“You must be really happy,” she managed, hoping Lucy didn’t detect the note of hurt that laced her words. She couldn’t help it. She still wasn’t over it. Twelve years later and that man still hadn’t explained himself! Was he so beyond reproach?
She winced. He probably didn’t think she cared anymore. After all, he obviously didn’t.
Lucy huffed out a breath. “Yesterday was quite a day. The opening of this place, then seeing Scott again...” She paused. “I had to really work on him to come back here at all and a part of me still didn’t think he really would—I guess I didn’t dare to believe it until I finally saw him.”
“It’s been a long time.” Emily nodded in understanding.
“Too long. When he first left town, I kept hoping he would be back one day. Then I guess I just learned to give up on that hope.”
Emily looked down. That made two of us.
Her heart began to ache in that all too familiar way as she washed the apricots and set them to dry. It was the same feeling she got every time she thought of Scott over the years. Why did he have to come back? Why couldn’t he have just stayed away forever? Surely at some point she would have forgotten the way his grin could make her heart skip a beat, or the way her hair rustled when he whispered in her ear. A dozen years might not have done the trick, but a dozen more might have...
She watched Lucy silently, wondering if she would say more, but Lucy just tied her apron strings, grabbed two pies, and tapped her hip against the swinging kitchen door. Emily sighed and got to work herself. She had always wondered why Scott had stayed away, but it wasn’t her place to ask Lucy. Anyone who avoided Maple Woods for a dozen years had a reason. A big one.
Her heart dropped as she pulled out the cutting board. If Scott was that determined to put Maple Woods behind him, and get out of town no sooner than he had returned, it seemed like wishful thinking that he might ever be back again.
She began to measure out the sugar thoughtfully, reminding herself that she might not be in town much longer, either. Some things just weren’t meant to be.
* * *
Scott locked the door to the apartment above the diner where Lucy was letting him stay and jogged down the stairs to Main Street. He eyed the bakery across the street and wavered slightly, wondering if he should give in to the temptation of what was tucked inside, his mind on anything but the pie.
Quickly, he looked away, assessing his options. He’d slept late, and by the time he’d dragged himself out of the comfortable solitude of his room, it was already nearing lunchtime. He was prolonging the inevitable trek to his father’s office, but eventually he would have to head over—there was no getting around it.
Once he thought he would continue the legacy of Collins Construction, follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Back then his plan was simple: he would marry Emily Porter, settle down in Maple Woods and earn an honest living at his family’s company. But that was before he knew what his family had done to Emily’s. Before he knew the part he had played in her father’s death when he was just a kid, playing on the machinery, hanging out on his dad’s job site, too oblivious to know the truth. Before he knew there was nothing honest about that company. Or his father. Or himself.
“Scott!” Lucy’s familiar voice jarred him. He hated to think what her opinion must be of him now—she probably assumed he had gotten too successful for a small town like this, that he was better than it somehow, that he couldn’t be bothered to make time for people who had meant so much to him in the past, including her. She couldn’t be more wrong.
It was easier this way, he told himself, better that she wasn’t in on the family secret. It was easier for everyone he cared about to be left out of his mess. Let them think he went off to college and never looked back, that he didn’t think of Maple Woods every damn day of his life, that he didn’t wonder how different things might have been. Let them think he was happy in Seattle, that city life fit him in a way Maple Woods never could. Let them all think what they wanted, so long as they didn’t know the real reason he had left.
A man was dead because of him, and the surviving family had suffered as a result.
He forced a smile and crossed the street to stand next to his sister. “I was thinking about grabbing something to eat at the diner,” he said as he approached the sidewalk.
“You’re not sick of my cooking after dinner last night?”
Scott smiled at the recollection of sitting around Lucy’s old farm table with her husband and son, talking and laughing long into the night like any other family would. A few times he’d caught himself thinking that maybe he could have a life like this, but that must have been the wine talking. There was no room for him in this place.
“I haven’t had a meal like that in years.” He grinned.
“Well, you can have another tonight, then. I’m going over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner after work.”
Scott’s gut twisted as he held her eyes, carefully selecting his excuse. Lucy stood before him unwavering, her mouth a thin line. She knew what she was doing. And he didn’t like it one bit.
“Lucy, don’t do this to me.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair in agitation. He broke her gaze and glanced down the street, desperate for an escape.
Her eyes were sharp when he turned his attention back to her. “Dad’s dying, Scott,” she said firmly, her gaze narrowing in disappointment. “The treatments aren’t working. The cancer has spread.”
“You know we don’t get along,” Scott insisted, but Lucy was shaking her head, clearly not buying it.
“Scott, I’ve put up with this nonsense for long enough,” she said, her voice steely. “Whatever happened between you and our parents is old news. You were a teenager then, now you’re a thirty-year-old man. Start acting like one,” she snapped.
Scott took a step back, his eyes flashing with indignation. He forced himself to remember that Lucy didn’t know the part his father had played in the events of the past. He’d kept in touch with her over the years, but he made sure to keep their conversations light, and mostly about her, George and Bobby. “You know I came back for you. You asked for my help in the rebuilding of the library, and I’m here. I’ll see it through, but please don’t ask anything more.”
Lucy’s eyes softened. “I know, and I’m so grateful, Scott. Honestly, I am.” She lowered her eyes to the ground, her shoulders slumping. “I’ve lived with so much guilt knowing that Bobby accidentally caused that fire.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know what we would have done if Max Hamilton wasn’t funding the project in exchange for some land George inherited. You can’t imagine how that felt...the relief.”
No, Scott thought grimly. He couldn’t say he did know how that would feel. There was no stranger to swoop into town and clear up his mess, the way Max had apparently helped so much since moving to Maple Woods after the holidays. Scott couldn’t rebuild the past. He couldn’t raise the dead. There was no righting his wrongs.
“It means everything to me that you’re here to take over the job, Scott. Don’t lose sight of that,” she explained.
Scott eyed her warily. “I sense a ‘but’ coming on.”
Lucy gave a sad smile. “Don’t let this
