Luna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem surprised. I mean, you do...but only a little. Or maybe like you’re only surprised that the comment stuck with me, and not the actual comment.”
Her grandmother gave her a half-smile. “I think that’s what they call projection.”
Inclining her head to the side, Luna said, “Touché. Yeah, I guess my thoughts have included variations on those themes for most of the day.”
“So, let me ask you something, honey.”
“Okay.”
“Gen says that she thinks you love Connor. What do you think?”
Luna took another deep breath. “Wow. You’ve zeroed right in on the other area my thoughts have been laser focused on all day.”
“Any conclusions?”
“Well…I mean, yeah. I…I think I do love him. I don’t know that I ever really stopped. I know I’ve missed him, pretty much every day since the last time we saw each other. So much that I couldn’t even come back here because I was afraid I’d see him and it would break my heart. And also, afraid that I wouldn’t be strong enough to leave.”
Grandma Grace’s brows shot up, and this time it was much more dramatic than the small gesture of a few moments before. “Well, honey, if you wanted to be with him so bad, why didn’t you just come back and be with him?”
This time it was Luna’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. When, she spoke, it was with a sense of earnest resolve. “Well…because I had to be independent. You know…you’re the one that was always telling me that I had to be able to make it on my own, not to have to depend on anybody else. I couldn’t let you and Paw Paw down. Not after everything you did for me!”
Luna waited while her grandmother sat back in her chair, eyes wide. Finally, just as the silence was almost too much for her, Grandma Grace reached across the table and took Luna’s hands in hers, looked straight into her eyes, and spoke. “Honey, I never knew you felt that way. Is that really why you’ve stayed away from Connor, and from Valentine Bay all these years?”
Luna tilted her head to the side. It had never even occurred to her that this was a question. She’d thought it was clear. “Well…I mean, yeah. You know how mom was, even before she took off for good. Always chasing some guy or another. And then when she finally did leave and never come back, that was to chase a man, too.
“So, when I came to live with you, and you were always telling me how important it was to be independent and make it on my own, never depend on anybody…I mean…isn’t that what you meant? Don’t get tied down by a guy? I never questioned the connection. It just seemed obvious.”
Grandma Grace wiped a tear away. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for saying it like that. I never meant to leave you with that idea. You just…you have to understand it from my perspective. Here we were, newly responsible for this precious little girl with a huge heart, your mama was nowhere to be found, your grandpa and I were already getting up in age even then—”
“Oh, stop that!” Luna protested. After having just been through the heart attack scare with her grandfather, her grandparents’ advanced age was the last thing in the world she wanted to talk about.
“Well, it’s true, hon. A fact of life, and it weighed on my mind day and night. What would happen to you if your grandpa and I weren’t around? What if you had nobody to depend on? Would you flounder and fall? I couldn’t let that happen. It was my responsibility to make sure that when I left this world, I would leave you prepared.”
“Okay, seriously, I’m going to turn around and walk right back out that door if you don’t stop talking about your own mortality. I’m dead serious…no pun intended.”
Grandma Grace chuckled, then continued, “Anyway, sweetheart. That’s why I always tried to impress on you how important it was—is—to have a skill, to be independent. Not so that you wouldn’t love anyone. There’s a difference between loving somebody and needing them in an unhealthy way.”
Luna leaned back, processing this new information. It made so much sense when her grandmother explained it like this. Why hadn’t she ever seen it from this angle before?
“Besides,” her grandmother continued, giving her hands a final squeeze, “how could I possibly ever advise somebody not to fall in love, or be with the person they love? Look how long your grandpa and I have been together. And look how much we love each other. And how happy we are.”
Luna raised her hands to her face and pressed her palms to her cheeks. They were burning, her skin alive with emotion. “I can’t believe I never saw that contradiction before. I…I mean, I don’t know what to say. I’ve been chasing something that didn’t exist, for a reason that didn’t exist. It’s going to take me a while to process this.”
She shook her head to try and clear it but it was no use. She couldn’t believe that she thought this talk was going to save her a sleepless night. As it was, she very well might never sleep again.
“Well, there is a good side to that,” Grandma Grace said crisply.
“Really? What?”
“Just because you’ve been chasing something that wasn’t real, doesn’t mean you have to keep on doing that. You can stop in your tracks today.” Her lips curled up into an affectionate smile and she patted Luna on the side of her face. “Or, even better, sweetheart—start chasing something that is.”
Chapter 17
Connor
Connor was exhausted. Not just kind of tired, but bone-weary. He wasn’t sure how he’d been roped into attending this planning meeting for the Christmas benefit that, frankly, he also wasn’t quite sure how he’d been roped into...but here he was.
The first person he saw when he stepped into the meeting room at the community center was Gen, and then Ella sitting next to her. On the other side of the table was Abby, and next to her was Allison. He smiled at the women. “Wow. It’s a gathering of the women who love the Valentine brothers. I feel kind of out of place.”
“Don’t worry,” Gen laughed. “Not everybody’s here yet. But you do kind of fit in. Sometimes I think you spend as much time with Gavin as I do, out back working on that car.”
He pressed a hand to his chest. “That Mustang, Genevieve. To just call it a car is, like, sacrilegious or something.”
“Duly noted. Oh! And here are our last two attendees now.”
Connor turned to see Luna walking into the room. It gave him a jolt even though he’d known he was going to see her here. He was coming to realize that seeing her would probably always give him a jolt, no matter what.
But walking in right behind Luna was the real surprise guest of the evening. It was Mrs. Valentine, the matriarch of both the Valentine family and, really, the town that was named after them as well. She was grandmother to Gavin, Donovan, Jet, Troy, and their younger sister Mila—but most residents would’ve said that she was their honorary grandmother.
Connor had always had the urge to call her Madame Valentine. It just seemed right somehow.
And, honestly, seeing her at the meeting shouldn’t really have been a shock. She was heavily involved in most of the town business. He guessed it only surprised him because she seemed to be such a larger-than-life figure that seeing her in person always seemed a little surreal to him.