Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
My chest squeezes—but this time in a good way.
“Is the baby okay?” I ask. “I mean—you. Are you okay?”
“We’re both okay,” she says softly. “Lucas got me to the hospital. He didn’t leave my side once. He cut the cord. He cried more than I did, honestly. And when they put the baby on my chest…” Her voice wobbles. “I told him I wanted to name him Everett. And Lucas just—lost it. In a good way. In a ‘this is everything I didn’t know I wanted’ way.”
Tears prick my eyes, but they’re different from the ones that threatened on the mountain. Warm. Happy. “Mel…”
“I know,” she says. “He’s perfect, Ivy. Ev’s got this little dimple already and the longest fingers. Lucas keeps insisting he’s going to be a jazz pianist or a surgeon.”
I laugh. “Of course he does.”
“And Lucas…” She exhales. “He looked at me, in that awful hospital lighting, hair a mess, mascara down my face, and said, ‘I’m in. For all of it. For you. For him. I’m not going anywhere.’”
My heart twists.
“I’m so happy for you,” I manage. “So, so happy. You deserve this.”
“I know,” she says, with this tiny thread of wonder. “I’m still scared. It’s a lot. But it feels…right. Like I’ve been carrying pieces of a puzzle and they finally clicked.”
I close my eyes for a second, letting that image wash over me.
Melanie with her baby. With Lucas. A family she didn’t dare dream about a year ago. And now…here.
“I want that,” I blurt.
“I know,” she says gently. “Tell me what happened.”
So I do.
I tell her about the sleigh and the fall and the bell strap. About the cabin and the storm and the way Rhett made biscuits and checked latches and let me in when he didn’t have to. About talking in the dark and feeling something open up in my chest I thought had been permanently boarded over.
I tell her about the couch. About my promotion. About the way he looked at me and said he’d been wrong to start something he couldn’t finish.
“He said he wanted his quiet more than he wanted to try with me,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “That he couldn’t be in a half relationship. That we’d just resent each other.”
“And?” Melanie asks.
“And I called him a coward,” I admit.
“Good,” she says immediately.
“Mel…”
“What?” she says. “He is. You didn’t ask him to move to Saint Pierce and become your intern. You just asked him to not slam the door shut before you’d even tried to unlock it.”
“I don’t want to be the reason he loses himself,” I say quietly.
“Okay, but that’s his choice to make,” she says. “Not yours. Not for both of you. Love—real love—doesn’t show up only when it’s convenient and the schedule’s clear. It shows up messy. It shows up when you’re working long hours and exhausted and still make time for each other. Ask me how I know.”
I can hear Everett fussing in the background now. Melanie shushes him softly.
“You’re allowed to want both,” she goes on. “The job and the man. The campaign and the cabin. The promotion and the person who makes your chest feel like it’s got fairy lights strung through it. You don’t have to pick just one dream.”
“I think he already picked for us,” I say.
There’s a pause.
“Okay,” she says, voice softening. “Then right now you get to be sad. Like, full-on ice cream-tub, romcom-marathon, ugly-sob sad. But I’m going to tell you something I wish someone had told me sooner.”
“What?”
“You’re not hard to love, Ivy Garland,” Melanie says. “You’re not asking for too much. You’re not ‘too big’ or ‘too much work.’ If he can’t meet you there, that’s on him. Not on you.”
My eyes flood. “Mel…”
“And for the record,” she adds, voice turning fierce, “if this Rhett guy ever pulls his head out of his mountain and realizes what he lost, he’d better come correct. Flowers. Apologies. Full growth arc. Because my girl deserves a man who fights for her, not one who taps out because it’s complicated.”
A watery laugh escapes me. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”
“I live for romance novels,” she says. “I know a third-act breakup when I hear one.”
Everett squawks again, louder this time.
“That’s my cue,” she says. “Diaper duty. But hey?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m happy,” she says softly. “Me and Lucas and Everett. We’re figuring it out, and it’s a lot, and it’s worth it. And I want that kind of happy for you too. In whatever form it takes.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“Find a way to rest today,” she says. “Even if that just means lying on your couch and staring at the ceiling and letting yourself feel everything. You don’t have to have the answers yet.”
“Okay,” I say.
“And send me a picture of your little fake tree once you finish it,” she adds. “Everett needs to see how Auntie Ivy does Christmas.”