Читать книгу A Walk Down the Aisle - Holly Jacobs - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

COLTON SPENT a sleepless night.

He’d picked up his phone a dozen times, ready to call Sophie. Wanting to tell her they could work it out. Needing to tell her how much he loved her.

And yet, he couldn’t manage it.

Every time his phone rang, he checked the caller ID. Not one of the calls was from Sophie, but there was a distinct possibility that half of Valley Ridge had left him messages. Finn and Sebastian had tried to contact him multiple times, but he hadn’t picked up. He couldn’t talk to anyone until he spoke to Sophie.

And he had no idea what to say to Sophie. So he didn’t call her or pick up for anyone else. Instead, he paced. He cursed. He watched the clock tick forward, and thought about what they should have been doing at each hour.

Now, we’d cut the cake.

Now, we’d have our first dance.

Now the reception would be over, and he’d bring his wife home.

Now...

None of that had happened.

At eight in the morning, he knew a phone call wouldn’t work. So, he drove to Sophie’s house. The house they’d planned to put on the market because she was going to move into his house after they got back from the Poconos.

As a matter of fact, now they should be in the car and headed to their friends’ mountain retreat.

He knocked at Sophie’s door. He hadn’t knocked on her door for months. Not since the day she’d given him a key. As he waited for her to answer, he noticed a dark scuff mark on the door itself and wondered what had happened.

He wondered if she’d been so upset that she kicked the door when she got home, but he knew her wedding shoes couldn’t have left a mark like that.

The door swung open and there she was. He drank in the sight of her. It felt as if he hadn’t seen her in years rather than just hours.

“I thought you’d come,” she said by way of a greeting as she opened the door and let him in.

“Kitchen?” he asked, trying not to notice the boxes that were pushed against the hall walls. She’d told him that she’d started packing her mementos and books. The only furniture she was bringing was her grandmother’s writing desk and rocker. He’d told her to feel free and move in whatever she wanted. She’d hemmed and hawed about the plaid couch she loved. He’d assured her that she could redecorate the whole house if she wanted. She could buy them a pink polka-dotted couch and he’d sit on it, as long as she’d sit next to him. She’d kissed him after that declaration—only a small peck on the cheek—and told him there wasn’t anything she wanted to change about the house. It was perfect.

She’d laughed then and told him that maybe, if they were lucky, in a few months, they’d change one of the guest rooms into a nursery.

The thought of Sophie pregnant with his child had thrilled him.

But that memory only served to remind him that while that child would have been his first, it wouldn’t have been Sophie’s first. She’d had a baby and given her away.

And she’d never told him anything about that baby.

And she’d certainly never mentioned who the baby’s father was.

He felt an uncharacteristic spurt of jealousy at the thought of some unknown man with Sophie.

“The kitchen is as good a place as any,” she replied, pulling him back to the present.

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing her wedding dress. Her hair had been all fancy and styled. Now, she didn’t have on a speck of makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a messy bun. She wore a pair of cutoff sweats and his old Gannon University T-shirt.

She looked like his Sophie again.

But he wasn’t sure she was...he wasn’t sure she had ever truly been the woman he’d thought she was.

She nodded at the table in the sunny breakfast nook and took a seat. He sat across from her.

Colton had planned to start slowly. To ask her to tell him what happened, but instead he found himself jumping right into the thick of it. “How could you be willing to marry me and never tell me about whatever happened in your past? You said your parents were dead.”

“They were—are—dead to me. They stole the life I planned. They stole my hopes and dreams. They stole my daughter,” she added softly. “I couldn’t stop it. I work at forgiving them every day—not that they’d ever think to ask for my forgiveness. I work at it anyway, and most of the time I think I’ve succeeded in forgiving them, but I can’t forget any of it. I finished school and then I left. I changed my name and I’ve never, never looked back.”

She wasn’t even really Sophie Johnston? “Who are you really?”

“Sophia Moreau-Ellis.”

He tried to imagine her as Sophia Moreau-Ellis, but he couldn’t. She still looked like Sophie.

