Page 4 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

I swallow several times uncomfortable with both her compliment and the delivery.

She’s probably in her seventies and beautiful in that way older women are.

Her silver hair is cropped but curly, and she’s wearing a simple white button-down shirt with almost trendy blue jeans.

There are gold studs in her ears and a gold necklace around her neck with a small clock hanging from it that she’s sliding along the chain.

When she catches me watching the movement, she stops. I wonder if it belonged to Archie.

“I had him fooled, Mrs. Watkins,” I say with a slight smile.

“Please,” she says, batting a hand through the air as she sniffs. “Call me”—she pauses, looking at me with an unexpected intensity—“Lydia.”

I’ve never met Archie’s wife, but she’s odd. Despite how put together she looks, she’s awkward compared to Archie. Maybe it’s the grief. It’s rare to see anyone smooth when a piece of their heart is being cooked in front of them at sixteen hundred degrees.

I force a smile. “Lydia.”

She clears her throat several times before finally asking: “Did you know your grandparents?”

My head whips toward her at the unexpected personal nature of the question.

She blinks, with a curious tilt of her chin and shape of her eyes. I roll my lips between my teeth, considering how to answer.

“My dad’s parents, a little,” I finally tell her, skirting around the details.

The truth: a little was far too much. My own dad, a wreck of a man, was raised by people who fell to the same blight of bad decisions as the rest of the bloodline.

Apples don’t fall far from the family tree because he got both his love of liquor and short temper from my grandfather.

On nights my brother and I had the unfortunate privilege of being dumped on them, our only goal was to stay out of the way and not get screamed at or spanked.

“And your mom’s parents?” Her warm eyes stay steady on mine .

I shake my head, looking away from her to the cremation room, clearing my throat to mask my surprise at her inquisition.

And still, because it’s Archie’s wife: “No. My mom moved out and married young . . . I never asked questions. She told me they were no good.” At sixteen, my mom had my brother, married my dad, Lyle Armstrong, and dropped her Joplin name.

The rare times someone brought them up, she said she left that name and the people tied to it where they belonged. “I had enough no good, you know?”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Lydia says, twisting a tissue in her hands. “That’s nonsense.”

At this, I laugh.

“Mrs. Watkins—” She frowns. “Sorry, Lydia.” I clear my throat once again. “I appreciate that. But . . . I know you and Archie had kids—they got lucky. I got . . .” Fucked. Her crisp white shirt makes me think this word would not land well. “Unlucky.”

She stares; it’s analytical. Same as every time my history comes up to anyone who hasn’t been through it.

My mother’s parents were nameless, faceless villains in a long line of them.

She never talked about them; I never asked.

I had enough repossessed vehicles, threats of eviction, and someone slamming a door before leaving for days without bringing more shitty people into the disastrous mix.

Abruptly, Lydia crosses the room to the coffee table where she fishes a small album out of her purse and hands it to me.

“We have a lake house—did you know?” I shake my head as she nods for me to open it.

“I say we, it was really just Archie’s.” She chuckles.

“We bought it almost fifty years ago. Spent most summers there.”

At the first image, I snort a laugh. “An A-frame? Never would expect ol’ Archie to fit in a triangle.” Yet there he is, black button-down shirt and blue jeans, sitting on a large porch in front of a triangle-shaped wall covered in windows.

“It was new back then, but he didn’t care what it looked like.” Her lips lift in amusement. “It could have been a dirt-floored shack, and he would have wanted it. Told me it was his place to escape even though it was less than thirty minutes from where we lived.”

I flip the pages. Random snapshots fill the sleeves of the extremely dated and mostly hideous A-frame.

Lydia cooking in a kitchen, wearing denim overalls and surrounded by mustard-yellow appliances.

A strange looking black-and-white dog lying on burnt-orange shag carpet by a woodstove and tube television.

Archie reading the newspaper on a floral couch.

When I get to a picture of a little kid taking a bath overflowing with bubbles in a puke-green tiled bathroom, she chuckles and says, “Our grandson.”

I smile and flip to a photo that was taken outside: people sitting on the large porch, kids floating on tubes around the small beach.

Tall pine trees. Archie fishing out of a canoe in the distance.

A brief punch of sadness hits and I think of my dad.

Despite his flaws, he loved fishing. We never had a boat, but he’d sit on a riverbank with a cooler of beer all day long, even if he didn’t catch a thing .

The last page is more faded than the rest. Archie and Lydia are young—much younger than they were in the rest of the photos—holding a baby they’re looking down at with proud smiles.

Their love is evident. The face of the baby isn’t visible, but it’s easy to imagine the gummy smile curving its mouth and drool coating its chin.

“Our oldest grandchild,” she says.

I close the album and hand it back to her with a smile. “It looks like you had a lot of great memories there.”

The lines on her face deepen as she seems to be considering what to say next. She rubs one palm over the brown leather cover of the album—slowly—like it’s something sacred.

“I’m sorry you had such a rough go at childhood,” she says. “It should have been different. I wish”—I raise my eyebrows. Where the hell is this going? —“life wasn’t so complicated.”

Okay.

I press my lips together and say nothing.

“We all make choices in life we have to live with,” she continues, face filled with distant resignation.

“Fight battles we shouldn’t have fought.

Skipped battles we shouldn’t have skipped.

” She laughs softly; it’s empty. “Regrets are the hardest thing in the world to reconcile when you get to be my age.” Her voice is sad; her hand is back on the clock around her neck, zipping it along its chain.

