Page 9 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

“You’re really lucky.”

I knew I was, but sometimes, most of the time, it felt like none of this mattered without the person I’d planned on sharing it with. No. I was not going to think of her today. I pushed Sadie out of my mind.

We reached the guest bungalows, twenty-eight luxury-rustic units laid out in neat rows, each with its own porch swing and view of the ocean. The first five were original to the ranch—my dad built them himself, with help from his brothers, in the seventies. They were dark, cramped, and smelled like pine-scented bleach, but guests loved them. My mom added the rest over two decades, each more elaborate than the last. The newest one had a copper bathtub and a fireplace that lit with a remote control.

Angie ran a hand over the porch railing as we passed. “Did you ever live in one of these?”

Nope, but I lost my virginity in one. I didn’t feel the need to share that with her.

“No, these are for guests only. Mom runs a tight ship.”

We circled back toward the front of the property, detouring past the spa, which could have easily been in Malibu or Napa Valley. All glass and raw timber, it gleamed in the sun like a high-end resort with its own Zen garden and a koi pond the size of my entire childhood bedroom.

“Is this place for real?” Angie asked, stopping to gape at the reflecting pool and the stone fountains.

“Very real,” I assured her. “My mom built it after she realized the best way to get brides to book this place was to promise them luxury treatments.”

Angie grinned. “That’s pretty genius.”

“Yep.”

She let that one hang in the air, then said, softer, “You’re proud of her.”

I nodded. “She’s a force, that’s for sure.”

It was great when that force was focused on external things, the problem came when that energy turned inward. Once she got her mind set on something, she was like a dog with a bone, and there was no stopping her.

Lately, it was one of her sons settling down and giving her grandchildren. Thankfully, Deacon showed up and took some of the pressure off. He had his own daughter, Tabitha, and a stepdaughter, Blake, who Mom was loving spoiling.

I had reservations regarding her reaction to me bringing Angie today. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. We weren’t even exclusive. I knew for a fact she was seeing other people, and if I wanted to, I could as well.

“I can’t wait to meet her, your mom.” Angie beamed as we headed toward the ceremony area where everyone was gathered before the main event.

I smiled back, despite the growing knot of anxiety in my stomach. This was a mistake. We weren’t together. This was casual. Bringing someone as a date to a family wedding was not casual. I fucked up.

3

MY SUITCASE HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED

Sadie

Downtown Valentine Bay was all salt spray and the sound of gulls, every storefront pulsing with the leisurely contentment of a weekday at the precipice of summer. If I pressed my thumb to the pulse of this town, I would have found it sluggish but steady, nothing like the frantic, arrhythmic beat of Manhattan. I walked the length of Valentine Blvd, my rolling suitcase plunking over every seam and divot in the sidewalk, the familiar fish-and-batter tang from the Bluewater Inn’s kitchen prickling my senses and making me briefly, inappropriately hungry.

I tried to book a room at the Bluewater online, but as I hit the “next available,” the page blinked and spat at me: No Vacancy. The Bluewater Inn had no rooms? That wasn’t a great sign. Peak tourist season hadn’t even hit yet. There were flyers everywhere for the upcoming Valentine Bay Summer of Love Festival, the annual event that officially kicked off the tourist season in a couple of weeks.

Who were all these people coming to stay in Valentine Bay, Oregon, now that the logging and fishing industries had aged out and died? Who was I kidding? I may not have been back in my hometown for over a decade, but I knew why the vacationers were there. These were wedding guests, spa getaways, people who bought into the kitsch of Valentine Bay’s love theme.

Speaking of love, a bachelor party of at least a dozen walked past me. They wore matching t-shirts airbrushed with the phrase “Last Catch Before the Hitch.” The groom looked like a stock photo, brawny and sunburned with an American flag bandana tied over his fading ginger crew cut, so thoroughly not Dawson Lockhart, and yet I immediately thought of him anyway.

I knew why my mind went to my childhood sweetheart. It happened anytime there was even a mention of a wedding, marriage, or family. It was because we’d planned our lives together. I know a lot of teenagers do that, but for whatever reason, when we did, I believed it would actually happen. I believed it so much that, twelve years later, I still hadn’t been able to move on. I’d tried, but it was as if he was tattooed in my DNA. It was unnerving. A lot more so since I was back in his town.

Anxiety shivered through my chest. I wished, for a moment, that I’d stayed at my conference in Los Angeles instead of hopping on the first flight back. But the prospect of Buddy alone, lying in a hospital bed, had pulled me here as surely as a rip current.

I just needed to keep a low profile, make sure Buddy was back on his feet, and then get out of here without my heart breaking…again.

With that objective in mind, I pulled out my phone and called the Hearts Afire Resort and Spa, which was another hotel in town. The woman on the phone sounded like she’d had her last three drinks comped by management and she put me on hold. I tried to ask if it would be better to book through their website, but instrumental Muzak began to play.

As I waited, I took a breath and scanned the sidewalk ahead. There were at least four new businesses I didn’t recognize, all painted in the same Instagram-friendly palette of seafoam, blush, and gray. I’d barely registered the name “Valentine Bay Beauty” across the salon when I heard the voice I’d spent years dreading and craving in equal measure.