His Sophie. But she wasn’t his—not really. Not ever.

“And you haven’t seen your parents since?” He couldn’t imagine that. He was close to his family. His parents had been calling, wanting to be there for him. Normally, he’d want that, too, but this time, he simply wanted to be left alone to process what had happened.

“My parents aren’t anything like yours. Image. Position. Money. Those are the things that matter. I think the fact that I’m gone is a relief to them. They can moan to their friends about how ungrateful their daughter was. But, to be honest, I can’t imagine my name comes up often.”

Her parents were rich. He knew that suddenly. “You have money?”

“A trust my grandmother set up.”

Which explained how she could afford her house. She worked hard at her job, but since he was a member of the newly formed wine association, he knew what they paid her for her PR services. Even with the other occasional freelance jobs she did, now that he thought about it, he knew she had to have another source of income.

Sophie having a trust fund made the idea of her marrying him even more of a mystery. He’d always wondered why she’d chosen him. Sophie could have had any man in Valley Ridge.

Any man, period.

And yet, she’d picked him.

“My grandmother’s father started with one small gas station. West’s. It grew into a large chain in Ohio and Kentucky. The name has meaning there. That makes my mom first-generation rich. My dad’s family, the Ellis family, made their money in fertilizer two generations ago. He’s worked hard to get the stench of that poop off him all his life.” She said the words as if by rote, as if she’d said them or thought them many times.

It all made sense now. “So, your family’s rich. You’re rich. A poor little rich girl? You came here and worked as a PR person. You found a simple farmer and thought, Gee, that’ll show my parents?”

“I came here and worked at a job I’d been preparing for since birth. Public perception is everything in my family. My parents could be fighting, screaming at each other, then hold hands and be all smiles for a party. I learned how to present a public face at birth. I simply took all those tools they gave me and turned it into a job. I take the wineries and give them a public face.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to cry, and that would be his undoing, but she didn’t. She simply said, “And when I came here, I planned on finding a place I could build a home. I came looking for a community. I didn’t plan on finding love. Frankly, I didn’t plan to ever marry. Especially...”

“Especially what?” he asked. “You didn’t plan on marrying, especially not a farmer? Not a man who comes home covered in dirt? A man who rhapsodizes over a new tractor, not the newest opera? A man who wears a cowboy hat and lives in a house his family has owned for generations?”

“I never planned on marrying...especially not a man as perfect as you.”

* * *

SOPHIE WAITED, PREPARING herself for more of Colton’s questions or accusations. “I want to tell you—” she started.

But he shook his head. “Sophie, it’s obvious that you aren’t the woman I thought you were. I’m not saying this to be cruel, or to hurt you. And I don’t want you to think it’s because you had a child. It’s simply—well, not simply. Nothing about this is simple. It’s that you obviously have a lot of things you didn’t tell me about. Things you couldn’t trust me with. I don’t think I ever really knew you.”

“You did,” she said. She wanted him to understand. She needed him to understand. “You knew the real me. Know the real me. The me that my parents wouldn’t recognize. The me I always wanted to be. That’s what I found here in Valley Ridge, not only a home, but a place where I could be the real me.”

When he didn’t respond, she added, “That’s what I found when I was with you—the real me.”

For a moment, she thought she’d made him understand, but she saw in his face that he didn’t. She steeled herself for him to say something hurtful, but in the end, he shook his head and stood. She followed suit and, for a moment, they stood face-to-face, not touching. Then he wrapped his arms around her. He leaned down and gently kissed her cheek.

Colton didn’t say the words, but she knew that kiss was his goodbye.

“I’m sorry.” He stepped back from the embrace.

Sophie realized that was it. The last time they’d ever touch. Part of her ached to step back into his arms, but the bigger part of her understood there was no going back. She took another step, putting more distance between them.

“I wish it could be different,” he said, “but I can’t...”

She knew what he was saying. He couldn’t be with a woman he didn’t trust. “I understand.”

“Can we be friends?” he asked. “Not now, but eventually?”

