Can't Stop Loving You

by Miranda Liasson

  “Roman’s grown into a good man. He’s working really hard to rebuild his grandfather’s business and create his own dream. I—I want you to be nice to him. I want you to treat him like a good neighbor.”

  “You talk like you have feelings for this man.”

  She closed her eyes. When she opened them, her father was still staring at her. “I’ve done my best to be a good daughter to you for all these years. I’m truly sorry for what I put you through back in high school, but when is it ever going to be enough? All that I’ve ever wanted is for you to love me for who I am, but it seems the choices I make will never be the right ones for you.”

  She walked over to her father and stood in front of his chair. Looked him in the eye for what felt like the first time in twelve years. “I have feelings for Roman. I love him.” Hearing herself say it out loud caught her off guard. Oh, she did love him, with all her heart. “But it didn’t work out. And I’m going to leave. I’m going to move to Chicago and start over. Joey will be gone and I’m going to begin a new life. I hope you’ll accept that. I’ve tried hard to make you proud, to make up for my mistakes, but I’m done apologizing. I need to live my life to make me happy now, not keep trying to make the decisions that you approve of.”

  She was blubbering now, really crying. Lord, she’d cried more in the past half hour than she had since Roman had left. She’d held that in for a lot of years.

  Her father set the paper down on the floor and folded his hands together. She braced herself for a big godfatherly pronouncement, something to the effect that she was officially not his daughter anymore. But she was ready for it. She wasn’t going to bend to his will this time. Like Roman had told her, love was a two-way street. It wasn’t just one person bending to the other’s will.

  Her father heaved a sigh. “I know you were upset with me back then when I forbade you to see him. I know you probably hated me. But I didn’t want you to get married at eighteen. I wanted you to go to college, to be able to get a decent job. You were too smart to not have the opportunity to get an education, and I swore that all my children would have what I didn’t. Maybe I was too tough on you, but I couldn’t see anything but your life getting ruined any other way.”

  “I loved him. You took away my choices for what you thought was best for me.” Like what she’d done to Roman. She’d made the choice about their relationship for him, just as her father had done for her.

  “When you were young, you were always full of such joy. After this happened, you hardly smiled again. I was angry at myself. I was angry at your mother for dying and leaving me here to raise you alone, and look what a bad job I was doing. I thought you would get over him.”

  “I didn’t get over him. I tried to, but I couldn’t.”

  “Don’t ruin everything you’ve worked so hard for by getting tangled up with him again. You’re a doctor now, and you’re just getting your practice up and running. You can do a lot better than him.”

  “No, Dad. I have to decide what’s best for me. Who I love, and who I want to be with. You did the best you could on your own with Mom dying, but I’m an adult now. I have to live my own life, and you have to allow me to do it.”

  She let out a breath she felt she’d held for twelve years. Finally, she’d said the things she should have said long ago. Finally, she’d stood up for her own feelings. She could not lead the life her father wished for her, and she hoped he accepted that. But if he didn’t, she was going to live it anyway. Despite all her pain at losing Roman for good, that was very freeing.

  Her father, for once, had no words. His bushy brows were knit down hard, concentrating, worrying. The old Bella would have begged forgiveness, perhaps, or offered an apology. But not this one.

  She turned and walked up the stairs, bracing herself for her father’s wrath. But the funny thing was, he didn’t say a thing.

  “Thanks for letting me bring Gracie after work to get her stitches out,” Bella said as Ethan let her into his veterinary office after hours on Thursday. He had that same Ethan smile on his face as always, lovely, nonjudgmental, and a little sad. It made her try to push all her own worries aside. She was here for the dog, but she was here for Ethan, too. It was time to have a long-overdue chat.

  Bella hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since the weekend. Everything reminded her of Roman. The apples her dad kept talking about, which were selling like hotcakes. The good-as-new wall in her office. Her apartment, which she’d moved back into, at least until she could find another one in Chicago. Even looking at the clear, calm surface of the lake reminded her of Roman. What they’d almost had.

