“You have got to be kidding me,” Claire cried.
“I realize I liked meeting you more than I liked meeting other people,” Lola quoted. “Phew. That is a lot to think about.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Charlotte breathed.
“But you can’t just let this die,” Christine ordered. “Seriously. He’s after you. He wants to see you again. And right now—I don’t know if you know this or not—you have a little bit of extra cash floating around.”
Charlotte’s heart jumped. “I can’t. What about Rachel?”
“Anyone of us can watch Rachel while you’re gone,” Christine said. “The bistro is slow as ever right now since it’s winter. Zach and I could stay at your house while you’re away as practice to becoming parents. Besides. When was the last time you had a vacation?”
Everyone agreed that it was insane that Charlotte hadn’t had a single break.
Tied up in all this, Charlotte could hear what they really meant. Even if this doesn’t work out, you deserve a break after everything you went through. Your husband died, and you just kept going.
You almost didn’t make it, but you did.
Charlotte bit hard on her lower lip.
“Okay. Okay, okay. I’ll ask him.” She grinned broadly, realizing how crazy and spontaneous this was—and loving the feeling of it. “And if he rejects me?”
“He lives on the other side of the continent. Who cares?” Lola said.
This was the perfect response.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charlotte drummed up the courage to write Everett back that afternoon.
She sat at the Sunrise Cove Bistro with a glass of wine and wrote and rewrote the message until she drank through a whole glass of wine and needed to order a second. Outside, snow fluttered down, uninterested in letting up. Although she loved it, she couldn’t help but imagine Everett’s sunny life out in LA.
He had seen her life. He had met her father and her mother, her cousins, her sisters, her daughter and one of her brothers.
In actuality, she knew so very little about him.
“You look frustrated.” Zach walked over from the kitchen area as he dried his hands on a towel.
Charlotte sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
Zach laughed. “Anything I can help you with? You got me one of the best gigs of my career. I would love to pay you back somehow.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Maybe just another glass of wine. I need liquid courage to send this out.”
“I’m on it,” Zach said. He disappeared for a second and then returned with a bottle of wine. “It’s really coming down out there. I can’t help but think of Ursula and Orion, all the way in the Bahamas. Do you think they’ll stay together?”
“Maybe. I don’t know,” Charlotte said truthfully. “I guess nobody ever knows what will happen next.”
“Nobody knows that more than me right now. Every day that Audrey’s delivery date creeps closer, I get a little more nervous. Christine and I have talked about adopting other children of our own afterward and—” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I guess you can never go backward, so it’s always better to go forwards.”
Charlotte loved the sentiment.
She only hoped she had the strength to follow her gut.
Finally, she settled on a half-decent message back.
Everett,
I’ve gotten about two hundred inquiries this past day on my website.
Glad I pieced through them and found yours.
I wanted to say that I am glad I met you, too.
And also...
What are you doing this weekend?
I’ve heard California is sunny this time of year.
Or is it sunny year-round?
This girl hasn’t traveled much.
Charlotte
Chapter Twenty-Five
Everett’s mother’s house was the same house Everett had grown up in.
Just as he remembered it, it brimmed with the glorious smell of cinnamon-baked apples.
He found his mother seated in her favorite reading chair, with a book stretched out on her lap and her head tilted up toward the sun. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were parted just slightly, proof that she had drowsed off.
Everett wasn’t the kind of guy to wake up his mother.
He would wait and let her sleep.
He sat on the sofa across from her and reached for his phone to check his email. Again, his editor celebrated the photographs he had sent. He also assigned him a number of events and weddings in the future, which Everett would accept when he got his head around them. Just then, he had a number of things to take care of.
He had to repair his relationship with his family.
As he tapped through his email, he noticed that the SPAM folder held a familiar name.
Charlotte Hamner.
His heart jumped into his throat. He glanced up toward his mother, then back at his phone.
She had answered him.
He read the message.
Then, he read it again.
Then, he stood from the couch and paced back and forth in his mother’s living room, until the oven timer blared, waking his mother from her sleep and him from his reckless imagination.
She wants to visit me in California.
She wants to see this through.
“Everett?” his mother said, her voice creaking. “Is that really you?”
She stood slowly, peering at him with eyes that seemed still half-asleep.
“It’s me, Mom,” Everett said. He gripped her hands, which seemed more like paper than they had been even a year ago. “I made it.”
His mother flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his thick chest. The oven timer continued to scream, but she didn’t seem to care at all. Her body shook with tears.
I’ll never make her feel like this again.
I will be a better son.
I’ll visit her more often.
I’ll be what she needs.
Finally, she dropped back and gave her cheeks a few light smacks. “Oh, darling, the oven! The pie!” She raced toward the oven and flung it open to reveal a beautiful pie. Delicately, she placed it on top of the stove and beamed down at it.
“Look at that,” Everett said with a big smile.
“It’s your favorite,” she said, smiling.
“You are the best, Mom. Thank you.”
EVERETT EXPLAINED THE situation with Charlotte to his mother as they dug into their warm slices of apple
