The Best of Me: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  “But…?” I asked, because I just knew there was a but coming. I might not have wanted to hear it, but I needed to get this over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, swift and without hesitation so he could leave and I could curl up into a ball and have myself a good long breakdown in privacy.

  “I shouldn’t have done this.”

  Okay, that killed. Squeezing my eyes closed against the onslaught of tears burning my eyes, I turned my head away and pulled in a much-needed breath.

  The mattress dipped a second later, and I felt the tips of his fingers under my jaw, turning my face back to his. With no other choice, I opened my eyes and realized I’d gotten it wrong. What I felt a few seconds ago hadn’t killed. The guilt in those grays just then did. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You said that already,” I croaked, my words thick with sadness.

  “Because it’s true,” he responded softly. “You have to believe me, darlin’. I didn’t realize I wasn’t ready for this until—” He stopped, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow. “I thought I was there, that enough time had passed. You deserve better than what I can give you, Nona. I never would’ve gone there if—”

  “God, please stop.” I held my hand up to silence him as my face twisted in pain. His words so far had sliced into me deep enough; I didn’t think I could handle anything more. “Just stop. I get it.”

  “Nona—”

  “No, really,” I cut in again, this time shoving my way off the bed with the sheet wrapped around me to hide my nakedness. “Like I said, I get it.” I began frantically moving around the room, searching for my panties. “Your divorce was basically just finalized.” I tagged them and struggled to get them up my legs without dropping the sheet. “I totally understand.”

  “Nona, please just—”

  I shuffled toward my dresser, nearly tripping over my own feet. “I should’ve thought about that. I didn’t mean to put you in such an awkward position.” I got the drawer open and pulled out the first nightie my fingers landed on, somehow managing to get it over my head and down my body without flashing Trick.

  “Sweetheart. If you’d just—”

  Now fully clothed, I felt more equipped to handle the crushing blow of rejection he’d just landed. I whipped my hair out of my face and turned back to him, inhaling through my nose in an attempt to calm my frayed nerves.

  “Please. Just go,” I spoke, my voice weak and quiet, revealing the ache centered in my chest. “Please, Trick.”

  His face fell, and the sympathy in those stormy eyes nearly did me in. “I don’t wanna leave things like this.”

  My head started bobbing on a nod. “Because you’re an amazing man. But I’m asking you, please, just go.”

  I could see the struggle written all over his face. He didn’t want to leave until he was certain I was okay. He was just that good of a guy. Problem was, I didn’t think I’d be okay for a good long while, and I needed him gone so I could deal with everything I was feeling on my own.

  He took a few steps closer, reaching up to place his hand on the side of my neck and brush his thumb across my jaw. As hard as it was—and it was agonizing—I managed to stay still and not flinch away as he took that last piece from me. “You know I care about you, right? That’ll never change, Nona.”

  My head tilted of its own accord, pressing deeper into his touch. “I know.” But that knowledge only made me feel worse.

  Trick remained unmoving, his eyes scanning every inch of my face as something played across his features I couldn’t even begin to understand. Then, with a gentle, sad smile, he finally dropped his arm, turned to gather the rest of his stuff, and moved out of my room.

  I heard the front door close seconds later, and with it, the first tear fell.

  Chapter One

  Nona

  A month and a half later

  “Yes! That’s it, baby, that’s it! You got this!” I shot from my chair as my son, Tristan, faked left, dribbling the soccer ball down the field. “Yes! Go, Tris! Take the shot!”

  And he did, kicking the ball with everything he had, sending it sailing past the goalie and scoring another point for his team, putting them in the lead.

  Throwing my hands in the air, I jumped up and down and shouted out my excitement, high-fiving a bunch of the other moms crowded around me on the side of the field before turning back and yelling, “You’re awesome, baby!”

  My kid looked in my direction as he jogged back to the center of the field, his expression a mixture of embarrassment and excitement as he gave me a low wave while getting claps on the back and shoulders from his teammates.

