by Ava Claire
In a blink of an eye, I went from the luckiest woman, a future with Lincoln Carraway stretching before me, to a jilted bride. The love of my life left me at the altar, and I left too. I hadn’t been home since my wedding day. Mom, Dad, Josie, even my brother, Rob, had come to visit me in Nebraska. Somehow, by some miracle, they never judged or cajoled me into coming home.
Now that I was back, with all the history, good times and bad, swirling all around me, I couldn’t help it. So even though I saw love and happiness shining in Mom’s eyes, I apologized again.
“Mom, I’m so sorry it took me so long.” I swallowed the boulder that was lodged in my throat and swept my blonde hair from my eyes so she could see that I meant it. “Really.”
She cupped my cheek. “No more apologizing. You came home when you were meant to, ya hear?”
And with that, she tugged me inside, like there was nothing to be forgiven at all.
One step onto the worn carpet and I could guess what was on the menu. That crisp, heavy bite in the air? That was her famous fried chicken. The faint hint of garlic making my mouth water? The best greens ever, hands down. The family portraits that covered nearly every inch of the walls, mantle, coffee table, and every surface in the living room was as warm and inviting as my favorite dish.
“Oh my God, you made cornbread?” I gushed with stars in my eyes, almost following the scent blindly, already tasting the crumbly goodness.
“I have dibs!” Josie’s loud, brash voice cut through my slow-mo fantasy.
Mom glanced over at me warily. “As if she needs any introduction.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I should be saying, ‘Catherine’s here!’ ‘Josie’s here!’ seems more appropriate.” When Josie peeked around the corner, her big smile hitting me right in the chest, Mom added, “Jillian and Mikey are here, too.”
That was for my sister’s benefit, and I imagined her two little ones were napping somewhere nearby. Josie’s eyes widened and she mouthed a silent apology.
Josie skipped into the main room. So much personality was packed in her lean frame as she gave my mother a look I was all too familiar with. It was the same look she had when she would steal a bite of some cooling pie Mom had prepared for dessert. Or when she came home after curfew. Or when she announced that she was pregnant with Jillian and marrying Anthony. She was just Josephine. And as much crap as we gave her, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The whole lack of volume control thing, that’s on you and Dad, Mom.” Josie shrugged her shoulders when she saddled up next to us. “Genes.”
“It’s always the parents’ fault, eh? You should have been a therapist,” Mom joked, stepping aside so Josie could throw her arms around me.
Josie smelled like baby powder...and the cornbread I was salivating over. “Catherine! How long has it been?” I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t pause long enough for me to do the math. “Too long, that’s how long!” She put both hands on my shoulders and peered at me so closely that my face matched her crimson-colored sweater. “You look tired.” She continued her inspection, lifting one of my greasy, dirty blonde strands. “I guess I should be happy that you got rid of that awful jet black thing you had going on the last time I saw you, but Jesus, Cat. It looks like you haven’t washed your hair in weeks!”
She was right. The black dye job was a bad idea and my hair was overdue for a proper wash, but I didn’t say so.
“And you’re still doing that awful all black thing-”
“Josephine, don’t start in on your sister,” Mom scolded on her way to the kitchen.
“Oh, she knows I’m just concerned,” Josie waved off the interruption. “Don’t you, Catty?”
Catty. She only called me that when she wanted something. I darted away from her, all the warm, fuzzy Hallmark flutters in my chest blinking right out of existence. “What is it, Josie?”
“What is it?” She brought a hand to her chest like she was offended by me cutting through the red tape and getting to the point. “I’m just getting reacquainted with my long lost sister.”
“Uh huh.” I trudged over to the couch and plopped down with a sigh. Considering I’d been on the road for hours, sitting should have been akin to walking across hot coals barefoot. Instead, I relaxed into the lumpy couch, nuzzled into its lived-in contours, inhaled the familiarity, and braced myself for the attack.
