Not Part of the Plan: A Small Town Love Story (Blue Moon Book 4)

by Lucy Score

  Yet Nikolai had revived them. The thrill of being on the back of his motorcycle had reawakened her sense of adventure. Exploring his naked body had sparked a physical craving for pleasure, one she’d never known before. Those intimate late night conversations that had laid her bare…

  He’d used it all against her. He’d fulfilled her two biggest fears, confirming that he had the ability to hurt her like no other and drawing parallels between her and the woman who had broken her family. Nikolai Vulkov was the bad guy.

  Unbidden, a hundred memories of his heart, his kindness, his creative genius swamped her. But she fought them off. It had to be him. She needed him to be wrong. It couldn’t be her.

  Her sisters would tell her. They would back her up. He was all wrong for her, always pushing her to be someone she wasn’t. Always taking her past her comfort zone.

  She turned back to the brewery. She was right. She needed to be right or else she’d just made the most unforgiveable mistake of all.

  ––—

  Emma shoved through Gia’s front door, nearly tripping over the dancing Diesel. Beckett was jogging down the stairs with his brother’s twins, one under each arm. Jonathan giggled with delight. Aurora was hot on Beckett’s heels, peppering him with questions.

  “Two nights of babysitting,” he muttered under his breath. He glared at her. “This is all your fault, Emma. I blame you.”

  “Ah, the bet. Well, it didn’t last so maybe you can weasel out of the second night?” Emma said morosely.

  He headed down the hall toward the kitchen, and Emma followed him.

  “Evan!” Beckett shouted for his stepson and pushed open the kitchen door with his foot.

  From the hallway, Emma could see Evan sitting at the island, enjoying a popsicle and some peace and quiet.

  “I will give you $20 to take these two outside and play with them in the backyard for half an hour.”

  “Deal.”

  “You have to keep them alive, and don’t let them eat too much dirt or too many bugs.”

  “On it,” Evan agreed.

  Emma heard Gia giggle, and Beckett set both twins on the floor and pointed in his wife’s direction. “No laughing. I blame you for making the bet in the first place. I need half an hour to finish this deposition. They’re all yours until then.” He stormed back down the hallway muttering under his breath.

  Emma poked her head into the kitchen and stumbled when she spotted Eva sitting at the breakfast nook table across from Gia.

  “You’re back?” Emma asked.

  “Damn it! You ruined the surprise,” Gia groaned.

  “Surprise. I’m moving here,” Eva said with a wry smile. “Now what the hell’s going on with you and Niko? I hear from a reliable source that you had a fight.”

  Emma ignored her sister’s question in favor of her own. “You’re moving to Blue Moon? Permanently?”

  “I didn’t want to be the only Merill living hundreds of miles away. I can do my job from anywhere. So I thought why not here?”

  Sensing Emma’s mood, Gia nudged Aurora out the back door to play with Evan and the twins in the yard.

  “You look like you just accidentally murdered your best friend. I take it you and Niko didn’t make up,” Gia said.

  Emma shocked herself and her sisters by bursting into tears.

  “Oh shit. Oh my, God. What happened? I thought it was just a fight?” Gia rushed to her side.

  “Niko.” It was the only word Emma could get out.

  “What did he do? Did he get you pregnant? Cheat on you? Call you a crazy bitch?” Eva bombarded her with possibilities.

  “Worse,” Emma sniffled, regaining some semblance of control. “So much worse. He said he loved me and got mad and said all these horrible things when I told him I didn’t love him, didn’t want to be with him.”

  She wasn’t too hysterical to miss the long look that passed between her sisters.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Why don’t we sit down, and you can start from the beginning,” Gia suggested. “I’ll make us some tea.”

  So Emma sat and sipped her tea and told them everything. And when she finished, she still didn’t feel unburdened. If anything, it all sat heavier.

  “He just didn’t want to understand that he’s not the kind of man I want to spend my life with,” she said, wrapping her hands around the sturdy mug, hoping the warmth would seep into her body.

  Eva and Gia shared another look.

  “If you two don’t stop with the mental telepathy thing and spill, I’m going to add you to the list of people who have really pissed me off today.”

  Gia interlaced her fingers on the table. “Do you want some well-meaning honesty or only sisterly support right now?”

  “Why can’t I have both?” Emma demanded.

  “Because you’re wrong.” Eva picked up her mug and took a nonchalant sip.

  “You can’t be serious.” Emma shook her head. “You know me. You know what I want in life, what I’ve always wanted. A stable partnership. Not some womanizing bad boy that thinks every day is a ridiculous excuse for ignoring responsibilities.”

  “I’ve known you my entire life,” Gia began. “And I’ve never seen you happier than these past few weeks. What makes you think you don’t love Niko?”

  Emma’s jaw strained under the pressure to keep it tight. “Ugh!” she groaned. “Fine. Okay. I do love him.” She loved him so much it hurt her to breathe. “He snuck up on me with the whole ‘we’re friends’ thing. But that doesn’t mean that love is enough of a foundation for a life together.”

  “Love is the foundation of everything, dumbass,” Gia snorted in very un-yoga-teacher-like fashion.

