He suddenly realized that in his own way, he’d been doing that, too. He’d escaped from his less-than perfect family, from the issues that seemed to crop up like weeds, when in reality, he was needed here more than anywhere else. Maybe, Luke thought, he’d been searching for perfect when it had been right in front of him all along. He had a family who loved him and needed him, right here, in this ugly little green house.
That’s why he couldn’t go with her, Luke realized. Maybe he’d known it organically, understood it in his soul while his heart had longed for something else.
But whether he’d faced it or not, he’d always known that he loved his family too much to leave them behind again.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I am grateful you told me how you feel,” he said sincerely. “I know it took a lot of courage to say it. But I don’t think you understand that saying ‘I love you’ and loving someone are really two different things.” He was learning that himself. He let go of her, leaned down, and picked up his bag. “I’ve got to go. I’m going back to Durango to see about Leo, and then up to Denver.” He caught her by her braid and pulled her to him, then leaned down to kiss her. “You’re one of a kind, Maddie,” he said softly, and kissed her again. “I am going to miss you something fierce.” He kissed her one last time, dropped her braid, and stepped around her, walking out to his truck, leaving her standing in his family’s house.
Madeline stared out the screen door and watched Luke walk across the yard. She couldn’t catch her breath as she watched him get into the Bronco and leave. Her stomach roiled with disappointment and regret, and her vision blurred as his Bronco turned the corner onto Main Street.
She’d ruined it. She’d ruined the one true thing she’d ever known.
Madeline looked blindly around her, at the collage of photos on the wall, at Leo’s wheelchair and video game console. She tried to catch her breath as she walked outside and carefully shut the door behind her, then moved woodenly down the porch steps.
Everything that had happened to her here, everything she’d felt, that she’d become, was churning inside her. Every moment with Luke, every moment at Homecoming Ranch, with Libby, with Leo—it all churned. In the middle of the yard, the churning brought Madeline to a halt. She suddenly fell to all fours and vomited in the grass, as her body tried to purge the pain and disappointment of losing the only true love she’d ever known.
When her body could not expel anything else, she stood up, dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, and walked to the car.
She had lost everything, but the dull, bone-aching pain of her loss had only begun.
THIRTY-THREE
On a stifling hot and humid day in Orlando, the DiNapoli sale closed. That afternoon, Madeline’s brokerage firm gathered at the local watering hole to toast her. Madeline nursed a warm beer. It was the biggest payday in her life thus far, a milestone reached, and her broker predicted many more sales for her.
He based that on the fact that Madeline had picked up three new listings of big, ugly houses. That wasn’t exactly what Madeline had hoped would happen in selling the DiNapoli property, but suddenly, owners of ugly houses were calling her to sell them.
“A sale is a sale,” Bree said, when Madeline had taken another call for an ugly house in a bad location. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” Bree had just obtained her realtor license and was hungry for listings.
Madeline invited Trudi to her celebration happy hour. Trudi was in fine form, taking center stage and telling stories about Madeline as a girl that were only loosely based in fact. But they were entertaining, and Trudi had Madeline’s office mates laughing. Madeline sat at the end of the table with her beer and quietly mused that it had always been this way. Trudi was the star in their relationship and Madeline was the support behind the scenes. The only time Madeline had shone on her own was when she stepped out from under Trudi’s light, in Colorado.
When she and Trudi drove home afterward, Trudi, who had imbibed a couple of chocolate martinis, put her foot on the dash of Madeline’s car and said, “You know who would have been fun to have there? Stephen.”
“Oh my God,” Madeline moaned.
“I saw him the other day,” Trudi said. “He’s selling his SUV. He bought a Lexus. That guy is going places.”
“Trudi, why do you keep bringing him up?” Madeline asked. “We are over, we are done. It’s like he’s paying you.”