Their Mountain Reunion (The Second Chance Club Book 1) Page 3

  “Tilly?”

  “She’s the youngest. She was about two when I married Adam.”

  “Maybe you don’t have to start over, exactly,” Logan said quietly. “Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t erase your history. You couldn’t erase them.”

  Any more than he could erase Graham, or Caroline, or the truth of their marriage.

  “I’m not a part of their family anymore, though,” Melanie said with a shake of her head.

  “You aren’t married to their father anymore, but you might still be part of the family for the kids. It’s too soon to tell,” he replied. “How long have you been divorced?”

  “Two months.”

  “That’s fresh.”

  She was silent for a moment. “It’s late. I need to get home.”

  “Right.” He nodded. There was a lot there she wasn’t saying, but he wasn’t the one she’d open up to, anyway.

  “So you want some help tracking down Harry, then?” she asked. “Give me something to do besides think?”

  He glanced up at her and smiled. “Yeah. I’d take the help.”

  “I’m my own worst enemy if I just sit and brood,” she said.

  “Aren’t we all?” he said.

  Logan backed his vehicle up to give her space to drive out of her spot. Melanie slid into the driver’s seat and undid the window. “Come by the lake house tomorrow, then.” She raised her voice over the engines. “He’s got to be somewhere, right?”

  He shrugged. “I could always look up his kids. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to know my mom remembered him in her will.”

  Melanie grimaced. She knew enough of his family history to appreciate the awkwardness there.

  “I’ll come by in the morning,” he said. “Late morning. I’m not a monster.”

  “Much appreciated. Thanks for the boost,” Melanie said, and with a flutter of her fingers in farewell, she pulled out.

  Melanie had said they were all old enough to be interesting now, and maybe he was, but that came with a price. He was also more jaded, a little broken. He wasn’t a guy who could hand his heart over anymore, either.

  Maybe it was good that he was self-aware enough to know that about himself. Because Melanie still had a way of tugging at him without even trying. And he couldn’t let himself be tempted to take those risks he used to launch himself into without a second thought.

  He now knew what it felt like to fail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LOGAN HAD ONE of those deep sleeps where he woke up uncertain of where he was or what year he was in. But he felt better for it.

  Breakfast in the resort dining room was hearty—bacon, eggs, waffles, hash browns... It was meant to fuel the people going out in canoes or hiking up the mountain to the falls. Logan wasn’t doing either of those, but he was glad for some food that would stick with him. As he ate, his mind was on the lake house that his father had owned.

  Had it been weird for Melanie to vacation in his dad’s old haunt? He’d wanted to ask her more about that last night, but it hadn’t felt right. They’d hardly become reacquainted again. Besides, his behavior when they broke up didn’t leave him with any right to curiosity.

  Logan pulled up in front of Melanie’s lake house, and he turned off the engine. He’d been here a few times as a kid. Dad seldom took him to his family home where his wife and other kids were. Mom would drop Logan off here at the lake house, and Logan and Dad would have an awkward day together where they didn’t talk too much—and whenever they did talk, Dad would tell him something about his other children.

  Junior is really into trains right now. Do you like trains?

  I’m not five.

  Yeah, I know. I just... Yeah...

  The day was warm already, and as he got out of the truck, a dragonfly buzzed past his head. He paused and looked around the front yard. The grass had been cut recently, but the flower beds were fallow. Those weeping willows on either side of the house trembled in the breeze. This was the kind of place that was timeless... That front door could open and he could see his dad standing in the doorway, hands pushed into chino pockets. Funny how, when he was young, he could be both excited to see the guy and filled with anger at the same time. He’d always been hoping for something that he never got—some level of acceptance that never happened.

  Logan headed up the front path, knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer at first, but he could hear some rattling around inside. He knocked again, harder this time. The rattling stopped, and he heard footsteps, then the door was flung open and Melanie shot him a grin, nudging her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. She was breathing fast. She wore a pair of gardening gloves, a skirt and a loose floral top that scooped down low enough to expose a diamond solitaire necklace.

  “Hi,” he said, looking her over. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s something up in the attic. It was scratching last night, and I want to see what I’m dealing with.”

  “Like...raccoon scratching, or mouse scratching?”

  “I’m thinking squirrel, but that’s just a guess.”

  “Squirrels can be vicious if you corner them, you know,” he said.

  “Hence the gloves,” she said, giving him a wry smile and holding her hands up.

  “You want help with that?” he asked.

  “If you’re offering,” she said. “I was just about to go up there and see if I could scare it out.”

  “You’ll probably need to hire a pest control guy,” he said.

  “Probably. But I want to know what I’m dealing with first,” she replied.

  “All right. Do you have a broom or something?”

  Melanie pulled one from behind the door. “Great minds think alike.”

