Page 3 of Choose You

My arm freezes midair. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he didn’t sign the contract. Meaning, he didn’t sell you the house. It’s not yours.”

My arm falls and my beer hits the island counter with a loud clunk. “But we had an agreement.”

“Maybe so, but without his signature, it doesn’t mean anything. The decision reverts to the eldest Evans child. If you want to buy this house, you’re going to have to convince Jessica to sign the contract.”

All I can see in this moment are endless tears running down Emmie’s face. I just told her this house was ours forever and now I have to tell her I was wrong. There’s no way in hell Jessica will agree to sell me this house. “Well, fuck.”

CHAPTER 1

JESSICA

Regrets. I fucking hate them, and I’m sinking further into the deep abyss of my regrets with no sight of the light at the other end. Every decision I’ve made over the past five years suddenly feels like the wrong decision.

It started when my parents died. Then only got worse when my brother, Ryan, moved away to play baseball. To top things off, the love of my life married another woman. I turned my back on my small hometown in northern Montana, and poured all my energy into my outdoor clothing company. There wasn’t a lot left there for me anyway.

Now, I feel like I missed out on everything that was really important. I’m suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of loneliness and loss.

Family is everything.

That’s what my daddy always said. Yet Ryan and I walked away from the last remaining relative we had—our Uncle Jimmy.

And now he’s gone, too.

He was found dead two days ago in his bed by one of the farmhands he’d hired to help with this season’s grape harvest. It kills me that he died alone. It shouldn’t have been like that.

All those ignored calls and broken promises about coming home for a visit come crashing down on me like a thick sludge of goo. I haven’t been home in five years, and it’s been at least a year since I returned one of myuncle’s calls. With his passing, the only family I have left is my brother. No other aunts or uncles. No cousins. No grandparents. Nobody.

Yeah, I’ve got regrets.

The spout cap to the tea kettle I put on the stove finally blows off with a loud clank, dragging me out of my thoughts. The whistle signaling the water is ready barely registered before the cap blew. Now that’s all I can hear, echoing in my aching head.

Rushing from my bedroom and into the kitchen, I quickly remove the kettle and turn off the stove. I developed a headache after I received the call about Uncle Jimmy, and it’s lingering, refusing to go away.

Our family’s lifelong attorney, Richard, was the one to call. His delivery of the news came across as cold and heartless. He doesn’t exactly have a gentle tone. He’s getting up there in age, and was always a little rough around the edges. It didn’t help that he and I never got along. I would’ve preferred anyone had called me but him.

Who else did I expect to call to tell me such news?

No one.

Because there is no one else to do such things.

Ryan and I are all Uncle Jimmy had.

I may not have visited in a long time, but just knowing Uncle Jimmy was there kept me connected to the place I’d once called home. Now that he’s gone, I feel like my lifeline has been severed, and my existence is slowly being drained out of me.

It’s an odd feeling, and I don’t really know how to describe what’s happening to me. My chest is tight, and my lungs feel heavy, like I can’t take in enough oxygen. I’m convinced that the only way to make all this go away is to be in Watercress Falls. Like somehow standing on my family’s land will reconnect me, and this heaviness will be lifted. Maybe then, I’ll be able to breathe normally again, and my headache will go away.

It hadn’t been my intention to build a life in Seattle. It was a temporary stopping point while I was in college. But when I finished school, I started a business. Once my company, Flathead Apparel, was up and running, I’d planned to move back to Watercress Falls and run it from home. It was my dream to take over the family business,Rush Creek Vineyard, while adding my own line of outdoor apparel to the mix.

But that takeover never happened. Fourteen years later, I still live in Seattle. The more time that passed, the easier it was to stay than to go home and face all that I’d lost.

How could I go home?

My parents died and the man who promised to marry me married another woman. Matthew broke my heart more than once over the years, but marrying someone else nearly destroyed me.

I shudder and pour the steaming water into a mug prepped with peppermint tea. The last person I want to see is Matthew, but going home makes that inevitable. I hope I’m ready for the onslaught of emotions that reunion will stir.

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