Let’s Be Honest (Camassia Cove Universe #18)

Chapter 1

Natalie Nolan

“Have I mentioned I’m glad you came to your senses and moved here?”

I grinned into the mug and took a sip of my tea. She’d only mentioned that about a dozen times since I’d arrived a couple weeks ago.

“Yes, but you can tell me again.”

“I’m so, so, so, so glad!” She laid it on thick with a big smile, and she sat down so we shared a corner of her kitchen island.

“My baby sister, finally in the same state as me.” She opened her giant messy planner that kept her life organized.

It had countless Post-its and colorful tabs sticking out of it.

“Now I just gotta find a date we can all get together for dinner.” She slid her pen down the dates of this week, then the next.

She was a busy woman.

Hell, everyone in the family was busy. Chloe ran a bed-and-breakfast, her husband was a successful author, and the kids…

They were all grown up now, ’cause Chloe had started early.

The twins had a year left in high school, which was freaking nuts.

My eldest nephew, Gage, lived in Vancouver and worked all the time, and the second eldest, Gray, had recently turned Chloe into a grandmother.

Gray and his boyfriend were in the middle of adopting two boys, and my sister could not be happier.

Actually, her stepdaughter had given birth to twins not too long ago either, so make that four grandchildren.

She had everything up here in rainy Washington.

I was still on the fence. I’d left New York for a tiny town north of Seattle.

Then again, New York hadn’t really suited me either.

“Okay, I give up,” Chloe sighed. “It looks like the next day everyone’s in town is for Jayden’s birthday in September.”

That was okay. “He’s turning nine, right?”

“Nine, goin’ on nineteen—that sweetheart.” My sister was a big fan of the boys, obviously.

When I’d first heard that Gray and Darius were adopting, I’d automatically assumed babies. My nephew had always wanted a big family, not unlike the one he’d grown up in.

I wasn’t what one might call the jealous type, and I would never begrudge Gray all the happiness in the world. That said, when my nephew, at the age of not even twenty-two, suddenly settled down with a nice man and two kids, you could say it’d lit a fire under my ass.

I didn’t care about the nice man, but I wanted children, and my biological clock was ticking like crazy.

At thirty-four, I’d contemplated not having kids at all. I’d been semi-content in my shoebox of a Manhattan apartment, and work stole all my time. And now, just a year later, hello, baby fever.

Maybe I would never get as far as Chloe; she had the big house and the marriage dreams were made of, and that was okay. As long as I could start shopping for baby shoes and onesies soon.

I had a plan.

The smell of the apple pie Chloe had in the oven was not going to help me with that plan.

“When are the twins comin’ home? I need them to eat that pie before I cave,” I said.

Chloe glanced over at the oven then back at me and raised a brow. “One slice won’t kill you, doll.”

Right, but my plan.

I smiled, more than a little excited, and figured now was a good time to break the news. “Here’s the thing. You know how you’ve been on my case about having kids since I was basically in kindergarten? Well, now I’m ready.”

Her eyes widened and brimmed with hope. “No! You’re not jokin’, are you? You can’t joke about that with me, Nat.”

I smirked. “I’m not joking.”

“Oh, this is amazing!” She flew out of her chair and hugged me.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I hugged her back. I’d had a feeling she’d be happy.

“What route are you going to take? I know better than to ask if you’re seein’ someone.” She put her hands on my arms and leaned back, eyeing me in a way that made it clear she was trying to be sure.

“Yeah, no, definitely not seeing anyone,” I confirmed. I wasn’t ready. “I wanna find a donor.”

She pursed her lips and nodded, then sat down again. “You’ll make a wonderful mama. And I’ll be there for every doctor’s appointment, you hear?”

I squeezed her hands in mine, more grateful than I could express. “My problem is, I have to lose some weight first. My doctor said it might be difficult for me to go through a pregnancy at this stage, so…”

Even if I hadn’t planned on becoming a parent, it was time. I couldn’t blame grief anymore. Two years had passed since I’d lost Brad, and I’d lost myself in the process too. I’d gained so much weight.

I’d been bigger my whole life, and it’d been…

Eh. We all had our ups and downs. Yeah, sure, I’d doubted myself, thought I was ugly, a big fat cow, all that crap.

Then I’d grown up. Acceptance had hit me in waves in my twenties, and I’d even started enjoying looking in the mirror.

But the last two years, health-wise, could be summed up as one failure after another. I needed professional help.

