“Because I’m leaving, Jake. I have a job offer in California and I’m taking it. I never belonged here. But of course, you already knew that.” That time she spared him a glance, and both the hurt in her eyes and the snip of her words pierced his chest like a dull dagger.
“Laura—” he started.
“Don’t!” She threw a shirt into her suitcase and faced him. “Don’t you dare try to lie to me anymore.”
She knew everything. How, he wasn’t sure, but it was clear she did.
“I was trying to help. You can’t just run away. Back out on a major deal. You told Cal you’d commit.”
“And you made him hire me. So why should I stay? I never earned this. You can have it all, Jake. The stability, the money, all of it. My father doesn’t need to choose between us. I’m gone. It’s yours.”
“So that’s it. You’re going to run. You won’t be reasonable and talk about this.”
“You were right, Jake.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “I was trying to do what was best and realize that I was dishonest in how I went about it.”
“It doesn’t matter. You won,” she said, zipping her suitcase up. “You wanted the business so bad, you’ve got it. And you have your lumber contract, too—all in all, it’s a good day for you and Baughman Home Goods, it’d seem.”
“Laura, don’t do this. What about the flower shop?”
“What about it?” she asked. “You know as well as I do it’ll go under in six months, tops. I don’t have the clientele you do, after all. And everything I thought mattered doesn’t.”
“You matter,” he said. “So much. You matter to me.”
She looked him in the eye and hefted up her suitcase. “I don’t believe you. And either way, you never believed in me anyway.”
With that, she shoved past him and out the door and headed toward her car. She didn’t look back. Didn’t flip him off. Didn’t do a thing. She just walked out.
Even after he called her name. Begged her to stay. To talk. She didn’t.
She just got into her car and left.
It was official now: every woman Jake loved walked out on him. Only this time he couldn’t blame her.
Chapter Fourteen
Laura had never felt a pain like this. Like her heart was being removed piece by piece from between her ribs. It was aching, throbbing, yet hollow at the same time.
She just needed to tell her dad good-bye. But he wasn’t at the shop. So she went to the only other place she could think of to find him—Berta’s Britches and Brassieres.
She walked in, the little bell ringing, and Roberta looked up from behind the counter.
“Hey there, honey,” she said happily.
“Is my dad here, by any chance?”
Roberta shook her head. “No, you just missed him. He was going to the warehouse.”
Great. There was no way Laura was going there since that was where Jake would likely be. And she needed to catch her plane if she was going to get to LA in time for her appointment.
“I’m heading out and wanted to say good-bye,” Laura said.
Roberta frowned and walked around the counter and came toe to toe with her.
“You’re leaving?”
Laura nodded and straightened her shoulders to be confident in her decision, but the way Roberta was looking at her, the way her eyes were glossy, made Laura’s chest hurt. Like she was letting this woman down. A woman who wasn’t her mother. And yet . . .