“Honestly, how could anyone think you’d gotten knocked up? You are the only girl I’ve ever met who wanted to save yourself for your husband.”
“I was a good virgin back then. I’m not so good or virginal now.”
“What does Colton say about this gossip?”
“I haven’t talked to him about it. I haven’t talked to him at all since he suggested that we move out of the friend zone.”
“What? Oh my God, you need to talk to him.”
“Why? It’s all water under the bridge.”
“Listen,” Hillary said, sobering. “You know how I feel about Colton. I think he’s fabulous. He checks off all the boxes any woman would ever want.”
“Hillary, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not interested in having any man in my life? I’m not interested in marriage.”
“I know. I know. You don’t want to be your mother, married off young and always under the thumb of her man.”
“Daddy was a bully.”
“I know. And he banished you because you embarrassed him. And I really do understand that this new gossip inflames those old wounds. If your father hadn’t sent you away, people would never have thought this wrong thing about you.”
Jessica blew out a long breath, the pain close to the surface. Why had Daddy refused to believe her when she’d spoken the truth about Colton? Why had he banished her? Even after she’d graduated from Longwood Academy, he’d forbidden her from coming back home.
He’d given her some BS about wanting to save her reputation, when he’d done nothing but help the gossips trash it. She’d never reconciled with him. He’d died just five years after she’d graduated from Longwood Academy of the same heart defect that had taken his father at a young age.
But all of it was truly water over the dam. She needed to move on. “I don’t want to dwell on this,” Jessica said in a tight voice.
“I know you don’t. But listen to me. This is something you have to talk to Colton about. What if he doesn’t know about this rumor? And even if he does, you two need to decide if your friendship is over.”
“What do you mean, over?”
“Come on, honey. If he wants out of the friend zone and you don’t, that’s something you need to talk over. Because regardless of how you settle the question, he’s a contractor and you’re an architect. Your paths are going to cross. Often.”
“I guess you have a point.”
“I always do.”
* * *
Hillary’s advice rattled around in Jessica’s brain until quitting time, when she screwed up her courage and gave Colton a call.
He didn’t answer the phone, which was unusual, since he was one of those guys whose cell phone was almost surgically attached to his ear. She went back to work for another hour and then called again with the same result.
Was he avoiding her?
Maybe. And it was her own fault for being such a wimp about tackling the ugly, painful parts of their shared past.
She left work around six o’clock, determined to find him and settle things. She swung by his office, but the door was locked. That was strange. Colton usually worked until after seven, unless he was out at one of his job sites.
She decided to go by his house—a place she usually avoided because he lived in the same neighborhood as her grandmother. Every time she was spotted knocking on Colton’s door, the whole community seemed to know about it.
Granny never failed to question her if she’d been spotted too often in Colton’s company. Good grief, did Granny know about the love child gossip? Probably.
Knowing Granny, the talk had undoubtedly mortified her years ago. And now she was probably terrified that Colton and Jessica would turn the rumor into reality. Her grandmother was not even remotely woke. She wasn’t even very tolerant.
Jessica pulled up to Colton’s house and was just about to leave the car, when his front door opened and he emerged, wearing a pair of well-washed jeans and a white T-shirt that stretched across his muscled chest.
He looked good. But he wasn’t alone.
Kerri Eaton, her hair unusually awry, walked out onto the porch with him. She advanced to the steps. Then she turned and stepped into his arms.
Good grief. The old biddies watching from their parlor windows were getting one heck of a thrill. Kerri and Colton played tonsil hockey for a good minute and a half while his hands roamed all over Kerri’s long, lean, shapely body.