AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I face her, free now to let my true feelings show. "Why didn't you warn me?"
She waves at her colleagues as they drive off, before turning back to me. "I was assigned to this job just last week and I've been a little busy packing up my life in Ottawa to warn the Catalpa Creek locals that the wicked witch is coming back to town."
I stare at her, shocked by the anger in her dulcet voice. Kaia has always been the sweetest, most easy-going person I knew. "I'm not everyone, Kaia. And no one here thinks badly of you."
Her eyes widen and she frowns. "I left Catalpa Creek's favorite forest ranger at the altar. Now I'm returning as part of the team marring your beautiful forest. My sister and parents still live here, Grant. I know what everyone thinks of me."
"So instead of giving me a heads up, you risked me yelling at you about leaving me at the altar in front of your colleagues?"
She winces. "I knew you wouldn't do that." She looks away, out at the mountains, which are shining pale in the moonlight. "I didn't know what to say to you."
Fair enough. The last time I saw her, I thought we'd be married in less than twenty-four hours. She called me after she left town, and explained why she left, but I'd been so hurt and furious, I hadn't understood. I hadn't wanted to.
"I get it," I say. "I even get why you left without saying goodbye. You wanted to have a different life, and you thought if you tried to explain that to me and your parents, we'd convince you to change your mind." Kaia has always been a pleaser.
I'd loved her with everything in me.
A big part of my heart still belongs to her.
She turns back to me, but her smile falls when she sees the look on my face. "I'm not staying, Grant. This job is just the next rung on the ladder. I have a life in Ottawa I want to get back to."
"Okay." I can't stop grinning. Kaia is back. We can figure everything else out later. "We're nothing more than two people who have to work together to make this resort happen." I step closer to her, the five years we've been apart vanishing like they never happened. "We should have dinner tomorrow night to discuss the details."
She crosses her arms over her middle and chews on her bottom lip. She's considering it. "I don't want to hurt you, Grant, but there's no easy way to say this."
"Just say it. You know you can tell me anything, Kai."
Her eyes fill with tears, the streetlights glinting off them. "I'm engaged, Grant. My fiancé is moving in with me in a month."
I stare, unable to take in what she's saying. "He works for the resort team?"
She shakes her head. "No. He's a freelance designer and can work from anywhere. He'd be here with me now, but he stayed behind to close up our house and get everything in storage." She pats my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Grant."
The world around me spins. Even when she left me at the altar, even when she told me she had no plans of ever returning to Catalpa Creek, I hadn't really believed it was over between us. My grandfather and my grandmother had split up for a few years, because of the war, but they'd reunited more in love than ever. My parents, too, had been separated briefly by job opportunities before they settled in Catalpa Creek.
Love wins out. True love conquers all. It's the lesson I learned from my family. I'd believed it would be the same with Kaia and me.
"You love him?"
Her eyes light with a glow I've never seen in them before, and I know the answer before she speaks. "I do, Grant. So much. The love you and I had, it was sweet, but it was kids' stuff. It was nothing like what I have with—"
"It was real to me." This can't be real. This is not how things were supposed to go when I finally saw Kaia again. "It's still real to me."
Those tears in her eyes spill over and roll down her cheeks. "Grant. I thought… It's been five years. You couldn't have possibly thought—"
"I'll see you around, Kaia." I step off the curb and start toward my truck. "It was good to see you again."
"Grant. I—"
But I keep walking, because I thought she was back for me. I'd believed in our love with every fiber of my being and she thought it was nothing more than kids' stuff.
I stalk to my truck and get in, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.
***
As I park in front of my parents' ranch style, downtown home, I consider leaving and texting my mother I'm sick. I don't want to face any of them after the evening I've had, but I've missed the last three family dinners, once for a terrible date and twice for training meetings. I have to at least stop by for dessert or my mother will show up at my place with soup and advice about work life balance.
It'll be soup from a can since neither of my parents has ever learned how to cook, but it's the thought that counts. I want to avoid the thought. My parents already worry about me enough.
