Page 4 of Save the Last Dance
“A few weeks at least.” Needing a distraction, she whistled softly to Luce. The black lab lumbered over to have a seat beside her, offering her head for a scratch. “Ioriginally planned to come here to escape the flak around my business’s closure. But Gram’s health has also gotten worse. Bad enough that my dad mentioned assisted living?—”
She stopped herself from confiding anything more personal. Mack hadn’t been a friend for a long time.
“Nice of him to show up and help his mother out,” Mack muttered, obviously remembering her father well.
“No kidding.” For all that Mack had broken her heart, he would never have turned his back on his family as her father had done.
She’d always dreamed of a family of her own one day, and the chance to give her kids the kind of home she’d always wanted. She’d assumed Mack would share that dream. But he’d told her once he would never have his own children.
“I’m sure your grandmother appreciates having you here.”
“I never would have even known she was so frail if I hadn’t come here and seen her with my own eyes.” The last Nina had seen Gram six months ago, she’d been recovering nicely from knee surgery. “She fell recently and didn’t tell me—” And there she went again, sharing something personal with Mack. “Anyway, I’ll be in town for a while and it sounds like you will, too. We’ll just…avoid each other.”
There. Done.She gave him a nod and turned to get into the truck.
Fingers on the handle. Door levering open…
“Wait.” Mack dropped a large hand right beside hers on the open door.
She stilled, afraid a sudden movement might bring her in contact with him. He stood behind her, so close the small hairs rose at the back of her neck in a kind of good way. Herbody must not have gotten the message that he’d broken her heart when he’d refused to leave Heartache with her.
And then a second time when he’d married…
“What?” The husky note in her voice revealed too much. She cleared her throat.
“Nina.”
A wealth of shared memories in that simple word. God, how many times had he spoken her name before?
“I’m listening.” She had no intention of turning around. No desire to fall into his gaze and be hurt by all the memories there.
“For the record, I hadn’t heard anything about your business and I’m sorry if Cupcake Romance isn’t working out.” The sincerity in his voice only reminded her of her failed dreams.
Although the fact that he remembered the name of her shop lifted her spirits just a little. Had he looked her up on Google at some point? Or asked Gram how she was doing? The thought eased some of the old hurt that he’d just written her off completely as soon as she’d left town. Not enough to forgive him, however.
“I don’t need your sympathy.” She faced him now, unwilling to let him believe that New York had gotten the better of her. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be.” He didn’t move away. “You may not believe it, but I’ve been rooting for you all along.”
That’s why he’d let her go to pursue her dreams alone, right? That’s why he’d chosen his family instead, insisted on staying behind in Heartache to pick up the pieces of the lives ruined on graduation night…
Old anger flared. Just like her parents, Mack talked a good game but he hadn’t really wanted her.
“You’re right. I do find that hard to believe.” She needed to leave. Needed tomake sure she didn’t talk to Mack Finley for eightmoreyears. “I really have to get home.”
“Can I just ask you one more thing?”
Absolutely not. Breathing the same air as him was killing her.
“What?” She gripped the heart-shaped locket around her neck, a present Gram had sent her when she’d finished her college program on a scholarship.
“Did your grandmother say if she’s had a falling-out with my mom?”
Nina released a pent-up breath. The subject was safer—for her, at least. Mrs. Finley’s moods had always made her family walk on eggshells around her. Nina had witnessed a few episodes in the years she and Mack had dated, but never anything like the argument they’d had the night she’d left Heartache. Left Mack.
“No. Gram just mentioned that your mother is sticking close to home even more since your father’s death, which I was very sorry to hear about. Your dad did so much for this town.” Not only had Mr. Finley been mayor for longer than anyone else in the history of Heartache, he’d been a genuinely nice man.
“Thank you. We all miss him.” Mack swallowed hard before he glanced toward his mother’s house. “And Mom misses him the most, of course. Scott’s been having a tough time even getting her to her doctor appointments lately, and she’s stopped having Ally overnight on the weekends. I’m debating where to stay for the next couple of weeks while I help Scott with the Harvest Fest.”