  “Attaboy, Tristan! Keep it up!” My head turned at the deep, masculine rumble coming from down the field before I could stop it.

  For a month and a half, I’d done everything I could to avoid Trick Wanderly like my life depended on it. Unfortunately, avoiding the man I’d spent one amazing night with was proving to be hard in a small town like ours.

  Trick’s head turned, those gunmetal eyes met mine, and I watched with my heart throbbing as his face grew soft and his lips tilted up into a grin.

  I offered a small, polite wave and looked away, my attention moving toward the small cluster of women sitting across the field near our team’s goal. Emma Wanderly sat in the middle of the gaggle, the Queen Bee of what I referred to as the Stylish Soccer Moms. The ones who always dressed like they were either coming from or heading to yoga but managed to make it look über stylish in ways I couldn’t comprehend. The ones whose makeup always looked flawless even with the sun beating down on them. The ones with the big Louis Vuitton or Michal Kors totes filled with snacks for the kiddos like carrot sticks or apples, celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins—something you just knew was super healthy.

  Meanwhile, I was wearing a pair of jeans that fit tight to my ass, so battered there was a slit in one knee and a hole on my left thigh close to the pocket. My ribbed tank was faded, but you could still clearly read the black block letters on the front that declared “I came. I saw. I made it awkward.” My own off-brand handbag contained a mini bag of Cheetos, another of nacho cheese Dorit0s, and a pack of fruit snacks. My face was free of makeup, and after spending the entire week working on other women’s hair, the last thing I wanted to do was screw with mine, so my long red locks were currently thrown up in a messy ponytail.

  I put in effort during the week when it came to my appearance, but unless I was going out with my girls, the weekends were mine, and it was all about relaxing and taking a load off, not dolling up for no damn good reason.

  Emma didn’t hoot or holler when her son scored a goal. She simply clapped and smiled her brilliant white smile, always behaving with class and decorum.

  In other words, she was my polar opposite, and it was no wonder Trick regretted hooking up with me when he’d spent years with a woman like her.

  My focus drifted a couple yards down from Emma, where their oldest, a girl named Hannah, was hanging with a couple kids who looked around her age. As I studied her, I couldn’t help but think what I thought every time I saw Hannah Wanderly. She was the spitting image of her father, only female. And Trick made a gorgeous girl. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was living a nightmare with a teenaged daughter that beautiful.

  It was on that thought that I felt an odd sensation prickle across my skin. As hard as I tried to fight it, my head turned back in the direction of Trick, and I found him watching me with a look on his face that, in spite of the warm, sunny day, made goose bumps break out along my arms.

  I felt that gaze like a physical touch as he scanned from my behind back up to my face, and that grin of his returned once more.

  “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath, jerking my attention back to the field.

  Tristan had control of the ball again but didn’t have a shot at the goal, so he passed it to a teammate who was open. That boy took the shot, but it went a little wide, missing the goal by inches, and a man a few feet away immediately shot to his feet,
his face red and pinched in a way I knew wasn’t good.

  “Damn it, Cal! Get your head in the game!” he shouted toward the boy who’d just missed. I tensed as the other parents all turned to look at the man, but my focus was on the boy as his dad continued to berate him. “You were wide open, for Christ’s sake! Stop screwin’ around and focus!”

  I could see the anxiety rolling off the poor kid from where I stood, and the longer the man shouted the more wired the boy got, until he was locked so tight he totally screwed up the next play, going for a kick and missing the ball altogether.

  “Are you kidding me!” the man hollered, yanking off his baseball cap and stomping up to the edge of the field. “I didn’t shell out cash for this damn league so you could embarrass me, boy! Focus or get off the freakin’ field!”

  That was when I’d officially had enough. “Hey!” At my shout, the man quit castigating his kid and moved his angry eyes to me. “How about you lay off, huh? You’re only making it worse.”

  “How ’bout you mind your own business?”

