Chapter Twelve
Carolyn lay in Matt’s arms and knew she was fooling herself.
She’d thought she could come here, have sex, and get him out of her system once and for all. But from the second he touched her, she’d felt that bond, the one that had been there from the very first day. A bond she had tried to ignore ever since she returned to Marietta.
And now, she was in his arms, her heart thudding in time with his, and she realized she had fallen for Matthew West all over again.
That was a complication she didn’t need. Not now. Not ever.
Carolyn sat up and began grabbing her clothes. She fastened her bra and threw her shirt over her head. The faster she got dressed, the more she could stop thinking about how much she wanted him to make love to her again. And again. “I…I should get home. I have a lot to do.”
“Before you leave town again.” His voice was flat, disappointed.
She glanced at him. “You say that like you’re surprised. You knew I was leaving again from the day I got here, Matt.”
“I thought maybe you might have changed your mind.” He sat up beside her, tugged on his pants and fastened them. The lazy, sated mood between them from earlier had evaporated. Everything was business-like, distant.
It was what she wanted, but for some reason, the shift hurt.
“I had a plan, Matt.” That was where she felt best, in the middle of structure. Once she got back to New York, back to her routine, it would all be better.
Except her routine was going to be different—everything was going to be different—because she had Emma. And because what had just happened between her and Matt had complicated the easy departure she thought she’d have.
“Plans aren’t set in stone. You can change them,” Matt said. “And maybe you should. Emma is happy here. You have been happy here for the last two weeks. And you can continue to be happy if you stay.”
She got to her feet and used the process of putting on her pants to avoid looking at him. Was she happy here? If she answered that question, it would change everything. Carolyn thought of the phone call from her boss, the chance to have everything she had worked so hard for. Being in charge of a high-end restaurant in Manhattan. The kind of place The New Yorker and The Times wrote about in their pages. The kind of place where she could leave a real stamp on the food landscape of a major city.
That would make her happy, Carolyn told herself. It was what she wanted, what she had slaved towards for so many hours, so many weekends, so many years. She’d sacrificed dates and time with friends and holidays with family, all to reach this level of her career. She couldn’t give that up now because it would be like saying all that time had been for nothing. “I have to go back to New York.”
Matt let out a gust. “Why? Why the hell do you keep insisting on that?”
She wheeled around. It was all so déjà vu, as if she was repeating the last day of high school all over again. “Because if I stay, what’s going to be different? How are things going to change, Matt?”
“What do you mean? Everything will be different. You’ll live in a small town, your family will—”
“I meant with you and me.”
He gave her a blank look. “Are you asking me to predict the future? I can’t do that, Carolyn. Nobody can.”
“You can if you look at the past. Isn’t that what all the experts say? The past predicts the future?” She didn’t want to go back to the girl she had been before she left Marietta. She had a new, bright future waiting for her on the East Coast. That’s where she should keep her focus—on the road ahead, not the one she had already traveled.
“We’re not eighteen anymore, Carolyn,” Matt said. “The past doesn’t have to repeat itself.”
She ran a hand through her hair. Didn’t he understand? All she saw when she looked around this town was the very thing she’d been trying to escape ten years ago. Expectations that she could never live up to. Friendly neighbors and long-term memories and that look in their eyes that said she should do what all her friends from high school had done, and settle down in Marietta. A life she had never really fit into.
There’d been moments, with her grandfather, when she’d felt like she belonged, but once he was gone, it was as if she’d lost her rudder. “Where do you see this going, Matt? Best case scenario.”
“You mean if you stay in Marietta? Well, we’d date. And hopefully end up where we were heading before.”
“Married and living in a little house at the end of a cul de sac?” Carolyn shook her head. “The picture-perfect American family?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“I’m not a picket fence kind of girl. I never was. I mean, I’m going to be a mom to Emma, but I’m not going to turn into some Stepford wife.” That had been Sandy’s area, where her sister felt most comfortable. Carolyn would be the best mother she could be, but she couldn’t see herself joining the PTA and organizing the school bake sale.
Couldn’t or wouldn’t? her mind whispered. What was so bad about that life anyway? It had made Sandy happy.
