His Curvy Ex E-Book

Mary E. Thompson

• Herausgeber: BluEyed Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Sebastian

My life would have been so much better if Zoey had never walked back into it. She was the first girl I ever loved, and the one I should have spent my life with. Instead, she took her empty promises and vows of love and married someone else. 

But it’s been years, and she’s back. Without the husband. She’s single once again, and has two kids and even more of those curves that always made me crazy. I just have to stay away from her for two months. She stayed away for years. I can handle a few months. 

I hope. 

Zoey

I thought walking away from my marriage was going to be tough, but it was nothing compared to walking back into my past. To seeing the man I fell in love with before I knew what love meant. Before I knew who I was or what I wanted from life. 

The last time Sebastian and I lived in the same town, I vowed to return to him. I thought he would move on when I didn’t, but he never got married. He never found anyone else. He was still single, but my life was too complicated to get involved with him. Or anyone. 

But life doesn’t always listen. Sometimes things happen that force us to discover just how much we can handle. And to find who will be there when we’re at our worst. 

I never thought it would be Sebastian coming to my rescue. I should have known better. That’s the kind of man he is. Too bad he’s not interested in sticking around. Karma’s a b@tch.

Leseprobe

HIS CURVY EX

A SMALL TOWN CURVY GIRL ROMANCE

BOOK BOYFRIENDS WANTED

BOOK EIGHT

MARY E THOMPSON

His Curvy Ex

Book Boyfriends Wanted, book 8

Copyright © 2021 Mary E Thompson

Cover Copyright © 2021 Mary E Thompson

Cover Photo from depositphotos, Copyright © IgorTishenko

Cover background from depositphotos, Copyright © tomert (lights) and Milanares (blue)

Cover watercolor stripe from depositphotos, Copyright © ronedale

Published by BluEyed Press, All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, businesses, locations, and events are either products of the author’s creative imagination or are used in a fictitious sense. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-953879-14-1

Print ISBN: 978-1-953879-15-8

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-953879-16-5

Created with Vellum

BOOK BOYFRIENDS WANTED

Welcome back, my friend. It’s always nice to see you. I’m glad you could drop by MacKellar Cove for a visit. Hudson has a drink ready for you. Finley’s got some cake and a new book. And the whole crew wants to say hi.

Romancing the Curves comes with subscriber exclusive freebies, sneak peeks, and a first look at everything Mary has to offer. Be the first to know about new releases and sales and all the curves ahead!

SUBSCRIBE NOW AT MARYETHOMPSON.COM

Happy reading!

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

About the Author

For anyone hoping for a second chance…

1

ZOEY

It was just a summer. One summer. I repeated the words to myself as I pulled away from the only home my kids had ever known, the only home I’d truly known. Pittsburgh was a great city, but it no longer held anything that made me want to stay. My marriage was over, my family was gone, and I was out of reasons to stick around.

But we would be back. It was just a summer. One summer I could give my kids that was full of fun and family instead of fighting. A summer where I would help my brother and his soon-to-be wife finish a few projects on MacKellar Cove Inn, the inn my aunt ran until my brother and his girlfriend took over. At the end of summer, Gavin and Piper were getting married, if he ever got up the nerve to ask her. Then I’d pack my kids up and go back to Pittsburgh and back to the life I had there.

Because I had nowhere else to go.

The tinny sounds of the iPads that kept my kids entertained reached my ears and told me they would be fine for the drive through New York to MacKellar Cove in the Thousand Islands. That was unofficial home to me, and it always had been, but I ruined the chance to make it permanent years ago. That was why going back could only be for the summer. And why I’d return to my sad, lonely rental in Pittsburgh at the end of it.

I crossed the state line into New York and breathed a sigh of relief. So far, the kids hadn’t said a word. No fights, no bathroom breaks, nothing. I knew it wouldn’t last long, but with a six-and-a-half hour drive, I’d take what I could get.

Less than an hour later, my luck ran out. Thirty miles south of Buffalo, my six year old daughter announced she had to pee.

“Really bad, Mommy. Now!”

I swallowed my groan and told Alexis I’d get her to a bathroom as soon as possible. It had been a few miles since I passed an exit, and I was fairly sure a sign said there wasn’t another one for nearly twenty miles.

