“So if Harry died after his wife did, you should have the obituary.”
“If the family had one posted, yes,” she confirmed.
He felt lighter, somehow. He was glad that Harry was still alive, he realized. He’d lost one parent already. Even if his dad wasn’t much of a parental figure, he didn’t want to lose them both.
He stepped outside into the June warmth and stood there for a moment, deciding what to do next. His father was alive, and it was just a matter of figuring out if he was still in Mountain Springs. He’d thought about what he’d say to his father when he found him, but somehow, all those imagined conversations seemed to fall flat.
Logan looked up the street toward Mountain Drive. He wondered if The Peaks, the café where he used to meet up with Melanie, was still there. They’d sit nursing coffees with too much cream and sugar for a couple of hours while they talked and he’d play with her fingers on the tabletop... He pushed back the memories. Whatever they’d felt all those years ago, they were adults now. He was a dad, and she had stepkids of her own who resented her like crazy. It was funny how life came around in a circle.
He hadn’t been back in town for at least ten years. He’d taken Caroline to Mountain Springs one summer to see his mother before they helped her move to Denver to be closer to them, and that was the last time he’d stepped foot in this town.
And here he was, a widower in search of his elderly father, and somehow it felt like for as much as he’d changed and grown over the years, Mountain Springs tugged him back to the same old feelings and the same old problems. But he wasn’t the same rebel on a motorbike who’d spent his formative years in this town. He’d grown more cautious with age, more wary.
As he headed up the sidewalk, he spotted The Peaks—it was still there. The sign still showed the same silhouetted mountains you could see when you looked west. That cluster of three jagged peaks were called God’s Daughters, and they made it onto all the local postcards.
Inside, there was some welcome air-conditioning and the decor had been updated considerably. He spotted a menu on the wall—paninis, grilled focaccia sandwiches, wraps, pitas, gluten-free and paleo options... This place used to be strictly soup and sandwiches—the kind where you chose wheat or white, toasted or not.
He glanced around the tables, and he stopped short when he saw her. Melanie still came here? Somehow, he felt like it should have remained sacrosanct, but maybe their relationship hadn’t left the mark on her that it had on him...
Melanie sat with her back to him, her hair pulled up into a messy bun, similar to the one her stepdaughter had sported. Maybe the kid had picked the trick up from her. She hadn’t noticed him come in.
He approached the counter and placed his order—a BLT toasted on wheat and a black coffee—and when they handed him his food, he headed over to where Melanie sat.
“Hi,” he said, and she startled and looked up.
“Logan! What are you doing here?” she said. “Have a seat, if you like.”
“I got hungry,” he said, lifting his tray an inch as proof and he slid into the seat opposite her. “So you come here still?”
“I used to bring the kids here.” A hint of color touched her cheeks. “It’s changed management about four times since our days, so...”
“Yeah.” He smiled faintly. “It’s not the same.”
“No, not at all.”
They both fell silent for a moment, and Logan met Melanie’s gaze across the table. She was still so pretty... And while it wasn’t the same as years ago, sitting with her in this café still brought a strange sense of familiar warmth. She’d been his sweet spot here in Mountain Springs.
“I was just at the newspaper office.” He said, lifting his sandwich. Then he frowned slightly. “How come you aren’t at home with—” He searched for the name, taking a bite of the sandwich at the same time.
“Tilly,” she provided.
“Tilly,” he repeated past the food. “Did she leave?”
“No, I escaped.” She smiled wanly. “She seems to have moved herself right in. I was the one to text her father.”
“Did you hear back from him?” Logan asked.
“He’s in Japan on business. That’s all he texted. I think the assumption is that I’ll just take care of things, like I always did.”
“Japan?” he said with a frown. “Where was Tilly staying before this?”
“At the house, by herself. Her brother’s at Harvard, and his sister is in Denver—she has her own place now. Tilly’s the last one left at home.”
Right. It sounded like this kid had a little too much freedom. When Graham was that age, he had a curfew and had to ask to borrow the car. But now at twenty-one, Graham was traveling alone without adult supervision in Europe, so it all came down to the kid. But her ex’s assumption that she’d take care of things irked him just a bit. It wasn’t like he had any right to get jealous, but she was divorced. She wasn’t Adam’s wife anymore, and that detail mattered to Logan.
“So what are you going to do?” Logan asked, trying not to betray his deeper feelings.
“What can I do?” She shrugged. “I’ve got to be the responsible adult, whether I’m legally required to be or not.”
* * *
IN FACT, MELANIE wished she had anywhere at all she could send Tilly to just to escape dealing with this girl. Tilly had never been an easy kid to raise, especially as the stepmom. Adam was overly indulgent, and every time Tilly batted her lashes and called him “Daddy,” Adam would cave in. Tilly had learned pretty quickly who the “good guy” and who the “bad guy” were in the house, and by the time she was twelve, she’d stopped calling Melanie “Mom” and had started calling her by her first name.