Chloe sobered a bit. “I understand. Do you have a specific goal, or…?”

I weighed my answer. “Sort of? Obviously, it’ll be up to the doctors, but I was the most comfortable when I could squeeze my ass into size fourteen pants.”

That’d been my happy medium between maintaining a semi-active lifestyle and…well, eating what I wanted to. In short, I had a bunch of moving boxes across town that were filled with size sixteen pants, and I wanted to wear them again.

“I think that’s a good goal,” she said with a nod. “You were flippin’ glowing in your engagement photo. I remember how happy you were.”

I braced myself for the pang of loss I usually felt when Brad came up, but it was fading.

At long last. More and more lately, I was mostly mourning the death of my best friend, ’cause that’s what Brad had been.

Our love hadn’t exactly sizzled with passion, but he’d been my other half for almost twenty years.

First, as the closest of friends, then as much more when we’d fallen for each other.

“Yeah…those were the good old days.” I smiled a little. “Anyway.” I cleared my throat and took another sip of my tea. “Now you know why I’m off sugar and back on hatin’ the Mom curse.”

She laughed softly and went all I hear ya. Chloe wasn’t precisely a size six either. After a few glasses of wine, she would slap her butt and say she was a perfect ten, pun intended—and she wasn’t wrong. We were short too, so a single extra pound looked like three.

We’d both inherited Mom’s pear-shaped body type with big butts and wide hips. But unlike Chloe and Mom, I had the belly too.

“Okay, then. No sugar for you—because I want a niece or three,” Chloe said firmly. “You’re our last hope of evenin’ the score around here. Lord knows I love my boys, but they just keep adding members to their team.”

I chuckled and shook my head. She wasn’t wrong, though. The men outnumbered us by far.

I should unpack…

Judging by the number of moving boxes, nobody would guess I’d moved from a studio apartment to a two-bedroom.

But in New York, I’d had a storage unit too.

Well, I’d had the storage unit in Jersey.

Not to mention an office. So I had all my work stuff here now too, and I wasn’t getting the keys to my studio for several weeks.

I should really unpack.

Instead, I poured a glass of wine and wandered aimlessly between the boxes.

Small kitchen, small bedroom that would be my office, then a decently sized main bedroom where I had a balcony.

I would’ve preferred to have the balcony in the living room, but evidently I couldn’t be picky.

Despite Camassia Cove being a small town, it was a popular choice for young families looking to get out of Seattle.

My neighborhood, Cedar Valley, was aptly nicknamed Little Seattle.

It was home to the town’s community college and countless cobblestone streets.

According to Chloe, the Valley had once been nothing but factories and cheap housing, and then that had changed when the college opened.

The factories had turned into trendy lofts, the parking lots had become farmers markets, and the cheap two- and three-story brownstones that lined the cobblestone streets were cheap no more.

Except, when you left Manhattan, everything was cheap.

I took a swig of my wine and looked out the living room window. It faced the street, and the view was right up my sense of humor’s alley. Quinn’s Fitness Center. How perfect. Every day since I’d moved in, I’d watched countless men and women walk in and out with their gym bags and yoga mats.

I wondered if the owner of Quinn’s Fitness Center was related to Gray’s man. His name was Darius Quinn.

Wasn’t everyone in small towns related somehow?

Chloe and I had grown up all over the place, depending on where Dad had been stationed. She linked her childhood to Louisiana and South Carolina. I only remembered the latter. Then a whole lot of Georgia.

It started raining outside the window, and I peered up at the sky. Maybe I’d like it here. Even when it rained, the surroundings were beautiful. Camassia was cradled by mountains and forests on three sides, then the ocean to the west.

I shifted my gaze back to the fitness center as a group of women walked inside.

Open 24/7.

Christ.

The bright lighting and the black and neon-blue design made the whole place stick out like a sore thumb on this street. I mean, everything else was so picturesque and cozy, from the cobblestones and trees to old-style lampposts and muted colors.

I sighed heavily.

Unfortunately, tomorrow morning, I was marching down there to become a member.

I wanted the whole shebang with a personal trainer and dietitian. I’d already scrolled through their website. They had it all, it seemed.

Wine. I needed more wine.

You’re stalling, bitch.

No shit.

I gathered my hair in a messy bun at the top of my head, then dove into the next moving box. I was just gonna unpack my clothes and hang everything in my walk-in closet. I hadn’t had one of those in New York. I’d had a freaking clothes rack in the hallway.