Minute by minute, the miles ticked by. The video played through her headphones, but I knew the end of the line was coming quickly.

A service exit sign told me five miles. I stepped a little harder on the gas and prayed I’d make it those five miles without an accident in the backseat.

“Mommy, I really need to go,” Alexis whimpered a minute later.

“We’re almost there,” I promised, pushing it a little more. Twelve over the speed limit wasn’t going to be a problem, right?

I finally saw the exit sign. We were good. We made it without an accident or an incident.

Then I heard the siren.

“Shit,” I breathed.

“Mommy, you’re not supposed to stay that!” Cameron, my eight year old, said.

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” I pulled to the side at the exit, hoping it would be a quick stop when he saw the kids and heard the pleas from Alexis about the bathroom.

“I really need to go, Mommy,” Alexis said, almost as if on cue.

“I know.”

The officer came to the window and knocked. I was paying attention to the kids and jumped. I rolled down the window and plastered a smile on my face. “Hello, officer.”

“License and registration, please.”

“I’m sorry, officer. I know I was going a little fast, but my daughter really needed to use the restroom and I was trying to get her here.”

“License and registration, ma’am.”

I sighed and accepted that I’d be pulling in to clean up pee after she had an accident in her seat. He was not willing to let me go with a warning. I handed over the documents, and he carried them back to his vehicle.

“Mommy, I don’t think I can hold it anymore,” Alexis whined, sounding pained. She was good. She hadn’t had an accident in months. She knew having one was bad, but I was fairly sure the streak was over.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I tried. Hopefully he’s fast and we can get you to the bathroom. Do you see that building right there?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s where we need to go. If you can hold on just a few minutes longer, we’ll run, run, run over there and you can use the bathroom. Okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Sounds good, baby girl.”

I stared at the officer still in his car. I wanted to get out and yell at him to hurry the hell up, but that would have only made the stop longer. When he finally returned with my license, registration, and a ticket, I had to stop myself from laying into him.

“Mommy, I couldn’t hold it,” Alexis said as the officer started to walk away. She started to cry.

He looked at her and looked at me, his eyes admitting he thought I was lying, but the damage was done. The ticket was mine, and we both knew there was nothing else he could do.

“That’s okay, baby. Now that we can go, we’ll get you changed and do what we can to dry off your seat.” I glared at the officer and turned the car back on. I didn’t wait for him to get back in his car before I took off up the ramp toward the service exit.

Alexis cried until I got her out of her seat. Her shorts and underwear were soaked. And so was her entire carseat. I dug through her suitcase while she stood next to the car crying until I found a change of clothes for her and a blanket I could put over the seat.

I took Alexis’s change of clothes and both kids to the bathroom. I made both of them use the bathroom, changed Alexis into her clean clothes, and headed back to the car. I laid a blanket on the seat for Alexis and covered that with a trash bag I found stuffed in a side pocket. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mostly dry.

Great start to our trip.

I got gas while we were there and got back on the road. It was almost halfway, so I hoped we would make it the rest of the way before we had to stop again.

The closer we got to MacKellar Cove, the harder my heart pounded. I was anxious when we left Pittsburgh, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I passed the sign saying Welcome to MacKellar Cove.

Home to Sebastian Parks, I added in my head.

Sebastian Parks was supposed to be the man I spent the rest of my life with. I fell in love with him when I was too young to really know what love was, and I broke his heart before I learned. I mistreated him worse than anyone I’d ever known, and I deserved to be miserable because of it.

I hated that my kids paid the same price.

We pulled into the driveway for MacKellar Cove Inn, and I was torn between relief that we were there and anxiety over seeing Sebastian again. I knew he wasn’t far, and even though I was also sure Aunt Gina had told him when we were arriving, it was still very possible that he would be around.

“Is Sebastian going to be here?” Alexis asked. Was she reading my mind? She met him when we visited at Christmas and fell for him as hard and fast as I had when I was young.

“I’m not sure. Probably not tonight.”

“But I want to see him,” she pouted.

“I know,” I said, trying hard not to be frustrated by her. She had no idea how tough it was for me to see Sebastian, but he’d imprinted on her and she adored him.