“I’d like to say yes, but no.” This was her fault, too. She’d left them nowhere to go. She should have trusted her instincts and not gotten involved with anyone. Ever. She should have learned fourteen years ago when she’d lost her daughter that there was no such thing as a happy ending.

Well, lesson learned now. What hurt the most was knowing that she’d hurt Colton in the process. She couldn’t go back and undo that, but she could make a clean break of it for his sake. “No, we can’t be friends. I’m sorry, Colton. We can be friendly. Given Finn and Mattie’s relationship, and the fact I think there’s something between Lily and Sebastian...” She paused a moment. “We’ll see each other. Valley Ridge is small enough that there’s no help for it. We’ll be friendly. We’ll smile and make small talk, but we can’t be friends. Not when I know what we should be, what we could have been, if I’d been...”

She let the sentence hang, not sure how to end it. What we could have been if I’d been honest was her first thought, but in reality, the real end to the sentence was what we could have been, if I’d been someone other than Sophia Moreau-Ellis.

Colton didn’t respond. He simply nodded and turned and walked down the hall. She followed as far as the kitchen doorway. She watched as he opened the front door and walked through it. He shut it behind him softly but firmly. The sound of the door latch clicking into place wasn’t loud, but to Sophie, it was defining, and something she’d remember for the rest of her life.

It would haunt her, along with the sound of her own screams as she’d begged them to allow her to at least hold her baby one time. Please, she’d begged over and over, crying hysterically.

She hadn’t begged Colton. And she wasn’t crying. She felt as if she wanted to. That maybe if she did, some of the almost unbearable pressure, which seemed to press on her from all sides, would ease. But she didn’t.

Couldn’t.

Colton was a simple man. An honest man. He was a man who believed in hard work, laughter and, most of all, love.

Sophie knew the truth of the situation. Colton would have accepted her past. He could have forgiven her anything...as long as she’d offered him the chance.

She’d never be able to make him understand that even now, talking about her childhood, about her pregnancy, was almost impossible.

God, she wanted to cry.

She wanted to blame her parents for ruining yet another relationship for her. She wanted to add one more black mark against them as parents.

But she knew she couldn’t blame this on them.

She’d done this on her own.

She’d had the perfect man and she’d let him go.

She put her palm to her cheek, on the spot where he’d kissed her.

That was it. The last time they’d ever touch, and the only thing that had ever come close to hurting as much as that moment they’d taken her daughter from her.

Yesterday, she’d touched her daughter for the first time ever when she’d run her finger across Tori’s cheek. Today she’d touched the love of her life for the last time.

The enormity of both moments would stay with her forever.

She wanted to crawl into bed and spend the day crying about Colton, but she couldn’t. She had Tori to think about.

Her baby girl.

All these years of worrying and wondering.

And Victoria Peace Allen was here in Valley Ridge.

Even though her parents would take her home this afternoon, Sophie had seen her. Touched her. She knew that Tori was loved and she’d been cared for.

Sophie knew her decision to let the Allens raise her daughter had been the right one.

In one hour she’d see Tori again.

The knowledge wasn’t enough to assuage her pain at losing Colton, but for now, Sophie pushed the hurt back. Compartmentalizing was something she was an expert at. Someday she’d pull out that last scene with Colton. She’d replay it and allow herself to feel it. But not today. Today Tori had to come first.

Sophie sat at the table in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in front of her, and watched the clock.

A half hour before she was supposed to meet the Allens, she got up and walked to the diner.

The Valley Ridge Diner looked as if it came out of a scene from Happy Days. Vintage Formica tables, a jukebox in the corner and Hank Bennington behind the counter, a coffeepot in hand. “How are you, sweetheart?” he asked as she walked past him.

Sophie knew that he wasn’t asking because of the canceled wedding. There was no sympathy or hidden question in his greeting. Hank had Alzheimer’s. It was in the early stages, and some days were better than others, but she suspected he’d forgotten about the ceremony, just as he’d forgotten her name again.

“I’m fine, Hank,” she said. “I’m going to take the back booth. I’m waiting for some visitors.”

“You help yourself to whatever seat you want, darling. I’ll bring you coffee.”

