Their Mountain Reunion (The Second Chance Club Book 1)

by Patricia Johns

  And that was Melanie. He needed someone with him who wouldn’t have a personal stake in the contents. He knew that whatever was inside this box had never been meant for his eyes—it had been meant for Harry’s. And it might reveal more about Elise’s relationship with Harry than he cared to know. He’d made this mistake with his wife’s diaries.

  But he’d still open it.

  As Logan drove, his mind went back to his visit with his brother. He hadn’t expected to bond with Junior, and yet his brother wasn’t quite the spoiled brat he used to be. Logan hadn’t realized that his father’s marriage had been that fragile—they’d kept up appearances. Or maybe, he’d just been too young to know what cracks looked like from the outside.

  And now he had an obligation to speak at his father’s funeral, and the realization sunk into his stomach like a rock. He should have said no, but he’d been included as part of the family at long last, and he hadn’t been able to refuse it.

  At the age of forty-two, he should have been wiser. Besides, what could he say about the father who’d sidelined him from the start? His feelings were too loaded—too full of sharp edges and resentment to make for a comforting speech. He should just leave the speechifying to Junior and his siblings. They’d give the version of things that made people feel happy and cozy—the loving dad, the adoring husband, the revered grandfather. No one wanted to see the mistakes someone made in their life. Don’t speak ill of the dead. Wasn’t that the old adage? It wasn’t a superstition. It was because it offended the living, and that’s whom the funeral was for.

  As Logan pulled up to Melanie’s lake house, he noticed that Tilly’s little red Audi was still parked there. Had she come back, or had she left her car behind?

  He knocked on the door, box under one arm, and when Melanie pulled it open, she was on the phone. She angled her head, silently inviting him inside.

  “...she’s seventeen, Adam,” she was saying. “One more year, and she’s a legal adult. What was I going to do, wrestle her the ground?”

  Logan smiled at that and followed her into the bright kitchen. Logan leaned back against the counter, putting the box down next to him.

  “I don’t like him, either, but unless you toughened up on that relationship in the last year, I don’t remember you ever telling her that.” Melanie rubbed her free hand over her face. “And yes, he’s a real little jerk. He was complaining about her gaining weight with the pregnancy—already!”

  Logan could hear Adam’s elevated response to that, and Melanie cast Logan a smile.

  “Look—she said for you to call her. That’s all I can tell you. And her car is still here, so she’ll be back.” A pause. “Of course, and I told her she could call me if she needed me... Yeah...yeah... Uh-huh. She’s not an idiot, Adam. I think she’ll come to her senses, but as long as she’s fighting us—” She sighed. “Look, I have someone here, so I should go... Right... Yep... Call her, Adam! She’s your daughter.”

  When Melanie hung up, she shrugged apologetically.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “Adam is still in Japan, and he’s worried.”

  “I’ll bet,” Logan said. “So what happened?”

  “When I got home this morning, Simon was here, and they were about to take off together. I asked her to stay, and she wouldn’t.” She licked her lips. “Simon makes me nervous.”

  “He was commenting on her weight?” Logan asked with a frown. That was the part that had snagged his attention.

  “He doesn’t want her getting fat, he says.” Melanie’s lips curled in distaste. “He’s a pig, that kid. I don’t like him, and the last thing she needs is her boyfriend making her feel self-conscious about eating.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.” He frowned. “Have you called his parents?”

  “No. I’m leaving that up to Adam. I know she landed here, and... I raised that child, but I never officially adopted the kids. Without their dad, I’m not a part of this. And Simon’s parents know it.”

  “Fair enough.” He met her gaze. “Is Tilly okay?”

  “She’s fine for now,” Melanie replied. “This is more of a long-term worry than a short-term one. She’s pregnant, and he’s going to undermine her sense of self-worth because her body is doing something that—” She pressed her lips together.

  “That what?” he asked quietly.

  “That not all of us got the chance to do,” she said, and her eyes misted. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about her. That boy is emotionally abusive, and I’ve had enough friends and family members who’ve had babies to know that pregnancy is a really delicate time for a woman, emotionally and otherwise.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” he said. “And I’ve got to say, I don’t have warm thoughts about this kid’s parents, either. Someone should have been teaching him better.” Logan’s son was a little older than Simon, but Graham had been raised to respect women. He and Caroline had made sure of it.

  “His father is busy, his mother volunteers a lot and Simon was raised by nannies, none of whom he really respected,” she replied. “What he needed was someone to kick his butt a whole lot sooner than this.”

  “Should we go after them?” he asked.

  “Go where?” She spread her hands. “No, we wait. Or we let Adam get back from Japan and deal with his daughter. I think he’s the one she’s been baiting all this time, anyway.”

  Logan nodded. “I could see that.” Silence fell between them, and she seemed to deflate before his eyes. “Tough morning, huh?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded toward the box on the counter. “You got it back?”

  Logan glanced down at the glossy box. “I saw my brother, and he brought it along. He figured I’d want it.”

