Their Mountain Reunion (The Second Chance Club Book 1)

by Patricia Johns

  This hospital bed is hard—so uncomfortable. I can’t sleep. The chemo makes me feel like I’m dying, and I’m looking over at Logan. He fell asleep—he’s just wiped. But he’s been here, day in, day out. He sits here with me for hours, reading me Reader’s Digest jokes and gossip magazine articles to distract me from the pain.

  Tears misted Logan’s eyes. He remembered those long hours together—his months’ long vigil with his beloved wife.

  This is a good man. I don’t know that I always appreciated what a good guy he is, but he’s one in a million. I think it’s easy to take people for granted when all is well and everyone is healthy. You get annoyed at the little things, and you don’t see the bedrock of character that you married all those years ago. I see other patients sitting alone, waiting on visitors, but I’ve got him here every second he’s not at work. When he married me, he meant it. I mean, really meant it. And I don’t know what I expected, or feared, but he’s wiped all of that away. I know who I can count on. I know who I’ll wake up to when I manage to fall asleep.

  Logan turned the page, his fingers trembling.

  If I could go back in time and choose all over again, pick the guy I’d spend my life with, I’d choose him. Logan was the best choice I ever made, and I love him. Heart and soul, I love him.

  It was her very last entry. The rest of the pages were blank. Logan brushed a tear from his cheek, and he closed the diary reverently.

  “Dad, you did just fine by Mom,” Graham said. “And maybe that other stuff was just her venting, or just taking you for granted a bit. But from what I can see there, you did well by her. I learned a lot by watching you and Mom, and you taught me to how to treat women. I learned from the best.”

  Logan nodded, blinking back the tears. Had he really done well by Caroline? Did she really die with no regrets about him? At least he’d taught his son well—he was proud of that.

  “I’m glad you showed this to me,” Logan said, his voice tight with emotion. “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to head up to bed,” Graham said. “It’s late.”

  “Yeah...”

  Graham went upstairs, bumping his suitcase up behind him, and Logan sat on that chair, his heart clenched in his chest. He opened the diary and read those words again, and they felt like forgiveness.

  He’d done his best...and maybe that was enough.

  Maybe Logan did have something to offer Melanie, after all. He’d been afraid of inflicting his dysfunctional self onto another gentle, kind woman, but maybe he wasn’t quite so tough to live with as he’d thought. Maybe the whole package was more worthwhile than he’d thought... Logan might have a whole lot of baggage with his own father, but when he loved, he did so with everything inside of him. And maybe twenty years of marriage and devoted love had worn off a few of those rough edges.

  “I’m so sorry, Caroline,” he whispered roughly. “I wish I learned some of these things earlier, but you’ve made me a better man... I owe you that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING, Melanie ordered a mocha from the barista and stood to the side, waiting while it was made. Her heart was heavy. She’d had trouble sleeping, and when she awoke this morning, she felt hollowed out.

  Falling in love with Logan again hadn’t been a choice, but it was still stupid. She shouldn’t have spent the time with him, but then, she was so tired of heartache. She was tired of being angry, or sad, or melancholy...and Logan was such a breath of fresh air after everything she’d been through. He treated her the way a man should treat a woman he cared about, and that had felt so nice.

  The line kept moving, everyone in search of their morning caffeine, and she idly glanced around the coffee shop, her gaze landing on a familiar form leaning back in a chair, gray hair done in an elegant updo.

  “Gayle?” she said.

  Gayle turned and smiled when she saw her.

  “Mocha?” the barista said, and Melanie accepted her tall frothy cup with a murmur of thanks, then headed in Gayle’s direction.

  “Have a seat,” Gayle said. “My date isn’t due here for another half hour, so...”

  “Your date?” Melanie slid into the seat. “You didn’t tell us anything about this last night.”

  “I don’t know...” Gayle’s cheeks colored. “I was shy about it, I guess. It’s been...thirty-seven years since I’ve dated a man?”

  “I know the feeling,” Melanie said. “Well, for me it’s more like fifteen—but it feels like thirty-seven.”

  They both chuckled.

  “So tell me about him,” Melanie said. “Where did you meet him?”

  “At the gym,” Gayle said. “There was this walking class—really just an excuse to walk around a track with other human beings, and we got to talking. He’s my age, he’s a retired lawyer and...he likes me.”

  “How new is this?”

  “This is our second official date.” Gayle dropped her gaze. “And I feel stupid. I can’t tell people, you know? They already think I’m an idiot for having been married to a gay man for thirty-five years without noticing.”

  “You aren’t an idiot,” Melanie said. “Life is hard. That’s it.”

  “I don’t know if I’m qualified to even comment on this yet,” Gayle said, lowering her voice even more, “but I can already tell that it’s different.”

  “Yeah?” Melanie asked.

  “And I don’t mean that in some naive this-is-the-man-I’ll-marry kind of way. I have no idea if we’ll last past another week! Who knows? Who cares? But it’s different... He’s different. The way he looks at me, the way he holds my hand and pulls me in, and—” She blushed again. “I grew up in a cautious generation. We saved ourselves for marriage—which is all very good, don’t get me wrong—but I wasn’t looking at the right things when I looked for a husband. I wanted someone kind, calm, reasonable, handsome, successful...”

