Vanlife: A Lesbian Romance Novel

By Nicolette Dane

Hit the road with two freewheeling ladies and experience love in a van in this bohemian lesbian romance!

 

Julia Marks isn't one to stick around very long. She's blissfully living the vanlife, crossing the country as she pleases, working odd jobs to fund her lifestyle, treading lightly, and leaving no trace behind her. But despite the immense freedom she has as a bohemian nomad, she can't help but feel that something's missing.

 

A quick trip through Madison turns far more interesting for Julia when she meets Robin Hyland. Robin is searching for answers, and a chance encounter between the two women opens up a brand new adventure that neither expected. While Julia didn't anticipate having a passenger in her van, it's hard to say no to a pretty redhead who's looking to find herself.

 

Now these two women must navigate the difficult route ahead of them together. Can love prevail over the challenges of life on the road?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicolette Dane
• Release date: Sep 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386485049

Book preview

VANLIFE

A LESBIAN ROMANCE NOVEL

NICOLETTE DANE

VANLIFE

Julia Marks isn't one to stick around very long. She's blissfully living the vanlife, crossing the country as she pleases, working odd jobs to fund her lifestyle, treading lightly, and leaving no trace behind her. But despite the immense freedom she has as a bohemian nomad, she can't help but feel that something's missing.

A quick trip through Madison turns far more interesting for Julia when she meets Robin Hyland. Robin is searching for answers, and a chance encounter between the two women opens up a brand new adventure that neither expected. While Julia didn't anticipate having a passenger in her van, it's hard to say no to a pretty redhead who's looking to find herself.

Now these two women must navigate the difficult route ahead of them together. Can love prevail over the challenges of life on the road?

CONTENTS

Copyright

About The Author

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One

Two

Three

Get 3 Free Books!

Snowed Under

All Good Stuff

Farm To Table

Back On Her Feet

Trail Blazer

Dirty Job

Hidden Treasures

An Excerpt: Snowed Under

Thank You

Copyright © 2017 Nicolette Dane

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicolette Dane landed in Chicago after studying writing in New York City. Flitting in and out of various jobs without finding her place, Nico decided to choose herself and commit to writing full-time. Her stories are contemporary scenarios of blossoming lesbian romance and voyeuristic tales meant to give you a peep show into the lives of sensual and complicated women. If you're a fan of uplifting and steamy lesbian passion, you've found your new favorite author.

www.nicolettedane.com

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ONE

Julia took off running. Her dark hair flapped behind her in the wind, and she had a wide smile on her face. She had a gallon jug of water against her chest, both arms wrapped around it. In her loose white tee and shorts, speeding across the gravel yard in her worn sneakers, Julia felt free. A quick look back revealed a security guard giving chase, but he was so far behind it didn’t really matter. She started to laugh. She just couldn’t help herself.

As she rounded a big building, Julia came upon a parking lot full of cars. She kept running, weaving through some of the cars with a good idea of exactly where she needed to go. Another look back, and the guard was nowhere to be seen. Julia ran even faster, sprinting now toward one of the cars in the lot. It was a red van that looked as though it had seen some miles. Coming around to the side of the van, Julia yanked open the sliding door, hopped in, and slammed the door behind her.

She was still laughing. Sweaty, out of breath, exhausted, but she was still laughing. Julia slipped the gallon jug of water underneath her small kitchen counter, which was really just a piece of butcher block that she had installed next to a tiny sink. She sat crosslegged on the laminate wood floor of her van, reminding herself to stay quiet. And then she reminded herself to lock the door, and she swiftly leaned forward to do just that. Not that she’d be caught. The chase was over. She had disappeared.

Once she had made her escape, Julia sat in the driver seat of the van and cruised down the tree-lined road. The windows were down, and a nice cool breeze wafted inside. The radio played a song to which Julia knew most of the words. She sung along happily, drumming on the steering wheel, mumbling something incoherent whenever a line of the song appeared that she didn’t know. Julia had no place to be, and that made her happy.

Everything she owned in the world, which was very little, was in this van. In the back was her bed, propped up by a plywood frame she made herself, some books, her laptop, a little bit of clothing, her favorite tea kettle. It was all here. She could go anywhere, and do anything, all for very little money at all. The money part was always something she was trying to figure out. But it wasn’t as stressful as it was when she lived in a fancy apartment, working a fancy corporate job, spending all the money she did have on fancy things and going out. Life was simpler in the van, and she preferred it that way.

