Another Chance (Lake Placid Series Book 7)

by Natalie Ann

  “So you did it for her?”

  “More for her than me. I wasn’t too keen on being this far out and away from people but it’s grown on me quite a bit.”

  “I can see where that can happen,” Matt said. Amazing how the view of the world could be so different than it was before.

  “Anyway, your mom jumped on the opportunity. It stopped my ears from ringing so much, I can tell you that.”

  “They still were at each other when she came to stay with me after my accident. I think they tried to keep the peace for my sake, but the underlying tension remained after all those years.”

  “When you love someone you make sacrifices for them, Matt. Just remember that.”

  “I know that now. It shouldn’t always be the man that has to make them though.”

  “You’re right, it shouldn’t. But you need to weigh everything and make that decision on the happiness of everyone when it’s all said and done.”

  “I didn’t do that. I made us both miserable.”

  “You did. But you were a kid and kids do stupid shit. The question is—are you going to make stupid decisions now?”

  “No,” he said, wondering if he’d been too harsh on Bob in the past. At the root of it, he’d just put his wife first and maybe that was something Matt could have learned from. He sure the hell never learned it from his own father.

  ***

  Dena was having more fun than she thought she would. She was in the kitchen cooking dinner and getting everything ready with Penny like she had before.

  A mother-daughter bonding time of sorts. Something she’d never experienced with her own mother and had always wanted and had often dreamed a future of with Penny.

  Of Penny being a grandmother to the kids she and Matt would have had by now.

  Actually, Penny was the only one she’d ever bonded with like this over the years.

  She’d dated other men and had been introduced to their mothers, but she’d never shared anything remotely close to what she had with Penny.

  When Matt cut ties with her so sharp and fast, it wasn’t just him she was losing in her life. Even returning home after college it was hard to avoid Penny, but she became a master at it.

  “How are things going with you and Matt?” Penny asked.

  “They’re going well. We’re taking it one day at a time at this point.”

  “That’s the smart thing to do.”

  “I think we’re both being smarter,” Dena said, grabbing the plates to set the table. She looked out into the living room and saw Matt and Bob talking and drinking a beer. Seems like a lot of things had changed.

  Penny looked around the kitchen suddenly, almost like she was fearful of something. “Can I tell you something that has been eating at me for years?”

  “Of course,” Dena said. “You can tell me anything.”

  “You talk about being smarter this time around and I think I did some things that weren’t so smart myself years ago. I’ve never told anyone and it’s bothered me for years.”

  “Something with Matt?” she asked, not sure what it could be or why Penny was bringing it up now.

  “No. With you.”

  “Me?” Dena said.

  “Your senior year in high school your mother came back to the area.”

  “What? My father said she’d only ever called, but didn’t come back.” Had her father lied to her about it?

  “I don’t know if your father knew. I don’t know if anyone knew. I ran into her in the store. I didn’t even know who she was as she left before we moved here. She knew me though. She had no problem coming right up to me and asked all sorts of questions about you.”

  “Questions like what? Why not try to find me and talk to me? I haven’t talked to her in years.” She didn’t want to admit that her mother had called her. She hadn’t even told Matt.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I should have, but my anger took over.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I gave her a piece of my mind. I told her no mother worth a piece of shit on the ground would do what she did. Would walk away from her child. From her daughter at a time in her life when she needed one. That it was nothing but selfishness on her part to come back and disrupt your life now if she wasn’t going to stay in it.”

  “Did she say why she came to town?”

  Dena wasn’t sure what she would have done if she’d known her mother was back in town years ago. If she would have wanted to talk to her or not. She’d held such bitter feelings for years.

  “She was lonely. She wanted to see what you looked like. How you turned out.” Penny reached for her hand and held it loosely. “She was drunk and crying and making a scene in the store. I pulled her out and into the parking lot.”

  “I didn’t know she drank. I mean I didn’t know a lot about her other than she kept saying she wasn’t happy and hated living here.”

  “She said she needed the wine to give her the courage to come back. I guess that just ticked me off even more. She wasn’t coming back for you if she needed that kind of courage and I told her so.”

  “I suppose she didn’t like being told that.”

  “She didn’t. I had her by the arm and she shook me loose, then started yelling at me that I had no clue what it was like to be stuck in a loveless marriage and with a child she didn’t want.” Penny’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

  “Don’t apologize for what we both know is the truth. My father tried to shield me from it for so long and he shouldn’t have.”

  Dena didn’t feel anything but relief now. No more guilt for not wanting to give her mother a chance.

  No more wondering if she’d caused her mother to leave. In one sense she did because her mother never wanted her, but that wasn’t her doing either.

  “No one wanted to see you hurt again, Dena. Especially me. But I told her to take her sorry ass out of Lake Placid and not to come back if she couldn’t come back for the right reasons.”

