Chapter 2

The soft glow of the lamp on my entryway table lit enough space for me to see as I dropped my keys in the bowl beside it and hung my purse and jacket on the hooks on the wall by the door.

The silence of the house was broken when my cat trudged over to greet me with a low, husky meow.

"Hey, Smoosh," I said as I bent down to pick up my little princess. She let out a contented purr as I nuzzled my face into her downy fur. When I decided a few months earlier maybe it was time for me to get a pet, I headed to the shelter thinking I'd get a cute little puppy. But the moment I set eyes on the gray and white Exotic Shorthair, I knew I'd found the one. I'd fallen in love with her smooshed in face and big yellow eyes and took her home with me that day. Since then she'd been the best companion. Affectionate without being clingy, she enjoyed her own space. Sure, she could be a bit of a diva at times, but I chalked that up to her being gorgeous and knowing it.

"Did you miss Mommy? I bet you did. I missed you too. I had to spend the evening with a bridezilla and her android husband when I would have much rather stayed home with you."

She began to squirm, her way of communicating I had reached my allotted thirty seconds of cuddles and it was time for me to put her down.

She trotted off to parts unknown as I headed in the opposite direction toward my bedroom. I was so tired, the fluffy white comforter and cozy down pillows of my bed were calling for me to flop down and not get up for at least twelve hours, but I knew better than to go to bed with my makeup on. Especially my ‘event makeup' that was heavier and smokier than what I usually wore day to day.

Kicking off my heels, I picked them up and carried them to my closet, returning them to their rightful place on the shelf. The instant I opened the closet door, my gaze shot to the garment bag hanging in the very back corner. Usually I was able to forget it was there, but on nights like this one the wedding dress I never got to wear but couldn't bring myself to donate or sell had a habit of mocking me.

It was coming up on a year since Barrett ended our relationship and called off our wedding, and while the pain had dulled, the reminder of that humiliating time in my life still tended to crop up when I least expected it. That was the problem with dating someone who grew up in the same small town. They didn't just fall off the face of the earth after a breakup like you'd hope.

I'd known Barrett pretty much my whole life, but it wasn't until a year after I graduated from college and moved back home to Pembrooke that we got together. As a kid, he'd been painfully shy and awkward, this scrawny little thing with braces and acne-prone skin that other kids teased mercilessly. There were a few times I'd tried to initiate a conversation with him or include him in a game of kickball during recess, but he always ducked his head and ran off before I could get a full sentence out.

I felt really bad for him, and when I left for college, I remember thinking I hoped things got better for him. Then one day, years later, I was standing in the middle of the Drunken Moose, a popular bar and grill that had been lovingly shortened to the Moose by locals, waiting to pick up my to-go order when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

It had taken me several seconds to place the handsome man smiling down at me. His eyes finally garnered recognition. That tall, leanly-muscled, well-dressed man looked nothing like the shy wallflower I remembered from years earlier.

I smiled, giving him a hug and telling him how great it was to see him. He'd returned the sentiment before asking me out to dinner the following evening, and from that moment, we'd practically been inseparable. That had been the start of something magical.

I'd fallen head over heels for the funny, charming, still somewhat nerdy man, and for the first time, the groom in all my daydreams finally had a face and a name. I spent the next three years counting my lucky stars. I had the best friends a woman could ask for, a new business that was doing better than we ever could have imagined, and the man of my dreams.

Then it all got even better when he'd pulled out a beautiful solitaire diamond engagement ring one night and asked me to be his wife.

I spent the next year of my life pouring over that scrapbook I had kept since I was a little girl. With the help of Ryan and Tarryn, we'd planned my fairy-tale wedding. It was tricky, trying to figure out how to throw a wedding we were all in, but we were determined to make it work.

We were only a few weeks out from the big day when Barrett informed me it wasn't what he wanted. Or more to the point, I wasn't what he wanted.

Now, I know people say there had to have been warning signs, but if there had been, I was clueless to them. I genuinely thought we were happy and were going to build a beautiful life together. There was no lull in the bedroom, no lack of conversation. We weren't living two separate lives that happened to take place under the same roof. We were both in, one hundred percent—at least as far as I knew. So it went without saying I'd been crushed when he came home one night and informed me it was over. Just like that.

