by Dawn McClure
“You always talked about getting married and having a big family, but you’re still not married and you have no kids. You talked about writing books, but you write blog articles. You went on and on about small towns and how great they were, and then you up and moved to Southern California. Were you blowing smoke up my ass while we were dating? You’re like a different person now.” He shook his head. “I knew when you left for college that you weren’t coming back. I could feel it in my gut, even though I was in denial for the longest time. My question is, what the hell happened? What made you change your mind? About everything?”
Wow. In the dim, quiet café, with no way to get out of the conversation he was bringing up, she felt trapped. Even a little jittery. Why had he said the word blog as though that wasn’t real writing? As though the very word was disgusting to him? And yeah, she’d wanted to write books, but those turned out to be so…long and tedious. Books were hard, and she’d had to make a living kicking out smaller snippets. She’d needed a paycheck. And kids? Well, she wanted kids. She never said she didn’t.
She hadn’t changed what she’d wanted, she just hadn’t acquired those things quite yet. Her life and what she wanted out of it had stayed the same.
She went back to making their café mochas. Instead of retreating and keeping her thoughts from him, as she’d usually have done to Liam, she let them fly. “I don’t trust men. Not after what my father did to my mother. I think that’s the underlying problem of why everything is taking so long.”
Okay, maybe she had changed. That certainly wouldn’t have come out of her mouth eight years ago. Saying it out loud was as much a revelation to him as it was to her. She’d never given that deep-rooted belief airtime before. It felt kind of good actually. She looked at him to gauge his reaction. He was squinting at her, looking more confused than before she’d answered his questions. “What?” she asked irritably.
Must be the semi-darkness giving her courage.
“I never gave you reason to doubt the way I felt about you. Never treated you badly. How could you not trust me? You knew my family, my background. There wasn’t anything you didn’t know about me.”
She scooped some espresso and shrugged. “It’s engrained, John. When you went to college early, that decision told me you wanted to get away from me. You could have waited to go in the fall, like everyone else did, but you chose to go early as though your ass were on fire.”
He came to stand in front of the counter. “I told you why I did that. By leaving for college early and cramming all those classes in, I would be able to get back sooner. To get back to work so I could make a living. I did it for us. Not to mention, we’d have had some time in college together if you’d stayed.”
“But I was leaving for college just two and a half years later, so it was a stupid idea. We’d have had two whole years, but instead, if you left early, you were cutting that short too. I think I told you that at the time. It just felt like you wanted to get away from me and get to the college girls as quickly as you could.” You know, the college girls that put out and I didn’t. Even the dark and stormy night wouldn’t give her the courage to say that last bit. “How can a high school girl compete with them?”
“You weren’t supposed to go to California,” he said, the exasperation in his voice almost making her cringe. “You were supposed to go to the same college I did and be home on the weekends. Hell, you’d have been close enough to come home some nights if you’d wanted. I would have picked you up and spent as much time with you as I could have. But you suddenly decided to go to California. If anyone wanted to be rid of the other, it was you wanting to be rid of me.”
It felt good to get this out. Cindy’s grand idea finally made sense to her now.
“Mel, you need to go home, even if it’s only to close that chapter of your life.”
So this is what it felt like to close a chapter. All the words she’d bottled up and had never said to John were coming out like poison. It felt good. She looked up at John. “You’re right. And maybe I shouldn’t have gone. Perhaps everything would be different right now. But I had my issues with men, and you were two years older than me and had to leave for college. I don’t think either of us are to blame for what fizzled out between us.”
“You say we fizzled out, but I think it was just you. I called you all the damned time when you left for California, and you quit taking my calls. Hell, back then you were all I thought about. I still think about you all the time.”
She froze in the middle of adjusting the portafilter. His words caught her off-guard. Still thought about her? This was more than closing a chapter. This was him asking her if she wanted to continue their story and write a few more chapters to what they’d already written, that’s what this was. Cindy never said anything about that possibility. “I…uh…I don’t know what to say.”
Sure, she’d thought about him over the years, but there had been a sprinkling of regret and pain when he’d crossed her mind, so she tended not to do it very often. She’d done her best to move forward with her life.
John walked over to the large front window and looked out. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and she kept up the process of making them mochas. She didn’t know what else to do. His admission had thrown her for a loop.
When she finished making their beverages, she brought him his cup and stood back with her own. After a few seconds passed, he finally looked at her. “Are you happy?”
If she were going with blunt honesty, then no, she couldn’t say she was happy. This visit home had showed her exactly how unhappy she hadn’t even known she was. “I don’t know anyone our age who’s truly happy. Life gets in the way. Knocks you down.”
“When did you get so jaded?”
Had she? His question made her pause. Didn’t everyone end up a little skeptical of happily-ever-afters by their age?
She sat down at the table next to the Christmas tree and the large window. He sat opposite her.
