Landon was giving up his vacation to help her out. As much as her helplessness rankled, she couldn’t forget that. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”
He was near the doorway of Emmett’s room, the ladder angling toward the wall. “I don’t mind.” His words were clipped.
Sam wanted to tell him to go. She wanted to get up and finish the work herself, but her pounding ankle stopped her. She still couldn’t set it on the ground without pain. There was no way it could bear her weight.
“It’s obvious you don’t want to be here. You’ve hardly said a word all afternoon.”
“I don’t mind being here as long as I don’t have to overhear conversations with your boyfriend.”
Heat flooded Sam’s face, and she looked away. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Could have fooled me.” The bristles of the brush jabbed at the corner of the ceiling.
Maybe he was remembering the way he carried her half-naked from Tully’s house. Sure, she almost slept with him, but she was drunk. That didn’t make Tully her boyfriend. She’d allowed herself to get wasted and made a foolish decision.
Hadn’t Landon ever done something foolish? She watched him painting, his lips pressed together. No, Landon was too prudent for that. But surely there had been other women. Girlfriends.
Sam watched his arm move the brush up and down in short strokes. His shirt revealed tanned skin and well-defined muscles. No man who looked like him had trouble attracting women. Especially when the inside matched the outside. She couldn’t say that about many people. So why was he still unattached?
“What about you?” she dared. “Have you had any serious relationships?” She was suddenly unsure she wanted to hear the answer. She wondered if anything was becoming of him and Melanie. “How are things going with—”
“If you so much as whisper Melanie’s name, I’m out of here.”
She held up her right hand, palm out. “I thought she liked you.”
He studied her, and his face softened, the corners of his mouth relaxing. “She only agreed to the double date to help me, Sam. She and I are friends, and we’ll never be anything more.”
“Oh.”
He descended the ladder. “As far as girlfriends, there have been a couple. Not very serious, though.” He leaned back, half sitting, and propped his foot on the lowest rung.
Sam waited for him to go on, curious about the women who’d captured his attention. “Anyone I know?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so.” He crossed the room and lifted the bag of peas from her ankle. “Better get this back in the freezer.”
“Wait.” She touched his arm. When he looked at her, she withdrew her hand and returned it to her lap. “Tell me about them.” She tried for nonchalance. “Have pity on a bored, injured woman.”
“Are you implying my love life is boring?”
“On the contrary. I’m curious to know how the great Landon Reed has avoided the holy bonds of matrimony.”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“You first.” She said it like a dare.
He heaved a sigh. “Fine.” The other end of the sofa sank with his weight. “What do you want to know?”
Sam wanted to know everything. Had he been in love? Why had they broken up? Had they broken his heart? “Whatever you want to tell.”
He leaned over, setting the brush in the pan, then sat back. “I’ve had two serious relationships. Tracie was first. We dated about six months.”
When he didn’t go on, she prodded him. “What was she like?”
“Tracie?” He shifted toward Sam. “Outgoing, vivacious.”
“Cheerleader type?” She had been right on target with Melanie.
“Exactly.”
No one could be more opposite Sam’s personality, and something in that bothered her.
“Drove me nuts.” He grinned at Sam.
She found herself smiling back. “Why?”
As his grin slipped away, a frown creased his brow. “There was never any quiet. It was all go-go-go, like life was a party and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It was exhausting. She was exhausting.”
“So that’s why you broke up?” The thought brought her relief for some strange reason.
“That, and Max didn’t like her.”
Sam laughed. She couldn’t imagine Max disliking anyone. He was a big black teddy bear. “What about the other one?”
“Max liked her.”
She elbowed him. “That’s not what I meant.”
He spread his paint-stained hands across his thighs. “Jennifer. We dated for almost a year.”
She saw his expression change. His eyes grew more thoughtful, and he looked down at his hands, scratching dried paint from his thumbnail. Jennifer had meant something to him. “Recently?”
“Fairly. Broke up a couple of months ago.” He propped his knee on the couch beside her, almost touching her thigh.
