The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

the other half of him... He feared moving on. Finding joy without Tonia and the son they should’ve been raising and loving. It felt like a betrayal to forget her and the life they’d planned together. Logically, he understood this didn’t make sense. But his heart? His heart clung feverishly to her memory and terror bit at him like a rabid dog when he couldn’t recall her light, floral scent. Or the Tinkerbell sound of her laughter.

No, moving on meant losing her all over again. And he couldn’t...he couldn’t face that pain again.

“Who was the woman?” Valeria asked, jerking him back to his kitchen and the bright curiosity in her eyes. “The pregnant woman whose baby you felt move.”

“Sydney Collins.”

“Collins. Collins.” She tapped her bottom lip in thought. “Dr. Collins’s daughter?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “She just returned to town after being gone for almost ten years. Do you remember her?”

“Vaguely.” She nabbed his plate and crossed the small area to the sink and placed it inside. A chuckle escaped her. “Mostly, I remember how she was accused of hanging tampons on the big red oak outside the high school like Christmas ornaments. I know I was supposed to be scandalized, but Tonia and I had a huge laugh over that. They used to call her rebellious and unruly, but I liked her. She was an individual, had spirit.”

True, Sydney had been labeled as “the wild one” by most of the town. And the girl had done everything she could to live up to that reputation. From painted-on jeans or denim short-shorts and cropped T-shirts to being escorted home drunk by the police from the lake parties that had been going on since before Cole was a teen, she’d flouted the rules.

Yet, Cole had looked beyond the revealing clothes, sassy mouth and I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude to the vulnerable, hurt girl beneath all the bravado. To most she had been rebellious, but to him, she’d been hungry for attention. Because as good of people as her parents were, Luke and Patricia Collins weren’t the warmest residents of Rose Bend. The town doctor and his wife might be among the most solid and respected, but Cole had never seen them put their arms around their daughter. Never witnessed a loving moment between them. Not even during her sister Carlin’s funeral.

Though he’d been thirteen, he clearly remembered the sad service. Luke and Patricia had stood together as a unit beside their daughter’s casket as it hovered above that yawning hole in the earth. And off to the side had been Sydney. Alone. No one to comfort her.

So yes, he understood her mutinous behavior as a teen. He imagined for her, negative attention had been better than no attention.

And Sydney had demanded attention.

Leave it to his intuitive mother-in-law to see beyond the antics to the heart of the girl.

Opening his fridge and grabbing a bottle of beer—beer she must’ve stocked because he hadn’t bought any—she crossed the kitchen and set it down in front of him.

He shook his head, smirking. The woman thought of everything. Valeria propped her crossed arms on the breakfast bar and leaned forward, studying him as he twisted the cap off the bottle and lifted it to his mouth.

“Are you involved with this woman?” she asked.

He choked on the gulp he’d just downed. His mother-in-law silently handed him a napkin to wipe his mouth.

“No,” he objected, vehemently. Maybe too vehemently because Valeria’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead, her mouth quirking as if trying to hold back a smile. “No,” he tried again. “We’re just friends. If that. I was several years ahead of her in school, and she was close with Leo when they were kids.”

“Uh-huh,” she drawled. “Coltrane Alejandro Dennison, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.” He set the bottle down with a hard plunk. “There’s nothing to tell.”

More seconds of silence spent under that unwavering, piercing stare. “It’s okay to be attracted to another woman, mijo,” she finally murmured. “It isn’t a betrayal to Tonia.”

“Mamá—”

“No, you need to hear this whether you want to or not,” she interrupted, her tone gentle but with a thread of steel in it that shouted, I’m the elder, sit your ass down and listen. “There was no woman more loved than my daughter by you. Except me by Ramon,” she added with a smile. “And that is such a comfort to me. She’s gone, but I know with every bit of my heart that she left this world cherished by a wonderful man. But your capacity to care didn’t die with her. You have so much to give, and you deserve that affection in return. Don’t close yourself off from it.”

“You...” He trailed off, unable to squeeze the words past his suddenly constricted throat. “You wouldn’t...”

“Dios, Cole, no,” she whispered, stretching her arms across the bar and cupping his face between her small palms. “I would rejoice for you, not be angry with you.”

He shook his head, her hushed words pounding against his chest like the strikes of an anvil. “Doesn’t matter.” He covered her hands with his, tenderly drawing them down and cradling them. “She’s just a friend. And I’m not ready. No one could ever take her place.”

She flipped her fingers over, squeezing his. “It’s not a competition, mijo,” she softly assured him.

Releasing him, she returned to the sink and twisted the faucets, running water in the sink. He lifted the beer bottle to his lips again, drinking the ale down. His mother-in-law was right. It wasn’t a competition.

Because no one could compare to the woman who had died and taken his heart with her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SYDNEY PAUSED IN front of the shop, staring up at the pink, white and yellow striped awning and the gleaming storefront windows. Many of the shops that had lined Main Street when she’d left town still remained, untouched. But there were new additions, keeping Rose Bend revived and fresh.

Like this ice cream shop. Six Ways to Sundae.

Tongue-in-cheek and adorable.

She smiled just as a familiar and loud voice