“You aren’t my real mom,” Tilly had informed her with an icy glare. “You’re just the one my dad married.”
Where she’d gotten that little barb, Melanie had never found out. But someone had clued her in, and whenever Melanie told her no to something—a sleepover at a friend’s place, a new pair of expensive jeans—she’d just roll her eyes and say, “Never mind, Melanie. I’ll speak with my father.”
And now this bundle of sunshine was sitting in Melanie’s living room eating a bag of potato chips and texting.
Given the choice, Melanie was exactly where she wanted to be—as far from Tilly as possible. And she didn’t even feel guilty. She was no longer just the one Adam had married. She was now his ex-wife, and the whole painful mess of his family life was no longer her responsibility.
Logan took a bite of his sandwich, wiped his lips with a napkin and regarded Melanie with a quizzical look.
“What?” she asked. She picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip.
“How long did you raise this kid for?” he asked.
“Since she was two,” Melanie replied. “There was a time that she loved me so much that she followed me into the bathroom and I couldn’t even shower alone.”
Logan smiled at that. “Yeah, I remember that stage with Graham.”
“I don’t know what changed, exactly. I think it might have been things her siblings talked about around her, or just the fact that her father would completely disregard anything I’d put in place for the kids—” She looked around herself. “You know what’s really crazy? I used to bring the kids to this café all the time when we’d come to the lake. And where do I go when I want some space? Right back here.”
“Yeah?” His expression softened. “Here?”
“It wasn’t like that...” she said. It wasn’t in memory of him or anything... Or maybe it had been a little bit. It was a reminder that she’d had a life before she married Adam and became stepmom to his kids, and given up everything that made her feel like herself. And her romance with Logan had been a part of that life. But she wouldn’t be admitting that to him now.
“Do you miss the kids?” he asked.
Melanie felt tears mist her eyes. “Am I crazy if I say yes? For better or for worse, those kids were the center of my world for fifteen years. But I’ve got one of them in the lake house as we speak, and where am I? Hiding from her.”
“Isn’t that parenting, though?” Logan asked. “You get so frustrated you could strangle them during the day, and then you watch them sleep at night, and you’re so flooded with love for the little monster...”
“I guess so.” She met Logan’s gaze and shrugged. “But I wasn’t their real mom.”
Logan nodded and dropped his gaze. “I had a stepmom. I know the complicated feelings there...”
What did that mean—was she as bad as Dot had been?
“But Dot couldn’t stand you,” she said.
“I felt that way as a kid. There was a lot of tension. I blamed her.”
Just like Tilly blamed Melanie. She tried to push back the stab of recrimination. Kids shouldn’t be held responsible for their parents’ complicated relationships.
“Do you still resent her?” Melanie asked.
“She’s dead now.”
“Oh...”
“But yeah, I guess so. She was the adult. I was just a kid.”
Had Melanie wasted the last fifteen years, trying to be a mom to those three kids when she’d always be the evil stepmother?
“So maybe if I peek in at Tilly when she sleeps tonight, I’ll like her more,” Melanie said with a small smile, hoping to deflect with a bit of humor. Logan chuckled.
“What about the other kids—how old are they?” he asked.
“Michael is twenty-two this year, and he’s starting his master’s degree in clinical biology in the fall at Harvard, like I mentioned, and Viv is twenty-five. She’s a medical intern in Denver. She works day and night.”
“Successful,” Logan said, but she saw something in his eyes—she felt it, too. This was a step above how she’d been raised. If Adam hadn’t paid off her student loans, she’d still be paying them off.
“Adam’s kids had the money behind them to make it happen,” Melanie replied. “Not every kid gets the support that his kids got.”
“Yeah.” Logan let out a breath. “But you had a part in their success.”
“I like to think so,” she replied. But how much? Right now, with Michael and Viv focused on their own lives and Tilly’s determination to make her feel about two inches tall, she felt more like a glorified nanny.
“Tell me about your son,” she said, changing the subject.
“Graham,” Logan said, and she noticed how he relaxed just by saying his son’s name. “He’s a good kid. He finished his second year of college in art history, but he wants to be a chef. I talked him out of it. I feel bad about it now, but I wanted him to be more practical—he’s not a kid with that kind of money behind him, you know?”
“No, I get it,” she said.
“But food is his passion. He’s in England right now, exploring their cuisine.”
“Are the British known for their food?” Melanie asked.
“Say that to Graham and he’ll give you a lengthy lecture on their beers, cheeses and comfort foods,” Logan said with a chuckle. “But he’s a good kid. He was in the tenth grade when his mom died of cancer, and—” Logan shrugged sadly “—he rallied better than I thought he would.”
“That must have been hard for both of you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure how I’d go on alone, but you just do. One day at a time, until your kid graduates high school and you realize he’s just fine. He’s more than fine, he’s great.”
“You’re a proud dad,” she said.
“Definitely.” He took another bite and swallowed before he continued. “I’m picking him up from the airport Sunday, and I’m going to have to pretend I didn’t miss him as much as I did.”
