Then Comes Love: Welcome to Bellhaven by Sasson Sophia

Author:Sasson, Sophia [Sasson, Sophia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

IT after breakfast when Joe arrived home. He’d driven through the night, his internal angst keeping him awake as he put miles between him and Lily. He had gone to Hell’s Bells thinking he’d get her out of his system. Instead, he’d found his soul mate, the woman he knew without a doubt he was meant to be with. The night they’d stayed up talking, he’d poured his heart out. She’d put her hand on his chest and in an instant soothed the pain he’d been carrying for years. The death of his father, the best buddy he’d lost in Iraq, the woman he’d accidently killed during a raid; all of it was a never-ending horror movie in his mind. Except when he was with Lily.

He was at peace with Lily. She made him see things as beautiful. It was the first time he’d felt something other than a deep, gnawing ache in his heart, like something was eating him from the inside out.

He made his way to the kitchen, which was blissfully empty. They were down to a skeleton staff, just a housemaid and gardener. When he was a kid, there was never a private moment. A nanny followed him around, a housekeeper minded the house, a whole team cooked in the kitchen, watchful that the precocious little boy didn’t steal too many cookies out of the jar. He opened the jar now. There were no cookies.

He opened the refrigerator and found the makings of a sandwich. His stomach was burning from all the coffee he’d consumed.

“Joe, there you are.”

He turned to see his mother just as he slapped his sandwich together. “Where did you run off to? I needed your help cleaning up after the party.”

He stopped mid-bite. His mother normally hired a cleaning crew after her annual summer party, but of course she hadn’t done that this time. “Sorry, Mom. Tell me what needs doing, and I’ll get on it.” He’d been so consumed with thoughts of Lily that he hadn’t considered what was going on in the household.

She nodded as she sat down with a weary sigh. He eyed his mother. She looked the same, and yet she didn’t. Her hair was still a golden blond, perfectly styled so it fell in waves around her face. His earliest memories were of her in her bedroom, watching her brush her hair as she finished dressing in the morning. She would dangle two different scarves and ask him to choose one for her to wear. He’d get so excited to see her wear his choice. Even if she had nowhere to go, she always dressed first thing in the morning. It was his private time with her before the nanny came to get him dressed for school.

Her forehead was now etched with worry lines, her smile not as bright, her ramrod-straight back slightly slouched as if she were carrying a heavy weight. “I don’t understand why you had the party to begin with, Mom.”

“Because it’s tradition.”

“But with all our financial troubles…”

“This house has stood for generations.

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