Justine set the groceries onto the passenger seat of her pickup as she settled in behind the wheel.
Trevor was really going to make the move, was he?
Justine hated that her mind shot to Trevor so quickly. But dang, he was the only guy she’d ever cared for in that way. And he’d picked Brittany over her. That’s why you shouldn’t want him anymore.
It was true. She shouldn’t. But who said she did want Trevor? What Justine wanted was the idea of him. A man whose ambitions didn’t take him out of the small town she loved. A man who wanted a family of his own one day. A man who’d known how to make her laugh.
Most folks in town knew how much Justine had liked Trevor. Heck, they’d dated during most of her senior year. That fact made her wish, at least on some level, that the whole fake fiancé fiasco were true. There was a list of townsfolk, as kind as they might be, who looked at Justine with pity in their eyes. The sad girl whose mother left her behind.
If Justine was anything, she was proud. She had been since she was little. A playground memory came to mind, one that also entailed Brittany.
“You keep saying your mom is going to come back, but you can’t ever say when. She didn’t even come back for Christmas. What kind of a mom does that?”
Tears pricked Justine’s eyes at the mere recollection. As if the pain and fear of rejection hadn’t been enough, girls like Brittany had to add humiliation to the mix.
As a child, Justine used to dream of the day her mom would show up, walk through the school doors, and attend her parent-teacher meetings instead of Grandma. The vision always came with a side of guilt; she loved her Grams, was grateful that she had a mother figure at all.
The situation at the grocery store had felt very similar to that. And that’s when it hit her. Justine had, unwittingly as it might be, set herself up for round two of humiliation for the whole town to see.
There would be no wedding, and folks would come to their own conclusions: One, that Justine never had a man in the first place, which was true. Or two, that she wasn’t able to keep the love of a man. They might even believe that she never would, which might also be true…
She’d reached the high-speed freeway before even thinking to turn on the heat. The stiffness of her fingers reminded Justine of how cold it was today. It would be a short-lived cold front, thank heavens. The temperature would shift back up to an average of seventy-two degrees for the weekend’s festivities. Perfect weather for all the outdoor fun, food, and games. When it got late, the temps would drop just in time for the bonfire.
She sighed. How many times had she seen Gramps cuddle up behind Grandma to warm her up by that fire?
The image was as bitter as it was sweet. She loved the way Gramps loved her. Was glad she had memories like those to cherish. But for the second year in a row, Justine wouldn’t have Grandma there with her magic touch, helping make sure the events ran just so. And Gramps, bless him, wouldn’t have his wife to cuddle when it got cool.
At least, she told herself with a nod, he had been well loved. That final thought, as pleasant as it might be, held hints of bitterness too. It led to a question she didn’t like asking, but one she couldn’t ignore forever: Would she ever know what it was like to be loved?
Chapter 3
Brittle sticks crunched beneath Burke’s patent leather shoes as he surveyed the wide stretch of uninterrupted land. So many possibilities; he’d have plenty of interest.
He inhaled a deep breath of crisp, pine-scented air and turned back to the local realtor who’d helped complete the sell a month prior. “This is good,” he said. “Just as my client hoped.”
“I have to warn you,” Lenny Foster said, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. “The town…they’re not going to take kindly to your client, whoever he is.”
They never did. Hence, the reason Burke preferred his anonymity. Something he maintained by playing the broker, not the new owner. In reality, he was both.
“He can handle it,” Burke assured.
The agent, a man Burke guessed to be in his mid-twenties like him, ran a