“You can kind of feel autumn coming, can’t you?” I ask. “Some of the leaves look more yellow today than they have, I think.”
“I guess.”
“It’ll be a beautiful backdrop for Mia’s barbecues up here.”
“Yeah. I’m sure it will.” He turns to face me, his jaw flexing. “What’s going on, Neely?”
“What do you mean?”
He rolls his eyes as he shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. You had me meet you up here, alone, and I didn’t get the feeling it was to hang out. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope to hell I’m wrong.”
“I just wanted to talk to you without Mia being around.” I walk around, kicking at rocks, wishing I could disappear and be done with this. “What’s she doing tonight?”
“She and Haley are watching a movie at the house.” He flips me a cocked brow. “She’s hoping you’re coming by later.”
I nod, wanting to say I wish that, too, but I look away. “Dane,” I say, the words coated with unshed tears. “I have to tell you something.”
I wait for him to respond, to say something—anything—but he doesn’t. He doesn’t move a muscle.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I ask.
He studies me. “If this is going where I think it’s going, I’m not about to help you do it.”
“Dane . . .”
His temple pulses, a bead of sweat forming along his brow as he looks at me. “What is it? Just tell me so we can stop playing this game.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“I fucking hope not.”
“I got a job offer,” I choke out. “In New York.”
“And you turned it down. I know.”
I shake my head side to side. “I got another one. At my old company.”
“So? Like you’d go back to work for a company that treated you like shit.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” I tell him.
His laugh is anything but amused. His eyes are so cold they almost pierce me. “A misunderstanding, huh? How long did it take them to realize they made a mistake?”
“It’s not like that.”
“No, you know what? You’re not like that. The woman I know would stick to what she believes in. Look at us,” he says. “I fucked you over, and you didn’t come home for almost ten fucking years. You wouldn’t work for a company that treated you like that.”
“They apologized,” I tell him. “You didn’t.”
He looks away. I wait for him to respond, to somehow open a door and make this easier, but every second that passes shows me he’s not about to make this easy.
I take a deep breath. “I took the job, Dane.”
His eyes go from ice cold to red hot.
“You what?” He looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili, like he can’t understand the words I’m using. “You’re leaving?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He spits the words with an edge of fury that has me flinching.
“I’m not. I’m sorry.”
He takes off his beloved Dodgers hat and sends it sailing over the bluff. His hands go straight to his hair, tugging at it with both hands. When he turns to me, his face is beet red, a vein pulsing in his temple.
I want to reach for him, to wrap myself around him and somehow make this better. But I can’t because there’s no way to make this easier. For either of us.
He paces a circle, his nostrils flaring. “You’re leaving us? Now?”
“I have to,” I insist. Tears flow down my cheeks as I wish I had a way to make this all stop. To pause time and live forever in this moment, minus the bomb I just dropped. “It’s a great opportunity—”
“It’s a fucking job, Neely.” He glowers.
“It’s a job that means something to me.”
He throws his head back. “I’m glad you stick to your guns about things that really mean something to you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“No.” He looks at me with a ferocity that knocks me a few steps back. “You don’t get to play that card. You leaving us for a fucking job means it’s exactly what you meant.”
“Dane . . .” I wipe away the tears with the backs of my hands. “I told you from the beginning I wasn’t staying here.”
“Maybe. But you led me on. You rejected one job. What was I supposed to think? Huh?”
“Dane . . .”
“Don’t ‘Dane’ me!” His voice echoes over the bluff.
“What was I supposed to do? Stay here and give everything up? For what? You? Mia? Neither of you are mine, Dane.”
The fury in his eyes softens just a bit, enough to make me drag in a lungful of air. He stands in front of me, his hair a wild mess and his chest rising and falling at warp speed.
“Believe it or not, I try to do what’s right,” he says, his tone a few octaves lower than before.
“And so do I. And right now I have to do what’s right for me. Is it wrong that I don’t want to give up everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve worked for, for a possibility with you?”
