Chapter Eighteen
5 days left, or would be if it wasn’t already over.
The closer Sophie got to Rose Valley, the more anxious she became. Though her time at Oasis Canyon Spa and Resort hadn’t been a picnic of emotional tranquility, it’d been easier to deal with in a remote location, away from the “real world.” There, she could pretend that everything was as it should be. That she wasn’t there to heal a broken heart caused by a husband she never wanted in the first place. That it didn’t destroy her when she found out that he never wanted her forever.
She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that her fake marriage had become real to her. The moment the ice around her heart melted into a big puddle and evaporated with the warmth of her love for the man she was never meant to be with. Maybe when he announced her as his wife and plugged the bakery after his fight. Maybe when he told Grams the story of how she met her husband. Maybe when he did his best to beat her at the carnival games or when he freaked out at the top of the broken-down ride. Either way, it didn’t really matter when it happened. All that mattered was that it had. And just like so many before him, he’d planned on walking away from her.
Initially, she’d been devastated. Blindsided. She hadn’t seen that coming. Not really, anyway. There’d been a part of her—the realistic part—that never truly believed they’d stay together, that had expected it to end eventually. They didn’t make sense together, not on paper. The pierced, tatted, messy baker with the clean-cut, neat freak, health-crazed fighter? Not exactly a perfect match. But she’d thought they matched well in the areas that mattered, like their humor and personalities…and in the bedroom.
Yet everything the girl in Xander’s office had told her was true. He was about to realize his dream of getting back onto the professional circuit. With his heart and tenacity, he’d rise up in the ranks quickly. With his British accent and boyish charm, he’d be a media darling. He was a bachelor in his prime—the women would be crawling all over him. It didn’t make sense for him to tie himself down.
And, she reminded herself for the millionth time, their arrangement was never meant to be a relationship. They got married to thwart her scheming uncle and ended up needing to stay married for six months to pull it off. It was something he’d wanted to do for her, to save her grandmother’s bakery, but not something either had intended to be permanent. It was her own fault for letting her heart get ensnared by a trap that didn’t even exist.
So for the last week, she’d focused on herself. On embracing her inner strength and harnessing it to heal herself. She didn’t want to feel broken or rejected like she had after things ended with Jared. This wasn’t the same situation. Xander wasn’t rejecting her, exactly; he was rejecting being in a relationship when he had more important things to focus on.
At least, that’s what she’d been telling herself. It didn’t sting quite as much that way.
Sophie pulled into the Golden Ages parking lot and felt the tightness in her chest ease a little. Her spa vacation had been great in so many ways, but not seeing Grams for so long had worn on her. She hadn’t realized how vital their weekly visits were to her until she forced herself to skip one. Hell, she’d had to leave the resort early because the need to see her had been gnawing at her more with each passing day.
So she’d left and made the trek back home to Rose Valley. Since she couldn’t go back to Xander’s place and the renter above the bakery wouldn’t be out until the end of the month, Sophie would just crash at Kristin’s for a few days. No big deal.
Then all she had to do was figure out how to go back to working at the place that faced her ex-husband’s apartment and made her accessible to him at any time.
Fucking hell, the tightness was back, squeezing the ever-loving life out of her lungs.
Closing her eyes, Sophie used the meditation techniques she learned over the last week. Deep breath in…clear the mind…exhale out… Good energy in…bad energy out… There. Much better. She could totally do this. And if not, she’d worry about that later. Right now, all she wanted was to see Grams, hug her frail frame, and take in her lavender and sugar scent.
Walking through the front doors brought with it a wave of serenity. Over the past few years, Golden Ages had been such a blessing. The facility, the staff, and the high-level of care Grams got gave Sophie the peace of mind she needed to focus her attention on running the Sweet Spot. She never worried about how Grams was being treated or whether she was being neglected. She’d entrusted the staff with the person most precious in the world to her, and they’d become like a second family to her.
Stephanie was at the front desk and smiled warmly in greeting, but was preoccupied with one of the residents. Sophie waved and moved on to her grandmother’s room when she didn’t see her in the common area. When she got there, she stopped in the doorway, surprised at what she saw. Grams sat in her armchair by the window with one of the other residents, Mr. Edwards, wearing his too-snug velour tracksuit, sitting across the small table from her. They were playing a game of Old Maid and Sophie watched in amusement as Mr. Edwards very pointedly manipulated Grams into choosing his last regular card so that he was stuck with the Old Maid, losing the game on purpose.
“I win,” she said proudly, placing her last pair on the table.
“Well, dang, Marjorie, you’ve gone and done it again.” Mr. Edwards gave her a wink. “Can’t say as I’m too upset, though. Winning puts that pretty flush in your cheeks and makes your eyes twinkle.”
