her father dearly and knew she took after him more in temperament, but she was still objective enough to see her mom was definitely having more fun.
Shortly after the divorce, Lucy took a weekend jaunt to Las Vegas with some girlfriends. There she met and married a retired Texas businessman, fell head over heels and walked up the aisle that very weekend in the tackiest of Vegas wedding chapels.
Julia had not been present, but the blurry instant photos told the whole story. Earl T. Walker was a lovely man, but much older than Lucy. He died from a sudden heart attack a few weeks before the couple’s third anniversary.
Lucy inherited a sizable portion of Earl’s estate, but there was nothing left for her in Texas. She’d never taken well to the wide open spaces and Lucy soon returned to Blue Lake. She’d never sold her house there so it was easy to settle back into the community, her old routines and connections. She found plenty of sympathy from her friends and from Julia. But at least Lucy had found some years of happiness during her brief third marriage, unlike some people who never find anyone to love.
Encouraged by that success, Lucy’s next husband, number four, appeared with jaw-dropping speed. He was clearly a rebound match, with Lucy falling for the agent who handled the life insurance claim on number three. Before anyone could say double indemnity, it was back to the divorce courts.
Now, here they were. Lucy had lasted several years in the single life, but remained undaunted in her quest to find true love. All things considered, it seemed only a matter of time before Number Five arrived. Her mother was still attractive, in good health and rarely without a date on a Saturday night. She just had a knack for meeting men without even trying.
After all she’d been through, Lucy had never once spoken a single word against matrimony, or soured toward the institution in any way. After being twice widowed and twice divorced, she certainly had enough assets to live independently in fine style for the rest of her days. But marriage meant more to Lucy than financial security. Julia knew her mother’s lace-trimmed valentine heart still yearned to find her perfect match, her “soul mate.” She totally believed in the notion that such a man existed.
Julia didn’t believe in soul mates. Or love at first sight, or any of those worn-out clichés, none of which could describe Lucy’s romantic philosophy. Maybe she was too rational about male-female relationships. Someone in the family had to be.
Julia hadn’t always been this way. Time and experience had worn down her romantic spirit and given her a more realistic view. Julia was actually a bit envious of her mother. Not of Lucy’s addiction to walking down the aisle, but of her unflagging optimism. Julia was secretly starting to lose hope of ever finding Mr. Right. Or even Mr. Fixer-Upper.
Julia sometimes wondered if she really wanted a husband at all. Being perfectly honest with herself, she seemed to have reached the point when the only thing she really wanted was a baby.
As she slowly but surely approached her thirty-second birthday, the biological messages to make a baby were flashing like a warning system gone berserk. She’d just about given up taking the traditional route of romance and marriage.
Julia had only once admitted this aloud to her best pal, Rachel Reilly. Rachel was the perfect advisor on the subject, having faced the same dilemma a little over two years ago when her fiancé had left her at the altar. She’d decided not to wait for a man to give her the life she wanted and had taken a courageous leap, becoming a single mother by choice as a client of a sperm bank.
Julia admired Rachel’s courage and decisiveness. She often wondered if she could ever do the same. As it turned out, Jack Sawyer, the sperm donor dad, eventually sought out Rachel and their little boy. Miraculously, Rachel and Jack eventually found their own happily ever after.
Julia knew their story was a heartwarming fluke. She knew if she took that route, she’d have to be prepared to do it all on her own.
Every time she considered it, the complications of living in a small town where people still clung dearly to traditional ideas about marriage and child-rearing seemed too big an obstacle. Julia was a successful Realtor with a high profile in the community. Having a baby on her own would stir up a storm of gossip. Living under the cloud of her mother’s misadventures had been enough public attention. Julia knew for certain she didn’t want the whole town talking about her, too.
Her livelihood would definitely suffer. Not that she was materialistic, but she had to think about supporting a child.
Mulling over all these familiar questions that never seemed to have answers, Julia drove through the village toward her mother’s house. It was a clear winter night in late February. A fresh dusting of snow made the winding streets and quaint houses look cozy and inviting, like an illustration from a picture book.
Julia knew practically every house on every lane from attic to cellar. And she knew the people within, the previous owners and the ones before that. She loved living in Blue Lake and was a perfect town-booster to newcomers searching for a country retreat or locating out of the city. Which was just the way she and Rachel had first met and become fast friends.
Rachel teased her now about running for mayor. But Julia wasn’t interested in politics. Besides, she knew the job wouldn’t work with the role of motherhood any better than her present profession.
As much as she loved Blue Lake, these days she’d started to regret never taking her chance out in the wide world, where she could be anonymous and private, casting her line in a larger pool of slippery, hard-to-reel-in bachelors.
Maybe the same rule applied to finding a husband as finding a house. Location. Location. Location.
How had she ended up here all this time anyway? She’d always meant to leave. But she’d married a hometown boyfriend right after college and by the time they divorced, her business was firmly established. And it also seemed important by then to stick around to keep an eye on Lucy. As an only child, she felt even more responsible.
Attractive and charming, in a field where she met new people all the time, Julia never lacked invitations from eligible men…and even some that weren’t so eligible. She joked to her friends that she’d dated every male possibility in a fifty-mile radius. But it wasn’t really a joke and those relationships never seemed to lead anywhere.
All she really wanted was a mature, solid relationship. A meeting of the minds…and hearts. Someone she could respect and get along with. Someone who wanted the same things in life she did. Was that so much to ask?
There had to be a spark, of course. Chemistry. Attraction. Julia wasn’t so practical-minded that she’d skip all those heady feelings. Still, being totally swept off her feet scared her, because she knew it could never last. Case in point—her mother. Lucy was always being swept off her feet. Struck by lightning. Head over heels on a first date, before the waiter had even taken her dinner order.
Did any of it last? Of course not.
Julia knew it took a lot for her to fall in love. She knew that her unhappy marriage and divorce made her wary. Sometimes she thought she was too particular. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t going to get married again just to show the world and herself—and maybe even her mother—that she could.
Meanwhile, her mother was exactly the opposite, in and out of relationships, dating and dumping or being dumped and moving on to the next partner. Her love life was a game of musical chairs and every time she landed, she was sure “This is it!”
Had her mother landed anywhere lately? Lucy hadn’t mentioned dating anyone special that Julia could recall.
