“So I’m a jerk for suggesting that I might have messed up a lot of things?” Adam asked with a short laugh. “I’m taking some responsibility here, Mel.”
“Tilly needs her dad right now,” Melanie said, lowering her voice. “Whatever it was that made her decide to come to me, I’m not her solution anymore. You and I are divorced, and your kids are now your sole responsibility.”
“And fifteen years of being their mom—” Adam’s voice was quiet, sad “—that doesn’t mean anything to you anymore?”
“If it meant something to you, maybe you should have stayed faithful,” she shot back.
“Hey, I’m not defending myself here. I messed up. I get that! I’m just saying, I’m not even in the country right now, and Tilly went to you. You know her...probably better than I do! You were the one who raised her—Girl Scouts, spelling bees, shopping trips, birthday parties... That was all you, Mel.”
“Yeah...” It was a whole lot more complicated than he made it sound. “So who was Tilly supposed to be with while you were gone? Someone’s going to be worried sick!”
“I let her stay on her own,” he replied.
“What?” She frowned. “You think that was wise?”
“For two weeks. I was letting her take some responsibility.”
So much so that Tilly had driven all the way to Mountain Springs. She might look like a grown woman, but she wasn’t grown up yet. Her father, of all people, should recognize that.
“I don’t know why she’s on your doorstep,” Adam went on, “but of anyone in this world, I trust you with my little girl. And maybe I shouldn’t have left her on her own, but I didn’t have you to tell me otherwise, did I?”
“Not anymore, Adam,” she confirmed with a sigh.
“Can you just...look out for her for a bit until I get back?”
“How long is that?”
“I’m back on US soil in five days.”
“And you’ll come get her?” Melanie asked.
“Yes. Mel, you know this kid. She might be full of attitude, but she’s the same Tilly.”
The same girl who played her father like a violin... What was this, an attempt to get her father’s attention? And suddenly, she realized, it didn’t matter. She didn’t owe Adam anything, but she still cared for this girl, and Tilly needed an adult who loved her right now. Whether she was acting lovable or not.
“Mel?” Adam said.
“Fine,” Melanie replied.
“Thank you,” Adam said, a smile in his voice. “I feel better already. Really, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I expect you to come out here straight from the airport.”
“As soon as I can,” he said.
Not exactly a confirmation that he’d do as she asked. He’d always been like that—somewhat reassuring but never giving her quite what she needed, either. Melanie said goodbye and ended the call. Tilly wasn’t the only one who played her—Adam always had, too.
Melanie didn’t want to be buddies with her ex. She didn’t want to be on the same team, creating some kind of fictional united front because that’s what adults did. She was freshly divorced, and she had the right to take some time to herself while she figured out her life again. She had the right to a little bit of privacy!
And she couldn’t even get that much.
Melanie looked up to see Tilly standing in the doorway, and her heart sank. Tilly dropped her gaze.
“That was my dad?” Tilly asked.
“Yeah. He says he’ll be back in five days.”
Tilly nodded. “Is he mad?”
“That you’re here?” Melanie asked. “No, I think he’s relieved. At least he knows where you are.”
“But you’re mad,” Tilly said, her tone tinged with bitterness. “I’m not your problem, right?”
“I’m sorry you heard that,” Melanie said. “You aren’t anyone’s problem. You’re the girl I raised.”
Tilly didn’t answer, and Melanie sighed.
“Tilly, why are you here? I mean, really. Because if you had free run of the house for two weeks, I don’t see why you’d come out here instead.”
“It was Simon,” Tilly said, and her chin trembled. “With Dad away, we were going to do a road trip together. And we started driving, and he said some mean and stupid things, and we started fighting, and...”
“But you have the car—”
“It’s my car,” Tilly retorted. “I dropped him off at a bus depot and drove off.”
Melanie couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. “You kicked him out. I like that. So why come here?”
Maybe Adam was right and Tilly wanted to feel safe. Was Melanie more of a mom to Tilly than she’d admitted?
Tilly rolled her eyes. “I wanted some time at the lake. My tan needs work.”
Apparently, the sharing time was over. Melanie sighed and turned back to the groceries. Tilly’s phone pinged again.
“Is that Simon?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is he apologizing and begging for your forgiveness?” Melanie asked.
Tilly didn’t answer. That meant no, and it didn’t surprise her. Simon had never respected Tilly.
“You want some free advice?” Melanie asked. “Turn off your phone and work on your tan. As long as he’s getting answers to his texts, he’s still in control.”
“You’re divorced. I’m not sure you’re the one to give relationship advice,” Tilly said.
Melanie turned back to putting away the groceries. That girl’s barbs always were rather well aimed.
Tilly’s phone pinged again. She didn’t start typing this time, though. From the corner of Melanie’s eye, she saw Tilly turn her phone off and tuck it into her back pocket. Taking advice? That would be a first!
“You’re worth more than him, you know, Tilly,” Melanie said.
Tilly didn’t answer, and she walked out of the room, peeling her shirt off as she went, revealing a bikini top underneath.
Five days.
