Take A Chance On Me (19 page)

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked, his tone suddenly taking on a hard edge that gave Maddie a chill.

She shook her head. “Nothing. I, um, just thought I saw someone.”

“Who?” he pressed, his strong square jaw firming.

“No one.” Nerves skipped through her.

“You look pale,” Gracie said, sliding a glass of water under Maddie’s nose. “Drink this.”

“I’m fine.” She nibbled on her lower lip.

Across the street, Mary Beth Crowley stepped outside the garage door, followed by a customer. They walked over to a black SUV and started talking. Mary Beth waved her hand over the body like a spokesmodel.

Maddie cleared her throat. “Maybe I should see how my car is doing.” She hadn’t given it one bit of thought since they’d left the shop, and it would give her something to do.

That sense of foreboding slithered over her skin again like an oily snake. She peered up and down Main Street again.

Steve was here. She could feel it. She might be crazy, but she didn’t hallucinate.

He was out there.

She turned away from the window to find Gracie and Charlie watching her as if she were a bug under a microscope. Maddie flashed them a bright, cheery smile, and twin frowns formed on their faces.

Gracie leaned forward. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, fine.” Maddie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, realizing that Charlie had gotten his Coke and she hadn’t noticed. “I saw Mary Beth across the street, and it reminded me I should go check on my car.”

Gracie flashed Charlie a glance that Maddie couldn’t even begin to decipher.

Charlie shook his head. “No need. Tommy and Mary Beth have everything under control.”

“I don’t see the harm of checking. Maybe they’ll get done earlier than planned.”

Gracie’s blond brows drew together. “I saw Mary Beth at the grocery store, and she said they’ve been real busy.”

Why did these two care if she checked on her car? Maddie shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Gracie opened her mouth, but Charlie squeezed her shoulder and she snapped her lips shut.

Maddie didn’t know what the hell was going on and, at the moment, didn’t care. She had Mitch to worry about.

And Steve.

A slow throb pounded at her temples. Unable to help it, she looked out the window, her gaze roaming up and down Main Street. Searching.

“Hello, Maddie,” a deep male voice said behind her.

Her stomach dropped like a lead weight. She slowly turned. “Hello, Steve.”

While she felt like she’d lived a lifetime since she’d last seen him, he looked remarkably unchanged: composed as ever with his blue-eyed, sandy-haired boy-next-door good looks. His tall, lean frame was immaculately dressed in a white shirt and khakis. No stress showed in either his face or stance. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect to find you so easily, but here you are. It must be my lucky day.”

Bile rose in her tight throat and she didn’t dare look at Charlie and Gracie sitting across from her, far too quietly. “What are you doing here?”

Steve smiled, a calm, easy smile. “I’m here to claim my runaway bride.”

God, reality was a cold, cruel bitch.

Chapter Seventeen

There was no more hiding. No more running. Fate had taken the choice out of her hands and now she had to do the right thing. Maddie glanced over at Charlie and Gracie.

Maddie could not, would not, have this conversation in front of them. She cleared her throat. “Can you excuse us? I’ll go outside with Steve.”

“No.” Charlie’s voice had a flat, do-not-fuck-with-me tone.

“I’ll be fine,” Maddie promised. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jean shorts and jutted her head toward her ex-fiancé. “I owe him.”

“I’ve been taking care of her since she was fifteen. She’s perfectly safe,” Steve said, his tone calm and reasonable, as though she’d misbehaved at the church picnic instead of running out on their wedding.

Gracie shot a nervous “do something” look at Charlie, who assessed Steve like he was a murder suspect. Long, tense moments passed before he shifted his attention to Maddie.

She nodded slightly in response to the clear question in his black eyes.

“All right,” Charlie said, as though he had every right to the final say. He turned his body so Steve could not miss the silver star on his chest. “Stay where I can see you.”

“I’m not here to cause any trouble, Officer,” Steve said pleasantly. “I only want to speak to my fiancée.”

Maddie cringed at the word.

“Sheriff,” Charlie corrected. “And stay where I can see you.”

“Not a problem.”

He was so agreeable that Maddie experienced an almost irresistible urge to smack him, which was completely childish and wrong.

Steve smiled at Charlie. “Her family and I have been worried sick. I’m sure you can appreciate me wanting to make sure she’s safe, can’t you, Sheriff?”

Charlie’s only response was stern, narrowed eyes.

Guilt at the mention of her family sat like a rock in her stomach, and Maddie cursed herself for taking the easy way out yesterday by not calling them. She rubbed her temples. She had to stop this avoidance. It solved nothing. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Maddie scrambled from her seat. “Let’s go, Steve, and we can talk.”