“What was she like?”
“She was quieter—thank God.” He shared a smile with her. “Sweet lady. The kind who wouldn’t say a bad word about anyone.” He breathed a laugh. “She used to say I was the last honorable man on earth. She was a volunteer with me on the Marine Mammal Stranding Team.”
“You seem fond of her. What happened?” Sam wondered for a moment if she’d died. His talk of her held sadness.
“Nothing really happened. I just—” He puckered his eyebrows and shook his head. “There wasn’t a spark for me, you know? I cared for her a lot. I respected her. I enjoyed her company.”
“How did she feel?” Sam leaned her head against the sofa back and watched him.
“She said she loved me, and as much as I cared for her, as much as I wanted to fall in love with her, I just didn’t return those feelings.”
“So you broke up with her?”
“It was hard. She didn’t deserve to be hurt, but it wasn’t fair to stay in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“A few weeks ago on a Stranding Team project.” He nudged her leg. “Enough about me. Tell me about the men in your life.”
They didn’t have time to talk about all the men who’d passed through her life. Most of them meant nothing. Some of them were only faces in her mind. “There’s only one that was serious.” Now that it was her turn, she felt under a microscope.
“Go on.”
Sam didn’t want to talk about herself, but Landon had opened up. It was only fair. “His name was Jeremy. He was a CPA in a big firm back in Boston.” What did she want to share about Jeremy? He’d been as close to a boyfriend as she ever had. They went everywhere together for over a year. After a while, he complained that she didn’t let him in, that she pulled away when he hugged her.
“What happened?”
He asked me to marry him.
Caden was eight, and he was great with her. Sam had thought they were headed for marriage, but once he got down on his knee on the manicured lawn of Boston Common, fear rocketed through Sam. Her heart felt like it would burst from her chest, and she couldn’t breathe fast enough to keep up with her pulse.
Even now, her mouth grew dry just thinking about it.
She shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”
“Come on. I spilled my guts.”
Landon’s big hand rested on his thigh. It was inches from her own, his long fingers tapering down to blunt fingernails. Hands that could tighten into fists and fend off an enemy. Hands that could open to caress and soothe.
“I don’t know what happened. He asked me to marry him.”
His eyebrows hiked upward. “He did?”
She scowled. “You don’t have to look so surprised.”
“It’s not that. It’s just—that’s pretty serious.” He studied her. “You said no?”
She remembered the way Jeremy’s face fell. Like gravity pulled everything downward in one slow, agonizing move. She had known they were moving in that direction; she just didn’t how she felt until he asked.
“It didn’t feel right.”
You were afraid
. There was no denying the fear she experienced when he pulled out the pink velvet jewelry box and opened it. She didn’t stop to question her decision at the time. She just knew she couldn’t do it.
Sam didn’t want to talk about Jeremy anymore. “So you’ve never proposed to anyone?” she asked.
“Nope.” He brushed her hair behind her shoulder, sending shivers along her scalp. The earlier tension had faded, but a new kind of tension filled the air, mingling with the smell of damp earth.
“Why?” It came out as a whisper.
His gaze swept across her face like a gentle caress. He was Landon, the boy who protected her from bullies, the man who was still her savior. His love for her shone through his eyes. Though she didn’t deserve it, she soaked it up.
He ran the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Ah, Sam. You already know the answer.”
Her belly tightened, and the pain in her ankle was forgotten.
His eyes locked with hers, then lowered to her lips. He leaned toward her, and she could feel a desperate anticipation building inside.
“Mom?”
Sam drew back quickly at the sound of her daughter’s voice.
Landon’s head fell forward, his chin nearly touching his shirt.
She looked around him at Caden, who stared at them as if she’d forgotten what she was about to say. Sam realized her daughter was grown up enough to know she’d interrupted something. “What is it, honey?” She sounded out of breath.
“I was just—um—wondering if we could invite Amber over tomorrow.” Her sentence was a decrescendo, as if the importance of it had faded in light of this new discovery.