Julia drove east until the lake came into view. There was a nature preserve right on Lake Michigan, up here in northern Illinois near the Wisconsin border, that she knew she could camp out in. If you knew your way around, there were a few service roads you could go down and nobody would find you. It was easy to hide out, at least for a night. And much better than paying to stay at an RV park or taking a chance on some empty city street. Julia preferred being out in nature. It was one of the reasons she started this journey to begin with.

Confident that she was alone in the preserve, Julia navigated her van down a thin gravel road and continued to her secluded spot. She had turned her radio off just in case somebody was wandering around. But it was unnecessary. Everybody was at the beach on this beautiful afternoon. And that’s exactly where she’d be going next. If she could live on the beach full-time, she would. But parking a van on the beach wasn’t really a realistic goal.

Pulling in behind some trees and overgrown bushes, a spot she had used before in her travels, Julia cut the engine and hopped out of her van. She stretched her arms wide and sighed happily, looking out at the forest that would be her campsite for the night. Then, walking around the van, she hefted open the sliding door and looked inside gleefully, hands on her hips. It never got old, opening her van up and seeing her life in front of her. Rather, it gave her a sense of hope.

Julia patted her shorts to see if she had anything in the pockets. Then, reaching in to her front pocket, she pulled out her sillcock key. It was a key she could use, as she did not too much earlier, to open up various locked water spigots to refill her supply of clean water. It wasn’t something she did all that often, as it was usually easy enough to find water she could take, but sometimes she had to bend the law a bit to stay hydrated. She dropped the key into the pouch behind the passenger seat and then promptly began taking all of her clothes off.

She wasn’t shy, and standing there naked next to her van caused no alarm for Julia at all. Without a care in the world, she took her time fishing through her things to find her swimsuit and subsequently put it on. She filled a small bottle from the water jug she had just procured. She stuffed a towel into a bag, along with a few other things, and then she slammed the van door shut. In a thin pair of flip flops and just her bikini, canvas bag hoisted up on her shoulder, Julia walked a familiar path through the trees and toward the lake.

Once Julia broke through the forested area, she walked down a short sandy hill, across a paved road, and then down toward the beach. There were people all over. It took Julia a moment to realize why so many people were at the beach. It was Saturday, the weekend to all of these people. But to Julia, every day felt like Saturday. Just a couple of changes in her life, and she allowed herself to live a perpetual weekend. Unperturbed by the crowd, Julia slipped her feet through the soft sand, now carrying her flip-flops, and made her way toward the water.

Lying out on a towel now, belly down, head to one side while sunglasses covered her eyes, memories of her previous life crept into Julia’s head. She remembered looking at herself in the full-length mirror, wearing a grey suit jacket and matching pencil skirt, black heels, her hair impeccably straightened. She would go to the office every day, sit at her desk, answer emails, field phone calls, organize meetings, all to reach some far-off sales goal that felt increasingly meaningless. Julia had an enviable position, high up in sales at a software company, but nothing she ever did at work made her feel like she was moving forward. Rather, it just felt like she was going through the motions.

And then there were the nights out, the drinking, the partying, the drugs, and worse. Occasionally she'd find herself in a relationship, but those would usually end in fights about money or the partying. It got dark. And the disenchantment Julia felt with her working life only manifested itself even greater in her night life. Julia was stuck, she needed some sort of change to feel like she was on the right track. All Julia could see was that she was working a job she hated to pay for stuff she didn’t want. It reached a tipping point. Soon the job was gone, then a lot of the stuff, and then finally the condo and everything else she had been using to define her life.

Julia smiled on the beach, the sun warming her backside. Life was much different now than it had been in the past. It was a different kind of struggle, but it was a more welcome struggle. Julia lived on the fringes, and while she didn’t have the abundance she once had, she was infinitely happier. Still, she felt like there was something missing. Some kind of loneliness that she couldn’t get over. You meet a lot of people in her lifestyle, but everyone has their own agenda, their own path, and ultimately their own destination. You learn to open up quickly and say goodbye without sadness. Without visible sadness, at least.

But there was a sadness within all those goodbyes. It was hard to ignore.