“Maybe Aunt Gina can call him for me.”

“I’m sure she’d be happy to,” I told her, knowing Aunt Gina would do anything for either of my kids.

I parked the car and made sure no one else was in the parking lot before telling the kids to run to the door and go inside. I knew someone in there would entertain them while I took the carseat apart so it could be washed and dried and ready to use again whenever we had to go out.

“Need some help?” Gavin asked a minute later.

I stepped back and hugged my big brother. It was embarrassing to admit hugging him was the most physical contact I’d had with another adult since I hugged him goodbye almost six months earlier.

“Whoa, are you okay?” he asked, pulling back when he realized I was crying.

I shook my head at myself and said, “Yeah. I just really missed you.”

“That’s why you should just move here. Then you won’t have to miss me.”

“You know why I can’t.”

Gavin nodded, but the tempting smile on his face did not fade. He had something up his sleeve.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Let’s get you unpacked. What’s first?”

“Grab the bags from the trunk. I need to take care of Alexis’s seat. She had an accident, and I got a ticket.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Fun stuff. I’m really happy to be here.”

Gavin beamed. “Me, too, sis.”

* * *

I was hot and sweaty and feeling even more gross by the time I finished cleaning up the carseat and the back of the car. I took the entire seat apart and threw the padding in the wash along with the blanket and the clothes Alexis was wearing, then sat down for just a minute. The air conditioning felt good, and the heat outside was enough to warrant it.

“I heard you had an exciting drive up,” Aunt Gina said, joining me in the sitting room with a glass of lemonade. “Drink up.”

“Thank you, Aunt Gina.” I took the glass from her and enjoyed a sip. It was sour and cold and delicious.

She took a seat across from me, her assessing gaze running over me. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I got her judgement, although from Aunt Gina, it was always gentle and constructive. Designed to help, with a subtle encouragement that made me feel as though her words were gospel.

“It’s been a long year, hasn’t it?”

I snorted. “Endless.”

“Any word on your job?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. The school should let me know soon.”

“You’re not worried?”

“I am, but I worked there most of the year. I think that’ll help me. Serving lunches in the school cafeteria isn’t glamorous, but it meant I was around for the kids, had all the same days off they had, and it paid enough for us to live on with the child support and alimony payments from Trevor.”

“Then I’d say you’re doing well.”

I forced a smile for my aunt because the alternative was admitting to her, and myself, that I felt like my entire existence was coming apart at the seams. I took the job because it meant I wasn’t sitting around all day waiting for my kids to come home. I felt useless. When Trevor and I got together, he convinced me not to get a job right away. First, it was so I could plan our wedding. Then, it was so I could get pregnant. Then raise the kids. I always planned to start working once Alexis was in school, but at that point, Trevor and I were having problems, and I didn’t want to rock the boat.

Now, I was thirty-two with the work history of a teenager. My degree only counted on paper since I’d never used it. And no one would hire someone a decade out of college with zero experience in the field they claimed to be an expert in.

“Do you remember the old garden?” Aunt Gina asked, dragging me from one thought to another.

This one full of hot, steamy nights, falling in love, and learning all about what two people who loved each other could do together.

The first time I met Sebastian was in that old garden. I was reading a book when he walked through, pausing to smell one of the roses. It made me laugh, and that laugh caught his attention. We started talking, and over time, the garden became one of the many places at the Inn where we spent time together.

And the place I finally gave myself to him on one summer night after I turned eighteen. A night that still ranked number one on my top ten list of most romantic moments.

“Yes, of course,” I finally choked out, knowing Aunt Gina was waiting for an answer.

“I finally decided to fix it up this summer. It’s been such a mess since Uncle Rob died. He was the one who always maintained it. I miss sitting out there and watching the boats.”

“It was always so beautiful. I loved being there when I used to visit.”

Aunt Gina nodded and folded her hands in her lap. A ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “Uncle Rob and I used to sit there and talk for hours. The garden was always so special. I always hoped you or Gavin would get married there.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get your wish this summer,” I whispered, knowing Gavin’s proposal was a secret. Although, if he didn’t do it soon, the entire town was going to tell Piper. Secrets didn’t last long in MacKellar Cove.

