“Ah, I don’t know about that.” The tops of Evan’s ears pinked endearingly. “So you and the little guy are on your own?” He nodded to Sawyer, who’d copped a seat on the floor. There the man went, changing the topic away from himself. He’d been like that as a teen too. Lots of guys liked to talk about themselves, but Evan had always focused on her, asking her a million questions about her childhood, the Filipino culture that made up her mom’s side of the family, what her dreams were. Where she’d live if she could choose anywhere.
Those last two answers had been running the B & B and this town.
Addie’s dreams might finally be waking up from a deep sleep, but she still had a long haul to actually make them feasible.
“Yep. Sawyer and I are a mom-and-son-superhero-crime-fighting duo.” She paused. “But without the crime-fighting or superhero part.” Her attempt at humor fell flat, ripping open the curtain into her personal torment.
“That has to be hard. I’m sorry, Addie.” She could tell Evan was exactly that by the worried pucker that wedged between his eyebrows and the downward slope of his mouth.
She was sorry too. Sorry for the onslaught of painful, gut-wrenching memories that were choking her during this supposedly small talk conversation. Sorry for the mistakes she’d made that had led up to this moment. Sorry for what Evan didn’t know and how it would most definitely hurt him.
“It’s certainly not what I’d dreamed about or planned for.” She acknowledged Evan’s sympathy and shrugged as if her bad choices didn’t matter, but of course they did. Adding a divorce to her What was I thinking? tally was embarrassing and excruciating. She should never have married Rex in the first place. He’d been a way to escape her parents, and the attempt had bombed, big-time. When she’d found out she was pregnant, their marriage had been over and done in a flash. Rex hadn’t had any interest in becoming a father, or really, in her. “Sometimes life doesn’t go like we expect it to.” That was the understatement of the century.
“Mommy.” Sawyer tugged on her leg. “We go.”
“You’re right, buddy. We do need to go.”
The fact that Sawyer was still in the aisle with her was shocking. Asking any two-year-old boy—especially this one—to sit still or remain in one place for any amount of time was like asking a puppy not to have an accident on the carpet.
Addie’s hands were full with a smattering of items Sawyer had “gifted” to her. She quickly placed them back in the correct spots. No need to destroy Herbert’s while they were there. She was desperate for the people in this town to support her business and send referrals her way, not view her as incompetent.
“It was...good to see you, Evan.” More lies. It was simply painful to see him. When a person had buried something for as long as she had, coming into contact with the initiating factor was like ramming repeatedly into a stone wall at top speeds.
“You too.”
Addie scooped up Sawyer, retrieved her cart and headed for the checkout, her breathing shallow, her heart shredded into a thousand pieces of regret.
How many times had she begged a God she’d barely believed existed for an opportunity to share the truth with Evan? More than she could count. But what was she supposed to do? Blurt everything out in a hardware store? She didn’t see that going well. And while Addie would happily shove off her shame and guilt and be free from the secrets, she couldn’t get sidetracked either.
The B & B would require all of her energy and attention in the next couple of weeks. She could not fail. Her and Sawyer’s livelihood depended on its success. So the fact that Evan Hawke had just walked back into her life was the biggest, most confusing wrench she could have imagined.
And she’d never been very good with mechanics.
Copyright © 2020 by Jill Buteyn
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ISBN: 9781488060151
The Prodigal Cowboy
Copyright © 2020 by Brenda Minton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Prodigal Cowboy (Mercy Ranch Book 5) Page 19
