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He somehow managed to turn everything around and make it all her fault. He’d even managed to make the fact that she’d been caught with his business partner, Davis, sound like she’d been cheating on him. When her one-night stand, the one night where she’d lived for herself instead of thinking about everybody else, had been well after the finalization of their divorce.
Todd was the one who had been cheating on her all along. He was the one whose girlfriend was pregnant when he served her with divorce papers. He was the one who had neglected his family, his wife.
But she was the one who paid the price. She had always been the one to pay the price. It didn’t seem fair.
But Alyssa had hit the nail on the head. Kim was jealous. Bitter. Frustrated. Sad. And confused. If a forty-year-old could still be confused.
Her mother wasn’t who she thought she was, and she didn’t know where she belonged in the world anymore. No husband, no mom, no home.
She tried to shove down the fear that clenched around her backbone, squeezing hard. Harder and more forceful when she thought about how she was alone, unloved, and uncared for.
Even though Bev and Bill - apparently her real parents - would love to have a relationship with her, it wasn’t the same. Just...she didn’t feel a natural, unfeigned connection deep in her soul the way a lifetime relationship with a person’s parents should feel.
No fault of theirs.
She stood, embarrassed that she’d succumbed to the need to cry, and so close to her destination. She could have at least gone inside the cottage for privacy.
Not that there was anyone walking on the beach, despite the unusual warmth of the March afternoon.
Lifting her head, she looked straight at the stable. It was in decent condition, and when she’d decided to leave everything and come here, she had the idea that she could rent horses to paying tourists. Give them a few happy hours riding on the beach. Make beautiful memories with their families, sweet times for everyone.
Still, the thought didn’t stir her like it had. Not with the feeling of being alone.
You are never alone.
She closed her eyes. God was with her. She knew that. She’d known that since she was little, but for a while, she’d walked away from that idea. Bought into the ideas of the world. After all, Todd had laughed at anything that had to do with any type of Christian thoughts or actions. He scoffed at her religion, made fun of her “crutch,” which was what he called her need for God and her dependence on Jesus.
Lord, I feel like I’m using You now. Coming back to You when I’m scared and alone. After I left You when I had everything. A husband, even if he didn’t really care for me, a beautiful child, a great house, and lots of money.
Her eyes filled with tears again, and she took a minute to blink them away. Some people thought she’d had the perfect life. She would have said that too. After all, a person didn’t expect everything in their life to be completely like their dreams. Just because she didn’t have the intimate, beautiful relationship she always dreamed about with her husband didn’t mean that the rest of her life wasn’t amazing. She laughed. Most of it anyway.
Now, it was all gone, and it felt like she was just using God as a genie of sorts if she turned to Him when she had nothing left. She wouldn’t appreciate it if someone did that to her.
I want to get my life back together, but I feel like I need to earn the right to come back before I turn to You. After all, I didn’t have a lot of time for You when there wasn’t really anything I needed.
She’d been resisting turning to the Lord for a while for that very reason.
Shoving those thoughts aside, wiping the rest of the moisture off her face, she pushed to her feet. She was getting clumsy, awkward, with her belly leading the way. She hated the last months of pregnancy. Some pregnant ladies glowed with impending motherhood.
She was the opposite. Instead, she looked exhausted and sallow, fat and ungainly.
Shoving her phone back in her purse, she grabbed the key to the cottage and turned to go up the rest of the steps.
This was a new start. A new life. She wasn’t going to let fear, or insecurity, or what anyone said about her hold her back.
She was going to start all over again, even if she was forty.
She had the key in her hand, lifting it to put it in the lock when, to her great surprise, the door opened.
A man stood in the doorway, his hair casually ruffled, a tight T-shirt stretching over broad shoulders and jeans slung low on his hips.
Several days’ worth of stubble bristled on his cheeks, but it was those eyes, deep and dark and so very blue, that gave her pause for just a moment, and then she recognized him.
Davis. The father of her child.
