“Yeah, true. My mom wouldn’t be thrilled to miss my wedding either.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “We’ll have to talk about that—if you want to get married here in the Cove or somewhere else. And do you want a big wedding or?—”
“We can figure that out later. One thing at a time.”
“Right.” I laughed, wagging my head. “Sorry. I guess I’m just excited.” I paused. “Do you want me to drive you home?”
“I’ve got my car, thanks.” She looked down the beach. “And I might sit here for a few more minutes. I just need a second to wrap my head around all of this. It’s pretty big. An hour ago, I thought my life was over, and now . . .”
“Now you know it might not look like you expected, but it’s actually just beginning.” I could see it all in my head, from the first kiss we’d share after the preacher pronounced us man and wife, through the birth of a baby who looked just like Peyton, to a long life together, filled with love and happiness next to the woman who would always hold my heart.
“Yes.” She hesitated, and I thought she was going to say something else, but instead, Peyton rose to her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, Nash. You have no idea how much this means to me. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t ever thank me,” I countered, brushing her hair away from her face. “I’m going to make you so happy, Peyton. I promise. You won’t regret this. Not ever.”
She managed a smile and wiped at her eyes again.
“Okay, well, I better get on home.” I took a few steps backward. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at graduation. And then—” I spread wide my arms. “Then every day for the rest of our lives.”
She clasped her hands together under her chin. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe it’s real.”
“It is, though.” I stopped for a minute, realizing that I’d neglected to say something very important. “I love you, Peyton. I love you now, and I will love you as long as we live.”
Without waiting for her reply—or the lack of one, which would have been painfully awkward—I turned around and sprinted up the incline toward my car. My heart was pounding, and my head was spinning. This was really happening.
I glanced over my shoulder in time to watch Peyton standing at the edge of the water, her long hair blowing in the wind and thought that I was the luckiest guy on the planet.
And then I didn’t see Peyton Rivers again for thirty-five years.
Chapter One
Peyton
“Peyton, I need your help. I’m desperate!”
I glanced up at the woman approaching me where I stood near the back wall of my small shop, reading email on my phone. Pasting on my professional smile of welcome, I clicked off my phone and slipped it into the pocket of my dress without even looking down.
“Maisie, hello! What’s going on?”
“Well.” Maisie Rollins dropped her heavy Kate Spade bag onto the antique dresser that served as the sales counter. “Phillip surprised me. He’s taking me on a cruise.”
“Oh, wow! Exciting.” I nodded. “But why does that make you desperate? I’d be thrilled if my husband surprised me with a cruise.”
Or if I had a husband, especially one with whom I’d want to spend a week being pampered on the high seas . . .
“I know, I know.” Maisie shrugged. “I should be so happy right now. Phillip said he’d planned this to take my mind off Natalie leaving for college. Our last baby is flying the nest, you know, and Philip told me he was worried that I’d be a little blue.”
“That’s very sweet of him.” Unbidden, I felt a pang of unreasonable envy and pushed it down, annoyed at myself. “What a wonderful way to distract both of you from what must be just a little bittersweet.”
“Exactly.” Maisie leaned forward. “I mean, we’re so proud of Natalie. She’s been accepted to every single school she applied to. She’s won scholarships, even though we don’t really need them.”
I held back my eyeroll. I loved Maisie Rollins. She’d been one of my very first loyal customers even before I opened Savannah’s Scents of Serenity as a physical store; once upon a time, when her daughter Natalie was still in grade school, Maisie used to show up at my booths at the farmers’ markets and pop-ups around the area. We became friendly to the point that she would come by my house to pick up the specialty products that I made for her.
But even so, I always knew that while we were friendly, we were not friends. Maisie lived a life that existed on a plane I couldn’t dream of inhabiting. She’d been raised the only child of doting parents on a sprawling estate outside Savannah, attended an exclusive private girls’ school before spending four years at the University of Georgia where she’d majored in English literature, and married Philip Rollins in a flower bedecked wedding that was on the society pages in multiple Southern city newspapers. She and Philip had produced four stellar children, all of whom were making their respective marks on the world.
It would have been easy for a woman like me to be eaten up with envy for someone like Maisie Rollins. But despite her life of privilege, or maybe because of it, Maisie was kind and friendly, encouraging me when she learned that I wanted to open my own store. She’d even offered to invest in the business, something which I’d dismissed out of hand. I liked Maisie and wanted to keep her as a good customer, not as an investor whom I needed to please.
So instead, Maisie had become my unofficial PR rep and cheerleader, insisting that all of her friends justhadto check out this sweet little store she’d discovered. Her advocacy was a big reason that my business was so successful.
That was why I routinely ignored her sometimes-thoughtless references to a sort of privilege that I’d never know. It was why I now steered the conversation gently back to the matter at hand.
