The Best of Me: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  Fuck me, but I’d fucked up royally by going there with her. Not because it had been bad. Far from it, actually. She’d been the best I’d ever had, bar none. But she wasn’t just a fuck. She was a friend, someone I cared for deeply, and by going there when my head was still such a goddamn mess, I’d put that friendship in jeopardy.

  I could see it written all over her face before I’d even made my approach. She was avoiding me. Not that I could blame her. The blow I’d landed that night had been crushing, and since then she’d made every effort to keep her distance. But that distance was beginning to bug the hell out of me. My ex had taken the best of me and destroyed it in the process. Then I’d turned around and inflicted the same kind of pain on a woman who didn’t deserve it. A good woman.

  Christ, I was an asshole.

  “Dad,” my son called, finally pulling my head out of all those terrible thoughts. “Can we go to Momma Gianna’s for lunch? Tris and me really want pizza.”

  Smiling down at him, I put my hand on the top of Shawn’s head and gave it a playful shake. “You boys want pizza, we’ll get pizza.”

  “Ugh! I’m so over pizza,” my daughter, Hannah groused with a roll of her eyes as she came sauntering over. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “They got more than just pizza,” Shawn argued.

  My girl gave her brother a beleaguered glare. “Yeah, but everything at Momma Gianna’s is like a million calories.”

  My back went straight, the muscles locking tight. The words might have been coming out of my girl’s mouth, but they most definitely belonged to her mother. I’d been hearing stuff like that a lot lately, and it left an uncomfortable tightening in my stomach.

  “I never get Momma Gianna’s!” Shawn cried. “You and Mom are all about that organic granola crap that tastes like cardboard.” Mimicking his sister’s early declaration, he said, “I’m so over cardboard.”

  “It’s not cardboard, you little punk. It’s health food.”

  The longer they argued, the more my teeth clenched. I wasn’t sure when my little girl stopped being so little, but every time I had my kids, the change in Hannah’s temperament and personality became more and more prominent. She was still my easygoing girl in some ways, but now she cared about shit like makeup and clothes and being skinny or popular more than I thought was healthy. In other words, she was starting to behave just like her mother.

  When we’d been together, curtailing Emma’s influence when it came to materialist things like that had been easy enough. But now that I wasn’t there to run interference, my baby was turning into a mini-version of my ex. Something I hadn’t realized until recently was not a good thing.

  I used to think Emma’s quirks were cute. It was easy to laugh them off or shake my head while smiling and thinking it was adorable how flustered she’d get trying to decide on the perfect outfit or hairstyle for a night out. Getting her out the door for a rare date night was usually an hours-long battle. She’d change her mind at least three times, which usually meant scrubbing her face free of makeup and starting that tedious task all over again because she decided on a different dress, and the “look I was going for no longer matches.” Whatever the fuck that meant. I’d learned early on in our relationship to tell her a reservation was at least an hour before I’d actually gotten it just so I had a shot at getting us there on time.

  She was constantly on some new fad diet, claiming she needed to lose five more pounds that her lithe frame couldn’t afford to lose, and whether she was going out or just spending the day hanging at home, she always had full hair and makeup.

  My woman was high maintenance, but I didn’t give a shit. I told myself it was just her making an effort, even though I thought she was more beautiful without all that mess caked on her face. It was just who she was, so I went with it. But now that the rose-colored glasses were off, I was discovering those things I used to find cute were precursors to something ugly. And with each visit, those traits were coming out in my sweet girl.

  Looking back now, I realized I should have said something, cut that shit off at the start before it bled into our daughter and took over, but I hadn’t thought it was that big of a deal. And the truth was, Emma and I rarely fought, so I figured that wasn’t a battle I needed to pick. In all the years we’d been together, we’d only really had two big blow-up fights.