CHAPTER FIVE
LATER THAT EVENING, Melanie dished the steaming marinara sauce into a bowl. It smelled great, if she did say so herself. She’d spent the better part of her adult years perfecting this recipe. Her spaghetti and meatballs were carbs swathed in comfort. And for too many years in her marriage to Adam, she’d needed some comfort of her own.
Outside the kitchen window, the wind ruffled the leaves on the apple tree. The apples were small, dense and green still. She’d never been at the lake house when the apples were ripe, she realized. Adam had paid for a landscape company to come and take care of the property on a regular basis... What had happened to all those apples? Did they just drop and get thrown out?
She’d pick them this year—make apple pies and sauce. That could add to making this place homier...more hers. Food mattered—good, wholesome, tasty food that could make her grateful for the moment she was in and stop thinking about the pain of the past.
There was the rumble of an engine, and Melanie leaned forward for a better view past the gnarled, twisted limbs of that apple tree. Logan’s black truck came to a stop, the engine turned off, and she found herself smiling in spite of herself.
“Who’s here?” Tilly asked from behind her.
“A friend of mine,” Melanie said.
“Who?”
“Logan McTavish. You met him earlier.”
“So that’s who you were cooking for,” Tilly said.
“You know what?” Melanie turned toward the teenager. “I’d have cooked this regardless. I’m worth a decent meal, too.”
Maybe Tilly needed a few lessons in how to take care of herself, because Melanie hadn’t done nearly enough in that regard over the last few years. It was too easy to get sucked into giving, giving, giving and feeling like a saint because of it. She wished she’d don
e less of that now. Tilly could have seen an example of a woman who didn’t hand herself over for all the wishes and needs of others.
Melanie wiped her hands on a towel and headed for the front door. She pulled it open just as Logan came up the steps. He held a bottle of wine in one hand.
“Hey,” he said with a smile. “Something smells good.”
“Come in,” she said. He handed her the wine and came inside.
Logan had changed his clothes since she’d seen him earlier. He was now in a pair of relaxed charcoal dress pants and a black ribbed T-shirt. They might both be twenty years older, but his physique hadn’t lost anything over the years. He was well muscled and his stomach was flat. How had he maintained that? He caught her appraising glance, and she felt her cheeks heat.
Tilly had left the room again, leaving them in relative privacy.
“How did it go today?” she asked, turning back toward the kitchen.
“I found Junior,” Logan said, following her. “He’s a psychiatrist now.”
“Really?” That was hard to picture—little Junior Wilde, the blond-haired kid who used to resent Logan so much.
“He’s married with kids, has his own practice—he’s all grown up,” Logan confirmed.
“Was it...nice to see him?” she asked hesitantly.
Logan sighed. “Not entirely. He doesn’t trust me. He didn’t want to part with Harry’s address. I guess he figured I’d stress him out. Harry had some strokes, so... I guess he’s fragile.”
“It’s good to see your dad now while you have the chance, though,” she said.
“Tell Junior that.”
Melanie led the way into the kitchen, and she grabbed a pair of tongs from a drawer and put them on top of the salad. She had the table set already—the same dishes and cutlery that they’d brought here a decade ago—the cast-offs from their regular home. They’d do for now.
“What was the problem between you and Junior?” Melanie asked. “I mean, looking back on it as an adult... What went wrong?”
Logan was silent for a moment. “I was jealous, and he was insecure. I think it’s as simple as that. My father met my mom, had a short but passionate romance that resulted in me and they split up. Harry met Dot a couple of years later, got married and they started their own family. Dot and my mom—they never got along. Dot was motherly, sweet, kind, but my mom had the allure, you know? She was smart, feisty and drop-dead gorgeous. So there was always a bit of insecurity for Dot, I think. She had Harry’s heart, but Mom...you remember her.”
Melanie nodded. “She aged like a movie star.”
Logan seemed to have taken after his mother in that respect—chiseled and fit.
“And Mom enjoyed it a bit,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, Harry had to make his wife happy, and after having been married, I understand that. But keeping Dot happy meant prioritizing her and their children over us.”
Maybe Mel was more like Dot than she wanted to think, trying to do everything she could to hold her family together. At least Dot had seen the danger, because Melanie hadn’t. She’d figured she could trust Adam and that checking up on him was vulgar. She still thought it was. If a man had to be chased down and supervised in order to stay faithful, then he wasn’t worth having.
“Did Dot think he’d cheat on her?” Melanie asked, her voice low.
“I don’t know...maybe.” He met her gaze and winced. “I’m sorry, Mel. I didn’t mean to sound that casual about infidelity. I know you’ve been through hell with your marriage, and—”
“Maybe I identify with Dot,” she said with a faint smile. “The motherly one.”
“From where I’m standing, motherly isn’t exactly what I’d call you,” he said, a smile tickling his lips.
She blushed at that. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments.”
“You don’t need to. You’re stunning. I get that you probably need some time to get your feet under you again before you can see that, but you aren’t exactly some matronly woman on the sidelines.”
