All-American Girl (25 page)

“Commitment?”

Samantha sucked in a breath. “To name another.”

“Fear?”

“And another.”

“What are you going to do?” Gram asked.

“I’m going back to New York to sort out some stuff. I’ll come back to visit. I won’t leave you like I did last time. I promise.” Samantha took Gram’s hand. “Plus, we’ve got to move you back home soon, so I’ll come back for that.”

“I know. You’ve spread some roots here. You’ll need to come back and tend them.”

Samantha nodded, the lump in her throat not allowing her to speak.

“Good luck, Samantha,” Cole said.

Samantha turned her attention to her brother. “You look well, Cole.”

“Thank you. I want to apologize for what I’ve done to you. I—I’m getting better now. I started going to AA. It’s been less than a week, and I’ve still got a long way to go, but I see a little more clearly and part of that is because of you.”

“I—”

“No.” He waved a hand to stop her interrupting. “Don’t say anything; just know part of it was you. I’m sorry about Lance. I wished I hadn’t done all those things to you guys. He’s a good man. I’m sorry about the shop and the money. Everything. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I’d done. All the trouble I’d caused. I want to change that. I intend to stay here and make it right. Why don’t you?”

“I can’t. It’s not right for me.”

“It is. You just don’t know it yet.”

She glanced at her watch, her emotions getting the best of her. She didn’t want to break down in tears in the middle of Gram’s room. “Well, I’ve got to run.” She bent and kissed Gram’s cheek and patted Cole on the shoulder—it was the only amount of affection she could show at the moment. “I’ll see you as soon as I can, Gram. Take care. I’ll call. I love you.”

The words she hadn’t spoken in years slipped from her tongue so effortlessly. Joy overcame Gram’s face. Samantha could love. She
did
love. But loving someone like Lance who could break her heart was different.

“I love you too, dear.”

“Bye.”

Samantha walked back to her car and headed to the hotel to pick up Ava. She felt a smidge better after checking in with Gram, and to see Cole, so bright-eyed and remorseful, was a shock. The final weight from that part of her heart lifted. Too bad the rest of her heart was missing.

She passed the Queen Diner and, without thinking, parked the car and got out. She would regret it if she left without saying anything. She already had enough regrets and she didn’t want to add another.

The doorbell chimed as Samantha walked in. The breakfast rush had long gone and only a few people were sitting about. The place smelled delicious, as always. Candice swung open the door from the back and smiled brightly at Samantha. Another stab to her heart.

“Hey, Candice. Do you have a minute?”

Candice must’ve noticed the turmoil on Samantha’s face because she raced to her side. “What’s wrong? You look terrible.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, no, I mean—you’ve been crying. Is everything okay with Dorothy?”

Samantha nodded. “She’s great.”

Candice ushered her to a booth. “Then what is it?”

Samantha sat down and twisted a napkin between her fingers. “I’m going back to New York and I wanted to say goodbye.”

Candice’s jaw dropped. “You’re coming back, right?”

Samantha bit her bottom lip, shook her head and shrugged. “For a visit now and again.”

“What about Lance?”

“I said goodbye to him this morning.” She rubbed her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. She twisted the napkin tighter.

“Oh.” Candice leaned back and crossed her arms. “He didn’t ask you to stay? What did he say?”

“He’s angry with me.”

“I doubt that. He…well, you two have been dating, right?”

“It’s over,” Samantha said quietly. She released the napkin and smoothed it out on the table. She folded it in half until she couldn’t fold it anymore, then unfolded it and gripped it in her fist.

“So that’s it? You’re just leaving? I don’t understand.”

Samantha drew in a deep breath. “I’ve got things to take care of at home, is all. He knew I would have to leave eventually. I don’t live here. Not anymore.” Frowning, she added, “Could you do me a favor?”

“I’m a little shocked right now, so I don’t know.”

“That’s fair. I’m sorry. When I spoke to Lance, I didn’t get a chance to say anything about Jax. Could you…uh…tell him I’d rather Jax not know I left?”

Candice’s eye bugged out. “Why? He’s going to know you’re not here.”

“Oh. Right.” Her skin crawled. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I know what that’s like and that’s the last thing I want to do to him.”

“What about Lance?”

Tears bubbled. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, too.”

Candice’s expression softened. “All right, I’ll tell Lance what you said and he’ll figure something out. He’s good at that.”

Another jab to Samantha’s senses. Lance
was
good—at everything. And he even did the unthinkable: He loved her. A full-blown waterfall erupted down her cheeks.

She hustled to the door. “I’ve got to go. Tell him I’m sorry, too. I’m so sorry, Candice.” She brought a hand up to her mouth to stop the sobs. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just can’t give my all to Lance. For once, I want someone to give their all for me. Sacrifice something for me. I’ve sacrificed enough, gone through enough pain, suffered enough. I won’t do it again. I can’t.”