  The first had happened three years into what was supposed to have only been a months-long engagement. We hadn’t been careful enough, and she ended up pregnant with Hannah only a couple months after I put my ring on her finger. I wasn’t happy when she announced she wanted to push the wedding back until after our baby girl was born, but I caved, understanding that every girl fantasized about her wedding. And if she wanted to wait so she could fit into the dress she’d always dreamed of wearing, I’d give her that. But once Hannah was born, the delays kept coming. First she needed to lose the baby weight. Then the venue she wanted wasn’t available for spring, and she just had to have a spring wedding. After that, the photographer she wanted because “anyone who’s anyone uses Fredrick Dougal” was booked solid around the dates we’d finally chosen, and she couldn’t possibly settle for anything but the best of the best. There was always something. Then one day I finally had enough and got pissed.

  The second and final blowup had been what led to the deterioration of our marriage. After Shawn was born, she’d decided she wanted to stay at home with the kids, at least until they started school. I hadn’t minded, and I wanted to give my wife what she wanted, but I wasn’t rolling in it, so things were a little tight. We weren’t in debt, but she had a taste for living above our means. New purses or shoes or clothes, redecorating the family room or our bedroom every six goddamn months. She wanted the best and newest of everything, and she loved to brag and show that shit off to her friends. But I didn’t have a job where I could afford to give my wife her heart’s every desire. We had two kids who needed to come first, so I’d sat her down and we’d had the talk, where I told her if she wanted to spend that kind of money, she was going to have to go out and find a job. Both the kids were in school, Hannah was only a few years away from college with Shawn not that far behind, and I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal to her. She didn’t volunteer, she wasn’t on the PTA, so she had a lot of free time on her hands.

  Apparently, I’d been wrong. She’d grown accustomed to being taken care of, and the idea of actually earning money for our family was downright blasphemous.

  She’d pleaded with me to except the hand out her rich parents offered so she could stay in the lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to, but I refused. I worked, I provided for my family, and I’d be damned if I took cash from her folks just so she didn’t have to work.

  When I didn’t back down, holding firm to her needing a job when all she wanted to do was spend her days of lunching with her other nonworking friends and getting regular manicures and pedicures, the woman I’d thought I married disappeared. I got home from working a double shift at the station to find all my earthly possessions packed and waiting for me by the front door.

  And the rest, as they say, was history.

  “Who cares about healthy food? I’m twelve!” Shawn exclaimed, growing increasingly agitated. That was another change I’d started to notice in my kids when they came to spend their week with me. They fought a lot more than they used to, and I didn’t like that one goddamn bit.

  “Enough,” I snapped before the two of them broke into a full-blown shouting match in the middle of the field. “We’re goin’ to Momma Gianna’s,” I announced, earning a severe pout from my daughter. “You know the rules, Hannah. You picked last time. Now it’s Shawn’s turn.”

  “Whatever,” she groused, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not even hungry anyway.”

  That just bought me at least two hours of sullen teenage sulking I wasn’t looking forward to. I wasn’t sure if it was her age or the stresses of the divorce, but my sweet, easygoing girl had changed. There were still g
limpses of her here and there, but for the most part, she spent her time closed up in her bedroom with her cell glued to her hand, texting or talking to her friends. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d plopped down on the couch beside me and leaned in until I wrapped my arms around her shoulders so she could snuggle, and I felt that like a white-hot poker to the heart.

  Pushing that burning pain to the back of my mind, I ordered, “All right. To the truck. I don’t get some food in me soon, my stomach’ll start gnawing on my backbone.”

  Shawn and Tristan laughed while Hannah curled her lip in disgust, but they all started toward my Ram, so I’d take that as a win.

  I was trailing a few feet behind when I heard Emma’s voice call my name. “Patrick, can I speak with you a moment?”

  I stopped to look over my shoulder at my ex-wife and wanted nothing more than to keep going. Instead, I pulled the keys from my pocket and tossed them to Shawn, telling him, “Start it up. I’ll be right there.” I waited until all three were loaded in and the truck started up before turning back to the woman who’d taken my entire world and ripped it to shreds all because she was having a hissy fit.

