One Step Closer: Tie the Knot Farm, #1

By Evelyn Adams

A grumpy sunshine starting over story from NYT and USA Today bestselling author Evelyn Adams about a woman who's rebuilding her life and the man who helps her get started.

 

I thought I'd be married forever, just like my parents and grandparents.

 

But then my happily-ever-after imploded.

 

I've spent the past year struggling to hold my small family together. Putting the kids first because they didn't deserve what happened. I didn't deserve it either.

Now I've got eight days to myself, while the kids are safe and having fun with my parents. Eight days to hide the cat in my no pets allowed vacation rental. Eight days to ignore the rental's grumpy owner who looks like someone off a sexy handymen of the northeast calendar. Eight days to sleep and dream and breathe.

 

Eight days to find the broken pieces of myself. I knew exactly how lost I was. I didn't know his touch would help me put myself back together.

 

Warning: Grace's story is grumpy/ sunshine because despite everything, sunshine is her nature, with a hot growly contractor who is very good with his hands. It includes an escape artist cat whose purr conquers his growl, a private plane ride, and enough heat to knock the chill off the New England spring. It does not include a happily-ever-after. I scout's honor pinky swear promise Grace will get hers, but when your first HEA crashes and burns, you take a little extra time with the next one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evelyn Adams
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781944801274

Book preview

1

A LIFE RAFT WITH WINE

Iknew I was screwed the day God threw kittens at my car. I was well and truly screwed before that day and the kittens probably weren’t God’s doing, but in that moment, the disaster of our situation crystalized into something more than I could handle.

It happened about a week after my then-husband lost his mind and the boys and I had to make a late-night exit from the home I’d lived in for almost twenty years. I was driving the kids from our pieced-together temporary digs to school when kittens started tumbling out from underneath the car in front of us. I managed to swerve and not say, For fuck’s sake! in front of the boys. I hadn’t let standards drop that far yet. I still had the illusion I could hold onto some version of the old normal.

By some miracle, I didn’t hit the tiny balls of fluff, but that wouldn’t hold true for the cars behind us if the furry babies stayed on the road. Maybe it was because my own babies had been through so much. Maybe it was just because the kittens were innocent of everything but crawling into the undercarriage of the car to stay warm. It didn’t matter. I took one look at my boys’ horrified, hopeful faces, pulled the car to the side of the road, and scooped up three dazed but otherwise unhurt kittens.

We’d found homes for two of the three, but no one wanted Irene, named by the boys during a brief but intense Sherlock phase, which was how I ended up with the cat sleeping in the carrier on the seat next to me. The petite calico was an unexpected complication, considering I’d barely been able to take care of myself and my offspring over the past year, but we folded her into our new kind of family. She’d become a confidant and comfort for all of us. She wasn’t supposed to be my travel companion—the pet sitter canceled at the last minute—but flexibility was as ubiquitous as breathing to me at this point.

I took the exit to Newburyport and followed the GPS toward the bridge to Plum Island. I’d been driving in the dark for hours, and the lights of the town were a beacon drawing me closer. The houses along High Street looked like they’d been standing for hundreds of years. It made sense. The years on the historic plaques dated back to before the country’s birth.

We’re going to come back and explore in the daylight, I told the sleeping cat. Or I am. You’re going to embrace your elusive nature and stay out of sight.

When my parents offered to take the boys on vacation to California, I’d jumped on the chance for time alone. The past year had been a descending pyramid of loss. Kind of a Maslow’s hierarchy of pain. As soon as I put out one fire, a slower, smoldering one took its place until there was nothing left but a few broken coals I didn’t think would ever go completely out. The boys were never going to be the same, but they were starting to find joy again. With the resilience of kids, they’d started to rebuild the lives they’d lost, making friends, creating new routines. Finding spots around a dinner table with one less chair.

It was time for me to do the same. For the first time in almost a year, my needs and my heartbreak could make it to the top of the list. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew I couldn’t go on living under the cloak of numbness I’d been wearing since the night we left. It had been necessary. I knew that, too. I couldn’t do what my children needed and process the pain of my own loss at the same time. But that was shifting. If I had any hope of moving forward, I was going to have to let myself feel again. The bad first so I could get to the good.

