Dating Dr. Dreamy: A Small Town Second Chance Romance (Bliss River Book 1) Read online

  But Fate does step in, in the form of six feet, two inches of old flame.

  At first I can’t believe it’s really him—he hasn’t been back to Bliss River in years—but there’s no mistaking that strong jawline or the shaggy brown hair that falls over his forehead just so. No mistaking those wide shoulders or that narrow waist or how utterly delicious this jerk looks in a suit.

  It’s Mason Stewart, all right.

  Mason Stewart, brooding at the edge of the dance floor holding a lightly sweating beer loosely between two fingers like he never left town in the first place, when in reality Mason has avoided Bliss River like the plague for four long years. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Mason around these parts, not since the night he asked me to marry him and then ran off to New York City the very next morning.

  He was offered a residency in Atlanta, only an hour away, and he’d promised to take it. To take it, and to take me with him when he left Bliss River. We’d planned on getting an apartment together in the city. I was going to get a job cooking at an amazing restaurant downtown, Mason was going to save the world, one patient at a time, and after three years of dating, we were finally going to live together.

  Finally live together, and do all those other simmery, sexy things we’d never done because I was waiting for marriage, and Mason was deathly afraid of saying “I do.”

  By the time Mason turned sixteen, his mother had been married eight times. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, she left town with husband number nine and Mason went to live with his Uncle Parker, a man who made it clear he wasn’t thrilled to be saddled with his sister’s kid. Mason blamed his mom—and the ridiculous, outdated, backward institution of marriage—for the roughest years of his childhood.

  To be fair, I knew how he felt about marriage long before he popped the question. I should have been suspicious the moment he dropped down on one knee.

  Instead, I’d wept with happiness, slipped the ring on my finger, and stayed up half the night calling everyone I knew, breathlessly sharing the happy news.

  But instead of coming by my parents’ house for Saturday brunch the next morning to celebrate our engagement, Mason had bailed on Bliss River and our happily ever after, leaving me to explain that all my giddy “I’m getting married” phone calls had been a mistake.

  A mistake…

  Like leaving the kitchen.

  Like heading for the dance floor.

  Like getting close enough to see Mason’s blue eyes flash when he spots me across the lawn, frozen like a deer in the headlights.

  Chapter 2

  Mason

  There she is.

  Standing right in front of me, close enough to see the flush in her cheeks and the shock in her expression.

  Lark.

  My Lark, my gut insists, though she hasn’t been mine for years, and I’m pretty sure she hates me.

  I would hate me if I were her.

  Hell.

  This is even harder than I thought it would be.

  My stomach knots around my last drink of beer, and my heart lurches to a stop only to kick into overdrive, slamming against my ribs.

  I knew there was an excellent chance I’d see Lark tonight. I’d counted on it, in fact. There was no other reason to agree to be Lana Tate’s plus one to a wedding reception where I knew I’d be persona non grata—Lisa is Lark’s best friend and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate me running off after popping the question any more than the rest of Lark’s girlfriends did.

  A few of them texted me after, ripping me a new one on Lark’s behalf, but I didn’t reply. I took my medicine, knowing I deserved it and that there was nothing I could do to make it better.

  At least, back then there had been nothing.

  But things are different now—I’m different—and seeing Lark is the entire point of being here. But now that it’s happening, now that her gaze is locked on mine, and I can see firsthand how hurt and angry she still is…

  Now I’m not sure a surprise meeting was such a good idea.

  Maybe I should have called first.

  Or written a letter?

  And what would that have read like, jackass?

  “Remember me, the guy who ripped your heart out four years ago? Well, I’m back from the big city. How’s life?”

  The thought of Lark reading a note like that makes me cringe.

  She deserves better. She deserves me on my knees, apologizing for the shit I put her through, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

  I’ve been rehearsing this moment in my head since the day I left town with a black eye and bruised ribs from getting my ass kicked by my own family, positive I would never be good enough for Lark. Still…deep down, I let myself imagine that someday I might be. Someday I might get my shit together and prove I was better than the long line of assholes I’m descended from.

  It ended up taking four years and more hours on a therapist’s couch than I imagined possible, but I’ve finally put the ghosts of my past to bed. Now, when I look in the mirror, I see a man who’s worthy of being judged on his own merits, not his family’s mistakes. By and large, I’m a good person who’s fighting to be better all the time.

  And this is part of being better.

  Apologizing to Lark. Letting her know how sorry I am and how much I regret the way things ended between us. Letting her know that I would give anything to turn back time and spare her that pain.

  I hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me, but if she can’t, that’s fine, too. She doesn’t owe me a damned thing.

  But I owe her, and I’m ready to pay up.

  Clutching my beer in a death grip, I start toward her.

  I make it all of three steps before she turns and runs.

  Flat out runs, like she’s running from a rabid dog escaping from quarantine.

  By the time I call for her to wait, she’s already woven her way through the tables and launched herself into the darkened field beyond, heading for the shadowy hills in the distance without any sign of slowing.

  But there’s nothing out there but marshland and creepy old barns and sketchy people living in campers while they make meth in someone else’s abandoned shed.