  Her hair and makeup were perfect. There wasn’t so much as I wrinkle on the trendy yoga outfit she was wearing. Hell, even her stylish tennis shoes were completely smudge free. After everything that had happened, I barely recognized the woman standing before me as the one I’d once planned to spend the rest of my life with. And looking at her now, I couldn’t help but think of Nona, her wild, attractive hair, that beautiful face free of makeup, and that hilarious shirt.

  Emma wasn’t very tall, but she wasn’t short either. Her blonde hair was pin straight, her eyes were always made up, and she was at least ten pounds underweight.

  Nona might have been about the same height, but she was all curves. Tits and an ass that any man would beg to grab hold of while sinking deep inside her. Long, dark red hair that felt just as silky and soft as it looked, and blue eyes the same shade of the water in the Caribbean.

  She and Emma couldn’t have been more different if they tried.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked down at the woman I once thought I’d known better than I knew myself and asked, “What’s up?”

  She scanned my face, taking up extra seconds that only prolonged me getting something to eat. Then her eyes went soft as she asked, “How are you? You doing okay?”

  My eyes widened while my chin jerked back in surprise. For months I’d begged and pleaded, doing everything in my power to keep my family together. She’d give me false hope, playing me like a puppet on her strings to make herself feel powerful before yanking everything away once again. But never in all those months that she played her twisted games had she shown concern for me. “What?”

  “I just… wanted to make sure you’re good.”

  “No offense, Emma, but I’m starvin’, and not in a particularly chatty mood.”

  She blew out a sigh like dealing with me was akin to dealing with Hannah in her current mood. “I’m just trying to be civil, but if you’re going to be rude about it, I’ll just get to my point.”

  “Please do.”

  “I just felt you had the right to know, I’m going on a date next weekend.”

  Is she fucking kidding me? “And you feel I should know this why?”

  Her lips parted in surprise, her eyes going wide before narrowing unhappily at my refusal to give her the response she was hoping for. Shortly after she kicked me out, she started pulling stunts like this just to get a reaction and keep me tied up in knots. But those days were gone. She’d killed whatever good we had between us, and once I realized there was no hope for us, I’d forced myself to stop being her pawn. “Oh I don’t know,” she chided sarcastically. “Maybe because we were married for twelve years and I’m the mother of your children?”

  Dropping my arms and planting my hands on my hips, I skewered her with a look before saying, “Yeah, then you ended us. That means you do what you wanna do and I do the same. Unless the guy you’re seein’ is a known criminal you plan on bringing around the kids, I don’t care. Now, are you plannin’ on bringing a known criminal around our kids?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped in offense.

  “Then I don’t give a shit. Do what you want.”

  “Well excuse me for thinking you’d care after so many years together.”

  I stiffened, my blood beginning to heat uncomfortably. “You tryin’ to make me jealous?”

  I registered the truth in her eyes before she managed to hide it. “Oh my god! You’re so full of yourself, Patrick.” she scoffed, sounding an awful lot like our teenage daughter. “Forget I even said anything.”

  “Consider it forgotten. We done here?”

  Her eyelids dropped into furious slits as she hissed, “Oh, we’re so done.”

  “Obliged,” I snarked. Then I turned on my heels and headed for my truck, ready to put her and that whole fucked-up conversation out of my mind.

  Chapter Three

  Nona

  I heard the front door open just before my daughter’s voice called out, “Mom?”

  “Kitchen, honey,” I returned as I finished piping the last decorative swirl of orange frosting onto the triple-layer chocolate cake I’d spent the better part of the day making.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye and turned my head from my task just as Blythe came to a stop in the entryway of the kitchen, her wide eyes pinned to the cake. “Whoa. What’s wrong?”

