Something Old (Brides of Cedar Bend Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  Blurb

  Copyright

  Books by Lena Hart

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  From the Author

  Dear Reader

  About the Author

  Something Old

  Brides of Cedar Bend

  Lena Hart

  Contents

  Blurb

  Copyright

  Books by Lena Hart

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Dear Reader

  About the Author

  * * *

  Jilted by the one woman he’s ever loved, small town sheriff Guy Lawson vows never to let himself be so vulnerable. But when the woman who broke his heart returns to Cedar Bend, he is forced to uphold an old promise he made long ago…

  After two years of running from her father’s death, Zamya “Mya” Daniels is ready to win back the man she loves. Except Guy doesn’t believe in second chances. When Mya sets out to repair their broken relationship, Guy’s guarded heart is helpless against his body’s desires.

  Will their old bond be enough to save their love—or will they come to accept that some things just aren’t meant to last?

  * * *

  SOMETHING OLD

  Copyright © 2016

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-941885-25-3

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  Books by Lena Hart

  Blissful Bride series

  Something Old

  Queen Quartette series

  His Flower Queen

  His Bedpost Queen

  B is for Bedpost

  Queen of His Heart

  His Diamond Queen

  Because You… series

  First Love (prequel)

  Because You Are Mine

  Because You Love Me

  Because This Is Forever

  Historical Romances

  A Sweet Surrender

  The Brightest Day

  Standalones

  My Silent New York Night

  Connect with me on…

  Blog • Facebook • Goodreads • Twitter • Web

  To the lovely and brilliant ladies of the Destin Retreat for helping me plot through “The End” of this story.

  Big thanks to Kianna Alexander and Kaia Danielle for that much needed “aha!” moment.

  And hugs and kisses to Farrah Rochon for making that retreat happen!

  The course of true love never did run smooth.

  -William Shakespeare,

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Prologue

  Cedar Bend, Virginia

  What am I doing?

  I can’t do this.

  Not that she didn’t want to be with him—she loved him with everything she had—but she just couldn’t start the kind of life he wanted.

  Not right now, anyway.

  Mya slowly rose from the bed and wrapped the single sheet around her breasts. She glanced back to see if Guy would wake.

  He didn’t.

  With a small sigh of relief, she slid out of the large bed and quickly navigated her way out of the room and into the connecting bathroom. This was her first night sleeping with Guy, and she didn’t know if he was a light sleeper or not. She kept her movements slow, not wanting to chance it if he was.

  With the bed sheet wrapped around her, she sat on the lid of the toilet and dropped her head on her hands.

  What’s the matter with me?

  She had just buried her father barely a week ago and now she was here starting a new life with Guy? Forgetting all about her old life, her home—a home that had been made up of just her and her dad for the last fifteen years.

  “Oh, Daddy. You were right.”

  A wave of grief assailed her and the tears began to pour out. They clouded her vision then fell, scalding a path down her cheeks. She covered her mouth, muffling her cries. She loved Guy and could never forget tonight, but a part of her wasn’t ready to start a new life with him.

  Not yet.

  But if she told him how she felt about everything, he would just say that it was her grief talking. Maybe it was, but she couldn’t stifle the panic that was rising in her.

  Burying her face into her hands, Mya let the rest of her grief erupt from her while she struggled internally with her decision.

  Guy had been unbelievably supportive these past few weeks during the preparation for her father’s funeral, but she couldn’t accept moving in with him—much less jumping into this new life he seemed determined to start.

  Things are moving too fast.

  Keeping the bed sheet wrapped closely around her, Mya sprang to her feet and slipped quietly out of the bathroom. Her clothes were littered at the foot of the bed and she snatched them up.

  She stole a quick glance at Guy’s still form, but he remained sleeping deeply on his stomach, an arm tucked beneath the pillow.

  For a brief moment, indecision kept her frozen where she stood. A part of her wanted to crawl back into bed and have him hold her again, yet another equally strong desire compelled her to get far away from him and back to the comfort of her own home.

  For most of her life, she had let her father take care of her, had depended on his presence and protection for so long. He had been a constant in her life and now he was gone…

  And Guy was trying to take his place.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  Tearing her gaze from his sleeping form, Mya quickly grabbed her dress and snuck out of the bedroom. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t face him either.