  “How’s he doing?” Melanie asked. “With your dad’s passing, and all.”

  “He’s okay,” Logan replied. “We had a really good talk.”

  Melanie smiled faintly at that. “I’m glad. Did you find some common ground?”

  “Yeah, a bit,” he admitted. “And he wants me to speak at the funeral.”

  Melanie’s eyebrows went up, and he smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a great idea, either, but I guess Junior wants to include me as...a brother.”

  “It’s only fair,” she said.

  “Even if it’s a bit late,” he replied, then sighed. “I’ll have to find something nice to say, or just pass on the honor, you know?”

  Melanie nodded. “You might find that you have more to say than you think.”

  But if he started talking, what came out might not be palatable to the rest of the family.

  “Look, I was wondering if you might want to come to the funeral,” he said. “You can say no—I should have started with that. But Junior has his wife and kids, and everyone else is going to have their own memories of my father, and if you came along...”

  It might be a comfort for him alone. But he didn’t want to say that out loud.

  “Sure,” she said. “When is it?”

  “Saturday at noon. And I have to head back to Denver to pick up my son from the airport Sunday morning, so...it would be a chance to spend some time with you.”

  “I’m not sure I’m the important relationship here,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t answer that. Maybe his family relationships had been messy and scarring, but this time with her mattered. She quickly was becoming an important relationship in his life, even if he didn’t how to put it into words.

  “Adam is coming for Tilly on Saturday evening,” she said when he hadn’t answered. “If she’s back... I don’t know what he’s planning on doing. Anyway, the point is I can make it to the funeral. There is plenty of time.”

  Logan hesitated. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I can be there.”

  It made him feel stronger to think of having her there. She was the only one in this town who und
erstood him, it seemed. Whatever they’d had in their youth had sparked up again, and he found himself opening up to her...

  Except she’d already told him that he hadn’t opened up quite as much as he thought. He ran his hand over the box.

  “I...uh... I thought I might open the box here,” he said, “and see what my mother put inside.”

  “With me?” Melanie’s expression softened.

  “Yeah. You okay with that?”

  She nodded, and Logan fished in his pocket and pulled out the key, then he picked up the box and looked around.

  “Come to the living room,” Melanie said.

  She’d moved things around again—the TV in one corner, a couch opposite it, two single chairs positioned on the other side of the room facing the wide window overlooking the lake. He sank into one of the chairs and put the box down on an ottoman.

  “I don’t know what she would have sent him,” Logan murmured. “She didn’t think much of him. She never had anything good to say about him. She hated that he held me at arm’s length.”

  “But kids don’t get an inside view of their parents’ relationships, either,” Melanie countered.

  Logan fit the key into the lock. It didn’t turn easily, and he had to jiggle the key and put a hand on top of the box to keep it still as the lock finally clicked open. Then he lifted the lid.

  There was a mishmash of items inside, but no envelope or letter containing an explanation. Logan picked up a program from his university graduation. He opened it and found his name circled in the list of graduates. There was a picture of him at high school grad—standing there in his blue robe, his mortarboard on his head and squinting into the sunlight. He handed the items over to Melanie as he sorted through them—his birth announcement, a hospital bracelet from when he had his appendix removed as a teenager, a scattering of pictures from his childhood, including one of him and his father standing together. Logan picked up that photo and looked down at it.

  Logan was about ten, and he stood there so tall and proud. His father had his hand awkwardly on Logan’s shoulder, and he looked less confident in that photo.

  “It’s a box of...me,” Logan said softly.

  “She wanted you to deliver it,” Melanie said. “Maybe she was hoping you two would have more of a relationship.”

  “Talking points?” he asked, lifting up a collection of school photos from the first grade to the twelfth.

  “Why not?” Melanie took the photos. “I’ve never seen these. You were adorable.”

  “Yeah...” He looked down at the familiar photos, then turned back to the box. There were a few more items—a little car he used to play with as a boy. He remembered this specific car. It was a favorite.

  “My mother never asked me if I wanted her to connect me with Dad again,” he said, flipping through a few pictures he’d drawn as a kid. There was a series of comics he’d made, his age recorded in his mother’s neat handwriting on the back of each. There was a step-by-step set of instructions for how to build a Lego spaceship that he’d designed himself—the instructions drawn in the careful imitation of the company’s booklets.

  “Wow...” Melanie picked up the instructions, flipping through it. “You were a really bright kid, Logan.”

  “I think most kids try their hand at that, at some point,” he said.

  “No, they don’t,” she replied.

  Graham hadn’t, but then he’d been creative in different ways. He’d been a whiz in the kitchen since he was eight or nine. But the intimate nature of the contents of this box started closing doors inside of him. His mother had crossed a line here.

  “I didn’t ask for her to try to meddle,” he repeated, and Melanie looked up, meeting his gaze.

  “She meant well,” Melanie said.