  If she weren’t so afraid to be honest with him, maybe they could’ve had it.

  She’d been so afraid to show him her true self. So afraid to tell him how much she’d loved him, how many years she’d suffered after losing him. And how she’d fallen in love with him again from the first moment she’d seen him outside the reception hall.

  “Anything for you, Bella,” Ethan said as he propped open the door for her and Gracie to pass. But it wasn’t with his usual cheekiness. It sounded tight, like maybe he was tensing up his jaw when he said it.

  She walked Gracie into the exam room and watched while he sat down on a stool and rolled over to his cabinets to take out a suture-removal kit. Before he could get the dog up on the exam table, Bella spoke. “Stop saying that,” she said, shocking herself a little.

  He looked up in surprise. “Stop saying what?”

  Okay, she was on a roll. Now she just had to summon the courage to keep going. “Stop being so accommodating to me all the time. Stop being so damn nice.”

  “Do you want me to stop being your friend, too?”

  “You’ve always been my friend. You’ve never failed to be my friend. You’ve picked me up after every major crisis in my life for the past twelve years. I just can’t help feeling that . . . that . . .”

  He was frowning now. “You can’t help feeling what?”

  “That you’re angry with me.” His face was a little impassive. “And maybe you should be angry with me. Not just because I didn’t tell you about Roman or Chicago or any of that.”

  “What you do with Roman is your own business.”

  She couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. But she had to be honest with him. It was all she could give him now.

  She cleared her throat. “Are you in love with me, Ethan?”

  He rolled his stool over to her and took up her hands. Squeezed them. Looked into her eyes. She forced herself to meet his gaze, but she was so afraid of what he would say.

  “I’ve always loved you, Bella. From the moment you sat down in the cafeteria with that geeky Jewish boy who didn’t have any friends. You always saw me for who I was. You never expected me to be anybody but myself.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve used your friendship like a crutch instead of standing on my own. I—I took advantage of your loyalty. I clung to you out of my own fear of facing things on my own.” Ethan had buffered her from the criticisms and scrutiny of the town. He’d loved her unquestionably.

  He smiled, but it was a sad smile “Ah well. Maybe I understood that you needed someone, and I was more than happy to be that person.”

  “You always seem to think I’m a better version of myself.”

  The dog was licking his hand. He reached inside his lab coat and pulled out a piece of dog biscuit, which the dog made a lunge for and then ran under the exam table to eat.

  “I was angry the other night,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe you’d go back to Roman. Not after everything that happened. I mean, I’ve been trying for years to get back together with you, and he shows up and within the week you’re sleeping with him.”

  “I love him.” The words hung in the air, shocking her again. “I think I always have. But I let the past get in the way of the present. I messed things up between us pretty badly. And this time my father had nothing to do with it.”

  He laughed a little. “Oh, come on. You can b
e truthful with me, so why not be truthful with yourself? You’re not eighteen anymore. You’re not a victim of circumstance and a stubborn father anymore. You have the power to change your destiny.”

  “I’ve decided to go to Chicago. Clean slate and all that.” She couldn’t stay here anymore, live in the same town with Roman, see him on the street every day and pretend to smile as they said hi . . . “I wanted to say thank you for always being there for me. And I’m sorry if I took advantage of your kindness to me.”

  “You sure you want to do that? You don’t have to go to Chicago to find out who you are. You can do that right here.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” In the old days—yesterday—she might have stayed and cried on his shoulder. Asked him for reassurance. She owed him more than that now.

  He got up and hoisted Gracie up on the exam table and snipped the sutures in her leg while Bella held her paw. When all was said and done, he lowered the dog down and tossed her another biscuit. “You know, I have something to tell you, too. I’ve taken a job in Montana.”

