Before Forever (A Small Town Single Dad Romance)

  BEFORE FOREVER

  HARPER SKY

  CONTENTS

  1. Melody

  2. Derek

  3. Melody

  4. Melody

  5. Derek

  6. Melody

  7. Derek

  8. Melody

  9. Melody

  10. Melody

  11. Derek

  12. Melody

  13. Derek

  14. Melody

  15. Derek

  16. Melody

  17. Derek

  18. Melody

  19. Derek

  20. Melody

  21. Melody

  22. Derek

  23. Melody

  24. Melody

  25. Melody

  26. Derek

  27. Melody

  28. Melody

  29. Derek

  30. Melody

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright © 2022 by Harper Sky

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  1

  MELODY

  The passing minutes felt like hours as I sat impatiently in the freakishly quiet lobby of the Jenkins Law Firm. Aside from the clock ticking loudly in the background, the only other sounds were from my phone that buzzed periodically in my hands. Messages from work were pouring in, demanding my attention.

  Finally, a door opened and a stuffy-looking tall, slender guy in a suit appeared. I was grateful for the distraction from my thoughts and eager to get this over with.

  The receptionist shot to her feet as he entered and nodded towards me, “Mr. Jenkins will see you now, Ms. Hart.”

  With a quick handshake and official introduction, Mr. Jenkins led me into his office. He then motioned for me to sit in the chair across from his desk.

  “Thanks for coming across town to meet with me this afternoon, Ms. Hart.”

  I smiled politely, but he hadn’t given me much choice. He said it was an important matter regarding my mother’s Will. The best I could do was take a long lunch, and even that seemed to be pushing it at the office.

  For as much as I was struggling to get back into a good groove at work, I knew this was the last thing to check off the list. I found that to be both incredibly depressing and relieving all at once. Of course, I’d never be ready to let my mother go. But I was more than prepared to put the past couple of months behind me.

  “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. So, let’s get right to it, shall we?”

  “Sure. What’s this all about?” I asked in a daze. “You said something about Mom’s Will? But the insurance covered all of the funeral costs. I didn’t think there was much of anything left to her name. She rented an apartment here.”

  He spread a folder out on the desk and started flipping through it, spouting off legal jargon as he went. I found it hard to focus. My mind started drifting, as it did a lot these days, and the next thing I knew, I was reliving the nightmare of the past month all over again.

  My brain had formed a new habit of torturing me with a relentless replay of everything I was trying so hard to quickly move on from.

  I thought this would be the year that my boyfriend, Evan, proposed to me. The timing was right. We had been together for five years. We had both graduated and settled into our careers with good jobs and impressive salaries. And with our six-year anniversary approaching, I was on a time crunch. All of my girlfriends told me no self-respecting woman stays with a man longer than six years without a ring on her finger. So I naively assumed that my year would be spent bonding with my mother over wedding planning and dress shopping.

  Instead, her final days were filled with late-night phone calls and visits from me with lots of wine, tissues, and sobbing.

  She didn’t know it was her last few weeks alive. No one did. But I think we could all agree her time would have been better spent sampling wedding cakes rather than hearing me lament about the stick-thin model Evan was cheating on me with. A model from an agency my own firm represented, no less. The memory still made my stomach twist up into horrible knots.

  I wrung my hands in my lap as Mr. Jenkin’s voice suddenly cut back through the horrible memories. “It looks like a nice place. A lake house with a mountain view, a private dock, three bedrooms, and three baths. Over three-thousand square feet. Its last appraisal a few years back valued it at 600k, and you can only imagine how that figure has likely sky-rocketed since then.”

  My brow furrowed. I knew I zoned out for a minute, but I could not for the life of me figure out why the stuffy lawyer was going on about mountain views and housing prices.

  “The deed will be in your name, so you have every right to sell it if you choose to do so. Fair warning, though, it does seem like it will need quite a bit of repairs before it could be put on the market.”

  “Sell it?” I asked cluelessly, still not understanding exactly what he was saying or why this mattered to me.

  “I’m not familiar with Silver Point, but it looks nice from the photos,” he added, finally flipping the folder shut and sliding it over to me. “See for yourself.”

  I reached for the folder and started turning the pages, my mind clouded with fog. Slowly, it began to register with me. Of course, the lake house in Silver Point. My mom mentioned it every so often after I left for college. I didn’t know why she had wanted to buy an old shack so far away down south, out in the middle of nowhere.

  Now, the faint memories of her telling me about the place stung in my heart. I didn’t remember them as much as I should have. I listened to her about as well as I had been listening to Mr. Jenkins rattle on about her lake house. I stayed so wrapped up in my own life under the notion that we had plenty of time to make up for it at some point.