  Logan swung the door shut behind him and stole a look around. The old house smelled different now—sweeter, airier. There’d been some major renovations inside, too, from what he could see. New floors, a new kitchen. He followed her down the hallway that led to some bedrooms, where she stopped and looked up at the trapdoor in the ceiling. It had a piece of twine hanging down, and she reached up, not quite able to reach it. Logan stepped up behind her and grabbed the twine, but as he did, he was suddenly aware of how close she was—the soft fragrance of her hair, the warmth of her back. He gave the twine a pull and the door dropped down, then he stepped back.

  He’d never been up in the attic—never even noticed the trapdoor, truth be told. He’d spent more time out on that rickety wharf listening to the lap of the water against the pilings and pretending to fish. It was something that let him turn his back on his dad for a couple of hours and neither of them felt guilty.

  Melanie shot Logan a smile, vaulting him out of his memories, then she pulled down the folding stairs. She flicked a switch on the wall and the light came on upstairs.

  “I’m glad that still works,” she murmured, and she took the first step.

  “What am I here for?” he asked with a laugh. “I thought I was supposed to go up first and take the worst of the rabies.”

  “Do you want to?” She turned to him with a deadpan expression.

  “I’m the man here. I’ll never be able to live with myself if I went up there behind a woman.”

  She laughed, then stepped back. “Feel free.”

  He paused on the steps, listening. All was quiet except for the soft sound of Melanie’s breathing. The stairs squeaked under his feet as he climbed up, and when he got to the top, he looked around.

  There was no sign of a critter that he could see—not immediately, at least. There was an old kayak along one wall, a deflated inner tube, a set of water skis. He went all the way up, ducking his head so he didn’t catch a wooden beam. Melanie came up after him, and she peered around cautiously.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said, and went over to the crack where the floor met the s
loping roof. He ran the broom along it, looking for a hole or something. “You might want to put a few mouse traps out.”

  “I’ll pick some up in town today,” she said, but her voice was tight.

  He looked over at her, and he found her looking at the kayak, mist in her eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Memories.” She shrugged, blinking it back.

  Yeah, him, too.

  “The kids used to love taking that thing out onto the lake,” she said. “I was always scared they’d drown. I mean, this is a deep lake. Remember Tanya Harrington who drowned in senior year?”

  “Yeah.” It had been a blow to the community. Blue Lake was nothing to play with. It was strange watching someone else moved by old memories in this lake house. It seemed out of place, like only one person should be able to have that kind of experience here.

  “I used to make the kids come back and put on life jackets,” she went on. “And they’d pretend to be all sulky about it, but I could tell they liked that I made them do it. They could roll their eyes and save face.”

  “You were good for them,” Logan said. “I remember that stage with my own son. All the attitude.”

  She met his gaze and smiled wanly. “When Adam came to see us here at the lake, the kids snuck out without their life jackets again. So Adam put the kayak up here and said they could find something else to do.”

  That sounded like a solid parenting choice to him. He would have done the same.

  “So...you two spent a lot of time here with the kids?” Logan asked.

  “Adam worked a lot.” But there was something in her tone that had sharpened.

  “Yeah?”

  “No. That’s a lie. Or I think it is. I found out he was carrying on some affairs. So when he said he was working and I took the kids out here to the lake house, who knows what he was doing.”

  Right. He sighed. “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. That’s life.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  Melanie moved over to a stack of cardboard boxes in a far corner and pulled open the lid of the top box. She looked down into the contents, then moved it aside and opened the next one.

  “What did you find?” he asked.

  “Just old junk.” She pulled out a clock radio. “Whatever wasn’t good enough to keep at the house we ended up bringing out here. And this is what I’m left with—the cast-off crap.”

  Logan chuckled. “You also have the most amazing view on the lake.”

  “There’s that.” She smiled. “Sorry, this house means something to you, too. I keep forgetting that.”

  “It’s okay.” Her grief seemed fresher, anyway.

  “I guess I’m angrier than I thought. I thought the last year of separation would do more for me.”

  “Hey, I’m pissed still, and it’s been five years since Caroline died. There’s no real timeline there.”

  “Why are you mad?” she asked, looking up at him.

  He’d said too much. He hadn’t meant to, but when she was opening up, it was hard not to answer in kind.

  “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “Your wife was faithful, wasn’t she?” Melanie asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely.” He nodded toward the next box down. It looked older than the others. “What’s in that one?”

  Mostly, he was trying to distract her from his issues. He’d thought he was dealing with his grief pretty well, but then he’d found those diaries, and it set him back to day one in a lot of ways. It was hard to lay his wife’s memory to rest with a sense of betrayal lodged between them.

  Melanie opened the next box and made a sound in the back of her throat. She reached inside, rummaged around.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s not ours.”

  Ours. He noticed the language there. She meant her and Adam. Melanie pulled the box out between them, and Logan squatted down to look inside. If it didn’t belong to the Isaacses, then maybe it had belonged to his dad.

  There were a couple of fishing trophies, a box of lures that looked pretty dusty. There was a framed picture of some guys in a fishing boat, and in the bottom of the box was a little cloth bag next to some mouse droppings and a chewed corner of the box.