  She laughed as she wiped her eyes. “You’re funny. I thought you just said Montana.” If it were a few weeks ago, she would have said, Aw, c’mon, Eth. You don’t mean it. Stay. We could get pizza and see a movie and . . . He wasn’t laughing. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Big Sky country. Why not? I’m still young. I want an adventure.”

  Oh no. So far away. What would she do not seeing his smiling face, hearing his laugh or his dumb jokes? Or not picking up his dry cleaning every week?

  She gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” she whispered. “You pick the best sushi places, and the weirdest movie marathons, and you’re the only person I know whose desk is messier than mine. Please say we’ll always be friends.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yada yada,” he said. “Now take your cookie-fanatic dog and get out of here.”

  “I love you, Ethan.” She hugged him. “I wish you the best.”

  “I love you, too, babe. Love you, too.”

  She forced a smile, determined to show him a happy front. She didn’t want to hold him back any more than she already had. It was a small thing to do for all he’d done for her.

  Bella turned and headed for the door so he wouldn’t see her cry. Which it seemed she was doing in spades lately. She’d just gathered her dog and her keys when her cell rang. It was Aunt Fran.

  “Stop everything! Come quickly!” she said.

  “Frannie, what is it?” Bella asked, gesturing to Ethan that something was wrong.

  “It’s your father. He’s in the fields, trying to pick those damn pumpkins himself.”

  “What?”

  “Your father’s going to kill himself and throw out his back again and ruin all his hard work after surgery. Nicoletti stole away the pumpkin pickers. He’s trying to do it himself, fool that he is. And he won’t listen to me. We have to stop him.”

  Her dad was in the field picking pumpkins? Four weeks after back surgery? The man’s pride was more important than his health. Why did that not surprise her? His pride was bigger than ever admitting he was wrong, too.

  “Guess you can’t get rid of me that soon,” Ethan said. “How about if I drive?”

  A few minutes later, Ethan pulled her car up to the field where her father was lifting a big-ass pumpkin into a wooden orchard bin. Smoke-gray clouds hung low in the sky, and the wind was rustling the leaves on the trees and stirring the yellowed leaves on the pumpkin vines that lined the fields.

  Bella got out and grabbed hold of the pumpkin with both hands. “Pop, are you crazy? You just had back surgery!”

  “That bastard took my crew.”

  Bella tossed the pumpkin into the bin. She took hold of his arm and pointed to the tool in his hands, which was essentially a big pair of pruners. “Give me the loppers.”

  Her father threw up a hand in that Italian way of his. “Arabella, leave me be. I know what I’m doing.”

  She snagged the loppers and put them behind her back. “Tell me what happened. Where’s Raul and his crew?”

  “Tony Nicoletti’s paying him more than I can pay. I told you he was out to ruin me. And I’m not going to let him.”

  “We can match his price and get the crew back. I’ll kick in the difference.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “What do you mean it’s too late?”

  “Bad weather’s coming. Maybe hail. Nicoletti paid prime price to get them to leave my job and go to his fields instead.” He paused, which was never a good sign. “And besides, Raul and I had . . . words.”

  “Oh no, Pop, you didn’t.” She put her hands on her hips. “You told Raul off, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did. How many years has he worked for us, that traitor? Then he goes running off because Nicoletti offers him blood money. I don’t ever want to see him again.” He waved his arm in a dismissive gesture.

  In that moment, Bella looked at her father. Stooped over a little from the back problems, the outdoor light showing every weathered crease and wrinkle, his thick, wavy hair graying. There were many, many adjectives she could use to describe her father, starting with stubborn, obstinate, proud, and completely unreasonable.

  But he was something else, too. A very hard worker. And somehow he kept everything going as it should—the fields, the flowers, the business. The equipment worked, the books were balanced. This garden center was his life. And he was not a quitter.

  Bella got her amazing work ethic from him. And maybe more than a dash of his stubbornness. And even if this whole thing with Roman was killing her, just killing her, it was not going to define her. She was going to survive this. She wasn’t eighteen anymore. She wasn’t a delicate flower. When she was a girl, she hadn’t understood what love was. She understood it much better now. Enough to know it was hard and it could hurt like hell, but she also knew that it would not destroy her.