The diner was virtually empty. It was too late for most of its breakfast crowd, and too early for the lunch crowd. The only other customer was Marilee from the MarVee’s Quarters. It was odd to see her without her partner, Vivienne. They had a Penn & Teller sort of relationship; they were almost always together, and Marilee did most of the talking. Today she was talking to Connie Nies, who worked for Colton at the winery.

Both women looked up as she walked by. “Sophie, we’re so sorry,” Marilee said. “I’m not asking what happened, but if there’s anything you want us to pass on, we’d be happy to.”

Knowing that any news of note tended to filter through Marilee and Quarters, Sophie considered a moment, then nodded. “Two things would be helpful. You could let everyone know that Colton and I have decided to call off the wedding permanently. And you can let everyone know that it was my fault. I don’t want to go into details, but Colton deserves everyone’s sympathy.”

Marilee patted Sophie’s hand. “Sweetheart, I will definitely circulate that, but as much as I love Colton, everyone knows it takes two to make a relationship work...and two to make it fall apart.”

“Maybe in most cases, but not this time. This time, it’s all on me.” She turned to Connie. “You keep an eye on him when you’re working, okay? He’s so busy in the summer, he sometimes forgets to take care of himself.” She’d planned on being the one there to see to it that he did. She’d planned on making sure he ate a balanced diet, not simply coffee and sandwiches on the go.

Her plans had popped like a bubble yesterday. “Thanks,” she said, and fled to the back of the diner. She sat down at the back booth, and thought about all the things she’d planned that would never happen.

And no matter what Marilee said, she knew it was completely her fault.

Hank brought her back a cup of coffee as Gloria and Dom came in. “Let me get a couple more cups,” Hank said.

“I hope you don’t mind, but we asked Tori to give us a half hour before she arrived.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Sophie said. “It will give me a chance to assure you that I will do whatever you both want. If you prefer I not communicate with Tori, I understand. I—”

Hank came back with two more coffee cups. After he poured Dom’s and Gloria’s, he asked, “Are you all ready to order?”

“We’re waiting for one more person, Hank,” Sophie said. “So, in a half hour or so, after she’s arrived.”

“Great. I’ll check back with the coffee.”

“Thank you,” Gloria said to Hank, then turned to Sophie. “Tori let us know in no uncertain terms what she wants. We spent a great deal of the night discussing what to do.”

“You might not have noticed, but Tori is slightly strong willed,” Dom said with the right hint of sarcasm.

“That’s an understatement,” Gloria muttered, taking a sip of her coffee as if to fortify herself, then jumped in. “I called the police department this morning. And spoke to some officer named Dylan?”

Sophie nodded. “Yes. He’s a good guy.”

“And he assured me that you’re not a felon. In addition to that, he gave me a glowing report on you as a person. He swears you’re one of the good ones. He talked about how you stepped in and helped when some woman named Bridget passed away this last winter?”

“Bridget was my first friend here in Valley Ridge. I met her at the grocery store. Her daughter Abbey wanted cookies, and when Bridget said no, Abbey had a bit of a toddler temper tantrum. Bridget came over and said, ‘Talk to me, please? I need to ignore my daughter’s outburst, and if you would make a bit of a fuss about the other two kids and how well they’re behaving, she’ll come around.’

“So, I knelt down and talked to Zoe and Mickey, asked them about school and praised their good grades and, eventually, Abbey came over and told me that she’d colored a cow and could she give it to me? Later that night, they all walked over to present me with my cow picture—which by the way looked like two ovals with four sticks for feet—and I went for a walk with them. After that, well, Bridget was one of my best friends in town. When she got sick, her friend Mattie came home, and Lily, who’s a nurse, came to care for her, and the three of us became friends, too. It helped having someone to rely on when Bridget passed.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dom said.

Sophie blinked back tears, knowing that if she started crying over Bridget, she’d start crying over Colton, over the fact that the life she’d planned and longed for was gone.

“Thank you,” she managed.

“Dylan said the three of you practically lived at Bridget’s while she was sick,” Dom said.