And if Carolyn got very, very quiet and honest with herself, she’d admit that a part of her had envied Sandy’s life. The joy in her voice, in her smile. Sandy had loved being a mom and told Carolyn a thousand times there was nothing better in the world.
Carolyn would go to work, hearing Sandy’s words ringing in her head, and she would create a new dessert or a savory dish, and tell herself that amazing the customers who came into the restaurant was what fulfilled her. She didn’t need the kids and the Volvo and the bake sales to feel satisfied with her life.
“Do you think that’s what I want? For you to play Mrs. Cleaver and vacuum the house every day in pearls?” Matt asked. “Or are you just using that as an excuse?”
“I have to go back. I have to—”
“Stick to what you know instead of taking a risk.” Matt closed the distance between them and took her hands in his. She tried to look away, but her gaze locked on his. “Do you think I wasn’t scared to get back together with you? It was a risk, a big risk.”
“Why were you scared?” The Matt she had known had never seemed scared of anything. He’d been—and still was—strong, smart, confident. The kind of guy a girl could rely on, if she was the kind who relied on anyone.
“I was scared because I knew you could break my heart all over again.” He cupped her jaw, and traced her bottom lip with his thumb. She wanted to lean into his touch, to get back into bed, to make this day last for a year. “You are the only woman in the world with that power. Because I’m still in love with you, Carolyn.”
The words made her heart race, her breath hitch. Still in love with her?
In that instant, she was eighteen again, standing in the parking lot of the high school, at the crossroads between the life she wanted and the life she was choosing to leave behind. Matt had been in love with her then and she—
“I need to go.” Carolyn shook her head and backed away from him, breaking the embrace, pushing away the clawing need to stay here with Matt. “I need to go.”
Before he could stop her, she hurried out of the room and out of his house. Out of Matt’s life one more time, before she wasn’t strong enough to take those steps.
Carolyn walked the streets of Marietta for a long time, bundled into her coat, her chin and mouth burrowed into the zipped collar, her hands deep in her pockets. When she was young, every inch of this town had felt suffocating. But after years of living in New York, the wide expanse of Montana felt oddly freeing.
She drew in a deep breath of fresh, crisp, cold air. The kind of air she’d never find in New York. The kind of air that talked of families around a hearth and birthday parties in the park.
There were people walking hand in hand through the park, a family building a snowman on their front lawn, and the scent of hot cocoa in the air. Marietta could have been a Norman Rockwell painting, all perfect and quaint.
It was the life her sister had loved. The life her sister had chosen to raise her child in. The kind of life that Emma deserved.
For the thousandth time, Carolyn turned over her choices in her mind. How was she going to make this work? How could she possibly work the necessary hours and still give Emma the best possible childhood?
Carolyn walked into her mom and dad’s house, and hung her coat in the front closet. From down the hall, she heard the sound of laughter and splashing. She rounded the corner, and found Emma in the bathtub, surrounded by floating toys and a foot-deep tower of bubbles, while Marilyn sat on the closed lid of the toilet and watched her granddaughter play.
It could have been a scene out of a movie. Carolyn’s heart broke a little. In less than forty-eight hours, she’d be on her way back to New York, and it would be a long time before Emma had this kind of moment with her grandmother again.
“Aunt Carolyn! I’m Santa!” Emma plastered some bubbles on her face, then giggled. The soapy foam popped and fizzled down Emma’s chin.
“You are indeed, Emma girl. What are you going to bring me for Christmas?”
Emma looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Ummm…a friend for Roscoe. Cuz he told me he’s gonna miss Harley when we go to your house, Aunt Carolyn. Is it gonna be very far away? Cuz I wanna see Harley and Grandma and Grandpa and Dr. Matt.”
Her mother looked at her, sadness in her eyes. Carolyn lowered herself into a cross-legged position on the tile floor. “Yes, Emma, it’s pretty far away. We can come visit, but we won’t get to see Harley or all those people very much.”
“How come? Why can’t we live here?”
“Because my job isn’t here, Emma. It’s in New York.” Every time she said the words, they pricked her heart like thorns.
Emma pouted. The soapy bubbles had dripped back into the tub. “But I wanna stay with Grandma and Grandpa and Harley and Dr. Matt. And Roscoe does too.”
