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And what was that crap about him being gone all the time? She’d known that before they married. She’d refused his every attempt to get her to travel with him because she wanted to keep nursing. Her job had mattered more to her than being with him. That was a two-way street.
So how dare she throw that up at him? Especially at this late date?
He’d almost convinced himself yet again that the marriage had been a huge mistake by the time he got back to the crusty motel on the edge of town. He’d spent time in worse accommodations over the years, and with fewer amenities, as construction manager for DEL Inc. He barely noticed his surroundings as he entered the room, paused to wash his face, then set out again for the truck stop across the highway.
He needed to eat. He hadn’t eaten during his entire trip to this godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. Nerves about seeing Bri again? Maybe.
The part of him that never stopped working had already scanned the town. Turning this place into a tourist resort was going to take some big bucks. The basics of the charm were there, but they needed a whole lot of touching up to make this the kind of place people with money would want to spend a few weeks skiing and hiking. Yeah, they would put a lot of good stuff out at the resort, but people often wanted to wander into town.
Conard City spoke of older times. That would help. Some sprucing up would seal its charm, make people feel they’d come to a place out of time. But boy, it was going to take some sprucing.
But first he had to get the lay of the land up in the mountains, figure out if they’d run into a few surprises about how much it would cost to build the place and put in the kinds of slopes that would appeal to everyone from the beginner to the pro. The designers had given him a rudimentary plan, but now he had to look over the actual site and see how much could actually become reality. And if it would be worth it.
He half hoped it wouldn’t be. Then he could leave and be sure he’d never see Bri again.
Just what the hell had he expected, anyway? The woman had always been stubborn, she clearly hadn’t trusted him and she’d divorced him. A sane man wouldn’t have returned for a second round.
But he knew what he had wanted. Their marriage was dust, but it still chapped him that she had believed those lies about him. It wasn’t enough to know in his own mind that he’d never cheated, he wanted—no, needed—Bri to know it, too. Somehow that mattered and had never stopped mattering.
Somehow it all still mattered, he thought grimly as he settled into a booth in the overbright truck stop diner. Three years since the divorce. Even longer if he counted back to when he’d first realized the relationship was crumbling. Shouldn’t he be over it all by now?
But maybe when you’d invested that many hopes and dreams into a person and a relationship, cutting loose wasn’t easy. God knew, he’d never wanted the divorce. He just hadn’t had the heart to fight her anymore.
Setting her free hadn’t been easy. It had been necessary.