Sophie wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement, so she simply replied, “She was my friend. And the kids needed all the support they could get.”

Gloria nodded, as if that explained everything. “If you cared that much about a friend and her children, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be as careful with my—our daughter.”

“Your daughter,” Sophie corrected. “I meant what I said last night. I get that Tori is your daughter. I gave birth to her, but she’s yours.”

“Listen,” Dom said, “my wife and daughter laugh that I’m a hippie. I tell them all the time that my parents were the hippies, and I was only a kid who went along for the ride. I grew up on a commune, and there was this woman I called Mama Rose. She ran the kitchen, and when the adults were out, she watched over all the little ones. I loved her. All the kids did. We all loved her, and I still send her a Mother’s Day card every year. But that never changed the fact I loved my own mother and father. I knew who my parents were, even though I loved Mama Rose. My aunt, who is not, nor ever was, a hippie, asked my mother how she could stand that I loved Mama Rose, and my mother laughed and said, ‘You can’t run out of love. There’s always enough to go around.’”

“I like that saying.” Sophie nodded, understanding what he was saying. She repeated, “You can’t run out of love.”

Dom nodded. “I like it, too. I want you to understand that we’re not worried Tori will forget we love her, or that she loves us.”

Sophie glanced at Gloria and her expression wasn’t quite as assured as Dom’s, but Sophie understood that. Sophie was Tori’s birth mom. She suspected having her in the picture was harder on Gloria than Dom. “I’m glad, because I might have given birth to her, but I never held her when she was sick, comforted her after a bad dream. I never hugged her after a hard day of school, or celebrated after a good one. I’d be happy to have a part in her life, but it can never be as her mom.”

Something in Gloria’s expression relaxed. “I’m glad you want to a part of her life because she’s demanding that she be allowed to spend time with you this summer and swears if we don’t, she’ll run away.” Gloria’s voice dropped. “Tori might have a way with anything mechanical, but I will have nightmares for the rest of my life about what could have happened when she stole the car and drove here. I can’t live through that again.”

“So, we’ve decided that if you’ll agree, we’ll let her spend some time with you this summer.” Dom reached over and took Gloria’s hand.

Gloria had on a pair of dress slacks, a turquoise blouse and well-matched jewelry. She looked sleek and put together. Dom wore an old Rolling Stones T-shirt, splattered with bits of blue paint, and Sophie wasn’t sure the last time a brush had touched his rumpled-looking hair. And yet, despite those differences, Gloria and Dom fit together. They were a united couple. And they were the kind of parents she wished she’d had—parents who put their children’s needs first.

And though she’d always believed she’d made the right decision for her daughter, she felt reassured yet again. These two people loved Tori enough to share her because Tori wanted, or maybe needed, it. “I can take her whenever you want, for however long you want.”

She felt a spurt of elation at the thought of spending time getting to know Tori. It mixed right in with her other chaotic and jumbled emotions.

“Don’t you have to work?” Gloria asked.

Sophie thought of Colton’s comment about her being rich, and for once her trust fund didn’t seem like a thing to feel guilty about, but rather a blessing that allowed her flexibility and freedom to do whatever Tori needed. “I can work around whatever you have in mind. It’s an advantage of being self-employed.”

“Then, what we’re proposing is we take Tori home for the week and she can pack, then we’ll come back next weekend. JoAnn at the bed-and-breakfast said she’d put rooms aside for us each weekend this summer. During the week, Tori will stay with you, and we’ll come down each weekend to spend time with her and get to know you better. If my daughter has her way—”

“And she always does,” Dom informed Sophie.

“—we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“You’re going to let Tori stay with me?” In her wildest imagination, she’d never dreamed this particular scenario. “Really, you don’t know—”

“We talked to Dylan, and you can be sure, we’ll be talking to other people in town....” Gloria shook her head. “It’s not ideal. I’ll want Tori to call every night. But I don’t know what else to do. She’s very determined.”

“That was an understatement,” Dom agreed. “But the three of us will need to come to some agreement on a proper punishment. Stealing a car is serious. There has to be some sort of repercussion.”

