Page 52 of The Runaway Bride's Vow

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe this. Where’s she going?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say. I have to go.” He disconnected the phone as Clara kept asking questions that he had absolutely no answers to.

All he knew was that Brooke never truly loved him, or she wouldn’t have skipped out on their wedding day. He supposed he should be grateful they hadn’t gotten married before she had this revelation, but all he felt was a raw, jagged pain where his heart was supposed to be.

He jumped into his pickup and fired up the engine. As he stamped the accelerator, he was filled with a tsunami of emotions that threatened to drown him. There was a part of him that wanted to fix this mess. And there was another part of him that never wanted to see Brooke ever again.

Chapter Seventeen

Home sweet home …

Brooke hoped that was still the case as she drove eastward. Her wedding debacle more than a year ago had put a strain on her relationship with her whole family—something she’d never anticipated when her wedding with Josh had blown up in her face. Currently, she couldn’t fix things with Logan, but it was time to fix things with her family. In fact, it was well past time to heal old wounds.

As she’d made her way through Nevada on her way eastward, she’d stopped for the night. Before she called it a night, she’d called Selena and Clara. The conversations were brief and stilted. Finally, she phoned her building manager to tell him she was keeping her apartment after all. She didn’t have it in her to explain her actions. She knew she’d have to do some explaining eventually, but she wasn’t ready to do it yet.

After three long days of driving, she pulled to a stop in her parents’ driveway. She shifted into Park as she stared up at the familiar farmhouse. Maybe it was because she’d been away for the past year, and it gave her a new perspective, but she noticed how the white paint was peeling, and the red paint on the shutters had now faded to a pinkish shade.

She turned her attention to the back door. When she was a kid, she would run in and out of that doorway. The screen door would swing shut behind her with a solid whack-whack.

Back in those days, she didn’t have any worries. The days were long—oh my, how the days seemed to stretch out—unlike these days when the time flew right past her in the blink of an eye.

Speaking of time, she couldn’t continue to sit here in the hot August sunshine. As soon as she opened the door, she was smacked in the face with the stifling heat and oppressive humidity. Not so long ago, she’d been used to this sort of weather, but now that she lived in San Francisco, she’d gotten used to a much milder climate.

She drew in a deep breath of hot air. Maybe not her best decision. It was time to get this over with. She knew the initial moments would be the worst, and then she hoped things would start to feel normal again.

She made her way across the driveway, all the while the gravel crunched beneath her feet. She paused at the edge of the concrete sidewalk and stared down at the two sets of little hand prints—hers and her sister’s. That moment felt like a lifetime ago.

She continued up the walk. She climbed the wooden steps, crossed the deck, and paused in front of the back door. What did she do now?

She hadn’t told them she was coming home. What would her mother’s reaction be? Was it possible she wouldn’t be happy to see her? The thought had her stomach churning. It wasn’t too late to turn around and leave.

She didn’t move. This was a decisive moment in her life. If she ever wanted to be able to move forward, she had to take a few steps back. And this was the place where her life had first fallen apart.

Her heart raced, echoing in her ears. In all her life, she’d never been this nervous about coming home—not even when she was sixteen and two hours past her curfew.

She refused to walk away. She’d sacrificed too much and come too far to leave now. So, did she knock? Or did she walk in the door just like she’d done most of her life?

Maybe knocking would be best. She clenched her hand and lifted her arm. About to knock, her mother swung the door open. Her face was thinner, and the lines bracketing her eyes and mouth were deeper. Other than that her mother was her same wonderful self.

Her mother’s eyes widened. “Were you going to knock?”

“Um.” She lowered her arm as heat rushed to her cheeks. “Well… You didn’t know I was coming.”

Her mother pushed open the back door. “Get in here.” Her mother enveloped her in a hug. Brooke didn’t know how much she needed it until that moment. When they parted, her mother said, “I’ll get us some lemonade.”

The thought of an ice-cold drink appealed to her. And so she followed her mother into the kitchen, which was still painted a sunflower yellow with green and white buffalo check curtains framing the tall windows.

In the center of the kitchen was a large farmhouse table with three chairs on one side, a bench on the other side, and a chair on either end. This was where everyone caught up on each other’s day. It was where many fights had started, and fights had been settled.

After cleaning up from working in the fields, her father would sit at the head of the table. Her mother would sit at the other end. Brooke would sit on one side, and Candi would be on the other side. Back in the day, the extra seats hadn’t sat empty. Both her and her sister would always have friends at the house who would inevitably stay for dinner. She missed those days.

Of course, her parents had always planned to fill the table with more of their own children, but that hadn’t been in the plans for them. After she was born, her mother had complications that ended with a hysterectomy, but it didn’t stop her mother from being a loving and attentive parent.

Her mother filled two glasses with ice and poured the undoubtedly fresh-squeezed lemonade. Yummo! It’d been far too long since she’d tasted it.

Her mother turned around and frowned. “What are you still standing there for? Sit down.”

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