The Next Day (Foothills Book 2) by Carrie Thorne (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

madly in love with a boy she met at college. They’ve planned the ceremony at this fancy hotel at Lake Tahoe.”

“Why not at Uncle Joe’s place? Doesn’t he still have the cabin there?”

“He does, but they’re planning a huge reception. I was actually hoping you’d agree to go.” Her mother smiled winningly, showing every pearly tooth in her mouth.

Groaning, Freya set her coffee on the step between her feet and scrunched her fingers in her hair, the curls still damp and tangled. “I’ve reached that age, haven’t I? Everyone’s getting married. I see no point in flying out to a cousin’s wedding I haven’t seen in ten years.”

“That whole side of the family came to your wedding.”

“And I still wish they hadn’t.” She cringed.

“Just because you didn’t show up doesn’t mean they weren’t at least there to support you.”

“I didn’t not show up… I just… I’d changed my mind.”

“And hopped on the first flight out of the country.” Tammy’s voice oozed with disappointment, the regret still palpable.

“Can we not go over this again? Randy wasn’t the one–and no one hates this more than I do–that I didn’t figure it out until an hour before the ceremony. And he’s happily married and living in Bellingham now.”

Tammy wrapped her arm around Freya’s shoulder and hugged her tight. “I know, Sweetie. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It might feel good to see everyone again, flaunt your success a bit. Now if only you had that sexy Italian fiancé to show off, that would help.”

Snorting, Freya’s abdomen bubbled with laughter. Only her mother would suggest braggery to fix hard feelings. “If it means that much to you, I’ll go. Giovanni was pretty, but he was an egotistical ass, and we had nothing but pheromones to keep us afloat.”

“You and your pheromones,” her mother rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth turned up in a soft smile. “He was tasty eye candy.”

Freya giggled, “Wow, Mom. Eye candy?”

“You’re a beautiful woman, and you two looked awfully nice together.”

“You and Dad look nice together.” Freya rose to her feet and reached out her hands, hoisting her mother up. “I’ll go to the wedding.”

“Maybe give them a painting for a gift? And see if you can find a date?”

Like a fishhook snagged in her cheek, she relented to the ironic smile. Freya often wondered where she had come from. She was the spitting image of her father, but being the only artist of her thirty-nine cousins and seventeen aunts and uncles, an only child of very traditional parents, she was accustomed to being the odd-woman out.

“I’ll throw together a quick something. Send me a picture of them and I’ll do charcoal since my other supplies are probably still somewhere over the Atlantic?”

Tammy beamed, “That would be such a nice gift.”

“That will be fun. The date thing? That might be a bit of a stretch.”

Feet pounding down the garage apartment stairs interrupted the silence as Tammy wracked her brain to answer that one. Freya watched as Zane left his apartment with little more than a glance in her direction, her pulse fluttering out of her skin that screamed of pheromones shooting her direction, but then he hopped in his truck and drove away.

Oblivious, her mother didn’t notice Freya’s cheeks heat red as she wondered if the face and the personality were as tempting as the rest of him.

“Seth Lawless just moved home after finishing his medical residency. His mother is in my Zumba class.”

Closing her eyes, Freya shook her head in a valiant last effort to prevent another of her mother’s fixups. “No, please, just don’t.”

“You remember Seth. Wasn’t he a handsome one?”

“Yes. Which is why I lost my virginity to him at my sweet sixteen party.”

Tammy looked like she’d swallowed a bird, her voice even chirping like it. “You never told me that.”

“Love you, Mom, but there are a lot of things I’ve never told you.”

Scowling, her mother rested her hand on Freya’s arm, running her thumb over the oleander bloom tattoo she’d traded a portrait for a few years back. “I guess that’s motherhood. When you have children one day, you’ll understand.”

Freya shrugged, not wanting to answer.

Typical, her mother didn’t miss it. “I know you’re jaded right now. Two broken engagements would do that to anyone. But you’ll find the right someone, I know it.”

Biting her lips together, Freya nodded. Her voice coming out a hoarse rasp, she muttered, “Three.”

“Three?”

“I never even told you about Vince.”

“The boy you were dating from Florida?”

She nodded, biting her lips together again.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry. I knew you really liked him.”

Liked was an understatement. Once she’d recovered from the guilt over leaving Randy at the altar, she’d felt alive. And more recently, after Giovanni, she felt a strange optimism, like she wasn’t getting roped in for a lifetime of living someone else’s dream. But Vince… that had been awful. She’d drowned in his pheromones, which he’d shared with half of their class. Apparently, he lacked the objective eye their instructor had pushed, and enjoyed having their classmates model nude for him… but felt they were much more relaxed if they’d slept with him first.

Nausea rolled in her stomach, remembering his flippant expression when she found out, claiming she’d never be the artist he was if she couldn’t loosen up about that sort of thing. She hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell her mother about the embarrassingly brief engagement.

“It’s okay. We’d only been engaged for about twelve hours before I ended things.”

Her mom yanked her close and wrapped her arms around her. “Okay. No date.”

Inhaling her mother’s familiar lilac scent, she felt her muscles untense, the threatening tears fade away. “I still date. Regularly and enjoyably. Just no visions of wedding bells. Please. I’m done.