“So, you’re moving back to NC? You have a job offer in Raleigh, right?” Even though she’d crossed the room to where I sat and her expression was confidential with her golden brows arched, her voice carried. She couldn’t help it. “You know he lives in Raleigh now, right?”
My heart did a back flip.
He.
Lincoln.
I fought the urge to make a face, and/or bite her head off. Of course I knew my ex lived in Raleigh. It was the only reason I hadn’t accepted the job offer over the phone. I told myself if I could go home, then breeze into Raleigh and not react to the mention of him, signs of him, and the very real chance that we’d run into each other, then fate was telling me to take this new job and run with it.
I plucked a pillow from the nook of the couch and used it as a shield. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Josie shrilled. “That’s all I get?!”
“Jesus, Josie, give her some room to breathe.”
I’d never been so happy to hear my brother’s deep growl in my whole life.
Robert was still in his uniform, which wasn’t an accurate indicator of whether he was fresh off a shift or heading in. He'd joined the force after taking a couple of courses at the community college and hadn’t taken it off since.
He looked so much like Dad with his mop of curly brown hair and days-old scruff that those damn tears were back in full force. I covered it with a sniff as I tossed aside the pillow and hugged his neck. When we separated and I looked into his eyes, I saw a few tears of his own.
“How are ya, Rob?” I playfully punched his arm. “How’s Meredith and Syd?”
“I’m hanging in there. Meredith has turned the house into her workshop and is driving me insane.” He groaned, but the twinkle in his eye told another story.
He met Meredith when he signed up for a pottery class, expecting an easy A. Meredith was the teacher and even the Wilkes charm wasn’t enough for an auto pass. He failed the course, but on the last day, Meredith slipped him her number. A year and a half and a country wedding later, my adorable niece Sydney was born.
“Syd is all attitude and lives off Disney movies and Cheerios,” Rob chuckled.
I glanced past him, on the lookout for the cute li'l booger, but there was no mini, toddling version of Meredith.
“She’s under the weather, so Mer is at home with her,” he explained.
Before I could say how much I missed that bundle of never-ending energy, he was Facetimeing his wife. I got to chat with a bleary-eyed Meredith for a few minutes and meet Syd’s favorite new stuffed animal, Mindy.
I left my siblings and wandered into the kitchen where my mother was laying out plates. I vaguely recognized the cluster of old women crammed into our tiny kitchen. They buzzed around her, transferring casserole dishes to the dining room table. Mom wouldn’t let me lift a finger to help, calling me the guest of honor. I re-met the women, all from church. With heavy perfume clogging my nostrils and my body aching from a round of bone-crushing hugs, I glanced at the open back door. The sound of Dad’s old radio hummed through the patched up screen.
“Take this out to your dad and tell him dinner in five.” Mom handed me a Coors Light and swatted my behind when I hesitated.
“I’m going!” I hissed as I took my sweet time, fingering the label on the bottle.
She leaned in and whispered, “He hasn’t stopped talking about your visit since you said you were coming for sure.”
My face warmed several degrees. I swiped the beer and acted like her admission didn’t make me ten times more nervous. Dad gushed about three things: football, James Patterson’s latest release, and classic
rock. Hearing that he was excited about my visit, and had been talking about it since I’d confirmed that I was coming a week ago, was enough to make my heart float right out of my chest.
I inched down the stairs that spilled into the backyard. The smell of the woods and the country filled my nostrils. It was a welcome scent.
Dad was where he always was on Sunday afternoons, stretched out in his lawn chair, some high stakes thriller paperback folded on his thigh, ball cap tipped over and covering half his face.
I knew he wasn’t sleeping. He knew that I knew he wasn’t sleeping. Still, I paused fifty feet away and announced myself.
“Daddy?”
Usually, he’d grunt ‘What?’ then wink while he pretended I’d disturbed him from some fantastic dream. This time, he nearly knocked over his chair when he scrambled to his feet.
It had only been a handful of months since we’d seen each other but I saw every minute, second, and hour of worry dash across his hardened features. He wrapped me in a hug that was all muscle, freshly mowed grass, and the cigarettes he wasn’t supposed to be smoking.
