by Justine Dell
“What about Lance?”
Tears bubbled. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, too.”
Candice’s expression softened. “All right, I’ll tell Lance what you said and he’ll figure something out. He’s good at that.”
Another jab to Samantha’s senses. Lance was good—at everything. And he even did the unthinkable: He loved her. A full-blown waterfall erupted down her cheeks.
She hustled to the door. “I’ve got to go. Tell him I’m sorry, too. I’m so sorry, Candice.” She brought a hand up to her mouth to stop the sobs. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just can’t give my all to Lance. For once, I want someone to give their all for me. Sacrifice something for me. I’ve sacrificed enough, gone through enough pain, suffered enough. I won’t do it again. I can’t.”
“Samantha—” Candice reached out and tried to hug her but Samantha moved backed and jerked open the door.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she slipped outside.
The wretchedness in the pit of her gut was still present when she picked up Ava. The visit was anticlimactic. Samantha handed over the papers and Ryan handed over Ava like she was a piece of meat.
As she tucked Ava into her car seat, the girl’s bright blue eyes gleamed up at her.
“I love you, Mom.”
Samantha kissed her cheek, pushing away her remorse and sadness. “I love you, too. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Doing the right thing can be the hardest thing,
especially when you find out it was wrong.”
~Unknown
AFTER THREE WEEKS, Samantha had slipped back into her routine with Ava. Motherhood suited her. Play dates, blueberry pancakes, and lots of giggles. But with each day that passed, she struggled more and more. Every night, after she’d tucked Ava in, she went to her own empty bed and cried. She had a hard time eating and sleeping. There was a hole in her heart that could never be repaired. Hopefully the ache of her choice would ease soon, because she was precariously on the edge of dying from a broken heart, something she’d never thought physically possible.
At night, after Ava had fallen asleep and after she cried, Samantha would crack open her laptop. She’d given a lot of thought to what Lance had said before he walked away. He’d been right about her book. Samantha couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before but now it was clear as day. Samantha’s heroine was Samantha and much to Samantha’s surprise, she’d written a hero who was eerily close to Lance.
She hadn’t been able to finish her story because she was afraid of the outcome. But not this time. Each night her fingers pounded at the keys, putting down all the words, all the actions she would have done if she’d only had the nerve. The courage. The heart. The words spilled onto the page. The scenes were set as if in a fairy tale. Samantha’s fairy tale. She wrote about how she’d like it to be: her own happily-ever-after. And it came together beautifully.
Her heroine had been broken down by the death of her twin sister, emotionally abused and cast aside by a man she’d loved. She’d searched for solace in the mountains with the peace of quiet nights and long days. She painted, poured heartbreak out on canvas, canvases she wouldn’t let anyone else see. The hero was her weak spot. The annoying, too-close neighbor who came to check on her, brought her supplies she didn’t need, made her laugh when she was sad, told her stories that made her rethink her priorities. He showed her there was more to life than sadness and pain, that life in itself was a journey and she needed to grab on—take the ride—or regret it forever.
Samantha broke down as she wrote the last page, but her own hero was not there to console her. She missed him. She missed Vermont. She missed everything she’d left behind. Ava was snuggled close to her side, soundly sleeping, and Samantha wondered if she could take back her decisions. She didn’t want to regret her journey.
She closed the laptop and set it on the table. Her book was finished, her dreams written out. Tears continued to fall from her closed eyes. She’d already missed her ride, thrown away her chance for fear of getting hurt. She didn’t know if she could ask for forgiveness—or get it. Samantha’s dreams would forever remain tucked away in Aspen Rain.
Lance strode into the diner, Jax sulking by his side. When Jax asked about Samantha, the only thing he could think that wouldn’t break the boy’s heart was that she’d gone away on personal business and she’d be back soon. Jax had asked about her almost every day since then, and Lance hoped the need to see her would fade soon. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.
Not only that, Lance knew Samantha had already been back in town once, the day they’d moved Dorothy to back to her home. But Samantha had stayed out of sight and left just as quietly as she’d arrived.
Now Jax spent a lot of time talking quietly to his dinosaurs. It dug a hole in Lance’s heart and made him angry with Samantha, but he knew it wasn’t her fault. She’d been through a lot and hadn’t had enough time to work through it all. He understood. He’d been there. He just wished there had been more time and that Samantha had given them more of a chance instead of shutting him out completely. It would take a while to get over her—if he ever could.
“Hey, guys.” Candice pointed to a booth in the corner, and they walked over and sat down. “What can I get you?”
“The breakfast special,” Lance said. “How about you, Jax?”
He shrugged and continued playing with his T-Rex. “I’m not hungry.”
Candice knelt at his side. “A growing boy has to eat. Why don’t you go get your dad that special project you’ve been working on?” She bent and whispered something in his ear. His face brightened slightly.
“Okay.” Jax slid out of the seat and walked to the back room.
“How long do you think he’ll be like this?” Candice asked.
“I don’t know. He’s never been through this kind of thing. He really misses her. She was the first woman he ever saw around the house. He was getting used to having her around.”
