The Best Next Thing

She hadn’t been just Charity in so long. She didn’t even recognize that free-spirited, happy, confident woman as herself anymore. She was no longer that woman-child, ridiculously in love with the charming boy next door. How shocked people had been at the match. How disapproving his parishioners, that their beloved pastor had married someone so very wrong for him.

She couldn’t go back to being the person she had been before marrying Blaine. She had lost that Charity somewhere along the way. But she was no longer Mrs. Davenport either…the broken woman of Blaine’s creation.

And she now recognized that she would have to move on from Mrs. Cole soon. That reality terrified her. Mrs. Cole had been a cozy security blanket and had kept her safe while she healed from her emotional wounds.

But Charity needed to reclaim her freedom and find out who she was now. She had to mend fences with her family and confront the demons of her past. A part of her had always clung to the hope that she would one day—at the very least—follow the career path she had once chosen for herself.

Why else would she have hung on to her practice number all these years? She still attended the obligatory chiropractic seminars and conferences a few times a year. She had done so even during her marriage, when she had—at great risk to her well-being—lied to Blaine about where she was going and what she was doing. And she had been studying in the hopes of taking her re-entrance examinations at some point.

These were the actions of a hopeful person. Someone who wanted more. So much preparation, in the belief that someday she would find the strength and courage to pursue her dreams again.

“Should I offer a pound this time?”

Miles’s wry question snapped her back to the present, and she met his amused gray eyes in confusion. “What?”

“For your thoughts?”

“It’s quite a coincidence that you and Sam Brand wound up in the same random place on the Garden Route,” she said, clumsily steering the topic back on course.

She wasn’t ready to talk about herself yet. Not with him. She wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to discuss her most intimate thoughts with this man. He was too…everything. Too powerful, too wealthy, too sexy, and too increasingly attractive for her peace of mind.

He dimpled at her.

“Not that coincidental,” he said, graciously allowing the subject change. “His former business partner, Mason Carlisle, grew up in Riversend. And, before he sold his half of the business to Sam, Mason was their company’s de facto client liaison officer. He often spoke about this part of the world. I was in the market for a holiday home and thought I’d look into this “slice of heaven” as he so eloquently and accurately described it. I fell in love with the location and built my house before either of them even considered moving here.”

“Oh.”

“Pretty mundane, right?”

“Here you are, my lovelies. A nice home-cooked meal for you to enjoy,” Estie’s chipper voice filled the comfortable silence that had fallen between them, and they looked over to see the woman shuffling over. She epitomized everybody’s idea of a grandmother—round, matronly, and silver-haired with a twinkle in her eye and apples in her cheeks.

The woman slid two plates in front of them, and they gawked at the amount of food that had been piled onto the dish. It smelled and looked wonderful.

They thanked her and watched as she shambled away.

“Bet she chain smokes and swears like a sailor in her downtime,” Miles muttered, and Charity choked back a laugh.

“Probably wears leather and has a tattoo that says ‘Daddy’s Little Bitch’ on her left boob,” Charity added somberly, and this time Miles was the one who choked.

“Toy boy thirty-six years her junior.” Miles flung the words down like a gauntlet.

“Pothead,” Charity happily countered.

“Estie, or the toy boy?” he asked.

“They smoke together.”

“Probably right before she bones that kid like that there’s no tomorrow.”

Charity covered her face with both hands and shook her head.

“Stop! Oh my God,” she laughed. He joined her and when the laughter died down, they grinned at each other a little goofily.

He cleared his throat and picked up his fork. “Eat up before it gets cold.”

Charity happily complied and the first mouthful of pie was divine.

“This is so good,” she moaned, scooping up another bite. Miles watched her eat for a moment before digging in. His eyes widened, and he stared at her in shock.

“It’s pretty damned tasty,” he agreed with her.

While they ate, they chatted amiably about the weather, Stormy, and Miles’s attempts to help Amos in the garden. Safe topics—cautiously tiptoeing around the questions they really wanted to ask each other.

Several pretty brown hens wandered into the garden and slowly meandered toward their table. They were busily bobbing their heads, scratching and picking at the ground, cheerfully clucking as they got closer and closer to where Charity and Miles were seated.