  I should know. I probably have a long lost cousin or two squatting on condemned property, doing their best to flush their lives down the toilet. If she keeps running that way, Lark is only going to find trouble, and I didn’t come here to cause her more of that.

  Cursing beneath my breath, I start after her, abandoning my beer on an empty table as I go. Within a few moments, I move beyond the tables and out into the field of knee-high grass. Spotting Lark a few yards ahead, I pour on a burst of speed.

  Thanks to my much longer legs, I close the distance between us easily. Soon I’m close enough to hear Lark’s swiftly indrawn breath, and to catch the smell of wood smoke and flowers clinging to her clothes.

  “Lark, stop!” I beg.

  “Go away,” she pants, picking up her pace.

  “I just want to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you!”

  “Then you can listen. Or not,” I say. “But it’s not safe out here. You’re going to get hurt.”

  I reach out, catching her upper arm between my fingers. My touch is light—I’ve seen too many men rough up my mother to even think about trying to overpower anyone with brute strength—but Lark jerks away like my touch has burned her.

  The jerk of her arm is so intense, it throws her off balance, sending her tripping over her feet and falling to the ground.

  I’m moving too fast to catch her, too fast even to stop my own forward momentum. I grind to a halt inches from where she’s landed in the grass, my arms reeling, only to fall forward a second later, landing with an oomph on top of the only girl I’ve ever loved.

  Our legs tangle and our stomachs brush and Lark’s breath stirs the hair hanging into my face. Our eyes meet, and for a moment all the anger and misery and uncertainty vanishes, leaving only longing in its place.

&nb
sp; She still feels it, too—the connection between us.

  I can read it in her eyes. It’s darker out here than under the lanterns, but the moon is nearly full. There’s more than enough light to see that Lark doesn’t hate me.

  Or at least she doesn’t just hate me.

  She still misses me, too.

  She still wishes things had ended differently between us.

  “Get off of me,” she whispers, but she doesn’t sound angry anymore.

  “Can we please talk? Just for a few minutes?” I ask, not moving a muscle. “Or, if you don’t want to talk, will you at least promise to go back to the party? I’ll leave. I just don’t want you out here in the dark alone.”

  “What you want doesn’t concern me, Mason,” she snaps.

  “Please,” I beg. “I just want you to be safe.” I press my lips together, hesitating a beat before I decide to try my luck one more time. “And to apologize. Profusely.”

  “I’m not interested in your apology,” Lark says, her eyes darting back and forth, refusing to meet mine.

  “How can you know if you don’t give me a chance to make it?” I ask, gently. “It’ll be a good one, I promise. With lots of admitting I was a fool who made a horrible fucking mistake. One he’s regretted every day since…”

  “I don’t… I…” Her breath rushes out as she brings her hands to my chest and pushes. “I need some space. Please.”

  I sit back, rolling onto my heels in the grass, feeling the loss of her warmth, her closeness, like a punch in the gut.

  For all I know this might be the last time I’ll ever touch Lark.

  I was worried about her being with someone else—which might still be the case, though I don’t see a ring on her finger—not that she would hate me so much she wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain.

  I mean, I realized there was a good chance she’d want nothing more to do with me, but I at least thought she’d hear me out. The Lark I knew was a forgiving person. She didn’t hold a grudge. She didn’t even get mad that often, and when she did, her anger passed like a summer storm, in and out in an afternoon, leaving the air cleaner when it was gone.

  But this isn’t the Lark I knew, I think, as I watch her sit up and brush the grass off her dress. This is the Lark I left behind, the Lark I hurt in a way she’d never been hurt before.

  Lark has a wonderful family and loyal friends. Lark grew up in a safe, happy home where the worst thing that ever happened was a scraped knee or one of her sisters not getting picked for the cheer squad. Her heart was innocent, trusting. She had absolutely no frame of reference for the kind of pain that would make a person run away from the one thing he wanted most in the world. She had never been taught to hate herself the way I had, to expect the worst from people because that was all the people who mattered most ever gave you.

  My leaving was probably her first real taste of heartbreak.

  I hate that I was the one to introduce her to that kind of pain. But most of all I hate that my mistake might have changed her for good.

  What if she’s a different person now?

  Different in a sad way, and all because of me?

  The realization makes me even sadder. More ashamed. And more determined to do what I can to set things right.

  “Listen, Mason,” Lark says, curling her legs beneath her and smoothing her dress. “I don’t know why you’re here. I know Lisa didn’t invite you. At least she better not have invited you, because if she did I swear I—”

  “She didn’t,” I cut in. “I came as Lana’s plus one.”

  “Lana Tate?” Lark’s eyebrow arches. Lana went to school with Lark and is one of the few people on Lark’s Shit List. I think it has something to do with Lark’s younger sister, but I’m not exactly sure.

  “I ran into her at the Fill Up Stop this afternoon and she asked what I was doing tonight,” I hurry to explain. “Then she mentioned the wedding. As soon as I heard Lisa’s name, I knew you’d be here. It just seemed like such a wild coincidence, on my first day back in town. And I just… Well, I thought…”

  “You thought what?” Lark crosses her arms over her chest, clearly not amused.

