“You never know when it’s going to be too late, do you?” Logan said quietly.
“I suppose not,” she agreed.
“I’m going to see my brother in the morning,” Logan said, his voice low. “I guess there are funeral plans and all that. I don’t think he wants my help with the funeral, exactly, but...”
“You’re family,” she said.
“Biologically, maybe.”
“You did better by Graham,” she said. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
He nodded slowly, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. She felt his arm tighten around her, and he rested his cheek against the top of her head.
“When you look back on your life, I think you want to see that you behaved well,” he said quietly. “I’m a little too much like my father, there. I might have done better by Graham, but I didn’t do better by Caroline. Or you.”
“I’m okay, Logan,” she said.
“You are, but I’m still not proud of the guy I was. And when it came to my father, I’m not proud of how I handled things, either. Sometimes all a man has left is his integrity—if anything, my dad’s passing has driven that home for me.” Logan looked down at her. “I don’t mean to dump my stuff on you. You’ve got your own challenges right now, and I’m sorry if I—”
“Your father died,” she interrupted him. “Don’t apologize for something like that.”
Melanie leaned her back against his chest, facing the rippling lake and the dark wall of mountain as Logan put his arms around her. She felt safe here, warm and secure. She could feel the grief deep inside of him, and she had no words to fix it.
“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if we’d stayed together?” he asked after a moment.
“We’d be different people,” she replied.
He was silent.
“You wouldn’t have Graham,” she added. “And I don’t think you really want to trade in the time you had with Caroline.”
“My dad said something when I saw him—he thought I’d only married Caroline because she had my baby. He said something about it not being worth it to stay together for the kids.”
“He said that?”
“He said he was talking about himself, but...” He swallowed audibly. “He might have been right. I thought I was happy, but Caroline wasn’t. Not according to her diaries. She might have married me for the baby, and I was just stupid enough to think that a faithful guy who paid the bills would be enough to make a woman happy.”
“It’s not a bad start,” she replied.
“It wasn’t enough,” he said. “What if I hadn’t done that—gotten married because of Graham? What if... I’d found you before you married Adam?”
Would that have been better than her marriage to Adam? Would she trade in those years with the wrong guy for another man with different issues? It was hard to say. She was a different person, and the last fifteen years had formed her. Just because a man wasn’t the right one didn’t make the time with him worthless.
“I was pretty angry with you,” she said.
“Because I left.”
“That, and because you were so impossible to talk to back then. You opened up when you wanted to, and otherwise, you were like a brick wall. You wouldn’t share. You wouldn’t say what you were feeling—”
“Hey, I told you how I felt about you,” he countered.
“You did. In a romantic moment. But a relationship isn’t just about romantic moments, it’s about all the ordinary time in between, and that’s when you shut down. So, yes, I’d loved you deliriously, but you also made it very hard to maintain a relationship.”
He was silent for a few beats, and her heart sped up. His father had just died, and here she was telling him that he was a jerk to date? What was wrong with her? She was about to say something—to take it back—when his deep voice broke the stillness.
“Caroline wrote something pretty similar in her diary,” he said.
“Logan—”
“Hey, I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” he said, and he straightened, pulling away from her. “I’m just seeing myself differently. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
Some cool wind picked up, whisking down the mountain and across the glacially chilled water. Goose bumps rose up on Melanie’s arms and legs, and they headed back up the gravel path to the lodge. Once inside, Logan led the way up the wide carpeted staircase. Some of the doorknobs had Do Not Disturb signs. She should go home—it was late. But somehow, they’d just fallen into step with each other and it felt good to be with him, to have a strong arm to lean against again... Was this loneliness, or something more?
Logan stopped at his door and fished a key out of his pocket. He opened the door and let her step inside first.
The room was neat, but he had a few personal items out—a suitcase sitting on top of a chest of drawers, a pair of shoes by the door and a few shirts hung in the open closet. The bed was neatly made and the patio door was open, a fresh breeze ruffling the curtains.
Logan shut the door and stood there, looking at her, his eyes so full of sadness that it made her tear up in response.
“I’m sorry about what I said,” she whispered.
“You were telling the truth.”
“I’m still sorry.” Because it had hurt him at his most vulnerable, and even if he could be utterly impossible, she still cared.
He didn’t answer, but his dark gaze enveloped her, making her catch her breath.
“I should get home,” she whispered. She knew she should leave, though her legs didn’t seem to be making that happen.
“If you need to,” he said. “But I’m not chasing you off...”
Melanie crossed the few feet between them, stood up on her tiptoes, and wrapped her arms around him. He was solid, warm and musky, and she leaned her cheek