“Samantha—” Candice reached out and tried to hug her but Samantha moved backed and jerked open the door.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she slipped outside.

The wretchedness in the pit of her gut was still present when she picked up Ava. The visit was anticlimactic. Samantha handed over the papers and Ryan handed over Ava like she was a piece of meat.

As she tucked Ava into her car seat, the girl’s bright blue eyes gleamed up at her.

“I love you, Mom.”

Samantha kissed her cheek, pushing away her remorse and sadness. “I love you, too. Let’s go home.”

“Doing the right thing can be the hardest thing,
especially when you find out it was wrong.”
~Unknown

A
FTER
T
HREE
W
EEKS
, Samantha had slipped back into her routine with Ava. Motherhood suited her. Play dates, blueberry pancakes, and lots of giggles. But with each day that passed, she struggled more and more. Every night, after she’d tucked Ava in, she went to her own empty bed and cried. She had a hard time eating and sleeping. There was a hole in her heart that could never be repaired. Hopefully the ache of her choice would ease soon, because she was precariously on the edge of dying from a broken heart, something she’d never thought physically possible.

At night, after Ava had fallen asleep and after she cried, Samantha would crack open her laptop. She’d given a lot of thought to what Lance had said before he walked away. He’d been right about her book. Samantha couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before but now it was clear as day. Samantha’s heroine
was
Samantha and much to Samantha’s surprise, she’d written a hero who was eerily close to Lance.

She hadn’t been able to finish her story because she was afraid of the outcome. But not this time. Each night her fingers pounded at the keys, putting down all the words, all the actions she would have done if she’d only had the nerve. The courage. The heart. The words spilled onto the page. The scenes were set as if in a fairy tale. Samantha’s fairy tale. She wrote about how she’d like it to be: her own happily-ever-after. And it came together beautifully.

Her heroine had been broken down by the death of her twin sister, emotionally abused and cast aside by a man she’d loved. She’d searched for solace in the mountains with the peace of quiet nights and long days. She painted, poured heartbreak out on canvas, canvases she wouldn’t let anyone else see. The hero was her weak spot. The annoying, too-close neighbor who came to check on her, brought her supplies she didn’t need, made her laugh when she was sad, told her stories that made her rethink her priorities. He showed her there was more to life than sadness and pain, that life in itself was a journey and she needed to grab on—take the ride—or regret it forever.

Samantha broke down as she wrote the last page, but her own hero was not there to console her. She missed him. She missed Vermont. She missed everything she’d left behind. Ava was snuggled close to her side, soundly sleeping, and Samantha wondered if she could take back her decisions. She didn’t want to regret her journey.

She closed the laptop and set it on the table. Her book was finished, her dreams written out. Tears continued to fall from her closed eyes. She’d already missed her ride, thrown away her chance for fear of getting hurt. She didn’t know if she could ask for forgiveness—or get it. Samantha’s dreams would forever remain tucked away in
Aspen Rain
.

Lance strode into the diner, Jax sulking by his side. When Jax asked about Samantha, the only thing he could think that wouldn’t break the boy’s heart was that she’d gone away on personal business and she’d be back soon. Jax had asked about her almost every day since then, and Lance hoped the need to see her would fade soon. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

Not only that, Lance knew Samantha had already been back in town once, the day they’d moved Dorothy to back to her home. But Samantha had stayed out of sight and left just as quietly as she’d arrived.

Now Jax spent a lot of time talking quietly to his dinosaurs. It dug a hole in Lance’s heart and made him angry with Samantha, but he knew it wasn’t her fault. She’d been through a lot and hadn’t had enough time to work through it all. He understood. He’d been there. He just wished there had been more time and that Samantha had given them more of a chance instead of shutting him out completely. It would take a while to get over her—if he ever could.

“Hey, guys.” Candice pointed to a booth in the corner, and they walked over and sat down. “What can I get you?”

“The breakfast special,” Lance said. “How about you, Jax?”

He shrugged and continued playing with his T-Rex. “I’m not hungry.”

Candice knelt at his side. “A growing boy has to eat. Why don’t you go get your dad that special project you’ve been working on?” She bent and whispered something in his ear. His face brightened slightly.

“Okay.” Jax slid out of the seat and walked to the back room.

“How long do you think he’ll be like this?” Candice asked.

“I don’t know. He’s never been through this kind of thing. He really misses her. She was the first woman he ever saw around the house. He was getting used to having her around.”

“You were, too,” she reminded him. “How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better.”

Candice smacked the menus down on the table. “Then when are you going to stop brooding and go after her?”

He quirked a brow. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

“I don’t see why not. It’s been three weeks. I’ll bet she’s changed her mind.”

“She’s already been back once, remember? And she didn’t come running to me then, did she? She doesn’t want a life with me; she made that perfectly clear.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Candice cocked her hip and gave Lance a knowing stare.

“What?” he asked.

“Do you want her back?”

