I don’t think I could’ve faced the official date of my divorce without you. And without Samuel’s biscuits, pun not intended. AND without that wine. Screaming Eagle? That stuff is harder to find than Santa Claus. Please tell Samuel thanks. Your family’s generosity is always, always appreciated.
Once the turkey baster has done its trick, there’ll be no more of that wine for a while. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU again for supporting me in my decision to have a baby. Truly means the world to me. The timing just feels right, you know? I’m not at all interested in rekindling my romantic life. I think I’ll be a member of the broken hearts club for a while. But I’ve always wanted a family, and it feels good to make my dreams happen on my own terms. You said you think I’ll be a great mom, but I know you’re going to be an awesome uncle.
If there’s one thing you’ve proven over the course of our friendship, it’s that you have my back. Knowing you’ll always show up for me means so much, Beau. You’re one of the few people in my life who never lets me down. I appreciate that more than you know.
I’m excited. For the first time in years.
XO,
Bel
PS: When are you gonna let me come up to the farm again? Your progress pics are making me itch for another trip!
Chapter Thirty-Four
Annabel
I check my watch.
It’s the first time I’ve worn it since I arrived at Blue Mountain. The baby keeps me on a pretty regular schedule, so it’s not like I’ve escaped time entirely. But the constant reminder that it exists, and that I’m bound to it, is jarring.
Four thirty. I glance out the window, half expecting to see Beau’s Bentley out front.
The street is empty.
Maisie squirms in my arms. I finished nursing her ten minutes ago, and Beau knows how long a feed takes. He’s been with me for nearly every one since we first made love.
“You ready?” Mom asks, coming down the stairs.
She looks a little bleary, too. Larry left an hour ago. Mom didn’t say as much out loud, but I know she wants to be here to take the baby while I say goodbye to Beau.
The gift Larry gave her hangs over her arm, neatly folded. It’s a lady’s fishing vest in purple, her favorite color, sewn with patches of her favorite feminists. Maya Angelou, RBG, Freida Kahlo, Oprah.
Larry even made lures that color coordinate with each patch.
It’s the cutest, weirdest gift ever, and I find myself getting all teary looking at it.
I hope Beau doesn’t bring me anything.
Mom, noticing my distress, holds out her arms. “How about I get Maisie settled into the car?”
“You may have to swing the car seat,” I say. “She doesn’t like being in the car unless we’re moving.”
“I know,” Mom calls over her shoulder. “Take your time.”
I glance out the window again. Still no Beau.
Speaking of weird. He’s never late, and he would never hold me up like this, knowing what a pain Maisie can be when she’s off her schedule.
Whatever. He must’ve gotten held up at the office. He does run a multi-million-dollar resort. And he’s treated Mom and me to a stay that would’ve cost us five figures, easy, if we’d been paying guests.
Least I can do is give him a little extra time.
Only thing is, I don’t have all that much time to give. I planned our departure to coincide with Maisie’s feeding schedule. We have to be back in Charlotte by seven, when I nurse her again. I gave us three hours for a two-hour drive. But the minutes are ticking by quickly, and I’m really going to have to put the pedal to the metal the longer we wait.
I decide to take one last lap around the house. I check the drawers in the bedrooms and grab a hair clip I left in the master bathroom shower.
Otherwise, Mom and I did a solid job cleaning out everything.
I shoot Shannon a text, and we settle on a date and time for coffee next week.
Taking one last look around the cavernous family room, the view of the mountains outside the back windows especially striking this time of day, I’m hit by a wave of emotion. That’s happened a lot recently.
Part of me, the part that’s in love, is tender, achy…nostalgic, almost, for the place I haven’t even left yet.
Another part, the part that’s heartbroken, is hard with hurt.
The dissonance between the two leaves me reeling.
One thing I don’t feel? That sense of overwhelm that haunted me day and night. My meds are working and so is the therapy.
It’s not my hormones that are leaving me flattened.
It’s life.
Love.
I don’t know whether that’s comforting or not. I’m healing in one respect, I guess.
Torn apart in another. I’m being left.
Again.
And the thought of going back to my fucking office—
I squeeze my eyes shut against the sting of tears.I really, really had no clue how hard this would be.
You got this.
Beau’s words float through the space behind my closed lids.
I take a deep breath. The panic in my chest slows its wild stirring.
If I can net river trout, and shoot clays, and show up every day as a mom and a friend even though I’m battling depression and an epic level of exhaustion, then maybe I can do the juggle, too.
I guess only time will tell.
Speaking of time—it’s quarter till.
I hear a car pull up out front, and my heart leaps.
It’s pitiful, the relief and the gratitude I feel.
Barreling through the door, I draw up short when I see Samuel climbing out of his pickup truck.
I only have to look at his face to know Beau isn’t coming.
Samuel wears a defeated expression, his blue eyes, so like his brother’s, full of sympathy.
“Hey, Samuel,” Mom is saying. I hear Maisie cooing, a sound that’s drowned out by the roar in my ears.
