Page 7 of Long Road Home

“Nothing,” Rebecca said and handed back my phone. Her hand shook, and she’d gone pale. “Nothing. Cute kid.”

She grabbed Cooper’s hand and yanked him toward their house with Kelly following. Last summer, a tornado had destroyed the original farmhouse Rebecca and I grew up in. Cooper, richer than rich, rebuilt what most in town considered a mansion. An all brick one and a half story house with almost four thousand square feet of gorgeous home. They’d moved in last December and were getting married in a couple of months.

I stood from the chair. The screen door they ran through slammed closed. I turned back to Ryan. “What the hell was that about?”

“Women.” Ryan shrugged and slung back a drink. “Who the fuck knows?”

Three

Destiny

I knewI shouldn’t have come here. How was I supposed to knowthatwas going to happen? I couldn’t. There was no way. Now not only did everyone in this damn town still hate me and think the worst of me—Jordan, too, and he didn’t even know the half of it—but now Toby hated me.

At least that’s what he screamed at me as soon as we got back to Tillie’s two hours ago. He cried the entire way back and it didn’t take a genius to know what he was thinking. A thousand excuses and reasons to give him raced through my brain, but they all jumbled and tangled in my throat.

As soon as we got inside, he ran to the room he was staying in and slammed the door.

With frustration and anger and guilt building inside of me, instead of wandering aimlessly around her small house like I’d done last night, taking in all the pictures she hung on her walls, noting that not a single thing had changed in a decade, I got to work.

I had to get her house packed up.

I had to get things stored. Things I wanted to save and ship back to our home in a suburb of Houston. On Monday, I had a meeting with the lawyer in charge of Tillie’s estate and then I was meeting with a realtor to get the house listed. I had to get everything cleaned, the house decluttered and staged to sell quickly.

In the meantime, I planned on holing up in the house except for a brief trip to the grocery store to stock up on food for the next few days. Then, Toby and I were getting the hell out of this godforsaken place.

As I opened the first box, I jumped at the sound of Toby’s music blaring so loudly upstairs the walls shook, in danger of knocking down pictures all over the place.

One included my prom picture. Jordan was in a tux, white shirt, dark red vest that had matched my dress and deep red corsage on my wrist. We stood side by side, and his hand was settled low on my hip. I couldn’t believe Tillie still had that photo hanging and Toby had seen it.

As soon as he saw it last night, he slammed to a halt on the stairs. Pointed to it. Turned to me and asked, “Who’s that?”

“Some guy I used to know,” I’d muttered, body already shaking with fear of what I’d say if he asked another question.

He’d stared at me for a beat, then two, and went to his room.

Hearing the name Jordan today, seeing that very same man in flesh and bone, a man who I’d obviously known years ago, a man who was responsible for my son’s middle name—yeah, my kid wasn’t an idiot.

“Freaking Cheerios,” I muttered and went to the pictures hanging on the walls. They were shaking from the bass of Toby’s music. Might as well pack them before they crashed to the floor.

I’d give him time to settle. We’d eat. After, I’d tell him everything I could.

Then, I’d ask him what he wanted once he had all the information. He was old enough to have some say.

“Only you, Destiny. Only you would get yourself into this dumbass, stupid and horrific situation.”

My phone rang on the coffee table, but I ignored it. There were only two people who would call me. My boss and friend, Allison, who ran the graphic design firm where we’d become friends years ago, or Paul. We dated for three years and I had only recently broken up with him.

Shortly before Tillie died, she called me and told me she knew my heart wasn’t with him. To let him go. That life was too short to livesafelyand not fully in love with the man you had at your side. I’d argued with her, but I hadn’t been able to get it out of my mind.

Then, everything made sense once she was gone. She’d been wrapping up loose ends, knowing the end was coming for her and she’d never hinted at it. The truth of what she’d said, why she said it, and what I was doing hit me within days after I got the call from Pastor Emmerson letting me know she was gone.

Only I would be so selfish as to hang on to a guy I knew I wouldn’t marry. It wasn’t because I didn’t love him. I did. He was strong and stable. He loved Toby. Hell, he’d coached his basketball team one year. He was a major fixture in our life and I wanted to keep him.

I just didn’t love him enough to marry him, and I could never tell him the reason was because when I dreamed of my wedding, it was never him I envisioned walking toward.

He was such a good guy, that even after he found out about Tillie’s death, he’d called and asked to come with us, to be there for me. To be there for Toby. I hadn’t been blind to the pain and disappointment in his eyes when I told him no thank you.

God freaking damn it. I was rotten.

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