by Donna Alward
“So you’re really going.”
“You don’t love me, Jack. It was a great night but it scared you for some reason. Scared you enough you backed off in a major hurry.”
“I just need some time...”
“Time won’t change anything for you. And I’m starting to realize that I have enough to fix about myself that I can’t start trying to fix you, too.”
Shit. He hated that she was right. But then, from the beginning he’d sensed she was far more intuitive than she was ever given credit for. Like that night at the wedding. She hadn’t been looking to score with Rhys. She’d been matchmaking, trying to push Rhys and Taylor together. Even his parents liked her. His mother had called her “smart as a whip and not afraid of hard work.”
Who was he to mess up her plans? In her words, all it would do was prolong the inevitable.
“If you need a reference for school or for any sort of job, you let me know, okay?”
She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks.”
She turned back to her packing.
Something didn’t feel right. He frowned, stayed in the doorway, not wanting to leave just yet. “Amy, I really am sorry about yesterday. I know I pushed for things to move ahead between us. I thought we...thought I...could handle it, no problem. It’s never been a problem before....”
Didn’t that make him sound great?
She put the cover over the suitcase and zipped it up. “Why is it this time, do you think?”
He went to her side and lifted the case off the bed and put it on the floor. “I don’t know.” He reached out and gripped her hand. “Amy...”
For a long moment they both stared at their joined hands. Jack felt like his breath was strangling in his chest. Her fingers were so soft, resting in his palm. When he looked up, she was watching him with sadness in her eyes. And perhaps a lot more understanding than he was comfortable with.
“You do know,” she accused gently. “But you’re not ready to deal with it.” She withdrew her hand from his. “I just need to go, Jack. I hope you understand.”
“I do. And I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll look at getting you a flight.”
“Thanks.”
He left the room. Thanks, hell. After years of being calm, focused, detached...he was suddenly none of those things. She’d swooped in without trying and turned everything on its head. He was a man who always stayed in control. Who enjoyed taking risks, but when it came to interpersonal decisions, practical clarity was his specialty. It had made him stupidly successful.
He should be the one handling this situation. Instead it was Amy who was being strong and smart and sure of herself. Who was able to think logically. Who saw yesterday for what it was: panic.
And who, he realized, had decided it wasn’t worth hanging around for. That fixing him was too much trouble.
Intellectually he knew that no one could fix what was wrong with him but himself. But on another level, he was hurt that once again, someone thought he wasn’t even worth the effort.
* * *
AMY EXPECTED TO fly back commercial—take a puddle jumper somewhere bigger and then a flight to Edmonton. But when she and Jack got to the airport, the same private jet was waiting to take her home.
“Jack,” she said, embarrassed now that she’d been so short with him earlier. So blunt. “You didn’t have to do this.”
He shrugged. “I’d booked it for tomorrow morning anyway, for my Vancouver trip. The pilot will take you to Edmonton and then come back here for the night. Don’t worry.”
For a brief moment she’d felt special. Felt like maybe there was a bit of hope they could patch things together and at least get back to being comfortable with each other. But he made it sound like it had been no effort at all to arrange her transportation. It took some of the thrill out of it.
“Right.”
She stopped and held out her hand for her suitcase, which he’d been rolling behind him. Her carry-on rested heavily on her shoulder. “I’ve got to go through the security check before I get on,” she said.
“I know.”
But he didn’t hand over her bag right away. Instead he stood there, in that damned sheepskin jacket, his hair windblown by the winter breeze and cheeks ruddy from walking from the car to the terminal.
“Jack,” she said quietly.
“You’re sure you have to go?”
He was going to draw it out longer. Test her fortitude. He probably had no idea how hard it was to leave, or how close she was to saying no. The only thing keeping her from staying was knowing that nothing would change in another week—except that she might be even more hurt in the end. Because Jack, for all his charm and flirting, was not about to open his heart. He’d closed it years ago when Sheila had betrayed him. Locked it up and thrown away the key. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
And what he didn’t know was how close she was to falling for him. All the way. Her heart was already fully involved. Thankfully her head hadn’t abandoned her yet. She’d known from the start that Jack wasn’t the guy for her. It was the only thing holding her back from tumbling all the way in.
“I should go.”
“The pilot will wait if I tell him to wait. He’s on my dime,” Jack said irritably.
She smiled a little. “Ah, there he is. The boss who is used to having his orders obeyed. He’d kind of disappeared for a while.”
“He did?”
“You’re always charming, Jack. But you’re less...autocratic at the ranch.” She tilted her head. “Which one’s the real you?”
His gaze caught hers, terribly complicated and uncertain. At least she wasn’t easy to walk away from. It made her feel a teensy bit better.
“I’d better go,” she repeated.
Jack let go of the handle of her suitcase, but instead of handing it to her, he took a step and closed the gap between them. His hands cradled her face and she gasped in a small breath in the heartbeat before his lips came crashing down on hers.
