Page 80

“I do.” Mara folded her arms across herself, not because she was cold but because she needed something to hold onto. “Believing you doesn’t change what I want.”

Scott looked confused and hurt. “I don’t understand.”

“The future was always something we talked about as though we wanted the same one,” Mara said. “But when someday became something we actually had to choose, you didn’t want it. Maybe fear was part of that. But you weren’t excited about having children with me, Scott. You kept hoping I would stop asking or that we could put the decision off until it stopped mattering.”

“I told you I was scared,” he said, but there was less defensiveness in the words now.

“And I believe you.” Mara’s voice softened. “But I don’t want you agreeing to children because you’re afraid of losing me. I don’t want counseling to become me waiting for you to turn into somebody who wants the same things I do.”

Scott turned away. Mara recognized the set of his shoulders immediately. She had seen it in arguments when he had reached the point where he had no answer he was willing to say aloud.

For years, seeing him like that had usually made her soften first. She would find another way to phrase the problem or promise herself they would come back to it later.

This time she waited.

Scott shoved both hands into his pockets and stared toward the trees. “So that’s it? Eight years, and none of it matters anymore?”

Pain shot through Mara, but she shook her head. “That isn’t what I said. Those years matter to me. They always will. But the fact that something mattered for eight years doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it forever.”

His gaze shifted toward the road Gabe had taken. Mara saw the thought arrive before he spoke.

“Is it him?”

Mara didn’t answer at once.

Scott looked back at her. “He came here first thing in the morning carrying breakfast. You were obviously expecting him to come back, and the two of you…” He stopped, jaw tightening. “You’ve moved on quickly.”

The words stung because some part of Mara had already accused herself of the same thing. She had known Gabe for days. She had known Scott for most of her adult life.

But Gabe had not created a single one of the problems that had ended her relationship.

“Gabe didn’t end us,” Mara said.

Scott’s expression hardened, but she kept going before he could interrupt.

“He didn’t make you change your mind about children. He wasn’t there when I started feeling as though I was carrying our life by myself, and he wasn’t there for all those conversations where I kept asking if we were still building the same future and you kept telling me everything was fine.” Mara stepped down from the porch until they stood on the same level. “Whatever happens between Gabe and me, he didn’t break us.”

Scott looked away for a moment, breathing out slowly. When he faced her again, the anger had faded enough for the hurt beneath it to show. “Does he matter to you?”

Mara thought of Gabe’s note beside the bed, the breakfast box sitting on the porch table, and the way he had walked away because she needed space even though she could see that giving it hurt him.

“Yes,” she said. “He matters to me.”

Scott closed his eyes briefly.

“But this decision isn’t about Gabe.” Mara waited until he looked at her again. “If I had never come to Bear Creek, if I had never met him, I still wouldn’t come back.”

This time Scott did not argue.

The silence between them changed. There was nothing left to persuade her of and nothing left for Mara to defend.

“We were good together for a long time,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to rewrite those years just because they ended. I loved you. I know you loved me. But somewhere along the way, being good together stopped being the same thing as wanting the same life.”

Scott dropped his gaze to the ground. When he finally spoke, his voice was tired. “I thought we had more time.”

“So did I.”

That might have been the saddest part of all. For years they had acted as though the important decisions could always wait.