“We’ll see. Go on back to bed now.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“’Night,” she called.
Caden padded back through the bedroom doorway and pulled the door shut. Sam leaned her head back. The mood had been broken, and now she only felt awkward. She wondered what Caden was thinking.
“Your daughter has rotten timing.”
The corner of Landon’s mouth was tucked in. She couldn’t help but smile at his pitiful look.
“It’s late anyway,” he said. “You need your rest.” He stood and stretched, then retrieved three Advil and a glass of water from the kitchen. When he returned, he handed her the pillow and helped her shift on the sofa so that her foot was propped on the couch’s arm. Once she was settled, he draped the faded quilt over her and set the phone nearby.
He sat on the edge of the sofa beside her. “Want anything else before I go?”
She wanted the moment back. She wanted to feel his lips on hers. She wanted him to stay. “No,” she said instead.
“All right, then. I’ll lock the door on my way out.”
“Okay.”
He pulled the quilt up to her chin and tucked the blanket around her. Then he leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Good night.” The movement was soft but quick and left her wanting so much more.
As he walked away, turning the lock and shutting the door behind him, she felt like a petulant child.
A
fter Landon left, Sam couldn’t sleep. Keeping her foot elevated was a necessity, but sleeping on her back was a drag. From her spot on the couch, she could see straight into Emmett’s room. She could almost see his brawny frame coming through the door, the Winston clamped between his lips.
Sam threw off the quilt and gathered her crutches, pulling herself upright. The living room lamp turned on with a click, and she navigated the maze of furniture. When she made it to the doorway, she saw the letter from her mom lying on the bed. She stopped, balancing on one foot and the crutches.
She should have been told about the letter long ago. Yet again Emmett’s cruel hand reached from the grave. She remembered all the nights she lay in bed, listening to the water rushing the shoreline, wondering if the tide would bring her mom back to her the way it had carried her away. She waited and hoped and begged God to bring her home the same way she’d begged for her dad after he died.
And all that time, her mom’s final letter lay in the next room. Maybe it would have closed the door on Sam’s dream of her return. A closed door was better than a false one. She had learned that lesson well.
Sam wondered if Landon thought she was a coward for not reading it. The thought chafed.
Maybe you are a coward, Sam. It’s onlyan old letter, words on paper. How can it hurt you now?
She was many things, but a coward was not one of them. She crossed the space in one clumsy movement and snatched the letter from the quilt. Tucking it under her arm, she pulled the door shut and returned to the couch.
Her foot ached from all the motion, so she propped it on the wooden coffee table and leaned back. The envelope was well worn, like it had been opened and read a hundred times. She couldn’t imagine Emmett lingering over it like a lovesick fool.
Before she could stop herself, she pulled up the flap and slid out the sheet of notebook paper. Her mom’s neat script slanted across the page. Sam’s eyes devoured the words.
Emmett,
I’m sorry I left you the way I did. I knew if I told you how I felt you would sweet-talk me into staying, and I’m not strong enough to say no to you. There is a restlessness in me—it has always been there inside me. I was suffocating there on the island where so many bad memories lay waiting for me.
When we married I thought I would be able to pick up and move on after John died. I have tried my best, but I now know that marrying you wasn’t fair to either of us. I signed the house over to you. It’s all I have to give you. I will file for divorce as soon as I have the money.
I’m sorry.
Ellen
Sam scanned the words again. She looked for her name or some mention of her but didn’t find it. The hollow place inside of her swelled and swallowed her whole. Her mom never mentioned her. Not once.
Emmett hadn’t kept her mom’s last words from her. None existed.
The letter was only about her mom. Her thoughts. Her feelings. Her life.
Well, what about me, Mom? What about the child youabandoned so you could follow your own selfish dreams? What aboutthe kid who sat at the end of the pier, watching for your boat for weeksafter you left? What about the girl who cried alone in the darkness ofher closet?