  This guy was really starting to piss me off, so I planted my hands on my hips and turned my body fully toward him. “They’re eleven and twelve, man. This isn’t a professional club, so just cool it.”

  “You handle your son and I’ll handle mine,” he spat. “Like I said, none of your damn business.”

  “Dude, you made it my business when you started shouting so loud the heavens could hear you, takin’ a tone I’m not particularly fond of you using in front of my kid.”

  The asshole looked me up and down with an ugly sneer, lowering his voice enough that the kids couldn’t hear as he declared, “No wonder your man stepped out before finally getting shot of your ass. Had a naggin’ bitch like you at home, I’d bail out too.”

  I barely had time to register the sting that caused before the air around us shifted.

  “You’re gone. Right now.”

  Turning woodenly, I looked to see Trick was no longer down the field but at my back, only inches away, and he was staring at the guy who’d just insulted me like it was taking all his strength not to rip the asshole’s head off.

  The guy’s frame jerked back at the venom in Trick’s voice. “’Scuse me?”

  “You heard me,” Trick continued on a growl so vicious it sent a shiver down my spine. “You wanna watch the rest of the game, you do it from your car. But you aren’t here.”

  The man blustered, his chest puffing out and stretching the shirt that was already taxed from his beer gut that much tighter. “You got no right—”

  “Don’t know you, man, but know of you. Which means you at least know of me, so you know I got a badge. That means I have every right. You’re disturbing the peace, so you have five seconds to get gone.”

  The asshole’s face grew ruddy. “I’m not disturbin’ a damn thing.”

  “My peace was most definitely disturbed,” June Hiller declared. I knew June relatively well. Her son had played on the same team as mine the past four years, and I liked her a lot. She wasn’t part of the Stylish Soccer Moms club. She was my kind of people.

  “I’m disturbed too,” another dad chimed in, looking nearly as pissed as Trick. “On behalf of my kid, his kid, and Ms. Fanning. And just to say, this jerkoff doesn’t get lost soon, things are gonna go downhill fast. No man worth his salt talks to a woman like that.”

  “You can’t just—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Trick cut in. “I can and I just did. Now you only got five seconds to get to your car and away from this field. And I catch you shoutin’ at any more games or even get word you took your shit out on your kid when you get home, I’ll be payin’ you a visit. And trust me, man, you do not want that.”

  He stuttered over a few words, his ruddy cheeks growing purple with rage and what I expected was a great deal of humiliation, before finally wising up, spinning around, and stomping off to his car.

  “Hey.” At Trick’s soft voice and the feel of his fingers wrapping gently around my wrist, I turned from watching the jackass back to him. “You okay, darlin’?”

  I stared up at him with my lips parted. “I, uh….”

  His forehead pulled into a frown as he used his grip on my wrist to tug me even closer. “Don’t you give what that asshole said a second thought, Nona. He was full of shit.”

  That got a response out of me, but not the one either of us had been expecting. “You really shouldn’t cuss. Not, like, in general,” I added quickly. “Just, you know... here. Around a bunch of kids.”

  He looked to the field and back to me, smiling and dropping his voice as he said, “Wasn’t speaking loud, sweetheart. Think it’s safe to say they couldn’t hear me.”

  I lifted a shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Still.”

  “I hear you, and I’ll be mindful from here on out. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  He was too close. He smelled too good. And he was way too damn handsome. This was not good. Struggling to clear the Trick-induced haze from my brain, I pinched my brows together and asked, “Um… sorry. Wh-what was your question?”

  “You okay after what that a—jerk said to you?”

  “Oh, yeah. No, I’m good.” I waved my free hand between us. “Believe me, a guy like that isn’t gonna get my hackles up.”

  His fingers clenched, pressing deeper into the sensitive skin beneath my wrist. “You sure? What he said—”

  I wrenched my hand free, trying not to make it seem too obvious I couldn’t handle his touch. “Trust me. I’m fine. Yeah, it stung, I’ll give you that, but it won’t last. What Chris did isn’t on me.”

