Page 6 of Fall Love
What an asshole that guy is.
I’d give anything to have a baby. Not something guys typically say, but I’m a man who always wanted love and marriage and a baby or two in a carriage.
Funny how life never works out the way you plan.
Like meeting an incredible woman on the eve of a new year, only to lose her the next day.
CHAPTER 3
[Neve]
Tate Love.
He’s local royalty, although I am certain he no longer lives around here. Not with that impeccable suit. Not with that perfectly messed-up hair, russet brown and waving over his head, curling perfectly around his ears and flipping up at his nape. The strands are longer than I remember. More of a handful to dig my fingers into when there will be no finger digging. Not with the likes of him.
Every small town around here has a quirky origin story. Lovewell Landing is no different. Ours stems from a shipwreck. Think Rose actually letting Jack on that door in the Titanic movie. The two somehow make it through frigid Atlantic waters to an inlet of Maine. Jack Love realizes they need fresh water, and by some miracle, there is a well near the base of a tree less than half a mile from the beach.
Very Tuck Everlasting, one of my favorite books.
Jack revived Rose Wells, who was near death according to the legend. The Wells and the Loves had been raised to despise one another, although no one can remember why. Only that the Wells and the Loves were nemeses. However, despite all Rose and Jack had been conditioned to think about the other person’s family, they fell in love, or so the folklore goes.
The dirty-minded set believes Jack might have used a little body heat to help revive Rose, as well.
Either way, the tale is a favorite around here, especially at this time of year when ghost stories heighten. The legend claims Rose and Jack often bickered but had a happy marriage. They established the town. Connected hearts led to connected names: Lovewell. Even in death, some two hundred years ago, they have not been separated from that well and from playing games with hearts that go near it.
Drink from the well, find a true love.
Total gibberish as I’ve drunk from the well several times and nothing happened.
Not love everlasting or an elongated life.
However, not all Loves and Wells celebrated the joining of their families. The Loves are still prominent in town, including the town mayor and his twin sister, the quirky town historian. Strangely, the Loves are notorious for having fraternal twins. A boy and a girl.
Then again, twins run in my family, too.
Thankfully, I am only having one child, a daughter. Finding out I was pregnant was difficult enough. I’m months from turning forty, and having a child was not on my bingo card.
Lumi is the motherly type in our family. She had a surprise pregnancy as well, when she was much younger. Danny has grown into an amazing adult, capable and confident. He’d escaped to New York, like some do from the area.
But not me. And I miss my older sister right now.
She’s my constant resource for all things pregnancy-related, plus my best friend, and I could really use her advice for this new clusterfuck.
Tate Love has returned.
“I’m sorry Lumi isn’t here to speak with you.” A hint is there for him to leave. I don’t want to keep staring at his mussed-up hair and pretty eyes. Or that mouth that did deliciously nasty things to me. I don’t want him to be kind, like lifting my short legs and propping my swollen feet on an ugly, orange chair.
He shouldn’t be in Rusty’s Wrecks. He shouldn’t be anywhere near Lovewell Landing.
Lovewell never leaves you lonely.
The newest town slogan cracks me up. It only emphasizes how people are well-meaning but nosy as fuck.
And Tate doesn’t take the hint. Instead, he lingers, pressing off the plastic chair where he’d been leaning over my swollen feet inside steel-toed boots.
He stares out the front window, clean but still clouded by sea salt spray. The ocean seems to cling to everything in some way or another.
“It’s a beautiful view,” he murmurs, slipping his hands into his suit pants pockets.
