I wasn’t sure what I would find when I went home. But I needed to face it and face my mother. “I’m going to head to see Mom after this. I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Okay. Text me your new number. Later, I’ll text you so we can meet up.”
I pulled out my phone and sent Drake my number. He went to the door. “This isn’t over between us, Lex.”
The door closed, and my heart thudded double-time in my chest. Drake Foster still wanted me. And I wanted him.
What am I going to do?
* * *
I drove up the long drive, anticipating the owens b&b sign. Some years ago, I helped carve our last name on the sign and then painted it with Dad. As I made the turn, I stopped abruptly. The sign was gone. The place had fresh paint, new landscaping, and new furniture in the yard. It looked like a completely different place. More sophisticated. Not the rustic B&B I’d called home for so many years.
Blinking a few times, I sat, frozen. This wasn’t home. This was something… new and not part of my dad. All I could see was the loss of what had been. The bench Dad and I made was gone. His rustic rocking chairs, too. My heart ached. I hoped Mom still had them.
I closed my eyes, remembering what it had looked like before, needing to have that connection to my dad. Our home. The place where he taught me to ride a bike. The pond behind the house was where I learned to ice skate. Dad had pushed me on the t
ire swing for hours on end.
Maybe this is a dream.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized it wasn’t. This was a foreign place to me. My eyes stung. Why didn’t Mom tell me she was doing this? Why? I would have come home sooner to see it one last time.
At least the tree where Dad and I used to read together was still there. Drake and I had memories under that tree, too. When we’d first started dating, we had to stay in public places because I was seventeen and Drake was nineteen. Every day, Drake came over to help me study under that tree.
Drake.
He’d thought I was dating someone. I wanted him more than I wanted anything else in the world. My head was still torn, but my heart felt alive for the first time in two years. Dad’s words bounced around in my head like a ping-pong ball.
Don’t settle. Drake is not the one for you.
The lawyer had given me the letter two days after Dad died, at the reading of his will, and it had turned my world upside down. I had loved Drake… I still loved him. But I never knew Dad felt that way about him. They hunted, fished, and did so much together. They were close. And yet it all felt like a lie. Did something happen while I was at school? The letter had been dated two weeks before he died, and I just couldn’t imagine Drake doing anything to break my trust.
A lump caught in my throat. Drake was a good guy, but at some point, for some reason, Dad had no longer approved. His last piece of parental advice had warned me against the man I loved. And now I was more confused than ever. If it had been the right decision, I didn’t think I should feel this conflicted.
Later, Drake and I would talk, and I’d work on sorting it out.
Mom stood on the front porch, stiffly waving. The grimace on her face probably meant I hadn’t come at the most opportune time. I got out of the car anyway and waved back. “Hey, Mom.”
She paused with a look of surprise. “Alexa, I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow. When did you get here?”
Well, that wasn’t the greeting I’d hoped for. Normally, I would correct her, but I felt out of sorts at the moment. Like I was a stranger in the one place that was supposed to bring me comfort. From the looks of it, the inside of the house had been changed as well. And it seemed I was a glutton for punishment; my feet brought me closer to the door. At least the flowery scent of forget-me-nots still filled the air. That was the smell of home.
I cleared my throat. “Yesterday. I came back to open the clinic.”
“Where are you going to open it?”
That was when I wanted to scream out in frustration. I’d asked her to look at the Doogle place for me—explained all my plans. Trying to keep the irritation out of my voice, I said, “The Doogle place, remember.”
She sighed, “Oh, Alexa. I had hoped you’d decide not to go through with that. Stay with Hollis in New York. That’s where the two of you belong.”
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
I walked up the steps, holding out my arms. Mom greeted me with a stiff hug. Not the one I’d have expected from her after not seeing me for two years. Mom and I had never been super close. I mean, yes, I loved her, and she loved me… I thought. But she was closer to my sister, Raquel. My sister was married to the richest man in town, who was an asswipe, from what I could tell. Chazz thinks… Chazz says… Chazz agrees. Chazz, Chazz, Chazz. From the emails Raquel sent me, it was like my sister had lost all independent thought when she married him. But I’d never met him.
Opening the door, Mom said, “Come on in. I took a pie out of the oven.”
The smell of freshly baked apple wafted through the air, which helped ease my tattered soul. Pie was just what I needed. This was another familiar smell, helping to ground me. Dad and I ate apple pie so many times while working together.