  “She obviously did it. She listened to you,” Dena said, cracking the barest smile, surprised she could grin at this rather than cry that she wasn’t wanted. She reminded herself she was wanted by plenty of people. The right people.

  “I’ve carried this around for years and worried that I stopped a relationship between you and your mother because of my careless words. Because I was trying to protect you from being hurt again. Then my idiot son went and hurt you anyway.”

  “He was an idiot back then,” Dena said, laughing. “I think we’ve all been idiots in our life and we all get hurt. That is what life is about.”

  “And now it’s about trying to fix what we did wrong, right?” Penny asked.

  “That’s right,” Dena said, not hesitating at all and pulling Penny in for a hug. “Thank you for being the mother I never had back then and even now. And thank you for standing up for me so much when not many did. I should have told you this years ago. I shouldn’t have waited so long either.”

  Next Step

  Time seemed to be flying. She and Matt were getting along better than she ever expected.

  They didn’t say they loved each other all the time, but she knew how he felt and he knew how she felt.

  She was just walking in his front door with a pizza box when her phone went off. She set the box down on the counter, leaned over to give him a kiss and then frowned at the number on her phone. It wasn’t one she recognized and sent it to voicemail.

  “How was your day?” she asked, as he pulled some drinks out of the fridge and they sat at the small table to eat.

  “Not bad. Working on a few more cases.”

  “Randall been bugging you to come back?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to keep asking me, you know.”

  “Just checking.”

  “He’s going to keep bugging, but I don’t have any intention of going back,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked, turning to look at him.

  “
I thought I’ve been very clear about that. Why are you so surprised by it all of a sudden?”

  She didn’t know the answer to that. She just kept waiting for something to happen to make him go back to the life he had. Or to any life other than the one she had here.

  “You haven’t said what you’ve got planned just yet for your future. It’s hard not to think you’ll go back without knowing your next step.”

  He grinned and tugged on a lock of her hair. “I’ve got a few ideas and some things in the works.”

  “What?” she asked, wondering why she was just hearing about this now.

  “Nothing I want to share at this point. Just ideas, but nothing concrete. Things take time and I’m in no rush. I’ve got a job and it’s willing to let me be flexible right now.”

  She decided to let it go. Maybe she wasn’t ready to know what his plans were anyway. Part of her was excited he might want to stay, but the other part wasn’t sure how much she was ready to commit.

  Did she think it was wrong of her to feel that way? Probably, but she couldn’t change it either. She couldn’t change the fact that her heart wasn’t ready to trust and possibly break again.

  Maybe she just wasn’t as strong as she always thought she’d be.

  The minute she went to take a bite of her pizza her phone went off again and she pulled it out to see a message from the call she didn’t answer.

  Rather than wait to see who it was, she listened to it. She was sure her face was showing off her anger because Matt was quick to ask, “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she said, putting her phone away.

  “Yet I don’t believe you.”

  She had a decision to make. Should she tell Matt or just push it aside? Years ago she’d told him everything. She’d told him more than she’d told her own father. “That was my mother leaving me a message. Another one.”

  His mouth opened and then closed. “Another one. You said you hadn’t talked to her in years.”

  “I hadn’t at the time you asked me. Then out of the blue, she called me at work. She’d left a message but didn’t leave her name and when I tried to call it back the number was disconnected. A week later she called me again and sat on hold for me.”

  “What did she want?”

  “The same thing she’s wanted from my father. Or so I guess. Money.”

  “You’re joking, right? You haven’t seen her since she left and she’s calling you for money?”

  “She’s sick. Or so she says. She has Lyme disease and doesn’t take care of herself. She blames my father for it.”

  “She blames your father that she got bit by a tick?” Matt asked.

  “Absurd, I know. But that’s her. Always blaming other people when she didn’t get her way or what she wanted.”

  “Did you tell your father she was reaching out to you?” he asked.

  “No. He doesn’t need to know. I’d asked him about her before she reached out. I was shocked to learn she’d been contacting him over the years and he’d never said a word. He said that he didn’t need to burden me with a problem that really wasn’t a problem to begin with. Plus I’d never asked before.”

  “What made you start to ask about her now?”

  “You,” she said, deciding to be upfront. Why now at this point?

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. I wondered if I had commitment issues. If I was anything like her and that was why you left. That maybe I was too set in my ways like she was and was afraid to look beyond a life here.”

  She wouldn’t tell Matt about the conversation she’d had with Penny about her mother. That could be their little secret because that conversation made her realize that she was nothing at all like her mother and she’d wasted too much time worrying.

