Finding Love in Forgotten Cove (Island County Series Book 1) (24 page)

My cell buzzed and I looked down at the screen. It was Mason and my heart pounded in my chest as I read his text.

I’ve been thinking and after the weekend, we need to talk. I want us to be on the same page, and I don’t think we are.

I slid the phone off and placed it in my purse, dread slowly spreading through my body. We’d done a really good job of keeping things light. He might slide a comment in here or there about his intentions, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t equate to the heat of the moment and now wasn’t the time to be distracted. My students would be able to sniff it out a million miles away.

After every student turned in their written proposal, we started class off going over the reading material from the weekend. There weren’t too many questions. Mostly the students kept bringing back the conversations to their final projects. Each student was required to give a two-minute presentation about what his or her final project was going to be. Once the first student started, I knew it was going to be a fun way to make the time go by and not let my mind slip back to Mason.

But that didn’t work and when the bell rang, I was extremely apprehensive that class had ended. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the conversation that awaited me at home.

It was late afternoon and Mason was standing on the ladder changing a light bulb on the side of the house. My nerves were shot, but I was trying so hard not to let Mason know anything was worrying me because he hadn’t brought up our need to talk yet, and I was hoping he’d forget about it.

The ladder wiggled and my heart jumped as I watched his foot readjust on a step.

“Did you know the majority of accidents in the home have to do with ladders?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, I did know that, but the good news is that I’m a professional.” He looked down and winked at me. My stomach fluttered with anxiety about how the evening might change once he set his foot on ground again.

“Professionals can have “off” days too,” I replied, folding my arms.

“Only when a beautiful redhead stands at the bottom of the ladder distracting the poor soul trying to do his job.”

“I get the hint.”

His eyes fastened on mine and my heart skipped a beat. There was no doubt I was making one of the most difficult decisions of my life, and the worst part was that it was like one of those slow motion scenes, where you saw the disaster coming, but you kept moving forward unable to stop everything that was already in motion.

Mason climbed down the ladder. “There. You should have light for another six months.”

“It’s the little things in life,” my voice wavered.

“You okay?” Mason asked, touching my cheek.

“Yeah. Totally fine.” I stared into Mason’s kind eyes, and tried to keep my heart from falling apart. “Actually, no. I ran into a friend from school, and she mentioned that the mayor named part of the downtown park after my dad. He never told me.”

Mason ran his hands along my arms, pulling me into him. I rested my head on his chest and realized how much I appreciated having him listen. He wasn’t trying to fix anything. He was just listening and that was how it always had been. He provided a safety net, but I’d managed on my own for so long that the idea of depending on someone frightened me.

“I feel like there was a whole side to my dad I never knew because I left as soon as I could. I keep thinking I let him down and I wasn’t there for him. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about the park. That was something to be proud of and excited about.”

“If there were areas in his life that he knew weren’t what he wanted, maybe he felt those things overshadowed the good parts.”

“But they didn’t. The drinking wasn’t his fault,” I whispered.

“I know.”

Mason continued to hold me for several minutes until I took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. I knew the conversation was on the verge of happening and I wanted so badly for it not to come up tonight. But I knew the more I let him into my heart, the harder it was going to be to get him out.

“Should we head in?” he asked.

I nodded even though my stomach clenched. We were one step closer to talking about us, and I knew we weren’t headed in the same direction, no matter how I wished it so.

I went inside, walking by the kitchen, which now housed several sets of new cabinets. There was no doubt the house would sell quickly. I walked into the family room, and my mind was trying to settle on anything but what we were actually about to talk about

“What should we do for dinner?” I asked, hoping to buy a little more time.

“We can figure it out later.” He glanced behind him at the kitchen. “But my hunch is take out.”

I smiled, taking a seat on the couch, and Mason sat next to me.

“I get the feeling today’s encounter with your friend didn’t help my case for you staying in Washington.” His smile tentative.

I let out a sigh and shook my head. “No, it didn’t.”

“So what are you thinking about doing at the end of summer?”

“I’m planning on returning back to my job and life in New York, like I’d originally planned.” I brought my eyes to Mason’s.

“Even though you have feelings for me.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ve always liked New York.”

I wasn’t expecting him to say that, but it only added to my worries. The idea of him moving to New York and leaving everything behind when we’d barely gotten to know one another was more than I wanted to be responsible for.

“Since my dad’s death, it feels like I’m barely holding on in life and it’s not fair to encourage a future I’m not capable of, Mason. Seeing the love your family has for one another made me realize what I was missing, but what I’m not sure I have to give. It’s unfair to expect you to be involved with my hang-ups. I wouldn’t want you to leave your family, your life, for me.”

He sat there stunned as the words surrounded us.

As I looked into his eyes, I realized I wasn’t ready to love Mason Rhodes the way he deserved to be loved, and it wasn’t fair of me to pretend it was a possibility.

 “I’m certainly not perfect and I’d like to think that’s part of my appeal.” His smile fell when he saw the look in my eyes.

“It’s not like that.” I shook my head, holding back the tears. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to break things off with him. Not this way. Not now.

