But he’s here now, brought home by her stroke. Mary Macdonald is a wonderful woman and I can’t imagine not seeing her around town, tasting the amazing muffins that she would drop off at the inn, or hearing her cheerful laugh when she would come in for dinner with her husband. Shawn Senior told me that she was home, but tonight was the first chance I had to come over for a visit. I hadn’t expected to run into Mac.
The question is, can Mac and I handle being in the same town again? Or are things about to get really awkward?
Chapter three
Mac
Tawny. She’s still so beautiful, with her wavy hair around her shoulders, shining under the porch lights. She still has a smattering of freckles across her nose, and her eyes still tell me exactly how she’s feeling. But her body has matured into a curvy, sexy woman’s body. And she holds herself with a new confidence. She’s the same, but not.
Somehow, I manage to bury my shock at seeing her and have a somewhat normal evening with my dad. The casserole she brought over is delicious and when Dad mentions it’s Mom’s favorite, I hide my surprise at the news that they eat at her inn often enough to have a favorite dish. Apparently while I was nursing a broken heart all this time, they were acting friendly and welcoming to the one woman who successfully destroyed my ability to believe in love.
That’s a lie.
I believe in love; I believe I loved Tawny Michaels and I believe a small, masochistic part of my heart will always love her.
And I guess I can’t really blame my parents. They had no idea what happened between Tawny and I. They didn’t know the sharp pain I felt when her communication with me suddenly stopped, my emails went unanswered and my phone calls were ignored. They had no clue that seeing her with Rory’s arms around her at her parents’ funeral gutted me.
I should have been the one comforting her, holding her, kissing her. Not him. But I couldn’t even make a sound of protest because of our stupid decision to keep our relationship a secret. It made sense back then; in a small town, dating can be tricky with so many eyes on you. The downside of it was that when everything fell apart, I had no one there to witness my heartache and help me through it.
The next morning, I help my dad build the ramp and railing down the two steps at the front of their house so that Mom can get her walker up and down. It’s a simple project and since my father was the one who instilled a love of carpentry and construction in me, it’s fun to work with him again. We work together well, the peaceful silence only broken when one of us needs a tool. Once the job is done, we sit on the front porch with a beer.
“How long are you back?”
I knew this question was coming, but I’m still unsure how to answer. The answer isn’t a simple one. I want to be here as long as my parents need me, but at the same time I’m itching to get away from the discomfort that comes from being close to Tawny and not being able to have her. She’s a drug and I’m an addict who’s still in recovery.
“Don’t know.”
Dad nods and seems to accept my noncommittal response. At least I think he does until he fires off the next question.
“What did you say to Tawny last night that sent her running off without a hello?”
“I, nothing,” I sputter, trying to recover from the accusation in his words.
“Don’t lie. That young woman has been a part of our lives since you two were knee high. I know she wouldn’t leave without checking in on your mother unless you said something to scare her off.”
For a man of little words, my dad sure does have a lot to say about Tawny.
“It’s nothing, Dad. She had to go. That’s all.”
“Bullshit.” He turns to me and his blue eyes pierce into me with the ultimate stare down. “Something happened between you two when you went off to college. You went from best friends to strangers. Now, your mother and I never pushed you for an explanation, we figured you’d sort it out eventually. But you haven’t. And don’t think for a second that we haven’t figured out the fact that she’s the reason you won’t come home. Last night, she was coming over to drop off dinner and visit your mother. Instead, she didn’t even make it in the front door. So, I’ll ask you again. What did you say to her?”
I’m speechless. Did my parents know all this time and never said a word? Perhaps we weren’t as subtle as we thought. With a sigh, I find myself telling him everything, from our secret relationship, to her disappearing act. When I mention Rory, he raises an eyebrow at the obvious jealousy in my voice. And when I’m done, he lets out a small sound of understanding. I expected him to be surprised by my confession, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be.
We go back to silence, but I can’t stop fidgeting, waiting for him to say something.
“Do you still love her?” he asks casually, as if he were asking if I still liked Mom’s smoked ribs.
My heart flips over once, twice, then starts to beat again, stronger than it has in a while. Getting everything out in the open has made me realize something. It’s not all Tawny’s fault. I walked away and didn’t push her for an explanation. I avoided her all these years, building a wall of hurt feelings between us that is now so high, she can’t stand to be in my presence for more than a minute.
As I sit there, for the first time in a decade, and think as objectively as I can about how things ended between us, I realize something. Tawny must have had a good reason for cutting off all contact with me. And I was an idiot for never finding out why.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then you need to fix this.”
It would seem that my father is determined to hold me to that. The next day, he’s up early and tells me that he needs my help on a job he promised to do for someone. He’s arranged for one of Mom’s friends to come and sit with her for a few hours so that we can go work on this urgent job he says absolutely cannot wait.
I should’ve known something was up when we pulled into the parking lot of the Westmount Inn and again when he left me on the ladder, repairing the shingles on the roof, under the pretense of going to the store for more supplies.
