“A few months before the fire,” I said quietly, barely realizing that I’d started talking out loud, “Dad made me promise toalways look after my brothers. Said I was the oldest, that they’d always look up to me. That I had to set the example.”
Blue didn’t interrupt, even after I paused, so I kept going.
“I thought they’d both leave town after school, just like I had. I worked hard to turn what Mom and Dad left me into something that could take care of all of us. Dad used to say money was the one thing he wished he’d had more of, so it was my mission to make it happen. But Easton and Miles stayed and found their peace here. So instead of giving them a life of luxurious yachts and penthouses, I made it my mission to keep the town alive for them, even if I didn’t want to live in it myself.”
“That’s why you buy all the old houses?” she asked.
I nodded. “Dad wanted to bring families back to homes everyone else thought were unlivable.”
She glanced toward the house. “What about this one?”
I looked at the weathered siding, the broken windows. The skeleton of the place that had built me. All the furniture was still inside, worn and scarred by the fire and years of neglect. “It’s time this one got a second chance, too. But it’s not going to be me who makes that happen.”
We walked farther out into the field behind the house. I didn’t expect to find any joy in the visit, but Blue kept asking simple questions about the trees, the wildflowers, and laughing when I admitted I didn’t know the answers.
By the time we made it back to the truck, my chest felt looser, though my legs were heavy. She sighed contentedly and wrapped her arms around my waist, her head against my chest.
“You know,” she whispered, “we’re a lot alike. Both grew up wanting out of our small towns. You set your sights on the big city. I just wanted to cross the tracks into Harmony Haven.”
I smiled, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “You’re almost there.”
Chapter Forty-Three
BLUE
It tookeverything in me to keep my hands off West while we were at his parents’ house. Every time his body would tense or his eyes would show sadness, I wanted to erase it. I wanted to make him forget the past with something new, something good. But that house wasn’t the place for that. It was part of his family’s history, and I decided only permanent memories belonged there.
Once we got back to the lake house, though, we barely got the front door closed before I was in his arms, kissing him like I’d been holding my breath for hours. I begged him to make love to me the way he had so many times before. When we finally collapsed, tangled in the sheets, sleep found us, but it wasn’t restful.
By three in the afternoon, my stomach was staging a protest. We hadn’t bought groceries yet, so I asked if he’d come run a couple errands with me.
“More than one?” he asked, suspicion in his tone.
“Just a few groceries, because we forgot earlier, and a quick stop at the fabric store to see Tammy. The pillows have to go.”
His laugh was loud and warm, but I wasn’t joking. I tossed him one ugly pillow to carry to the truck, tucking the other two under my arms like evidence in a crime scene.
At the fabric shop, I told him he could wait in the truck, but he didn’t. He followed me inside with the pillow like it was his assigned project.
The bell over the door jingled, and a voice from the back yelled, “Welcome! Be right there.”
I set the pillows on the counter and steered West down the aisles until I found the perfect fabric. “This one,” I said, bracing for him to hate it. Instead, his fingers brushed over it, his eyes flicking up to mine with a small, approving smile.
“This will look really good,” he said.
“Much better than the orange-and-brown whatever-that-is,” I agreed, waving toward the counter.
Tammy emerged from the back, zeroed in on the pillows, and then up at us as we walked back toward the front. Her eyes narrowed at me as she realized my arm was wrapped in West’s, making her polite smile freeze, then softened in a way I didn’t like.
“I thought I recognized this pattern,” she said, grabbing West’s free hand. “This was a custom print just for you, West.”
He slid his hand from hers and gently moved me forward. “My wife wants to change the pattern,” he said with a slight tick in his jaw.
I’d never figured out what I’d done to make Tammy dislike me, but watching her frown over this was pure entertainment.
“The navy with silver flecks,” I said sweetly, changing my mind to something that wouldn’t match just to be petty. “Can you redo the pillows in that?”
Tammy’s nose wrinkled. “The brown in these,” she patted the pillow like it was sacred, “matches the couch exactly. Silver will clash.”
