What divorced woman needed a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, home with a lake for a backyard? The days of social gatherings, boat rides, swimming, and grill outs were over.
Selling was the best option.
Why wasn’t she overcome with emotion? Wouldn’t it be normal for her to shed a few tears? Feel an overwhelming sorrow? But she didn’t. She felt numb.
She’d call the real estate agent in the morning.
She’d thought about her next journey most of the day, debating if going back to Cooper’s Hawk for a while was the best option. What she wouldn’t give to have the slow pace and comfort of the small town. More so, she’d love to meet that girl again, the wild and carefree Mindy who loved challenges, dirty boots, Daisy Dukes, and a simpler life.
There was a chance she could find herself. She needed to go back to the place where she’d been more herself than she ever had been. Call it running away or not, Cooper’s Hawk could be described as an elixir.
There was only one obstacle to this profound decision.
Creed Hawke.
Meeting on the kindergarten playground when they’d both grabbed the last available swing, he’d offered for her to go first and from that point on they’d been best friends…until the summer after graduation when he’d kissed her. They’d kissed before, a brushing on the cheek or on the forehead, but this time his lips had lingered, exploring and passionate. Before she knew it, they were in the back of his truck taking things to a new level. She’d been a naïve eighteen-year old, but in his arms, she’d become wild and fervent.
But things had changed after that night. Turned awkward. They’d been too young to understand how to handle the leap they’d taken together.
Two weeks later she left for California.
Creed and Branch were polar opposites. He’d been everything she needed at the time to get over the heartbreak she’d left in Cooper’s Hawk. He had been charming and loved to tell stories, not all were true, and he didn’t seem to mind that she had a baby.
Her love for Creed had been mind-consuming, like fireworks and freshly baked brownies, so the easy, uncomplicated love she felt for Branch had been a welcome difference. His smooth appeal, charming good looks and his ability to make her forget her past life in a small town all made her say “yes” when he asked her to marry him two months into their whirlwind relationship.
Yet, over the years she’d thought about Creed, wondered what he was doing. Was he happy? Did he think of her too? Were there any regrets remaining between them from that one night so long ago?
Where was he now? In Cooper’s Hawk? She doubted he’d gone back.
Though he wasn’t the reason why she needed to go back home.
That country girl with smears of dirt on her cheeks, goat fur on her jacket, wearing short shorts and dusty cowgirl boots remained inside of her. The ambitious girl who’d started figure skating as a hobby at five and by eight was competing and winning awards existed. Thankfully she had Creed, Sage Ranch, and skating that got her through the pain and grief of losing her mom when she was ten. A lot had happened that year. Creed had asked her to marry him during a tornado. Her dad, Rusty Sage, had started drinking. And Creed’s mom, Abby, had become more like a second mom to Mindy.
Retracing her way up the steps, she grabbed the pop cans and her cell from the patio and stepped through the French doors into the kitchen where she spent a lot of her time creating culinary masterpieces. The space with grey stained-glass cabinets, matching Italian stone backsplash, stainless steel professional appliances, and large butcher’s block island surrounded by special order barstools seemed extravagant in the wake of a divorce and no income coming in.
A row of large glass canisters filled with Jane and Branch’s favorite candy lined the granite counter, alongside a bowl of fresh fruit and a stack of photography magazines that Branch forgot to change the address for.
Grabbing a piece of licorice from the candy jar, she popped it into her mouth then picked up the magazines and dropped them into the trash on her way to grab the crystal vase filled with dried flowers sitting on the table—the round pedestal table had once been filled with their family, laughing and sharing stories over breakfast. The polished wood was marked with Jane’s stick figure family and math equations. Everything in the house had been touched with love.
This chapter of their lives had come to an end.
Dumping the flowers she’d received from a friend two weeks ago, she washed the vase with extra vigor and set it in the drainer to dry.
Asking Alexa to play her favorite station, she turned up the volume louder than usual and shimmied her hips to the upbeat tune of an ACDC song right into the wine closet where she picked out a bottle of Moscato. Opening it, she poured herself a tall glass and sipped while she took out the makings for a salad from the refrigerator. Like most evenings these days, she planned a quiet one alone with her wine and a chick flick on the flat screen…
Until she heard a harmonious knock on the door.
Her friend and neighbor, Linsey, stood on the other side of the glass door, holding up a bottle of wine and smiling from one fringed earring to the other.
“Great minds think alike,” Mindy said after she let her friend in. “I just popped open a Poli Grappa di Moscato. Come in and help me finish off the bottle.”
“Oh, the good stuff.” Linsey breezed in like a breath of fresh air. Her sheer purple ankle length dress billowed around her legs. The stacks of bangles clanked from both wrists
