Always and Forever

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Dedication

To Franca

Who steers me in the right direction

And who I repay with voodoo doll jabs

Colorado or bust, bb!

Sex, Desires & Rock n’ Roll

Truth & Temptation

Chapter 1

I’m staring out my store window watching Brody Kelly walking down the sidewalk across
the street and briefly picture him as one of those ducks in that arcade shooting game.
I pull my right hand up, pointer finger out and thumb up as if my hand’s a gun, squint
an eye closed, aim and take my shot.

“Piper Knowlton!” my older sister Greer calls from behind me.

I turn around, caught red-handed and have the decency to look guilty. “I know,” I
say.

She walks over to where I’m standing. “You know, a rifle would do a much better job.”
She holds her right hand up the same as I had but brings her left up and out as if
she’s holding the gun barrel, aiming it at Brody, and I die laughing.

“And that’s one of the many reasons you’re my favorite sister,” I say through my giggles.

“Ha ha. I’m your only sister, you jerk.” She turns her “gun” on me now. “Say something
nice or you get it.”

“You’re the best sister anyone could ever have!” I respond to appease her silliness,
holding my hands up in surrender.

Lowering her arms she nods. “That’s what I thought.” She glances out the window watching
as Brody goes inside Maggie’s Diner, the best eating establishment this side of the
Mississippi. “You still haven’t gotten any info from anyone?”

“Nope. As far as I know, Brody’s reason was
the
reason.” I roll my eyes.

“And you’re sure he’s not dating?”

Ouch.

“I don’t think so. Ryan said she’s kept a close eye on him and hasn’t seen or heard
anything.”

Ryan Stratton has been my best friend since she moved to Serenity Point, Virginia,
our seventh grade year. She now owns The Mane Event, the one hair salon in town, and
hears all the latest town gossip firsthand, so after Brody and I broke up, she officially
declared herself warden of any wooing he might consider undertaking. I actually think
she hopes he does try dating someone else because she won’t stop telling me how eager
she is to put to use the Taekwondo skills she’s been learning in her class at the
gym on Monday nights if she catches him.

“And even after the googly eyes he was giving you at the New Year’s Eve party he still
hasn’t tried calling?” Greer asks with a frown.

“Nope.” I sigh. “I guess it really is over.” I frown too when I see one of the antique
tables in my store has a drawer pulled out. I walk over and close it and get ready
for the tears to come as they always do when I see Brody, and what’s weird is, they
don’t. Hm.

It’s been over a year since Brody and I broke up and it hasn’t been a lot of fun.
I mean, Jesus, we’d been together since we were sophomores in high school. He’d been
my first everything. He’d been my only everything. And I thought I knew him but apparently
not.

As for the breakup, if you’ve ever gone through one where the other party refuses
to talk to you, just insists it’s over without any logical explanation, then you feel
my pain. And although being without him hurts, I think what hurts worse is how it
ended.

I’d been out of town because Greer had just given birth to my gorgeous niece Addison
and when I’d come back, Brody had acted strangely toward me, closed off and distant.
I’d asked him several times what was wrong but he’d played it off, saying he was just
stressed about his job since he’d just become a fireman. Then a month later right
before Christmas, he picked a fight with me over how many kids we’d have when we got
married. I say
when
because that’s how sure I’d been about our relationship. Talking about our future
kids was normal since I knew we’d be together forever. Anyway, he’d known from the
beginning that I always said two was the most I wanted and he’d wholeheartedly agreed.
Then out of the blue he started insisting that we have five, and suddenly it was all
five kids or freakin’ bust. I’d been so confused about where that’d come from especially
since he’d taken such a strong stand about it, getting red in the face as we argued
for three days about it.

Now, of course we’d had heated arguments before, just like any couple, but we almost
always resolved our differences in a matter of hours then proceeded to have awesome
makeup sex. But when the great “I’ve changed my mind and want you to squeeze five
of my spawn out of your vagina” argument kept going, I became concerned, wondering
what was making him so adamant that we have enough kids to form a boyband.

On the evening of the third day of our argument, things had cooled a bit and we’d
made love. Afterward, as we’d been lying there, me in his arms thinking we’d finally
resolved things and thanking God that he’d come to his senses in deciding to spare
my lady bits the trauma of birthing three more children than I wanted to, he’d abruptly
moved me off of him and sat up, putting his feet on the floor. He then sat at the
edge of my bed, head in his hands and I had no clue what was going on. When I’d heard
him let out a shuddering breath, I’d gotten on my knees and gone to him, wrapping
my arms around his neck from behind, asking what was wrong.

