It was strange to think that only six years ago, Copper Ridge hadn’t felt like home at all.
She’d been an angry teenager, uprooted from her home in Texas, contending with all sorts of hurt after being abandoned by her mother.
And then she’d met Alison. Alison, who had taught her how to bake. Alison, who had given her purpose and focus. Who had made her feel well and truly cared about. For no reason other than that she did. Because she wasn’t a family member, she wasn’t obligated to care about her.
Of course, then Alison had met Violet’s father...
But actually, it had been the very best thing to ever happen to Violet. They were her parents. And she loved them absolutely.
Of course, now she had a passel of tiny half siblings, which was a little bit weird, considering that Violet was twenty-two. But her dad had been a fairly young father, and Alison was a bit younger than him still. So it was perfectly reasonable.
She sighed with relief looking at all of the baked goods. It turned out great. She wasn’t overtaxing herself.
She had been so worried about letting Alison down. She knew that she needed a lot of help at the bakery, what with how much work the little kids were. But Violet had really wanted to take that opportunity that had become available at the bed-and-breakfast.
There had been a few innkeepers there over the years.
While it was still Sadie Garrett’s baby, she had less to do with the continual guest care of the place than she had in the beginning. She couldn’t live there, and her own children took up quite a lot of time, plus she had gotten back into doing therapy. She had come to Copper Ridge looking for something new, but as she had explained it to Violet, once she had found Eli, and gotten settled, she didn’t feel like she had to run from every piece of her previous life.
The bed-and-breakfast was an important piece of the Garrett ranch, but it was just a piece.
Violet had been living at home, well past the time when she should’ve moved out. But her dad had a fairly large house on the ranch he shared with Violet’s uncles, a huge converted barn, and even with the small kids, there was more than enough space for Violet. And given that she worked at the family business... It hadn’t really made any sense for her to leave. The bed-and-breakfast was absolutely the perfect opportunity for her to get a little bit more independence, while making sure that she could still help with everything.
She had turned the sign at the bakery to Closed about ten minutes before, and she hummed as she packed away the baked goods into the Tupperware she used to transport, and then walked out the front door. The bell jingled behind her, and she took a moment to look up and down the streets. It was mid-October, with the leaves all around starting to turn. It wasn’t quite time for Christmas decorations to be set up on Main Street, but it would happen soon.
She loved that time of year in Copper Ridge. When the deep cranberry-colored buildings across the street were strung with white lights and pine boughs, creating a rich cascade of seasonal color often reefed in fog that came rolling in off the ocean that was just behind the main street.
She couldn’t imagine not living by the sea, not now.
She loved it.
She and her dad had lived hours from the coast in Texas, and she had never really considered living in a place quite so different. But that had been one of the things that she had immediately loved about Copper Ridge.
One of the only things.
She frowned as she shifted her hold on the baked goods, wishing she could stuff her hands into her pockets, because the wind coming in off the waves was freezing, and walked toward her car. She had been an entire pain in the ass for her dad when they’d first moved here. She’d just been so wounded, and she had been bound and determined to make her dad feel every inch of the pain that she was experiencing.
She could still remember her big act of rebellion. Seventeen and sneaking out of her house. And her dad had caught her drunk, making out with some boy. It was all horrifying in hindsight. And honestly didn’t bear thinking about. She’d changed since then. Her entire goal in life had shifted. Because shouldn’t she be more grateful for the parent who had stuck it out? For the parent who had been there for her? And then, she should reserve even more gratitude for Alison, who hadchosento be in Violet’s life.
Who never made her feel second to the biological children she’d had with Violet’s dad.
She was so lucky to have them. And doing the right thing for them mattered.
It mattered a lot.
But she had a new guest arriving at the bed-and-breakfast today. And he would be there by four thirty, so she had to hurry up, and stop musing.
She considered stopping at the coffeehouse to get a drink, but Asher would probably ask her for a date again, and she just wasn’t interested. He was nice. But she just wasn’t... She wasn’t in a space where she could focus on a relationship right now.
That’s what you always say.
It was true, though.
And as much as she didn’t have aspirations of dying a virgin, she wasn’t in a hurry to change her status either. She wanted to carve out a space for herself at the bed-and-breakfast; she wanted some time to take online classes so that she could get a degree in hospitality. Because she was enjoying this. She was enjoying this life.
It was funny that she’d ended up like this, though. She had been very nearly rebellious. Just the once. But had her dad not interrupted her that night in the barn, it was very likely she wouldn’t be a virgin right now.
She had to wonder, if she had gotten it out of the way back then, would sex feel like less of a big deal now? Would she have no problem at all balancing a love life and her goals if she’d...just started earlier?