Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

“I have to go earn a living. And I’m not going to be able to do that. Everything is so messed up. I may have to take the kids out of school. They might have to go to public school. I don’t know. I don’t know. But I... I am a mess.” A bubble of hysteria welled up in her chest. “I’m a mess. I’m not perfect. I’m not even close.”

“Where you going?” Alyssa asked as Avery stood and began to head toward the door.

“I think I have to go get a job.”

She walked out the door, and into the sunshine, and she looked around at the very familiar view of Bear Creek’s Main Street.

And suddenly, it felt new. And since everything around her was the same, she knew that the change had to be coming from inside of her.

21

It didn’t feel right, what happened at the audition. Sam says it’s normal for a director to need to see more of an actress. He says so many girls would be thrilled at the opportunity and he was mad at me for my lack of gratitude. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I just need to be tougher. This isn’t a small town. Things are different here.

Ava Moore’s diary, 1924

Hannah

She’d been out in the back having a sneaky cigarette and in general trying to avoid him after the horror that was three nights ago. And while she’d been standing out in the back, with the breeze rustling through the trees she’d found there wasn’t anything, nicotine or the vanilla perfume she put on her wrists, that smelled like Gram.

They’d gone back to his place.

They’d kissed. And oh...it had been amazing.

But it had hurt. The moment his lips had touched hers she’d been seventeen and thirty-six at the same time and she’d never felt anything like it.

She’d turned the casual hookup into an art form over the years. But where he’d touched her with his hands had burned like fire and her chest had felt like it was splitting in two.

And she’d run.

Literally had run away from him when his hand was halfway up her shirt because she’d been overcome by feelings. And she’d sneaked back into her bedroom, running from sex with Josh Anderson like she’d once sneaked out to have it with him.

And that was ridiculous.

Now she was trying to strike the balance between hiding from him like the coward she was and acting like that night hadn’t rocked her to her core.

She supposed facing him was the only option.

She looked around the backyard and then turned, slinking back into the sitting room, and then walking into the kitchen, where Josh was working.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, his blue gaze absolutely scalding.

“Hi,” she said, the word a stammer, which ruined everything.

One syllable had completely destroyed her intent at being cool. The cigarette was pointless now.

“Are we going to talk about what happened the other night?”

“Oh, wow. Read a room, Josh. I was clearly avoiding that.”

“Did I hurt you?” His expression was flat, focused and she had to look away from him.

“No! No. You kissed me, you didn’t... It’s just that...” She cleared her throat. “It’s...” Then something caught in her throat and she started coughing.

“It’s the damn cigarettes.”

“It’s you, dammit,” she shot back. “This town.”

“I didn’t do anything to you. You said you wanted to go to my place, you did. You wanted to stop, we did.”

She looked at him, his face covered with dark stubble, his jaw so perfectly formed and beautiful. And she had to be honest with herself, that maybe it had been easy to keep herself from getting involved with other men because no one had ever seemed quite so exceptional to her. Maybe the problem was her sexuality had imprinted on Josh Anderson a long time ago, and no matter how much she might wish it were otherwise, no matter how much she could find a guy who was close enough, and handsome or amusing, he just wasn’t him. And the other night had been...

It had been intense in a way she hadn’t been prepared for.

Isn’t that always the problem with him?

And do you really think that you deserve it?

Think about everything he doesn’t know about you...

“I thought... I thought we could just have some fun, okay? But you and I weren’t fun when we were seventeen,” Hannah said. “When we were all earnest and crazy and could only see things in terms of breaking up or staying together forever.”

The space between his eyebrows crinkled. “What are the other options?”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “Well, I guess there aren’t any.”

“So you were just thinking we’d hook up and...that’s it. We’d hook up. Get off and go on our way?”

“Yes,” she said, the word was lodged in her throat like a cement block. “You’re a single, attractive man in his thirties. A booty call shouldn’t be a foreign concept to you.”

“I don’t do that. I don’t hook up casually, and you know...it pisses me off that I was willing to do it for you, Hannah.”

That made her feel angry and small, and she didn’t like it. “I don’t believe you.”

“If I meet someone, and I’m interested, I have a relationship. I’m not averse to commitment. I just haven’t met the right person to keep me in it.” He shrugged. “But I don’t go into it thinking it will be temporary.”

“You don’t? Well, you’re a lot less jaded than I am.”

And she felt bitter about that. Really, quite bitter. Because her heart felt hard like obsidian and so much of it was related to what had happened between the two of them. To the way they had broken up. And he... He still believed in love? In the potential for forever?

Wow. You really are a horrendous bitch. You like the idea that you ruined him.

But maybe you just ruined yourself.

She wasn’t ruined. She was first chair for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and maybe not principal chair.

If it isn’t everything, it’s nothing.

“You