Page 2 of Home to You
Jake and I had spent three glorious months together, back when I was a grad student at Montana State University. At the time, I told myself it was casual, that we were just having fun. But in reality, I’d been in love with him, and it had terrified me. So much so that when he told me he loved me too and asked me to stay in Montana and be his wife, I broke his heart instead.
Broken my heart, too, if I was being honest.
But I was young, and I’d worked hard to put myself through college after my mom died. Worked even harder to land a coveted teaching position at my old fancy prep school back in Chicago, the one I’d attended as a scholarship kid since my mom was a secretary in the admissions office. It’d been my dream for as long as I could remember to walk through those hallowed halls not as a poor charity case but as someone who truly belonged.
So I told Jake I didn’t love him back. That I didn’t want to be some rancher’s wife who’d be expected to pop out five kids just like his mother had. Told him he’d been a fun distraction, but it was time to get on with my real life.
Back in the here and now, I lowered my eyes to the scarred oak table, picking at a divot with my thumbnail. “No.”
“You think you’ll see him?”
“I don’t know.”
A lie.
Of course, I’d see him … eventually. The Mercers were as close to royalty as it came in Montana. There was even a show on Netflix based loosely on his family. I wouldn’t be able to avoid him even if I tried.
Mags studied me for a beat. “You know he’s a single dad now?”
My head snapped up. “What?”
She nodded. “Has a son. Maybe nine or ten? Cute kid. I think his mom passed away a couple of years back.”
My throat constricted, and the mug slipped from my nerveless fingers, clattering against the table hard enough to slosh half my coffee across the scarred oak surface.
“Oh, honey.” Mags was already moving to grab a dish towel, but her eyes never left my face.
“I’m sorry, I …” I stared at the spreading puddle, my hands shaking as I tried to mop it up.
A son. Jake had a son.
The thing I’d wanted most in the world—the thing my ex, Richard, had promised and then taken away with his lies—Jake had gotten with someone else.
But then my aunt’s words echoed in my head like a record scratch, and my mind started doing math I didn’t want it to do. I left ten years ago. Mags said his son was nine or ten, which meant … God. Jake hadn’t waited long at all, had he?
The coffee was spreading toward the edge of the table now, but I couldn’t seem to make my hands work properly.
Jake, who’d asked me to be his wife, had apparently found someone willing to give him what I wouldn’t within months of my leaving.
What the hell was I supposed to say tothat—congratulations for moving on so fast?
“I didn’t … I had no idea,” is what I said instead.
“You might if you’d ever reached out to him,” she said, her tone gently recriminating.
My aunt understood why I had to leave Bridger Falls and go back to Chicago, but she’d never really supported the manner in which I’d done so. It wasn’t like she’d taken Jake’s side; she just hated to see me take the coward’s way out. “We James women are made of sterner stuff than that,” was one of her favorite sayings.
I winced. “I know.”
There was so much more she could say. More I probably deserved to hear. But Aunt Mags just patted my hand.
“You’ve got a fresh start, Eden. Don’t waste it hiding from the past.”
CHAPTER TWO
I was halfwaythrough my third cup of coffee when I heard Cole’s boots hit the floor upstairs.
The kid moved like a baby foal, all long legs and clumsy determination. He stumbled down the stairs in jeans that didn’t quite reach his ankles—I’d have to go shopping again—and a T-shirt with a triceratops drawing on the front. His backpack was already slung over both his shoulders, looking far too heavy for the first day of school.
