His anger escalated, but it wasn’t directed at anyone but himself. What the hell was wrong with him? How had he let things get so out of control?
He’d known for the past couple of weeks that he was walking a fine line, and keeping his feelings for Lissa in check was going to take monumental effort on his part. That’s why he’d eagerly agreed to accept Senator Kurk’s offer. He’d suddenly needed the distance between them to pull back before he found himself in far deeper than he’d ever intended to go.
But was it already too late? Had he done the unthinkable and fallen in love with her?
Shaking his head, Shane wasn’t sure. And until he got it all figured out, it would be best to leave things as they were between them. He’d already hurt her terribly. He’d rather give up his own life than do it again.
Standing on the deck at Willow Lodge, Melissa stared at the mountains beyond. How could her life have changed so dramatically, yet everything around her stayed the same? She had never experienced such emotional pain, never felt so alone as she did at that moment, yet the birds still sang and the sun still shone on the golden aspens whispering in the crisp mountain breeze.
Why had she deluded herself into thinking that Shane would be as committed to making their marriage work as she intended to be? How was it possible that she had missed seeing he was as driven by ambition and work as her father had been?
Shane had told her he would be faithful, and she had no doubt he’d meant what he said. But fidelity was one thing. Spending the time together that a couple needed to make a marriage work was something else entirely.
She had been willing to give up the life she’d built for herself in Malibu to remain in Colorado so that they could be a family. Was it too much to ask that he make a few concessions, as well?
The night he’d given her the engagement ring, he’d told her that his career required only occasional travel. But at the first opportunity that had come along for him to spend more time away from her and their child, he hadn’t been able to agree fast enough.
All her life she’d come in a distant second to her father’s ambition to make Jarrod Ridge the number-one resort in the Rockies. She refused to settle for second place with her husband.
“Melissa, is everything okay?” Turning at the sound of her sister’s voice, Melissa watched Erica climb the steps and walk across the deck toward her. “You left the dinner so suddenly yesterday evening, I was afraid you might not be feeling well. Are you all right?”
“No, and I’m not sure I ever will be again,” she said honestly. “But I’ll survive. I always do.”
“What’s wrong?” Erica asked, clearly alarmed. “Are you feeling ill? It isn’t anything with the baby, is it?”
Melissa shook her head. “As far as I know the baby is fine.”
Erica looked around. “Where’s Shane?”
“I don’t know. Probably at his ranch.” Since learning she had a half sister and welcoming Erica to the family, the two of them had grown fairly close and Melissa did need to talk to someone. “I broke off our engagement last night.”
“Oh, no!” Erica immediately wrapped her arms around Melissa. “I’m so sorry. You both seemed so happy.”
Melissa shrugged one shoulder. “It’s probably better that it happened now instead of after we got married.”
“That’s true,” Erica agreed. “But it’s still so sad.” When the breeze picked up, she suggested, “Why don’t we go inside and I’ll make us both a cup of herbal tea?”
A few minutes later Melissa sat at the table, staring at the steam rising from the mug Erica had placed in front of her.
“Are you sure the two of you can’t work things out?” Erica asked quietly.
“I don’t see how.” Over the course of the longest, loneliest night of her life, she had asked herself a thousand times if she’d made the right decision. Each time the answer had been that she had. “We both saw our relationship differently and I’m not sure that could ever change.”
They were silent for several minutes before Erica asked, “Is there anything I can do?”
Melissa nodded. “You can be there for me when I let the rest of the family know the marriage is off.”
“You know that Avery and I will both be there to support you no matter what,” her sister said without hesitation. “For that matter, I can’t imagine any of our brothers being anything but supportive.”
“I hope so.” Erica hadn’t grown up in the same house with their father and therefore had no way of knowing how much emphasis had been placed on appearances and the family’s reputation. “I’ve decided that I’ll be going back to California soon.
I can have the baby out there without causing any disruption with the investors.”
“Melissa, you can’t do that. You’ll lose your share of the resort.” Erica shook her head. “No one wants to see that happen.”
“If I don’t, we could lose a considerable amount of funding for highly successful events like the Food and Wine Gala.” She rubbed the tension building at her temples. “We’ve probably already lost one of our biggest investors.”
Erica frowned. “Who’s that?”
Melissa gave her sister a sad smile. “Shane.”
“Do you really think he’ll stop funding special promotions because the two of you are no longer involved?” Erica looked doubtful. “I’m sure he’s made a lot of money from helping fund Jarrod Ridge projects. I wouldn’t think he’d want to give that up.”