“I hope so,” Aunt Gina said. Her bright, happy smile had the opposite effect on me.

The garden was where I promised Sebastian I’d come back. Where we talked about getting married. Standing beside my brother while he got married was something I looked forward to, but doing it in the garden where I once thought I’d be married was going to be a challenge.

“You should go out and see it,” Aunt Gina suggested. “Maybe you can help with the design. I’m not getting around as easily as I once was. I think you knew that garden almost better than I did.”

I finished my lemonade and nodded slowly. “I’d like that, Aunt Gina. I want to help any way I can while I’m here. I don’t want to just be three more mouths to feed. I want to pay my own way.”

“You know family doesn’t pay here,” Aunt Gina scolded me.

“I know, but Piper and Gavin own the Inn now. I don’t want Piper to worry that she’s going to be saddled with Gavin’s freeloading baby sister.”

“Piper would never say that, or think it. She’s wonderful, and she adores you. She’s with Alexis and Cameron right now, planning fun summer activities.”

“She is? I figured they’d be with Gavin. I didn’t want them bothering Piper.”

Aunt Gina dismissed my concern with a wave of her hand. “Piper is not bothered. I assure you. Go out and see the garden, then take a shower and get unpacked before dinner. You’ll feel better.”

I looked down at the tee I’d thrown on that morning and the cotton shorts that were designed for someone to run in, an activity I never willingly did. I was kind of a mess, probably smelled like urine, and definitely needed a shower. Before I scared off the guests, I decided Aunt Gina was right.

“Will you watch for the kids? In case they need something?”

“Of course. But I’m sure Piper will be fine with them.”

“Thank you, Aunt Gina.”

I walked the glass back to the kitchen and put it in the dishwasher. I was looking forward to getting to know Piper, but I was nervous about it. She was, hopefully, going to marry my brother, she bought my family’s inn, and now she was taking care of my kids. I couldn’t imagine her perception of me was all that great.

But I wasn’t going to worry about that immediately. I pushed through the back door and out into the sunshine and early summer heat. If it was already close to eighty at the end of June, it was going to be miserable in August. The breeze off the water helped, but I preferred spring and fall weather so I could wrap up in a blanket and sit by a cozy fire.

I walked down the path toward the family house. I smiled to myself as memories of summers long past came back to me. I was going to do everything I could to make this a great summer for my kids. I resisted everything about MacKellar Cove when I first came, but I fell in love with everything the small town had to offer by the end of that first summer. Almost twenty years later, I knew my life would be different if I had trusted that love just a little more.

But I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I let fear dictate what I did. I couldn’t say I regretted the choices I made, but if I could go back and make new ones, I also couldn’t say with certainty what I would do.

I rounded the house and smiled when the garden came into view. Trellises lined with flowering vines created a wall between the garden and the house, hiding anyone inside from those outside. Every six feet, there was a break in the trellis, with an entrance to the garden and a new path inside.

As I got closer, I heard voices. If Aunt Gina wanted me to help with the design, I figured I should go meet the gardeners. It was a big enough job that I was sure she hired a dedicated crew.

I walked through the closest opening and felt my entire body relax. The water lazily drifted past, gently bumping against the shore with each wave. The garden paths were intact, but the plants were overgrown and dying. A lot of work was needed to make it what it once was.

A laugh drew my attention away from the water toward the people I’d heard. I took a step toward the laughter, a smile lifting my lips when I recognized Piper’s friend, Sofia. I opened my mouth to call out to her when I saw the person she was talking to. The man she was laughing with. The one and only person I wanted to avoid for the summer.

The one I just told Aunt Gina I would work with.

Sebastian Parks.

I turned and ran.

2

SEBASTIAN

Sofia tipped her head back and laughed. At my expense, of course. She was helping me in the garden because she knew Zoey and her kids were arriving that day. And Sofia was doing her best to distract me.

The sun blazed down on us, and when I dropped one of the few surviving plants onto the ground and all the dirt splattered like a crime scene, Sofia lost it.

I picked up a chunk of dirt and threw it in her direction. She squealed and ducked out of the way, laughing the entire time.