  “I obviously didn’t think it through,” I say, feeling stupider with every passing minute. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have interrupted your time with Lisa.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” she agrees, the tight muscles around her mouth relaxing ever so slightly as she adds, “But you did. So say what you came to say and get it over with.”

  I don’t want to get it over with. I want to erase history, turn back time, and take back all the hurt I’ve caused. But I can’t, so I’d better start talking before she runs out of patience.

  “I made a mistake, Lark. A terrible, stupid mistake,” I say, the words rushing out. “I never should have broken things off the way I did. I mean, I never should have proposed in the first place, but I really shouldn’t have left without—”

  Lark lets out a strangled sound, somewhere between a laugh and cry of pain, and jumps to her feet.

  Before I can explain that the words are coming out all wrong, she rushes past me, her hip brushing my shoulder as she moves, knocking me flat on my back in the tall grass.

  Chapter 3

  Mason

  “Wait!” I roll onto my side and scramble to my feet. “Please, wait, Lark!”

  She spins to face me, her chin hitching higher. “I don’t want to wait. I want you to go away!”

  “Please, that’s not what I meant to say. I had it all planned out, but my stomach is in knots and—” I break off, lifting my hands in the air, fingers spread wide in supplication. “What I meant was that I was way too messed up back then to be ready to promise the rest of my life to another person. After all the stuff with my mom and my uncle… I just… I wouldn’t have been able to be a good husband to you, no matter how hard I would have tried.”

  I pause, encouraged by the slight softening around Lark’s eyes.

  “My baggage weighed more than I did,” I continue. “I got home that night, the night you said yes, and everything went to shit. Parker and I had the blow up to end all blow ups and…” I take a breath, fighting for the courage to be honest with her. “I looked at myself in the mirror after, with my swollen lip and black eye and the peeling wallpaper in my trashed bathroom and thought... What the hell was I doing? With a girl like you? When I clearly didn’t deserve you.”

  “That’s not true,” Lark whispers. “You were always so good to me. Before.”

  “I tried to be,” I say, pulse racing as I take a tentative step closer. “I loved you so much.”

  “And I loved you,” she says, taking a matching step backward. “And then you left. Without even saying goodbye. Without saying anything. Do you know how hard that was? I kept waiting for you to at least call and explain, but you never did.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lark.” My chest aches. “By the time I got my head on straight it had been months and I was buried in work and I… Well, I convinced myself you wouldn’t want to hear from me. That it was best to leave you alone.”

  “And now?” she whispers. “What’s changed?”

  “I…” I trail off, swallowing hard. I’m only going to get one shot at this, one chance to prove to her I might be worthy of a second chance. I have to get every word right. Tongue slipping out to dampen my lips and my fingers curling and uncurling anxiously at my sides, I say, “I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’ve fixed so many of the things that were broken inside of me, but there’s one thing I can’t fix, no matter how much time I spend on my therapists’ couch.”

  Lark arches a brow, clearly unimpressed.

  Harder, asshole. Try harder. Or get ready to spend the rest of your life missing this woman as much as you have the past four years.

  “There’s never been anyone for me, but you,” I say. “I’ve never felt anything for anyone else that even comes close to what we had, what I threw away when I was a stupid kid who didn’t think h
e deserved to be loved like that.” My breath rushes out. “And maybe I didn’t, and maybe I still don’t. But I promise, if you can find it in your heart to give me another shot I’ll make damned sure you don’t regret it.”

  Lark blinks, sending twin streams of water rolling down her flushed cheeks, but she doesn’t say a word.

  Not a word, for a moment so long and strained my throat begins to ache.

  “I swear,” I whisper. “Whatever it takes. Whatever you need. I took a job at a practice in Atlanta, so I’ll be close enough to be here every night, sitting on your front step with flowers and an ‘I’m an Idiot’ sign to show the entire town how sorry I am, if that’s what it takes.”

  Lark shakes her head, and the bottom drops out of my stomach.

  “Is there someone else?” I ask after a moment, my voice tight.

  “No.” Lark swipes the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’ve dated a few people, but nothing serious.”

  “Maybe that’s a sign?” I risk.

  “A sign of what?” Lark huffs out a humorless laugh. “That I’m too scared to trust anyone else that way again? After the man I thought was one of the sweetest people in the world dumped me so hard my tailbone still feels bruised?”

  I wince. “I’m sorry, Lark. You don’t know how sorry, I swear—”

  “No, I do know.” Lark rolls her shoulders back, staring me straight in the eyes. “You’ve been gone four years, Mason. Four years without so much as an email or a text message. If you’d said these things a few weeks after you left, or even a few months after, things might have been different.” She sniffs and swipes at her cheeks again. “You don’t know how many times I dreamed of you saying everything you just said to me back then.”

  She presses her lips together. “But that was then,” she continues in a softer voice. “Now, too much time has passed. I’m not that girl you remember anymore.”

  I nod, but I’m not giving up. Not yet, not until I’ve left it all on the field. “And I’m not the boy you remember, either. I’m a man with his head on straight and his heart in the right place who would love to get to know the woman you are now. And to prove to you he knows how to treat people he cares about.”