  “What is it about him that scares the crap out of you so badly?” Eva asked.

  “What doesn’t scare the crap out of me? He’s this restless artistic type who has had so many women that I don’t think he even knows what number I am. He’s never committed before. Why would he commit now? Why would he want to? I’m not some millionaire super model. I run a brewery.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Gia said cheerfully. “And I’m not even going to dignify that with a rebuttal because you know it’s bullshit. Niko loves you. A blind idiot with no sense of romance could see that. So stop with the ‘woe is me, I’m not a six-foot-tall model crap.’”

  “Be careful,” Eva warned Emma. “You’re going to piss her off, and she’s going to take us out to the shed to punch us instead of the heavy bag.”

  “I am getting pissed because you are purposely turning your back on a wonderful man who loves you just because he doesn’t fit your unrealistic control freak goals.”

  “Oh, so you think I have control issues, too?” Emma demanded.

  “Yes!” her sisters shouted back.

  “What’s with all the yelling? Did Aurora try to make an indoor Slip ‘n Slide again?” Beckett, looking slightly more relaxed, pushed through the swinging door, took one look at their faces, and turned back around. “Call me if you need help with a body.”

  “See!” Emma gestured toward where Beckett had been. “That’s what I want.”

  “You can’t have my husband, you weirdo,” Gia announced firmly.

  “Not your husband specifically. But someone steady and stable like Beckett. You know he’s always going to want to be here.”

  Gia blinked. “I’m sorry, did I not tell you about the time he broke up with me because he thought that I should remarry Paul?” Her voice was entering dog whistle range.

  “That was a misunderstanding,” Emma argued. “He thought he was doing the right thing for your family.”

  “He thought me being with the man who was incapable of providing any emotional, physical, or financial support for my family was the right thing. And now I’m getting mad about it all over again, and he’s going to have to apologize again,” she yelled toward the closed kitchen door.

  “I’m going to the flower shop and taking the kids,” Beckett yelled back.


  “Bring back pizza,” Gia shouted after him. They heard the front door slam behind him, and she smiled smugly. “My point is, my darling husband was an idiot, but I was magnanimous enough to forgive him. But you, sister dear,” she said pointing at Emma. “You’re the idiot in this situation.”

  “There is nothing wrong with prioritizing stability—”

  “Okay, let’s just cut to the chase here,” Eva suggested. “We think you make all your life’s decisions around keeping yourself safe so you don’t feel the pain and abandonment you felt when Mom left.”

  Niko had held the same theory, and she’d eviscerated him over it.

  “Do you honestly believe that?” Emma asked.

  “Yes!” Eva and Gia answered together.

  Emma crossed her arms, shook her head. “I still don’t see what’s wrong with that. Mom leaving was devastating to our family, and I think it’s smart to make sure I’m never in the position to give someone that power again. Nikolai is too much like Mom. He’s never given the future more than a passing thought. He’s always looking for the next exciting thing, the next beautiful woman, the next assignment. There’s no long-term plan there. He wouldn’t want to live here. We’re all finally in the same place at the same time, and you want me to just pack it all in and follow this guy to New York?”

  “Relationships are about compromise—” Eva began, but Emma cut her off.

  “No, they’re about figuring out exactly what you want in life and then finding someone who fits those goals.”

  Gia’s laughter bordered on hysterical. “Oh, my God. Can’t breathe.”

  Eventually she regained control. “I get why you feel that way. I totally do,” Gia told her. “But the problem is, even though you say you want stable and safe, you still walked away from Mason. You didn’t want him so you didn’t even give him the option to follow you here. You made the decision for both of you, and you walked away.”

  “Just like Mom,” Eva added.

  There was no blame in her tone, no anger. Just the cold, hard truth.

  “And now you’re walking away from Niko because your feelings for him scare you. No, he’s not what you thought you wanted. But he is what you want, and you walked away.” Gia glanced at Eva who nodded at her. “Just like Mom.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Why aren’t you two carting around baggage over Mom?” Emma asked quietly.

  “Our baggage is just smaller,” Eva insisted.

  “Because we had you,” Gia said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand.

  “Mom may have walked out on us, but you stepped up for us,” Eva nodded, reaching for Emma’s other hand. “You did my hair for prom.”

  “You bought me condoms when I told you I was thinking about having sex with Billy McBride,” Gia added. “You didn’t say ‘I told you so’ when Paul and I got divorced. You just showed up on my doorstep and helped me pack.”

  “You used your own money to buy us presents that first Christmas Mom was gone,” Eva remembered. “You took a thousand pictures of my college graduation.”

  Emma felt tears prick her eyes again, though these were of a different kind. “Oh, my God. This place is turning me into a sobbing lunatic,” she lamented. “I never used to cry before I moved here.”

  “You stepped up as the mom we deserved,” Gia said softly. “And it kills us to see you push something real and beautiful away just because it makes you feel.”

  “Fuck.”

  Gia and Eva nodded in agreement.