The cozy setting was slightly surreal. Here they were, digging up old bones and hashing out their relationship, and there was mistletoe hanging from the ceiling and scented candles littered throughout the café, creating a cozy atmosphere for them to air their dirty laundry. Snow was blowing down Main Street just outside the window, and they sure weren’t going anywhere for quite a while.
Her mom had put up more mistletoe throughout the café, thinking it would help her win the plaque. Maybe it had. But those sprigs also brought back the memory of her first kiss with John. Actually, her first kiss ever.
It had been in front of the café. A cold December day, when she’d been tasked with closing the café and locking up. She’d been fourteen. John sixteen. They’d known each other all their lives, but they’d only started dating. And they hadn’t kissed yet. He’d come over from closing the hardware store to help her out.
On the way out of the door, she’d stopped under the mistletoe to see what he’d do. She’d literally closed her eyes and puckered her lips. She smiled at the memory. John had never been shy, so he’d taken the hint and curled her toes.
Memories under the mistletoe. She’d have never thought it possible, but she was starting to feel more comfortable with him than she’d ever felt before. “I think I was jaded from the get-go. From what my father did.” She stared out the window to the raging blizzard and not the man who sat across from her, undoubtedly scrutinizing her every word. Yes, she was comfortable with him, but their conversation was anything but. “And when I went to California and watched my friends marry and divorce, I guess I got a little more jaded.”
“Do you ever look to the marriages that work? What about Tim? What about my parents? Mike?”
She shrugged, not knowing what to say. The wind was howling outside, and the atmosphere was loosening her tongue. “The other day at the barn, when you heard me tell Liam that I loved him…” She stopped, took a sip of her coffee. She wanted to see his reaction, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Telling him about Liam
was a catch twenty-two. “He, uh… He’s going to ask me to marry him. He was going to do it on Christmas morning, but I decided to turn down his invitation to stay with his family over the holidays and came here instead.”
She kept her gaze trained on the raging black hole just outside the window. After nearly a minute passed, he asked quietly, “You going to say yes?”
“I’m leaning towards no.”
“Leaning?”
Had she heard relief laced in his voice? “I’m not sure what I’m going to say. Since we’re being up-front and honest with each other, the reason I’m home is because my friend and boss thought I needed to come home and close a few chapters to get some clarity. She thinks there’s something here that’s keeping me from saying yes to Liam’s proposal.” Someone, actually.
“And what chapters are you hoping to close?”
She did look at him then. It occurred to her that he wasn’t the kid she’d dated several years ago. What exactly was she doing by telling him all of this? They hadn’t been a couple in years. But when they had been a couple they’d been…inseparable. Cindy had been right. This chapter hadn’t closed at all. “Us.”
He nodded, then looked out the window like she’d done a few minutes before. She took the opportunity to study him. The beard, the face…he looked tired.
“There is no us, Mel,” he said, his voice deep and even as he stared out at the storm. “There’s no chapter to close.”
She wasn’t going to allow him to back away from this. “I would have said the exact same thing, right up until Saturday. You didn’t like hearing me tell another man I loved him. And not five minutes ago you said you still thought about me often.” Not wanting to put him on the spot all by himself, she added, “When I learned about Jessica, and that she’d lived with you, I got jealous. Especially after hearing about her son and how the two of you were inseparable.”
His dark blue gaze fixed on her, and she nearly lost her nerve. Instead of sidestepping what she’d come to fix, she fearlessly went on. “Back in California I was far enough away that the thought of you with someone else didn’t bother me. For some reason, since I’ve been home, it bothers me. Whether or not you acknowledge whatever is still between us, I know there’s a chapter.”
“Okay, there’s a chapter.” He pushed his chair back, got up from the table and towered over her for several heartbeats before he finally said, “Consider it closed.”
He walked away from the table, carrying the mocha she’d made for him. She didn’t follow him. Didn’t react. She just sat there and sipped her favorite coffee, not tasting anything and not trusting herself to say a word to his retreating form.
Yeah, she’d need something stronger than peppermint for conversations like this.
_______
John looked down at the frothy drink in his hand. Hot chocolate at best. This wasn’t coffee. He smelled mint.
He stood behind the counter, cursing the storm that was keeping him locked up tight with his teenage ex-girlfriend. Jesus. This was stupid. This evening was like a Lifetime movie gone bad. Real bad.
So they’d gone out for a couple years and broke up, like so many others did when they were in high school. But even as he tried to convince himself there was nothing there, he knew in his heart there was. He’d been feeling the truth of that since he’d seen her walking down Main that first day she was back.
He could combine every relationship he’d had with a woman since Mel, and all the feelings those women had brought out in him, and they wouldn’t come close to what he’d felt for her. Was this first-love syndrome or something?
Apparently she didn’t feel it, whatever it was. She’d mentioned being jealous, but that admission had come straight off the heels of saying that she was considering another man’s proposal. But she had to close their chapter first. Had to get him out of the way. That’s why she’d come home.
