His whole demeanor shifted, his shoulders lost their rigidness, and his face seemed to brighten. “I’m glad to hear you say that, beauty.”
“But I can’t have dinner with you.” The tension that had melted out of him came right back, and his whole frame locked tight. “Not . . . not yet, okay? I need to take baby steps here.”
Any sign of his early joy was gone. He’d locked all of his emotions away, leaving his face utterly expressionless. “I understand.”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe one day we can sit down and have a meal together. But I need time to get there, okay?”
“Yeah, I get it.” His tone was as flat as a soda that had been opened and left to sit for days. Something deep inside me screamed to make it better, to bring the light back to his eyes, but I had to look out for myself.
“We’ve both changed, Bryce. I’m not the same girl I was when we first met, and I’m sure you’re not the same man. What we had before . . . that’s gone. We need to find a way to move on from here. From this point in time.” He stayed silent for so long, I fought the need to squirm. “Tell me you understand.”
His face wreathed with a sadness that tore me apart inside. “I understand, honey. I’m just not sure I can do that.”
“Why not? You can’t know that for sure. You haven’t even tried.” My tone was pleading, almost . . . desperate? Wait . . . that couldn’t be right.
“I don’t have to try. I already know I can’t ’cause I’m still in love with you.”
“Bryce,” I said in an agonized whisper. “Don’t.”
“You’re right about me, beauty. I’m not the man I was when we first met. The man I am now would never do somethin’ as stupid as walkin’ away from you.”
“Stop,” I rasped, feeling like my throat was being rubbed with steel wool.
“Okay. I’ll stop.” He moved around my cart, reaching up to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. “For now.”
Then he walked away, leaving me standing in the middle of the grocery store, feeling like my heart had been ripped out.
Chapter Eight
Tessa
It had been three days since Bryce dropped his love bomb on me in the middle of Fresh Foods, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
Hardly a second passed where I wasn’t thinking back to those words or the look on his face when he said them. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams, and the only thing holding me together was burying myself in work. However, that only took part of my day, and I was sadly lacking on other ways to fill my time. So when Rory called and invited me to meet her at Evergreen Diner for lunch, I’d quickly jumped on the offer. Anything to keep myself busy and my mind preoccupied.
When I stepped through the doors into the bustling diner I was hit with a wave of uncertainty. I hadn’t seen her since the day she showed me around town, and even though she’d been cool that whole time, making sure not to mention Bryce or ask questions, there was a part of me that was still nervous.
“Tessa, hey. Over here.” I followed the sound of Rory’s voice and found her sitting at an extra-long booth by the window. And she wasn’t alone. “Thanks so much for coming. I want you to meet some of my friends.”
I stood awkwardly as she introduced me to a gorgeous blonde named Gypsy, a stunning and very pregnant redhead named Nona, and an adorable doe-eyed woman with highlighted light brown hair named Eden.
“Um, hi,” I murmured, waving like an idiot. “Nice to meet you.”
“Take a seat, hon. We won’t bite. Promise.” Gypsy gave me a friendly wink and scooted down, making room for me to sit in the booth beside her, across from the other three women. I slid in, my spine straight as an arrow as the three new faces studied me with open curiosity.
The unnerving silence that enveloped us was broken by Gypsy. “All right, it’s obvious you’re uncomfortable around us, so how about we just get it all out in the open. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Yes, we all know and like Bryce, but we heard the story. Hell, the whole town’s heard it by now, and even though he’s our friend, we’re all in agreement that what he did is seriously messed up.”
I looked to the woman with wide, slightly panicked eyes. “Uh . . .”
“But I’ll be honest,” she continued, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t super curious about what went down between you two.”
“Gypsy,” Eden snapped in warning. “She just sat down. You’re gonna scare her off.”
She looked across the table at her friend, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “What? I’m just stating the facts.”
Those big doe eyes narrowed into a glare that didn’t hold much power. “No, you’re being a nosey pain in the ass.”
Nona’s hand rose in the air a few inches. “Um, just to say, I’m a little curious too.” After that confession, she looked over to me and smiled politely. “But I swear, I’m not gonna ask. Don’t worry.”
I couldn’t help it, Gypsy was just so blunt and Nona so innocent, that I couldn’t keep from laughing.
“I will say, I get it,” Eden chimed back in as my laughter tapered off into giggles. “You’re so pretty. I can totally picture you guys together.”
“Oh my God,” Nona breathed, placing her hands on her rounded belly and leaning closer to Eden. “Can you imagine how adorable their babies would be?”
“Yes!” she returned on a high-pitched squeak as my heart flexed, pounding against my ribcage.
I used to imagine that too, a little girl with my long hair and his eyes. Or a little boy with—Knock it off, Tessa!
“All right,” Rory chided, cutting everyone off like she sensed my sudden discomfort. “I invited Tessa so she could meet you guys, not so you could make it awkward for her.”
“It’s fine,” I said, doing my best to shake off the last dregs of nervousness. “I get it.”
