by Shirley Jump
She laughed. “Well, that’s got to be good for you.”
“And my cellulite.” He winked, then said goodbye and headed back to the party.
Melanie watched her sister dancing with Cody, while Dylan hoisted Jacob into his arms and took a spin on the dance floor. John asked Catherine to dance, and she slipped into his arms like she’d always been there.
Out of the corner of her eye, Melanie saw Harris, striding across the wide green lawn of the park. He had on a navy suit and red floral tie, which made her pulse race. Damn, he looked good in a suit. Even better with a tie. It had been a long time since she’d seen him this dressed up, and the effect nearly made her come undone. God, it was going to be hard to leave him again. And twice as hard to forget him this time.
He greeted a few people he knew as he made his way through the crowd in the reception and then over to her. As they had from the day she arrived, the people of Stone Gap welcomed Harris with open arms. Instead of pausing to talk, he kept going, straight toward her. She held her breath, not quite sure what she wanted to say to him yet, but knowing it was a long-overdue conversation.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
She smiled. “Thank you. You still do a suit justice. I haven’t seen you in one in a long time.”
“Thanks.” He nodded toward the dance floor. “I’m sorry I missed the ceremony, but Abby and Dylan look really happy.”
Small talk. It filled the space between them. “They are. They really are. And I’m glad. My sister has had a tough life, and she deserves that fairy tale.”
“Everyone does,” he said.
Did he mean her? And him? Or was she looking for something that wasn’t there? And when was she going to grow up and stop hoping for the impossible?
“I have something I should have told you a long time ago,” Melanie said. She was done keeping secrets, done running from the truth. Not just with her sister and mother, but with everyone in her life. “It won’t change anything about today, but still, you should know. Can we take a little walk?”
“Sure.”
Melanie waved to Abby, mouthing that she’d be right back. Abby nodded and gave her sister a little thumbs-up.
They walked across the park and away from the crowded wedding reception. When the music from the band was in the distant background, she began to speak. “You were right when you accused me of lying when we broke up. I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t involved with Dave. I did lie about why he was there. And why I needed a hug from him.” She drew in a deep breath. “I got pregnant.”
He stopped walking. His jaw dropped. “You did?”
She could see him doing the math in his head, the questions about the baby, and then the sorrow filling his eyes when he realized there was no ten-year-old child standing between them. She nodded, and even now, a decade later, the loss still seared her chest and filled her eyes. “I lost it the day before we broke up. I had only found out a couple days before, and was still getting used to the idea, and trying to figure out how to tell you. But then I woke up one morning in terrible pain. I kept hoping it wasn’t true, that the cramps and the bleeding were normal, but then I went to the doctor, and he confirmed it. I was devastated. When I left the office, Dave was walking by, and the whole story just poured out of me. What you saw was a friend comforting a friend who had lost something she already loved. Not a relationship I was keeping a secret.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never gave me a chance. You freaked out, broke up with me and left. I was so hurt that you would think I was cheating that I didn’t call you to try to explain. And I was angry that you weren’t there to help me get through the worst days of my life. The very person I needed was the one who had caused me so much of that pain.” She let out a breath. “So I signed up for college and got out of town the first chance I had. I vowed to forget all about you, and that summer, and most of all, that night.” She swiped at her eyes. When Harris came closer, she put up a hand. If she didn’t get it all out now, she never would. “I felt like such a failure. The one thing I should have been able to do, that millions of women do every year, and I...I screwed it up.” She shook her head and willed the tears in her eyes not to fall. “I know now that it wasn’t my fault, that sometimes those things just happen. But back then, I saw myself as a failure, and I didn’t want to be that anymore. So I went to college, and I moved to New York, and I got the job that, at the time, seemed glamorous and exciting and married the man every other woman thought was amazing. And then I lost it all.” She sighed. “I failed again, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone the truth.”
“No, you didn’t fail. You went after your dreams, and you picked yourself up, and you did it again.”
“At your expense.” She cupped his face with her hand and stared into the brown eyes she had loved most of her life. She knew now why she hadn’t rushed to send the article in to the paper. Why she had hesitated on letting Saul run it. Why she hadn’t taken the job with the Charlotte paper. “I begged Saul not to run that story. I didn’t want to hurt you. Or the family.”
“You didn’t.” Harris reached into his jacket and pulled out the folded newspaper. “John gave me a copy, and I read it just now. It was...beautiful, Mellie. I knew the story and I still got caught up in the emotions. You were fair and honest and so very considerate of the Kingstons and what they have been through.”
She had been waiting for the disapproval. The anger. His pride and praise floored her. “You...you liked it?”