“Why?” she asked. “It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship.”
Logan smiled. “Maybe it lets us both pretend we’re tougher than we are. We’re guys. We don’t feel stuff.”
Logan still had that shell, and it seemed he’d passed it on to his son. But seeing him as the doting dad, missing his grown son and worrying about him all the same...it was strange how much could change in twenty-odd years. She remembered him as the rebel with the motorcycle and the bad attitude. He’d been her first heartbreak, and getting over him hadn’t been easy. But that was a long time ago, and her heart had gone through a whole lot more since.
“So did you take that degree in engineering?” Melanie asked.
“Sort of,” he replied. “I majored in accounting, and I minored in structural engineering. I now own a construction company. I know enough to manage the company, but I work with experienced engineers.”
Melanie raised her eyebrows. “Smart.”
“That surprise you?” he asked with a small smile.
A little, actually, but it wasn’t polite to say. “It’s just different seeing the adult version of you.”
“So what about you?” he asked. “Did you go in for nursing?”
“Interior decor,” she replied.
He nodded slowly. “Okay... I guess I can see that. It seemed like you stayed home with the kids...did you work part-time, or—”
“I—” She hated being asked this. “I devoted my time to my husband’s kids. So no, I didn’t actually work with it.”
“Right.” His expression softened. “You regretting that now?”
She sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. They needed me then, and I did love those kids, even when they were putting me through the wringer. Their mom had died. They needed love, even if they didn’t want to admit it. I thought I was investing in my family for the long term. So looking back on it, maybe I should have focused a little more on myself, but...”
“Your heart was in the right place,” he supplied.
“It was,” she agreed. “But I’m starting up my own business now. I did some decorating for charity events during my marriage, and I decorated and redecorated our houses in Denver and Vermont... I have experience and taste. But I’ve never had a full-time position in decor, and I’m not exactly up-to-date anymore... It’s something I started before I met Adam, and everything changed. So I guess I feel like I owe it to myself to try again.”
And this time, she wasn’t going to let her own ambitions get derailed by another guy. Being a martyr for other people’s needs was stupid in the long run—she wasn’t doing that again.
“I’m sure you can do it.”
“I’d better be able to,” she replied. “Because I’m on my own now.”
“With your ex-stepdaughter,” he added with a teasing smile.
“With Tilly...” She rolled her eyes, her thoughts going back to the teenager who drove her crazy. “Tilly told me she wanted her father to give her the lake house.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. What Tilly wants, Tilly gets. That’s how it always went, at least. Then Adam gave me the lake house in the divorce—probably to avoid giving me the house in Vermont—and Tilly’s furious.”
“Did you want the house in Vermont?” Logan asked.
Did she? She might have been the one who’d left, but she’d been a heartbroken mess, and she hadn’t actually been looking at how much she deserved to get out of their union. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore. Adam had a whole team of better lawyers. Besides, I’d have to be able to maintain the house in Vermont. It was more than I could afford on my own.”
Logan smiled. “I guess we both grew up.”
“It happens to the best of us,” she replied with a shrug. They were quiet for a moment, then she shot him a questioning look. “Did you find your dad yet?”
“I know he’s not dead,” Logan said bluntly.
She choked on a laugh. “Okay...”
“He wa
s listed as having survived Dot in her obituary three years ago. And there was no obituary for him since. So it looks like he’s still around.”
“Your half brother would know where he is, wouldn’t he?” Melanie remembered Junior. He’d been a few years younger—just starting middle school when they’d been in high school. “Or your half sister?”
Logan didn’t answer, but he chewed the side of his cheek.
“If you want to find Harry...” she said, softening her tone “...Junior is a place to start.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just not real keen on meeting up with my dad’s other kids.”
“Even now?” She frowned.
“We’ve spent the last two decades studiously ignoring each other,” he said. “Harry’s family was happier pretending I didn’t exist. That didn’t change.”
“Are you going to keep trying to find him?” she asked.
“Yep.”
There he was—the rebel she remembered. It was the same grim smile from when the principal accused him of cheating on his math final. He hadn’t cheated, but apparently a dusted-up kid from the wrong side of the tracks had no right getting a grade that high. Logan never had shied away from a fight until now.
“If you track down Junior, he can at least tell you where Harry is.” Melanie put up her hands in mock surrender. “That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”
He met her gaze, and for a moment, he stared into her face, his own expression granite. What was it about that dark stare that could still make her breath catch? But she was older now, and wiser. While a stony reserve used to be mysterious, she knew better. She didn’t like not being able to read a man she was involved with. But after twenty-three years, Logan might count as a friend.
“I should probably get going,” she said. “I need to get some groceries in the fridge.”
“Sure.” Logan nodded, and that granite expression finally cracked, revealing a deep well of sadness. Her heart gave a squeeze.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked, before she could stop herself or think better of it.
Their Mountain Reunion (The Second Chance Club Book 1) Page 5