  She had bought the place thinking it could be a family home…for all of us. A place for her to take me, my future husband (then assumed to be Ethan), and her grandkids for summer vacations. A place to make memories and then, one day, pass down through the generations.

  But just as I barely listened to all of her hopes and dreams for the property, her visions of a happy family retreating from the busy outside world together, I never made the time to go there with her. It was always Work’s really busy right now, but maybe next week…next month…maybe next year. Now my months and years with her were up, and I hadn’t given her the one small, simple thing she had wanted so badly from me…For me to slow down and just spend time with her, to get away from it all and be present.

  Maybe I thought once Ethan and I were officially engaged, things would be different somehow. Now that Ethan and I were split, it seemed like such a silly thing to put my relationship with my own mother on hold for. And worse, there was no going back. I had no shot at redemption, no way to make up for wasted time on either front.

  I could feel hot tears starting to rise, but I fought them off and held myself together as Mr. Jenkins continued while sliding another folder across his desk.

  “I recommend taking a weekend to go out there and assess the property. As for our time here today, this is everything you’ll need to sign. I’ll go through it all with you. Once we’re finished, everything will be in your name, and you’re free to go.”

  He towere
d behind my chair as we went through every page and paragraph. He would rattle off an explanation about this line or that, then point to where I had to sign. I was certain I needed to be paying more attention, or listening to every detail so I didn’t scribble my name down in agreement to sell my soul or to bury myself in some kind of horrible deal that would drain my bank accounts somehow.

  But I was too close to breaking down, and at that moment, I could not keep my tears at bay and also pay attention. I could only do one or the other, so the pride and stubbornness I got from my mother won over and kept me focused on the not crying part.

  Before I knew it, I had signed my name what felt like twenty times in a row. Then, Mr. Jenkins was shaking my hand again, sending me back out into the world with a deed to a lake house tucked in a folder under my arm. I walked like a zombie through the lobby, out onto the sidewalk to flag down a taxi.

  The moment the driver took off towards my office, all those waterworks I had been working so hard to hold in came bursting out beyond my control. It was all too much. First, Evan. Then, losing my mom. Now, this? The last thing I needed to deal with was some fixer-upper that was over eight hundred miles away. I didn’t want the reminder that I had neglected to spend time there with her while she was still alive, and I certainly didn’t need to wallow in how nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.

  Though it was tempting to think of running away, disappearing in some far away town in the middle of nowhere. Evan was a lying, cheating jerk, and no part of me wanted him back. But when my mom died, all I could think about was how at any minute, he’d come crashing through the doors to offer a shoulder to cry on. He’d be there for me, and maybe he’d even admit how stupid he was for ever hurting me.

  But that never happened. Evan sent flowers to the funeral home with a card addressed to all of my mother’s family and friends. That was it.

  I shook the humiliating memory away as my office building came into view through the backseat window of the taxi. Sure, I wanted to run away. I wanted to make it up to my mom, even though it was too late. But just as that lake house hadn’t turned out the way she wanted, nothing else in my life had either. Facts were facts, and the sooner I accepted that and moved on…I could start tracking down my life post-Evan and post-Mom. It was here…somewhere. I just had to find it.

  All I knew for certain was that no part of that new life involved Silver Point, Tennessee, or expensive taxes on some frivolous vacation home that was too far away. My mind was made up to sell the place by the time I got back to my desk, and the certainty of that felt like enough to help me suck it up and get back to work.

  And just in time, too. My boss was marching by my open door, but the moment he caught sight of me in the corner of his eye, he stopped and showed himself in.

  “Melody, good. You’re back,” he forced a smile. “How did everything go with the, uh…you know, the…uh….”

  “Attorney,” I reminded him. “To review my mother’s Will.”

  His expression darkened. “Right. I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

  Not expecting my mother to leave me so suddenly, I, of course, had been very liberal in my use of paid time off when everything happened with Evan. Thank god I had my bereavement pay, but while my paychecks and time off were covered…things at work had not been. I was pretty essential to all of our biggest accounts and clients, and all of the absences had made things tense between my boss and me. He worked hard to be understanding, but I could always see his frustrations boiling just below the surface.

  Which is why I was quick to suck in a sharp breath and smile. “It was hard, yes, but that was the last thing to check off the list. All of her affairs are in order now,” I lied, leaving out the enormous task of renovating and selling off this lake house. “I am officially back at one-hundred percent and more eager than ever to get things back in order around here.”

  He looked impressed and relieved as I reached to answer my phone as if taking a call right at that moment was somehow proof of just how dedicated and refocused I now was. “This is Melody Hart.”

  A familiar voice came across the line. “Melody, darling. How are you? Listen, I need a new marketing campaign for Natasha and some of the other fast-risers around here. We need to keep the momentum going while these girls are on fire. Everyone wants them right now. Can we set up a time later this week to discuss?”