  And her father, giant pill that he was, was just a man. A man who made mistakes and who had his own trials to bear, and who had borne most of them alone since her mother had died. Somewhere under his gruff exterior, he probably did love her, even if he didn’t approve of her imperfect life.

  Well, if she wasn’t perfect, neither was he.

  She flung the loppers over her shoulder. They landed in the field a few rows over.

  “What are you doing?” her father said, outraged.

  “We will get these pumpkins picked. But you, personally, will not be picking them.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do, young lady.”

  “I do if I’m the one who nursed you back to health these past few weeks. What would Mom say if she saw you ruining yourself out in these fields? How are you going to run the business if you’re off your feet for months because you were too stubborn to listen to anyone?”

  A truck came rolling down the dirt road that edged the field. A black pickup truck, followed by an old maroon van. The truck stopped behind Bella’s car, and Roman himself got out.

  At the sight of him, in jeans and an old flannel shirt, Bella’s heart contracted hard, like a fist had wrapped around it and was squeezing all the blood out of it, leaving her lightheaded and empty. His handsomeness struck her as it always did, and the fact that he looked tired, and maybe a little bedraggled, like maybe these last few days had been just as hard for him as they had been for her.

  She wanted to run into his arms, rub her cheek against that old, soft shirt, and feel his arms wrap around her, comforting and forgiving.

  He gave her a cursory glance, then focused on her dad. “Mr. D’Angelo, I heard your pickers left. I brought some guys to help.”

  “Where did you find them?” Vito asked, always suspicious.

  “They’re my apple pickers.”

  “I can’t take your apple pickers. Bad weather’s on the way. Get your crop picked.” Vito knew it was full picking season and time was money. Besides, if hail pockmarked the apples, they’d be ruined as e
ating apples, which were expected to be without blemish.

  Roman shrugged. Caught Bella’s eye, which made her heart skip, but his expression was maddeningly neutral. She’d hoped he was a little less angry. That maybe he’d come over not just as a neighbor but also because of her. “We’ll get this done today and worry about the apples tomorrow.”

  Before Vito could protest, Roman walked to the maroon van. A crew of men were climbing out of it, several of them with loppers. A gray-haired man, clearly in charge, came forward to confer with Roman. After a minute, he signaled his crew. “Okay, men. Let’s get to it.”

  The crew spread out in pairs, one of the guys lopping the pumpkins off the vines and the other lifting them and placing them in bins on a bin hauler positioned between the rows of the field. The bin hauler was a tractor capable of scooping up several bins at a time and hauling them all back to the garden center together.

  “I can’t thank you enough for this,” Vito said. He sounded humble, for the first time Bella could ever remember. Was this really her dad? Or was this the version the aliens left behind?

  “That’s what neighbors are for,” Roman said, but he was looking at her.

  “Thank you, Roman,” Bella said. She tried to let him know with her eyes how much she meant it. How sorry she was for not being honest with him from the beginning. Oh hell, she hadn’t been honest with herself. She’d been so protective of her heart, but for what? She’d lost him anyway.

  “It’s no problem,” he said, pleasantly enough. Their staring contest was broken by the sound of more cars—Joey and a carload of his buddies climbed out, and Gina and Manny. And Roman’s brothers Lukas and Drew, and Sam and Stevie. Ethan had driven up to the house and gotten Fran and Gracie, too.

  Over the next few hours, there were no signs that Roman had had a change of heart, or wanted to talk. No more subtle glances or smiles in her direction, which seemed to indicate just how hurt and angry with her he was.

  On the other hand, Roman talked freely with her father, even laughing once or twice, and her father was nothing but grateful, even ordering pizza for everyone after the field was clear. So Roman and his father had finally come to terms. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for them.