Lovestruck Literally: NorCal Wine Romance, #1

By Delilah Cato

Kendra is a heartbroken, newly divorced nurse who is moving to California to be with her friend and start a new life. She has sworn off men, then she meets Tyler...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delilah Cato
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393256984

Book preview

Kendra

I am shattered. My heart, I mean. Everything is all wrong. It was broken before, but I believed it to be fixable. The moment he called me just a nurse and made me feel like the smallest and most insignificant thing, I couldn’t forgive him for it.

I could forgive him for forgetting my birthday and our anniversary. I could maybe even forgive him for cheating on me. I’m an overly forgiving person. I’ve always believed that anything can be worked out, which is probably why I’ve been thrown under the bus so many times, metaphorically speaking. But now, as I look down the long stretch of freeway before me from my ’08 Subaru, I am certain that I can never forgive him for treating me like I’m so far beneath him. Big talk from an insurance agent with only a high school diploma.

Of course, insurance is the C+ student’s revenge. He makes more money than I could ever hope to. Oh well, I’m over his success-story bullshit.

I push my Subaru up to eighty. I want to make it all the way to Sacramento before the sun goes down. I look at my hand gripped on the steering wheel. I still have a tan line from my wedding ring. The spring California sunshine should take care of that soon.

Just a nurse. My God, what an ass. That has me seething this entire drive. My foot presses harder on the pedal the angrier I get. The late afternoon shadows stretch towards me and darken the forest along the road. The sun sets with my heart, and I drive toward a new life.

He said it while we were out to dinner with a bunch of his insurance guys. All of them are smooth-talking salesmen with hot wives who spend their days in spin classes and juice bars. None of them, including my now ex-husband, Jared, ever understood why I choose to continue my career. My father died at the hands of a poorly trained emergency room nurse, and I vowed to make sure that didn’t happen to anyone else under my care.

I don’t know if I’ll make it all the way there before dark. Tomorrow I’ll head north and go up to Mendocino where Leah is going to take me apartment hunting as soon as I nail down a job. The back of my car is stuffed with as much as I could pack it with. My clothes and a copy of the divorce papers. A few family heirlooms and pieces of art. I left so much behind, but I don’t care. The farther I get from Denver, the better.

I wipe tears off my face as I drive. I can’t see very well when my eyes are all puffy and watery, but I also can’t stop. Ten years of my life married to that total ass, and it feels like I’m having a heart attack out of grief. Not grief over my husband, but grief over my youth. I’m just shy of thirty-two, and I feel like the best years of my life were pulled out from under me and will never be returned.

Leah will help make things better. She’s been a true friend since we were in middle school, and she was the first person I called when shit hit the fan and I left Jared for good.

You go girl, she said to me over the phone. I’m proud of you. Ditch him and come live out here near me.

So, at her suggestion, I packed