Page 2 of The One You Want

She had a week to make up for lost time with her best friend and her family.

Was that enough time to bury the past? Maybe not. But she hoped to tear down the walls she’d erected around her heart where her mom and sister were concerned.

She’d reached out to Poppy over the years and gotten nothing but scathing rejections. Poppy hated Rose for leaving her behind and blamed Rose for their father’s cruelty.

The guilt weighed on Rose. The deep and heavy ache she carried never waned.

She wished she’d been stronger. She wished she’d known what to say to Poppy to make her leave and come to Rose.

She wished for a lot of things to be different.

Telling herself she’d done the best she could under the circumstances didn’t help.

She didn’t want to be there at all, but she’d promised Maggie a kickass bachelorette party and to be the best maid of honor any bride could want this week. She promised her best friend they’d spend as much time together as possible to close the gap that had been widening in their relationship because of work and life.

It was inevitable things would change as they got older and reached new milestones, like Maggie getting married while Rose remained single, but they’d vowed to always be best friends.

Rose would forever be family to the two people, almost strangers now, still living inside that house, but she didn’t know if they’d still be in her life if they hadn’t been connected by blood.

But she’d promised herself she would try one more time to overcome the past and find a way to reconnect with her mom and Poppy, because she missed them.

She took a deep breath, grabbed her purse off the seat beside her, and got out of the car. She took her suitcase from the back seat, walked the path up to the porch, and knocked on the door. It opened to her past and an onslaught of memories asthe familiar sights and smells hit her. Lemon oil on the same old wood furniture along with the lavender Mom clipped from the garden, put into small vases, and placed on the dining room table and on the mantel in the living room.

The second she looked into her mother’s eyes for the first time in years, she knew everything was the same but also completely different. Because Rose was not the kid who’d left, but the woman she’d become away from this place and the parents who’d tried to ruin her.

She set her shoulders and held her head high. “Hi, Mom. It’s been a long time.”

Her mom pressed her lips tight. “You shouldn’t have come back here.”