  My throat tightened, my chest seized, and the hot tears came rushing back faster than I could do anything to stop them. Despite my best efforts to stay strong, I crumbled the moment he said Natasha. The very model that Evan cheated on me with.

  It wasn’t enough that he had fallen for her. Now it was my job to make sure the rest of the world fell for her too.

  “Yes, of course,” I croaked. “I’ll send you my schedule, and we’ll set something up. Gotta go!”

  The moment the call ended, I erupted into sniffling, shrill sobs. My boss stammered and looked all around him in the hall, hoping someone would come to save him or tell him what to do with his employee who was hysterically crying.

  “You should…You should take the afternoon off,” he suggested in obvious discomfort. “Take some time to pull yourself together. This will all still be here in the morning, and you can come back with a strong start.”

  All I could do was nod and snatch up as many tissues as I could grab at once to bury my face in as I made a quick escape to the elevator. I wanted to stick to my story and assure him that taking more time off was the last thing I needed to do, but my tears betrayed me, and I was in no position to argue with him.

  I felt defeated as I leaned my forehead against the window in the backseat of the cab on the way home. I needed to work to keep my mind off things and restore my boss’s faith in me enough to keep my job. With everything else falling apart, the last thing I needed was to lose that too. And yet everything with Ethan and losing my mom threatened to pull me under and rip away the few things I had left.

  Even the place I called home was different now; it morphed into a disheveled studio apartment I hated. It was the first available place I could find to get out of the place Ethan and I shared after I caught him messing around with Natasha. It was filled with boxes I hadn’t bothered to unpack. I had been unpacking when I got the call about my mom, and ever since, it hadn’t felt right to pick the task back up again…to carry on as if that dreadful phone call never came that night.

  I made the best of it by utilizing one of the bigger boxes as an entryway table, which I tossed my purse and keys onto each day when I came home. I slid my aching feet out of my heels and kicked them to the side of the big brown cardboard box posing as furniture, then navigated through a maze of even more boxes to grab my phone and order Chinese food delivery for dinner. With my order in, I changed into the most comfortable set of sweats I could find.

  My reflection in the mirror caught my eye as I passed. I turned side to side, noting how my luscious curvy body was starting to dwindle from all of the stress. My skin was turning pale and dark circles had permanently formed under my blue eyes.

  “At least I still have my hair,” I reassured myself. My long, thick auburn locks had always been one of my best features. I admired them for a moment in the mirror, but my heart sank when I noticed that even that wasn’t holding up the way it used to. I squinted my eyes and leaned in closer to see a white strand of hair hidden near my ear.

  Great. Just Great. Now on top of everything, I’m going gray.

  It was the final blow of the day…realizing I didn’t recognize myself any more than I recognized the life I was suddenly living.

  My job and this city were the only two remnants I had left of my life from before, and I wasn’t about to let Natasha or Ethan’s poor, judgment take those away from me too. Which only made the task of pulling myself together and getting rid of that lake house more urgent.

  2

  DEREK

  A storm was rolling in over the mountains, bringing in a relieving breeze to cut thro
ugh the humid August heat.

  I tossed the ends of the two-by-fours I was measuring and trimming off into the scrap bucket just as the sound of an angry woman caught my attention from across the lake. It was the last week of peak tourist season, and all the families who rented houses in the area were packing up their cars to head home. One of the ladies was scolding her kids who started splashing around in the lake, even though swim time was over.

  I watched her wrap them up in towels and gently dry them off before shuffling them back to the picnic table, where she instructed them to wait while they finished packing up.

  “They better hurry up before the sky opens up on em’,” my brother remarked, appearing by my side with a bottle of water for both of us.

  “The rain is a better send-off than sunshine. It lets them know the party’s really over…at least for now.”

  “I’ll just be glad when it cools down for good. I’ve had enough of this heat,” he replied, trailing off as he noticed me carefully studying the mother across the way.

  “I better get going. I have to pick Em up from school,” I told him, still not looking away from the woman who served her kids a tray of snacks and juice boxes for the road. I noticed one of the boys looked to be about Em’s age.

  He followed my gaze across the lake and seemed to stiffen up when he realized what I was staring at. A happy family, a loving mother. Things that had been ripped away from Em and me.

  Keith gave me a quick pat on the shoulder. “You’ve been working hard, Derek. And you’ve done a hell of a job. I don’t know if I could have done it…juggling all of that. On top of your firefighter gig, you’ve been solid with me and the guys here…keeping the business afloat, helping me manage them and all the jobs.” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “And looking after a young girl all on your own in the middle of all that? You’re nothing short of a hero.”