That was what Adam had used her for—taking care of his kids while he did whatever he wanted behind her back.
“We aren’t supposed to be talking about me,” she said. “Your dad wasn’t fair to you. You were just as much his child—regardless of who your mom was.”
“Yeah, I agree,” he replied. “Which is why I was jealous. I got the crumbs off their table, and I knew it.”
“Did Junior know it?” she asked.
“How could he not? But Junior was insecure, too. He had our father’s love and support, but he always seemed to see me as a threat. I don’t know why. He got a whole lot more from Harry than I ever did.”
Melanie remembered that. When Logan had been in his senior year, he’d been trying to figure out how to afford college, applying for scholarships, looking for bursaries, anything, really. He’d been smart and he’d gotten a few different scholarships, and those combined with money he’d earned and his mom had saved had been enough to get him started. But she could still remember that forlorn look on his face when he got back from asking his dad if he’d pitch in.
The answer had been no. And she’d recognized then that this wasn’t just about money—Harry’s no had been to more than cash.
“But now you and Junior are both fathers,” she said. “It should be different between you, shouldn’t it?”
“Having a son of my own only shows me how little my dad cared for me from the start,” Logan said. “You know my biggest fear? Losing my relationship with my son. It would crush me. My dad didn’t care about that with me.”
But he had cared about that relationship with Junior—that was between the lines.
“Maybe having kids of his own has given Junior a bit of perspective into what it must have been like for you,” she said.
Logan shrugged. “I’m not going to hold my breath. Most people don’t change that much.”
Mel looked toward the table...she’d set three places. She had her own complicated relationship with her stepdaughter. Would Tilly be messed up by all of this? Would she end up being a forty-year-old telling someone the story of her disinterested father and the stepmom who failed her?
“I’ll see if Tilly wants to eat with us,” Melanie said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Logan said. “She needs to eat, too.”
Melanie shot him a grateful smile. As she headed toward the bedrooms, she heard a sound coming from the bathroom—vomiting. Melanie winced, then came to the bathroom door. She tapped on it and leaned against the jamb.
“Tilly?” she repeated. “You okay in there?”
Tilly vomited again, then there was a flush. Was she sick, or was this the beginning of an eating disorder? Melanie was worrying like a mom again.
The door opened and Melanie stepped back. Tilly looked pale and haggard. The smell of sick lingered around her.
“Do you have the flu?” Melanie asked.
“I need to lie down,” Tilly said. “My stomach is upset.”
Melanie reached out and touched her forehead, checking for a fever. It was instinctive—the need to check the body temperature. Tilly pulled away.
“Leave me alone.” Tilly teetered toward her bedroom.
There had been no fever. It was possible she had a stomach bug, but it was also possible that Tilly was exercising control over one thing she could—her weight. If Melanie were still married to Adam, she’d be the one handling this—asking questions, looking for signs of bulimia, encouraging Tilly to talk.
Tilly disappeared into her bedroom and the door shut with a decisive click. Music turned on—the message clear. She didn’t want Melanie’s help.
Mel headed back toward the kitchen. Logan sat at the table, the wine open and two glasses, half-filled, sitting on the table. He raised his eyebrows.
“She’s not feeling well,�
�� Melanie said. “I guess it’s just the two of us.”
He didn’t answer, but he did rise to his feet in a polite gesture until she’d sat down on the chair opposite him at the table.
“You’re different,” she said with a smile. “I know you say that things don’t change, but you certainly have.”
“Yeah?” A smile turned up one side of his lips. “How so?”
“You’re so mannerly. You’re downright civilized,” she said with a low laugh. “I’ve heard marriage will do that to a guy when he isn’t looking.”
It was one of the things she’d liked about Adam. He knew how to live with a woman already—pick up his socks, remember important dates. But he knew how to hide things from a woman, too.
Logan lifted his wineglass. “To being house-trained.”
“To being house-trained.” She laughed and lifted her glass in response.
Twenty-three years had changed more than Logan thought. In both of them. Because she wasn’t the same girl she’d been all those years ago, either. Marriage might have civilized Logan, but it had opened Melanie’s eyes to just how vulnerable a woman’s heart could be. She’d lost more than a husband in her divorce. She’d lost her family and her ability to blithely trust a man to do right by her.
* * *
LOGAN SERVED HIMSELF some pasta while Melanie dished up salad, and then they switched serving dishes, her fingers lingering under his while they got their grip.
He had missed Melanie, he realized. It wasn’t like he’d spent twenty years missing her, because he’d been devoted to his own family. There had been no lingering longing there—he’d been true to Caroline in every sense. But seeing Melanie again reminded him of the way he used to feel around her—alive, vibrant, able to conquer the world. And maybe it had been a hearty dose of youthfulness that made him feel that way in high school, but seeing her again seemed to reawaken it. He felt like he could face things again. And looking her in the face, seeing that spattering of faint freckles over her nose, the way her brown eyes glowed with warmth when she smiled... She made him feel things—soft, gooey things that he probably had no right to feel anymore.
Their Mountain Reunion (The Second Chance Club Book 1) Page 7