“Not to mention, you’re this gorgeous thing that just so happens to be married to one of the hottest guys in town,” Gypsy added. “That only adds to the mystery.”
“There’s nothing mysterious about me, I promise. I’m just new to town, that’s all. I spent plenty of time being the new girl growing up, so I know the curiosity comes with that. The shine will eventually wear off.”
I saw the flash of sympathy in Rory’s eyes and quickly looked away. “Did your family move you around a lot?” Eden asked. There was something in her tone that sounded genuine, and I knew deep down she wasn’t trying to be nosey. She just wanted to get to know me. Glancing back to Rory, I knew my eyes held the question, but I voiced anyway. “You didn’t tell them?”
“Wasn’t my story to tell. Small towns like to gossip, but I figured that was something you should be in charge of telling in your own time.”
I gave her a small, appreciative grin just as Gypsy asked, “Tell us what? What story? You can’t drop a breadcrumb like that, then leave us hanging.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, turning my attention to the table at large. “I don’t try to keep it a secret or anything, but I grew up in the system. My parents died when I was ten, and I spent the next eight years in foster care. That’s what Rory was talking about.”
I expected the standard reaction that always came with that announcement. The pitying looks, the apologies, the oh, you poor thing tone of voice that set my teeth on edge. But I didn’t get any of that.
Instead, shocking me to my very core, Gypsy hooked her arm around my shoulder in a sideways hug, and announced, “Looks like you’re gonna fit right in with us.”
My eyebrows lifted so high they nearly touched my hairline. “Huh?”
She went on to explain. “Well, my folks weren’t good for much more than popping out babies. None of which they actually wanted to raise. I’m the oldest of six, and I raised them all myself, even before the worthless wastes of space took off for good.”
My eyes went wide, but before I could wrap my head around what I’d just heard, Eden spoke up. “My folks could compete with Gypsy’s for Worst Pa
rents of the Year. And I had an older brother who got off on tormenting me before I finally got out. And I don’t mean in the way a big brother typically torments you. I mean, stealing from me and giving my naked picture to the guys on the football team for some extra cash.”
“I didn’t have crappy parents, but I married a man who turned out to be the world’s biggest piece of shit,” Nona said. “He’s in prison now for selling drugs. But that was only after the asshole he was in business with took my kids to use as leverage to get the money my ex had lost.”
“You’re kidding?” I breathed.
She shook her head. “Wish I was. He was caught trying to flee town.”
“And as you know, Cord was a foster kid too,” Rory added.
My lips parted, to say what I didn’t know, but before I could get a word out, another woman hit the booth with the force of a hurricane. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! I know I’m late, but I swear to God, working with those men is like being surrounded by toddlers on a regular basis!” Sage, the woman I’d met at Alpha Omega a few weeks back, collapsed into the booth right beside me with a beleaguered sigh. “So what did I miss?”
“Tessa just told us about growing up in foster care, so we were telling her about our shitty parents and loser exes to make her feel included,” Gypsy informed her.
“Ooh! Me next,” she chirped, shifting on the bench to face me. “So, my she-beast of a mom got my sweet, perfect dad locked up for attempted murder. But we only recently found out it was her behind the whole thing, and only after he got out of prison.”
My jaw fell open so wide it nearly hit the table. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. And this was after I caught her banging my now-ex-husband in our bed.” She shivered dramatically. “That’s an image no amount of bleach will ever scrub from a person’s brain. Believe me.”
“See?” Nona said with a bright smile on her face. “You’re in good company, doll. We were all dealt shitty hands in some way, but we managed to find each other, and we’re all better for it.”
All my life, I’d been the odd man out, the sad girl with no family. Other kids behaved as if being an orphan was some kind of disease you could contract by standing too close, so after a while, I stopped trying.
The fewer friends I had, the less likely it was I’d have to share the sob story of my life. But these women had just shared pasts as bad as my own, and they hadn’t blinked. They’d each been damaged, but they’d found each other. They were bonded. Like Nona said, they were better off for it, and here they were, doing their best to include me.
I had to battle the flood of emotion coursing through me. “So, what you’re saying is, you have to have a sob story to be part of this group.”
Sage replied, “And since you fit the bill, you’re in. Welcome to the club.”
“Okay, so now that we’ve done the heavy, how about we talk about the fun stuff,” Eden said, clapping her hands excitedly. “Like the Halloween Festival.”
I turned to her and lifted my brows. “Halloween Festival?”
“It’s so much fun,” Nona chirped. “They have carnival rides and games, tents set up for food, live music, and last year there was a really cool hay maze.”
Gypsy spoke next. “Everyone attends, even people from the other towns around Hope Valley. And everyone goes all out, dressing up in costumes.”
“The money made goes to different charities,” Rory told me. “That’s one of the reasons I asked you to lunch. What do you think of having an attraction set up for Hope House?”
“We should definitely do that,” I cried. “A lot of those games are for little kids, so what if we did something the teenagers would like, like a haunted house or something?”
Rory leaned forward, her eyes dancing. “That’s a great idea!”