  “Sounds like a good list to me,” Melanie said.

  “It’s great, but I didn’t realize that he needed to be attracted to me, too,” she said. “I thought that was a given. I was told that was a given, but it wasn’t.”

  “You must have dated your ex-husband, though,” Melanie said.

  “We did. For two years, and then we got married. And he was the perfect gentleman. He never crossed any lines, never wanted more than I did. He kissed me discreetly, told me I was a wonderful woman and that he couldn’t wait to make me his wife. And I thought that once I was his wife, the passion would begin.”

  “And it never did, obviously,” Melanie murmured.

  “It never did.” Gayle shrugged. “I mean, we had children. I won’t say more than that, but it was more of a chore. But with Matthew, well, there is a spark there that I’ve never had before...ever.” Tears misted Gayle’s eyes. “He’s...attracted to me!”

  “Of course, he is!” Melanie said. “You’re beautiful!”

  “Well, I’m not someone who takes that for granted. I’m no longer young, and I’m also careful. I did my homework on him. He’s not a con, he has friends and family, I even sleuthed out his work history. I’m not about to get myself robbed blind in exchange for a man’s attention. But it would seem that he’s legitimate.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Melanie said.

  “Thanks...” Gayle smiled, and her cheeks pinked. “You were saying that a spark isn’t that important last night, and I just think it is. When you’ve been married for thirty-five years without it, you don’t take something like mutual attraction for granted.”

  But a spark with Logan was so much more than mutual attraction. It was mutual respect, mutual interest and a depth of feeling that frankly, frightened Melanie. They’d fallen in love all over again... And she was afraid of risking her heart, because having her heart broken wasn’t quite so easy to recover from as she might want her stepdaughter to believe.

  “Gayle, can I as
k you something?” Melanie asked softly.

  “Sure.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  Gayle paused, took a sip of her coffee, then shrugged. “Yes. But I took the safe, cautious path once, and it burned me. Taking a risk on something as beautiful and irrational as a spark—it’s terrifying! But would I rather live out my life with my heart carefully tucked away? Or take a few chances on something that might give me what I’ve wanted all these years?”

  “Yeah, I can see that...”

  Gayle looked out the window, and a smile tickled her lips. “He’s early.”

  Melanie looked out the window to see an older gentleman walking toward the coffee shop. He had a little bundle of plastic-wrapped flowers in one hand and a certain hop in his step. Gayle was right—he was excited.

  “I’m going to slip out,” Melanie said, giving Gayle’s hand a squeeze. “Have fun.”

  Melanie took her to-go cup and headed for the door in time for Matthew to open it and step back to let her through. He was polite, too. Gayle had found herself a nice guy, it seemed.

  Melanie headed out onto the street and took a savoring sip of her coffee. Gayle had been through more than Melanie had, and she was willing to take a risk, just on the chance of falling in love with a man who could appreciate what she brought to the table.

  And Melanie had a man she was in love with, who loved her, too. And that elusive spark—they had it...did they ever have it! And what was holding Melanie back? Fear. She didn’t want to get her heart broken again, sacrifice her careful plans on another try at love... But did she want to give up on the real thing?

  Melanie’s phone pinged and she looked down at an incoming text.

  I’m in town. Would you let me buy you breakfast?

  Tears misted her eyes. It was Logan. She stood there for a moment, then typed in her response. I missed you.

  He typed back almost immediately.

  Me, too. Will you see me?

  Yes. Should I meet you at the lodge?

  Perfect. I’ll get us a table. See you soon...

  And Melanie’s heart skipped a beat. Logan was back...the very next day. What did that mean? Even if she was willing to take a risk on them, it didn’t mean he was any longer. If Logan wanted to just continue as pals, she wasn’t sure her heart could handle that.

  But Logan was back, and the only way to find out why was to meet him.

  * * *

  LOGAN HAD A table by the window overlooking the turquoise blue of the lake, but his gaze kept moving back to the doorway. The entire drive back to Mountain Springs he was going over how he’d explain this to her...and none of it had been right. All he knew was that every mile that brought him closer to her felt like a relief.

  A waitress came by with menus and left them, and just as she was leaving the table, Melanie arrived. She was wearing a light blue summer dress cinched in at the waist. When her gaze landed on him, a smile tugged at her lips, and she headed in his direction. She looked tired. She wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair was pulled back from her face.

  Logan stood up when she got to the table and waited until she was seated before he sat back down again.

  “I still like your manners,” she said.

  “Yeah?” He met her gaze. “I know it was all of one day, but I missed you.”

  “Me, too.” She dropped her gaze. “More than I thought I would.”

  “Am I a massive jerk to be glad of that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, but she smiled. “What brought you back?”

  “Last night, my son showed me my wife’s very last diary entry. He’d kept that journal for himself, and...” Logan swallowed. “It helped to see what Caroline wrote when she was in the hospital. People take each other for granted when they’ve been together for a while, and I think we both did that. But when we were there together, it cemented things, I guess. She wrote that she was glad she married me, that I was worth it.”