Finding the cottage on Plum Island had been one of those divine intervention things. As soon as I realized the boys would be away and safe—taken care of by people who loved them as much as I did—I started looking for a quiet place to go. Somewhere far enough away to leave the familiar behind. A New England barrier island in April seemed like a decent option. I couldn’t afford it in the summer. Hell, I couldn’t afford it off-season but there it was, almost like an afterthought on the VRBO page. A couple of pictures with a description so sparse it made me wonder if the owner really wanted to rent the place. But the price was right. I could swing it for the eight days I had before the boys got back, and it had a rooftop deck looking out over the ocean. That and a coffeemaker and I’d be set.

I emailed the owner—some kind of construction company, so the place probably wouldn’t fall down on me—paid the rental fee, and got the code for the key. Now I just had to find the place in the dark. I could have done the thirteen-hour drive from North Carolina in two days but once I set out, I wanted to get there as soon as I could. If this was where I was going to push the reset button on my new life, I didn’t want to wait another moment longer to get started.

The cat slept and I drove, replaying the events of the past year in my head until they lost some of their potency. I let myself cry, not enough to make driving dangerous but more than I’d been able to do in front of the boys. The memories still had the power to steal my breath and make me ache with loss, but it was a different kind of feeling. A moving through it kind of feeling. It didn’t crush me the way it had months ago. By the time I started across the bridge to the island, a tenuous kind of peace started to thread its way through my thoughts. It hadn’t taken root. I doubted it would until I set down roots of my own, but the fact that I could recognize it again was a positive sign.

I followed the GPS down increasingly narrower streets. Past the basin side of the two-fingered island to the row of houses practically stacked on top of each other along the ocean side. I hadn’t expected things to be crammed so tightly together, but it didn’t matter. Being in the house by myself would be more solitary time than I’d had in over a year, even if the neighbors were almost within arm’s reach. I just wouldn’t reach.

More than half of the homes on the island were dark, which probably meant they weren’t occupied until summer anyway. I followed the directions sent by the construction company and turned down an alley that was more walking path than driveway, inching my way to the end. Two huge beach houses towered over both sides but at the end was the cottage from the listing. Tiny to the point of comical in comparison but perfect for me. I could see the rooftop deck and beyond it, nothing but dark. A glance at the map on the GPS showed the ocean just on the other side of the cottage, and something close to joy—the closest I’d felt in forever—settled deep in my chest like a seed just waiting for a chance to sprout.

This is it, I said to myself or the cat—or both. I didn’t feel the need to decide. I didn’t feel the need to do anything but grab my things and make my way up to that deck.

I sent a quick text to my mom letting her know I’d arrived safely so she could put thoughts of highway murderers out of her head, grabbed the cat carrier, and went in search of the key box. Someone had left the porch light on for me and, in moments, I had the door open to my temporary home.

Every home I’d had over the past year had been temporary, but this was the one I’d looked forward to the most. The simple room with whitewashed walls held a sofa and deep armchair perfect for curling up in and a galley kitchen with—thank God—a coffeemaker. The French press wasn’t what I was used to, but I’d make it work.

I set Irene on the floor but kept her in the carrier despite her protests until I had a chance to bring in the rest of my things. The listing hadn’t specified no pets, but it hadn’t said they were allowed either. I was normally a stay on the trail, ask permission not forgiveness person, but I had no intention of letting the rental company know about the cat. No reason to give them a chance to say no.

I set my provisions—a bottle of wine, coffee, and a box of crackers—on the counter. I’d need to find a market in the morning but not before my first cup of coffee, which meant I could sleep in as late as I wanted, something I hadn’t been able to do in forever. Even when I had the time, sleep had been hard to come by. There was something about waking in the middle of the night that gave worry a license to crowd out everything else, including sleep. Nothing good happened at two in the morning.

I put my suitcase in the only bedroom, got Irene’s food and things set up, and let the peevish cat out to explore. She made a quick pass around the room before settling in to her food bowl. The canned cat food instead of her everyday dry seemed to shift her mood enough to forgive me for the indignities of car travel. By the time I’d dug around in the kitchen drawer, found a corkscrew, and opened the wine, she was twining around my ankles, deigning to let me stroke her soft fur.

