“And I don’t think it’s going slowly between us,” she said. “It’s burning fast, and if we aren’t ready to take the next step, it will burn out.”
“Do you think we can be something to each other?” he asked.
She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe later. Much later. I can’t go through another heartbreak, Logan. I need to get my balance here. And your life is in Denver. I’m not repeating history.”
It was impossible—he knew it.
“I still hate saying goodbye,” he said miserably.
“Me, too, but at least this time we get one.” Her chin trembled. “And I’m grateful for that.”
Logan left the door open and crossed the hallway toward her again. He swept her into his arms. This time his kiss was filled with longing for all the things he wished he could be to her, if he were only a little less damaged, a little less of a risk. The soft scent of her filled his head and his heart, and when he finally pulled back, he knew he had to leave now or not at all.
“I’d better go,” he said, his voice choked, and he left, putting one foot in front of the other until he got into his truck. He clutched his steering wheel with a death grip, willing his emotions to stay buried beneath his granite mask. He wouldn’t put the burden of his heartbreak onto her.
Melanie stood at the open door, her brown eyes filled with tears, but she raised one hand in farewell as he put the truck into Reverse. He unrolled his window before he took his foot off the brake.
“Call me if you want to talk,” he said.
Even if it hurt. Even it made it worse, he wouldn’t turn her away.
She nodded, but she didn’t say anything, and he knew what that meant. She wouldn’t call. And neither would he. This was the goodbye they should have had twenty years ago.
He took his foot off the brake and pulled out of her drive. It seemed that the right thing to do could be identified by how much it hurt. Because a proper goodbye had been the thing they’d both needed...but it left him gutted.
He’d go pick up his son and get back to his life. Melanie had never been his to hold on to, anyway.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MELANIE STOOD IN the silence of her house for a moment, the weight of what had just happened sinking down into her chest. It was then that the tears broke free and her shoulders shook as she dropped to sit on the floor.
She loved him. Maybe she’d never fully gotten him out of her heart. He’d been the first one to break her heart, and now he’d done it again, but she couldn’t blame him. She’d known better than to toy with these kinds of feelings with Logan McTavish, and he’d tried to stop himself from falling for her, too. Why couldn’t they be better at this twenty years later? Why were they still so apt to tumble down that slope together?
But there was something about that man that tugged her in. In some way, he still felt like hers, except he wasn’t. He still belonged to his late wife, and he still felt guilty and responsible to her. They’d both been betrayed in their previous relationships, just in different ways. His wife had never opened up to him and let him fix what was going wrong. And Adam had denied her the same thing by cheating on her. He’d never told her why she hadn’t been enough, or why he felt like other women were more exciting.
Was it something about her that fizzled in their relationship? Or was it something about Adam that was broken?
Melanie cried until her tears were spent and her legs felt stiff from sitting on the floor. And then she got up and went into the kitchen.
She had to start over—to have something that was hers, without relying on a man. And ironically, with her lake house and her divorce, she had just that. She should see this painful time as the opportunity it was to build a life that would show Tilly what a woman could do on her own.
Because the kids were watching...always watching. She owed her stepdaughter a good example.
The sun had set when her friends arrived. Melanie had lit some candles out on the deck, arranged a few Adirondack chairs and pulled down the wine glasses that hadn’t been used in probably a decade. Her heart was heavy, though, and her tears still felt very close to the surface.
When they’d settled outside on the deck with some soft music filtering out the open patio door, Melanie leaned her head back and looked up at the stars. She could pick out a couple of familiar constellations, and she breathed in the pine-scented air.
Renata and Angelina settled into the other two chairs, and Belle sat on the edge of the deck, her legs swinging. Gayle was next to her, a glass of wine in her hand.
“So why are the kids with their dad?” Angelina asked Renata with a frown. “I thought you had them all summer.”
“I got tired of it,” Renata said. “I felt like I was being pushed and manipulated from all sides. Ivan kept telling the kids that they didn’t see him often because we weren’t a family anymore, and the kids were blaming me, and it was getting really ugly. So I decided that if they needed more time with their dad, they’d get it.”
“Did that make your ex happy?” Melanie asked.
“Far from it,” Renata chuckled. “The kids are wonderful, but they’re a lot of work, and I always do that work. When we were married, I was the one to make sure they were dressed and clean and fed and polite and...alive.”
Melanie chuckled. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”
“So Ivan has the kids for two weeks, and he’s already called me three
