Page 106 of The Havenport Collection

Violet

“ S o what happened?” Yael said, settling down into the bright blue Adirondack chair.

I took another sip of wine and pulled my thin cardigan around me. “I was getting the boys loaded in the car for camp, and Henry started screaming there was some guy throwing up. I walked over and found Callum Quinn, looking like total hell, on my lawn.”

“That must have been weird,” Rose said, pinning me with one of her signature ‘concerned sister’ looks.

“Yes and no,” I mused. It was a poorly kept secret that I had avoided running into Callum Quinn since moving back to Havenport last year, which in and of itself was a Herculean feat.

This was not that big of a town. “I’m a bit embarrassed really.

I don’t know why I was so afraid to bump into him.

He’s not a bogeyman. He’s just another dude. ”

Seeing him yesterday had been strange, but I had nothing to be afraid of. He was just one of many men who had disappointed me throughout my life. Nothing special.

Rose smirked into her wineglass. “Does this mean you’ll start leaving the house now?”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t leave the house because I have five-year-old twin boys that exhaust me, and I’m trying to run this farm and manage the unique shit storm that is my life.”

Yael, who was painfully blunt at times, looked at my sister. “She is lying, no?”

Rose smiled at her wife. “She’s deflecting, sweetie. But close enough.”

“He’s single,” Yael said, raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow and finishing off her wine.

“I don’t care.” That wasn’t totally true.

It was notable because Callum Quinn, when he was not lying in a pool of his own whiskey-soaked vomit, was a catch.

He was Havenport’s golden boy. Athlete, scholar, businessman.

Came from an old Havenport family and had a reputation for generosity and community spirit.

It was actually a bit shocking. I expected to move back here and find him married with four kids and running for mayor.

The fact that he was single was surprising.

He was probably a closet narcissist or maybe he collected creepy dolls or something weird.

Served him right. Fucker. But don’t worry. I wasn’t holding a grudge or anything.

I watched as Yael got up and kissed Rose’s head. They were adorable together. Over a decade of marriage and still going strong.

“You guys are the literal embodiment of marriage goals, you know that, right?” I said over the fire.

Rose blushed and Yael stared at her lovingly.

“You’re not even going to pretend to disagree with me, are you?” I asked playfully.

My sister rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, sis. I don’t want to rub our happiness in.”

“Don’t worry about it. You guys deserve it, and I get a contact high from your love.”

Rose and Yael had famously met during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Rose was a member of the U.S. Equestrian Team, competing in Eventing, and Yael was a strength and conditioning coach for the Israeli swimming team.

The story goes, Yael walked into the Olympic Village dining hall and locked eyes with Rose. They claim they both knew in that moment that they were meant to be, despite the fact that my sister had previously only dated men.

They got married a year later, had two daughters, and were still going strong.

Yael was one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met, but also one of the kindest. At almost six feet tall, the former IDF soldier was intimidating yet warm.

She was a personal trainer and had recently opened her own studio in town where she mainly taught Krav Maga, a super badass form of Israeli self-defense.

Her hair was short and shaved on one side, and tasteful tattoos snaked up her arms. She was beautiful and terrifying, the complete opposite of my sister.

A horse girl since birth, Rose had spent her entire life in the stables. Like me, she was short and petite and had deep auburn hair that she always wore neatly braided. She was all country chic, Wellington boots and Barbour jackets, and didn’t believe in jewelry or makeup.

Together they were a striking couple, and when you got to know them, you could see just how deeply in love they were. Even after a decade of marriage and two kids, they were rock solid.

I would be jealous, but they had been so wonderful to me since I came back here.

They had done nothing but support me and help me and were constantly taking the boys off my hands.

Rose would take them riding and Yael taught them martial arts.

Even my tween nieces, Shira and Adele, loved playing with the boys and were constantly inviting them over for movie nights and Lego marathons.

My family meant everything to me, and I was so grateful to be back on the farm with them.

Because this was the reason I came back. To give the boys what I had. A simple childhood surrounded by family and nature.

Yael leaned over and topped off my glass and then got up to throw another log on the fire.

“We see him a lot at the brewery,” Rose said.

“He’s still tall, dark, and handsome, and pretty nice.

” Rose and Yael sometimes hung out at Binnacle Brewing in downtown Havenport.

It was a really cool brewery, or at least so I had heard.

I hadn’t visited since it was owned by Callum’s little brother, Liam.

Not that I had anything against Liam, but he was a few years younger than I was, and I hadn’t known him growing up.

I’m sure he was a good guy. I just didn’t want to risk running into Callum and having to deal with my high school drama all over again.

Maintaining a positive and sunny attitude involved an awful lot of avoidance sometimes, and I had become an Olympic mental gymnast over the past year.

“Now that’s he’s thrown up in front of you, you guys should be friends. You need to get out more, and there are a ton of great people our age in town,” Rose mused.

“You need friends,” Yael added.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Thanks, sis. But I don’t need to make friends with some random dude.”

“He’s not random. We’ve known him for years. And we’re friendly with his brothers and their girlfriends. It’s a small town, Vi. You may as well bury the hatchet.”

“There is no hatchet!” I shouted, a bit too loudly.

Yael and Rose exchanged a look.

