Page 4 of The Best Laid Plans

He nodded. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

I didn’t want to love it.

I didn’t want to see it.

All I wanted was peace and quiet.

Chris’s face flashed through my head—a vivid, and painful, reminder.

The fact that I didn’t want to do any of this didn’t really matter.

But as I disconnected the video call with the lawyer and scrolled through flight options that would get me to the small airport in Traverse City, with one short stop in Chicago, I knew that peace and quiet just might have to wait.

The email from the lawyer included the phone number for C. Cunningham—the project manager whom I was, for all intents and purposes, hitched to in this insanity for the time being. I called the number and held my breath while it rang. And rang. And rang.

A disembodied voice told me that the number I was trying to reach was unavailable, and I hung up instead of leaving a message.

“Shit.” I tossed my phone onto the table.

The flight options—including one leaving the next day—triggered a jittery sort of panic. Something I wasn’t used to feeling.

Since the day I knew I was meant to play football, something my dad had always drilled into me, my path was extraordinarily easy to follow. The thing I was working toward was clear. Everything else came second.

Everything in my life had been sacrificed at that altar, for good or for bad.

Now I had two options: the path I wanted to take and the path that fucking Chris and his unknown intentions had seemingly picked for me.

For the first time in my life, I felt uneasy about what to do.

But when I tore my gaze away from the boxes and it landed on his face in that picture, I knew there was only one option.

“Chris, you asshole,” I said. “You better have had a good reason for this.”

I sent my sister a text telling her that I’d be late arriving in Florida.

And I clicked “Book” on the first flight out the next day.

Chapter Two

CHARLOTTE

“Charlotte Marie Cunningham, I know you’re up there.”

I buried my head in my hands. “No, I’m not.”

Aunt Daphne snorted, the sound dwarfed by the monumental creak of the first step that led to my favorite spot in the house. “Someone needs to fix this damn step,” she muttered. “I feel like I’m going to fall through these stairs every time I walk on them.”

“Keep your weight to the side of the treads; the middle is rotting out.”

“Oh goody.”

I smiled, but it was sad.

I loved those rotting steps. I loved the creaks. The soft spots and the crumbling plaster. From the window seat in the upstairs back bedroom, I could stare through the wavy glass over the property. It faced the bay, and it was my favorite view in the entire world.

My fingers traced the window’s imperfections while Daphne made her way up the stairs, cursing the entire time.

“There she is,” she said. “When the carriage house was empty, I figured you’d be up here hiding.”