Beau isn’t coming to say goodbye.
The realization runs me over. Tears leak out of my eyes left and right, and for several heartbeats, I don’t know what to do.
Samuel raises his arm to my mom. Then he locks eyes with me.
“Hey, Annabel,” he says, voice soft.
“Hey.” I sniff. I glance over his shoulder even though I know the passenger side of his truck cab is empty. “Where’s Beau? Not that I’m, like, not happy to see you. I just—”
Samuel’s massive shoulders rise on an inhale. He claps his hands together, the keys looped around his finger jingling.
“Beau got tied up at the office.” Samuel clears his throat. He’s obviously, horrifically uncomfortable telling me this lie, which only makes the tears come faster. “He wanted me to tell you…uh, he’s sorry to miss you…he’s going to miss you. And. Yeah. He’s busy.”
“What?” I blink. “Then I’ll just go say goo—”
“Annabel,” Samuel says, imploring me with his eyes to understand.
Half a beat later, I get it.
Beau doesn’t want to see me.
He doesn’t want to say goodbye. And I know no amount of fighting on my part is going to change that.
Maybe part of being the fighter I am is knowing when to back down. Knowing when a fight is going to take more out of you than you’ve got to give.
“Oh,” I manage, wiping my eye.
Samuel’s brow crinkles. “Aw, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. He’d—Beau, he’d be here if he could, he just…here, lemme give you a hug. I’m sorry.”
I bury my head in his chest and try to breathe and get a grip on my emotions. I have a long drive ahead, my mom and my daughter in the back seat, and I’ve gotta keep it together so I can get us safely home.
“You always do Beau’s dirty work?” I say.
“Yeah,” Samuel admits glumly. “It ain’t easy being his brother.”
It was easy being Beau’s friend.
But being more than that?
“You gonna bring that baby back to Blue Mountain? My mama’s been asking.”
I laugh. It takes effort. “Considering how often I think my mom’s going to be back visiting her ‘special friend’—”
“That what she calls Larry?”
“Hilarious, right? And kinda gross.”
“Don’t be a stranger, you hear?”
“Of course.”
“If you need anything, you have my number, all right?”
I pull back and look up at him. “Is it cool if I reach out to you to check up on him? In case he, you know…is too busy to respond to me himself?”
A muscle in Samuel’s jaw tenses. “I’m trying real hard not to throw my brother under the bus right now.”
“Don’t.” I put a hand on his chest. “Let’s—it won’t…”
“Call me. Text. Anytime, Annabel.”
I keep my arms wrapped around his middle. I don’t want to let him go because that means I have to get in my car and leave paradise.
Return to reality without a hug from my best friend. A man who showed more cowardice today than I thought possible.
“Be angry,” Samuel says quietly. “Maybe that’s shit advice, but it’s better than being sad. Be angry so you can get your family home in one piece. Then you can be sad.”
I take a sputtering breath. Stepping back, I let Samuel dab my eyes with the hem of his T-shirt.
“There,” he says. “You’re all set. You got waters for the drive?”
“Yup. Hank brought some over a little while ago.”
“Snacks, too?”
“Chef Katie’s fried chicken nuggets and her homemade ranch. Oh. And root beer. And cookies.”
Samuel walks me to my car. He helps me snap Maisie’s car seat into its base. Then he opens the door for Mama, opens the door for me.
I start the car and roll down my window.
Tears threaten again. I twist off the cap to a root beer bottle and take a vicious swig.
Angry.
I have to remember to be angry.
Samuel ducks his head through the window to glance at all the baby shit stuffed into the trunk. “Lordy, y’all are really packed in there.”
“It’s insane how much stuff you need for one tiny baby.”
“She’s awful cute, though.”
Mom, who’s in the back seat with Maisie, raises her little arm to wave goodbye. “Say thank you very much, Uncle Samuel.”
“I’ll let y’all go. Drive safely. Text me when you’re home?”
It should be Beau saying these things.
Beau putting his big hands on the door one last time to wish us well and wave us off.
Actually, none of this should be happening at all.
I have this terrible feeling in my gut that this is all wrong. I should be staying.
Should I go after Beau? Drive to his office instead of the interstate? Try for the eight-hundredth time to get him to see some sense?
“You okay?” Mom asks.
I blink. The breeze coming in through my open window is blowing my hair into my face.
Rolling up the window, I tuck my hair behind my ears.
You got this.
Be angry.
“You guys okay back there?” I glance in the rearview mirror. My vision is clearing up; things are less blurry.
“We’re fine. Are you?”
I take a deep breath.
Fuck Beau.
What kind of person makes love to you in the morning but refuses to look you in the eye in the afternoon? Knowing how much it’ll hurt you?
A shitty one, that’s what.
“I’ll be all right,” I say. I come to a stop sign, and after checking to make sure no one’s around, I put the car in park. “I’m going to put on some music if that’s okay.”
“Fine by me.”
I scroll through the music library on my phone, knowing exactly what song I’m looking for. It’s been a while since I played it. The last time was when Ryan walked out, I think.
