“There’s no deal unless they can meet with you in person next week,” he sighs.
I want to scream. Heading home to Montana wasn’t part of the plan. I’d planned on staying in Cole County for a week or so. It was a perfect excuse to catch up with the family and ensure we’re prepared for our event next weekend. Then, maybe, I could spend time with…
No, Nash. No, you’re not going near her like that.
“I’ll be there.”
“Figured as much,” Hunt chuckles. “Safe travels, man.”
The line goes dead, and I just sit there.
It was my choice to stay in Montana after Katherine and I ended our marriage. When you grow up in a place like Cole County, you either can’t wait to get out or you never want to leave. I always felt like something was wrong with me for wanting both of them.
Guilt nearly swallowed me for wanting to see the world, while never wanting to leave my family’s farm. I wanted to hike to waterfalls, but not miss my nieces and nephews running around the same land I did as a child—not that we ever get to witness that.
After I graduated, Katherine and I decided to stay in Montana. We’d grown comfortable there. It was affordable to purchase a large amount of land and build the massive modern house she desired. We could live off the map in the silence, but still jet set wherever we wanted because we were at the top of our fields. We were an unstoppable couple—the best of friends.
Funny, after she walked out the front door for the last time, I was convinced the call of Cole County would bring me home. In my mind, I just knew Montana couldn’t still feel like home, but somehow it did. A part of me still belonged in that massive house all alone.
Montana had become home as much as Cole County always would be.
Only, for the first time, I’m finding more reasons to stay in this small town. Perhaps the call has finally come, and it’s in the form of a woman I never even took notice of.
Fuck me.
Chapter 6
Betty
“Momma,” I shout, pushing the front screen door open with my ass, my hands full of grocery bags. The handles painfully dig into my arms, but I refuse to take a second trip back out to the truck. It’s principle.
My mother comes bolting around the corner, her galaxy apron tied around her narrow waist and a dish towel slung over her shoulder. “Why are you shoutin’?” It was the first Mother’s Day gift I bought her with my own money when I was eighteen. She’s worn it every Sunday since.
Georgia Hughes has always been most comfortable in the kitchen. Making us meals and inviting anyone who would come to the house so that she could cook for them, too. It was where she felt most useful from the day she married my father.
They’d planned for a horde of children, but only got the two of us. Years of miscarriages took all the others, but she has never whined or complained. In a way, it was fortunate that I was popular and Beckett was a football player. Teens always filledthe house. Their raucous laughter and bottomless stomachs were there for my mother to shower with affection and food. She used to say she was gifted with more children than her womb could ever carry. It was a statement I never understood until she was the person who was there when my entire life fell apart years ago.
“I’m shoutin’ because these bags are heavy.”
She snatches them from my hands, kissing my cheek before sashaying to the kitchen, with her 90s country music blaring through the house. This is how she’s always been. Her fiery but selfless energy fills this house.
Her humming carries back to me as I grab the last bag I had to sit on the front porch before following her to the kitchen. I find her already busy putting away each item as if we aren’t going to use them to make dinner in two minutes. “You know you’re supposed to cook that?” My nose wrinkles as shetsksat me.
“I’m making meatloaf and my special red-skin mashed potatoes,” she grins, continuing to organize everything I bought for Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo.
That familiar sensation of my heart seizing in my chest hits me. I try to calm it with a few quick breaths. It’s a coincidence. It has to be. Why else would she be making Nash’s favorite meal?
“Why are you?” My question stalls on my tongue as the front screen door closes. Heavy footfalls trail through the house before stopping at the kitchen doorway. Pressing my eyes shut, I try to convince myself I’m imagining this. It’s not happening. My mind just wants Nash to be here because that means he chose me.
“Mama Hughes?” Nash’s voice booms through the space. My eyes fly open, plastered to his face. He’s actually here. Why is he here?
I swear, I cannot escape the man. How am I supposed to move on if he’s always right there? River and I agreed it’s best I let thisgo. That I allow myself to find someone else who will make me happy.
“Right here, honey.” My mom pops up from behind the fridge door, flashing Nash a grin so wide I wonder if she’s happier to see him than me.
Waving the bouquet in his hand, with the other tucked behind his back, he greets Mom. “Hey, Mama Hughes,” he grins wide, the stubble on his face making him appear as tired as the dark bags under his eyes.
He’d been clean-shaven yesterday. A look I had become accustomed to on him. Sometimes he’d have a mustache, but I can’t remember a single time I’ve seen him with a beard over the years.
