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Because he’s a great catch, she heard the little voice in her head say, and it was right. Nash was the best kind of man she’d ever met. Stubborn as a mule, just like Gretta accused him of being, but once you scraped off that hard exterior, a good man was waiting to be found.
He certainly outshined the men in her life. She loved that he was hardworking and dedicated, not only to the job but to his community and the people—and horse—in his life. Hell, even the memory of his wife. Nash was one of a kind, as far as she was concerned. So yeah, thinking of another woman taking her place, taking what she wanted irked her like nothing else.
She wanted to race into that town and march up to him and demand he give her another chance.
So why was she just standing there thinking about it when she could be doing something about it?
Gretta was right. She was being a stubborn ass.
Here she was, driving all over the country, telling herself and everyone who’d listen that she was finding herself and her place in the world when all she was really doing was running away from it all.
“What the hell am I doing?” she questioned aloud as she let herself into her hotel room. There was open luggage on the bed, a couple of empty drink bottles on the table beside it, and some discarded food containers in the trash—because she never felt right having perfect strangers in her personal space when she wasn’t around, so she kept the Do Not Disturb sign permanently affixed to the door handle.
The room was nice, pastel, nondescript artwork by some unknown artist on the walls and bedding and curtains that echoed the design, but it felt cold today, more so than the other days since she’d arrived.
Suddenly, Gretta’s open invitation and insistence she come sounded like the perfect solution, as tempting as a chocolate sundae on a hot day—or really any day.
Checkout wasn’t until ten the next morning, and Vivian had worn herself out walking all day, but right there at that moment, she had decided.
“Fine,” she muttered to herself as she went around picking up clothes and placing them neatly into the open suitcase, “you win.” Although Gretta couldn’t hear her, Vivian had no doubt the woman had some supernatural power to know what her next move would be. And no doubt, the woman was grinning like a lunatic because she was right.
First thing in the morning, Vivian was going to check out, turn her sights east, and go home.
TWENTY-FIVE
The drive back to South Carolina was impossibly long this time around. Probably due to anticipation. Vivian couldn’t seem to get there fast enough. There was a ball of tension in her gut, settled like a stone. She was anxious, and she didn’t know why. Was it because she couldn’t wait to get back? Partly. But she also had a nagging feeling that she needed to get there as fast as possible.
With nothing to verify her feelings, she drove too fast whenever the road ahead was clear and developed a nasty habit of cursing other drivers when she was forced to slow down and go their pace.
With each mile gained, she could breathe a little easier. But that never lasted long. So she turned up the radio and blasted anything that wasn’t full of static. That usually ended up being country music or a sermon of some kind, but it was noise at least.
It was a breath of fresh air when she finally crossed state lines into South Carolina. She was almost there, almost…home.
It felt strange to call it that, but it’s exactly what it had come to be. Even if she was a big-city girl and owned designer clothes and an expensive car, had her hair professionally colored and didn’t know a backhoe from a rake or how to make a proper pot of grits, she had been accepted into a family, even if that family consisted of only one person.
But she suspected there were a few more there who might consider her part of their tribe, too.
She certainly considered them part of hers.
Funny how fast life could change. One day you’re sitting in a high-rise loft, wondering when you should make your next spa appointment, and then next you’re sweating bullets in an aging farmhouse with an old ballbuster of a woman who’s somehow become a friend and taking a crash course in how to survive in a kitchen full of hungry men.
From trophy wife to housekeeper, and all it’d taken was a divorce and what Gretta had termed a “midlife crisis” to get there.
Split-rail fences and open fields became a common scene, and Vivian started looking for the most important one—the one that started it all.
It was so obvious what she was doing that she didn’t even bother trying to deny it to herself. She was searching for Nash. Any glimpse, no matter how small, would do. She just needed to see him because, dammit all, she missed the man.
She hoped he would feel the same about her because it would be a crying shame if she came all this way only to find him still in a bad mood.
But Gretta was right. She had to be. Nash was just being stubborn. When Vivian took time out to think about it, she thought he may have been able to let her go so easily because he was afraid of what it might mean if he didn’t.
He’d already lost one person he loved. He probably didn’t want to risk losing another. Not that she thought he loved her. She might have fallen for him, but there was nothing to say that he had taken the same plunge. Although, the thought was nice.
All the same, she’d decided he must be protecting himself. In that sense, she couldn’t blame him. He was just trying to survive any way he knew how just like she was. Only he’d done it all wrong. He should have pulled her closer, staking his claim, rather than telling her to go.
The first thing she was going to do when she got there was change his mind. Right after she surprised Gretta with her arrival.
The drive into town was uneventful, despite her expecting to repeat history and blow another tire or perhaps run out of gas again. Her first stop was to the grocery store she’d arrived at her first day there, just for old time’s sake.