And that’s when he’d told me he “couldn’t do this anymore” and that we were over then
he’d gotten dressed and left.

Just like that.

Silly, huh?

But I’d just given him a surprise birthday party at Jen’s Jamming Joint, Serenity
Point’s local bar, the week before when he’d turned twenty-eight for cripes’ sake!
But during the weeks leading up to the party, he’d seemed on the verge of telling
me something and before I ever heard what he wanted to say, we were finished.

Kaput.

Over.

Done.

Of course, I knew the “let’s have enough kids to match how many seconds in which you
can safely eat something you dropped on the floor rule” thing was a ridiculous reason
and had to be an excuse for something he was trying to cover up. I’d cornered him
at his parents’ house the next day and asked what the real reason was that we’d broken
up, but he’d stuck with the same stupid story making me want to smack him. I’d sought
him out for two weeks straight after that, wherever he happened to be—in Mags’ getting
lunch, in the shower (I still had a key to his doublewide trailer), in the bathroom
at Jen’s—begging him to explain things to me but still got nowhere. Hell, I’d even
made a last-ditch attempt to embarrass the truth out of him by confronting him at
the firehouse in front of his fellow firemen (I know, lame, but I’d been brokenhearted
and desperate and clearly out of my mind), and when he’d looked at me coldly telling
me for the twentieth time it was because he wanted five kids, I’d given up.

Then I’d gone home, crawled into bed, and cried my eyes out.

Unfortunately, small-town breakups are the worst. I swear, everyone in Serenity Point
knew we’d broken up three seconds after the fact. That next day I probably got thirty
calls from people telling me how sorry they were that things hadn’t worked out between
Brody and me. On top of that, it amazed me that women who I’d thought were my friends,
like, my entire life, had asked if I minded if they asked Brody out! Stacia Mackie
and Bethany Yates were now and forever on my shitlist. Backstabbing bitches. But the
overall shittiest thing of living somewhere with a small population is that I’ve had
to see him almost every day since, which hasn’t helped in the healing process one
bit.

So now here it is January, coming up on the thirteenth month anniversary of our relationship’s
demise and I surprisingly hadn’t gotten teary-eyed when I’d seen him.

“Greer…” I turn to face her and just stand there, my mouth hanging open as I blink
at her.

She’s moving a flower arrangement to a different table before she stops and turns
to look at me. “What?”

“I saw Brody,” I say.

Her brow comes down and I have to smile because she looks so much like our mom right
then, her long hair in a French braid down her back and her green eyes looking at
me curiously. She’s no taller than I am, or Mom for that matter, all of us petite,
barely making it over five feet, we all have the same strawberry blond hair, but where
they both have green eyes, mine are blue.

So as Greer gazes at me, I finally see the lightbulb come on as her eyes get big.

“You didn’t cry,” she says quietly as if she’s stunned.

I shake my head slowly, just as shocked as she is.

This is huge, monumental even.

I bring my thumb to my mouth and bite on the nail, a bad habit I’ve had since birth,
I think. “Does that mean I’m over him?” I whisper.

She purses her lips and shrugs. “I don’t know, Pipe. Let’s just say it’s a start,
okay?”

I nod uncertainly, feeling sort of bad for not choking up at seeing him. I mean, I’ve
been doing it for the past year and I’m kind of used to it, but now all of a sudden
the waterworks have stopped? So weird and a little scary all at the same time.

“Strange,” I mutter. Then I shrug too, deciding I’ll mull it over later. “You ready
to help sand Mrs. Mackalhay’s armoire?”

She lets out an irritated breath. “As I’ll ever be. I actually think it’s toning my
arms, though, which is kinda cool,” she says, sticking an arm out and shaking it.
I chuckle before we go to the back of the store to work on my latest project.

I opened Knowlton’s Knick Knacks three years ago and love everything about it. I started
out leaning toward it being an all antique shop, but when I’d gone on road trips to
check out other stores and get ideas, I’d come across so many cool things I decided
hodgepodge was the way to go. I’ve always had a pretty eclectic sense of style, combining
anything and everything from contemporary to classic to rustic to industrial, and
after opening, I immediately had a steady flow of customers because I guess people
liked the combination of those styles too as they came from all over Virginia and
the surrounding states to purchase my wares. And they keep coming back because if
I don’t have it, I can almost always find it and I think they like that I’m willing
to go the extra mile for them.

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