  “Of course, she would have been grateful for you...” Melanie reached out to touch his hand, and he caught her fingers instead.

  “I honestly wasn’t sure this delightful mess that I am was worth a lifetime commitment,” he admitted. “I wasn’t easy to live with. I could be difficult sometimes. I didn’t want to launch myself into something new until I knew I’d dealt with my own issues.”

  “And have you?” she asked, frowning slightly.

  “Yeah. I always thought that Junior was more like our father because he looked like him, but it turns out, I’m a whole lot like him, too. I’ve got the same stubbornness, the same emotional makeup. You’ve complained about the same things Caroline did—I close off, I run from my feelings. I did my best to do better by my son, and you know what? If my father’s funeral showed me anything, my dad had done his best to do better by other people, too. That scared me. I never wanted to be like him... I ran from it. I don’t think I got away, though.”

  Melanie remained silent, her dark gaze locked on his face.

  “But Caroline wrote that my standing by her to the very end had meant the world to her. She wrote that she’d marry me all over again for that... I realized that I might be stubborn, but that can be a good thing. Mel, if you let me love you, I’ll just keep on loving you. I’ll be too stubborn to do anything else. You can count on me to be faithful—I’m not the kind of guy who cheats. And if you tell me when I mess up, I’ll fix it. I don’t want to look back on these years, right here, and wish I’d done better.”

  “I’ve been so scared, Logan. I mean, I was married for a long time, and lied to for almost as long. That’s hard to recover from.”

  “I get it. I know you might not be able to do this with me, but I had to tell you face-to-face what changed for me.”

  “This kind of love doesn’t come along every day,” she said quietly. “I know that, and I’ve had a good friend explain just how rare this is. What we feel—”

  Logan lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them. He didn’t trust himself with words just yet.

  “I’m terrified,” she whispered. “But I think the best things in life have the biggest risk attached. I was married to Adam for fifteen years, and he was cheating most of that time. I didn’t notice, either, because I’d lowered my expectations. And seeing you again—it raised the bar.”

  “Yeah?” He smiled at that. “Do you mean that?”

  “Just promise that you’ll share your feelings with me—you won’t shut me out.”

  “I can do that,” he agreed. He’d been opening up with her these last couple of weeks, and it had come naturally. He wouldn’t be perfect. He’d still clam up sometimes, but he was also stubborn enough to keep trying to improve.

  “I don’t want you to walk away again,” she whispered. “I love you...”

  Walk away—it would tear his heart out to do it. Now that he was here with her, looking her in the face and his heart was stretching toward her, there was no way he could just leave.

  “Mel, this might be crazy, but I want to marry you,” he said.

  “This is crazy...” she whispered, but a smile tickled her lips.

  “I know, but—”

  “Where would we live?” she asked.

  Wait—was she considering it?

  “Wherever you want,” he replied. “I can hire a manger for my company and we can live here, or we could split our time between Denver and Mountain Springs. We can figure it out.”

  “I need to be able to start my own business, too. That’s important to me. I need something that’s mine.”

  “Mel, I’d give you the moon, if it would make you happy,” he said. “Take a diploma, start a business, do anything that makes you happy. I’m meeting you halfway. I’m not asking you to dump your life and jump into mine. I’m not that kind of guy.”

  Melanie’s breath caught. “That’s not all, though...”


  “No?”

  “I want a baby.” She licked her lips. “I know it’s late, and you’ve already raised one son, but...”

  A baby...that really would be a fresh start, and the thought was a little bit scary, but imagining Melanie pregnant with his child—it sped up his pulse in a good way.

  “A baby? We could try for one, at least. Yeah.”

  Melanie’s eye sparkled as a smile spread over her face, and her fingers tightened around his. “Okay, then.”

  “Wait—” He paused, the moment slowing down around him. “Just so we’re completely clear here—this detail matters to me—you’re agreeing to marry me, right?”

  She laughed and nodded, and without waiting for another word, he stood up, circled around the table and pulled her up and into his arms. He lowered his lips over hers and the rest of the dining room seemed to melt around them as they sealed this new promise with a kiss. When he finally pulled back, he looked around uncomfortably to see most of the diners staring at them.

  “I might have caused a scene,” he whispered.

  “I don’t care!” she whispered back. “Kiss me again.”

  And when the woman he loved asked to be kissed again, he couldn’t exactly turn her down. When they pulled back, he found the waitress at his elbow.

  “Sir, I have a feeling that champagne might be in order?” she asked discreetly.

  “Yes, thanks,” he said with a grin. “She just agreed to marry me.”

  “Congratulations,” the waitress replied, and she pulled a bottle of champagne off a trolley and popped the cork. “This is on the house, courtesy of Ms. Cunningham.”

  Logan looked over to see Angelina watching them, her arms crossed over her chest and a smile on her face. She winked when Melanie turned.

  “If you aren’t a hundred percent sure, you might want to back out now,” Logan said, grinning down at her as Melanie turned back toward him.

  “Nope,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m in.”

  “Let’s skip breakfast,” he suggested. “I want to go ring shopping with you.”