Grams giggled—literally giggled—and blushed clear to her white roots. “Oh, hush. Your eyesight is probably as bad as that outfit. You should let your wife dress you in the morning.”
Sophie knew that Mr. Edwards’s wife passed more than ten years ago, but Grams wouldn’t remember that. He was a sweet man who lived at Golden Acres because of his severe epilepsy and no local family.
“Aw, Marjorie,” he said, “you know old Butch ain’t got eyes for any woman but you. How about we go for a walk in the garden?”
Grams’s hand moved up to the collar of her shirt, her fingers fiddling with the ribbed elastic. “Oh, I don’t know…” Her head turned to the doorway and her face lit up with partial recognition before it dimmed with the inability to place her own granddaughter. Sophie swallowed the disappointment, as she did every time, and entered the room.
“Hello, Miss Sophie,” Mr. Edwards said, purposely helping Grams out. “Marjorie, look, it’s your granddaughter, Sophie, come to visit. Ain’t she a sight for sore eyes?”
“Yes, Sophie,” she repeated without making the connection. “Hello, dear, it’s so good to see you! Come in, come in,” she said, waving her over.
As Mr. Edwards passed Sophie, she stopped him and whispered some advice she hoped would help. “She likes dancing. No music necessary.”
Lifting her hand, the old man placed a kiss on her knuckles, winked his gratitude, then strode out of the room, whistling. Sophie chuckled and took the open seat across from her grandmother after a brief hello hug. She missed the days when Grams would keep her arms around her for seemingly endless minutes, claiming she needed to get her hugging time in before Sophie got too old for them. “How’ve you been, Grams? Looks like Mr. Edwards still has the hots for you. You should give the poor man a chance one of these days.”
Grams waved her hand dismissively then gathered the playing cards into a pile. “Pssh. That man probably plays cards with every woman on the floor, if you know what I mean.”
Sophie gasped. “Grams!”
Her grandmother chuckled. “Don’t sound so scandalized, dear,” she said, studying Sophie. “I doubt you’re the type.” She’s got you there, Soph. Grams frowned, half a dozen wrinkles stretching across her forehead when her brows drew together. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing. What makes you think something’s wrong?”
That made Grams pause as she tried to think of an answer. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know. I just do. I can see it in your eyes.”
Averting her gaze, Sophie peered out the window at the manicured grounds, landscaped with colored stones and decorative cacti surrounding the various paths.
“Come here, sweetie.”
Grams patted her lap, like she used to when Sophie was a little girl. Not for her to sit on, but to curl up next to her and lay her head where Grams could stroke her hair as she soothed whatever hurt Sophie had. The disease might have taken away most of her memories, but who she was as a person and some of her innate instincts were still there, and Sophie couldn’t be more grateful.
She moved to the floor by Grams’s feet, hugged her knees to her chest, and rested her head in her grandmother’s lap. Breathing deeply, she willed herself not to cry, not to let the swarming emotions stirring inside of her get the best of her. But at the first touch of soft fingers by her temple, Sophie was helpless to stop it. Hot tears spilled from the corners of her eyes as her throat closed up tight.
“Do you have a broken heart?” Grams asked softly, running her hands lightly over Sophie’s long hair. She nodded. “Did someone else break it, or did you?”
Sniffling, she answered. “What kind of question is that, Grams? You can’t break your own heart.”
“Of course you can. I broke mine several times.”
Sophie lifted her head and stared up at her grandmother. “What are you talking about? You and Gramps had an amazing marriage, you told me about it all the time.”
“I had a wonderful marriage with a man who loved me very much. But I didn’t always believe that. When I was young, I feared he would leave me for someone else. On several occasions, I caused problems where there were none. Three times, if I remember correctly.”
Sophie didn’t want to point out the irony at the idea she actually was remembering correctly. The fact that she was recollecting something from her twenties made it likely, since she had a lot of her long-term memories. It was the last twenty years or so that were more or less gone.
“What did you do?”
“I read too much into things he said or assumed he meant one thing when he was saying another. One time I even let the lies of a jealous woman poison my mind. In each case, he did everything he could to reassure me that I was what he wanted, but I didn’t listen very well. Every time I thought I’d lost him, it broke my heart. It took me a while to realize that I was the one breaking it. After that, I stopped borrowing trouble. I believed in our love and in us, and we lived a wonderful life at each other’s sides.”