“No. I loved it. You’re so incredibly talented, Mellie.” Harris shifted closer to her. “I should have known that you would be fair. That you would be the only reporter I could truly trust.”
“And yet you’ve never trusted me.”
“Because you are a very powerful woman, Melanie Cooper.” He tipped her chin until she was looking at him. “From the day I met you, you’ve been the only one in the world who could break my heart. And that terrified me.”
She scoffed. “I don’t think anything terrifies you, Harris.”
“The thought of losing you does. I went through that once. I don’t want to do it again.” He caught her hands in his and drew her to his chest. “Even after I left town and quit working for him, my father was ruling my life. He never approved of us dating.”
“I remember. He wanted you to date some other girl.”
“The daughter of a business associate. An alliance that would benefit him, I’m sure, just like he benefited from the closing of John’s business and all the other people whose lives he ruined.” Harris shook his head. “I spent too many years trying to get the approval of someone I don’t even like. And all it did was cost me.”
She was close to him, so close that she could catch the scent of his cologne. So close that her heart ached for more. Ached for him to tell her to stay. But she had made it clear a hundred times that this was just a temporary thing, and after today, she’d be going back to New York and he’d be going back to his life. Better to be strong now, get it over with, before she began to cry. “I’m glad we had a chance to see each other again before I leave.”
“Don’t.” His gaze met hers. “Don’t walk out of my life again, Mellie.”
There was a hitch of vulnerability in the way he said her name, the touch of his hand. Her heart melted and she lifted her chin until she was close enough to kiss him. “Why?”
“Because I love you. I always have.”
“You still love me?”
He nodded. “I knew it the second I saw you again. It was like we’d said goodbye yesterday, not a decade ago.”
Joy soared inside her. She’d tried so hard to be practical, to keep her heart out of all of this, but her love for him had been in every word of the article she wrote. “I felt the same. I was just so scared. I mean, I don’t want to screw this up, Harris.”
“You won’t.�
� He brushed a tendril of hair off her forehead. “Because this time, both of us are staying put.”
“Here?”
“Seems like a great town to make a new beginning in, don’t you think?”
Melanie turned and looked at the people gathered for Abby’s wedding. The warm circle that surrounded her sister and their family. How she had been welcomed into Stone Gap as if she’d always belonged here. She had never really felt that in Connecticut or in New York. But here, with the coconut cream pie and the exploding pink dress shop, she had found home. “It does.”
“Then let’s do that, Mellie.” He gathered her into his arms and kissed her—a long, deep, sweet kiss that made her heart melt and made her want more. Much more. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Harris.” She raised her gaze to his. “Does this mean we get to write a new ending to our story?”
“It does indeed. But I think we’re going to need to buy some more legal pads first.” He kissed her again and again, until she was breathless. “Because I intend to have one long, happy life with you.”
“That sounds like the perfect ending to me.” She leaned into his arms and watched the sun set, the lights come on and a new life begin in the middle of Stone Gap.
She couldn’t have written it better if she tried.
* * *
Look for the next book in
New York Times bestselling author
Shirley Jump’s miniseries,
The Stone Gap Inn.
Available November 2019,
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Keep reading for an excerpt from A Baby Between Friends by Kathy Douglass.
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A Baby Between Friends
by Kathy Douglass
Chapter One
How can you hate your best friend? Joni Danielson had pondered that question more times than she could count, and she still hadn’t found a satisfactory answer. Nor had she discovered a way to rid herself of the negative feeling that had tormented her for the past six weeks. As she looked across the city hall conference room at Mayor Alexander Devlin III, her former friend, she was filled with anger and disappointment. And, truthfully, hate. And it hurt her heart. After five years of being best friends, she didn’t want to hate him. But she didn’t know how to stop.
For the past month and a half, she’d avoided being anyplace she thought he might show up. Since she knew him so well, she’d been successful most of the time. Once or twice she’d walked into Mabel’s Diner and seen him there eating lunch and talking with people who came up to his table, but for the most part she’d steered clear of him. But some things, like this early-morning meeting with the city council and department heads, couldn’t be avoided. Since she was director of the youth center in Sweet Briar, her presence was required.
Councilwoman Alana Kane swept into the room in a cloud of perfume that had Joni gagging. Despite the fact that it was seven thirty in the morning, the other woman’s makeup was flawless, and there wasn’t a hair out of place. Her earrings and necklace matched the diamond ankle bracelet on her left leg. She barely glanced at Joni as she strode across the room on four-inch heels. The smile she couldn’t manage for Joni or any of the other people gathered in the room miraculously materialized when she reached Lex’s side.