Carolyn sighed. How was she going to explain all this to Emma? A little girl who had already lost so much—and was about to lose so much more? Instead, she picked up one of Emma’s toys that had fallen on the floor and dropped the floatable bear into the tub. “You missed this guy.”
“T’ank you.” Emma’s face dropped. She moved her hand listlessly through the soap.
“We’ll visit a lot,” Carolyn said, her voice bright and hopeful, even though she knew the promise was going to be impossible to keep. The first year as head chef would consume every spare second of Carolyn’s time. She’d be lucky to carve out enough free time to get one annual trip back to Marietta. Maybe her parents could come to New York for a while.
As for Matt and Harley—
That was a truth Carolyn would have to break later to Emma. Just saying the words, we won’t be seeing them again, caused Carolyn’s throat to close. Already, she ached to be back in Matt’s house, back in his arms.
I’m still in love with you, Carolyn.
Carolyn started to get to her feet. Maybe if she started packing, this deep ache in her chest would ease. “I’ll let you finish your bath, Em.” She turned to go.
“Aunt Carolyn? Can you stay with me? Please?”
Her mother gave Carolyn a smile. “I’d say that’s my cue to go.” Marilyn pressed a kiss to her granddaughter’s forehead. “Remember, Emma, the water stays in the tub.”
“’Kay, Grandma.” Emma grabbed her toys and started explaining them to Carolyn, talking about how the teddy bear was scared to swim but the turtle talked to him, and the fish got in trouble for swimming too fast…
Emma had an entire world going in the bathtub. Carolyn listened, asked a few questions, then sat back in surprise when Emma handed her a plastic whale and said, “Play toys with me, Aunt Carolyn.”
It was the first time Emma had asked Carolyn to do something as simple as play. At first, Carolyn was awkward, more than twenty years out of practice with the world of make-believe. But after a few minutes, she and Emma had an entire menagerie playing in the soap bubbles. They talked and laughed and made animal noises until the water grew cold and the bubbles had disappeared.
It was a memory, Carolyn realized. A bond.
A start.
Carolyn bundled Emma in a towel, rinsed the tub and toys, then set her niece on a stepstool and combed the tangles out of her hair. She watched her niece and herself in the bathroom mirror. In any other house, this would be an ordinary scene. Mom and daughter, finishing the daily ritual of a bath. She could see the resemblance between them, the way Emma had Carolyn’s eyes, the high cheekbones she’d shared with her sister.
“T’ank you, Aunt Carolyn.” Emma ran a hand down her smooth, damp hair. “I look pretty.”
“Yes, you do. I hope it didn’t hurt when I combed your hair.” Carolyn squeezed toothpaste onto Emma’s Hello Kitty toothbrush and held it out to her.
“Nope. It was just like when Mommy did it.” Emma’s face turned wistful in the mirror. “Can you tell me another story about my mommy?”
Carolyn put her hands on Emma’s shoulders. Their twin pairs of eyes met in the mirror. Both of them missing the woman who should have been here with the soap bubbles and the comb and the toothbrush. “How about I tell you two? Get your teeth brushed and your pajamas on and I’ll talk about your mom until you fall asleep.”
Emma took her toothbrush and grinned as she worked it around her teeth. When she was done, she hurried to her room, changed into Barbie-printed pajamas, and climbed into her bed. She shifted over to the far side. “I made room, Aunt Carolyn.”
Carolyn settled onto the space beside her niece. Emma curled into Carolyn’s arm and laid her still-damp head on Carolyn’s chest. The sweet scent of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo filled the air. Carolyn’s heart squeezed. This is what it’s like to be a mom, she thought. The simple moments, with toy menageries and the fresh, clean warmth after a bath.
All these years, Carolyn had never thought she wanted that life. That she was happiest in a hectic kitchen, concocting elaborate dishes for discerning diners. But there was something so…simple and sweet about Emma’s damp head on her shoulder that made the Manhattan kitchen seem a million miles away. This was what Sandy had loved, what had made Sandy smile, and what had underlined all that joy in her sister’s voice. This was what Carolyn would have going forward—because Sandy would never have these moments again. The pressure to do right by Emma, to be the guardian she needed, mounted in Carolyn. “So, what kind of story do you want me to tell?”
“Am I gonna like New York?”