He fires a look my way that I can’t quite read.
“Would you want to come to New York with me?” I offer, knowing damn good and well he won’t.
“No.”
My shoulders sag. “But you expect me to stay here.”
Give me a reason. Just a little bit will be enough. Just something to hold on to.
He shrugs. “You know what? You’d just leave anyway.”
“That’s not fair. Or true,” I say, my voice wobbly.
“You left before—”
“You made me!”
“Fine,” he says, his chest shaking with anger. “I made you. Maybe I make all women leave me. You. Katie. Sara. You’re better off going, I guess.”
My hand trembles as I point a finger at him, my vision blurred by white-hot tears. “You can’t lump me in with them. We were different. You are why we didn’t work.”
“Then. And you are why now.” He turns toward his truck but doesn’t move his feet. He just watches me over his shoulder as I break.
I crouch down and hold my head in my hands. I cry harder than I’ve ever cried. I cry so hard I think I might break in half.
“If you cared as much as you’re letting on, you wouldn’t go,” he says. “It’s really that simple.”
“It’s not that simple,” I sob. Standing up again, my body still shaking with the force of the tears, I look at the gorgeous man in front of me. “I’ve wanted this my entire life, Dane. How am I supposed to not take a chance of a lifetime?”
“This,” he says, motioning between us, “was what I’ve wanted my entire life. This was my chance of a lifetime.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You have your truth. I have mine.” He turns his back to me and heads toward the truck.
Panic bubbles inside me as I chase after him. The closer he gets to the truck, the sooner he’ll be gone—probably forever this time. The thought of it, despite knowing it must happen, has me running faster.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I cry.
He stops at the front of the truck. His lips are twisted as he settles his gaze on me. “You can’t even see what really matters anymore. Should Mia have given you some kind of award instead of a bracelet?” He glares at me. “I let you in our life. In our home.”
“Well, I let you in my life, too, you know.” I rub my thumb over the soft threads of my most cherished piece of jewelry. “I let you both in my life.”
“Pardon me. We were clearly a threat,” he deadpans. “You know how much of a threat I was to you? I was trying to figure out how to ask you to move in with us, and all the while you’re plotting to leave.”
My world crumbles around me, my knees threatening to fail altogether. I can’t blink the tears back faster than they fall.
Why couldn’t he have said this a couple of days ago? Why does this have to happen now?
Memories of Mia’s laugh and Dane’s smile flash through my brain, and I choke back a sob.
“I’m a fucking idiot. I guess Haley and her romantic ways are rubbing off on me, because I thought you and I were going somewhere. And not to New York,” he adds as he walks toward his truck.
“Dane! Wait!” I call after him.
He holds up a hand to signal he’s done with the conversation. I chase after him anyway, even though I know it’s pointless. I need to let him go and sort this out, but I’m a glutton for punishment.
I catch him right before he makes it to his truck. I grab his bicep, but he shakes me off. “Dane. Wait. Listen to me, please.”
“What?” He spins around, almost knocking me over. “What could you possibly have to say now?”
I catch my breath before making my final request. “Can I tell Mia?”
He laughs long and loud, as if he just heard a great one-liner. Then he glares at me and opens the door to the truck.
“Please,” I beg. “I want to make sure she knows this had nothing to do with her.”
“You know what?” he says, climbing in the cab. “Stay away from my daughter.”
“Dane . . .”
He shakes his head as he starts the ignition. “I’ll tell Mia. I’ll tell her in a way I think won’t break her heart since you obviously don’t give a fuck.”
“You aren’t being fair,” I cry.
He doesn’t respond. Just looks at me with watery eyes before pulling away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NEELY
I’m pretty sure my face is swollen. I think I can see the bags under my eyes when I look at an angle. My lips hurt, probably from crying until the sun came up, and my heart is in so many pieces I think they’re scattered across all of Dogwood Lane.