Page 48 of Suddenly Yours

Late morning, I was still out at Harbor Ridge, dealing with the issues that rose up.

I slowly drove up the hill, taking it all in like I always did. Fifty-some homes would someday spread across the rolling land. One day the neighborhood would look like something from a postcard.

This wasn’t about flash or status. It never had been.

Lot one sat at the entrance of the neighborhood and would serve as the model home once it was completed. It was ninety percent done.

I parked in the parking spot and stepped inside. The smell of fresh wood and paint greeted me like an old friend. The place was coming together exactly how I’d pictured it. It had an open layout and big windows that overlooked the street and the backyard. There were clean lines and simple high-quality finishes. It was practical and warm.

I walked through each room slowly, mentally checking off what still needed to be done and putting pieces of blue tape on areas that needed attention.

Then I headed back out and drove farther up the hill.

Lot four was just as far along as the model home. This place, however, had a contract on it already. A young family that lived in town had purchased the place before I’d even cleared the lot. Four other homes had contracts on them as well.

The inside of this one was finished and landscaping would come next. I walked through the quiet rooms, my plastic-covered boots echoing softly on the hardwood floors. I paused in the living room and stared out the back windows toward the Atlantic Ocean, admiring the view. What a view it was.

I could live somewhere like this. Not just for the view; I had a pretty view of the water myself, though my place didn’t sit this high up. I was close enough to the water that I could practically taste it. The edge of my yard was a row of rocks the water lapped at.

The fact that I was thinking about living in a new home surprised me a little. Because the truth was, I loved my old house. I loved the creak of the stairs as I went down them and enjoyed knowing that I’d taken something worn down and brought it back to life with my own hands. There was something deeply satisfying about that. Something that felt like… me.

But then my mind drifted, uninvited.

What would Missy like?

Would she want to live in a new place? Something clean and finished and easy, where everything worked the way it was supposed to from day one? A place where there were no surprises hiding behind walls or under the floorboards?

Or would she love the character and charm of an old house like mine, the kind where every creak told a story and every repair felt earned? A place that still carried the fingerprints of everyone who’d lived there before me. Where there was no doubt there would be more repairs in the future, more late nights, more problem-solving. More making it ours.

The thought took me back without warning.

Missy and I had been maybe ten or eleven. We were sprawled out on the thick rug in her parents’ Manhattan townhouse, staring up at the ceiling while snow fell outside the tall windows. Both of us had grown up in houses that had been too big for just our small families. Grand, old, expensive places with staff and schedules and rooms we weren’t supposed to go into and furniture we weren’t supposed to sit on. They were places that looked perfect but never really felt lived-in.

“I don’t want a house with echoes,” she’d said back then, kicking her socked feet against the air.

“What?”

“You know. Where your voice sounds lonely when you talk to yourself.”

I hadn’t known what to say at the time, but I’d understood exactly what she meant. My own childhood home echoed when I climbed the massive spiral staircase.

I swallowed and remembered running my hand over the smooth banister of my new place just that morning. The banister that I’d restored myself. The wood had been warm under my palm. No, my staircase didn’t echo. It was the spine of my home. My house wasn’t perfect. It would never be magazine-ready. But it felt solid. Honest. Like something you could grow into instead of just occupy.

Then I stilled.

Why was I thinking about building a home with her?

The question hit hard enough that I stopped moving altogether, the quiet of the nearly finished house pressing in around me.

I let that question sit there at the front of my mind instead of pushing it away. Letting myself actually answer it.

Because I wanted to be with her. Forever.

Did that scare me?

I waited for the truth. Listened past the noise, past the years of telling myself I didn’t want complications, didn’t want to risk the one relationship that mattered most.

The answer was no, it didn’t.