Fortune's Choice

Excerpt:
It seemed odd to be driving down these streets again, almost as if he had never been away yet, still somehow, he felt as if he didn't belong. Had he ever belonged? Aunt Amelia had thought so, which was why he was here.

He remembered the last winter he spent in Mereton; more importantly, he remembered the last Christmas and, looking at the lights strung all along the street, it was as if time had stood still.

Keith glanced at the stores on either side of Main Street. The same names stared back at him from the signage over each large window: Wilkins, Smithson, Abrams, Connor and so on. He imagined he could have ridden his horse along here a couple of hundred years ago and the same names would have graced the store fronts. He sighed at his wandering thoughts. He knew he was really trying to avoid what was really on his mind. It wasn't the names or the store fronts he worried about seeing again.

Shaking his head, he forced himself instead to think about his own situation. He had a decision to make and one he knew would be difficult. It had been ten years since he had left town, since he had seen his last living relative. He had corresponded with Aunt Amelia regularly, not only out of familial duty but because he had truly cared for the old lady. She had been his mainstay in his late teen years. Keith had written to her once a month at first, but it had become less frequent as the years passed. She was most understanding about it, though, saying once that he had his own life to live and she knew it must sometime be a chore to remember to write to her. He had told her it was no chore, but admitted it slipped his mind in his busy life. Still it had come as something of a surprise when, shortly after her death, he had received a letter from her lawyer informing him that she had left him the house on Briar Lane.

He had known, of course, that Amelia was very fond of him but he had never expected to receive such a bequest in her will. Though he called Amelia his aunt, she was in fact a cousin to his mother and she had other closer relatives. Keith had been sad that he hadn't even had the opportunity to attend her funeral; he hadn't received notification of her death until he had returned to the States at the end of his overseas book signing tour, two days after her funeral. He, at least, had the gratification of knowing that she was proud of him and would have understood.

However, when Keith read the full extract from the will sent to him by her lawyer, he saw that she wanted a Lawson to inherit the house. She didn't make it a stipulation of the inheritance, the house was his to do with as he wished, but she hoped he would return to live in the house in Mereton. The Lawson family had been one of the early settler families in Mereton and Amelia thought it seemed odd that there was no one left in the town by the name anymore.

He smiled to himself, hoping that Aunt Amelia hadn't expected him to father a new brood of Lawsons, she would have been disappointed. The one secret he had never shared with her, or anyone from his old hometown, was that he was gay. He had once, in one of his depressive denial stages, even contemplated the idea of marriage with a nice stable girl and raising a family. It had lasted all of about a week before he realized he wouldn't just make himself miserable, but the poor girl too. Still, he did love children and the vague notion of somehow having a family had lingered.