“You’re supposed to be helping, not making this take longer,” I snarled at her.

“I’ll help clean up, too,” she offered. “And maybe even come back and help another day.”

She chuckled and focused on the section in front of her. I paused with my dirt-covered hands on my hips and looked around. I told myself I was not looking for Zoey, but I found her anyway.

All the breath in my lungs fled like it did the first time I noticed her, really noticed her. The late afternoon sun hit her golden brown hair and made it glow. She wore a loose tee and shorts that did nothing for her curvy figure. Her hair whipped around her face, blocking her gaze from mine.

And then she ran.

I knew she saw me, but before I could say or do anything, she was gone. She disappeared between the trellises, back to the house or the Inn or wherever I wasn’t.

My lungs spurted and stalled before they started working again. I sucked in a painful breath, painful because I’d stopped breathing, not because of Zoey. I’d stopped loving her a long time ago, and I wasn’t going to let myself fall back in love with her.

“Are you going to make me do all this by myself?” Sofia asked.

I looked at her kneeling on the ground. Her head was down, and she was focused on the decaying flowers in front of her. She tilted her face toward mine, and I could tell she saw what just happened. The way I froze at the sight of Zoey and the way she ran at the sight of me.

Sofia raised an eyebrow and said nothing about either. She was a good friend. She never pushed me for more than I was willing to share, which was usually not much. Sofia was the kind of woman I should want in my life. One who understood me and always went out of her way to be there for me. But there’d never been that spark between us. We instantly felt like we’d known each other forever, and like we’d been siblings or best friends or something like that forever.

I glanced back at where Zoey disappeared to and admitted to myself that it was for the best. She was there for the summer, and we could simply avoid each other. She was already starting. I would just follow suit. Keep my head down and work, and stay away from the Holbrook family.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” I told Sofia. I dropped to my knees a few feet away from her and resumed pulling out dead flowers.

Sofia and I worked side-by-side for another thirty minutes before she announced her back was killing her and stood. “I’m going to a yoga class in the morning with Willow. You should join me.”

The teasing note in her voice had me rolling my eyes. “You know how I feel about yoga.”

She laughed. “I do. But one day I might change your mind.”

“Not likely. I’ll take a chance on Zoey again before I’ll try yoga.”

Sofia snorted. “Maybe you should do both.”

The glare I sent her should have been enough to stop her train of thought, but it obviously wasn’t strong enough. She kept talking.

“I’m just saying maybe you need closure. She left before, without a word. At least this time you know she’s leaving. But with Gavin here, she’s going to be back. You’re going to run into her again and again. I don’t like seeing you so upset.”

“You’re such a girl,” I countered. It was my usual retort when she said something one of my guy friends would never say.

“Why, thank you. I didn’t think anyone noticed.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

Sofia stretched, then dropped back to her knees once more. Again, I hoped that was the end of it. And again, I was wrong.

“Piper said Zoey almost didn’t come this summer because of you.”

“Why do you care about this?” I snapped.

She looked at me with one brow lifted, a gentle fuck you in her eyes. I was being an ass, but Sofia had an unlimited tolerance for it. She never blinked or pushed back. She always let me get it out of my system, then helped me see where it was coming from. There were times I really didn’t like her.

“I care about you, Sebastian. Zoey seems nice enough, but you’re my friend.”

“Are you… do you…” I didn’t know how to ask her what I needed to know.

“I’m not interested in you. I’m not laying in bed every night wishing you looked like you do right now when I ran the other way. I adore you, but like a brother who needs his ass kicked to keep his head on straight. Not something more.”

I sighed heavily. I was that needy son-of-a-bitch who always asked. She never questioned our friendship, but I continually worried she was interested in more than a friendship.

“We understand each other,” she continued. “I don’t have a lot of people I talk to or am close to. Piper was it for a long time. The people in my building are great, but I go into their homes and fix things. We don’t hang out together. You’re my friend. When you’re not being an ass.”

I barked a laugh. She was right. “You know that’s my usual state.”

“Trust me, I know.”