  “So what did she expect, that he’d open this box, see all he’d missed and change who he was as a human being?” he said, anger burbling up inside of him. “My mother cared about this stuff. She’s the one who collected it all, not him. If anything, he’d only feel some moderate guilt, and close me out even further.”

  Melanie didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t want this,” Logan said, his voice shaking with emotion. “I spent my life begging that man for some sort of relationship, and my mother figured she’d lend a hand at the end? I was tired of the begging! I’d given up!”

  Logan tossed the papers and photos back into the box. These mementos encapsulated his childhood. These were the moments that he remembered, and maybe he didn’t want to share them with the father who’d never cared enough. “You know, if she really wanted my dad and me to connect, she could have done something about it while she was alive.”

  Like Caroline—she could have said something while there was still time. Like anyone—they only had so many years to work with, and copping out with some instructions in a will was cowardly.

  * * *

  MELANIE HANDED BACK the intricate bundle of Lego instructions. Logan’s expression had cooled, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. She knew that look—this was what he was like when he retreated emotionally, normally in delicate situations when opening up mattered most.

  “She was proud of you, Logan,” Melanie said quietly. “Maybe you were the best thing she ever did. Maybe this wasn’t about giving up your personal memories without your permission. It could have been her own personal affirmation—she raised you!”

  Logan looked over at her, and for just a split second, emotion swam in his dark eyes, giving her a hint at what he was hiding beneath the surface. “She didn’t have to prove herself to him.”

  “He married someone else and treated you like an outsider. I wonder how he treated her. She might have had a few things of her own to prove.”

  Logan raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t considered that.” Then he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry—you’ve got your own issues today. I shouldn’t have even brought the box with me.”

  “You know what?” she said, reaching out and grabbing his arm. “I’m glad you did. And he never saw this, did he? So whatever your mom had hoped for didn’t happen. Instead, you got to see what your mom treasured from your childhood, and that’s beautiful. Unless...” She swallowed. She wasn’t his girlfriend anymore, and she’d started to forget that—expecting more from him than she had any right to expect. “Unless you hadn’t really wanted me to see all this, either.”

  Logan’s gaze softened, and a smile tickled the corners of his lips. “Nah. It’s okay.”

  There was something so tender in the look that her breath caught, then he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  “I was really proud of that Lego instruction manual... I gotta say,” he said. “I worked on it every spare minute for weeks.”

  “It’s impressive, Logan.”

  “I always was an engineer at heart,” he said, then he glanced around the room. “I can see your touch around this house, too, you know.”

  “Can you? I didn’t have time to do much. We stayed for a couple of months, and I’d add a piece of furniture here or there, but the kids were so hard on furniture back then...”

  They’d destroyed her efforts just by being kids—shoes on silk pillows, fingerprints on upholstered seats, chip fragments ground into a throw rug.

  “I remember trying to keep a garden the same year that Graham decided to start building roads for all his toy cars...” Logan smiled to himself, then glanced over at her again. “They wreck everything within reach, but you can’t imagine life without them.”

  “Yeah...” That summed it up rather nicely. “She still seems to be at it.”

  He smiled sadly, and then he reached out and took her hand. “Why didn’t life get easier?”

  “I don’t know...” She shrugged. “We asked that question twenty-three years ago, didn’t we? When you were getting ready to leave for college, and I was going t
o miss you so much.”

  And it was like those years between had folded up like a paper fan, and she could have been that teenage girl again, looking at the boy who held her heart and knowing that it wouldn’t last...it couldn’t. Being with Logan required being right there next to him, reading his nuances. He wasn’t going to open up in emails or phone calls...and yet she’d been so determined to try.

  “I’d say you were better off without me, but Adam wasn’t much of a catch,” Logan said.

  Melanie laughed softly. “But you have nothing to regret. You met a woman you loved, started a family... You did good, Logan.”

  “I tried hard,” he said.

  “I did, too.” She felt the emotion simmering close to the surface in spite of her efforts to cap them. “I just wanted to be enough for them...”

  She swallowed, not finishing the thought aloud. She’d wanted to be the kind of woman who could love her family so well that the fact that she was the stepmother wouldn’t matter. She’d wanted to be the love of her husband’s life... Trying hadn’t been anywhere near enough—for any of them. It had seemed like either a woman was enough or she wasn’t. But it was based on something that she had no control over. Being good, thoughtful, considerate and dedicated wasn’t all there was to it. Hard work didn’t cut it with Adam, or with Logan.

  Logan seemed to see the complicated emotions on her face, because he stood up, and tugged her hand. “Come here.”

  “What?” She rose with him, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close. He tipped his head to rest his cheek on the top of her head—a familiar position now. It had all happened rather quickly, and she stood there, his strong arms enveloping her with such gentleness, and her heart beating so that she could feel it in her stomach. Being next to Logan, close enough to feel his heartbeat, had always made everything feel possible between them. But she’d been a naive girl back then.

  “I’m glad I got to see who you grew up to be,” he said, his voice reverberating in his chest against her ear.