I lowered my voice. “Trust me, I have enough to deal with right now without relitigating high school drama. I wish him well. Maybe we will be friends.” I stared at the flickering fire, breathing in the comforting smell and letting my shoulders relax.

I didn’t hold a grudge against Callum Quinn.

He was just another guy, albeit a very handsome guy.

But the world was full of hot assholes, and I certainly wasn’t looking to get involved with another one of those.

I hadn’t intended to find myself smack dab in the middle of an international scandal.

My ex-husband, Sebastian Peck, the enigmatic tech genius, had defrauded investors to the tune of almost a billion dollars.

He, along with his co-conspirators, had been indicted on several counts of wire fraud, racketeering, money laundering, and trafficking of cocaine.

But me? I had no idea. I was at our lovely Palo Alto home, knee deep in spit-up and dirty diapers.

Twin newborns occupied all of my time and brainpower, and I was immensely proud of my successful, if distant husband.

That was until federal agents raided our home in the middle of the night.

Sebastian was not home—he was actually holed up across the Bay with his mistress at the time, doing cocaine and apparently conspiring to defraud the US government.

So I was alone, with my babies, while armed men in tactical gear tore apart my home.

The sight of federal agents holding my wailing babies as they were taken from their cribs is seared in my brain.

I vowed at that moment to be strong for them.

To stop being such a flighty moron. To get my shit together and create the life they deserved.

Rose shook her head at me. “Sebastian really did a number on you. You can trust yourself, Violet. Your intuition about people is usually right.”

If it were only that easy. My intuiting had been completely wrong about Sebastian. I knew he was a shitty husband and father, and I knew our marriage wasn’t good, but I was too preoccupied with my kids to really care. How could all this happen under my nose for so long?

I had never considered that I was stupid before.

A bit naive maybe. Perhaps a little too head in the clouds.

But dumb? No, ma’am. My parents raised me to have a good head on my shoulders.

I had traveled the world, earned my degree, and accomplished a lot of things.

How could I have such a massive blind spot when it came to men?

Regardless, I’d be paying for this mistake for the rest of my life. Literally, as all our assets were seized, and I was left with nothing. And I’d be raising our kids alone, trying to overcompensate for the lack of a father in their lives.

“Speaking of your disgraced ex-husband,” Yael said giddily, “I got another google alert today.”

My family couldn’t stand to read the press about Sebastian and his trial, and even some of the terrible things written about me, so Yael volunteered to monitor the online activity and report back only when necessary.

“Aw, shit,” I said. “Do I need something stronger than wine?”

“No.” She shook her head, waving her phone at me. “More casting news.”

I had received offers from every major television and news outlet begging for my story.

I had been offered stupid sums of money to appear on Inside Edition and Hard Copy .

Publishers had offered me large advances to write our side of the story.

But I had no side of the story. I didn’t know anything.

I wasn’t involved. I was just the dumb wife who had no fucking clue her husband was a sociopath.

Sebastian was angry with me. Angry that I wouldn’t cash in in an attempt to clear his name.

Angry that I wouldn’t lie under oath to support his defense against the charges.

Instead, I cooperated fully with the prosecution, filed for divorce and was awarded full custody of our kids, and then hightailed it to the opposite coast in an attempt to try and escape it all.

But some journalists wrote a book about the scandal last year that was immediately optioned for a movie. Thankfully, it was legit, and it was being produced by Netflix, so at least I wouldn’t be the tragic wife in a Lifetime movie.

“Rumor is that they are going to cast Amy Adams to play you.”

Huh. That was interesting. We were both petite and had red hair.

“I can live with that.”

“Amy Adams is an incredible actress,” Rose said. “It’s criminal she hasn’t won an Oscar yet.”

I agreed. I certainly had no issue with Amy Adams; I was just tired of the media sideshow. My kids and I needed to move on.

“I just worry that a movie will reignite interest in the scandal,” I said. “I just want to move on.”

“It’s a good thing you changed your name and the kids’ names,” Yael added.

“It will be harder to track you down.” She wasn’t wrong.

Both the boys and I were legally Thompsons now, which would make things more challenging for the media and the various crazies on the Internet.

But I always worried a little bit. I just wanted them to have a chance at a normal childhood.

“So, let’s circle back to Callum for one minute,” Rose said, swirling her wine in her glass. “He’s a good guy, Violet. He might be the perfect rebound.”

I almost spit out my wine. “Thank you for your concern, Rose, but I don’t need a rebound.”

“After what you’ve been through, I’d say you deserve several rebounds, but we both know you’re not that freaky.”

“And I don’t have the time,” I added.

“So maybe it’s time to get back out there. He’s a good guy, and he’s super hot, which is the most important quality in a rebound man.”

Yael nodded. “I think you should date him. I like him, and his brother makes good beer.”

I sighed. I loved my sisters. But they were never going to let this go.

“Guys, I can’t right now. The boys are starting kindergarten, and I can’t trust my accountant. I already sleep four hours a night as it is. I can’t add the stress, pressure, and time of dating on top of all this.”

“True. But it would be fun,” Rose added with a wink.

I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth of the fire. She wasn’t wrong. It would be fun. And I got the sense Callum Quinn could be a lot of fun. But it wasn’t in the cards. I wasn’t in high school anymore. I had two little hearts to guard as well as my own.