He rubbed a hand over his chest. Hell, yes he did. More than he wanted to breathe. “Of course.”

“So how are you going to get her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what she wants from me.”

“We need coffee. Hold on.” Candice spun around and returned with two tall cups of steaming coffee. “Tell me again what she said when she left.”

Lance took a sip of coffee. “That’s easy—nothing, really. She shut me out, didn’t really say anything besides ‘I don’t want to go through this again.’ You’re a girl, help me decipher that.”

“You should know I’m not one to give relationship advice, Lance.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Candice twirled her finger around the top of her cup. “She told me something interesting before she left. She was upset and crying right before she walked out the door and rattled off something about not sacrificing herself for anyone and wanting someone to sacrifice for her.”

Lance’s brows knitted. He’d heard something similar from Samantha as well. She’d been talking about her past relationships—her marriages. How she’d given up everything she was to make her significant other happy and how it never worked out. He gripped his coffee cup with both hands. “Shit.”

Candice’s eyes popped open. “What?”

“I’ve got it. God, I’m such an ass. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” He stood up and headed toward the back to get Jax.

“What? What do you have?”

“I know what she wants, and I’m going to give it to her.”

As Samantha strode down the busy New York City street, she still couldn’t believe it. She’d finished her novel—albeit a few weeks late, edited it in record time, and gotten the most wonderful praise from her agent and publisher. She’d accomplished so much, gotten such great feedback, but yet, she still felt empty.

She slowed her fast-paced walk. She had a long battle ahead of her. Rounding the corner, she trotted up the steps to Dr. Wade’s office. Weekly sessions. That’s what her decision and subsequent heartbreak had caused.

“Come on in,” Dr. Wade said as she ushered Samantha to the comfy suede sofa in the center of the room. Dr. Wade sat across from her and smiled. “You look better today.”

“My book’s a go. They loved it.”

Dr. Wade smiled effortlessly. “That’s wonderful news. But why do you still look unhappy?”

Samantha shrugged. She picked up a capped pen from the side table and drew imaginary circles across the wood. “Well, I’m lucky the publisher accepted it. I was over three weeks late, you know.”

“But they did, and that’s what important, right?”

“Yeah. I just thought I would feel better once all that stress was over.”

Dr. Wade sighed. “You’re still thinking about Vermont, aren’t you?”

She dropped the pen and looked up.

“You want to go back, but you haven’t discovered how to overcome your fear of relationship failure? Or how to take back everything you’ve done?”

Samantha nodded and held back the tears that formed every time Dr. Wade discussed Vermont.

“That’s not it entirely, Samantha.” Dr. Wade rose and took a seat next to her. “You want the relationship with Lance and you think you’ve ruined it. Ssh—” Dr. Wade held up a finger when Samantha tried to speak. She draped her arm over Samantha’s shoulder. Samantha flinched, but only for a second before she relaxed into the comfort. There would never be enough tears for Lance. Never enough ways to say she was sorry. The pain was deep and permanent, and Samantha knew it was her fault. She wasn’t strong enough to fix it. Something deep inside her still needed the confirmation that Lance needed her as much as she needed him.

“You miss him and…oh, my…are you crying?”

Samantha turned her head away. It was the first time she’d ever cried in front of Dr. Wade. She’d hit a tipping point.

“Look at me, Samantha. Look.”

Samantha wiped the tears away and turned. Dr. Wade was smiling brightly at her.

“It’s time for you to let go of what scares you,” Dr. Wade said softly. “Embrace the new you. The you that loves and desires to be loved. The one who will take chances and go after what she needs.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. And you will. You’re strong, determined, and stubborn.” Dr. Wade chuckled. “I cannot allow myself to sit by while you regress back into the woman that brought you to me in the first place. You and I both know that person is a shadow of what you are now. Take what you know—what you feel—and run with it. The decision is yours, Samantha. I know you’ll make the right one.”

Samantha slid out of the cab and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of her townhouse. She didn’t want to turn back into a mean, spiteful woman who lashed out at people, and she didn’t want to feel anxious, upset, and twitchy around people she loved, or people in general. She just wanted to be herself; the happy woman who had emerged from going back to Vermont. The woman who had the love of a man she’d pushed away.

The man she was going to try to get back.

It didn’t matter that her heart had been broken before. It didn’t matter that her journey was riddled with road blocks and craters. What mattered was that there was a man—a wonderful man—who loved her and wanted to share his life with her.
Not
going to him was hurting her more. It was killing her. She wished she’d seen it sooner.

Samantha paid the driver and took a few steps towards her home. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and thought of him. She could still smell him, the scent that was only Lance, could still feel his body on hers, the way he touched her. Her feelings were on the surface, raw and painful.

She sighed heavily and opened her eyes. It was late afternoon, and her body was tired from the day. The sidewalk was streaked with shadows from the oak trees that lined the street. A car or two whizzed by. His smell was gone, replaced by the stale scent of smog and dirt.