With a sigh, Graham nodded. “Yeah.”
“Lana’s trying, but she’s going to have to make some big decisions soon. My place is proof a business can barely stay open here serving locals only. I have to open it to the tourists, or I’ll have to shut the doors by the end of January.”
Easton and Graham grimaced. “I didn’t know things were that bad.”
“Without the tourism dollars, a lot of us just can’t keep afloat. We’ve tried.” Rick scuffed his shoe on the wooden porch step. “I still don’t like it. I still hate what they did to Jen and Diego, but it’s hard to watch everyone else fill their wallets, knowing mine is empty and will stay that way.”
“I’ll call Lana. See what we can work out.”
Rick tried. He tried to sit there and shut off what he felt. He tried to believe what he’d told himself over and over again since he’d walked away. But really, when it came down to it, Rick had been wrong.
“Guys…I think…I think I really screwed up. Someone needs to check on her. She’s going to need a friend.”
“More than you do?” Easton asked quietly.
Maybe…maybe not. But for right now, within their small friend group, Rick was going to make sure Lana had dibs.
* * *
Lana spent the last hours of Christmas Eve on a red-eye flight from Chicago to Anchorage. There was no point in chartering a private jet to get her there faster.
At thirty thousand feet, draining a glass of champagne as she looked down at the darkness outside her window, Lana wondered at what point she’d lost all her perspective. Probably the day she’d walked into the town hall meeting and Rick Harding had smiled at her. Close or far, it didn’t matter. There was no perspective, not when all she could see was him.
It would be easy to simply let him go. Painful, but easy. He wasn’t wrong—she would always feel a pull back to him when she was working abroad. The difference was Lana wanted that pull. She wanted a place and a person to come home to. Someone and someplace that wanted her there too.
A layover in Seattle gave Lana an hour to kill. She didn’t bother to check the time before calling her mother. No matter what else their failings, Montgomerys always answered at any hour. Jessica picked up on the third ring.
“It’s a long flight alone, isn’t it?” Jessica said sympathetically, skipping a greeting. “How are you holding up?”
“Longer than usual.” Lana was grateful for her mother’s voice. “Mom, how do you do it? You and Dad? How do you make it work when you’re always gone? Don’t you resent each other?”
Jessica was quiet for a very long time. Then she said simply, “We love each other. That’s always been enough.”
Closing her eyes, Lana asked softly, “And you don’t regret it?”
“Not for one second of one day. He gave me you, Lana.”
The love her mother felt for her came through so strong and so certain, Lana couldn’t help but feel hope welling through her. Of course, her parents had married for love instead of business.
Lana knew what she was picking, if the choice was still on the table. She’d never know until she tried.
When the plane landed in Anchorage early on Christmas morning, Lana switched to a smaller aircraft to fly her to Moose Springs. For once, she didn’t feel guilty about splurging. Lana drove straight to Rick’s house before she lost her nerve. She didn’t want to waste one more second without telling Rick the things she should have told him when he left. If he still didn’t want to be together, then…well…Lana would simply deal with that when it happened.
It took every ounce of her courage to drive to Rick’s place. So of course, he wasn’t there. All Diego could tell her was that Rick had gotten home from a Christmas party and gone out into the woods. He invited her to wait inside, but Lana stayed out on the porch instead. Since Rick’s car was parked in its spot, he’d be back eventually.
Feeling chilly and ridiculous, Lana was still waiting on the front porch steps half an hour later when Rick emerged from the woods behind his barn. He seemed lost in thought as he trudged through the snow, head down, so he didn’t notice her car until he was almost to the house. When he realized her vehicle was in the drive, he stopped in his tracks, head snapping around. Lana’s heart stopped too, at least for the moment it took for him to offer her that quiet smile of his. It was worn but real. Like him.
They had only been apart a few hours, but Lana had missed him so much.
Rick crossed the drive and approached the steps, looking at her with a confused expression.
“I took a red-eye,” she said, feeling as if she should explain. “I wanted to be back here for Christmas. Diego said I could wait inside, but I didn’t know if you wanted me here. Showing up after a breakup is kind of a stalker move.”
“You’re always welcome here,” Rick said in a rough voice. “I’ll never make you leave.”
Rick winced at his own words. Lana didn’t have the heart to throw them back at him, not when pain was etched across his face.
So instead, she gently said, “You just couldn’t stay.”
“Ever since I got on that damn airplane, I keep telling myself that it was the right thing. That you deserved better. But breaking your heart sure didn’t feel like treating you better. It felt like being a scared idiot who lost the best woman he’d ever had.” When Lana didn’t reply, Rick stood there, fist clenching and unclenching helplessly at his side. “I don’t know how to make it up to you. I left you when you needed me. I’ve been on the bad end of that, and I swore I’d never do it to someone. But I did it to you.”
Lana didn’t even try to stop the tears welling up in her eyes. Rick had always gotten to her, and she wasn’t afraid to let him see her upset. Not anymore.
He took a step, instinctively moving toward her when she was crying. Then he stopped, giving her space like he had the first night at the town hall, as if not sure of his welcome.
“My personal bubble is less inflated than most,” Lana reminded him, because he would always be welcome with her too. Welcome, wanted, desperately needed…all of it. Everything.
“Mine’s destroyed,” Rick whispered. “Being with you ripped that shit in half and threw it away.”
Lana’s hands were shaking worse than ever before. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell him what she needed to say.
“I’m so sorry, Lana. I don’t know how to make this up to you. I tried all night to find that damn moose. I knew I’d hurt you, and I didn’t know what I could do to make up for it. I thought maybe this time…”