I needed more time to think.
Maybe Jeremy would say something that would stitch my heart back together. He might tell me that Tallulah wasn’t real and he’d made her up to hurt me. Maybethatwas his colossal mistake—and not his decision to sprawl on crisp hotel sheets with this faceless woman on top of him.
Whowasshe?
I typed her name and our city in the search engine and scrolled through the same headshots I’d already seen a hundred times. Which one of these women was Tallulah? Did she look like me…or nothing like me? Did she unbutton Jeremy’s shirt and drag her fingers down his bare chest when she climbed on top of him? Did he smile when she did? He liked it when I did that…
I tossed my phone away and curled up into a tiny ball on the couch. A pillow pressed over my face blotted out the world around me but didn’t stop the roar in my head.Don’t go there. Those thoughts were poison. My wedding ring had been easy to yank off, but nothing stopped my mind from inventing its own version of what happened the night Jeremy betrayed me. I couldn’t shut it off.
Maybe I never would.
That was the worst feeling of all. This woman I’d never met lived in my head, and I got no say in it.
I bet that would makehersmile.
7
That Stairway Conversation in Winter
Callan
Mim craned her neckto peer out the kitchen window.
The valley rolled into darkness, broken only by pinpricks of light from the cottages below. Mim wasn’t worried about the guests, though. She’d declared that the couple asking for the third set of clean sheets was Bronte’s problem. Her gaze stayed fixed closer to the dam.
“Erin’s been cooped up for days,” she muttered. “Have you checked on her?”
In person? “Nope.”
I glanced at my phone, a smile tugging at my lips.
Erin
HOLULOSED
Finally. An easy round of Unscramble.
The time Erin had stumped me by scrambling the word “horticulture” had me questioning if I should hand back my degree in agricultural science. Probably should have anyway. It was just another failed attempt to earn my father’s approval. Nothing I did convinced him I should be in charge, certainly not going off to university to learn new ways of cultivating fruit. Running this place was Cole’s destiny, not mine. I was just the second-born—the pain in Dad’s ass—and that hadn’t changed when my brother left.
Callan
Dollhouse.
Erin
Matilda’s obsessed with it.
A picture dropped into my messages of Matilda grinning and holding up a furry ginger bear wearing overalls.
You’re the best xo
My eyes lingered too long on the typed kiss.Bloody hell. I bet Erin was an amazing kisser. Was I? I liked kissing, but I was out of practice. With her, I’d take it slow, lean in, touch her cheek, feel how soft her skin is—
“Who’s got you smilin’ like that?” Mim asked.
My dopey grin vanished. “Uh…” I jammed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans. “No one.” I made the mistake of looking up.
Mim’s hand was on her hip, and her pursed lips confirmed she wasn’t buying one word of my crap. “I see you textin’ like that every night.”