Listening to a man who grew up on a commune talk about repercussions sounded strange.

Dom must have sensed her thought because he laughed. “Like I said, Mom and Dad are the hippies. I’m a father who loves his daughter enough to see to it she understands the gravity of what she’s done. And I understand her enough to realize that she won’t let go of the notion of getting to know you. It’s not that she wants to know about you and spend time with you—she needs to. Just like she needed to see how the television worked when she was five and took it apart. She tried for a week to figure out how it worked, then—”

“She put it back together,” Gloria finished, her pride evident. “She understands how things work. And not just electronics and cars, but computers. She can take them apart physically, and she can do pretty much anything with them in a programming basis. She simply gets it. And when she needs to understand things, she’s like a dog with a bone. She won’t let go until she does. Right now, she needs to know you, to understand you. And nothing Dom and I say will dissuade her.”

“I realize having her here will disrupt your summer,” Dom started.

“I would let anything and everything fall to the wayside in order to spend time with Tori,” Sophie told them. She was in awe of these two people, her daughter’s parents. Their putting Tori’s needs first contrasted her parents’ need to put image first.

“Then, we’re decided,” Dom said. “We’ll head home today and bring her back next Friday night, and stay the weekend. Then, that Monday, she’ll stay with you?”

Sophie suddenly remembered a saying about doors closing and windows opening. The sound of Colton closing that door this morning would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life, but having Tori come stay with her, getting to know the daughter she had lost—that was more than a window opening. It was as if a cyclone had blown the whole darned house to Oz. Everything was suddenly in Technicolor and anything was possible.

Sophie remembered she hadn’t answered. “Yes. I swear I’ll take good care of your daughter. And as for her punishment for stealing a car, I think I have an idea.”

* * *

THE REST OF THE DAY was a blur. Sophie made arrangements for Tori’s punishment, although in her mind, it was a wonderful way to spend a summer.

She decided that she could balance having Tori with her work. Tori would do her punishment time, but when she was off, she could come to the wineries when needed. Not that she would be needed for a few weeks. Sophie had taken two weeks off for her honeymoon, so she had unanticipated free time.

She went home and started to unpack her boxes, ignoring what she’d imagined she’d be doing with the contents when she’d packed them. She ignored the fact that she’d planned on putting her grandmother’s desk in the corner of Colton’s office. She ignored that she’d imagined the two of them sitting in the office in the evening, Colton working on the farm’s books and herself working on winery promotions.

That future was over now.

But there was a new future. One that included her daughter.

Doors closing...windows opening.

That was her new mantra.

Getting to know Tori was her window. Tori would be here on Friday. Sophie concentrated on that fact as she studied her guest room. She wanted to do it over for Tori.

A double bed, a small dresser and nothing else. She’d removed the minutia and packed it away.

She decided she wouldn’t put anything back in the guest room. She’d let Tori decorate the room. She could paint it, too, if she wanted.

Maybe blue to match her hair?

She smiled at the thought. Tori was unique. And she had parents who seemed to encourage that uniqueness.

Sophie wondered what it would have been like to have that kind of love and support.

Her doorbell rang as she started to slip into the past, wondering about what-ifs. She was thankful for the interruption, but she didn’t want to answer the door. She’d stay up here until whoever was there left.

“Sophie, we know you’re in there, and we’re not leaving until you let us in,” came Mattie Keith’s voice.

Sophie didn’t need to wonder who the other part of Mattie’s we was. She went down, opened the door and found Mattie with Lily.

“Listen, I’m not really up for company...” she started, but let the sentence fade on its own because as she looked at her friends, she knew they weren’t leaving until she let them in. “Fine, come on in.”

“I brought some wine,” Mattie said. “And Lily’s got the fixings for bruschetta. That was our girls’ night option. But in case we need something stronger than that, I brought...” She reached into her grocery bag and pulled out a pint of ice cream. “I bought one of every flavor they had.”

“I think we might need some of both,” Lily said.

Both women walked through the door without an invitation. They looked at the half-unpacked boxes. “Packing?” Mattie asked.

