The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(90)

“Tell me you’re not going to let an overheard conversation and a simple misunderstanding derail you. Or us,” he said.

“There’s no getting around the fact that it’s still your dream to fill this place with kids,” she said, turning away. “And no matter how much I love you, I can’t give them to you.”

All he heard were those three little words she’d never said to him before, and a wave of relief and exhilaration knocked into him. Pulling her around to face him, he dipped his knees to look into her eyes, his heart swelling in his chest. “You love me.”

“Of course I love you!” she cried, flinging her hands up, which was better than how she’d been working her thumbs frantically over the tips of her fingers, back and forth, giving him a good idea of how upset she really was. As if there’d been any doubt.

“I’ve always loved you,” she said. “But I can’t love you enough to make up for the fact that I can’t give you children.”

Her first “I love you” had stopped his heart. The second “I love you,” flung at him like a weapon, had nearly brought him to his knees. “So we adopt,” he said with a calm he wasn’t close to feeling. Calm had been replaced by equal parts hope and fear—hope that he could have this, her, and fear that she wouldn’t let it happen. He reached for her hands to still her nervous fidgeting, not wanting her to be nervous or anxious at all. “Or we don’t. We’ll figure it out, Bee.”

She closed her eyes and breathed for a moment, and he knew she was counting in her head, trying to self-soothe. “It’s not that simple,” she whispered.

“Have you been happy here? Yes or no?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I’ve loved being home again with my family. With you. It’s been . . . everything. Everything I needed. But it was never going to be long-term. I mean, we haven’t really even thought this through. You want different things than me. We’re in different places.”

He shook his head. “No. That’s not it.”

“Of course it is.” She turned away from him, staring out the window. “What else could it be?”

Where did he start? “How about the fact that you’ve been packed to go for a week? You’ve just been waiting for an excuse to go and not look back. The only question is, will it be another seven years before you grace us with your presence again?”

Her spine had snapped straight as a pin and temper crackled out of her as she whipped back to face him. “Me leaving was always the plan.” She poked a finger into his pec, hard. “You knew that. I told you, more than once.” She stabbed him again. “I came here to try to make things right. I wanted to figure my shit out so I could go back and be me again. I know you don’t understand, but for me it was about courage and bravery, facing my past and coming to terms with it.”

He let out a mirthless laugh, because in spite of everything, his worst nightmare was about to come true. “You think you’re being brave by running away from here? No. Fuck no, Brooke. The bravest thing you could do would be to at the very least keep Wildstone as your home base. You love your sister, you love her kids. And you love me. You ran away from that last time, and now you’re going to do it again. And the worst part? I should have seen it coming.” He shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all, and apparently, neither have I.”

She sucked in a breath and bowed her head a moment before meeting his gaze, her own eyes shimmering with rare tears. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotten too good at being alone.”

“You were never alone, Brooke, never. You just chose to shut us out.” This time he turned away, disgusted with the both of them. Her, for fooling him again, and himself, for knowing better and falling for her just as hard this time around anyway. “The real problem here is that you don’t know what you want. Or maybe you do, but you’re too scared to get it. You don’t believe in this, in us.” He took a step back. “Good to know that some things never change. I love you, too, Bee. You know that, or I hope you do. But I can’t make you believe in me, in us. You have to do that yourself.”

She turned to the door to leave, but then put her hand on the handle and paused. “I’m going back to LA in the morning,” she said to the wood. “The old me would’ve just left, but I didn’t want to do that to you again.”

He let out a rough laugh, through lungs so tight that he couldn’t draw in air. “Good luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

There was a single heartbeat where she hesitated, and he felt hope grip him by the throat, but then she shook her head and was gone—this time, he was pretty sure, for good.

MUCH LATER, MINDY stood in her kitchen, sick with worry and anxiety. Her three babies were looking at her, so she put on a smile and opened her baking drawers, all three of them filled with things like measuring cups and spoons, wooden and plastic utensils, the works. Millie clapped her hands in delight. One of her favorite things to do was riffle through it all and put on pretend cooking shows, making her brothers be her captive audience.

Leaving them to it, Mindy headed for the cleaning supplies, because when life went to shit, she cleaned. When her vacuum shut off unexpectedly in the living room, she turned to find Linc standing there. He’d pulled the plug out of the wall.