Jesus.
And now he had to contend with an ex coming back into his life that he didn’t want. He had no idea when Jessica would be back in Pine Grove. A few days, a few weeks…he’d never asked. He was only a paycheck and a house to her, whereas she was only the route to her son for him. Sure, in the beginning of their relationship John had seen more to her. It was why he’d asked her out in the first place. But it hadn’t been long before he’d realized that she had very little substance to her character, and she’d introduced her son to him early on, effectively snagging John like a fly on sticky paper.
At first he’d felt sorry for the kid, so he’d taken him out for ice cream and a couple of games. But where his mother lacked character, he’d had it in spades. Falling in love with that kid had come easily, especially when Ben had been so happy and appreciative when all John had given him was an ice cream cone and some time.
John glanced over at Mel, who still sat by the window looking out, her hands wrapped around her red mug. Falling in love with her had been easy as well. Seemed like John never stopped loving a person, even if they were a half a country away. Even if they’d moved on and he knew he couldn’t reach them.
She turned her head and looked at him, perhaps feeling his gaze on her. She slowly got up and came to sit in one of the stools in front of him. For some reason he was oddly tired. He’d been feeling that way quite often lately. Depression, maybe. A sense of helplessness.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” she asked.
Not sure where she was going with this, he got a little snippy. “I thought we were closing chapters? Why would you care?”
She shrugged and thinned her lips out before saying, “I’m just wondering what your next five chapters might look like. We don’t have anything but time. We’re stuck here until morning at the very least.”
He wasn’t staying past tomorrow morning. Period. “What I hope to see in five years, or the reality of what I expect in five years?”
“Let’s go with hope on this one. It is Christmastime after all.”
What the hell? Why not? There was a blizzard doing its damndest to take the roof off the café, and they were stuck here until the morning, like she said. She wanted to close their chapter? Hell, he’d throw in a cliffhanger. Might as well make the night interesting.
Where did he want to be in five years? She’d be surprised. “Married. Three kids. Living in that two-story house I bought, which would be all updated by then. Couple trucks. A small RV for camping. Two Golden Retriever’s, trained to hunt of course. Still working the ranch, but with several more cattle so I can leave the store to Mike.” He waited a few seconds for effect. Just to set the mood when he dropped the bomb on her.
He stared straight into her eyes and finished his five-year wish list. “You. I’d want to be married to you.”
Chapter 13
It was as though his words had sucked all the oxygen right out of the air in the café. Mel couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs to make it feel as though she weren’t suffocating. She had to remind her body to do something it did naturally—take in a breath. Now another. And another.
What John had just said to her was exactly what she should have said to Liam when he’d asked her where she saw herself in five years—happily married to you. No wonder her feet were arctic when she thought of marrying Liam. Her trepidation on walking down the aisle with him wasn’t related to the limited time they’d spent together. It wasn’t that he didn’t particularly care about dogs or that he wanted to wait to have children.
She simply didn’t see herself with him in the future. She never had.
Why hadn’t that simple response popped into her head when Liam had posed the question to her? It should have. Why had she freaked about Liam’s proposal? Because he wasn’t the man she should marry. It was as plain and simple as that.
Cindy had known. That’s why she’d sent Mel home. Because Mel had to learn the hard way. People rarely listened to sound advice.
And the fact that John’s answer had been so close to what hers had been to Liam�
�it was uncanny. But that’s why she’d asked the question in the first place. She didn’t think she and Liam were on the same page, but her and John? Hell, they were in the same paragraph. Same sentence. Same breed of dog, for crying out loud. Except they didn’t live in the same state. Her job was in California. The life she’d built was in the Golden State.
John clearly wasn’t, and yet the thought of him proposing didn’t even frighten her. What a strange conundrum. “John—”
John held up his hand, looked down and shook his head. “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wanted to shake you up because all that talk about closing chapters riled me up. What you said about us having to close chapters hit me under the belt. You have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who’s going to propose to you. Don’t let the redneck you left behind change what you see happening in your future.”
Funny thing was, she’d never envisioned a future with her current boyfriend. But that redneck she’d left behind? “It’s not what you think. He’s not…” She didn’t know how to put into words that she was probably going to dump him when she got back to California. Coming home had put everything into perspective. The type of man she wanted didn’t exist in Liam. The type of man she wanted in her life was standing in front of her. “John—"
John raised a hand, interrupting her again. “Answer me this: does he wear a suit most of the time?”
Why in the hell would he be interested in what Liam wore? She nodded. Some of his suits literally cost more than some people’s vehicles. And his shoes? Lord. Those were spendy. “Yeah.” Not that her ankle boots and high heels were cheap.
“Rich?”
Had more money than her mother, her brothers and her put together. But where was John going with this? She shrugged. “He could probably retire.”