The question took Carolyn by surprise. “I’m sure you will. It’s really busy. And there are lots of big buildings and trains and taxi cabs.”
Emma raised her gaze to Carolyn’s. Her eyes were wide and curious. “Did my mommy like New York?”
Sandy had only visited Carolyn a couple of times before Emma was born. Her visits had been short, and she’d complained about the noise and the claustrophobic feel of the crowded city. In New York, Sandy had seemed to wither; while here, she had flourished. “Not a whole lot. She really loved it here and in Wyoming where you lived.”
Emma thought about that for a second. “Can I see the stars there too?”
“Yup. The sky is the same no matter where we live.”
Emma was quiet for a minute. She fiddled with the button on Carolyn’s shirt. “Do you like New York?”
“I’ve lived there a long time.” That didn’t answer Emma’s question, but the truth was, Carolyn didn’t know. She used to think she loved New York, but the closer she got to leaving Marietta, the less she wanted to go.
For the first time since Carolyn had found out she was Emma’s guardian, she began to question whether New York City was what Sandy would have wanted for her daughter. Sandy had loved the open air, friendly neighbors, and warm world of Marietta. Something she said she’d found in the small Wyoming town where she’d later settled with her husband. It’s a great place to raise a kid, Sandy had said. The kind of place where kids can bloom.
Returning to New York and taking over as head chef was the best thing for Carolyn’s future. But was it the best for Emma’s?
“I’m gonna try to be happy there, Aunt Carolyn,” Emma said softly, and guilt rolled through Carolyn’s gut. “I’m gonna try real hard.”
*
Matt had screwed up.
He’d won the competition, beat out his friends and neighbors with the best cookies in Marietta, helped raise a bunch of money for Harry’s House, and managed not to burn down Marietta High in the process. But his mind wasn’t on the successful afternoon, or the congratulatory texts and emails he’d gotten in the last couple hours.
It was on the woman he still loved.
The same woman he had run off for a second time in his life.
He never should have said that about being in love with her. If there was one thing that would make Carolyn bolt, it was the hint of a commitment. Of being tied down to anything, especially this town.
He went home, let the dog out, took a short run, but none of it erased the regret twisting in his gut. So he took a shower, gave Harley an extra dog bone for the extended absence, then climbed in his car.
It was late by the time he arrived on the doorstep of Carolyn’s parents’ house. A light burned in the kitchen, and he could see Carolyn’s slim figure standing by the sink. He drew in a deep breath, rang the bell, and mentally practiced what he wanted to say for the hundredth time.
She pulled open the door, and her face brightened with surprise. He took that as an auspicious beginning. “Matt. What are you doing here so late?”
“I need to talk to you. Before you leave.” He took a step forward, praying she wouldn’t close the door, wouldn’t shut him out again. That what he had felt in his bedroom just hours ago was real, buildable. “Ten years ago, I let you leave and I didn’t put up a fight. I was scared back then that if I asked you to stay, you’d always be unhappy and you’d blame me. So I let you go, thinking you’d come back someday. I should have gone after you, shouldn’t have given up so easily.”
“Nothing would have changed my mind back then, Matt.”
He agreed. She’d been stubborn and determined, which was part of why he loved her. “Well, hopefully something will this time. I love you and I want to marry you, Carolyn. I want to have that life that we missed out on a decade ago. I want to help you raise Emma and train Roscoe and learn how to make a pie and a cake. But most of all, I want to spend every day of my life with you.”
So much for not saying the things that scared her. But all in was far better than standing here wishing he’d said it.
She shook her head. “Matt—”
He could see her getting ready to shut the door, to shut him out again. He shifted closer, nudging at that stubborn wall around her heart. “Don’t say no. Not yet.”
She stood there for a long time, letting the cold air into the house. Roscoe nosed around Carolyn’s legs and nudged Matt for some attention. Carolyn sighed and opened the door wider, which Roscoe took as an invitation to plow into Matt’s hip. “Come in. I want to show you something.”
He hoped like hell it wasn’t her packed suitcase.
He followed her inside, Roscoe padding along at his side, panting and excited to see his friend here. Matt gave Roscoe a good ear rub when they stopped in the kitchen.
Carolyn put her back to the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I packed my bags tonight.”