  “She left, Dena. And I left. You didn’t leave anyone. You don’t have any commitment issues at all and I can’t believe you’d even think that.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time for things to go through my mind over the years. But honestly that one never did. Not until you came back and I had to really look in the past and see where I might have missed things. Where I might have gone wrong too.”

  “You weren’t wrong. Not as wrong as you thought. We’ve been over this. I said a lot of thoughtless words to you that I can’t take back. I wish I never said what I did.”

  “I said some things back to you,” she said.

  “In reaction to my words. You had every right to blast me that way. I guess the question is do they still hold true? Will you never forgive me?”

  “I think the fact that we’re in a relationship again is answer enough. I also said I’d never give you another chance.”

  “You did say that,” he said, pulling her up and in his arms. “So you lied.”

  “I really believed what I was saying back then. Even a year ago, I believed it. I guess it just goes to show how much you can say or do things that you don’t really mean and how so much can change when you don’t see it coming.”

  He hugged her and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m glad to hear you say that.” He stepped back and sat down to start eating. “So what is it that your mom said just now?”

  “Not much. Said she wanted me to call her back, which I won’t do. I’ve got nothing to say to her. I don’t know that I ever will. She actually said she wanted to get to know me better and make it up to me in the last phone call. I just don’t believe it. Even if she believes it, I’m not interested.”

  Especially knowing what Penny confessed to her. That her mother never wanted her. She’d have to thank Penny for being so honest with her once again.

  “I don’t blame you. Why set yourself up for more heartache? You’ve done well in your life without her and there’s no reason for her to come in and disrupt it.”

  “Like you’ve been doing?” she asked, grinning.

  ***

  Matt’s grin dropped. He knew Dena was joking, but he was still hurt by her words. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “Sorry. It was meant as teasing. It’s pretty obvious that you’ve been disrupting my life the past two months.”

  “I don’t think I deserve to be compared to your mother though.”

  “You’re right. That was completely uncalled for by me. I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Sure, you do. You do feel like I’m doing that to your life right now. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. You’ve never been one to mince words before.”

  “True,” she said. “I guess deep down you are turning my world upside down again and I’m not all that sure how to handle it.”

  “Do you need a plan on how to handle it? I’d like to think we are doing a pretty good job with it by just going with the flow,” he said.

  “You’re probably right,” she said.

  “I want you to be honest with me. I want you to tell me how you’re feeling about things.”

  “I have been,” she argued. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I was until you made that little joke.”

  “Sorry if it bothered you. I guess deep down I’ve got a lot more insecurities than I’m letting on.”

  “You’re not alone in those thoughts.”

  Understand Each Other

  They’d decided to go away together the following weekend. The minute Dena got out of work, she rushed home and changed and she and Matt were on their way across the border to Burlington, Vermont.

  It wasn’t far. It wasn’t glamorous.

  But it was the first time the two of them would be around each other nonstop. The first time they’d taken a vacation together. Ever.

  Even staying the night with him recently, they’d never been around each other for more than twenty-four hours.

  The two-hour drive to Burlington was full of conversation that held no importance but was fun and light. They talked about things from when they were in school. Friends they’d hung out with and where people were now.

  “I’m surprised you re
membered as many people as you did,” she told him. They’d had a group of friends back then, but when he lit out of town like firecrackers were exploding at his feet, she figured he’d wiped his brain of anyone here besides herself.

  “I had some good times here,” he said. “It wasn’t all that horrible.”

  She laughed. “That’s good to know.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said, looking over and smiling at her.

  “I do. I know it ended horribly, but I’d never forgotten all the good times. We hardly ever fought back then. Do you think that was a problem?”

  “No,” he said. “I mean we didn’t always agree, but we didn’t get in pissing matches like so many other couples did.”

  “I get it. But I wonder if maybe we had fought more, then we would have understood each other better.”

  So many of their friends were fighting and breaking up and making up. She and Matt never had that problem. They just got along so well and she wondered if maybe they both gave in to keep the peace and that was what caused them to not believe when the other was serious about the important issues.

  “That’s a crazy statement if I ever heard one,” he said.

  “Think about it, Matt. You told me enough about hating it here and wanting to leave. I just didn’t believe it. Maybe if you pushed more. Maybe if you pushed enough for me to hear you and it ticked me off I would have believed it. Then we could have talked.”

  “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Dena. We can’t keep digging up the past. We were young and we did some great things and we did some stupid things.”

  He was right. “I guess.”

  “What’s this all about? Are you still holding on to all those dreams you had of our wedding and when kids would be born? Hell, you even had names you were talking to me about back then.”

  She had. She remembered it all. Childish dreams back then, now that she thought of it. How could she have known what their future would hold and why did she spend so much time worrying and grasping it so tightly?

  “I don’t know. I guess I feel like a failure in that respect. You said you felt like your career failed, but I think my personal life is one failure after another.”