The One and Only: A Single Mom Second Chance Romance (Heart of Hope) Ajme Williams (books for new readers TXT) 📖

As I debated these thoughts in my head, Laura stirred, as if she could sense me watching her. Her eyes opened slowly, and she blinked a few times, her nose scrunching up adorably as she got her bearings.

If I could get to see this sight every single morning, I’d be truly happy.

“Good morning,” I murmured.

Laura smiled at me, and I couldn’t not kiss her. I leaned in and softly planted a kiss on her lips, a good morning kiss, the prelude to an amazing day….

I felt Laura go stiff and then she pushed me away, her eyes wide and horrified. “Oh my God, I slept over!”

“You did,” I agreed, blinking in surprise.

“Shit!” Laura sounded genuinely distressed. She shot out of bed and scurried around, grabbing her clothes and yanking them on.

“What’s wrong? What’s the rush?” I sat up, confused, and watched her as she scrambled.

“I was never supposed to stay the night!” Laura was panicking now, looking like she might be near tears.

I didn’t understand. Why would she need to rush so early in the morning? Why would she panic? Unless there was someone waiting for her to come home…like a boyfriend. Was ‘Caitlyn’ really a woman? Or was she a man and Laura had hidden the truth by changing the name and pronouns so that I wouldn’t know?

“You don’t have to…” I started, but Laura cut me off.

“Thank you for last night, it was lovely, truly. Thank you, but I have to go.” Laura waved at me as she ran out of the room, and a moment later I heard her car start up. She must’ve sprinted down the stairs.

I sat down on my bed, still naked but the covers tangled around me, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Okay. Laura was definitely hiding something. And you know what? It was time I took matters into my own hands to figure out what it was.

22

Laura

My stomach twisted, heart pounding hard that my ears were ringing, and I burst into my home, hoping against hope that Drew was still asleep.

No such luck.

“Mama!” Drew said with glee as I entered the house. He was standing in the kitchen, on the step stool, next to Caitlyn, the two of them making breakfast.

“Hey, baby!” I dropped my purse so that I could hug him.

“Where were you last night?” Drew asked. “You said you’d be back to kiss me goodnight, but I fell asleep, and you never came.”

“I know, honey, I’m so sorry. It was wrong of me to break a promise to you and promises are very important.” I kissed the top of his head. “I was….”

I paused as I scrambled in my mind to think of something. Where should I tell him that I was? I had no idea what to tell him. He needed some foolproof explanation.

“Mama was at a sleepover,” Caitlyn said with a lighthearted smile, like it was no big deal. Thank God that she’d swooped in to save the day.

“I didn’t know grown-ups had sleepovers too,” Drew replied.

I laughed. “There are a lot of things grown-ups do that you’d be surprised about,” I told him. “Now, what’s for breakfast?”

“Pancakes!” Drew said with excitement. “Caitlyn said she’ll let me flip them!”

That was going to create a hell of a mess, but you know what, Drew deserved to learn how to flip some pancakes after I’d left him alone last night. Anyway, a little mess never hurt anybody. “Sounds like a fun plan to me!”

I slipped out of the kitchen to change out of my evening dress from last night and take a quick shower while Caitlyn showed Drew how to stir the batter. It felt good to scrub myself clean, even if there was a part of me that was sad to not be at the lake house right now, in the large shower, with Cade in it with me. We’d done that before, when we’d been dating, washing ourselves off after a dip in the lake or a round of sex, and it had always been fun.

You have to let that go, now, I reminded myself. I’d had a wonderful night with Cade—the perfect night, in fact—but it was time to move on. I had to get him out from under my skin and the only way to do that was to be firm with myself.

When I came back into the kitchen, the pancake batter was ready to be turned into golden brown pancakes. I grabbed a spatula and waved it at Drew. “You ready?”

“You bet!” Drew sounded unbelievably excited, and I laughed seeing his wide smile. He always put me in a better mood.

Caitlyn and I helped him as he tried to flip the pancakes. The batter flew everywhere, it got on our arms and faces, on the stovetop and the kitchen wall. I didn’t mind. It would give me something to do that would take my mind off of Cade.

Even with the batter missing the pan, we managed to make enough pancakes for everyone—not perfectly round ones, but still delicious. Drew didn’t want to stop until he’d flipped a pancake perfectly, so we had some extra pancakes by the time we were through and I had to put them in the refrigerator for another time.

Drew was so happy though, so proud of himself when he got it right, beaming down at the flipped pancake. My heart filled with warmth. I loved him so much that it felt unreal sometimes, like I couldn’t believe that such much love could even fit into my body. Like it just had to overflow at some point.

We ate up, slathering our pancakes with syrup, and for once I didn’t police the amount of food that Drew had. I still felt guilty about leaving him all night and what harm could a little bit of extra sugar do every once in a while. He was a kid, let him have it.

Once we finished eating, I sent Drew to take a