“Could she be any more transparent?”
Joni turned at the sound of Denise Harper’s voice and met her eyes. Mrs. Harper was Lex’s secretary, a position she’d held for several mayors before Lex. Joni considered the other woman a friend. “Only to us. You know men love getting all of a woman’s attention, even if that woman is actually a snake in disguise.”
“I thought Lex was smarter than that.”
Joni frowned and, despite her determination not to, glanced over at Lex for a second, then back at Mrs. Harper. “He’s not any more special than any other guy.”
Mrs. Harper raised her eyebrows but otherwise didn’t reply.
“Okay, it looks like everyone is here, so let’s get this meeting started,” Lex said. It seemed as if he sidestepped Alana, but that could be the way it appeared from Joni’s perspective. And the smile on Alana’s face never wavered as Joni imagined it would had she been ignored.
Joni headed for a chair near the foot of the table, but she was too slow, and one of the councilmembers beat her to it. Everyone else had taken a seat, and the only available chair was at Lex’s right hand. In the past, she’d always sat there, so perhaps the other attendees were being courteous. Stifling a sigh, Joni took her seat and busied herself by searching for a pen in her purse.
Lex waited until everyone had taken a Danish or doughnut and topped up their coffee before calling the meeting to order. He glanced over at Joni, who held his gaze before she looked away. She recognized the question in his eyes, but she didn’t understand why it was there. He knew what he’d done.
Lex picked up a typed sheet of paper. “Let’s start with the first item on our agenda, the fall festival and dance.”
These were new events that Lex had mentioned to Joni at breakfast months ago, back when they’d been best friends who’d spent endless hours together tossing ideas back and forth. Back before the incident that had changed everything.
They’d attended the wedding of one of her sorority sisters and pretended to be in love so Joni could save face in front of her cheating ex-fiancé and his wife, also one of Joni’s sorority sisters. The plan had worked well until things got out of hand. She forced her mind away from that night. Besides, it wasn’t that night that had ruined everything between them. Truth be told, the night she’d spent in Lex’s arms had been the best of her life.
It was Lex’s apology and remorse the next morning that had made remaining friends impossible. He’d gone on for ten minutes about how sorry he was, completely unaware of the joy that was seeping from her soul only to be replaced by regret and shame. And then anger had come. The shame and regret hadn’t lasted long, but the anger and later hatred had grown stronger every day. At the time, she’d waited until he’d finally stopped saying they’d made a mistake, then gathered her clothes and gone into the bathroom where she’d showered and dressed in record time. Thankfully they’d been in a hotel in Chicago and not at home in Sweet Briar, North Carolina, where everyone would know what had transpired. At least no one would ever know how Lex had slept with her and then rejected her, saying they should pretend the whole night had never happened.
/> Joni forced the memory away and tuned back in to the meeting. And not a second too soon. That witch Alana was saying that since the dance would take place at the youth center, some of the money to pay for it should come from the youth center’s budget. Joni held her tongue and her temper until the other woman finished speaking. Then Joni smiled and looked around at the other six councilmembers and the chief of police, Trent Knight, who was also in attendance. Finally she looked at Lex. “I’d like to address that if I might.”
Lex nodded. “Go ahead.”
“This is a function that will benefit the entire town, not just the youth, so it shouldn’t come from our budget.”
“The true focus is the kids, Jocelyn,” Alana said snootily, using Joni’s given name as opposed to her preferred nickname, a combination of her first and middle names. “The location is proof of that.”
Joni managed to not roll her eyes. It was no secret that Alana wanted the dance to be held at a hotel in Charlotte that her brother managed. Charlotte was two hours away and holding the dance there would defeat the entire purpose. The fall festival was going to be a week-long promotional event where townspeople would try to convince vacationers that Sweet Briar was more than a beach town and summer destination. The plan was to let visitors see that Sweet Briar had plenty to offer all year round. The homecoming dance, which would be held a week after the festival, was meant to bring the town together for a good time after a week of hard but hopefully fruitful work.
Joni met and held Alana’s gaze, speaking slowly and firmly. “It’s for the families of Sweet Briar. The youth center is the logical choice because it has the most space.”
“Regardless, if you’re going to insist the dance take place at the center, the money should come from your budget. After all, the cost of security will be coming from the police budget.”
“I see.”
Alana nodded smugly. “I’m glad you agree.”
“I don’t agree. In fact, I think rather than charging the youth center, we should charge the city for use of our facility. After all, it will cost us in electricity and water usage. And of course janitorial. I’ll call around to see what hotel and banquet halls charge to host similar functions and then send the city a bill.”