  Fully dressed, Mya searched for her boots, trying her best to make as little noise as possible. She carefully maneuvered her way through the dark ranch-style home until she found them by the door. She decided to carry them outside, grateful her purse and keys were where she’d left them—in her car.

  It was a bad habit she needed to break, but having a sheriff for a father—and a deputy for a boyfriend—had spoiled her.

  Mya carefully unhooked her jacket from the wall and slipped out of the house. The air was chilly, despite summer fast approaching, and she tugged on her denim jacket. Letting the moonlight guide her steps, she rushed to her car and started the ignition.

  For a moment, she sat there, staring out at the dark house. He would never forgive her for this, and she balked at the thought of him hating her.

  A flash of panic seized her and she shut her eyes at the indecision that still tore her apart.

  What am I doing?


  Am I really going to leave him alone in bed tonight?

  Tonight of all nights?

  Mya opened her eyes and once again peered up at his house. Instead of seeing a home where she would spend the rest of her life with the man she loved, she saw a dark, ominous structure that looked more like a prison. An intense feeling of confinement overcame her and she knew what she needed to do.

  Too much had changed in such a short time. She needed to get away, to be on her own.

  She needed time to think.

  Mya searched around her car for a notepad. As she began to write, slight tremors shook her hand and she tightened her grip on the pen. Guy would be upset with her, but hopefully she could make him understand with her disjointed words that she did love him…

  She just wasn’t ready to start a new life with him.

  Not yet…

  * * *

  Guy jerked awake at the sound of tires driving over gravel.

  Who could be coming to his house at this hour?

  He turned to the other side of the bed and ran his hand over the spot Mya slept on.

  It was empty. And barely warm. She hadn’t been gone long, but she was gone.

  Where is she?

  When he realized the car approaching was actually pulling away from the house, he jumped out of bed.

  “Mya?”

  Guy pulled on his boxers and made his way to the bathroom. Empty. Alarmed, he made his way through the quiet, dark house.

  “Mya!”

  This time, his shout echoed through the room and a sinking sensation began to settle in his gut. It wasn’t until he found the bed sheet lying in a crumpled heap on the living room floor that the bottom of his stomach dropped.

  She’d left?

  Guy refused to believe that. He dialed Mya’s cell phone as he quickly dressed, but each time the call went immediately to voicemail. He cursed and tossed the phone on the bed. He couldn’t accept that she had walked out on him—on them. They had made a commitment to each other and he wasn’t going to just let her walk out of it.

  He loved her too much.

  Guy finished dressing and rushed outside. If he hurried, he could probably meet her right as she was pulling into her father’s home. And he knew that was where she would be. The pain of losing her father was plain for anyone to see. It had been stark on her face.

  The tragic death of Sheriff Marvin Daniels had been hard for everyone in their small, close-knit town, especially the men who had served under him. For Guy, Marvin had been more than just his boss, and dealing with his death had been difficult.

  But Guy had tried to hide his own grief so he could take care of the woman he loved—so he could be there for her.

  And she had left him?

  He jumped into his truck and cranked the engine. Maybe he had moved too fast by bringing her here. Now she was in a panic. Once he talked to her and assured her that everything was going to work out, she would see that this was the right move for them.

  It wasn’t until he flipped on the headlights that he saw it—a small, single sheet of paper peeking out of the windshield wipers. At first, Guy almost ignored it, but his instincts convinced him to get out of the truck.

  With a vicious curse, he threw the truck back into park and jumped out. Uneasiness crawled up his spine as he wrenched the thin scrap of paper from between the rubber blades of the wipers.

  Leaning against the hood of the car, Guy skimmed the letter, immediately recognizing Mya’s handwriting. But it took a careful read through the second time for him to truly process what he was reading…

  Guy, I’m so sorry. You know how much I love you, how long I’ve been in love with you, but I’m not ready for this kind of commitment right now. Everything is moving too fast and I need time to sort it all out. I need time to sort ME out. Please don’t hate me.

  I love you.

  -Mya

  Still reeling, Guy stared at the note a moment longer before he crushed it in his fist. She couldn’t do what?

  Be with him?

  Bitter anger rose in his gut, but he tried to suppress it. So, her solution had been to leave him without the courtesy of telling him to his face. Or, at the very least, have the decency to leave the damn note in his house.

  What the hell is the matter with her?

