Page 2 of Seeking Happily Ever After

Jessica had a steady job now. She was clean. She’d rented a townhouse with a small yard, in a decent neighborhood.

All good signs that she was getting her life together.

Nick clicked the phone off and gazed down at the now sleeping baby. His heart swelled with a love he didn’t even know was possible to feel until Amelia had been dropped into his life.

And now, he couldn’t imagine his life without her. Which was why he couldn’t stop thinking about how to make sure he never would have to.

Charlotte Davis clicked through the photos her mother, Darlene, had emailed her for the real estate listing they were working on. Dishes piled on the counter, with every type of appliance ever invented covering every inch of space. Dirty dishtowels hung from the oven and refrigerator door.

Terrible.

Char tried not to roll her eyes and even though her mother hadn’t asked, she jotted down a few notes about how to make the space look more appealing. It wouldn’t take much to transform the space. She couldn’t completely tell from the photos, but it looked like the kitchen itself was pretty nice, with a classic white tile backsplash and granite countertops that should be showcased instead of cluttered up.

Her parents, Darlene and Dwayne Davis, had been Glacier Falls’ top real estate agents, and had recently come back out of retirement to take advantage of the market that was starting to heat up. In their absence, things had changed. A lot.

Not only was Glacier Falls starting to become a hot spot for city folk who were desperate to escape the hustle and bustle and experience the beauty of the mountains and all that was offered with small-town living, but there was more competition between agents. Maybe Char didn’t have much experience in real estate, but it didn’t take an expert to see that the photos her mother had sent over were terrible, and were not going to help get top dollar for the house.

Charlotte sighed and dropped her chin to her chest in a quick neck stretch.

She was grateful her parents had offered her the job, to be sure. But working for her parents when she was thirty-two years old because she’d just had to move home to live with them after an epically failed relationship was not exactly where Charlotte thought she would be in her life at this point.

Not even close.

But it was better than the alternative. She still shuddered when she thought about the poor decision-making that had led her to a relationship with Billy Grant, the man she’d met with an online dating app. He’d seemed like a good guy, if not a little rough around the edges, when they’d first started talking online and then moved things to phone and video calls. He’d really cared about her and what she was interested in and what she was doing. He proclaimed his love early and often. All signs that, in hindsight, should have alerted her, but her judgment was off.

No. It was completely malfunctioning.

It made her so angry with herself to think about how she’d fallen for him and had ignored all the red flags that had been so apparent. She was smarter than that. Yet, when he’d asked her to move across the country to be with him, she hadn’t even hesitated. She quit her interior design job with an up-and-coming home builder in the city, sold everything she owned, pushed away her family’s concerns and had jumped on a plane to Halifax. Only three months later, it had become clear that Billy Grant was not the sweet, caring, happily ever after she’d dreamed he was.

He was a controlling narcissist who’d managed to, piece by piece, strip away her self-esteem and self-worth until she didn’t even recognize herself. It wasn’t until after Christmas when her parents came for a visit that she had begun to see for herself that the situation she was in wasn’t healthy. Still, it had taken a few more weeks for Charlotte to get up the courage to call her brother Jeremy for help.

And now she was home.

She stretched her arms over her head and, opting to talk to her mom in person about the terrible photos, pushed up from the kitchen table that she was using for a temporary office. Her parents had recently moved into an office space just off Main Street, but working from home gave her a little bit of space from them, or at the very least, the illusion of space. She loved her parents, she really did, but it was not normal to be living at home at her age.

She really needed to find a little apartment or something and move out. Of course, to do that, she’d need more money.

Charlotte tried not to think about the circle she was caught up in and instead pulled a sweater over her head. Maybe a morning walk would help to clear her head on more than one level.

April in Glacier Falls was unpredictable. The town was positioned in the valley so that, despite being tucked in among some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, warm winds blew in early to provide an earlier-than-expected spring season. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be treated to a freak snowstorm at any time.

The sun was shining and warm on her face as Charlotte took her time walking to the office. She stopped to investigate some of the community garden beds for signs of life and found tulips and daffodils pushing up through the soil. It wouldn’t be long before everything was in bloom and the grass was green again. Spring was Charlotte’s favorite time in Glacier Falls. It had been too long since she’d spent the season in her hometown.

Maybe there were some positives with having to return home?

The smell of freshly baked honey buns floated on the breeze and Charlotte straightened.

Yes. There were definitely positives to being back in Glacier Falls.

The bells over the bakery door jingled as she stepped inside. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. Nothing smelled as good as delectable aromas coming from the ovens in the back of Sweetie Pies.

“Oh, sorry.”

Charlotte jostled and almost fell over as the door to the bakery opened directly into her back. She probably should have gotten out of the way. “No,” she said as she turned around to apologize. “It’s my fault. I—Nick!”

Nick Newton was Glacier Fall’s newest resident, who also happened to be extremely handsome and ridiculously wealthy and therefore was the most sought-after bachelor in town. Never mind the fact that he had the sweetest little baby girl and pulled off the single dad thing adorably—not that Charlotte was in the market for a new boyfriend, because she absolutely was not. But she liked Nick. He was kind and sweet and a little bit dorky. And his baby, Amelia, was just about the most gorgeous child she’d ever seen. Charlotte couldn’t help it; she had a soft spot for babies.

“Charlotte.” Nick’s face transformed into a smile. He always looked a little tired, but was it Char’s imagination, or did he look stressed out, too? “I’m so sorry,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to crash into you. Are you okay?”

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