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the little notebook I carried everywhere with me and started jotting things down as I spoke at a rapid pace. “We can ask some of the kids at the home if they want to be part of it. I think the older ones will like the idea of scaring the crap out of people.”
“Oh, this is great!” Sage exclaimed. “I wanna be part of it. I bet I could be an awesome zombie psych ward nurse or something.”
My mind was spinning in a million different directions, and as I spoke, the women voiced their own ideas.
I barely took the time to order and consume my food as I jotted down plans for our haunted house. My excitement was too overwhelming to concentrate on much else.
“There’s an old barn on the property where they set everything up,” Rory spoke, her enthusiasm just as palpable as mine. “I’m sure if we ask around, we’d be able to find people to help us convert the place. If you have time later this week, we can go check it out.”
“I’d love that.”
By the time lunch wrapped up, I was surprised to find that I actually felt like part of this group of incredible women. They were funny and sweet, they openly cared about each other, and they treated me as if they’d known me forever. I now had five new contacts in my phone with talks of girls’ nights and dinners to be had in the very near future.
I left the diner a short while later—after receiving hugs from each of them—feeling for the first time in my life that I was actually part of something big. All I’d ever wanted was to belong, to be part of a community, and I felt like I was finally starting to build to that.
Things may not have turned out as picture perfect as I’d expected when I first moved to this town, but I couldn’t shake the sense that Hope Valley was where I belonged.
So right then and there, I made a decision. I was going to let go of the past. I was going to dig myself out of the pain and heartbreak I’d allowed to pull me down like quicksand all these years. I was developing friendships, I had a job I loved, and I was becoming part of a community. So I was finally, finally going to start looking forward, because for the first time in a really long time, the path ahead of me was looking bright.
Chapter Nine
Tessa
I woke up with puffy eyes, an annoying niggling in my sinuses, and a constant scratching in the very back of my throat.
I was more than familiar with those symptoms, and knew they were the pre-cursor of a nasty head cold coming on. I needed meds ASAP. Unfortunately, I’d slept through my alarm, so I was already running late and didn’t have time to stop at the pharmacy.
I was supposed to meet Rory at the field where the festival was being held so we could scope out the barn. She had the okay to use the space and had corralled some people into helping us convert it into a haunted house. We only had a few weeks to get our plans under way, but I was hopeful it would turn out well.
Just as I’d suspected, the older kids at Hope House were all for being part of it. Even the staff had gotten on board. To my shock and delight, Charity had been the most excited by the idea, and her enthusiasm had sparked something in the rest of the kids. They took over planning what they were going to dress up as, going so far as to give me a list of all the supplies they’d need to bring their un-dead costumes to life. I was in for a lot of shopping and many late nights sewing, but if it made the kids happy, I was willing to do it.
With the festival on top of all my regular duties, these next few weeks were going to be even busier, so there wasn’t time for me to get sick. Unfortunately, by body didn’t seem to care.
Not feeling well enough to go through my whole morning ritual, I quickly showered and dried my hair, throwing it up in a sloppy bun instead of styling it. I skipped makeup altogether, threw on some clothes, strapped my watch to my wrist, and rushed out the door.
There were a few trucks parked beside Rory’s, and as I pulled up, I spotted her standing just outside the open barn doors. “Sorry I’m late,” I said as I climbed out and closed my door. “I slept through my stupid alarm.”
“No problem. We haven’t been here all that long.” She looked me over as I got closer, her brows pinching together in a deep V. “Are you okay? You don’t look so
good. And your voice sounds funny.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Nothing some over-the-counter meds won’t knock right out.”
She didn’t appear convinced. “You sure? We can do this some other time if you’re getting sick.”
“Nope, I’m perfect,” I lied. I felt like complete shit, but we had a job to do. Changing the subject, I looked to the old barn and asked, “Is that it?”
“Yep. I know it’s kind of an eye-sore, but the owner assured me the structure’s stable, and it’s completely empty. So what do you think?”
The building looked old as dirt and a little creepy. In other words, a great place for a haunted house. I looked at her, forgetting all about my impending cold. “It’s perfect. Come on. I want to take a look inside.”
I made it two steps before she grabbed my hand and stopped me. “Before you go in there, I need to tell you . . .” She paused to chew on her bottom lip nervously.
The goosebumps spreading across my arms had nothing to do with the breeze. “What do you need to tell me?”
She shifted from foot to foot, appearing almost anxious. “I had Cord put the word out that we needed volunteers who were handy with construction and stuff like that. I didn’t know who all he got until this morning. But . . . well, Bryce is here. He’s one of the volunteers.”
My stomach twisted at the news. Part of me wanted to book it back to my car, but I held firm. This wasn’t about me or Bryce. This was for the kids. My kids. And we needed all the help we could get. You’re moving forward, Tessa. Don’t forget that.
“Don’t worry about it, Ror. Everything will be fine.”
Again, she didn’t look convinced. “Really?”
The Second Time Around: a Hope Valley novel Page 8