Laurel had come over while he’d been packing his things. In her calm way she’d surveyed the situation, then turned her back and walked out of his room. He’d thought she’d left until he’d heard her quietly talking with his father.
And then she’d been back.
She’d helped him see that his dad viewed the world from an entirely different perspective than Scott did. She had helped him realize that in order to understand his father, he had to first look at his father’s words and actions from his dad’s perspective, not from his own. And with the awareness he’d gained by doing so, he found a way to help his father understand him.
Because of what Laurel had done for him, he’d unpacked and begun the first day of a new relationship with his father. A relationship that had never again faltered.
“Where are you?”
Her words were soft, bringing him back to the present.
Scott looked over at her. “Remembering how you saved my relationship with my dad.”
“I didn’t do anything. You were the one who was big enough to go to him. To open up your mind and listen to him.”
“Only because you convinced me it was the right thing to do. And taught me how to listen to what he was saying.”
“But you still had to be willing to swallow your pride and try. To ask him for another chance. You did the hard stuff, Scott. You always have.”
No. He hadn’t.
And it was time to tell her so.
“You have a strength beyond anything I’ve ever known,” she continued.
He shook his head.
“You don’t know how many times in the past three and a half years I’ve tapped into that strength. In my darkest times, just knowing you were out there, making the world a better place, gave me the jolt I needed to get up and do something—anything—that would help me rejoin the world.”
The man she was talking about was an illusion.
“I need you, friend,” she said softly, her eyes wide and luminous. They were full of honesty and an openness that was rare in a girl who’d never been able to count on anything in her life.
Scott clenched his jaw and swallowed. He had to tell her. Didn’t he?
If they spent any real time together, it would all come out eventually—the fact that he hadn’t been driving the car because he’d been irresponsible and incapacitated. Paul had never been a good winter driver—Scott should have been at the wheel during that storm. And even if they’d had an accident, Scott would have been the one with the faulty seat belt, the one he’d had a recall notice for but just hadn’t had time to take the car in for repair.
But what if they didn’t spend time together? What if he was able to help her by leaving her illusions of him intact so she had something to cling to, to draw strength from?
What harm could that do?
As long as she had her life in New York, and he was here in Cooper’s Corner...
As long as he didn’t see her, didn’t ever let her know that he was in love with her...
As long as he didn’t do what he was longing to do—pull her beneath him and pour fifteen years’ worth of love into her...
Glad as he was to have a reason not to confess his sins and face her anger and disrespect, Scott knew that this new plan was going to be the hardest of all to implement.
Because as he lay there with her, looking into her eyes, he knew for certain that if he pulled her into his arms, she’d come willingly.
Life had found the cruelest way of all to make him pay....
* * *
“HOW QUICKLY CAN you be ready?”
Showered and dressed, Laurel stood beside Maureen’s desk on Wednesday morning to take the call. “Now.”