Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Not that I’m counting.
Before I met Donovan, I was content to wander alone. I wasn’t trying to land a significant other, tangle myself up in some fairy-tale whirlwind romance, or wind up in some quaint town in the middle of Vermont. I also wasn’t trying to uproot my entire life and pour every last cent of my savings into renovating a dilapidated Queen Anne.
But love—real or imagined—changes a person.
Some days, I hardly know who I am anymore.
Most days, I struggle to remember a time before he came into my life.
When I glance down at my left hand, there’s a void where my engagement ring once glimmered.
After Donovan passed, it took me thirty days to take it off. I kept thinking one more day, and then that turned into one more week, which inevitably turned into one whole month.
I couldn’t rip the thing off my finger fast enough when I found out he’d lied about the money I’d given him for the renovations. I’ll never forget showing up at the Arcadia Grove Savings and Loan to find out if there was enough in our joint account to cover his funeral costs . . . only to be told there was no joint account.
The bastard stole my heart, and then he stole my life savings.
And now he’s six feet under—a world away from having to atone for the mess he left.
My stomach rumbles when I notice a little pop-up coffee shop ahead. Collecting my things, I head that way, order a small latte and petite blueberry scone, and call it brunch. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can finish sanding the floor in the dining room.
Eyeing the sidewalk on my way back to my Prius, I look for the auburn-haired stranger in the brown leather coat, but all I spot is the usual cocktail of tourists and locals. Young couples holding hands. Families pushing strollers. Grinning teens taking selfies. Retired couples dining al fresco.
All around me, life moves on.
Yet here I am, wandering alone.
I make it back to my car and load my books onto the passenger seat. A white sedan pulls into the spot beside me, and a lovely-looking couple exits a minute later. They meet at the sidewalk. She picks something from his dark-chocolate hair, and he kisses her blissful strawberry-red smile. Before they vanish into the crowd, he wraps his arm around her shoulder as if to show the world she is his and he is hers. That was us once. I can only pray that what they have is real and not some get-rich-quick scheme.
I start my car, shift into reverse, and glance into the rearview. It’s in that exact moment that the olive green Ford passes by.
I pull out of my parking space and end up behind him at the light on the corner. A sticker in his back window says IN TRANSIT, and the spot that should hold a rear license plate is vacant. With my knuckles white against the steering wheel, I catch a glimpse of his eyes in his side mirror as he peers my way . . . and my stomach drops.
I’d know that copper-hued gaze anywhere.
I tap my fingers against the wheel, focusing on the beat of the tinny pop music playing low from my speakers, and try not to make eye contact.
The light flicks to green, and the truck turns right.
Without giving it a second thought, I do too.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” I mutter under my breath. “What the hell am I doing?”
This is crazy.
I am crazy.
I stay a few car lengths back, as if that could possibly make any of this less obvious given we’re the only two vehicles on this side street.
Five blocks later, he takes a left, pulling into the parking lot of the Pine Grove Motel.
My chase—if that’s what I want to call it—comes to an abrupt end. It’s all for the best, though, because I didn’t have an end goal. I don’t even know why I was tagging him. My fiancé is long gone, and he’s never coming back. And it doesn’t matter who this look-alike stranger is or how much he resembles Donovan—because he’ll never be him.
And thank God for that.
Snapping out of it, I continue home to my empty house on the other side of town: past the main drag with the charming shops, beyond the cozy park with the shiny blue slide, miles from Arcadia Grove K–12 and all the places that remind me of the life that was never meant to be.
Once home, I slip into a pair of coveralls, crank my favorite Madison Cunningham playlist to drown out the echo of my lone footsteps, and sandblast the hell out of the dining room floor.
By three o’clock, I’m chugging a glass of ice water in front of an open window to cool off, debating whether I want to continue to the point of collapsing in exhaustion—or call it a night with a five-dollar bottle of twist-cap wine and a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm . . . a show Donovan would never watch with me because he didn’t get Larry David’s offbeat humor.