“I’m here because I thought it was past time for us to talk,” Joel announced. “After all, once you decided to break up our marriage, you cut me off without a word.”
It hadn’t been that hard. In the beginning her life hadn’t even changed that much, and that had been the moment she’d known the divorce was truly the best move she could have made. They’d spent the majority of their marriage working on their careers, completely unfocused on the other person. “I have a phone. You could have called. I’m going to assume since my parents brought you all the way down here, that they would give you my phone number.”
“I wanted to see you, Roxanne.”
“Why?”
“Because we were married at one point in time, and I still care about you. I can see plainly you don’t feel the same way about me.”
She took a deep breath. They had been married, and it hadn’t all been bad. Joel had helped her through some rough times. If he hadn’t been right for her, she hadn’t been right for him, either. “I’m sorry. I was surprised to see you. It’s been a week full of those, and you know I’m not a person who likes surprises.”
He poured himself a drink. “I told your mother you wouldn’t be happy about them springing this on you, but you know how she can be. She’s been planning this for a while. I was hoping by the time I got here, you would be used to the idea of seeing your family again. I know we’re divorced, but I still think of them as family.”
“Yes, you see them far more often than I do.” She’d had a couple of pleasant nights while her parents had been here. She’d almost thought it had been a successful trip.
“I’m not the one who felt the need to put thousands of miles between us. Was that about me or them?”
“Both, I suppose,” she allowed. “I needed to be away from everything I knew before. I know you won’t believe it, but this place has been good for me. The sheriff is a good cop.”
“I understand you dated him for a while.”
“The truth is I never dated Armie.” It seemed so funny that she’d been desperate to keep up the lie in the beginning. “I told my mom that so she wouldn’t lecture me on how old I’m getting and how I’ll never get a man. Somehow it was easier for her to deal with me being gone if I had a man in my life.”
“Or it was easier for you,” he countered. “Your mother can be quite aggressive about defending her traditional family views. I know you think I had it easy with her, but I was given many a lecture on how I failed to get you pregnant.”
She groaned at the thought. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you had enough to deal with when it came to her.” He leaned against the side of the big leather couch. “I know I wasn’t the best husband, but I did try.”
Her heart softened a bit. She’d spent the majority of her adult life married to this man. She’d gotten over him, but perhaps it was time to truly forgive him—and herself. “We weren’t right for each other. We were far too alike, and I’ve come to realize that some differences are good for a relationship. We can both blame that one incident, but we would be wrong. It would have fallen apart eventually. I was never going to be what you needed, and I honestly didn’t know what I needed then.”
“But you do now?” he asked softly. “You’ve found it with that kid?”
“He’s not a kid. He looks younger than he is.”
“I’ll be honest. I didn’t take you for the type to go for pretty boys. You always seemed to have more complexity than that.”
She felt a grin cross her face. She was sure he’d had this conversation with her dad, who’d probably chalked her attraction to Zep up to his abs. “He’s ridiculously hot.”
Joel’s face scrunched up in obvious consternation. “You were never this shallow before.”
She shrugged because now that she was in the same room with him, it didn’t seem like such a scary place to be. Somehow she’d made more of him in her head, but they’d been friends once. Even though he was a pompous ass. It was odd because he hadn’t seemed that way at the time. At the time, she’d seen him as serious and ambitious.
This was not a man who would spend hours of his life patiently training a puppy for no other reason than the puppy would be happier being trained than not. He wouldn’t be genuinely excited about a job that would pay very little and require the world of him. However, Zep was excited, because his version of success was very different from Joel’s.