Page 10 of Romance Reset
“It’s good to see you, Lincoln. You look great,” she said, smiling.
“So do you.”
Amelia showed little of the twenty years between their last conversation—their breakup—and this one. Her hair was still the same light brown, though now she wore it shorter and curled along her neck and shoulders, and her eyes were the same soft green with umber flecks in them, reminding him of rich, thick moss. Amelia had always had that girl-next-door look about her, but she’d grown into a beautiful woman.
An awkward silence descended on them as they stared at one another, gazes locked and searching. His chest squeezed from the heaviness of the pain they’d gone through, the pain she’d caused. And despite the years, a bit of anger returned. No one liked getting dumped, after all.
“Is this as… shocking to you as it is to me?” she asked.
“I—”
“Welcome. I’m Jamie. May I get your drink order?” a waitress asked as she paused by their table.
Since Lincoln already had a drink in front of him, Amelia ordered an iced tea.
“No wine?”
“Oh, I definitely need a clear head for this,” she told him somewhat wryly.
Once the waitress walked away, Lincoln inhaled and nodded. “It is strange.”
“Right? I mean, we dated twenty years ago but to match again now—”
She gasped sharply and Lincoln braced himself for whatever came next. Given her expression, it wasn’t good.
“Marsali said you’re a widower? Oh, Lincoln, I’m sorry.”
He accepted the condolences with a nod and tried not to think of the grief that had lessened over the years but was and always would be there. “Thanks. It’s been three years. Car accident,” he said, since that was usually the next question. “She passed at the scene.”
“Just like your parents.”
Amelia’s gaze softened even more and he saw a sparkle of tears she blinked away to keep in check. The sight touched him, though it confused him more. He wondered how Amelia could be so compassionate and yet walk away as she had. He’d lived in a fog afterwards, destroyed by Amelia’s betrayal… until he’d met Jill.
“You’ve been through so much. I’m just… I have no words, Lincoln.”
He nodded, not really wanting to talk about his life with his wife when he sat across the table from another woman who’d broken his heart with her refusal and disappearance twenty years prior. It was… weird, this boomerang feeling of time repeating itself. Except, this time it couldn’t since Jill was gone.
“Lincoln, if this is too weird for you, I can go,” Amelia said. “I… I know I hurt you, but believe me when I tell you I’m sorry for that. If it’s any consolation, I broke my own heart that night as well.” She glanced at the bar before turning back to him. “You know, I think I’m going to leave. You seem a little shell-shocked,” she said, getting her purse from the chair beside her.
He watched her, told himself to let her go, but when she scooted out her chair, he stretched a hand across the table and placed it over hers, staying her. “We’re here. Let’s at least have dinner. For old times’ sake. Okay?”
Amelia hesitated a long moment before she finally nodded and settled into her seat once more.
“So,” he said, managing a smile at her. “Last I heard, you were backpacking across Europe and… dating some up-and-coming rock singer?”
His statement made her laugh, and Lincoln noticed several men turn to find the source of the joyful sound. It drew him, too, though he didn’t like that it did.
“Oh, was thatevera long time ago. Wow. Yeah, I did that for all of a week, which must have been when I talked to whomever it was who told you. It was one of those things that sounded good when I called home, but the reality was quite different. I liked the shock value. My parents were appropriately appalled, but it didn’t take long to realize I’d be one in a hundred girls.”
“Good for you.”
She shrugged. “I know it all sounds crazy, but it wasn’t as alarming as I let on, trust me. We met hiking and he asked me to dinner, invited me to his concert. That’s when I saw the chaos and knew it wasn’t for me.”
He found himself thankful she at least had the sense God gave her to know that about herself. It seemed as though girls now—even grown women—didn’t know their worth and put up with far too much for far too long. His daughter sometimes mentioned the teen drama going on at her high school, and it made him crazy just thinking about it as a dad. As upset and angry as he’d been with Amelia at their breakup, he could only imagine how her parents had felt at her taking off the way she had. “And now? What do you do?”
“I’m a movie set designer.”
“Seriously?”
