Page 14 of Just Like Home

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Whatever good feelings Charlotte had had meeting Lucy and getting settled in her adorable lakeside cottage, with a perfect view of the red lighthouse Jules often wrote about in her letters . . . well, they were gone now.

Standing in front of Julianna’s house, she was about to get hit with a healthy dose of reality, and just thinking about it had her on edge.

She glanced down at the envelope in her hand to be sure she had the right place. She did. No more putting it off. She was here because Julianna Ford had drawn her here with her descriptions of a beautiful, charmed, laid-back life. Because Charlotte, who’d spent years being envied by little girls and up-and-coming dancers and most likely everyone in her company, found herself envying her friend and this simple life she’d built.

Everything about Julianna’s world appealed to her. Sure, it likely came with its own pressures and stress, but what would it feel like to be loved and cherished simply for who you were and not how you performed?

She owed it to her friend to do whatever she could to make sure the people she loved, the business she loved, were all okay. She had so much to atone for.

She knocked on the front door and waited, listening to the commotion inside. Connor Ford was a city planner, but that’s about all Charlotte knew about his job. Its title. She’d known Connor only as “Julianna’s boyfriend” and later as the man who took her best friend away.

Not that he had been the reason Jules left the ballet. Charlotte knew better than to assign him that blame—that blame she kept for herself.

Over the years, Julianna had been back to the city only once, when she attended a new Cinderella ballet in which Charlotte was playing the title role.

Charlotte was certain, looking back on it now, that she should’ve reacted differently knowing her friend had come all that way to see her. As it was, she’d been awkward and standoffish, all but blowing them off after the show ended.

She’d been unhappy with her performance, and the fact that Julianna was in the audience made it worse. In truth, she realized later, she’d been acting like a spoiled brat. She’d written Jules the longest letter apologizing and sent her VIP tickets for any future ballet she wanted to attend.

Julianna had never used them. But she did forgive her, that much was obvious, because she had a heart of gold. The kind of heart Charlotte should’ve been striving to have while she was striving for accolades and professional acclaim.

It shamed her to think about how she’d lost herself.

Or maybe she’d never really known herself in the first place. Had it really taken the death of her only friend to wake her up?

The door opened and a young boy stood on the other side, staring at her through the screen.

“AJ, I told you not to open the door to strangers,” a man’s voice called out before Connor appeared behind Julianna’s middle child.

“Hey, Connor,” Charlotte said.

Surprise splashed across his face. “Charlotte? What are you doing here?”

At least he remembered who she was. “May I come in?”

Connor tossed a worried look over his shoulder. She probably should’ve called first. She didn’t know a lot about social etiquette—it wasn’t like she spent a lot of time visiting friends in Chicago.

“Amelia, come watch your brother!” Connor called over his shoulder, then shooed AJ away, joining Charlotte on the porch. “Sorry, it’s kind of a disaster in there.”

She gave him a sad smile. This man that her friend had fallen so head-over-heels in love with looked like a shell of himself. Not that she knew him well, but the guy standing in front of her was a very different version of the guy Jules described in her letters.

A pang of jealousy resounded in her chest.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again, not accusing, but not friendly either.

“I didn’t get to say anything at the funeral,” she said. “I didn’t want to impose.”

He frowned. “You were there?”

She nodded quietly. “It was a beautiful service.” Was that what people said about funerals? Should she comment on how lovely the luncheon was?

He looked away. “I hardly remember it.”

Her heart tightened in sadness. It didn’t surprise her. He’d seemed in a daze the entire time. And who could blame him? How did you say goodbye to the person you loved most in the world? “I got a letter from Jules, a few days after—” She couldn’t say the words. If she said them out loud, that made them true. And even though she knew they were true, she didn’t want them to be.

Connor leaned against the post at the front of the porch, refusing her eyes. His jaw twitched, and she couldn’t be sure, but she thought maybe he was working—hard—to keep from crying.

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