He pressed a kiss against my forehead. “Welcome home, Cat.”
Chapter Two
There was no cover of darkness, no covert way to sneak into Raleigh and pretend I wasn’t scared shitless about running into Lincoln, or any sign of him. Just as I took the Hillsborough street exit and allowed myself to exhale as I eased around the curve, accepting my fate, his name punched me right in the face.
Up on a billboard, touching the sky, ‘Carraway Consulting’ shouted in big, sparkly letters, shining as brightly as the family that grinned down on me from the signage.
‘Investing in today...for tomorrow.’
I pointedly looked straight ahead, but my stomach had other plans, twisting and knotting relentlessly. I had a light breakfast for this exact reason and a bottle of Canada Dry perched in the cup holder beside me, just in case.
There was no escaping the dread that twisted and tugged at my insides. I knew that his life went on after he nuked mine. I had too much pride to stalk him on Facebook or any of those standard social media investigations that one did after a bad breakup, but when the heir to a massive fortune takes the reins of the family business right out of college and the profits skyrocket to the moon (and you look the way Lincoln Carraway looks), you become a household name. CNN, Forbes, People —everyone wanted a piece of the twenty-something billionaire.
“Everyone but me,” I clarified to no one in particular. To myself, in case I was forgetting that I hated his guts. But I didn’t hate him. It would be easier if I did. If the name ‘Carraway’ was enough to make me sweat and seeing his smile, paired with the naughty gleam in his stormy gray eyes glittering on the front of a magazine, was enough to make my heart quicken in my chest...the sight of him would do me in.
I clenched the steering wheel, memories bombarding me with no mercy. I should have known that when something was too good to be true, i.e. he hung out with a group of guys who were known as the ‘Quit It Crew’ that we were destined for failure.
The ‘Quit it Crew’ was Rhoades High’s best. They were all involved in sports: football, basketball, and baseball. They all had charm, good looks, and a hefty dash of confidence that often slipped into cockiness. They sauntered through the halls of our high school like they owned them. The sick truth was, they did. Everyone worshipped them, from the teachers who overlooked missed assignments and outright defiance to the kids who got picked on for not fitting in. Those kids still gazed at them with wistful longing, a tiny bit of hope that if they tried hard enough, they could be popular too. Popular, the ‘Rhoades Mold’ meant good, down-home Southern-ness where sports were religion, boys did what boys did, and the girls stayed quiet and always had their face on.
I nearly rear-ended the person in front of me when the light flickered green, trying to outrun the past. But the past was everywhere, even after all these years. I carried it inside like poison, and it seeped into my blood and soured everything. The tears that scalded my cheeks were just an unwelcome reminder that no matter how many days, months, and years passed, Lincoln Carraway still had a hold on me.
I pointed my car onto campus, cruising down the scenic front drive. Meredith looked even more beautiful than it did on the website. Everything held the warm colors of fall. Oak trees sighed and let loose a trickle of orange, brown, and yellow leaves. The grass was green and plush and I spied an amphitheater to my right, a chapel standing on the left. Straight ahead was a fountain that tossed and spun water in a hypnotic way that made me want to apply like, yesterday. Even from my car I could feel the energy of the students, all backpacked and Kate Spaded with pearls. I hadn’t felt such an urge to join a group, to be accepted since I said ‘screw that’ in middle school.
“Something in the air,” I said to myself, pulling into the visitor’s lot. That was the only explanation because my best friend, Ashton, was just as alternative as I was. We banded together, sisters in every way except blood. Back in middle school, these two cheerleaders, Mindy and Cindy (no relation, but you’d never know it since they always wore complementary outfits and had the same mean ass streak) started in on me and my black dress, laughing and joking that I looked like I was headed to a funeral. Ashton piped that if they didn’t fuck off, I would be heading to a funeral...theirs.
They never said anything to either of us after that. If they’d been willing to take their head out of their asses, they would have seen that me and Ash couldn’t hurt a fly. We were just trying to figure out who we were...and who we weren’t.