  I stood up straight at the concern laced into her voice. “What? Nothing’s wrong. Why would you ask that?”

  She cocked a hip and gave me that insolent look that only teenagers could pull off. The one where they communicate with just one glance that adults are stupid and lame. “Uh, maybe because the only time you bake like that is when you’re super stressed?”

  Planting my hands on my hips, I narrowed my eyes and argued, “That’s not true. I love to bake, you know that.”

  “Yeah, normal stuff, but you only go overboard when you’re freaking out about something. The day you told us you and Dad were getting a divorce, you baked like a gazillion of those fancy blueberry muffins with the crumble stuff on top.”

  “Streusel,” I corrected unnecessarily.

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “You know what I mean.”

  I did, and whether I wanted to admit it or not, she had a point. I enjoyed baking to the point that if hair hadn’t been my first love, I probably would have opened my own bakery. I was a decent cook, but an awesome baker. Creating sugary goodness made me happy, and designing them to make them as awesome on the outside as they tasted on the inside was just icing on the cake, literally and figuratively. I was so good at it that all my kids’ birthday cakes were homemade, but they looked like something made by a professional that you’d spend a fortune on.

  But my baby had the uncanny and supremely annoying talent of reading me like a book. When something was bothering me, I had a tendency to go overboard. Some people stress ate. I stress baked. I’d spent that entire day fretting about how my kids would take it when I broke the news their dad was moving out, and I baked so much I ran out of counter space. The only reason they didn’t go to waste was because the PTA just so happened to have a bake sale going on at that time, so I was able to unload a haul.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not goin’ overboard. I just want chocolate cake.”

  “Mom, that’s not just a cake. That’s like a wedding cake!”

  I looked back to the rich, chocolatey goodness on my counter and realized, with a good deal of annoyance, that she was not wrong. For a cake I planned on eating while curled up in my cozy sofa, reading one of my beloved romance novels, it was a bit over the top.

  With the homemade chocolate fudge icing, the pretty daisies and swirls I’d piped in yellow, orange, and green, and the dark chocolate raspberry filling I’d made to go between each of the three layers, the whole damn
thing screamed EXCESS in big capital letters. But I’d been frazzled ever since my run-in with Trick at the soccer game a few days ago. He hadn’t hung around long after dropping Tris off, but he still gave me those soft, warm eyes that were devastating to my well-being.

  “Yeah, well, like I said, nothing’s wrong. Just in the mood to bake, I guess.”

  The door opened and slammed shut again, and a second later I heard my son’s backpack crash to the ground before he came skidding into the kitchen. “Whoa, awesome! Cake!” Then his eyes came to me, awash with curiosity as he asked, “What’s goin’ on? Are you and Dad getting divorced again?”

  “See?” Blythe exclaimed to me, then turned to Tristan. “They’re already divorced, dummy. They can’t get divorced again.”

  “Don’t call me a dummy, butthead!” Tris rebounded.

  “Both of you,” I called sharply. “No name-calling. And Tris, nothing’s going on. Like I told your sister, I was in the mood for chocolate cake, it’s my day off, I had the time, so I made one.”

  His eyes bounced between me and the cake. “Yeah, but that one’s huge. It could feed my whole soccer team.”

  “Told you,” Blythe chimed in, crossing her arms and giving me a snarky look.

  I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “All right, enough. We’re done here. There isn’t anything going on,” I lied, but they didn’t need to know that. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is rainbows and butterflies and dancing unicorns. Now you guys go do your homework so I can start dinner in peace. And afterward, you get to have a piece of this awesome cake, because your mom’s the coolest mom in all the world.”

  “If you were the coolest mom in the world, you wouldn’t make us do homework,” Tris declared, a goofy half grin tugging on his lips.

  “You’ll appreciate me making you when you’re older.”

  That goofy half grin morphed into a full-blown goofy smile that pierced my heart. God, I loved my kids. And I hated how fast they were growing up.