Sheridan Falls, 10 Miles
Melissa Conwell’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as she passed the familiar sign along Interstate 90 west. Sheridan Falls. She was almost home.
Home home. Not Newark, New Jersey, where she lived now, but the small town in upstate New York where she’d been born and raised. Normally, seeing that sign caused her heart to fill with happiness, knowing that she would soon be seeing her parents, sister and young niece. But today, the fact that she was almost home had her throat tightening.
It was an illogical reaction, especially since she was returning to Sheridan Falls for a joyous occasion. It was sure to be the event of the summer, a big wedding that was bringing family members together from across the country. And yet joy was the last thing she was feeling.
She was anxious. Terrified, even.
Because this time she was going to have to see Aaron Burke. Small-town boy turned international soccer star.
International heartbreaker, more like.
She hadn’t needed to read the tabloids to learn that Aaron had had his share of women and had broken his share of hearts. She knew that from firsthand experience. Eleven years, nine months and ten or so days ago, Aaron had crushed her teenage heart and left her reeling.
Not that she was counting or anything.
Melissa’s fingers began to hurt, and she loosened her grip on the steering wheel. Why she was getting all tense at the thought of seeing Aaron was beyond her. She hadn’t spoken to him in nearly twelve years. He wasn’t part of her life, by any stretch of the imagination. So why was she acting as if seeing him was going to disrupt her world?
Because she didn’t want to see him. Ever. Not after how things had ended between them. She might be over him, but they weren’t friends, and spending time with him was going to be awkward at the very least.
But that’s exactly what she was going to have to do. Over the next few days, she was going to be seeing a lot of Aaron—at the welcome dinner, at the rehearsal, at the wedding. And worse than simply seeing him, she was going to have to interact and play nice, because not only was Melissa in the wedding party, Aaron was, too. And for some unfathomable reason, Tasha had paired Aaron with her.
“What’s the big deal?” Tasha had asked when Melissa expressed mortification over the wedding arrangements. “The other pairings made more sense this way. Besides, you and Aaron used to be close.”
“Exactly—used to be,” Melissa had said. “We haven’t spoken in years. Are you forgetting what he did to me?”
“But weren’t you the one who decided not to follow him to Notre Dame?” Tasha asked, sounding confused. “You said he’d be too busy with his soccer scholarship and you didn’t want to get in his way? Then things fell apart after that.”
Melissa had been glad that she and her cousin were speaking on the phone, three thousand miles between them. Because she didn’t want Tasha to see her face.
The story that Melissa was the one who’d decided not to go to Notre Dame had not been entirely truthful, but it had been much better than admitting that Aaron had rejected her. She’d been trying to save face when she’d told her close friends and family that she was the one who’d chosen not to follow Aaron to college. The truth was, Aaron had been the one to ask her why she would travel across the country for school when there were better social work programs