  She did the walking away so she wouldn’t get hurt. It wasn’t any better than what her mother had done, walking away because she got bored.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Emma sat at her kitchen island morosely stirring the oatmeal she’d made for herself after realizing she’d missed lunch… and dinner. After a very long day of mental torture, she was no closer to making peace with her decision. Niko’s words, Phoebe’s, her sisters’, all crowded into her head bringing with them a very large dose of doubt.

  Had she made the mistake that everyone else thought she had? Emma worried.

  She almost ignored the knock at her door. She didn’t want to see anyone, didn’t want to put on a brave face or listen to yet another person tell her that her coping mechanisms made her a coward.

  However, her front door had enough glass in it that whoever was knocking had probably already seen her pouting into her bowl. She heaved a defeated sigh and shuffled to the door.

  At least she could be certain it wasn’t Nikolai on her doorstep.

  She was, however, completely unprepared for the man she did find there. Tall and slim, his blond hair was neatly combed in the style he’d worn since junior high. He stood in his green golf shirt with his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts.

  “Mason?”

  He rounded his shoulders. “Hey, Emma. I was just in the neighborhood.”

  She hadn’t seen him in a year and wondered how it was possible to feel like she was meeting both a stranger and a ghost from her past. “What are you doing here?” She was gaping at him and didn’t know how to stop.

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Do you mind if I come in?”

  Still dumbfounded, Emma opened the door wider. “Of course, I’m sorry. I’m just… surprised.”

  Mason walked past her. Hands still in his pockets he surveyed her living space. “Quite the change from your place in L.A.,” he ventured.

  Emma mustered a soft laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

  “It seems like a nice town, though,” Mason continued.

  “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water? Wine?” Perhaps an entire bottle of liquor?

  “Water would be great.”

  Right, no caffeine after six, Emma remembered. It had been his steadiness, his sense of responsibility that had attracted her to him. He made plans. He followed through. Dating him had been a relief. If he said he made reservations, he had. If he promised to call, he would.

  Emma filled a glass with ice and, remembering his preference, added a sliver of lemon.

  “Thanks,” he said, accepting the glass and drinking deeply.

  He looked nervous.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here,” he began.

  “Very curious.”

  Mason cleared his throat, his brown eyes darting around the room. “I’ve been thinking that we may have made a mistake when we ended things last year.”

  Emma, fearing that her knees might give out, sank down on the couch. “What kind of a mistake?”

  Mason sat on the opposite end of the couch. “We had a good, solid relationship, and I wonder if letting a move end things for us wasn’t the right choice.”

  “I’m not considering a move back to the West Coast,” Emma said gently.

  “No, of course not. Your family is here,” Mason shook his head. “I was thinking I could move here, live here, and we could—” he cleared his throat again. “I thought we could get married.”

  Emma wasn’t completely clear on what happened, but Mason was suddenly leaning in and staring hard into her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Fine. Sure.”

  “Because you haven’t spoken or blinked for a full minute.” He glanced at his watch to verify. “Closer to two minutes.”

  “Uh. Fine. Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry for springing this on you. You have no idea how sorry,” he said under his breath. “But it was something that needed to be said. Something that needed to be put on the table.”

  “You think we should get married?”

  “Emma, you’re an amazing woman, and any man would be lucky to have you.”

  “What about your job? You’re a partner with the firm.”

  “I could start my own practice. People in Blue Moon pay taxes, right?”

  “Probably some of them, but I wouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket.”

  “Well, that’s something I could figure
out. I’d move here, and you could stay with your family and keep your job. We could live here if you want.” He glanced around the cottage’s living space and drained the rest of the glass.

  “What brought this on?” Emma asked, still feeling as if she’d been blindsided by a steamroller.

  “Like I said, it was something that needed to be put on the table.” He put his empty glass on the coffee table and rose. “Okay, so I’m going to go.”

  Emma stared up at him. “You just proposed, and you’re going to leave now?”

  “You like to think things over. I wouldn’t expect you to just jump into something. It’s a lot to consider.”

  Mouth still agape, Emma nodded. She walked him to the door and considered the possibility that she was asleep and dreaming all this. It seemed more likely than her ex-boyfriend flying across the country to propose a year after their break up.

  He turned in the doorway. “You have my number if you want to talk.”

  She nodded, mutely.

  He scratched at the back of his neck. “Okay, well. It was good to see you, Emma. You look great.”

  “Thanks, Mason. You too…”

  And then he was disappearing across the lawn.

  ––—

  Emma woke Sunday morning on her couch after a fitful night of mental debates. She’d nearly worn a trench in her bedroom rug from pacing and trying to understand all that had transpired in the past twenty-four hours.

  Nikolai had told her he loved her. She panicked and ended their relationship because she didn’t see how they could make it work. Mason showed up out of the blue and proposed. Oh, and everyone she cared about told her she was a scaredy cat who ran when things got complicated.

  That about summed it up.

  She’d mapped it out from every angle, weighed the pros and cons, and finally come to the realization that she had only one option. She had to grovel.

  Niko was right. She’d lived her entire life trying to protect herself from the pain of abandonment, and in doing so, she had been the one to walk away again and again. The walking stops here, she vowed. Today she would run.