26. When Trust Issues Acquire Real Estate
WHEN TRUST ISSUES ACQUIRE REAL ESTATE
Felicity
The sky over Valentine Bay was a muted, forgiving blue—a sky that invited you to pause and take a breath, but not so bold it blinded you to the realities below.
I opened the windows, letting in the salt and chill, the fresh layer of brine that still amazed me even after months on the coast. Mav was at preschool, the house was silent except for the occasional protest of the old refrigerator, and I was alone—a luxury I hadn’t afforded myself in years.
I’d always loved the unpredictable rhythms of working in events: the odd hours, the weekends, the thrill of one day being my “weekend” being a Monday or Friday, no matter what the calendar said.
In a way, it made me feel like I’d cheated the adult world—a small rebellion against the tyranny of nine-to-five.
I could grocery shop without battling the after-work mobs, get my oil changed without an appointment, or sit in the window seat of Main Street Eats and drink coffee for two hours just because the lunch crowd hadn’t arrived yet.
Days like this, when the world moved at half-speed, felt like a gift.
But as much as I liked the quiet, it never lasted.
My mind was an over-caffeinated hamster on a wheel—never content, never still.
Even after the Founder’s Day fundraiser, after I’d wrangled a hundred volunteers and two feuding cookie bakers without a single tray being upended in civil protest, my brain wouldn’t let me rest. I’d spent the past week in the event manager’s version of a fugue state: writing thank-you notes, following up on issues that had arisen, making lists of all the things that would go better next year.
It was only after the third day of alphabetizing the checklists that I realized my anxiety wasn’t about next year’s festival.
It was about this new reality I’d found myself in.
Since he spent the night after the fundraiser, Dean Lockhart had become a fixture in my life, as inevitable as morning fog and evening sunsets.
He’d gone with me to preschool drop-off, picked up extra groceries when I forgot, and—on a wild, uncharacteristic whim—showed up at our door one afternoon with a tray of brownies, claiming they were “leftovers” from his family dinner.
I knew for a fact the Lockharts never had leftovers, especially Selma Lockhart’s double fudge brownies, but the way he slid the tray across the counter under that pretense made my heart squeeze.
Dean was the kind of man who made keeping promises look effortless, who never raised his voice but could silence a room by simply standing in the doorway.
He also happened to be teaching my son to ride a horse, which was a dangerous double whammy for my already battered sense of self-preservation.
In the afternoons, I’d hear them in the corral, Dean’s voice low and steady, Maverick’s peals of delight ricocheting off the wind and through my open office window.
I’d watch from my desk, trying to ignore how easy it was to imagine the three of us as a unit—a family.
The word made me queasy and happy all at once.
Nothing in my life had ever been exactly easy, but somehow everything in Valentine Bay seemed suspiciously frictionless.
I’d never trusted smooth sailing—not when I’d spent my life on high alert that the next betrayal was hovering just out of sight, waiting for me to let down my guard.
Maybe that’s why, after the umpteenth load of laundry and the ceremonial midweek fridge purge, I couldn’t bring myself to relax.
There was only so much baseboard to scrub before you had to face your own thoughts.
So I sat at the kitchen table, laptop open, determined to catch up on emails before the weekend’s wedding requests started rolling in.
My inbox was a graveyard of vendor spam, discount offers, and newsletters I’d forgotten I’d signed up for.
Then, buried between a Pinterest notification and an update from the preschool, was a message that made my stomach drop.
It was from Mary Simpson, who was basically my mentor at Willow & White Events, a boutique events company in Seattle.
I worked there for four years before I had Mav and Tanner didn’t think I should be working on the weekends with a baby, he made me feel like I was not putting my family first, so I quit and got a nine-to-five job in customer service, which I hated.
I was surprised to hear from Mary since I knew, from following her on social media, she’d moved to Colorado.
The subject line was simple: Opportunity—Director of Special Events.
The body of the email detailed a job offer outlining compensation and a financial package that not only had a base salary of nearly double what I was making at Lockhart Ranch, it also included an annual performance bonus, a signing and relocation bonus of twenty grand, and a tiered incentive bonus.