I chuckled with her, and we settled back down to keep working. The garden was going to take most of the summer to get back into shape, especially since I could only work on it after my day at the lighthouse. Sofia helped when she had a free afternoon, but we were still on the first major section.

“You know you’re going to need to bring in more help when things get further along, right?”

I nodded and stood. The garden was a semi-circle that framed in part of the shoreline. A fountain used to sit in the middle, but it broke years ago and was discarded. Over the last five years or so, the garden had slowly degraded to the state it was currently in.

“The first thing we need to do is finish tearing everything out and make a plan. But yeah, planting all these is going to be nearly impossible.”

“Especially to do all this in just a few months.”

Sofia was skeptical about the project in the first place, but I couldn’t say no. Gina was the only person in the world I considered family, even though we weren’t. I would do anything for her, including fix up the garden that made me think of Zoey with every inch of plants.

“What did the garden look like before? When it was maintained?” Sofia asked.

I looked around at it and saw the garden in my memory. The fountain was the centerpiece, but around that were grass pathways that wound around the large space. Kids used to use the garden for games of hide-and-seek because of the benches and bird baths, but also because of the plants that varied in height and created the perfect places to hide.

“It was almost magical before. I worked here when I was young. I would have lunch out here. The trellises created a world inside the garden that felt like nothing bad could happen here. This spot, this garden, was where so many major moments in my life happened.”

“Really?”

I nodded slowly before realizing what I was admitting to. Sofia wouldn’t judge me, not the way others might, but there was still a lot we never talked about. Our parents and our childhoods were the biggest ones. Neither of us asked, and neither of us offered anything.

“Anyway, I know the garden is important to Gina, and I know Gavin wants everything done for the wedding, if he ever asks her, so we’re going to do the best we can.”

Sofia tried to catch my gaze, but I evaded hers. I knew she would see the truth in my eyes. The truth that being in the garden was harder than I wanted to admit. That standing there was taking a piece of me. The garden had brought both good and bad to my life. Most of the time, intertwined. Like meeting Zoey and losing her while standing there. Finding a place that felt like home and losing the only home I’d known. The garden was a part of me, and I would do everything in my power to make sure it was what it used to be.

Sofia didn’t ask anymore questions. She worked with me until her phone rang with a tenant who needed her help. She promised to be back again the next evening. “I’ll bring dinner.”

I shook my head. “You know Gina will lose it if we don’t have dinner at the Inn. Especially on a Friday night.”

Gina had signed over the Inn the Gavin and Piper, but she still worked in the kitchen. She loved to cook, and she took pride in feeding as many people as she could. I’d been eating Friday night dinner with her for so long I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t. Sofia had been pulled into the tradition over the last few months, too.

“Ooh, I forgot what day it is. Okay, dinner first. Then we’ll finish this section.”

“Sounds good. Thanks. I appreciate the help.”

“Any time. Make sure you get something to eat tonight, too.”

I met Sofia’s gaze and nodded. We both knew I was not going up to the Inn for dinner. Not with Zoey and her family around. Normally, I’d have most of my meals there, but everything had changed. Everything.

I dug back in and worked another thirty minutes after Sofia left. The sun was fading, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Gina would come looking for me, so I finished up and headed home for the evening.

The cottage I called home was simple, but the most important part was it was quiet. I liked my quiet, and my alone time. It meant I could have my thoughts and no one would intrude on them.

Too bad people could intrude on my cottage.

I’d just gotten out of the shower and finished getting dressed when there was a knock on the door. I hadn’t missed any calls or texts and rarely got visitors. At that time of night, not many people ventured all the way down to my cabin.

I flipped on the exterior light and opened the door, half expecting to find no one there. Instead, Gina and Alexis were on my porch.

“Sebastian!” Alexis shouted before she threw herself at me. Her little arms wrapped around my thighs and her head hit my hip. “I missed you!”

“She insisted on coming to see you tonight. Zoey tried to get her to wait until tomorrow, but I said I wanted to bring you something to eat and offered to come down here with her,” Gina explained.

“Did you walk? You shouldn’t be out in the dark like this,” I asked, ushering them both inside.

Gina shook her head and stepped into my cottage. She went straight to the kitchen and set the covered tray down on the island. “I took the landscape cart. It has nice, bright headlights.”