Flipping over onto her back, Julia looked up at the sky through the shade of her sunglasses and tried to think about what was next for her. She was heading up to Madison for a little while to housesit for some people she found online. It didn’t pay anything, it was a straight up trade for a place to sleep, but she did have a connection at a bar and she knew she could pick up a couple of bartending shifts. As the summer began winding down, she knew she’d have to go south or west to follow the weather. But she didn’t have those plans figured out yet. Julia closed her eyes for a few as she meditated on it.

Excuse me, an authoritative voice said, breaking through the sound of waves and people playing.

Yeah? said Julia, opening her eyes now and looking up. Above her stood a ranger dressed in dark khaki. He had his hands on his belt.

Are you Julia Marks? said the ranger.

I might be, said Julia.

Is that your red van parked down one of our service roads? he asked. It was obvious he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking.

Maybe, Julia replied.

We saw you drive down there, said the ranger. And we saw you walk down toward the beach. We ran your plates. Ma’am, you can’t park back there. Move your van now or else we’re going to have it towed.

Damn, mused Julia, sitting up now and crossing her arms.

I know you’re boondocking, said the ranger. But you can’t do that here. There’s an RV park a little bit south at Illinois Beach. You can park there.

But that place isn’t very nice, said Julia. Plus it’s $25 and it’s crowded.

Ma’am, said the ranger firmly. I could have just had you towed, but I’m being nice. It’s for your own safety that you don’t park back there. Park in the designated areas and do it the right way.

All right, Julia acquiesced, standing up now, quickly yanking her towel from the sand, and stuffing it back into her bag.

I’m a part-timer myself, said the ranger. I go off for a couple of months in winter. I’m not trying to get you in trouble. I just have to maintain public safety here in the park, that’s it.

I know, said Julia with some grumpiness in her voice, still packing up her things. I’ll move.

Thank you, said the ranger, thumbing the brim of his hat.

Without another word, Julia pushed her bag up her shoulder and stomped back the way she came, feet moving through the hot sand. She hadn’t even got to swim. But she was grateful she hadn’t been towed. She would just have to find some place even more secluded and try again.

This is the kitchen, said Emma, the wife, motioning with her hand to the very modern kitchen that the three of them now stood in. Anything you need should be easily accessible. Juicer on the counter, pots and pans hanging here. We’ve left some food in the fridge for you, and in the pantry, so please feel free to eat whatever you like.

Thanks, said Julia with a smile, looking around the kitchen and taking it all in.

There’s a chest freezer out in the garage, said Aaron, Emma’s husband. That’s filled with frozen items, including hamburgers and sausages, that kind of stuff.

Thank you, said Julia to Aaron. I don’t eat meat.

All right, replied Aaron, returning her smile. Then don’t worry about the freezer.

I won’t, said Julia happily.

Just keep it all clean, Emma continued on. Don’t worry about the yard, as we’ll have a gardening service come once a week while we’re away. We really just need you to collect the mail, make it look like someone’s living here, and let us know if anything weird happens.

I can definitely do that, said Julia. I do this all the time, and I’m very experienced.

I hope it’s not too lonely, said Emma empathetically. Do you know anybody in Madison?

I do, said Julie. No worries. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.

Here’s the garage door opener, said Aaron, reaching out to the granite countertop to grab the clicker. He held it up and showed it to Julia. You can park your van in there.

That’s great, said Julia. I appreciate that.

"Do you… live in your van?" asked Emma gingerly.

I do, Julia replied confidently. I travel full-time in it, all across the country, unless I’ve got a housesit like this scheduled.

That’s pretty cool, Aaron admitted. So, like, a never-ending road trip?

Basically, said Julia. I’m having a fun time for now, so I just figure… keep going.

Well, we’ll be away for a month, said Emma. We’ve got a trip planned around Europe. We just need you to stay put for a while right here. She gave a nervous laugh.

I’m not going anywhere, smiled Julia. Until you get back, that is. Then I’ll need to head some place warm for the fall and winter.

All right, said Emma. That’s great. Let us show you your room.

After getting a tour of the house and some more instructions, the couple handed Julia a set of keys and said their goodbyes. A car pulled up and carried them away, while Julia stood on the front porch and waved. The house was in a quaint neighborhood in Madison, the street was

Reviews for Vanlife

[Elaine · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Easy read. Good story. I loved it. Fellow van life.