She shoved her hands in the pockets of her sweater. “You didn’t misinterpret anything. I suppose you could call it a history. Josh and I have friends in common, sort of. In a small place like Lake Haven, people around the same age tend to socialize in the same circles. His cousins Katrina and Wynona are my best friends.”
“Ah.”
She might as well tell him the rest of it. “Yes. Josh and I dated a few times. It was never anything serious.”
“Things didn’t work out between you? Since the man is about to marry my sister, I would like to ask why. You don’t have to tell me, if you feel like it’s none of my business.”
Her first impulse was to make some kind of excuse about how people didn’t always click romantically, even after two or three dates. It was true, as she certainly knew.
That wasn’t the whole truth, though, and Samantha found she was reluctant to lie to Ian.
Having grown up with a mother who always spoke her mind, no matter how harmful her thoughts, Samantha had been the recipient of enough slings and digs to know that honesty wasn’t always the best policy. Still, she didn’t want to hide things from him, especially when he would likely find out the truth, anyway.
She curled her fingers together inside the pockets, choosing her words as carefully as she would thread. “I’ve already told you that I’ve made some poor choices when it comes to relationships. I’m not proud of my history. In the past, I’ve had a terrible habit of jumping from Nice to Meet You to Let’s Get Married in about five minutes. That’s what happened with Josh, much to my chagrin. We dated a few times after his cousin Wynona’s wedding a few years ago and I...wanted things to go faster than he did.”
Her face felt hot, her skin stretched tight over her cheekbones. She wanted to disappear into the darkness. Why had she answered him with such blunt honesty? She should have kept her mouth shut and simply answered that after a few dates she and Josh realized they didn’t suit.
“You must have cared for him a great deal,” Ian said gently.
She couldn’t back out of the conversation now. “I thought I did. I imagined I was in love with him, which seems so ridiculous now when I think of it. But unfortunately that wasn’t the first or last time. I think I’ve always been more in love with the idea of being in love, if you know what I mean. It’s always provided a kind of escape.”
He gave her a sharp look and she again wished she had kept her mouth shut. She didn’t need to reveal that to him.
“An escape from what?” he asked, his voice curious.
She sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it matters very much,” he said quietly. “I would like to know, if you would like to tell me.”
The darkness provided a certain freedom. If not for the night, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to tell him the truth.
“I told you that my relationship with my mother wasn’t an easy one. Since college, I’ve dreamed about leaving and going to work somewhere else.”
“But you stayed. You didn’t even go away for university.”
“I did for one semester but it didn’t work out. I’ve always felt a great sense of family obligation since it was only the two of us. She was a single mother for most of my life after my father died and worked very hard to take care of me, and I suppose I felt as if I owed her somehow.”
“You have that backward. Children don’t owe their parents. It’s the other way around.”
She could see that now but her mother wouldn’t have agreed.
“How old were you when your father died?” he asked after a moment.
“Eight.”
“That’s a tough age to lose a parent.”
“Yes. I don’t think I was nearly resilient as Amelia and Thomas seem to be. I’m not sure I’ve ever really gotten over it.”
“How did he die? Do you mind me asking?”
She debated how to answer him. Usually she gave the same sort of answer her mother had given her, that he had been ill. It was easier than explaining what had really happened.
“He killed himself,” she said quietly. “My father suffered from clinical depression. One summer night he came out here to this very dock with a handful of painkillers from a surgery he’d had a few years earlier. He swallowed the pills with an entire bottle of gin, passed out and never woke up.”
“Oh, Samantha. I’m so sorry.” The compassion in his voice made her want to cry suddenly, to howl out her sorrow and loss as she hadn’t done for her father in a long time.
He looked as if he wanted to embrace her and she suddenly wanted to sink into his arms, lean her head on his chest and give in to the jagged pain.
Instead, she swallowed hard and took a few steps away from him, sliding down onto the bench where she often came to remember her father.
“As you can imagine, losing her husband like that was hard on my mother. Her personality changed. She changed. It must have been so difficult for her, losing the love of her life that way. I can only imagine how betrayed she must have felt.”
“You stayed because you didn’t want to abandon her, as well.”
She stared at him, struck by the truth of his words. “I... I suppose you’re right. I’ve never really looked at it that way. I stayed. And, quite frankly, I opted for the path of least resistance when it came to dealing with her. It was easier to do what she wanted than deal with the guilt of disappointing her. I suppose that makes me
