Another Chance (Lake Placid Series Book 7)

by Natalie Ann

  “I wanted to be a partner too, and that isn’t happening,” he said dryly.

  She grabbed her jacket and put it on and he was happy they were getting ready to leave and hoped the conversation would change.

  “You’re thirty, Matt. Plenty of time to get that partnership. We both liked to plan things out, but you just wanted to do everything faster than the next person.”

  “I should have had it by now. I won’t get it where I am,” he said, holding the door for her, then waiting while she locked it and they walked to his SUV.

  “Why? Because of your accident? That’s silly. So maybe you’ve had a little setback, but there’s still time.”

  “Maybe,” he said, but he knew it wasn’t true.

  He’d been out drinking that night because he and Randall had words about where Matt’s career was going at the firm. Those words were, “You’re an attorney here and a good one. I like the work you do on research and you’re helpful to the partners, but sorry if you thought you’d be a partner. Only family can be partners,” Randall had said to him. Matt had known that. All the partners were somehow a blood relation to Randall’s father. A brother, an uncle, a cousin, a niece or nephew.

  “We are family,” Matt argued.

  “Not blood. Sorry. My father would never allow me to make you a partner and he is controlling the shots. Even when he retires, it won’t happen. Your father married my mother, that’s a shot against you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Matt had said. It was the first time he’d heard any of that before. Randall’s father was a lying cheating ass and Matt’s dad had been wonderful to Randall’s mother. More wonderful than he’d been to Matt’s mother, but that was beside the point.

  The point was he felt used. He felt led on this entire time. This was the first time that Matt was hearing he’d never make partner.

  “Sorry. It is the way it is. Maybe in time I’ll be able to carry more weight, but for now this is the way it has to be.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Matt had said and stormed out and headed to the nearest bar.

  Too much to drink, an accident, and his heart stopping on the table brought him back to Lake Placid. Back to Dena.

  Dreams of partnerships were gone. At least at the firm he was working at now. He’d have to leave and start all over again and that wasn’t where he’d thought he’d be at this point in his career.

  All he could focus on now was the woman in the car next to him that he was determined to win over. His career was going to take a backseat.

  Hopes and Dreams

  Dinner was going well, or so Dena thought. She’d seen a couple of people that she knew, which was bound to happen in a small town like this. In the winter, Lake Placid was just as busy as the summer with tourists. Skiing, snowmobiling, even Olympians training filled the town.

  Instead, she was sitting across from the man she’d thought would be her husband and they’d have one of their three kids already. Maybe even be pregnant with number two. Oh, those childish hopes and dreams squashed like a child being told Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were make believe all at once.

  Now she needed to figure out why Matt was being so negative about the career he put before everything else in his life, even her.

  If she was his rebound plan because he was failing at his first choice, then she’d just walk out the door and wish him well. Maybe. Maybe she’d just walk out the door after she flipped him the bird. Nah, childish, but it had merit.

  “Have you warmed up at all?” she asked him. They were sitting in front of a fireplace and she was close to roasting, but didn’t want to admit that. Or maybe it was his utter male presence across from her. He’d always had the ability to turn her on with just a grin and a wink and it seemed those times hadn’t changed.

  Not that she’d let him know that by any means. That would be showing a weakness she wasn’t ready to hand over to him at all.

  “I’m fine. You don’t have to keep asking me that like you think I’m going to get up and take off because I’ve got a chill.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said, grinning.

  He didn’t smile back. “It wasn’t a chill that did it and you know that.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me everything it was,” she said. In her eyes, they had to start somewhere and explanations needed to be said. Even just a few.

  “I joked about the cold. I still joke about it,” he said.

  “You aren’t joking and you know it,” she argued.

  “Fine. I don’t care for it, but it wasn’t the real reason I left. It’s the area itself. There is nothing here. Not like I’m used to. Or was used to back then. I didn’t even mind the small town, but it’s so far to get anywhere that had any type of action or people.”

  “I can understand that to a point.” His father’s house was just a train ride to the Big Apple and he’d been used to that before he moved here. He’d lived there his whole life and moving hadn’t been easy at all, she’d known that. “Have you not even come back to visit your mother at all since you left?”

  “I have,” he said. “I just didn’t stay long. A holiday here and there. She came to see me more. Her and Bob. I’m surprised they’re still here, if you want to be honest. Bob has retired and they could move back at any point.”

  She knew the story. His stepfather was a state trooper and took a transfer here for a promotion. “Why are they still here?”

  “They love it. Though my mother didn’t grow up in Rye, she was in Hudson, which is a small town similar to Lake Placid. It’s just it was still only a short drive to the city if she wanted it. She was more of a homebody and didn’t like crowds. Though it’s colder here, she likes it. So does Bob.”

  “It has been known to happen. Not everyone hates small town living.”