“I don’t know. It could be a bit uncomfortable for both of us.” She took a sip of her tea. “But aside from Shane pulling out of upcoming projects, some of the others aren’t going to look kindly on me being pregnant and single.”
Erica touched Melissa’s hand. “I think you’re giving those people too much power over you. It’s none of their concern what you do in your personal life.”
“Shane said virtually the same thing,” she admitted.
Maybe she was giving too much credence to what others thought of her family. But it was hard to cast aside a lifetime of instruction on the importance of others’ opinions of her. For as long as she could remember her father had lectured his children on how their actions directly affected the resort and how important it was to protect Jarrod Ridge’s reputation above all else.
“The main thing is you don’t have to make a decision about any of this right away,” Erica said, rising to place her cup in the sink. “You have plenty of time to weigh your options, then you can decide what you want to do.”
After Erica left, Melissa sat at the table contemplating their conversation. In this day and age, many women chose to be single mothers and no one thought anything about it. So why was she afraid of what two busybodies had to say about her? And why was she willing to lose her inheritance because of it?
She wasn’t. The only opinions that really mattered were those of her family. They loved each other and since their father’s death the bonds between them were strengthening. Maybe her brothers would stand behind her and her decisions if she stayed in Aspen.
Sitting up straight, she came to a decision. She didn’t care anymore what people like Elmer Madison and Clara Buchanan had to say about her becoming a single mother. They weren’t living her life. She was.
If they pulled out of the investment group because of her pregnancy, it would be their loss. There were probably several other townspeople who would readily take their place and reap the rewards of investing in Jarrod Ridge. And if not, the family could pick up the slack themselves.
Feeling slightly better, she sighed. If only she could resolve her feelings for Shane that easily. But making a rational choice to change your attitude about something was far easier than trying to change how you felt about a person.
There was no way around it and no way to stop it. She loved Shane with every fiber of her being and always would.
“Cactus, this is the worst meat loaf I’ve ever tasted,” Shane complained, pushing his plate away.
The truth was, the meal could have been prepared by a gourmet chef and the results would have been the same. Everything he’d tried to eat for the past few days had tasted like an old piece of harness.
“It’s been three days since you and that little gal parted ways and I swear you’re in a worse mood now than you was when you first told me she wouldn’t be around no more,” Cactus grumbled as he cleared the dinner table.
Shane sighed and tuned Cactus out as the old man continued his rant. He knew he was being un reasonable about everything with everybody. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and nothing he did seemed to relieve the hollow ache that had settled in his chest when he walked away from Willow Lodge the other night.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been a little irritable,” he said, knowing there was no excuse for taking out his bad mood on Cactus.
“A little irritable?” The old man looked disgusted. “Boy, I’ve seen pissed-off grizzly bears with better attitudes than yours.”
Rubbing the tension at the base of his neck, Shane nodded. “I know. And I’m really sorry about that.”
“Well, knowin’ and doin’ somethin’ about it are two different things.” Dishes clattered as Cactus dumped them into the sink. When he turned to face Shane, he pointed a wooden spoon at him. “Seems to me that if you’re that miserable, you’d get your sorry hide back to town and see what you could do to patch things up with that gal.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why ain’t it?”
Shane wasn’t surprised that Cactus thought it could be that easy. The old man saw things as black and white, right and wrong. If something went wrong, a person fixed it and moved forward. But some things just weren’t that easy to repair.
“For one thing, I doubt that Lissa would open the door if I did go by her place.”
“Then you catch her out somewhere and talk to her,” Cactus shot back. “And if you have to get down on your hands and knees to tell her how sorry you are, then do it.”
“How do you know I’m in the wrong?” Shane asked, feeling a bit affronted. He hadn’t told the old man anything more than the wedding was off and Lissa wouldn’t be visiting Rainbow Bend anymore.
“Far as women are concerned, it don’t make no never mind who started it or what it’s about,” Cactus said sagely. “To their way of thinkin’ it’s always a man’s fault.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Shane said, starting down the hall. He didn’t need to hear more of Cactus’s advice on relationships. He already knew who was to blame for his and Lissa’s breakup.
Once inside his study, Shane closed the door and walked over to his drafting table to sit down. He’d tried for the past couple of days to work on the plans for the sheik’s stable, but hadn’t accomplished a damned thing. For a man accused of being ambitious and driven, he certainly wasn’t living up to expectations.