My awe at the Meredith experience dimmed as I stepped out of the car and a mom parked beside me in a minivan gave me a once over and a ‘Bless your heart’ smile, like I was clearly lost. This was a place of color; of preppiness and white teeth smiles. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my black shift dress, fishnets, and combat boots, with a black ribbon weaving through my fishtail braid.
I gave the woman the biggest grin I could muster and stalked toward the focal point on campus. Johnson Hall had all the pomp and circumstance of stock colleges in movies. The bricks and regal windows gleamed in the sun, six columns stretching from the second floor to the roof. The closer I got, the more hypnotic the fountain became. Navigating through the sea of young women chatting, laughing, and booking it to their next class, I caught the bug. The infectious excitement about learning and opportunity was all around.
I was surprised when Ashton opted to stay in North Carolina after graduation and downright flabbergasted when she chose to go to a women’s college. A part of me worried she’d change because there seemed to be a definite type of ‘Meredith Girl.’ It was a uniform of pearls and permanent smiles that seemed so far away from Ashton’s tattoo sleeves, band t-shirts, and jeans.
When I left NC, we kept in touch and I watched her kick ass and take names, all while remaining true to herself and never judging me for avoiding my home state for years.
I breezed through the doors that led into Johnson Hall, and I couldn’t fight the feeling of wonder and excitement when I looked up at the intricate gold writing engraved on the open-air atrium. I’d given Ashton some serious side eye when she told me she was staying at Meredith, accepting a position in the office she’d worked in as a student, the Admissions Office. Once upon a time, we both talked about getting the hell out of North Carolina together and at every turn, she passed.
We chose different paths, but all roads led back home, it seemed.
I read the gold placard beside the door. ‘Admissions.’ I pushed inside and took a breath. I had a feeling that the space was actually no bigger than my tiny studio back in Omaha, but someone had maximized every square inch, making it look open and inviting. A window on the far wall was lifted, sending sunlight and gusts of warmth into the room. A set of modular chairs sat off to the right. A coffee table in the center was lined with brochures and books about the school. A bookshelf was right ahead, lined with magazines and more information that enticed with br
ight colors and promises that Meredith could be a home away from home.
A mother and daughter, both wearing newly acquired Meredith swag, were engrossed in conversation about the study abroad program.
“Yes, you can use your student aid for study abroad!” A golden-haired twenty-something perked behind the reception desk. She had a voice as bubbly as champagne.
When the daughter let out a squeal of delight, the receptionist pulled out a fistful of pamphlets and foisted them into the girl’s eager hands.
“And many of our programs are cheaper than a semester at Meredith!”
“Ooo!” The girl cooed, tossing her brown ringlets and grinning big at her mother. “That means more money for partying!”
The mother groaned, her face turning a color a few shades darker than Meredith’s maroon-lined logo. She gave me and the receptionist an apologetic grimace, then steered her daughter toward the lounge area before she embarrassed her further.
I stepped up to bat, fully expecting the bubbliness the receptionist exuded to be turned off for me, or at least turned down a few notches. But the woman, ‘Hunter’ etched into a nametag attached to her heart print dress, leapt from her seat. She whipped around the desk to where I stood and threw her arms around my neck.
I stood there in her perfumed embrace, awkwardly returning the hug until she took a step back. “Man, I already have a degree, but I’m tempted to come back and get a second if hugs are included in the tuition!”
Hunter tossed her head back like I’d just said the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Ash told me you were hilarious!”
And right on cue, Ashton appeared in the hallway beside us. Happiness exploded in my chest like the 4th of July. It had been almost a year since she made the trek to Nebraska, but it felt like a lifetime.
Ashton was in a black sweater and jeans with bunny rabbit flats, but her chin-length, raven-colored hair had blue streaks running through the choppy locks. Silver studs ran up and down her earlobe and a nose ring glittered in the light, broadcasting the fact that she was far from the fuzzy, innocent thing on her shoes.