  “I was miserable when we moved here,” he said. “I wanted to stay with my father. Well, not so much with him, but just there where all my friends were. Moving isn’t easy to begin with, but to do it in high school is even harder.”

  “I understand. But you fit in so well here. You made friends so easily. It was like you always belonged,” she said.

  She remembered his first day here. He was athletic and played all sorts of sports. When you’re in the popular group, you almost never feel alone. At least she’d always felt that way and she’d never been part of the popular group until Matt.

  “Just because I made friends easily didn’t mean I liked living here. I think I was just more annoyed over having to move at all. It could have been to Hawaii and I would have felt the same way.”

  “Really?” she asked, not sure she was buying that.

  “Yeah. My parents’ divorce wasn’t a surprise to me at all. I’d seen it coming. My father was just kind of detached and my mother was demanding. They fought more often than not. Bob was a good fit for her because he doted on her and she needed that.”

  “Were you jealous over losing your mother’s affections to Bob?”

  “No,” he said, laughing. “My mother and Bob had been married a few years before the transfer. He and I didn’t get along all that wonderful because of his job. He was cocky and I hated it. I get its part of his personality, but I didn’t need another father at that point in my life. He’d never had kids and to start being a dad at that point just pissed me off.”

  She didn’t remember him and Bob arguing all that much, but it wasn’t like they were best of friends. She just assumed it was Matt being sour over the move.

  “Why not stay with your father? Why didn’t you fight to stay there rather than come back here?”

  ***

  “Because my father didn’t want me,” he said.

  He’d never said that to anyone before and could see Dena was shocked he did now. It was the truth though. His father had Colleen. His new wife had a few kids and he was trying to be a father to them that their asshole father had never been. Matt had just been pushed aside by everyone.

  “I never k
new that,” she said.

  “I’ve never said it before.” He picked up his glass of beer and took a sip while they waited for their dinner to arrive. He was shocked that he was actually sitting across from Dena right now having dinner with her. He’d been trying to figure out a way to make this happen and hadn’t expected it to be this fast.

  Nor had he expected this was the type of conversation they’d be having. But he was going to go with it and prove to her that he was willing to try or do anything to get her to know he was serious.

  “Why tell me now?” she asked.

  “It seemed the time. I guess I want you to know I don’t have secrets.”

  She snorted. “Go on. Tell me why you think your father didn’t want you.”

  “When my mother said she was moving, my father never offered once that I could stay with him. They were living in Colleen’s old house with her two younger kids. Randall had just finished college and there just wasn’t room when I even visited once a month. I stayed in Randall’s room.”

  He hated that. That he didn’t have a space of his own when he went there. That maybe staying in Randall’s room, even though he didn’t live there anymore, just gave him a taste of what he could have when he got older.

  They lived in this big old house in a neighborhood that was higher income than what he’d ever known. Colleen got the house in the divorce and one hell of a settlement along with child support and alimony. His father went from middle to upper middle class with that marriage and having his child from his past marriage was kind of crimping his style. It wasn’t words his father ever expressed but Matt understood nevertheless.

  “Did you ever ask if you could have stayed?” she asked him, then moved back when her dinner was placed in front of her. He slid back and allowed his food to be delivered too.

  “I hinted at it. I didn’t come right out and ask because every time it was brought up my father changed the subject or Colleen complained about how small the house seemed when all the kids were around. My mother wanted me. It felt like someone did.”

  And to a young teen, that had mattered more than anything.

  “I never realized any of this, Matt,” she said.

  “You wanted me for me,” he said. “It felt good for someone to love me like that.”

  “But it wasn’t enough for you to stay,” she said back. There wasn’t any heat with the words, just a matter of fact tone.

  “I was stupid. I’m going to continue to think I was stupid back then for the rest of my life. I can’t say I’m sorry enough,” he said, cutting into his dinner and trying to force the first bite of his steak down.

  “You don’t need to keep saying it. We’re just talking right now. There are parts of your life I didn’t know anything about. I’m not sure if that would have changed any of my decisions back then though. You know my story with my mother.”

  He did know. Her mother just walked away one day and never came back. Never even tried to contact her that he knew of. “Have you talked to your mom at all in the past several years?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I don’t care to either. I guess I should be happy that my father always wanted me and loved me. But I understand about not feeling like someone wants you. I felt that with my mother. Despite my parents’ horrible marriage, I knew my dad always loved me. He’d always be there for me. I also knew my mother was...detached is the best word to use.”

  And he should have realized it more back then, that it was why she’d never leave her father. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  “We had that in common,” he said. “A parent being detached. My mother wanted me, but she wanted Bob too.” Again, he shouldn’t have been jealous over it, but deep down he guessed he was.

  “Not a good thing to have in common with someone, but yes. You and I, we had each other. Every time you left to go to your father’s I always wondered if you’d come back. If you’d decide to stay there and leave me. I guess it might have been a foretelling of what was to come.”

