“No? I’m not even sure I want another serious relationship. I don’t know who I am anymore. I need counseling, time to heal, time to just…exist. Jesse deserves me at my best. So does Cade.”
“I understand that.”
“Maybe I could come home for a while first before making any promises. I don’t want to accidentally hurt him.”
“I think that’s very wise, honey.”
“I…I think I do love him though.”
She smiled. “Good. I’d love to have him as a son-in-law.”
A laugh ripped from my throat. “Mom!”
She laughed too, patting my leg. “I’m just saying Jesse and that boy of his are so kind and genuine. I totally approve.”
Even though I laughed, those words deeply touched my heart. Bea, Jackie, Estelle,andmy mom were shipping me with Jesse? One thing was for sure, I would never get married again without them by my side. That approval meant more than I could put words to.
Mom and I talked more about the girls and I moving into her house, and we decided to caravan out on Sunday. Jackie would be tagging in the night before and Mom had to report back to her job on Monday afternoon.
The entire time, a smile pulled into my cheeks. The Mount Everest of Garrett and all the decisions I had to make regarding him didn’t feel as scary anymore. With my family—myparents—behind me, I had the tools I needed to climb all the way to the peak.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel alone.
THIRTY-NINE
Jesse
All I needed was a nine of spades, and I’d beat her.
After dinner, Hollie, the girls, Cade, and I had gathered around my cabin’s dining room table for a round of a card game calledSpoons.The rules were, you passed cards in a circle, drawing and discarding until you had four of a kind in your hand. When you had four of a kind, you grabbed a spoon from the middle of the table.
If you noticed someoneelsegrabbing a spoon, you also had to grab a spoon.
If you didn’t grab a spoon and were left without one, you were out.
Which sounds innocent until you have five highly competitive individuals diving for only four spoons. The table skewed sideways and cards scattered across the floor multiple times. On one occasion, Nora wrenched a spoon from my hands.
I was out that round.
After working up a sweat and laughing until we had stitches, we’d declared this the finale round. Hollie versus me with one spoon in themiddle of the table. I could hardly focus with the way she kept arching her brow, stabbing her gaze at me across the top of her cards every so often. Her lips were twisted in a tight smirk. She was waiting for just one card, too. I could feel it.
I kept passing cards to her, unable to find the nine of spades, even though we were getting close to the bottom of the deck. When we only had a handful left, I passed her a card and picked up another. Simultaneously, we added a card to our hands then discarded.
Hollie yelped, lurching across the table milliseconds after I did. Right as my fingers touched metal, she swatted my hand. In her aggression, she knocked the spoon off the table and it clattered to the tile floor, sliding into the kitchen like it’d been shot from a cannon. The kids started yelling, cheering us on as we jumped up, our chairs toppling to the floor in our wake.
Cade yelled, “Go Miss Hollie! Go! Run!” That traitor.
Hollie’s screeching filled my cabin as she darted through my house, her socked feet sliding on the faux-wood linoleum floors. Laughing, I grabbed her elbow and yanked her backward into my shoulder. She stumbled but latched onto me like a barnacle, her hands dragging me away as she bellylaughed. She stuck one foot between my legs as I surged forward, like a pole through bicycle wheels.
She wheezed, hanging her entire weight on one of my shoulders. “It’s—mine.”
I scanned the floor. “Where’d it go?”
Hollie’s eyes went wide and she suddenly let go, diving to her hands and knees to reach beneath the lip of the counter. But I grabbed her ankles and dragged her backwards as she shrieked, “No!” I moved my hands to her hips, sliding her back until her butt hit my knee. She put up a damn good fight, but at that point, it was over. I reached past her head and grabbed the spoon.
The kids had come into the kitchen, red-faced with excitement, the chatter in the cabin at an all time high. Even as she laughed, Hollie moaned. “You, cheater!”
“Cheater?!Yousmacked my hand away.”
