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Chapter 4
First & foremost Godneeds to be the head of the family. Only then will your spouse & you be able to live together in one unified marriage. Marriage can be hard even if God is in control, so start off putting him first and all the rest will follow. - Nancy Spencer, Mayfield, KY
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Peyton’s heart hammeredin her chest as she stood by the front bumper of her car and watched as two humongous dogs barreled toward her.
She thought she saw a little Rottweiler in them, and while in her mind, she knew that Rotties were actually very gentle, she’d seen enough headlines of people being mauled to death by dogs trained to attack that her feet itched to run back to her car door and climb in.
Still, she could still hear her pap’s words in her ear. Something he’d said when she was a young girl more than once. Their neighbor had a big, scary dog; at least, it seemed big and scary in her little girl’s mind. He would say to her, “Stand your ground, honey. Dogs love to chase things. And if you run, I guarantee you they’ll be running after you.”
Maybe they weren’t typical words of wisdom that other people might get from their grandparents, but Pap had been a very down-to-earth South Carolina farmer who didn’t sugarcoat things.
Life was hard, and he didn’t try to pretend it wasn’t.
He was a good person for her to have in her life, since her head had always been in the clouds, and she was always dreaming and making up stories and imagining outcomes for things that were always better than what they ended up being.
She supposed her ex-husband had finally crushed that part of her that always believed in happily ever afters.
Life wasn’t a fairy tale.
And she would not be cowed by two dogs who didn’t have enough intelligence between the two of them to fill a teacup.
Of course, sometimes she wondered whether she had that much intelligence in her head.
Still, she didn’t back away, but she didn’t look up at the spooky-looking mansion again either.
Miss Charlene had said Bryce was hiring people to help fix it up, but apparently they hadn’t gotten to the outside of it, since the paint was chipped and peeling, there were dead vines attached to the side of the house, and it looked like the flower planters hadn’t been tended to in a decade or more, since skeletons of weeds stood against the house where the snow hadn’t crushed them over the winter.
Funny how she could make up a story in her head and act it out beautifully in her mind’s eye, but she was a terrible actress in real life.
Dredging up her inner Marilyn Monroe, which, admittedly, might be more like another famous Marilyn, she forced cheer into her voice and said, “Hello, boys! It’s nice outside today and looks like you guys are on a walk.”
They stopped in front of her, no longer barking but sniffing, her feet first, then her hands, and slowly their tails started to wag.
She didn’t breathe a sigh of relief, not until the door opened, a man shouted names, and the dogs ran to him.
Because of the angle of the sun, still low in the sky and casting long shadows, she couldn’t see the man on the porch very well. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes even though at some level, she knew it was pointless since the sun was behind her.
That didn’t help her see any better, but it gave her a minute to remember she was here on business, and the man in front of her must be the person she wanted to see.
She strode forward, pushing her shoulders back and keeping her chin up.
Her husband had crushed her spirit when he had walked out, but in the years since, she’d tried to convince herself he’d done her a favor, even though she’d been living with his mother, who would have preferred to have her move out so her son could move his new girlfriend in.
She finally couldn’t take it anymore, and while she believed that love never failed, she figured she probably just hadn’t been very good at showing love to Matilda, since Matilda had all but thrown a party on the day that she moved out with Owen.
She could only imagine that the next day her ex and his girlfriend had moved in.
Regardless, maybe those years of trying to love someone who seemed unlovable had not changed Matilda, but they changed her.
“Hello,” she said as she walked up the steps to the front porch. “You must be Bryce.” She held her hand out, not allowing herself to show the insecurity that she felt.
