Chapter 4
4
[Vale]
I live for Thursday nights.
It’s the one night of the week I get to forget I’m a mom for a little while and feel like a woman.
At thirty-four, I’m still young, but not as wild as my teenage years.
Back then, if there was a party in the woods, I was present.
And if there happened to be a cute guy flirting me up, I didn’t balk at heading behind the trees to make out with him.
In my early twenties, I had my fair share of one-night stands and short-term romances, always hopeful for more in both physical satisfaction and emotional connection.
The best result of one of those experiences is Hudson.
My son is the lasting benefit of misplaced romanticism, but I don’t regret him one bit.
I’ve been a single mom since his birth, and grateful once again for the love and support of my eldest brother who took us in.
Long gone are my days of one-night stands and dating apps.
I’m just not that person anymore.
Unfortunately, I’ve been living in my childhood home with Stone ever since Hudson’s birth, and sometimes I just need a break.
From a boy on the verge of adolescence.
From a grown man with a heavy weight on his shoulders.
From that old house full of conflicting memories.
Thursday nights are my night off from everything.
As much as it pains me at times to be reminded I’m lonely without a life partner at my side or ring on my finger, I’m not alone.
I have good friends, some of whom are also single, and I have book club.
AKA the town’s secret: The Sterlets.
Named for the starlets of this community who recognize their worth as women.
As in, women who deserve sexual gratification, even if some of us need to bring it upon ourselves.
Thank you, sex goddess , for Meredith Mulligan and her side hustle of selling pleasure-inducing adult toys.
The She Shed is a knitting store on the first floor of her business, but upstairs, in Meredith’s private apartment, our book club revolves around romance novels, copious wine, and conversations about the best dildo.
Before the official club meeting, a new tradition of getting together with the women in my brothers’ lives has evolved.
Most weeks, Enya, Sebastian’s wife, is here, along with her sister Cadence, who happens to be my brother Ford’s fiancée.
But Enya and Sebastian just had their second baby, sweet Annabelle, and Sebastian is being a beast of protection and love over the second-time mom and their new bundle of joy.
Cadence recently announced she is pregnant and tonight she’s somewhere with Ford and his three young daughters.
Halle, Knox’s wife, and Mavis, Clay’s fiancée, have met up with me instead.
Since I saw Trinity Haven outside Milton Roadhouse before I entered, I invited her to join us.
As the only sister in each of our families, we both agree boys can be stupid, and the long-standing riff between our eldest brothers is an example.
I understand all too well the pain Stone suffered at the hands of Bailey Cummins, but my brother has been better off without her.
He dodged a bullet, as they say.
Unfortunately, Cortland caught the shot, and he’s been injured from that decision.
Maybe the former friends can never forget the situation, but forgiveness seems long overdue.
Then again, I learned a long time ago that forgiveness doesn’t always need to be granted to others.
Forgiveness is more important to give to yourself.
For awkward situations.
For painful experiences.
For poor choices.
I’ve made them all and glancing across the bar, catching on the eyes of one such decision sends a tingle down my spine.
Because Cortland Haven is staring back at me and it’s exactly how we got in trouble the first time.
The only time.
Quickly, I pull my gaze away from him but too soon I’m glancing back in his direction again.
He’s changed his clothes since the baseball tryouts into a flannel shirt and jeans.
A baseball cap graces his head instead of the straw cowboy hat from earlier.
My memory flashes back to a night more than a decade ago when he was dressed in a similar fashion, minus the hat and with a little longer hair.
His eyes were on me just the same that night, sending shivers over my skin back then, like his gaze does now.
Then, the tickle was a thrill; now, the shudder is confusion.
What are the odds that for nearly a decade I haven’t seen Cortland Haven in more than casual passings and rare sightings, but today, I’ve encountered him twice?
And of all nights, on my book club night, when I am looking forward to what Meredith calls her Spring Fling collection.
My gaze flicks away from Cort but almost like my eyes have a will of their own, they draw back toward him .
“What are you looking at?” Trinity squawks, laughter in her voice as she glances over her shoulder.
“Ugh.”
The feisty blonde turns back in my direction and rolls her eyes.
“Brothers.”
I chuckle, but the sound is a mixture of choked strain leaving my throat.
Brothers can be overbearing and annoying, and sometimes, it sucks to be loved so much by them.
Insert sarcasm . Because most of their concern comes from a good place, even in the years they never picked up their smelly laundry and spent a little too much time in a locked bathroom using all the hot water.
Boys .
Only, our brothers are now all men, especially hers, and dammit, I cannot stop myself from looking over at Cort again.
Instantly, I’m reminded of catching him watching me once upon a time in this bar on a night not so different from tonight.
I’d been surrounded by friends, content with my life, full of plans for my future.
His eyes were appraising, assessing, even appreciative of my then-thin, twenty-two-year-old body.
Now, I’m a mom, and while I keep myself in shape, knowing the importance of movement and strength training, my frame is not as sleek as it once was.
I’m more curves and dips, thighs and ass.
And I no longer have the desire for a quick hookup.
“We should probably get going,” Halle says, interrupting my thoughts, pulling my attention back to the table and the redhead my brother loves.
Halle and Knox have one of those romantic tales where high school sweethearts reunite, and I’d be jealous if I ever had a high school sweetheart.
Instead, I have a pithy history of hookups and teenage mishaps, chasing something I have yet to experience.
Love. And decent orgasms with a man.
Nodding in agreement with Halle that we need to get a move-on, I also need a moment to reset, and announce, “I need to use the bathroom quick.” That first glass of wine is running right through my system.
I double tap my hands lightly on the table and slip from my chair, heading around the bar for the restrooms in the back corner.
At the same time I’m passing one side of the bar, I look up to see Cortland leave his barstool.
For some ridiculous reason, my heart begins to beat faster as he walks toward the corner of the bar.
The same corner I’m headed toward.
My belly flutters and I press my hand to it to quell the flapping.
We intersect at the same time.
“Valentine,” Cort says, his voice low and rugged, and rinsing over me like fine sand slipping between my toes.
He dips his head, nodding once as he nears me.
“Cortland,” I reply, my tone just as formal as his, using his full name in response to him so firmly using mine.
But something even stranger than my accelerating heart beats behind my ribs, and the thickness in my throat occurs as our bodies pass a little closer than necessary considering the space around us.
Cort’s pinky finger brushes against mine as we cross paths.
Electricity ripples up my arm, and a trigger of shock forces my smallest finger to twitch, crackle, and then dull.
And I desperately want to hold onto those initial sparks.
That little reminder that Cortland Haven once had his full hands on me.
His palms holding my hips.
His lips against the side of my neck.
I shiver again, like I’ve felt a singular ray of the sun’s warmth after a long, cold winter.
I’d spin to face Cort, to see if he felt a similar response, felt the unnerving sensation, but I remember all too well how Cort ran away from me.
How he never looked back.
He’d never feel a giddy, tingling connection with me .
He never felt about me how I once felt about him.
Which makes it all the stranger that he’s been glaring at me today.
Twice .
As I near the hallway leading to the restrooms, I fight the desire to glance in Cort’s direction one more time, knowing I’m damned if I look and damned if I don’t.
Because I don’t want to see he isn’t looking back at me.
I also don’t know what to think if he is.