Page 25 of Shimmering Emeralds
Reluctantly, he stood and turned to leave. I had to glance away from the sad slump of his shoulders as he moved to obey my order. I made sure the door was latched behind him before I allowed the heartbroken tears to fall.
22
Levi
Just when I’d started to believe that I was miraculously getting a second chance with the love of my life, she sent me away. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her, considering the precarious situation I’d put her daughter in, but that wasn’t even the reason she’d given for my exile from her life. She wanted me to be famous. It didn’t make a lick of sense.
I sat down on a park bench just outside the hospital and shot a quick text to Danica to let her know she needed to go sit with Meg or find someone else to do so, since the woman obviously didn’t want me by her side.
I shook my head as I tried my best to absorb Meg’s strange new stance. Meg was the most down-to-earth person I’d ever met. She couldn’t care less about money, fame, or any of the perks that came along with either.
In fact, I’d always feared that making it big would make her even less likely to ever take me back. As much as I wanted to saunter back into Brunswick Bay Harbor as a successful country star, I had always feared that level of success would be a huge turn-off for Meg.
She was a simple woman, who liked fishing and traipsing around in the woods without a map. This new fame-loving streak didn’t align with the down-to-earth woman I had known since we were kids and had loved since practically the first day we met in Mrs. Thatcher’s kindergarten class.
The sky was bright blue with a few huge, puffy white clouds suspended directly over the hospital. I pulled on my jacket to ward off the brisk breeze, despite the warm sun shining down on me.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, but my rear end went numb from pressing into the hard wood of the bench. I simply couldn’t bring myself to correlate the Meg I’d always known with the one in there that claimed she wanted me to become famous.
When Dani plopped down beside me, I gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Is someone with Meg and Harper?”
“Her mom is on it.” Dani assured me, before adding, “I won’t leave her to deal with her mother for long, but I wanted to find you to see what dumb-ass move you’ve made to upset her now.”
Dani’s tone sounded solemn, so I looked to her eyes to see if she was teasing. She raised one brow in my direction, making it difficult to tell if she was being serious or not.
Feeling defensive, I snapped at her. “My only dumb move was thinking I might have a chance with that impossibly stubborn, moody woman.”
“She is both of those things––to the extreme––but she’s also my best friend in the whole world, so I would appreciate you not speaking negatively about her.”
I splayed my hands. “That’s the thing… Her stubborn streak and moodiness are annoying at times, but I don’t think of them as negatives. She’s strong, and she always keeps me guessing. I love that about her.”
“You love it so much, you’re leaving… again.” Dani angled her gaze down at the gym bag I had tossed down on the ground beside me.
“She told me to leave. She sent me away.” I worked to keep the desperation out of my tone, but doubted I was successful.
Dani crinkled her brow as she looked at me as if she thought I was as dense as stone. “She has high walls up. We all know that. But she has a good reason for them. The only two men she has ever loved have left her.”
I breathed a sigh of relief at the news that Meg had only loved two men. One was her father, and I prayed I was the other. Of course, it was possible that Harper’s father was the other, but he didn’t seem to be in the picture right now. I was.
My voice sounded morose, even to my own ears, when I said, “She doesn’t want me here. She made that perfectly clear.”
“Did she?” Dani scrunched up her nose.
“Yes.” I was starting to feel exasperated with the brilliant woman beside me. She was incredibly book-smart and had an eidetic memory, but sometimes it felt like she didn’t have very much common sense––like when you tried to give her directions that included words like north, south, east, or west.
Dani silently blinked up at me, so I took a deep breath and tried to calmly explain it to her. “She said for me to go back to Nashville. She doesn’t want me, unless I’m famous.”
When Dani tipped back her head and bellowed with laughter, anger churned in my gut. My devastation was not funny. I openly glared at Dani until she finally noticed and said, “Oh, wait… You were serious?? You can’t honestly believe that. Meg is one of the least pretentious people I know. She couldn’t care less about fame.”
“That’s what I always thought, too.” My voice was flat, despite the tumultuous emotion churning through my system.
I took a deep breath of the crisp, sea-salt scented air in an attempt to calm my jittery nerves. That briny smell was one of the many things I’d missed about my quaint hometown while I was in Nashville.
“She told me in no uncertain terms that she wants me to go back to Nashville and not to even think about coming back here until I’m a huge star.”
Dani stared at me as if I had grown a second head. “Right… Because that sounds so much like Meg and what she cares about.”
“She said it. You can go ask her yourself.” My tone sounded petulant as I pointed back toward the hospital.