Sophie looked at her grandmother through a new lens; one that was beautifully flawed. Grams had always seemed so perfect to her. Strong, independent, master of her life and her business. She never imagined her as an insecure young woman. It was comforting. Reassuring in that Sophie might have her shit together every bit as much as Grams had. And what she’d said… Is that what Sophie had done with Xander? Had she projected her own fears and insecurities into the situation?
She supposed it was possible since she never spoke to him directly. But he had divorce papers drawn up. That wasn’t her projecting; that was him in possession of the thing that would dissolve their marriage like they’d always intended.
Oh God, what if that was why he had them? Because he assumed she still wanted to end things? Or maybe he had them for all the reasons that woman said?
Fuck! Either way, she’d made a mess of this. She’d convinced herself that she left to embrace her independence, to reclaim the woman she’d been before Xander James had stormed into her office, kissed her breath away, and turned her world upside down.
But what she’d really done was run away. Whether the divorce papers were there because he wanted out or because he thought she did, she should have stayed and talked with him about it first.
Grams tucked a jade lock of hair behind Sophie’s ear and wiped a stray tear from her cheek. And that’s when she saw it. A glimmer of cognizance, of recognition. “Why so sad, sugarplum?”
Choking back a sob, Sophie did her best to stay focused on taking advantage of this miraculous moment with her grandmother—this woman who’d raised her—instead of wasting it by focusing on the rarity of it. Swallowing past the regret in her throat, she whispered hoarsely, “I think I broke my own heart, Grams.”
A sympathetic smile lifted the corner of her thin lips, her eyes bright with glorious lucidity. “I know how much that hurts, but there’s good news that comes along with that.”
“What is it?”
“You broke it, so you can fix it.”
Sophie shook her head. “I don’t know if I can. I mean, I may have just beat him to it.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “Be brave, my sweet Sophie. Fortune may favor the bold, but so does love.”
A breath shuddered from her lungs as a hundred things she wanted to say to her grandmother fought for precedence. A noise out in the hall from a resident walking past drew the old woman’s attention. Sophie studied her profile, soft and beautiful and strong. “God, I miss you, Grams.”
“What was that, dear?” she said, her gaze returning. Apprehension etched itself into the wrinkles around her confused eyes, and in that moment, Sophie knew… Grams was gone again. “My goodness, honey, are you all right? Do you need help?”
If she let herself, Sophie could cry a river from the grief of what felt like losing her grandmother yet again. But instead she concentrated on being thankful for the gift of those precious, lucid minutes she’d had with her at a time she really needed her.
“Not anymore, Grams. I’ll be fine.” Getting to her feet, Sophie placed a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back on Sunday with some cake truffles.”
Her face lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Oh, I love cake truffles.”
Sophie couldn’t stop her answering smile. “I had a feeling you did. Love you, Grams.” Before she reached the hallway, she added—futile though it may be—over her shoulder, “Be nice to Mr. Edwards.”
On her way to the front entrance, butterflies kicked up in her stomach at the idea of seeing Xander. She wasn’t sure what kind of reception she’d get. Since she’d cut off all communication with him, she had no idea what he thought about all of this. Was he pissed? Annoyed? Relieved? Like Grams said, there was only one way to find out. The hard part would be waiting for him to get back from California.
“Sophie, I have something for you.”
Turning around, she walked back to where Stephanie stood behind the front desk. “What’s up, Steph?”
“Our copier was on the fritz again when your hubby was here the other day, but it’s working now and this copy is yours,” she said, handing Sophie a piece of paper.
Trying not to panic because another woman was handing her a form of Xander’s—also, why the hell had he been at Golden Ages?—she took the paper with unsteady hands. “What is it?”
“It’s his receipt and copy of the funds transfer.”
She scanned the document but only captured bits and pieces. Xander’s name. A large sum of money listed. Bank account information. “Stephanie, I don’t understand. What is this for?”
Now the young woman appeared nervous, shifting her weight. “Didn’t he tell you? Your uncle isn’t paying for Marjorie’s care anymore. Your husband is. He’s paid for the next six months in advance.”
Sophie’s mouth almost unhinged in shock. “Why isn’t my uncle paying for it anymore?”
Stephanie looked around nervously before whispering, “Look, I don’t know the details. All I know is that the ACH debit for September came back with ‘insufficient funds.’ He was given a grace period for a month, but the other day Mr. James came in and said that he’d be taking care of it from now on and we switched everything over. I assumed you would’ve known all that, I’m sorry.”
“No apologies necessary, Stephanie. I’ve been…out of town with bad cell reception and haven’t seen Xander yet. Thank you for getting this to me. See you next week.”
And with that, Sophie left Golden Ages with a single purpose: to get to her husband and figure out whether he was just one hell of a good Samaritan, or if maybe he was still in the market for a wife.