Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Hayden
Dinner is a total waste of an excellent beef stroganoff. The vibe is so tense, the adults around the table are just shoveling the food in our mouths as an excuse not to talk. And the kids, who would rather have chicken nuggets, are mostly pushing it around on their plates.
My mother’s silent, but visibly angry. Aaron and Hope can probably guess I’m the one responsible for her mood, and that it has to do with the Gamble family. But they won’t ask about it and risk setting Colleen off with Daisy and AJ at the table.
Awkward silence only broken by the kids works for me because I don’t want to have any deep conversations about the Gamble house with my family. There’s only so much I can explain without sharing things I’d rather keep to myself—stuff I’ve never told them and hopefully never will.
My cover story about wanting to restore the old home to its former glory is thin, and it won’t stand up to too many hard questions.
Nobody in this room has ever heard me express an interest in the restoration of old homes.
And even if I want to flip a house or keep it as an investment, the fact I picked the one belonging to a woman I hate in a town I rarely visit is pretty sketchy.
So the more the kids can distract them, the better.
“Can we get a dog?” AJ asks, as he does every time he’s around Penny.
I’m not sure why my dog triggers the desire for one of his own, since Penny wants absolutely nothing to do with small children and will stay in her hiding spot until I tell her it’s time to go.
To be fair, she doesn’t want anything to do with older children, teenagers or most adults, either.
I’m Penny’s person and she only seems to need one.
“We’re not really a dog-friendly family,” Hope says. “We’re busy all the time, and it wouldn’t be fair to a dog.”
None of the adults at the table point out that Aaron works from home, doing freelance bookkeeping and tax prep for businesses around the state, and the kids don’t seem to have made that connection yet.
It won’t be long before they do, and then Hope will have to come up with another excuse.
She told me once that she’d love to get a dog for the kids, but all the breeds that would run and play as hard as her kids do are the overly shedding kind and she has a thing about dog hair.
“At least there’s a groomer in Sumac Falls if you do get one someday,” my mother says in a deceptively sweet voice, and Aaron and I both pause with forks midair.
Here it comes.
“Did you know Cara Gamble owns Pampered Pets Grooming?” she asked Hope, even though everybody in this town knows that. “Hayden made an appointment to take Penny in tomorrow.”
There’s a long moment of silence before Aaron clears his throat. “There’s only one in town, so it makes sense he’d go to her.”
“We haven’t used her, obviously,” Hope says, “but everybody in Sumac Falls seems to have well-groomed pets, so she’s probably very good.”
Aaron’s gaze flicks to me, but I ignore the look. We both know the only reason I’m taking Penelope to Pampered Pets tomorrow is to get a chance to talk to Cara, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Before Colleen can say anything else, Hope gives her son a bright smile. “AJ, did you tell Grammy about your swimming lessons?”
I smile my thanks at my sister-in-law as the excited child launches into a minute-by-minute recitation of his swim class, including in-depth descriptions of his classmates and the instructor.
When he’s this wound up about a subject, he can talk for at least ten minutes without pause, so I turn my attention back to eating my dinner in peace.
Not that I feel peaceful at the moment. Even though I turned down the coffee Hope offered me earlier, the tension that’s taken up residence in my body is going to keep me from sleeping tonight.
In a little more than twelve hours, I’m going to see Cara Gamble again for the first time since the end of finals in my senior year. I was in the office, signing myself out early because I’d completed my academic obligations, and she walked in.
My heart had stopped during the moment our gazes locked.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. I saw the hitch in her chest as her breath caught.
The flash of hurt across her face. We hadn’t spoken for months—not a word since we walked out of school and I told her I’d pick her up for the homecoming dance later. And then didn’t.
Then Cara blinked and kept walking, straight into the principal’s office with a stack of papers.
She hadn’t looked back and, after signing my name on the senior dismissal sheet, neither had I.
Cara wasn’t at graduation the following weekend—Georgia had already graduated and her close friends were in her own class, so she had no reason to attend—and I left Sumac Falls the following day.
I couch-surfed in Boston all summer, working as many hours as I could every week until it was time to move into my dorm.
I channeled my pain and anger into being successful—taking the right classes and excelling at them and, more importantly, making the right connections.
Jumping a few rungs on the collegiate ladder for my master’s degree and making even better connections.
Grueling internships. Then the job with the best investment company in Boston.
A brutal schedule and ruthless moves until only a few very wealthy men who preferred country clubs to being in their offices remained above me on the staff directory.
All the while, investing just the right side of recklessly until I had enough money to almost sleep well at night.
When I got tired of funding other men’s golf memberships and summer homes, I started my own firm. I worked even longer hours, and once I’d achieved stability, I started a side portfolio earmarked for the one thing I hadn’t yet checked off my list.
When I’ve taken the Gamble house away from the Gamble family and everybody in Sumac Falls knows I did it? Then I’ll finally get a good night’s sleep.
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.