But as I looked into Mason’s eyes, I knew what my answer needed to be. It didn’t matter that I was falling in love with Mason Rhodes.

He wasn’t the broken one, I was, and I didn’t want to destroy him. I needed to let him go before we became too involved, before it became impossible. It was the logical choice.

“I feel like I’m barely holding on,” I whispered. “And it’s not like I want to be stuck in the past, but when I’m here I feel like I’m stranded in memories. It’s hard to explain and it’s nothing you need to understand. It’s just me.”

“Why don’t you help me to understand? I want to be there for you. I want to help. It doesn’t matter if you’re here or in New York, let me be part of your life. Let me try to make things better.”

“I’m not ready for that. I might never be ready for that.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mason said, standing up as the realization settled over him.

“To you, it probably sounds crazy, but to me, it’s the only way I know how to move on. I can’t be surrounded with things from my old life.”

“I’m part of your new life, Tori. I don’t understand.”

I nodded. “I know.“

“What changed at the barbeque? I thought we had a great time.”

“I did. We did.” I fell silent.

“Then what happened?”

“I saw how happy your family was and it reminded me of what I used to have.”

Mason bit his lip and narrowed his gaze on me. “So seeing my family happy made you not want to be a part of it?”

I nodded, hearing how asinine it sounded coming from someone else’s lips, but it was the truth.

“Now that my father is gone, I know I have nothing and I don’t want to be reminded of something.”

“So I’m nothing?” he asked.

I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean, but I can’t risk staying when I don’t know what this will be. I’ve been hurt before, Mason. I’ve learned not to trust promises. I can’t stay back and build a life that is built around one person when that person might leave.”

“I wouldn’t leave.”

“I’ve heard that before, and honestly, it didn’t work out that way.”

“What did I do to make you worry?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s what I’m telling you. It’s me. I’ve got too many hang-ups and it’s not fair to drag you through each one. And the longer I spend time with you, the harder it is to stay away.”

“Then don’t stay away.” Mason took a seat next to me again, his arms open to cradle me in an embrace, but I scooted back quickly and shook my head.

“I have to.”

Mason’s gaze hardened, and I swallowed down my tears. I couldn’t let him see how much this was killing me inside.

“So instead of gaining a family and surrounding yourself with people who love you or who would learn to love you, you’ve decided the best thing for you to do is just run away from everyone and everything? If I remember correctly, that didn’t work the first time you tried it.”

The sting of his words touched my soul. He was right, but humans were equipped with a desire to survive and for me to survive, I needed to run. That was my self-preservation method and so far I was still standing.

“I didn’t think I was this fragile, Mason. I never would’ve done this to you if I thought for a second this is how it would turn out. The longer I stayed on the island, the more I turned into a wreck of emotions.”

“You’re anything but weak and fragile, Tori. I’d say you’re the strongest ice-queen I’ve met,” Mason’s statement stunned me. “I should’ve known. You were pushing me away the moment I tried to get close. I honestly can’t believe I fell for your whole spiel.”

“Why would you say that?” I asked more harshly than I intended. “I’ve never tried to convince you of anything. From the beginning, I told you I wasn’t ready for anything serious.”

“And you also said you weren’t the type who was into a fling.” Mason’s brow arched. “You knew what you were doing, and I was the idiot that fell for it, but seriously, Tori, do yourself and everyone else a favor, if you want to keep it casual, keep it casual. Don’t give false hope that there’s something more possible when you’re clearly inaccessible. You say you don’t want to dwell in the past, but that’s exactly what you’re doing by not letting love in. You’re making sure that you stay right where you want, dwelling on exactly what you want.”

“I’m not dwelling on my past. It wasn’t until I set foot on this island that I gave two thoughts about it. That’s what I’m getting at. That’s the problem.”

“No, Tori. The problem isn’t that you don’t want to think of your past, or that you put it out of your mind…it’s that you refuse to deal with it at all. You refuse to deal with your parents’ deaths and your sister’s death. You’re right. You have no one except an uncle in London and a psycho aunt in the states. So DEAL with it. Yell out your frustration. Cry out your sorrow. It’s okay to be lonely, but it’s not okay to push people away who care.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

I nodded.

“I never would’ve guessed this was how it would end, Tori.” He let out a sigh and shoved his hand through his hair. “I’ll be back tomorrow to start work on the kitchen. It should be done at the end of the week and you can put it on the market.”

I wanted his arms to open up again. I wanted to say sorry and say it all was a mistake, but it wasn’t. I wanted to ask about what I’d heard with Lily and Gabby, but I couldn’t. I didn’t.

He walked outside silently and folded up the ladder. He propped it on his shoulder before he took off for his truck, and a deluge of sorrow filled my world as I watched him secure the ladder and climb in.

He turned on the ignition and blew out of the drive, never looking back. I ran into the house, straight into the bathroom where the first elusive tear finally dropped. I looked in the mirror, my eyes glittering with the tears I’d done so well at holding in and prayed that I’d survive the pain of losing the first man I’d truly allowed myself to love.