Her carry-on slipped from her shoulder and dropped to the floor, but Amy barely heard the thump. This was the Jack she remembered, the Jack she’d been so tempted by in the tack room and again in his room. Passionate, open, without the walls he kept around himself. He made a small sound in his throat as the kiss went deeper and Amy was vaguely aware that they were in public and there was the sound of voices around them but she didn’t pull away. Not if this were the last time.
Finally, the words get a room sunk into her consciousness and she closed her lips, stopping the kiss. She could still taste him, still feel him there. Could still feel the press of his fingers into her arms, the way his body fit against hers. She had to leave, right now. Because if she said anything it would be to express how she truly felt and it was the last thing Jack wanted to hear.
It would send him running in the other direction even faster than making love had.
Without meeting his eyes she picked up her carry-on, grabbed the handle of her suitcase in a death grip and began wheeling her way to the security check. She didn’t look back, though she was tempted. Instead she met the pilot with a smile, walked out to the plane, climbed the steps and settled into the leather seat.
As they taxied past the small airport, she chanced a look at the windows facing the runway. And imagined, just for a flash, that Jack was still standing there watching her leave. But when they were airborne she looked down at the parking lot and saw that his SUV was gone from the spot where he’d parked it.
She was going home. To start over.
Funny how the idea sounded heartily depressing.
Chapter Twelve
Cadence Creek was in the full throes of winter when Amy returned from Monta
na. An Arctic front had pushed south, cloaking the area in terribly frigid temperatures. On her first week back, school was canceled twice because of the wind chill. She went back to work at the flower shop, but business was slow. Still, it surprised her to find she was happy to be home. It was familiar. And as Jack had said—it wasn’t all bad.
Jack.
She hadn’t heard from him since that day at the airport. Why she thought she would, she didn’t quite know. It had been fairly final, after all, and there was no reason for the phone to ring. None at all. Except...
Except she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that things had been left unsaid.
Amy rang off the cash register at the end of her shift, turned over the closed sign on the door and went to the office to count out the deposit and make sure the float for the next day was ready. Foothills Floral was quiet and peaceful as she wrote up the deposit slip. It was dark outside when she closed the door behind her, carrying the deposit in her purse. A block away was the bank and she dropped the deposit into the after-hours slot.
The pace sure was slower than Aspen Valley. Not that doing laundry and making beds was her idea of fun, but the variety of tasks and people suited her. She’d enjoyed her time there despite how it had ended. And now that she was home, she was looking forward to the fall semester and going to school.
She could be good at this. If nothing else, the week working at Jack’s had shown her that her instincts were right. She was efficient and good with people. Moreover, she liked making them feel at home. She’d never considered herself a nurturer, but there was no denying that she’d found a certain satisfaction with that component of the job at Jack’s.
When she arrived at home, her mom had supper ready. Amy had started looking at Mary differently since coming back. How it must have hurt to have her husband just walk out like that. In all the time Amy had wished her mom would just get over it and move on, she hadn’t considered love and what the loss of that love might do to a person.
She suspected Jack had loved Sheila that way. And while Amy’s mom had hidden herself away, working as a data clerk in a cubicle where she could be anonymous and coming home to an empty house, Jack had gone the other way—he lived every moment out loud. People dealt with things in different ways. Falling for Jack had made her look at the people around her a little differently, and that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Mom?” Amy walked into the small kitchen and saw her mom draining potatoes at the sink. “Hey. You made roast beef? Yum.” The scent of the roast was thick in the air. Amy’s stomach rumbled.
“It’s good to have you home to cook for,” Mary said, taking the lid off the potatoes so that steam billowed up.
Amy frowned, considering her mother’s words, and voiced something that had been bothering her for the past few weeks. “Mom, what are you going to do when I go away to school?”
Mary avoided her eyes. “Manage. Always figured you’d leave at some point.”
“I’m worried you’ll be lonely.”
Mary paused with the potato masher in her hand and looked up at Amy. “Honey, I’ve been lonely for over fifteen years. I’m happy you’re going to do something outside of Cadence Creek. You...” Her voice thickened and she looked away, focused on crushing the potatoes with the metal masher. “You shouldn’t end up like me.”
Amy’s heart caught. It was the first time her mom had ever even come close to talking about her life, acknowledging that things hadn’t been as happy as they might have been. It made Amy sad. And a little angry. Those were feelings she’d had to bottle up over the years to keep from upsetting the balance of the house. She’d taken it upon herself to make things cheerful. Felt the weight of the responsibility of it.
Maybe this time they could have a real conversation. But it was hard. She was afraid of saying the wrong thing...again.
“Mom, I know Dad leaving hurt you. But you stopped living, and that makes me sad. It’s like...” She took a breath and proceeded as gently as she could. “It’s like you gave up.”
