Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

I blink hard and close the door behind me.

“Hey,” I say.

“Bel. You answered. Thank you. Jesus Christ—” His voice is barely above a growl. Like he hasn’t slept. “I don’t mean to be rude. I want to know how you are, honey. I’ll ask, I promise. But first I just—I need to hear your voice.”

A lump forms in my throat. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.” The words hang between us for a beat. Then another. “You get my email?”

I nod, momentarily unable to answer as I remember the things he said. I’m struggling without you. I miss you. I’m begging.

“I did.”

“Thank you for reading it, Bel. You’re giving me the chance I never gave you. I recognize that’s not right.”

I nod again, tears leaking out of my eyes. “It’s not.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “So very sorry, honey. For everything. And for this. Right now. I know you have to go to work—”

“I do. I can’t be a mess.”

“I know. I hate making you cry, so I’ll be quick. I have a lot I want to say to you and a lot of explaining I need to do.” I hear him swallow. “I understand completely if you say no. But I would really, really love it if y’all came up to the farm so we could talk.”

I wipe away my tears and glance out the window. “I don’t want to cry anymore, Beau.”

“I don’t want you to either, honey. I promise if you come there will only be happy tears.”

I want to go. So badly. As much as he hurt me, the void he’s left in my life hurts more.

I also want to be strong. I need to stand up for myself. For my family, too.

“Please,” he says. His voice breaks. The ache in my chest throbs.

“I don’t know what the right thing to do here is,” I whisper.

“Just one night,” he says. “That’s all I ask. If what I have to say doesn’t sit well with you, then…welp. That’ll be the last time you’ll ever hear from my sorry ass again.”

My turn to swallow. My pulse is pounding in my ears. I feel lightheaded. I feel exhausted. I feel tender and sad and relieved to hear Beau’s voice again.

Honey.

I miss my best friend. But do I hear him out? Do I walk away? Could it blow up in my face? Or is it worth the risk?

Seventeen years of emails. Seventeen years of friendship. Seventeen years of love.

Taking a deep breath, I let my head fall back on the headrest. “When you say cookies—how many we talking, exactly?”

He laughs, and the tightness in my chest loosens. “Lots. As many as we need to entice y’all back up to the mountain.”

“I think we can do Saturday,” I say. “I can’t take more time off from work right now.”

“Saturday is great. How about a three PM flight? Maisie’s nap will be starting, and it will give you some time to pack up that morning.”

“Yeah,” I manage, still nodding. “Yeah, that works.”

It’s the longest week ever, waiting for Saturday. Work is all right. Leaving Maisie with someone else for so long every day is hard. I find myself missing her, especially at the end of the day, when things on the desk slow down.

Pumping at work totally sucks. So does waking up well before the crack of dawn.

But what gets me through is knowing I get to see Beau. Not sure if that makes me a sucker or not, but there it is.

He sends an Escalade to pick us up from my house on Saturday afternoon. I help strap Maisie into her car seat and climb in beside her. Mom plops down in the front seat, a big smile on her face.

I feel like I’ve been electrified. I’m suddenly wide awake, the exhaustion from the week barely noticeable inside my limbs.

As we weave our way through traffic toward the airport, anxiety sets in. Maybe I’m not making the right call here. Can I really forgive Beau? Can I trust him not to slink away like a coward again or go radio silent on me?

I can’t go through that another time.

If he’s going to keep me from moving forward, then he’s not worth my time.

But I know Beau. And I know he wouldn’t invite me back up to Blue Mountain if he wasn’t serious about apologizing.

I pull up his email on my phone.

He signed it love.

That means…what, exactly?

I don’t want to hope, because hope has made a fool of me one time too many.

Then I think, my God, since when have I become so faithless? That’s not what I want my daughter to think of the world, that it’s mean and small and dark. Looking at her snoozing in her car seat, I know I want better for her. Is it too late to want better for me, too?