  “I went back for all the wrong reasons, Dena. I know that now.”

  “What reasons were those?” she asked.

  She was just beautiful sitting across from him eating dinner. They’d never had a fancy dinner when they were dating. They never had any money for anything other than fast food or picnics most of the time. It was amazing to him that the woman he’d loved so much in his life was now getting a nice meal out with him and it wasn’t like it was anything special. Just a steakhouse in town.

  “I wanted to be someone that people looked up to. That all those people who didn’t want me would look back and be like ‘wow, look what Matt did.’ I found out it didn’t matter. None of those people I was trying to prove anything to really cared one way or another and I lost the best thing that had ever happened in my life.”

  “You had nothing to prove to me, Matt. I always knew you’d do great things with your life.”

  “And yet here I am proving that wrong.”

  Forthcoming

  She never remembered him being this negative about anything in life. He’d obviously hid things well from her and she was feeling kind of foolish once again.

  What more about him didn’t she know? And if she knew back then, would she have been better prepared for what happened? Or would she not have loved him as deeply as she did?

  “So you aren’t where you thought you’d be. That doesn’t mean people don’t look up to you. And if they don’t, why do you even care? Why can’t it be about what you want and being happy with it? You should do things for you, not for others.”

  “I’m learning that now,” he said.

  He tilted his head down and went back to eating his dinner, then shifted in his chair a bit more.

  “Are you uncomfortable in that chair?” she asked. They were kind of hard.

  “It’s fine.”

  She didn’t believe him, knowing he likely had residual pain from his accident.

  “So have you had any other serious relationships? Been engaged or married?” she asked, wanting to know, though she hated asking. She figured she would have known if he was married, but she’d shut so much of his life away when people brought him up that most stopped even trying.

  He looked up sharply. “No. What about you?” he asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve both dated, but nothing serious.”

  “How come?” he asked her.

  “No special reason. It just hasn’t felt right for me. I work a lot of hours and not everyone likes that. There are slim pickings around here to begin with. I know that, so that makes it a bit harder. What about you? You had to have had your pick of anyone.”

  “Hardly,” he said. “I was motivated by work, so like you, not many were happy with that. Then there were those that wanted to be with me because of what I did and where I worked.”

  She figured as much. “I’m sure it’s hard not knowing why someone is with you.”

  “Very,” he said. “So what about us now?”

  She laughed. “One date, Matt. We’ve never been out like this before. You were my first lover, but you weren’t my last. If you want to start over, then asking me this on one date with our history isn’t helping either of us.”

  “I know. I guess I find I’m impatient though. I want to know if I even have a chance. If I’m wasting my time or not.”

  She set her fork down and put her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. “If I told you there was no chance at all and you were wasting your time, would you leave Lake Placid?”

  His words weren’t always making sense to her for someone who said he was going to fight for her. She wanted more clarification. How could he expect her to give him a chance when he was always making statements like that?

  “No. I told you, I’m not leaving without you, or I’m staying until we’re together again.”

  “Then why even ask me that question since it doesn’t matter what the answer is?”

  “I guess I like to
know where I stand,” he said, picking his beer up and drinking a bit more. He’d been nursing it since they’d gotten here.

  “I can’t help you if you keep asking me questions like that. I don’t have answers for you as it is.”

  “You always were honest,” he said.

  “And I always will be. I can’t give you what you want right now because I don’t know if it’s what I want. I’m here with you for dinner because if I said no, then I’d regret that. I don’t want to have any more regrets. I want some kind of closure. Maybe it ends good. Maybe it ends bad. But I need to know where it’s going to go and I can’t know that if I don’t give you a chance.”

  “That’s fair. Not what I want to hear, but it’s fair. I guess I need to make sure that closure is something we both want and get.”

  She just shrugged. “I’m not playing games with you by any means. I just don’t know one way or the other.”

  “And it’s not right of me to even ask you that. I know. I’ll apologize again.”

  She laughed. “You need to stop apologizing. You never used to and now you don’t stop at all. It’s not giving me a favorable impression of you. If I was going out with someone for the first time and didn’t know much about him and all he did was apologize, I wouldn’t go on a second date.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’d think you lacked self-confidence and your self-confidence was one of the things I loved so much. It doesn’t matter to me that you aren’t where you thought you’d be, you were just always so sure of yourself and of getting what you wanted.”

  ***

  He smiled. It was exactly what he needed to hear. “Just remember that.” Her face flushed and he realized that she understood what she’d said now.

  “So what things do you dislike in women? I just told you what would turn me off. What would turn you off?”

  He pushed his plate in front of him, his steak gone at this point. Her seafood casserole pretty empty too. “A woman who wouldn’t eat on a date. One that just nibbled for fear I’d think she was a pig or something.”