“Unpacking,” Sophie told her. She saw understanding register in both Lily’s and Mattie’s expressions. “The wedding’s off.”

“Temporarily?” Lily asked.

“I don’t think so,” Sophie admitted. She’d like to think she and Colton could find a way to fix things, but she remembered his expression before he turned and walked out of her house. There was a sense of finality in it. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lily asked gently.

“No, of course she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Mattie said with an air of surety. “But she needs to talk about it, even if she doesn’t know it. First some wine, then some talk. Speaking of wine, there’s a chance I won’t be drinking much more of the stuff. Finn and I are talking about adding to the family.”

“You and Finn are that serious?” Lily asked as she put her grocery bag on Sophie’s counter.

“We’re talking about a quick marriage in August.” Mattie glanced at Sophie. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but Finn said you’d want to know. That you’d find out eventually anyway.”

“Are you kidding?” Doors and windows, Sophie thought as she hugged her friend. “Of course I want to know. And this calls for a celebration.”

She took the wine out of the bag and dug through her kitchen drawer. “I’ve got a bottle opener somewhere in here.”

Mattie’s hand covered Sophie’s. “I brought one. And while I open the bottle, tell us what happened. Who was that girl?”

Sophie sat at the table and let Mattie and Lily bring over the wine and bruschetta before she answered, “My daughter.”

“You have a daughter and never mentioned it?” Mattie asked, shocked.

Sophie tried to decide how to explain what it was like. How thinking about Tori, much less talking about her, hurt.

She’d known she’d have to tell her friends, but she hadn’t talked to them because she didn’t know what to say. Stalling, Sophie reached for a piece of the bruschetta, and as she brought it to her mouth, she caught the overwhelming scent of garlic. It wafted up her nose, and she felt a sudden wave of nausea. “Pardon me,” she managed as she bolted for the bathroom.

After she was done throwing up, she sank to the floor, covered in a cold sweat.

She never threw up.

The last time she’d been sick was when she was pregnant with Tori.

“Sophie, are you okay?” Mattie called through the bathroom door.

“Fine. I’m fine,” she said, thinking. Trying desperately to remember the last time she’d had a period. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

She sat on the tile floor and leaned against the cool tile wall. The last time she remembered having her period was when Abbey had been sick in the hospital. She’d been buying feminine products when she’d heard the news. It had been a weird period. Light. Really nothing more than splotching. She remembered thinking how odd it was, but hadn’t worried since her cycles had been irregular since she’d gone off her birth control at the beginning of the year.

When had Abbey been sick?

Sophie got up and splashed some cold water on her face, then brushed her teeth and walked out to the kitchen.

“Sophie, are you okay?” Mattie and Lily asked in unison.

She nodded. “Mattie, when was Abbey sick?”

“Why?”

“What was the date?” she repeated without answering why she wanted to know.

“April twenty-eighth. It was a Thursday and it was the scariest moment of my entire life.”

Sophie watched her friends exchange worried looks as she sank into the chair. Two months. She did the math in her head, and if it was true, then sometime at the end of January, beginning of February, she’d have a baby.

She’d have a baby with a man who’d left her.

Again.

She hugged her stomach.

This time, no one, nothing, would tear the baby from her. Colton might not want to marry her, but this baby had been conceived in love. She’d stopped taking birth control pills in January because they knew they wanted a family right after the wedding, and her doctor had suggested it might take some time for her system to regulate. They’d used other precautions but, obviously, they’d failed.

Then she thought about Tori.

If it was true, if she was pregnant, what would the news do to the daughter she’d just found? Or rather the daughter who had found her? A child who already thought Sophie had simply given her away without a second thought or regret.

One week ago, Sophie had been on the cusp of marrying the man of her dreams, starting a family with him and living happily ever after.

This week, the daughter she thought she’d lost forever had stolen a car, come to Valley Ridge and objected to her wedding. Her perfect man had decided she was too much trouble to marry. And for a second time, she might be going through a pregnancy on her own.

