“If any woman deserves one, it’s Ally. She deserves the big dream, all wrapped up in a big bow.”
Maybe I did too.
I reached for my phone. I had some preparations to make before the reunion on Friday.
It was fucking fairy tale time.
19
Ally
I snagged my keys on the way out the door. My phone was in my back pocket, but it was off. I wasn’t stupid about going out without it, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone. All the voices were too confusing.
Sage and her effervescent positivity.
Seth and his seductive laugh rolled in innuendo and faint promises.
Laurie and her wide smiles and happiness.
All of it was too much. I didn’t know which to trust, especially when my own voice was so very silent. Tucked in like a turtle in front of a predator. The problem was, I didn’t know where to turn, so the shell seemed prudent. Only my shell was Seth’s house—again.
This one not often used. One of the half dozen properties his family owned on the cove. Whispers always called it the Mistress House after one of the Hamilton men who kept his affairs away from the main house. Now it mostly lay empty and one of the places I could actually be alone in this town. Everyone in an out of each other’s business was generally a comfort to me, but right now every person I ran into wanted to know when Seth and I were going to get married and make babies.
How that little tidbit got around, I had no clue. But I figured a certain blond might have something to do with it. The diner was the center of the town in more ways than one. And teasing Seth about his manly bits in front of a dozen patrons certainly didn’t help my cause. No one could actually have a fling in this town.
Even if the mere idea of fling and Seth in the same sentence made my chest tighten.
He’d never been that for me, even when I wanted him to be. When the idea of making a kid with him took hold, there’d been little hope for my heart to truly stay mine. It had always been his, but only I’d known it. That had been somehow easier than this.
All my dreams and happiness were wrapped up in his little girl and the man himself. I wasn’t sure I could face all of that again. Loving him could be the one thing that would actually break me in the end.
I hiked up the grassy hill into the trees and the path that rounded Crescent Cove. The house was beautiful, but not as pristine as the other Hamilton holdings. But that didn’t much matter when it came to the view. The lake, the town, and the little gazebo looked picturesque from here. The sun glittered off the lake. No mirror sheen here. No, our cove was choppy and a bit wild. It suited me right to the ground.
The idea of moving out of Crescent Cove killed me. Because if things didn’t work out between us, I’d have to leave. I couldn’t face seeing him in town no matter what happened. My hand slid over my flat belly. Especially if there was a child growing inside me. Would he get what he wanted and be done with me? Or just keep me around in a mother capacity?
Would I be forever on the outside looking in?
I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to do that. Even though I wanted a family so very much, I wasn’t sure I could take half-measures now.
I’d hiked these hills for days and still couldn’t find an answer. I looked away from the town and the water and caught sight of the little abandoned church on the far side of the cove. The only thing there now was the cemetery. The town had taken the church in the center square as their own since I’d been a kid, but the cemetery had always been up away from the water.
I hadn’t been there since we’d buried my mom that one sunny day. I’d been at peace about her leaving me. Mostly because the woman I’d loved had left long before. Even at the end when her body had turned on her so completely, she’d had a sweet smile until the very end.
She just hadn’t been my mom.
I ducked through the trees and up the less used path to the little church. There was an old dirt road that the processionals used, but I didn’t want to drive up. The stretch of muscles and the sun helped the nausea that had been living inside me for the last week. Another thing I just wasn’t quite ready to face.
As evidenced by the plastic bag tucked away in my knapsack at the Hamilton camp. The one burning a hole in the worn canvas.
I’d traveled over two towns to buy it. In a nearby city where no one knew who I was. I’d wrapped the box in two bags and shoved it deep down. Fitting since all I ever did was shove things down so I didn’t have to look at them.
It was getting really tiresome.
I lifted my face to the sun and uncapped the water bottle at my hip. Even if I didn’t want an answer just quite yet, I wasn’t stupid. A few hours in the summer sun could put me down like a puppy. So I guzzled down half the bottle and stuck it back in its little holster. I kept hiking, taking a shortcut across the trail and up instead of around the lazy walking trail.
Right then it felt more important to get to the little hill under the Japanese maple at the far side of the cemetery. The headstones came into view and my chest ached. I ran my fingertips over the old stones at the front. The mausoleum to the left with Hamilton engraved across the top told the history of our town better than any story in the library.
Huge. Moneyed. Overwhelming.