  Mya had always been impulsive, a trait he had occasionally found charming, but there was nothing appealing about being left in bed alone by the woman he had planned to spend the rest of his life with.

  Had tonight meant nothing to her?

  He’d spent these past few years building a fantasy in his head of the two of them filling this house with children and living happily ever after. But that was what it had been. A fantasy.

  Guy pushed away from his truck and headed back inside. He realized he still held the crushed letter in his hand, and his grip tightened until it was a ball of scrap paper. He’d been a damn fool, offering his heart and home, thinking they could make a future together when obviously that hadn’t been what she wanted.

  He found the rumpled bed sheet on the floor and grabbed it. It still held her scent. He could make out the faint toasted, honey-like fragrance that came from her homemade soaps yet was unique to her. He loved the warm, light aroma. It always reminded him of her.

  Tossing the sheet aside, Guy marched into the bedroom and stripped the bedding. Her smell was everywhere and he couldn’t stand it.

  He should have seen this coming, should have anticipated it. His problem was that he thought he’d understood her—thought a life with him was what she wanted.

  How wrong he’d been.

  For as long as he’d known Mya, she had been flighty. It was her nature. Not to mention their nine-year age gap. At thirty, he was ready to settle down, to start a family of his own. He’d made the mistake of thinking she, at twenty-one, would want the same thing. When all was said and done, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that her feelings for him would also be fickle.

  And yet it did.

  His only thought these past few days had been to make her happy again, but just because his happiness centered around her, didn’t mean she felt that way about him.

  It was clear to him now that she didn’t feel for him what he did for her, and whatever it was she wanted, she hadn’t found it in him.

  He’d been an idiot to think he could make her happy, and an even bigger fool to think they could actually have a future together. They had never been right for each other and he should have recognized that from the start.

  Tonight had been a mistake.

  One he would never make again.

  One

  Two years later…

  “Three thousand, right?”

  “Yup. Three grand and she’s all yours.”

  Mya Daniels turned away from the man who went only by “Bob” and went to study the car again.

  The man was an older gentleman, though she couldn’t make out his true age with the baseball cap covering his pale brown face. But she could make out his hazel eyes, and they were gentle eyes—the kind that didn’t make her reluctant to hand over what was left of her savings for the used Jeep Wrangler.

  They had arranged to meet at the parking lot of the motel she’d checked into near the airport. She hadn’t bothered to rent a car when she’d arrived in Virginia last night and could only hope she was making a good purchase.

  Not that she had much of a choice.

  She needed a car, and it was the only thing she could afford within her current budget. As long as it got her home, she didn’t particularly care about the faint clunking noise that had come from under the hood when Bob had pulled up. And she also wouldn’t have to trouble Gloria to make the near two-hour drive to pick her up.

  The thought of Guy’s mother brought up memories of him, and a wave of emotion washed over her. The same kind of heated fluster that always came over her when she thought about him. She couldn’t deny that he was the main reason why she was returning back to Cedar Bend, yet
she didn’t know what exactly she was returning to. In the two years she’d been away, they had not once talked. He simply refused to speak to her.

  Well, she was home now—or at least she would be, once she got herself on the road—and there would be no avoiding her.

  Mya took one last look at the car and made her way back to Bob. Overall, it seemed to be in working condition and just as Bob had advertised. She handed him the cashier’s check, which he instantly pocketed, and he handed her the keys, along with the car title. It was all done.

  Her first big purchase.

  “So we’re all set?”

  He nodded. “I just have to grab one thing and you can be on your way.”

  Mya watched as he pulled out a screwdriver from his back pocket and began to fiddle with the license plate on the back of the car.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking my plates, honey.” He looked up at her. “Don’t you have any?”

  She shook her head. Why would she randomly have a set of car plates with her? But then again, Bob didn’t know that she had just flown back from her two-year visit to England. Nor did he know that this was her first time owning anything this significant, much less a car.

  “Well, you can’t be on the road without plates.”

  “Where can I buy them, then?”

  He chuckled. “It doesn’t work like that, little darling.” He laughed again, shaking his head. “Let me see what I can find.”

  He went back into the truck and rummaged through the front dashboard. Within seconds, he came back to where she stood, carrying another document.

  “Now, this will probably get you to where you’re going until you can register for some new ones.”

  Mya watched as Bob placed the temporary plates on the back of her car. After a few minutes, he straightened.