Sophie wasn’t sure if the situation was ironic, moronic or simply absurd, but a giggle escaped.

Then another.

Soon she was laughing, and tears were streaming down her face as she hugged her stomach and wondered if it was possible she was pregnant.

“Sophie, you’re scaring us,” Lily said. “Come on, hon. Talk to us. How is it you have a daughter, and why aren’t you and Colton getting married? What’s going on?”

“And, most important, what can we do to help?” Mattie said.

Sophie fought hard to get herself under control. “Do you know the saying about God closing a door, but opening a window? Let’s open that ice cream and I’ll tell you.”

And for the first time in her life, she allowed the story to spill out. She told her friends about her parents, who cared more about image and status than her. She told how her parents had chased off her boyfriend, and their ultimatum to cut her off without a dime, leaving her no way to support her baby. She told them that she’d acquiesced to her parents’ demands and gone to a home. She’d given birth in secret, like someone from a ’50s movie, and how she’d fought to give the baby to people who’d love her rather than the überrich couple her parents had chosen.

And even though she told her story to her friends, she didn’t tell them about her screams when the hospital staff took her baby away without allowing Sophie to see or hold her. But she saw in their faces that they knew that part.

She told about Tori finding her, about how wonderful Tori’s parents were. “And she’s coming to spend some time with me.”

“How long?” Lily asked.

“As long as she wants, at least until school starts. Her parents will come to spend the weekends.”

“And Colton?” Mattie asked.

Sophie shook her head. “I never told him about Tori. He sees that as a lie. I don’t know how to make him see that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him, or that I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t tell him. For fourteen years, I’ve allowed myself one day a year to wallow in that old pain. Tori’s parents send a letter annually on her birthday through the agency. Pictures, too. That one day, I read their new letter, and I reread the old ones. I look at pictures of a daughter I never held, and I see pieces of myself in her. I write a letter to her, a letter I never send, but just add to the box. For that one day, I allow myself to mourn. If I had allowed myself any more than that, I don’t think I’d have survived. And if I’d told anyone, and had to have seen the pity in their eyes daily, I would have buckled under the pain.”

But suddenly that all changed. Tori was in her life again. She’d actually touched her daughter. She would get to know her.

She didn’t think she could stand merely sharing the story. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She had a daughter, and Tori was back in her life.

Sophie’s hand rested on her stomach as she laid it all out for her friends. Well, not all. She didn’t tell Mattie and Lily about her pregnancy suspicions, and they didn’t ask. She had to be sure before she said anything. And then she’d have to tell Colton.

For a moment, she envisioned Colton telling her that they had to marry for the baby’s sake. And part of her would long to say yes, because having Colton in her life was what she wanted. But she didn’t want him that way. She didn’t intend to be an obligation. He was a man who valued honor, and she didn’t want to be something his honor demanded he attend to.

No, if she was pregnant, even if he offered to marry her—which she was sure he would do—she’d have to say no. She’d have to be certain he understood that she’d never keep him from his child. She was positive they could work out something amicable.

Telling him should be the hardest thing she’d have to do if she was indeed pregnant, but telling Tori, explaining it to her, would be worse. Sophie would have to find a way to tell Tori and make her understand that she’d never wanted to give up custody of Tori, that she’d done what she’d thought was best.

She’d have to be sure Tori understood that she was loved.

Then Sophie would tell her friends. These might not be the perfect circumstances, but this time, she was going to celebrate her pregnancy. Starting with telling her friends. But not tonight. Not until she was sure, and had told Colton and Tori.

“What about Colton?” Mattie asked.

For a moment, Sophie was confused, thinking that Mattie knew about her newfound suspicions, but then she backtracked on the conversation and realized she didn’t. “Colton and I...we’re not getting married, but we’ll build a new relationship. A friendship.”

That’s what he’d said he wanted, and she’d said she couldn’t manage anything more than friendly. Well, that was no longer an option. If she was right, being friends with Colton was a necessity.

She’d do anything for this possible unborn child, even break her own heart by pretending to be only friends with Colton when she was still so in love with him she could hardly bear the weight of it.