It offered executive perks, and benefits including a wellness and lifestyle stipend, travel discounts, and continuing education opportunities with compensation.
It detailed a work-life structure that appealed to me as a single mom, including staffing support and a flexible schedule policy.
And it was for The Whitmore Hotel, which wasn’t just a luxury five star hotel, it was named as one of Forbes Five Star honorees and held a AAA Five Diamond distinction.
This job was perfect in every way, except it was in Denver. I’d just relocated from Seattle to Valentine’s Bay, I wasn’t sure another move would be the best thing for Mav. But he was young and resilient so I couldn’t dismiss the opportunity because of that factor alone.
I stared at the screen, my heart beating double-time.
I did the math—six figures, generous bonus, paid relocation, a signing bonus that could pay off my SUV and my credit card debt.
The salary was more than I’d ever imagined making.
I could sock away savings, put Maverick in the best schools, never worry about my card being declined at the grocery store again.
But as I read and reread the offer, something else crept in—a sense of dread, the low-level hum of impending doom that always accompanied big decisions.
If I said yes, I’d be leaving Valentine Bay.
I’d be pulling Maverick out of the little world he loved, away from his brand-new friends and the new rescue horse that had just arrived at the ranch, which Dawson allowed Mav to name.
Mav thought about it all of two seconds before dubbing him Cowboy.
Cowboy and Maverick had developed a very special bond.
I’d be walking away from Dean and everything that, for the first time in forever, felt like it might actually fit.
I closed the laptop, pressing my palms to the lid like I could trap the offer inside and make it go away.
But my mind wouldn’t let it rest. I played out every scenario, trying to find the “right” thing to do.
If things with Dean ended, where would that leave me?
My job, my home, my son’s happiness—they all seemed suddenly, terrifyingly dependent on this place, these people.
On one stubborn, taciturn rancher who still hadn’t said the word “girlfriend” out loud despite claiming to love me, but who had built so many little rituals into our lives that I wasn’t sure I remembered how to function without them.
What if I was making the same mistake all over again? What if this time I couldn’t just pick up the pieces and move on?
Not sure what the answer was, I did what I always did when I was confused, stressed, or anxious, I cleaned.
After scrubbing the countertop for the fourth time that morning, the lemon-scented cleaner began to sting my skin.
I considered texting Dean, but I knew he’d see through me in half a second.
I didn’t want him to know how much I was waffling, how deep my fear ran.
Instead, I tried to kill time by alphabetizing the pantry, which is how I discovered Maverick’s hidden stash of marshmallows behind the quinoa.
I envied his certainty that everything good could be preserved for later, just in case.
I was deep in the spiral—half-convinced I was about to uproot our lives, half-convinced I’d sabotage my own happiness out of habit—when a knock at the door startled me out of my reverie.
For a second, hope bloomed in my chest. Maybe Dean had come over early, maybe he’d sensed I was one bad decision away from hiding under the kitchen table, and he’d walk in with a solution. Or at least with more brownies.
But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Dean. It was the last person I expected to see on my porch, hands shoved in his pockets, all charming smile and familiar cologne.
Tanner. I hadn’t heard from him since the arcade seven days ago.
I’d nearly convinced myself he’d left, for his next adventure.
There was a unique kind of dread that comes from seeing your past—your actual, walking, talking past—standing on your porch.
Not in a metaphorical, “your mistakes will haunt you” kind of way, but in a very literal, “the man you once swore you’d never speak to again is now two feet from your weathered doormat” kind of way.
Tanner wore his usual—designer shirt, unnecessarily expensive sneakers, and aviators that would have looked absurd on anyone else.
On him, it worked, but only if you’d never met him in a context where he was trying to convince a judge he was actually responsible enough to see his own kid on weekends.
The sight of him, arms crossed like the world owed him a favor, made me want to tell him to grow up.
“Mav’s not here,” I managed, my voice flat as the tide at low ebb.
I braced myself—Tanner rarely did anything without a motive, and it was almost never a good one.