Disappointment sank in him like a stone. He was already too late. He should have known better. Nothing he had said or done in the last two weeks had changed anything. “Are you leaving earlier than you planned?”
“That was what I was thinking, yes. Get up, eat some breakfast, and get in the car.” She fiddled with the folded dish towel beside her. “I thought the best thing to do was get back to my schedule and my job.”
He heard the resolve in her voice. He’d heard that tone before, ten years ago. Why had he thought he could change her mind?
“I thought that was best,” she repeated, going on before he could reply. “Then I saw this on the fridge.” She motioned toward two colored pictures hanging on the fridge.
The first was the glittery version of Roscoe that they had made in the library a few days ago. A time that already seemed like another lifetime. The second was a rough sketch of several stick figures and a couple round brown things with legs, labeled with the names of Emma’s family, his own name, and both dogs’ names.
“Emma made that one this morning,” Carolyn said, pointing to the second picture. “She gave it to my dad, and told him she wanted her whole family to be together for the cookie contest. The brown lumps are the dogs and those little brown circles are cookies.”
He chuckled. “Looks about like the kind of cookies I’d make before you came along and taught me how to bake.”
Carolyn took the picture off the fridge and stared at it for a long time. “This is the family Emma has now. All the family she has. All the family I have.”
“I’m sorry about Sandy, Carolyn, I really am. She was an incredible sister and I’m sure she was a great mom.” He could only imagine how hard it would be for him if his brother died. He knew Carolyn and Sandy had been really close. This was a loss that would be felt every day forward.
“She was the best mom, Matt. The kind of mom every woman wants to be. The kind of mom every kid deserves to have. And she left Emma with me—” Carolyn smacked at her chest “—the one person who has no motherly instincts at all.”
“I don’t know about that. You seem to have connected pretty well with her since you got here.” He thought of how tenderly she spoke to Emma, how hard she had tried at the library, how she had kept Emma’s dog, even though the dog was untrained. And Emma looked at her aunt with love, and a clear need to be close to her.
Carolyn sighed, then put the picture back on the refrigerator. “My dad told me yesterday that he might have lost a daughter but he still has his family, and that he wasn’t going to let his grief keep him from them anymore.”
Matt was glad to hear that. He had noticed a difference in Carolyn’s father at the Bake-Off. He’d always been a good man, one devoted to his family. And now, undoubtedly devoted to his only grandchild.
“It wasn’t until I packed my bags and set them by the door that I realized you were right.” Carolyn took a deep breath and met his gaze. “I am running away.”
A spark of hope lit inside him. “What are you running from, Carolyn?”
“From what I see in this picture. From what I see in your eyes.” She crossed to the sink. She braced her hands on either side and stared out into the darkness beyond the window. “Sandy was the family one, you know. The one who was always good at that. I told myself I wasn’t. That I couldn’t connect like she could, but the truth was, I was afraid.”
He came up behind her but didn’t touch her. “Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of losing the people I love. When my grandpa died, I shut down. I buried myself in cooking, because I told myself that was the best way to honor his memory. And in the process, I disconnected from my parents, from Sandy. All these years, I’ve blamed them for that distance, when I was the one who put it there in the first place. And when Sandy died, and left Emma to me, I wanted to run away from that responsibility. From those expectations. I kept telling myself that what I was best at was being in a kitchen, not in a family.”
He could hear the pain and regret in her voice. He moved closer, covered one of her hands with his own. She leaned against him for a moment. “Oh, Carolyn, you’re good at so many things.”
Carolyn straightened, and paused to draw in another deep breath. “But not at relationships. I always held a part of myself back, even with you, because I was afraid of losing it all. Then Emma came into my life, a little girl who has lost everything—her parents, her home, her world—and she’s still connecting and loving and trying. And believing in family, even if it’s not the same.”
“Family is what you make it, Carolyn.” He rubbed the back of her hand. He could see how hard this was, being vulnerable, open. Letting him in. “Whether it’s with blood relatives or with friends.”
“It wasn’t until Emma said to me that she was going to really try to be happy in New York that I realized the price I was making her pay, all because I was afraid. A four-year-old girl was braver than me.” Carolyn turned and faced him. “Emma was willing to try, to give up all that she knew a second time, just because I didn’t want to change.”