He packed his things like he hadn't just reached into my chest and ripped out my still-beating heart. Then, as he started for the door, suitcases in hand, the son of a bitch actually had the audacity to look back and inform me that he'd grab my engagement ring with the rest of his stuff later in the week. Something inside me had shriveled and died when he said that.

I'd loved that ring. I thought I would wear it for the rest of my life, or at least until one of the kids we were supposed to have had asked to have it for their partner. I'd always romanticized the idea of passing my wedding ring down and having it go from generation to generation.

Instead, after a call to my girls when I told them the whole ugly story, we'd loaded up in Tarryn's car and headed out to Pembrooke Lake. We sat on the shoreline, a bottle of vodka passed around, and as the sun sank low, dipping behind the jagged ridges of the mountains that surrounded the lake, I stood up and headed for the water. As soon as it was lapping at my toes, I slipped the ring off my finger and launched it as far as I could, sending a rather loud "fuck you" into the air for Barrett as it plunked into the water and sunk down to the dark depths.

Ryan and Tarryn had hooted and cheered behind me, chanting my name like I'd just sent a baseball sailing right out of the stadium for a World Series winning home run.

It had been a bonding moment for all of us, as well as a cathartic release for me. And the amount of joy I got at seeing the anger on Barrett's face when I told him he'd have to fish his precious ring out of the goddamn lake if he wanted it so badly had been priceless.

I buried myself in work in an effort to forget, but that was easier said than done, given what I did for a living. It hadn't helped when, only a couple weeks after he dumped me, he'd been spotted in town with Leighton Cavanaugh on his arm. Pembrooke's very own resident mean girl. She'd been a self-centered, spoiled little brat in high school, grasping hold of her popularity by using fear over kindness, and she hadn't gotten much better the older we got. She was still a grade-A bitch with a streak of entitlement that ran miles long.

When I found out he'd moved on to her before the body of our dead relationship was even cold and in the ground, I might have had a little purging party in which I created a playlist of Taylor Swift revenge songs while drinking wine and burning the rest of the shit he left behind.

Flipping off the light in my closet, I shut the door firmly and headed for the bathroom. Once my skin was freshly cleansed and moisturized to a dewy glow, I slipped out of the skirt and blouse I'd been wearing all day and into my comfy sleep shorts and a matching tank before climbing into bed.

Just as I leaned over to flip the lamp off, my phone pinged with a text alert. With a furrowed brow, I grabbed it off the nightstand and saw a text waiting from my sister-in-law.

Charlotte: You awake?

I checked the time before replying back.

Me: Just got home from a wedding. Better question is why are you awake?

Charlotte and my older brother, Dalton, lived halfway across the country in a small town in Virginia called Hope Valley. I missed my big brother like crazy. Fortunately, I got to see him at least twice a year, once when I would visit them in Hope Valley, and once when they came to Pembrooke. However, Charlotte was extremely pregnant at the moment, so travel was out of the question for her, a bummer because she was the best sister-in-law a chick could ask for. In fact, most days I was sure I liked her more than I liked my own brother. Needless to say, Dalton had seriously lucked out when he landed her.

The moment the message showed as read, my phone sounded with an incoming FaceTime call. Charlotte's face appeared on the screen as soon as I answered, her smile so big it was pulling at her cheeks as she waved wildly.

"Oh my god, I miss your face so freaking much!" she exclaimed.

I let out a little laugh and propped myself up against the headboard. "I miss you too, crazy. Why are you awake right now? Isn't it like, two in the morning over there?"

She blew out a raspberry and crossed her eyes exaggeratedly. "Yeah, but this little one has decided it's time to do a clog dance all over my bladder," she explained as she caressed her swollen baby bump that was even bigger than the last time we FaceTimed. "So I decided to skip sleep and make myself an ice cream sundae instead." She waggled her eyebrows and shoved a heaping spoonful of ice cream with all the fixings into her mouth.

I smiled, the bleak mood brought on by my wedding dress gone thanks to one phone call from my sister-in-law. "I take it Dalton's asleep?"

She licked her spoon clean before answering. "Yeah, I figured I'd give him the benefit of sleep since I'm going to put him to work later when I make him paint the nursery."

My head fell back on a deep belly laugh. "Didn't you finish the nursery last week?"

Her nose scrunched up adorably. "Yeah, but when I walked in earlier today I decided I hated the color. I think I'm nesting, and I can't do that in a room with pale yellow walls." Her expression turned thoughtful. "I'm feeling a really soft sage green. What do you think?"

