll see you around, I guess."

"Yeah. See you around." Gracie walked past Abs to get to her apartment. She pushed the door open—not much, just enough to slip inside—and then the door closed and latched behind her.

Abs unlocked the door to her mom's apartment and wandered inside, kicking off her shoes by the doorway. Her mom was right where she'd left her, bustling around the kitchen.

"I bumped into that kid again. What are you doing?"

"Nothing," her mom called out, her head halfway into one of the cupboards. "What kid?"

"The kid from across the hall. Gracie."

Abs narrowed her eyes as she took a step towards her mother. Although the layout of her apartment kitchen was different to the kitchen of Abs's childhood home, her mother was a slave to routine, and she'd organized her kitchen in much the same way as her old one. That was why Abs knew, without even looking into the cupboard, that her mother was hunting for baking supplies. The cupboard to the right of the stove had always been reserved for baking trays, cake tins, mixing bowls, and scales. Always.

"Are you baking something?"

Her mother paused and drew her head out of the cupboard meekly. "Maybe."

"Don't you dare. You know what the doctor said." Abs pointed down to the cast on her mother's right hand, the one she'd been sporting for two weeks now. "No lifting or strain. Let it heal."

"But you've been doing so much for me the past couple of weeks. I just wanted to give you something—as a thank you."

"You can thank me by not damaging your wrist any more than it already is." Abs helped her mother up off the kitchen floor with a smile, before pulling her sleeve back. "You don't want to end up like me, do you?"

She held her hand up, wiggling her fingers. Under the bright kitchen lights, the thin scars that ran along her thumb and index finger showed up clearly against her tanned skin.

"Okay, okay." Her mother waved her away with her one good hand. "I get your point. I won't do anything for myself, I'll just sit here like some old woman, waiting for my daughter to take care of me. You may as well just throw me in a home right now."

"Okay." Abs grinned. "You want me to drop you off on my way home?"

A broken wrist wasn't the end of the world. In fact, it wasn't even the end of the year—the doctors had assured her mom that she should only need the cast for eight weeks, maybe even a little less. But of course, in the meantime, it meant that she needed to rely on her daughter to do things like carry the laundry down to the basement, or take out the heavy garbage bags that she needed two hands for. Even baking with her heavy trays and thick glass mixing bowls would strain her wrist.

Perhaps that stubbornness was woven deep into her mother's DNA, though. After all, Abs had been the same after the operation on her hand, and still stubbornly claimed that it wasn't as bad as the doctors had made it out to be.

"Anyway," her mom said, eager to change the subject. "You said you saw Gracie?"

"Yeah, she was taking out the garbage for her parents." Abs paused, thinking about the sound of bottles clinking together inside the garbage bag. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe she was just projecting her own childhood memories onto the girl and her family.

"It's her father that lives across the hall." Abs's mother scowled at the door, like she could see through it and into the other apartment. "Her parents are divorced. And it's no surprise why."

"Not a fan of your next-door neighbor?" Abs asked, leaning on the kitchen counter. There was a pause while her mother struggled to find the right way to express just why she found the man so intolerable.

"Ed reminds me—of your father." It was the only way she could sum it up, but it was enough. More than enough, in fact, for Abs to understand; not just her mother's expression, but Gracie's behavior.

Suddenly, coming home with grocery shopping made sense. Getting herself to and from school alone, even though this wasn't exactly a safe part of the city, made sense. She wasn't just a 'good kid'. She wasn't just 'mature for her age', or any of the other ways that Abs herself had been described when she was growing up.

"Oh," was all she could say.

"Hmm." Her mother nodded with a sigh. "If anything, he's worse than your father. I mean, at least he seemed to care about your well-being. But Ed... I don't know, maybe I'm judging him too hastily. But whenever I talk to him about Gracie, he just seems so...cold."

"Poor kid," Abs said quietly, looking back towards the door she'd just come through. She couldn't help but feel just a little guilty for overlooking the signs. Gracie wasn't helping out with chores when she took the garbage out; she didn't have a choice in the matter. She wasn't mature for her age when she picked up groceries after school; she just knew that if she didn't, she would go hungry.