Chapter 1
ARDEN
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Ever since I was a little girl, I would look up at the clouds and give the shapes life—a penguin going to a gala or a knight racing across the sky to rescue a damsel in distress.
Stacks of notebooks filled my room, the need to create and explore the only thing keeping me grounded in this world. My mom was always supportive, encouraging me to chase my dreams, to learn the how and why and all the things in between.
In no time at all, that love of writing blossomed into something more. I soared with every creative writing assignment, cherishing the freedom to go beyond the usual constraints.
And then I took a journalism class in high school, fell head over heels for the questions and the desire to uncover all the intricacies of the story, and never looked back.
On my love of writing at least.
My personal history was another story entirely.
There was no shortage of love in my house growing up. My mother was, and still is, my hero and my biggest fan. She never made me feel like my father’s absence had any bearing on the success or happiness of our lives—and for the most part she was right.
I’d never met him. Hell, she never even spoke about him until the eve of my twentieth birthday when I’d finally been brave enough to ask the question.
It started with a name.
Evan Mills.
I’d imagined something grander for the man who never even tried to reach his daughter, but my mother wasn’t done.
She talked of a whirlwind romance with a man who had just come out of a loveless relationship, and who had swept her off her feet. My mother and Evan had been in love, yet when his ex-girlfriend told him she was pregnant, with my half sister, he tucked tail and ran back to her.
My mother had been devastated, a fairytale turned into a nightmare.
But a few weeks later, when she realized she was pregnant with me, she went to see Evan, to tell him the news, but a woman answered the door. She’d been cruel and my mother didn’t stick around, vowing to protect me from whatever vile thing lurked behind those walls.
For the first couple of years after I learned his name, I didn’t look.
Knowing his name had been enough.
But curiosity got the best of me, and not just for my biological father but my sister. I’d always wanted one, but my mother had never married or even dated seriously enough for that to be a possibility.
Emotions warred inside me over the risk of being rejected by one or both of them. Still, I couldn’t stop the hope that fluttered through my veins at the thought of getting to meet them.
Knowing them.
And filling the void that had started as a grain of sand-sized hole in my heart that only got bigger over time.
I imagined it all.
The only thing I never anticipated was the reunion of my mother and Evan Mills after she moved back to Blackstone Falls.
Or that after several weeks of flowers being sent and coffee being had, my mother would not only finally accept his offer of a date but that they’d continue to date.
For weeks.
Months at this point.
Two and counting…
Resulting in the fact that I’m now sitting in my mother’s bedroom helping her pick out clothes for a romantic weekend away.
With my father.
“You can’t be serious,” I exclaim as my mother holds up a little black dress that we both know looks great on her. She blessedly hasn’t pulled out the lingerie.
I’ll be scarred for life and there’ll be no recovering from it.
“I thought you liked him,” my mother says casually, the slightest blush painting her cheeks as she carefully folds it and places it in her bag. Monroe James doesn’t blush.
Ugh.
“I’m getting to know him still.”
“So am I,” she says, smoothing down the floral dress as she checks her reflection in the mirror. “He has regrets and so do I, but he made the best choice he could at the time.” My mother huffs, “Lord knows his wife made him pay for it.”
“But—”
“You have the itinerary with the reservations and you did that little tracking thing on my phone, which I think is overkill but makes you feel better so I’ll deal with it.” She mutters the last part under her breath, and when did I become the parent here?
“Fine. Go and have fun with Evan.”
“It’ll all work out. You’ll see,” she says with a sweet smile as she presses a kiss to my forehead.
I want to believe her but sometimes life is messy.
Very messy.