  “That’s right, darlin’.”

  And that right there was why I needed to avoid Trick for my own damn good. That soft look, that sweet smile. For crying out loud, I could still recall how he felt and tasted like it hadn’t been a month and a half ago but only a few hours. Thankfully the referee blew the whistle, calling the end of the game, and I was able to take a step back and break the weird intensity swirling between us.

  Something from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I looked over to see Emma staring lasers at me from all the way across the field, her arms crossed over her chest and her face twisted in displeasure.

  Oh shit.

  “Mom! Mom!” Tristan came running up to me, his face ruddy and his hair slicked with sweat. “I scored a goal and we won!”

  I smiled at him, loving that my kid hadn’t hit that dreaded phase yet where just my presence embarrassed him. He was twelve, so it was only a matter of time, but I was going to lap it up while it lasted. Grabbing Tristan’s shoulder, I pulled him into my side and gave him a quick one-armed hug. “I saw that, sweetie. You totally rocked it!”

  “I totally did.” His eyes shifted from me to Trick, who was still standing close. “Hey, Mr. Wanderly.”

  “Hey, bud. You were awesome out there. That goal was a thing of beauty.”

  A second later, Trick’s son Shawn came running up, offering his father a “Hi Dad” before reaching up to bump Trick’s fist with his own.

  “Hey Shawn. Great game.”

  Shawn looked at me with a smile just like his dad’s. “Thanks Ms. Nona.”

  Tristan spun on me, bouncing with excitement and leftover adrenaline from his win before asking, “Can I go over to Shawn’s to play video game? Please?”

  “Oh, uh….” I looked between all three sets of male eyes, wondering how my life had gotten so freaking twisted up. “I’m sure his mom has plans, babe.”

  “We’re with Dad this weekend,” Shawn interjected. “And he’d totally be cool with it!” He looked to Trick for the second time since joining our huddle. “Right Dad? You’re cool if Tris comes over, right?”

  “Tris, baby. I’m sure—”

  “Fine by me,” Trick cut in before I could finish my objection and get the hell out of there. I needed a big glass of wine, stat. “That is,” he continued, his gray eyes boring into me, “if it’s cool with you.”
<
br />   Well damn. It would appear he’d decided he wasn’t going to make my avoidance easy. “Well… okay. Yeah. I guess it’s okay.”

  “I’m gonna stop off somewhere to grab the kids a bite if you wanna come with.”

  There was no way that was going to happen. Standing here with him was hard enough, remembering what it was like to have exactly what I’d wanted—him—but having it ripped away only hours later. Lunch was out of the question.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got some errands I have to run. But I can swing by and get him on my way home later.”

  His expression gentled as he said, “You don’t need to worry about that, sweetheart. I’ll bring him back to you later.”

  Trick in my house… again… for the first time since... well, that night. “You sure? I don’t mind—”

  “I’m sure.” God, I really needed him to quit being so wonderful. It was killing me. “I’ll text you when we’re on the way over. That work?”

  “Yeah, that’ll work.” I shifted back to Tristan and gave his shoulder a little jostle, not going in for the full hug I wanted since his friend was standing right there. “You behave, yeah? Do as Mr. Wanderly says.”

  “Got it, Mom.”

  “You sure you don’t wanna join us?” Trick asked again.

  “I’m good. But thanks for asking. I should get back home to Blythe. She was still crashed when we left the house. I should probably make sure my girl doesn’t sleep the whole day away.” Giving Tris one last squeeze, I started backing up, blowing him a kiss since I knew I wouldn’t get away with a real one. “See you soon, bud. Be good and love you.”

  “Yeah Mom. Love you too.”

  Then, with one last wave, I turned on my flip-flops and bolted. It might have seemed cowardly, but I was just fine with that.

  Chapter Two

  Trick

  It took an act of strength I hadn’t known myself capable of to pull my eyes off Nona’s retreating form—or more correctly, her phenomenal ass in those jeans.