Her gaze remains steady on the working retort.

“I guess that’s being human, hard as it is to manage sometimes. ”

Though I don’t disagree with the sentiment, my smile is half forced and fully confused .

“You do something special here, Scotty. The way you play this music and wear your T-shirts. Archie saw it. Everyone does. And they”—she looks at me, lines on her face deepening as she struggles to find words—“are so proud.”

Lydia is either on drugs or has dementia; it’s the only reason she’d babble like this.

I shift my weight uncomfortably between my high heels, smile feeling wooden on my face. “Somebody has to do it.”

“Archie wanted you to have the lake house,” she blurts.

My reaction would have been the same if she had ripped open her white shirt and revealed a bald eagle tattoo covering her chest. I look at her and let out a loud, abrupt “HA!”

She chuckles; it’s genuine.

“He said you’d do this. ‘Can’t take a compliment, that girl will never take a house,’ he told me.

It was the only thing he wanted changed in the will at the end.

” She sniffs, fresh line of tears lining her eyes, and she hands me a key, pressing it into my palm as if trying to make sure it stays.

“He told me, ‘You tell her there’s more than bodies in this life to light on fire.’”

I look at the key in my hand like it might vanish.

“Why?” I ask, my tone thick with skepticism. “You have kids. A daughter and a son, right? Archie told me.”

“My son doesn’t want it—he’s grown and gone. Too busy for Ledger.”

“Your daughter?” She shakes her head. “A grandkid? That one in the photo has to be old enough for a house.” My chest tightens. “Give it to them. ”

“He said you. ” Before I can argue she adds, “You deserve to be happy, sweetheart. Have some goodness and beauty in your life.”

This odd woman lets this hang as my mind reels. I think of June calling my apartment sad a mere twenty-four hours ago. Mel, asking me if I’m happy. Both of them essentially telling me to get a life.

And I’m happy . . . ish .

I think I am.

Do I even know? I know the last months have left me feeling like I’m going backward.

Like every choice I’ve made and every bad thing that’s happened is hitting me with the steady beat of a drum, over and over.

For twenty years I’ve been alone, and I’ve been fine with that.

Fine with my life. Then came a shift—seemingly out of nowhere—where I’ve found myself wondering if things could have been different.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I know part of it’s Ford.

A big part. Since I learned he was back in town nine months ago, Ledger has shrunk.

Time has stopped. And seeing him outside the LL meeting . . .

“Can I pay you for it?” I ask, flipping the key around in my fingers. “I have money. Contrary to the habits of the rest of my family I have a savings account like an actual adult.”

I’ve saved. Other than the loan to buy the business and the expenses that come with it, my bills are minimal.

She waves a hand through the air, smiling kindly.

“I believe you do, Scotty, but it’s a gift.

No strings. It needs a lot of work. And if you don’t like it”—her eyes flick back to the window and the small door that separates her from Archie, as if she’s waiting for him to crawl out of the opening and wrap his arms around her—“sell it.”

Sell it? A house on the lake, even if it’s as dated as it looks in the photos, would be worth a small fortune.

It takes a split second for a brand-new thought to slam into me: I could pay off the crematorium and I could leave.

Leave . Maybe the root cause of this whole funk I’m in isn’t me being alone, it’s the town.

It has to be. I need to get out of Ledger.

Away from the memories and the ghosts. Ford.

I could take this house, sell it, and would have enough money just to go.

Anywhere. To the ocean—no, the desert. I could move to the desert: a landscape so harsh only scorpions and prickly plants survive.

That would suit me. Nobody will bother me there.

Pester me about the brightness of my apartment.

I’d miss June, but she’ll understand. She’ll visit with her camera and take pictures.

This house could be my fresh start. My new life. My happy. Could it be that easy?

“I don’t think I can,” I say, offering Lydia the key. “People will probably think I stole it.”

I want her to take it back as much as I want her not to.

She wraps her hand around mine, her skin soft and gentle as she presses it closed, and the key digs into my palm. “You think too little of people, Scotty. And who cares if they do?”

Hope fills me so quickly it makes me lightheaded.

Our gazes are steady through the window as the retort works. “I’ll miss his daily visits,” I admit.

A small smile tugs at her lips. “I know the feeling. ”

We’re quiet a beat; me lost in what this house could mean if I kept it, her probably drowning in the idea of a life without her husband.

“It needs work,” she finally says, breaking the silence. “I’m sure you noticed it’s outdated. But I’ve paid for the power and water, so it should be on. I haven’t been there in over a year, but I know there’s a canoe.” She chuckles softly with a shake of her head. “God knows what else.”

I squeeze the key in my hand until I feel the teeth bite into my skin, confirming it’s real.

“I’ll think about it,” I finally say. “And thank you.”

“Ah.” She rubs a palm on my back. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

For the rest of Archie’s cremation, she’s more relaxed and less strange, telling me stories of the two of them, some involving the A-frame on the lake, most not.

She cries at some of the songs that play, leading to stories of them at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert before they had kids . . . where they made one of said kids.

Two hours later, when she’s gone, she leaves me with paperwork to sign for the deed and a few notes on the house.

Though she hasn’t been there, a family friend checks on the place every couple of days.

“He keeps the critters fed and makes sure the place hasn’t burned down,” she said with an amused shake of her head.

For the first time in years, I’m almost giddy.