They were only a breath apart, so close he could kiss her if he wanted to. But he held back, still not sure where they stood.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore, Matt. I don’t want to miss out on my family. I don’t want to miss out on…” a smile flickered on her face “…us.”
He took a breath. Had he heard her right? “Us?”
“I ran away from you once before and I’ve regretted it ever since. I don’t want to do that again.” She paused, and a smile slid across her face, lit her eyes. “I love you, Matt. I always have.”
His heart soared. He had waited to hear those words for a decade. To have Carolyn back in his life, for now. For good? “I love you, too. I never stopped.”
“I wasn’t really happy in New York. I missed the open air, this silly little town…” she waved at the window, and the sleepy Marietta beyond the glass “…and I missed you.”
“Then stay, Carolyn. Don’t go.”
“Staying means changing everything.” Doubt filled her eyes, trembled in her voice. “And I’m still scared, Matt. Scared I’ll screw it up. Scared I’ll be a terrible mother to Emma. Scared that I’m not going to be what you want.”
He laughed, then cupped her jaw. He waited until her gaze met his before he spoke again. His stubborn, determined, smart but vulnerable Carolyn. “You’ve been everything I wanted since the day I met you. I told you, I don’t need June Cleaver. I need the one woman in the world who challenges me to be better today than I was yesterday. The woman brave enough to move across the country at eighteen, then strong enough to work her way up to head chef at one of the best restaurants in New York. And if you still want to do that, Carolyn, then I’ll pick up and move there, too. Last I checked, they need veterinarians in Manhattan, too.”
On the drive over here, he’d decided that being with Carolyn was more important than anything else. He’d been prepared to move for her, to do whatever it took to keep Carolyn in his life. “I made the mistake of not going after you once before, and I’m not doing it again.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to move to New York.”
His heart sank, but before he could say anything, she put a finger over his lips.
“Because I’m not going back there. Well, I am, but I’m not staying.” The smile curved across her face again, and the hope that had been a seedling in Matt’s chest grew into a full-on bloom.
“You’re not? What about your job?”
“I called my boss and told him I’m not taking the promotion. I need to go back there for a few days, tie up loose ends, move out of my apartment. And I need to go to Wyoming sometime and deal with Sandy’s house.”
“We could go together,” he said.
A smile curved across her face. “I’d like that.” They shared a quiet moment, of connection, of understanding, then she went on. “Finally today, I called the owner of Rocco’s and asked to be interviewed for the head chef job. I don’t know if I’ll get it, but if I don’t, then maybe I’ll open my own restaurant. Or maybe I’ll start a catering business. Something that’s flexible enough to allow me to have that.” She waved toward the picture again. “The family I secretly always dreamed of having.”
He glanced at the picture, then back at her. He could see the sincerity in her eyes, the determination. He had no doubt that Carolyn would approach being a mom the same way she approached everything—and in the process, she would be a wonderful mother. “You know, Roscoe is in that picture.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I know. I might need to get some more training for that dog first.”
“I’d be glad to do that.”
Carolyn sobered and looked up at Matt. “I was hoping you would be.”
He took both her hands in his and drew her closer to his chest. Then he wrapped his arms around the woman he loved and held her tight. “I always thought this town was home, Carolyn, but the truth is, home is wherever you are. You’re the picture in my head, the life I always dreamed of having.”
She peered up at him. “Then let’s start on that dream. I think ten years is long enough to wait, isn’t it?”
He kissed her then, long and sweet. He loved the way she curved into him, the way she seemed tailor-made to fit against his body. He drew back but cradled her close. “You know, it’s ironic.”
“What is?”
“This all started because I needed your help in the kitchen. And here we are, agreeing to another new start, in another kitchen.” He peered down at her. “Do yo u think we have the right ingredients, Carolyn?”
She raised on her tiptoes and gave him a light kiss. “I’m sure we do. But if we’re missing one, that’s okay. Because I love a challenge…and I love you.”
“That’s one recipe I can follow.” She laughed, and he laughed, and they kissed again. Roscoe barked, Emma wandered sleepily into the kitchen, and they expanded their joy to hold Emma between them, with Roscoe sitting on his haunches, his tail wagging in happy approval.
The End