I opened the nineteen-dollar Côtes du Rhône I’d splurged on and let it sit on the counter while I searched for a wine glass. Irene stuck to me as if she’d decided throwing her lot in with mine was in her best interest in the unfamiliar territory. Stretching up on my tiptoes and wishing my five feet four extended to five six, I snagged a delicate stemless wine glass from the top shelf of the cabinet, careful not to trip on the cat. I didn’t want to explain to the owner how a cat I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to have made me break one of their glasses. It was a very nice glass for a rental, especially one currently being refurbished. That along with the French press made me wonder about the owner, but they probably had a service that took care of the furnishings.

Are you coming with me? I glanced at the cat, who gave me a look that made it clear she was doing me a favor by letting me take care of her. Or not. I could go either way, honestly, but I’m not waiting a minute longer.

Tucking my phone in the pocket of my sweater, I grabbed the throw from the chair, the open bottle and glass, and unlocked the sliding glass door. I surveyed the postage-stamp back deck to make sure there wasn’t an easy way for Irene to escape, flipped off the lights and left the door open so the cat could move back and forth between inside and out without needing a human helper. There wasn’t room for so much as a chair on the tiny space. It wasn’t more than a landing for the stairs ascending into the inky dark sky.

A sense of anticipation—the delicious kind, not the scary kind I’d gotten used to—propelled me up the steep steps to the rooftop deck I’d been imagining since the moment I saw the picture on the rental page. A railing ringed the space, providing an anchor against the surrounding dark. A double chaise sat in the middle of the deck like a life raft left just for me. I set the bottle down within easy reach and crawled onto the cushions, cold to the touch from the night air but blessedly dry. Snuggling under the throw, I filled my glass and strained my eyes to see the ocean I could hear in the distance.

The houses looming on either side of my raft were unlit, presumably summer rentals that weren’t occupied yet, which suited me. Their bulk weighed reassuringly in the overwhelming dark stretching in front of me and overhead. Without them, it would be easy to feel unmoored. As it was, I felt held, which might have more to do with the warmth of the wine spreading through me or the soft weight of the throw covering me. I wasn’t questioning it, not when I finally felt a sliver of peace.

Satisfied—at least for the moment—with her explorations, the cat jumped up on the chaise, bumping my hand with her head until I complied with the required petting. Her fur was soft and the low rumble of her purr reassuring. Dealing with the kids and the clusterfuck of the divorce had forced me so far out of my body, simple sensations felt brand-new. The cat’s fur, the cool night air, the blackness that had morphed into colors as my eyes adjusted, and the rolling whoosh of the ocean still barely visible stretched out in front of me. It was a little like waking from a deep sleep and rejoining the world.

The wine softened me, making it easy to sink into the sensations around me. By the time I neared the bottom of the second glass, the familiar loosening started deep inside. It was unexpected but not at all unwelcome—that melting feeling that in the past often led to good sex and bad decisions. The only orgasms I’d managed over the past year had been furtive, almost silent, quick climaxes that had more to do with relieving stress than anything resembling pleasure. I remembered pleasure. Maybe now that I finally felt safe again and the boys were taken care of and far away, it was time to reacquaint myself.

I drained the second glass of wine and my last for the night. Loose was delicious, but a drunken tumble down the steep stairs would be a disaster, and it was too cold to sleep on the chaise with just the throw. Although, I wouldn’t mind trying it another night with more covers. I added waking to sunrise over the ocean to my list of things to do that week.

Irene was a warm sleeping bundle by my hip. Careful not to disturb her, I set the empty glass aside and tucked my hands under the throw. Inhaling the scent of salt and sea, I slid my hand underneath my T-shirt, my breath catching as my cool fingertips grazed my stomach. It didn’t matter that it would never be as flat as it had been before it hosted the boys. It was my skin—my body—and I loved it, pale silvery stretch marks and all.

I ran my palm over my rib cage to cup my breast, my nipple tightening under