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Suddenly, she couldn’t bear the thought of climbing those stairs together. It was too much—far too normal, when the last thing she felt around Prescott Harrington was normal.
“You go on,” she said. Her voice came out husky and croaky. “I’m going to take a walk around the block. Not sleepy.”
Harry looked at her searchingly. “You want company?”
Her chest hurt. “No. I’ve got some thinking to do about the store. But thanks.”
That moment in the living room was the last time Cate saw Harry for two weeks. He didn’t come back to Blossom Branch after two nights or four or even six.
His mysterious chore in Atlanta was apparently time-consuming. Or so he would have her believe. Not that he left her completely in the dark. She received at least one text every day. Short. To the point.
Cate realized this was her chance to prove she could make decisions on her own. After much consideration, she put in an official offer on the store. The owners accepted. Because closing on their end was going to be complicated, they agreed to let Cate rent for a month.
That had beenCate’sidea, and she was proud of it. They also agreed to let her begin cleaning up and painting. If the deal fell through, Cate had a contract that said she would be compensated for her financial outlay.
So she set to work. In the beginning, it was hard physical labor. Cate welcomed the exertion. She fell into bed every night, too tired to obsess about her non-wedding or to wonder about Harry and his odd behavior.
While having dinner one evening with Ginny from the ice cream shop, Cate found an unexpected source of help. Ginny’s cousin, Zack, was a rising senior in high school, a football lineman. He rounded up several of his friends, and suddenly, Cate had a team of workers, five men strong.
Though she paid them more than fairly, she suspected they enjoyed the challenge. By the time Harry had been gone a week, the first floor of Cate’s store was spotless, and the walls painted a beautiful celadon that would showcase her eventual inventory.
The upstairs was a bigger hurdle. She didn’t want to make too many structural changes until her name was on the dotted line.
The second week of Harry’s absence was less physical and more cerebral. Cate spent a lot of time at her grandparents’ house researching vendors online. Her goal was to have a shop where all the merchandise was handmade. To that end, she contacted artisan guilds in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and, of course, Georgia.
That part was fun. She made endless lists of quilts and wooden stools and Quaker boxes and silver jewelry. It was far too soon to order yet. But she wanted to be ready to go when the time came.
In between her hours on the computer, she rambled around Blossom Branch, reacquainting herself with old haunts and discovering how much the community had grown. Fortunately, the core of town remained the same. Nuanced updating made everything feel fresh and upbeat yet at the same time preserved the notion that time might have stood still for the past hundred years.
Cate had been walking everywhere, but one afternoon she found a bicycle in the storage shed. It was cobwebby. Once she cleaned it up, it worked perfectly fine. Now she was able to range farther afield.
Out on the rural backroads, she recaptured the peace and joy of her childhood. Seeing the peach orchards, photographing red barns and wooden stiles, stopping on small rustic bridges to watch the creek run. Life at its simplest helped her make sense of all the turmoil she had faced.
The one aspect of her situation that still gave her heartburn was the huge mistake she had made with Jason. It was on a particularly beautiful afternoon that she paused beneath the shade of an enormous oak, parked her bike and sat down on the grass.
The silence was deep. Except for the distant mooing of a cow and the hum of nearby bees, Cate was able to hear nothing but her own heart. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the tree trunk.
In that private moment, she let herself accept the truth. Jason had been right to do what he did. Cate wasn’t “in” love with Jason, but she loved him dearly. Somehow, she had convinced herself that the grand passion portrayed in books and movies was fake. She’d believed that kindness and companionship were sufficient to maintain a marriage.
Maybe in some situations that was true. She wouldn’t presume to judge other people’s relationships. But clearly, Jason had recognized the danger before Cate had—unfortunately, almost too late.
Neither of them had ever been involved in a wildly passionate, all-consuming love affair. That didn’t mean such a thing didn’t exist. If Jason had let the wedding ceremony progress, the two of them might have been locked in a marriage and then found that “other” person.
The resultant damage and the upheaval of divorce would have traumatized them both. Either that, or they would have stayed together and begun living a lie.
So now what?
It might be a long time before Cate trusted herself again. She had been so wrong about such an important life choice. How would she recognize the man who was right for her when he came along? For that matter, now that she had admitted even her dreams had been flawed, how would she know what was right about any of it?
Sunday morning, Cate moped around the house feeling sorry for herself. Harry had been gone for two whole weeks. She had a hunch he wasn’t coming back. Apparently, admitting to a years-old jealous crush made him too uncomfortable.
He needn’t have worried. She understood better than anyone that Harry wasn’t right for her. The ten-year age gap wasn’t a huge hurdle, but it made for an uneven playing field. He would undoubtedly end up one day with a sophisticated, leggy brunette model. Or maybe even a gorgeous philanthropist.
If he ever married at all.
Late in the afternoon, Cate was in the living room texting back and forth with Leah and Gabby about the new store.
I can’t wait for you guys to see the building, she said.
