A Walk Down the Aisle. Holly Jacobs

rich. A poor little rich girl? You came here and worked as a PR person. You found a simple farmer and thought, Gee, that’ll show my parents?”

      “I came here and worked at a job I’d been preparing for since birth. Public perception is everything in my family. My parents could be fighting, screaming at each other, then hold hands and be all smiles for a party. I learned how to present a public face at birth. I simply took all those tools they gave me and turned it into a job. I take the wineries and give them a public face.”

      For a moment, he thought she was going to cry, and that would be his undoing, but she didn’t. She simply said, “And when I came here, I planned on finding a place I could build a home. I came looking for a community. I didn’t plan on finding love. Frankly, I didn’t plan to ever marry. Especially...”

      “Especially what?” he asked. “You didn’t plan on marrying, especially not a farmer? Not a man who comes home covered in dirt? A man who rhapsodizes over a new tractor, not the newest opera? A man who wears a cowboy hat and lives in a house his family has owned for generations?”

      “I never planned on marrying...especially not a man as perfect as you.”

      * * *

      SOPHIE WAITED, PREPARING herself for more of Colton’s questions or accusations. “I want to tell you—” she started.

      But he shook his head. “Sophie, it’s obvious that you aren’t the woman I thought you were. I’m not saying this to be cruel, or to hurt you. And I don’t want you to think it’s because you had a child. It’s simply—well, not simply. Nothing about this is simple. It’s that you obviously have a lot of things you didn’t tell me about. Things you couldn’t trust me with. I don’t think I ever really knew you.”

      “You did,” she said. She wanted him to understand. She needed him to understand. “You knew the real me. Know the real me. The me that my parents wouldn’t recognize. The me I always wanted to be. That’s what I found here in Valley Ridge, not only a home, but a place where I could be the real me.”

      When he didn’t respond, she added, “That’s what I found when I was with you—the real me.”

      For a moment, she thought she’d made him understand, but she saw in his face that he didn’t. She steeled herself for him to say something hurtful, but in the end, he shook his head and stood. She followed suit and, for a moment, they stood face-to-face, not touching. Then he wrapped his arms around her. He leaned down and gently kissed her cheek.

      Colton didn’t say the words, but she knew that kiss was his goodbye.

      “I’m sorry.” He stepped back from the embrace.

      Sophie realized that was it. The last time they’d ever touch. Part of her ached to step back into his arms, but the bigger part of her understood there was no going back. She took another step, putting more distance between them.

      “I wish it could be different,” he said, “but I can’t...”

      She knew what he was saying. He couldn’t be with a woman he didn’t trust. “I understand.”

      “Can we be friends?” he asked. “Not now, but eventually?”

      “I’d like to say yes, but no.” This was her fault, too. She’d left them nowhere to go. She should have trusted her instincts and not gotten involved with anyone. Ever. She should have learned fourteen years ago when she’d lost her daughter that there was no such thing as a happy ending.

      Well, lesson learned now. What hurt the most was knowing that she’d hurt Colton in the process. She couldn’t go back and undo that, but she could make a clean break of it for his sake. “No, we can’t be friends. I’m sorry, Colton. We can be friendly. Given Finn and Mattie’s relationship, and the fact I think there’s something between Lily and Sebastian...” She paused a moment. “We’ll see each other. Valley Ridge is small enough that there’s no help for it. We’ll be friendly. We’ll smile and make small talk, but we can’t be friends. Not when I know what we should be, what we could have been, if I’d been...”

      She let the sentence hang, not sure how to end it. What we could have been if I’d been honest was her first thought, but in reality, the real end to the sentence was what we could have been, if I’d been someone other than Sophia Moreau-Ellis.

      Colton didn’t respond. He simply nodded and turned and walked down the hall. She followed as far as the kitchen doorway. She watched as he opened the front door and walked through it. He shut it behind him softly but firmly. The sound of the door latch clicking into place wasn’t loud, but to Sophie, it was defining, and something she’d remember for the rest of her life.

      It would haunt her, along with the sound of her own screams as she’d begged them to allow her to at least hold her baby one time. Please, she’d begged over and over, crying hysterically.

      She hadn’t begged Colton. And she wasn’t crying. She felt as if she wanted to. That maybe if she did, some of the almost unbearable pressure, which seemed to press on her from all sides, would ease. But she didn’t.

      Couldn’t.

      Colton was a simple man. An honest man. He was a man who believed in hard work, laughter and, most of all, love.

      Sophie knew the truth of the situation. Colton would have accepted her past. He could have forgiven her anything...as long as she’d offered him the chance.

      She’d never be able to make him understand that even now, talking about her childhood, about her pregnancy, was almost impossible.

      God, she wanted to cry.

      She wanted to blame her parents for ruining yet another relationship for her. She wanted to add one more black mark against them as parents.

      But she knew she couldn’t blame this on them.

      She’d done this on her own.

      She’d had the perfect man and she’d let him go.

      She put her palm to her cheek, on the spot where he’d kissed her.

      That was it. The last time they’d ever touch, and the only thing that had ever come close to hurting as much as that moment they’d taken her daughter from her.

      Yesterday, she’d touched her daughter for the first time ever when she’d run her finger across Tori’s cheek. Today she’d touched the love of her life for the last time.

      The enormity of both moments would stay with her forever.

      She wanted to crawl into bed and spend the day crying about Colton, but she couldn’t. She had Tori to think about.

      Her baby girl.

      All these years of worrying and wondering.

      And Victoria Peace Allen was here in Valley Ridge.

      Even though her parents would take her home this afternoon, Sophie had seen her. Touched her. She knew that Tori was loved and she’d been cared for.

      Sophie knew her decision to let the Allens raise her daughter had been the right one.

      In one hour she’d see Tori again.

      The knowledge wasn’t enough to assuage her pain at losing Colton, but for now, Sophie pushed the hurt back. Compartmentalizing was something she was an expert at. Someday she’d pull out that last scene with Colton. She’d replay it and allow herself to feel it. But not today. Today Tori had to come first.

      Sophie sat at the table in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in front of her, and watched the clock.

      A half hour before she was supposed to meet the Allens, she got up and walked to the diner.

      The Valley Ridge Diner looked as if it came out of a scene from Happy Days. Vintage Formica tables, a jukebox in the corner and Hank Bennington behind the counter, a coffeepot in hand. “How are you, sweetheart?” he asked as she walked past him.

      Sophie knew