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He looked at her. Connie was standing with her back braced against the counter, her arms folded over her chest.
“That’s the thing,” Sam said honestly. His chest ached like a bad tooth and he suspected his heart wasn’t going to be feeling better anytime soon. Not with the way things stood between him and Lacy. “I just don’t know.”
And that was the truth. With Lacy’s words still echoing in his mind, the wounded glint in her eyes still fresh in his memory, Sam couldn’t see clearly what he should do. He knew what he wanted to do. Go to her. Tell her he loved her. But damned if she’d believe that now. It had been easier—if more selfish—two years ago, when he hadn’t considered how his decision to take off would affect anyone but himself. Now, though, there was too much to think about. Just one more rock on the treacherous road his life had become.
“I almost went after her—”
“Bad idea,” his father said. “Never beard a lioness in her den when she’s still itching to take a bite out of you. I speak from experience,” he added with a sly glance at his wife.
“Very funny,” Sam’s mother quipped, then turned back to Sam. “And just how long do you think it’s going to take for her to cool off?”
“A decade or two ought to do it,” Sam mused, only half joking. He raked one hand through his hair and sighed. “Hell, me coming home has thrown everyone off their game. Maybe it’d be best for everyone if I just left again and—”
“Don’t you even say that,” his mother warned, her voice cold steel. “Samuel Bennett Wyatt, don’t you even think about leaving here again.”
Shocked at the vehemence in her tone, Sam could only look at her. “I really wasn’t going to leave again. I was just thinking that maybe it would be easier on everyone if I—”
“If you what?” his mother finished for him. “Disappear again? Leave us wondering if you’re alive or dead again? Walk away from your home? Your family? Again?”
Now it was his turn to wince. Damned if Sam didn’t feel the way he had at thirteen when he’d faced down his mother after driving a snowmobile into the back of the lodge.
“Mom,” he said, standing up.
“No,” she interrupted, pushing off the counter as if she were leaping into battle. And maybe she was. Connie took three short steps until she was right in front of her son, tipping her head back to glare at him. “Ever since you got back, I’ve kept my peace. I didn’t say all the things I was bursting to say to you because I didn’t want to rock the boat. Well, brace yourself because here it comes.”
“Uh-oh,” his father whispered.
His mother’s eyes were swimming with tears and fury, her shoulders were tense and her voice was sharp. “When you left right after Jack died, it was like I’d lost both of my sons. You might as well have been dead, too,” she continued. “You walked away, left us grieving, worrying.” Planting both hands at her hips, she continued, “Four postcards in two years, Sam. That’s it. It was as if you’d disappeared as completely as Jack. As if you were as out of reach as he was.”
No one could make a grown man feel quite as shameful and guilt-ridden as his mother. Sam looked down at her and knew he’d never be able to make it up to her for what he’d done. “I had to go, Mom.”
“Maybe,” she allowed tightly with a jerking nod. “Maybe you did, but you’re back now, and if you leave again, you’ll be no better than Jack was, always running away from life.”
“What?” Staggered, Sam argued, “No, that’s wrong. Jack was all about living life to the fullest. He grabbed every ounce of pleasure he could out of every single day.”
She sighed heavily and Sam watched the anger drain from her as she shook her head and reached up to cup his cheek in her palm. “Oh, honey. Jack was all about experiences, not living. The fastest cars. Best skis. Highest mountain. That’s not life. That’s indulgence.”
He’d never really thought about his brother in those terms. It would have been disloyal, he guessed, but with his own mother pointing it out, it was impossible to argue.
“I loved Jack,” she said, fisting her hand against her chest. “When he died, I lost a piece of my heart I’ll never get back. But I’m not blind to my children’s faults just because I love them to distraction.” Connie gave him a wistful smile. “When it came to adventure, there was no one better than Jack. But he never had the courage to love one woman and build a life with her. To face the everyday crises that crop up, to pay bills, get a mortgage, take the kids to the dentist. That’s life, Sam. A real life with all the ups, downs, tears and laughter that come with it. That kind of thing terrified him and he did everything he could to avoid it.”