I shook my head as my shoulders shook with silent laughter. "I think Dalton's head is going to explode, but what Mama wants, Mama gets."

"Exactly." She narrowed her eyes and pointed at me through the screen of my phone. "See, I always knew you were the smarter Prescott sibling."

"Thank you for noticing," I said with a tiny bow.

My brother's gruff, sleep-raspy voice carried through the speaker. "Jesus, do you have any clue what time it is?" A second later, his shirtless form popped on the screen over her shoulder, his overly-long hair a mess and his beard flat on one side from where he'd been sleeping on it.

"Ugh, gross! Put on some clothes before I go blind!"

His deep chuckle resonated through the air and a sharp pain shot through my chest. Man, I missed him. I missed them both, but I had a special bond with my big brother, in spite of the distance separating us.

I had hoped when he retired from the military he'd come home, but through some of his connections, he ended up getting a job as a certified badass for a company called Alpha Omega. It was through that job he'd met Charlotte. She'd been a confidential informant on a case dealing with police corruption, drugs, and murder. Dalton had been tasked with protecting her when the shit hit the fan. Charlotte had been the one to fight the draw, but my brother was a smart man. He knew what he wanted, and he went for it, full-tilt. It was something right out of a movie or romance novel.

"Good to see you too, little sis. But is there a reason you're keeping my pregnant wife up so late?"

I placed a hand on my chest in feigned offense. "Hey, this wasn't my fault. It was your wife who started blowing up my phone."

The look he gave Charlotte created an uncomfortable knot it my chest. Concern marred his brow, pulling at the center of his forehead, but there was also adoration shining in his eyes. It was how he'd been looking at Charlotte from the very beginning, and the reason I'd pushed so hard for them to get together the first time I met her. He cherished her. It was written all over his face.

It was just another reminder of how stupid I'd been to think that what I had with Barrett was forever, because I couldn't remember him ever looking at me the way my big brother looked at his wife.

Like she was the meaning for his very existence.

"The little one keeping you up, baby?"

I watched in fascination as her features went soft. She brought her hand up to give his beard an affectionate scratch. "It's all right, Cowboy. I was having an ice cream craving anyway." She lifted her spoon with the other hand, but before she could tuck it into her mouth, Dalton leaned forward and stole the bite for himself.

Just like that, the tenderness in her expression was gone. For such a tiny little thing, my sister-in-law could be fierce as hell, and the death glare she shot him was enough to send any other man scurrying. "You keep stealing my ice cream and you'll be sleeping on the couch for the rest of this pregnancy," she warned, making me laugh.

"I'd take that threat to heart," I said through a big smile. "I'm pretty certain she means it."

Dalton shot me a wink. "Please, my wife is obsessed with me. She can't get enough."

My eyes stopped mid-roll when a jaw-cracking yawn forced its way out of my mouth. "As much as I love watching you guys argue, I need to get to sleep. The wedding tonight kicked my ass, and I still have to go into the office tomorrow."

Charlotte's bottom lip jutted out in a pout. "Fine," she huffed. "I guess I'll let you go. I just miss you like crazy."

"That makes two of us," Dalton added. "You need to get your ass to Hope Valley for a visit, little sis. It's been too long."

I smiled huge, warmth spreading through my chest. My romantic relationship might have gone up in a burst of flames, but I still had more love that I could possibly ask for. My support system was mighty.

"I miss you guys too. You know how it is during wedding season, though. We're slammed right now, but I'll be there when that little nugget is born, I promise."

My brother hit me with a stern look. "You better."

I drew an X on my chest over my heart. "Cross my heart. You know I wouldn't miss it. I need to solidify my place as the favorite immediately."

It might have just been my brother and me, but Dalton and Charlotte's circle of friends and loved ones in Hope Valley was huge, not to mention Charlotte's twin sister. I had a ridiculous amount of aunts and uncles to contend with, and I refused to be shoved to the back burner just because I lived half a continent away.

"I love you guys. Talk soon."

"Love you back," Charlotte said enthusiastically.

"Love you, sis," Dalton added.

I tapped the screen, ending the call, and dropped the phone back onto my nightstand before flipping off the light.

I might have been exhausted, but that call with my family had been good for my heart.