  “A mouse—” Logan said.

  “You think that’s all it was?” Melanie asked.

  “Might be. I’d put down those traps before I worried too much.”

  He was still trying to deflect. He looked closer at the picture, scanning the faces. His dad was in the center, smiling easily and holding a fish. He wasn’t sure what he felt looking at his father’s features. He didn’t take after his dad—not like Junior did. Junior was Harry’s spitting image.

  Logan pulled the little cloth bag out of the box, shaking off shreds of cardboard. It tinkled softly. He pried open the drawstring and poured out a little chain bracelet. It was decorated with gold frogs covered in green crystals. His heart sped up in his chest, and he licked his lips. He knew this design.

  “That’s pretty,” Melanie murmured.

  “It’s my mom’s,” he said.

  Melanie looked at him, eyes widening.

  “She wore a necklace with a frog on it just like these. I used to like it when I was a kid.”

  He could remember sitting on her lap, fiddling with the little green frog pendant. She wore it less as he got older. It hadn’t been worth much, and maybe it went out of style, but she kept it in a box on her dresser, and he used to sort through it from time to time, looking at the chains and baubles that she didn’t wear anymore but he remembered from when he was little.

  “So your dad kept a memento,” Melanie said.

  “In a box in the attic,” he said. “It’s not like he took it with him to the family home. But maybe he’ll care that she left him something, after all. I don’t think he even knows she’s dead.”

  “What’s in the box she left him?” Melanie asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s locked.”

  And that had felt a little like a betrayal, too. Who was Harry that he deserved this special treatment? There had been no locked box of wonders for Logan, even if his mother had left him everything else.

  Melanie looked up and met his gaze. “You can take this box with you.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He tucked the box under his arm. He looked at Melanie for a moment. “Was it weird for you that Adam bought you my dad’s place?”

  Her cheeks pinked. “He isn’t from here. He had no idea.”

  “I know. But for you—” Logan paused. “We walked past here that one time, remember? When we walked like five miles, and it was so hot?”

  He’d been purposely bringing her here—sharing a memory with the girl he loved... But that was a long time ago.

  “It felt a little weird. Yeah,” she said. “But I wasn’t part of choosing the place. Adam bought it as a surprise, so...”

  “Did you tell him?” he asked.

  “I did. I told him everything. If I held things back, I felt guilty, like I was being unfaithful somehow.” She looked away. “Ironically.”

  “Huh.” So whatever Logan had been to Melanie had been no threat to Adam. What, was he hoping he had been? Adam was some rich guy who bought lake houses as gifts. He’d had a loyal and honest wife. He’d had it all, and the likes of Logan probably hadn’t even entered the guy’s mind. Plus, he’d been married to Caroline by then.

  He pushed back the memories. That was all long in the past.

  “Let’s go down,” he said.

  * * *

  MELANIE LED THE way to the kitchen and turned back to look at Logan as he deposited the box on the counter. He’d clammed up, his face like granite.

  Logan was good-looking in a different way now that he was older, and she found herself admiring that bit of gray around his temp
les, the strength in his shoulders—not quite the same as youthful muscle. It was honed from years of hard work, and there was a different kind of confidence in the way he held himself.

  But she didn’t want to be noticing these things exactly.

  “I saw your dad when we took possession of the lake house,” Melanie said. “He came to hand over an extra set of keys.”

  “Yeah?” Logan eyed her for a moment.

  “I asked about you,” she said, and the warmth came back to her cheeks. “He said you’d started up a company and were married with a son. He seemed really proud of you, for what that’s worth.”

  “I don’t know where he was getting his updates. I haven’t spoken to him since Graham’s birth.”

  “Why?” she asked with a frown.

  “I called him to tell him I had a son, but Caroline and I hadn’t actually gotten married yet. That was a stickler for him, which I find really ironic, considering he and my mom weren’t married. He said I was messing up like he had—and that just really got to me. I was a mistake. I was some foul-up in his eyes. But Graham was no mistake or accident. Sure, he was a surprise, but he was the center of my world.”

  “That’s awful,” she murmured.

  “Caroline and I did get married when Graham was about a year old, but I didn’t invite my dad. I wasn’t doing it for him. It was for us. Although, there was a small part of me that figured I was putting him in his place by marrying her. I don’t know...”

  “And you never did talk after that?” she asked.

  “I know it sounds petty—one nasty thing said—but it was one nasty thing that explained all the rest of my confusing relationship with him. And I’d had enough. I had my own family and I was tired of dancing for his approval. So I was done.”

  Logan had always been like this. He had an easily wounded heart under a gruff, reticent shell. It had always been hard to get through.

  “You’re a different kind of dad, yourself, though,” she said.

  “Yeah, you bet. I made a point of doing better than he did.” His expression softened. “But then, my dad was great with his other kids. It was just me who got the shaft. So I guess you could say that he improved, too...”