“You were, too,” she reminded him. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.”
Candice smacked the menus down on the table. “Then when are you going to stop brooding and go after her?”
He quirked a brow. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”
“I don’t see why not. It’s been three weeks. I’ll bet she’s changed her mind.”
“She’s already been back once, remember? And she didn’t come running to me then, did she? She doesn’t want a life with me; she made that perfectly clear.”
“I think you’re wrong.” Candice cocked her hip and gave Lance a knowing stare.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you want her back?”
He rubbed a hand over his chest. Hell, yes he did. More than he wanted to breathe. “Of course.”
“So how are you going to get her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what she wants from me.”
“We need coffee. Hold on.” Candice spun around and returned with two tall cups of steaming coffee. “Tell me again what she said when she left.”
Lance took a sip of coffee. “That’s easy—nothing, really. She shut me out, didn’t really say anything besides ‘I don’t want to go through this again.’ You’re a girl, help me decipher that.”
“You should know I’m not one to give relationship advice, Lance.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Candice twirled her finger around the top of her cup. “She told me something interesting before she left. She was upset and crying right before she walked out the door and rattled off something about not sacrificing herself for anyone and wanting someone to sacrifice for her.”
Lance’s brows knitted. He’d heard something similar from Samantha as well. She’d been talking about her past relationships—her marriages. How she’d given up everything she was to make her significant other happy and how it never worked out. He gripped his coffee cup with both hands. “Shit.”
Candice’s eyes popped open. “What?”
“I’ve got it. God, I’m such an ass. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” He stood up and headed toward the back to get Jax.
“What? What do you have?”
“I know what she wants, and I’m going to give it to her.”
As Samantha strode down the busy New York City street, she still couldn’t believe it. She’d finished her novel—albeit a few weeks late, edited it in record time, and gotten the most wonderful praise from her agent and publisher. She’d accomplished so much, gotten such great feedback, but yet, she still felt empty.
She slowed her fast-paced walk. She had a long battle ahead of her. Rounding the corner, she trotted up the steps to Dr. Wade’s office. Weekly sessions. That’s what her decision and subsequent heartbreak had caused.
“Come on in,” Dr. Wade said as she ushered Samantha to the comfy suede sofa in the center of the room. Dr. Wade sat across from her and smiled. “You look better today.”
“My book’s a go. They loved it.”
Dr. Wade smiled effortlessly. “That’s wonderful news. But why do you still look unhappy?”
Samantha shrugged. She picked up a capped pen from the side table and drew imaginary circles across the wood. “Well, I’m lucky the publisher accepted it. I was over three weeks late, you know.”
“But they did, and that’s what important, right?”
“Yeah. I just thought I would feel better once all that stress was over.”
Dr. Wade sighed. “You’re still thinking about Vermont, aren’t you?”
She dropped the pen and looked up.
“You want to go back, but you haven’t discovered how to overcome your fear of relationship failure? Or how to take back everything you’ve done?”
Samantha nodded and held back the tears that formed every time Dr. Wade discussed Vermont.
“That’s not it entirely, Samantha.” Dr. Wade rose and took a seat next to her. “You want the relationship with Lance and you think you’ve ruined it. Ssh—” Dr. Wade held up a finger when Samantha tried to speak. She draped her arm over Samantha’s shoulder. Samantha flinched, but only for a second before she relaxed into the comfort. There would never be enough tears for Lance. Never enough ways to say she was sorry. The pain was deep and permanent, and Samantha knew it was her fault. She wasn’t strong enough to fix it. Something deep inside her still needed the confirmation that Lance needed her as much as she needed him.
“You miss him and…oh, my…are you crying?”
Samantha turned her head away. It was the first time she’d ever cried in front of Dr. Wade. She’d hit a tipping point.
“Look at me, Samantha. Look.”
Samantha wiped the tears away and turned. Dr. Wade was smiling brightly at her.
“It’s time for you to let go of what scares you,” Dr. Wade said softly. “Embrace the new you. The you that loves and desires to be loved. The one who will take chances and go after what she needs.”
“I can’t—”
“You can. And you will. You’re strong, determined, and stubborn.” Dr. Wade chuckled. “I cannot allow myself to sit by while you regress back into the woman that brought you to me in the first place. You and I both know that person is a shadow of what you are now. Take what you know—what you feel—and run with it. The decision is yours, Samantha. I know you’ll make the right one.”
Samantha slid out of the cab and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of her townhouse. She didn’t want to turn back into a mean, spiteful woman who lashed out at people, and she didn’t want to feel anxious, upset, and twitchy around people she loved, or people in general. She just wanted to be herself; the happy woman who had emerged from going back to Vermont. The woman who had the love of a man she’d pushed away.
The man she was going to try to get back.
It didn’t matter that her heart had been broken before. It didn’t matter that her journey was riddled with road blocks and craters. What mattered was that there was a man—a wonderful man—who loved her and wanted to share his life with her. Not going to him was hurting her more. It was killing her. She wished she’d seen it sooner.