“I did,” Mary murmured, putting the masher in the sink and leaving the potatoes. “I did give up.”
Amy asked the question she’d always wanted to. “Are the rumors true, Mom? Was there someone else?”
But Mary shook her head. “Maybe if there’d been another woman I might have understood. The grass is always greener and all that. But nothing tempted him away, Amy. He just didn’t love me anymore.”
“Or me,” Amy said quietly.
Her mother didn’t answer. The fact that he’d walked out on them both was clear enough.
“It hurt me, too,” she whispered.
“Of course it did. You should have had a father growing up. Instead you were stuck with me....”
Amy’s heart was pounding hard. Talking about her emotions was never easy. It was a good way to get hurt. She was smart enough to know it was why she put on the “good-time girl” facade. Don’t let anyone see any vulnerability. Don’t give them any power. She went to her mom and put her hand on Mary’s arm. “I wasn’t stuck with you. You were a good mother. You were just unhappy. I knew it. I couldn’t fix it and you’d never talk about it.”
“It hurt too much.”
Amy removed her hand. “But weren’t you angry? Sometimes I’m angry for you. Sometimes at you, do you understand? Because I wanted you to pull yourself up and start living again. Trying to be happy for both of us was exhausting.”
Mary sighed. “Oh, honey, it wasn’t your job to take that on, and I’m sorry. The truth is I never wanted to put my feelings on you, but I guess I did that anyway.”
“Yes, you did. And anytime I suggested talking it through you shut me down. Can we at least talk now? I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Mary smiled a little. “You go away a week and come back making decisions and demands.”
“I found a little gumption.” She couldn’t help but smile back. “I realized I was doing the same thing over and over. Looking for approval. Searching for someone to love me instead of worrying about becoming someone I’d like to be.”
“Good gracious.” Mary looked shocked.
“It’s a little Dr. Phil, I realize that,” Amy responded with a small laugh. “And it didn’t happen overnight. It’s been coming for a while. Meeting Jack was just the catalyst, you know? He...he gave me confidence to finally stand up and do something about it.”
He really had. And she’d walked away without thanking him for it.
Her smile faded as she returned to the tough questions. “Mom, you were so young when Dad left. Why did you give up? You might have found someone else. Made good friends. Instead you hid yourself away in this house. In your cubicle...”
Supper was getting cold but neither of them cared. It was a conversation that had been needed for far too long. Mary blinked a few times. “When he left, he told me I was a poor excuse for a woman. Silly and boring and he couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up here with me another day.”
Amy went to a chair, pulled it out from the table and sat down. “Oh, Mom. What a heartless thing to say.”
Mary came over and sat, too. “I loved him. I believed him. I’d made my world around him and I failed. I was depressed, Amy. I know I wasn’t fun to be around. We’d tried to have more kids but none came. He was not a small-town kind of guy. It wasn’t good enough for him here. I wasn’t enough, either.”
“But Mom, that was his flaw, not yours.”
Mary smiled weakly. “Bless you for saying that.”
“You still use your married name.”
“We never officially divorced. Made it difficult to date. Though I expect I might have used that as an excuse. So I wouldn’t have to put myself out there again.”
Amy blinked. It had never truly occurred to her that her parents were still married.
“Do
you want to be?”
“I’m sorry?”
It felt awkward but Amy moved her hand and put it on top of her mom’s fingers. “Do you want to be divorced? Start over? It’s not too late. There must be in-absentia laws or something. You could see a lawyer. Cami Sanchez could help you out.”
“I don’t know. After all this time...”
“You’re not even fifty. You can’t let something he said years ago rule your life.” Amy sighed and met her mother’s eyes. “I know what they say about me around town. I’m silly and a flirt. I’m sure you’ve heard, too. It’s how I’ve protected myself from letting anyone too close. But now...”
Her voice trailed off. Now she wasn’t so afraid. Jack had hurt her but she’d survived. And she’d stood up for herself. Even though it hadn’t ended well, she was glad she hadn’t settled for whatever paltry bit of himself Jack was offering.
“It’s this Jack person, isn’t it?” Mary patted her hand. “Your face changes when you think about him. Your eyes light up when you talk about him.”
Amy nodded. “I fell for him. I fell for him despite the fact that I knew there was absolutely no chance for a future together. I didn’t see him as a potential husband. Didn’t see him as my emotional savior, either. I think he’s a bigger wreck than I am.” She smiled sadly. “Which is why I said goodbye and came back early.”
She squeezed her mom’s fingers. “We can both be stronger, can’t we? I’m a big girl now. You don’t need to protect me. You don’t need to be sad. And you definitely don’t have to believe what he said.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Tell me about it.” Amy released her mom’s fingers. Leaving Jack had been the right thing to do. Didn’t stop her from thinking about him all the time, though. Didn’t stop her from wishing it might have been different.
