Better Left Unsaid

By Natalie-Nicole Bates

Kendy Harlow has returned to her childhood home to put her painful divorce behind her and restart her life as a single woman.

 

The last thing she expects is to fall head over heels for her sexy neighbor and single father, Adam Payne. But Adam has secrets that are on the verge of being exposed that make loving him a huge risk to Kendy.

 

Toss into the mix Adam's two high-spirited teenage daughters and the sparks fly!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paperlate Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215162439

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Natalie-Nicole Bates is a book reviewer and author. Her passions in life include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey to being born in Russia. She currently resides in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of 19th century post-mortem photos.    

Book preview

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Better Left Unsaid

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2020

Copyright © 2020 by Natalie-Nicole Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Natalie-Nicole Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Natalie-Nicole Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Publisher Logo

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Also by Natalie-Nicole Bates

Chapter One

Chapter Separator

Was it possible to go home again? Kendy Harlow leaned back against the moving van and gazed at her new home. Her new old home. This house on Lilac Circle was where she grew up. She’d lived here until she married Marshall Harlow and moved over one thousand miles away. All before her twentieth birthday. Now, nearly ten years later, she had no more marriage, and she was a stranger on Lilac Circle.

The cool, crisp autumn air stirred a warm sense of familiarity and comfort within her. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep her here.

She looked up and down the neighborhood circle. Some of the homes looked different now. A change of color here, an addition made there. Many of the other houses on Lilac Circle had changed owners through the years. Even when she was in ill health and alone, her mother had stayed on, maintaining the fifty-plus-year-old dwelling until her death. The house was still in excellent condition.

Three weeks earlier, when her mother passed away, Kendy decided to move back into the old two-story house. Following the funeral, she returned to South Florida just long enough to sell her home to the first bidder, hold a moving out of town sale, pack her personal possessions into a moving van, and drive twelve hundred miles back to her hometown.

She looked at her car, which she’d towed behind the moving van. She had no idea how to unhook her silver Acura from the hitch, but she would need to figure it out soon. It was already past noon, and the moving van needed to be returned to the nearest U-Move rental station before it closed at 9:00 or she would be charged an enormous late fee. She decided she’d tackle that problem later after she opened the house and unloaded the moving van.

She viewed the move with mixed emotions. South Florida was a beautiful place with its palm trees, picture-perfect views, warm weather, and cloudless blue skies. Her father was still a practicing physician there, and her friends were there as well.

But she needed to distance herself from them, at least for a year or two. Marshall had begun to call and show up unannounced during the last few weeks.

At first, he was evasive for the reasons behind his sudden reappearance in her life. Finally, after much prodding by Kendy, he finally admitted that he wanted to reconcile. After their traumatic divorce, she was in no hurry to reunite with the man who ripped her heart out, no matter how much of a history they had together. It had taken most of the year, but she’d finally emerged from that nightmare of sudden divorce and was beginning to put her life back together as a single woman.

Her friends encouraged her to live the single life by going to bars and endless parties, to experience all the things she missed by marrying so young, but Kendy wasn’t ready for that and had no desire to do so. Until Marshall suddenly asked her for a divorce, she was ecstatically happy to be a wife.

Then her well-meaning father, who wanted to see his daughter married to another doctor, began to set up blind dates for her. None worked out to anyone’s satisfaction.

First, there was the cardiologist who was in his fifties, who had never married. He pressured Kendy for a commitment right away, proposing marriage on their third dinner date. Next came the divorced radiologist. He had three children but practically lived at the hospital.

Others followed. Maybe, Kendy realized later, she just didn’t want to be a doctor’s wife anymore. She had been a doctor’s wife for the better part of ten years and was living very nicely without the ever-ringing telephone, the emergencies, and the pagers.

Kendy dug through her leather handbag for the house key and then walked up the three steps to the front porch. She opened the stubbornly sticky door and stepped inside. It was all hers now. The big rooms with high ceilings and heating bills to match. The hardwood floors, the fireplace she’d loved to sit near when she was a child…all of it. She walked to the kitchen and looked out the window at the big back yard. She smiled at the rush of images that surfaced from her childhood. Especially sweet were her memories of climbing the old buckeye tree.

She winced. This was a family home, she had no family. Children needed to climb the buckeye tree and run up and down the hills. She had no children and probably never would, but not for a lack of want.

It was Jeni, her best friend from grade school, who had encouraged her to come back and make a fresh start. Jeni lived next door to Kendy while they were growing up and they stayed close after Kendy had relocated to Florida after her marriage to Marshall. Now, she was the proprietor of a trendy women and children’s boutique in the suburbs of Pittsburgh called Jen’s. Jeni had been selling Kendy’s home-made baby clothes in her boutique for several years and she wanted Kendy to expand her line.

This move gave Kendy the opportunity to stay home and work. Since she wanted to keep a low profile in Pittsburgh, it had been hard to resist Jeni’s offer.

She heard a knock at her front door and went to answer it. Hello, she said to the two girls who stood on her porch.

The older girl, a blonde, wearing a baseball cap, torn jeans, and a faded blue t-shirt that said Brighton Bears stepped forward. My name is Kimberly Payne, and this is my sister, Lacey.

I’m pleased to meet you.

We were wondering if you need a babysitter.

Kendy felt the familiar ache in her heart. It stabbed at her every time someone asked her if she had children. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any kids.

The younger girl, Lacey, whose dark hair made her the opposite of her sister, spoke.

Do you have any kind of job we could do? We’ll work hard. We’re trying to earn Christmas money.

Well, it’s only late September, you sure are getting an early start. Kendy smiled. They looked like such lovely young girls. Maybe she could be of help. But, as a matter of fact, I could use your help in my yard. It’s a big yard; the giant buckeye tree drops tons of buckeyes every autumn. I bet they’re falling as we speak.

The girls looked at each other and giggled.

I will pay you six dollars an hour each, but you need to go home and ask your mother first. Then you can let me know.

Kim spoke, We don’t have a mother. She died.

Oh, I’m so sorry, Kendy said.

That’s our dad on the porch watching, Kim said pointing to the house next door.

Kendy looked out the door in the direction of Kim’s pointing finger. On the porch of the house next to hers stood a tall, dark-haired man looking her way. Kendy wasn’t sure if she should acknowledge him or not and decided to step back.

Well, you need to ask your dad, and let me know if it’s okay with him.

It will be, Lacey smiled, her blue eyes beaming.

I really need to unload my moving van before it gets too dark out, so if you girls will excuse me. Kendy moved onto the porch.

We could help you.

Kendy heard Kim’s voice behind her and turned back. Pardon me?

I said, we could help you. You wouldn’t have to pay us either.

That’s so sweet of you. I could use your help, but you need to ask your father first.

They left the porch and scurried back toward their house while Kendy went to the moving van