Overcome by Annmarie McKenna Read Free Book Online Page B

so she didn’t burn her bridges, but she couldn’t help feeling shit upon. Not that it was really Mr. Cameron’s fault. No, she placed every ounce of blame on Peter and Candy Apple.
    She sincerely hoped her ex’s penis shriveled up and fell off. This was supposed to be her week of new beginnings.
    Anna turned and left Mr. Cameron standing in his doorway. “Do you want the apartment or not?” he called after her.
    “Not.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “I need something today, Mr. Cameron. Otherwise you’ll find me in a homeless shelter two months from now.”
    “Mm. Sorry.” He jerked his head to the side. The look he gave her said he didn’t give a shit one way or another whether she had a place to live. The door closed.
    And so she stared limbo in the face.
    Where to go? She had to find something in the next four days or she’d also find herself out of a job since no one would want a homeless teacher leading their impressionable children.
    “Damn you, Peter.” Maybe if she cursed him enough…
    She stabbed her key into her car door, slipped into the seat with as much flounce as she could muster in the tight space, and rested her head on the headrest. “What the hell do I do now? Find a new place, that’s what. How hard can it be? There have to be places to rent around town.”
    She’d found this one easily enough when she’d first moved here. In fact she’d come based on an ad in the paper, and it had been the first one she’d looked at. Loving the space, she’d snatched it up, afraid if she’d taken the time to see more, she’d lose this one.
    There was another set of apartments over off 2 nd Street. She’d look at those and go from there.
    An hour later she wanted to cry. The place on 2 nd , aside from not looking the best, was full. Even if they hadn’t been full, they definitely didn’t appear to be the safest of places to live. Not because they were in a bad neighborhood—there really wasn’t a bad neighborhood in Trenton—it was the simple fact the buildings had to be a century old if they were a day and didn’t look like they’d ever been rehabbed. The manager there had pretty much laughed in her face when she’d asked him where the other complexes in town were.
    “We only got two here, lady. If you cain’t find nothin’, then you outta luck.” With those words, he’d sucked in a good amount of his half-gone cigarette, pivoted, and walked back to his TV behind the counter as if she’d disrupted an important business meeting. Sponge Bob blared from the speakers. That should have been her first clue to turn tail and run without even inquiring.
    Too bad desperate times called for desperate measures. And because of this, Anna had cruised every street of the town hoping Sponge watcher had been wrong. He hadn’t. There were no other apartments in town. The biggest complex was set aside for the students who attended the small college there. She would have to go into the nearby towns. Which was laughable since a nearby town of any size meant a minimum thirty-minute drive. She supposed she shouldn’t complain since many people probably drove more than that on a daily basis, but it wasn’t something she wanted to do. Especially not when winter and snow hit.
    A quick peek at her watch told her it was lunchtime. The grumble of her stomach did too, reminding her that she’d been too overwhelmed to attempt to eat breakfast. In fact, lunch didn’t sound so hot either, but starving herself wasn’t going to get her anywhere. And since she really didn’t relish the idea of sitting in her apartment and staring at the packed boxes of what had started out to be a new beginning, she decided to hit the diner. It was still a tad early for the lunch rush, so thankfully there was a space open near the entrance. The angled parking spots running along the front of the strip of shops were sometimes fought over. Usually good naturedly, sometimes not. Small towns had their share of hotheads