I turn up the volume when “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson starts playing.
Putting the car in drive, I glance at the rearview mirror again. Mom is looking at me, the same sympathy in her eyes that I saw in Samuel’s.
But after the first verse, she starts to sing the words.
Her vote of solidarity.
I sing too.
I sing the whole way home.
Only when the baby’s in bed and Mom is gone do I break down. Because even though I made the choice to be a single mom, Beau gave me a taste of the family of my dreams. A delicious, unforgettable taste of what it’s like not to be alone as a parent or as a woman.
And now that dream is gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Beau
“You did what?”
I screw up my eye against the decibel level of my sister’s voice.
Her vehemence.
She can be loud when she wants to be.
So fucking loud.
“I don’t want to hear it, Milly.”
Milly drops the red-handled loppers she’s holding with a thud.
Putting her hands on her hips, she stares me down over the gigantic pile of fresh magnolia branches on the table between us. “Fuck what you want. You just let the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to you walk out of your life without saying goodbye?”
I glance around the pavilion. It’s crawling with Milly’s assistants. Florists, the tent guys, a few of Samuel’s people from catering.
“That’s none—”
“What is wrong with you?”
I run a hand across my face. My stubble’s gotten out of control, but I can’t seem to muster the energy to keep it in check.
“Don’t you have a gigantic celebrity wedding to put on this weekend?”
An assistant in one of Milly’s matching blue aprons approaches with a clipboard. Milly quickly scans the pages, signs something, and hands it back with a warm, “Thank you.” The assistant turns on his heel and disappears.
“Sure do. But you’re delusional if you think that’s gonna stop me from chewing you out about what a jerk-off you’re being. Here, call her.” Milly digs her phone out of the front pocket of her apron and holds it out to me. “Call her right now and apologize.”
I look down at the phone. Not so much as a fingerprint smudge on its blank screen.
Milly may have the mouth of a sailor, but she’s fastidious—immaculate—in pretty much every other area of her life.
I look out across the lake beyond the pavilion, guilt clutching my windpipe and refusing to let go. We’re T-minus two days to what the gossip magazines are calling the biggest wedding of the year, and the resort is buzzing, despite the rain that refuses to quit.
It’s been raining since Annabel left.
So many fucking metaphors.
“You really are a coward.”
I look back at Milly. “Now is not the time nor the place for this conversation. Also, as I tried to remind you before you cut me off, what happened between Annabel and me is none of your fucking business.”
“Like hell it isn’t.”
“I’m leaving.”
“I’m coming with you.” Milly reaches behind her to untie her apron. “Time for lunch anyway. When was the last time you ate?”
I put my hand on my stomach as I reach for the answer inside my head.
I find mush in both places. Somewhere in the fog of my consciousness, I feel a sharp pang. But I can’t focus on it long enough to determine whether it’s hunger.
Hunger for what? Food? Annabel?
The certainty I once had that I was a good guy who was doing the right thing?
The hand on my stomach curls into a fist. Impatience, anger, doubt—everything that Annabel helped soothe comes rushing back in a violent attack.
She left less than twenty-four hours ago. And already I feel lost.
“Yesterday,” I say. “I think.”
Milly rolls her eyes. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re the one who fucked up.”
“By getting a brain injury?”
“No. No, that’s not what I meant,” she says, more softly. She hooks her arm through mine and together we head for the main house, tugging the hoods of our rain jackets over our heads.
Walking with Milly this way reminds me of Bel. How she linked arms with me as we walked the farm with Maisie in the stroller in front of us.
My sister and I eat burgers at the mostly empty bar. Well, Milly eats. I pick at my food, managing a french fry or two, before I order a beer.
Thankfully, Milly lets that one slide.
Neither of us says a word as I drink the local IPA in deep, slow gulps.
I get a buzz, but it doesn’t make the fog or the pain go away.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your head,” she says at last. “Really, I am. What happened to y’all—you and Daddy—it’s a tragedy. I’m not saying it isn’t. But your injury doesn’t justify the way you’ve been treating people lately. Annabel especially.”
“I know,” I murmur, gliding my thumb through the condensation on my glass. “Trust me, I feel horrible. I mean, I can’t fucking eat, for Christ’s sake.”
“So make yourself feel better and call her.”
I glance at my sister from the corner of my eye. “You know why I can’t do that. It’s better this way.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m trying to save her, Milly.”
“I understand that. Ever consider she doesn’t need to be saved, though? Annabel, she’s no damsel in distress. Yeah, she’s had a really tough year. But she knows herself. Knows her mind. She knows what she wants, and she wants to be with you. No offense, but who the hell are you to say that’s not the right thing for her?”
I finish my beer and set the glass on the wooden counter. The barman, Rawlins, takes the glass and raises his eyebrows. Another?
I wave him off. I’m good.
I’ll wait until I’m in the safety of my home later before I black out drinking my best whiskey, thanks.
Southern Seducer: A Best Friends to Lovers Romance Page 28