Samantha paid the driver and took a few steps towards her home. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and thought of him. She could still smell him, the scent that was only Lance, could still feel his body on hers, the way he touched her. Her feelings were on the surface, raw and painful.
She sighed heavily and opened her eyes. It was late afternoon, and her body was tired from the day. The sidewalk was streaked with shadows from the oak trees that lined the street. A car or two whizzed by. His smell was gone, replaced by the stale scent of smog and dirt.
She forced a smile, knowing that Ava would greet her at the door. Samantha took a step toward her home when two figures appeared in the distance. She blinked, cocked her head, and blinked again. One was short, one was tall. They moved toward her, out of the shade.
She had to be hallucinating. They look just like…
“Samantha!” Jax squealed as he dropped his bag and ran the remaining distance to her.
She stood ramrod straight with shock as Jax crashed into her. Finally realizing she was not dreaming, she squeezed him tightly in her arms.
She drew back and rubbed a hand in his hair. “You scared me! Oh my goodness! It’s so good to see you. What are you doing here?”
“We’re moving here!”
Another round of shock hit her and she staggered back, almost falling on her butt. “What?”
Lance’s hand gripped her arm and steadied her. Once her feet were firmly planted, she swayed. She must be dreaming.
“I think I can explain,” Lance said. He tugged her close, and she caught his intoxicating scent. Goose bumps erupted on her skin. “Jax and I want to be with you, so we’re moving here.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. She still wasn’t steady on her feet. “I don’t understand.”
“I love you, Samantha. I finally realized what you needed—someone to come for you. You wanted someone to risk something for you.” He brushed a hair off her cheek. “I would risk everything for you. I need you, and I won’t live without you. We won’t live without you. To put it simply, that required Jax and me to move here and convince you that we are what you need.”
“You’d be willing to give up everything you have in Vermont…for me?”
“Everything, Samantha.” He dipped his head and whispered in her ear. “Everything.”
Her scattered house of cards rebuilt itself, but now it was made with mortar and stone, a fortress that couldn’t be penetrated or broken. Lance’s love wrapped her in love and comfort. She would give him her heart, as he had given her his.
“I love you, Lance.” She kissed him tenderly. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. I was afraid.”
He dipped his head and kissed her nose. “You’re scared of the future. Me too. Be scared with me. Don’t run from me, Samantha. I need you.”
Her hands shook from joy. “I should’ve seen it sooner. I should’ve told you sooner. It would have been so much easier.”
“That doesn’t matter now. All that matters is you—us.”
“It means the world to me for you to come here. To tell me you love me. It’s exactly what I needed. What I wished for. I love you.”
He kissed her softly, with painstaking slowness. “I was hoping you would say that,” he whispered against her lips. “I wasn’t going to go anywhere until I had you in my arms again.” His lips pressed to hers. “My Samantha.”
“Yours. I’ve always been yours.”
She drew away and pulled Jax in for a group hug. “Yours, too,” she said to Jax. “Come on, I want you both to meet someone.”
“Who?” Jax asked.
“My daughter.”
“You’ve got a daughter?” His nose scrunched. “Will I like her?”
Samantha laughed. “Of course. She’s your age, and she likes dinosaurs, too. Grab your ba
gs.”
Jax snatched his bag up from the street, fumbling with the zipper as he raced back to Samantha.
His adorable gray eyes gleamed as he pulled something from the bag. “I made something for you.” His tiny hand held up a good-sized wooden birdhouse, painted exactly to match Gram’s house back in Vermont. It even had a little white wrap-around porch. He grinned sheepishly. “I’ve been working on it for a while at the diner. Aunt Candy’s been helping. I didn’t know if I would see you again to give it you. So…here.”
Samantha’s eyes stung. “It’s beautiful, Jax. I love it.” She took it from him, allowing her hand to cover his for moment. “Thank you. I’ll cherish it forever.” She smiled at them both. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
After they climbed the stairs, she turned to Lance before walking in. Putting a hand over his heart, Samantha gazed at him through happy tears. “One more thing,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Tomorrow, I want you to take me home.”
He looked at her quizzically. “You are home.”
“No,” she sighed. “We belong in Vermont.”
His wicked grin flashed as he scooped her off her feet and carried her inside. Laughter rang out as the children met and played.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“When you least expect it, everything falls into place.”
~Unknown
THE WORLD WAS HER STAGE. To overcome, to embrace, to conquer, and most importantly, to love. She’d learned plenty in her quest for happiness, and now she would bask in the glory of knowing that everything she wanted was hers.
Samantha typed the words “The End” to finish her latest book, grinning like a schoolgirl as she powered down her laptop. Through all her own troubles, she’d learned great lessons, much like the woman in her latest novel. It was amazing how Samantha’s own happiness allowed words to stream from her heart and soul like they used to. After three months of living with Lance, her head was clearer, her body wonderfully sated by the man she adored, and her heart—it was on its way to perfectly balanced and healed. And she owed it all to him.
