Page 88 of Meet Me on Lilac Lane

“Love doesn’t have anything to do with it. The kids and I can’t handle losing another person. I know you want to reopen your dad’s business, and Cody, you should do that.” He longed to meet her eyes, but she gazed somewhere in the middle distance. “You should follow your dream. Do it for yourself, or do it for Troy even. But I can’t be with you.” Tears streaked their way down her face.

He ran a hand through his damp hair and gave it a tug. Who cared if it stuck up now. “So, it’s choose the business or you?”

“No. I’m taking myself out of the equation.” She swiped a hand across her face and turned away from him. “Have a good life. Catch lots of fish. But I can’t be waiting onshore wondering if you will be coming home.”

A heat flared in him, and he reached for her again. If she would just listen to him…“Mia, anything could happen to anyone at any time. Don’t close yourself off from love just because you’re scared.”

Maggie called from down the hall. “Mama?”

“See you around, Cody.” Her voice broke. “Will you lock the door on your way out?” Then she walked away from him.

He was too late.

Maybe if he had told her how he felt earlier, before going out on the water, it would have made a difference.

No. He knew better. He always lost everything he loved. The revelation on the lake evaporated in the face of this. The worst bad thing to happen to him.

Chapter Seventeen

Everything felt sore. Mia stretched out her limbs, but they still protested. This feeling was familiar. After Troy died, Mia learned that grief could show up in physical ways. Sure, her heart ached from turning Cody down last night. And, yeah, she did love him. He was right about that—she could admit it now. But she couldn’t watch him die.

After Cody had left, she’d fallen into bed and dampened her pillow with a thousand tears.

She’d made the right choice to let Cody go, but that didn’t make the choice any easier. Cody’s words kept beating on the door of her heart. “Don’t close yourself off from love just because you’re scared.” Well, too bad, Cody. She wasn’t that brave. And she couldn’t open her kids up to that potential loss. Cody had a special place in their lives, but she needed to keep it distant.

She checked the clock ticking on the wall. Any minute now, Dani would be calling with the news about her meeting with the council. She’d called Dani last night and told her she couldn’t make it to the meeting, and that she was out of ideas for filling the quota.

Mia cleared the last of the breakfast dishes off the table and set them in the sink. Maybe she’d have the energy to wash them later.

When the phone rang, Mia jumped. Dani.

“I’m sorry, Mia. I have very bad news.”

The oatmeal Mia had eaten for breakfast turned into a rock in her stomach. “They voted to foreclose on the house.” Tears sprang to her eyes. She’d failed.

“Yes.” Her cousin sniffed. “I argued for you for as long as I could, but they stood firm.”

Mia sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “I would have hoped Dad would also be on my side. Didn’t he stand up for me at all?”

“He wasn’t able to be at the meeting. I’m not sure why. I’m coming over,” Dani said. “I’m packing up right now.”

“No. You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.” Or she would be, somehow. She just needed to figure out a way to land on her feet again. “I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up with Dani and then watched the clock as it ticked off the seconds. Each click sounded like a death knoll.

Enough.

In the dining room, her laptop rested under stacks of paperwork. She shoved those aside and opened the lid.

She called up the tab on her laptop where she’d saved the housing searches. Two of the apartments were now unavailable, and the other two, both one bedroom, appeared smaller than when she’d first hunted around.

Finn and Maggie wandered in, Finn clutching a car from Cody in his hand. A frown crossed his mouth. “Mom, are you crying?”

Was she? She put a hand to her cheek, and it came away wet. “It’s nothing, honey. I’m okay.” She cleared her throat. “I’m looking at some new places where we might live.”

Finn peered at the laptop screen. “Like that yucky brown one?”

“It’s not yucky.” But she couldn’t deny that it was brown. Very brown.

“It is gross.” Finn put his little hand on his hip. “It looks like p—” She quickly put her hand over his mouth before he could finish the sentence.

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