I shook my head at Gina. The woman was fearless. She was also in her late seventies, which worried me constantly. She thought I was being ridiculous by not wanting her walking around at night, but it was for her own safety. Something Zoey needed to learn if she was willing to let her aunt and child go off alone after dark.

“Zoey shouldn’t have let you come down here alone.”

“Do you think she could have stopped me?” Gina challenged. The gleam in her eyes said she knew exactly why I was upset, and that it had nothing to do with her safety and everything to do with being annoyed by Zoey.

I grumbled a response and turned to Zoey’s daughter. Alexis reminded me of her mother. So much that it hurt to be around her at times. When Zoey and I first met, she hung around me the same way. For the first summer or two, I told myself she was an annoying kid, but by the third summer, I admitted to myself that I liked her. She was a teenager, and far too young for me, but I found myself looking forward to the time we spent together. We talked like I’d never talked to anyone else. I shared things with her that I’ve never admitted since.

And she took all of that and turned her back on me.

“How was your drive?” I asked Alexis. I couldn’t think of anything better to ask.

“Not fun. I had an accident and Mommy said a bad word when the police officer gave her a ticket.”

I looked at Gina for confirmation. A quick raise of her brows was all the answer I got, with a slight shrug of acceptance. There was definitely more to that story, but it wasn’t my business. None of it was.

“Well, did you have a fun afternoon? Is it nice to be here?”

Alexis shrugged. “I guess. Mommy wouldn’t let me find you. I wanted to come say hi when we got here, but she said you were busy.”

“I was busy. Aunt Gina has me working hard in the garden.”

“We used to have a garden. When we lived with my daddy. But he got to keep it when we moved out. Mommy said she misses her garden.”

I nodded, unsure what else I could say. The last thing I needed was for someone to invite Zoey to help me in the garden.

“I’m going to have dinner at the house tomorrow night. My friend, Sofia, is coming, too. Are you going to be there?”

Alexis nodded and yawned at the same time. “I am. Will you sit next to me?”

“Sure. I think that’ll be fun. Sofia will be happy to see you again, too.”

“Is Sofia your girlfriend?”

I considered lying to her because I knew she would tell her mother all about our conversation, but there was no way I would put Sofia in that position.

I shook my head. “No, she’s not. She’s just a very good friend.”

“My mommy says my daddy has a lot of friends now that they aren’t married anymore. She doesn’t let us stay with him because his friends like to sleepover. Does Sofia sleepover here with you?”

Ouch. As much as I wanted to think Zoey got whatever she deserved by marrying that asshole instead of me, I still felt bad for her.

“No, Sofia doesn’t sleepover here very often. She has her own apartment.”

“Aren’t you lonely here by yourself? I could sleepover sometime and keep you company. Or my mommy could.”

“I’m good. Thanks,” I told her. The last thing I needed was my home smelling like, or reminding me of, Zoey.

“I think maybe it’s time to get you into bed, little miss,” Gina said, stepping in and ending the conversation.

“Okay. Good night, Sebastian. I’ll save you a seat tomorrow night.”

I walked Alexis and Gina to the door. Alexis hugged me tight once more. I patted her on the back and tried not to fall for the adorable little girl that was impossible to not like. Gina kissed my cheek and called for Alexis to slow down so she didn’t get too far in the dark. I watched them until Gina started the golf cart and turned back toward the Inn and disappeared up the hill.

I went back inside and heated up the dinner Gina brought me. It wasn’t long before my dinner was gone and I was fading, trying not to have dreams about an adorable little girl and her mother who could never again be mine.

3

ZOEY

“I understand. Thank you for calling,” I repeated for the third time. I just wanted to end the call. But he kept talking.

“I really wish there was something we could do, Ms. Holbrook. I tried, but there aren’t any positions at other schools within the district. I will provide you with a good reference. I was really hoping to keep you.” Christian was a nice man, and a good boss, but he was not a miracle worker. Unfortunately for me.

“Thank you for that. I appreciate it.”

“Will you let me know where you end up finding a job? I’d really like to know you land on your feet.”

“Sure, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Ms. Holbrook. And I really am sorry.”

“Thanks.”