He took her elbow. She walked toward the front door and at the same moment he pulled her toward the back booth. They stopped and stared at each other. The clatter of dishes and din of patrons was too loud, making her hyper-aware of the spectacle they made and reminding her that she was the subject of gossip. She pointed at the door. “Let’s go outside.”

“It’s ninety degrees and humid. I’m not going to have this conversation on a sidewalk,” Steve said, his grip tightening slightly on her arm.

He was right. The sidewalk wasn’t the place, and while the middle of a crowded diner wasn’t either, the only other option was his car. And there was no way in hell she wanted to be alone with him.

She went.

Once they’d reached the empty back-corner booth next to the kitchen, Steve let go of her arm and she slid into the red vinyl bench seat.

Maddie’s stomach churned the black coffee she’d been drinking.

The pink-streaked-haired waitress ran over. “Hi, like, what can I get you?”

“Nothing,” Steve said, not bothering to give Maddie a chance to answer. The girl’s face fell and she walked away, albeit much more slowly than before.

When she was out of earshot, Maddie folded her hands on the table and looked directly at Steve. She’d known him almost half her life, and yet, in some ways he was a stranger. She cleared her throat. “Steve, I’m sorry for what I did and how I left. It was unforgivable, but as I told you on the phone, I don’t want to talk.”

“Do you honestly think I’m going to let you walk away without a word?”

“There’s no
letting
me,” she said. Her temper sparked and she shoved it back down. “I told you I need time alone.”

He shook his head. “For what? So you can talk yourself into some notion about how you’d be better off without me?”

“Steve, pay attention,” she said, her voice a too-loud whisper. “I ran out of our wedding. Call me crazy, but that’s a problem.”

His lips pressed together. What might have been anger flashed over his expression before a veil of calm slid over his features. “Pre-wedding jitters.”

“It wasn’t jitters.”

Flat blue eyes fixed on hers and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “This isn’t productive.”

Irritation jabbed like a knife in her stomach. She took a deep breath, crossing her arms. “How did you find me?”

“Is that important?”

“Ah yes, the credit cards.” Earl’s was the last place she’d used the card before it had been declined. She wanted to rage at the blatant manipulation, but didn’t see the point. He’d never admit it. She squared her shoulders. “I want my files back. I’ll ask Penelope to pick them up as soon as possible.”

He clasped his hands on the Formica table. “Did you expect me to not fight for you?”

Maddie looked away, staring fixedly at the framed nineteen-fifties advertisement for ice cream. “I don’t know what I expected. I only know this isn’t right.”

“It’s fine, Madeline. You’re being dramatic.”

“Steve, look at me.” She waited until he met her gaze before she continued. “I’m not fine. Please, I don’t want you here. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t I deserve a chance to talk to you?” There wasn’t one thing about him that looked out of sorts. He didn’t even have dark shadows under his eyes.

“Yes, you do.” Needing something to do with her hands, she grabbed a napkin. “We can talk when I get back, but not now. I need time to think.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re acting like this after everything I’ve done for you.”

She twisted the white paper around her fingers, tugging tightly. “What exactly have you done for me?”

He raised a brow. “You want a list?”

“No, forget it.” He didn’t understand. She wasn’t talking about taking care of her or picking up her dry cleaning. She was talking about
her
. She hugged herself, wishing for Mitch. “I was selfish and I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

“Let’s put it behind us.”

Stunned, she could only stare openmouthed at him. “Steve. Listen. I left you in the worst way possible and you’re not even asking why. Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right, why?”

“You don’t even care, do you?”

“Of course I care,” he said, his voice conveying the ultimate patience. “But I already know why.”

She could not believe this. “And tell me, what are my reasons?”

“You were nervous. Plain and simple. You would have been fine as soon as you walked down the aisle. You were stressed out and overwhelmed because of all the wedding details. As soon as we were married, all the pressure would have been off and everything would have been fine. If you’d only stopped to think it through, I’d be on a beach in Hawaii instead of being forced to chase you down at some crappy diner in the middle of nowhere.”

He didn’t know the first thing about her—not the real her. That had been her fault for letting things go for so long. She tore the napkin in two. “It was more than nerves. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating.”

“It was a panic attack. With your history, you should know that.”

She’d suffered the attacks the first year after the accident, and they weren’t the same as what she had gone through on her wedding day. “No, you’re wrong. And even if you’re not, I don’t think having a panic attack on your wedding day is a good sign.”

“It happens all the time,” he said, reasonably.

“Shouldn’t I have been happy?”

“You were fine until that day.”

“I wasn’t. Every day, my anxiety got worse.”

“If you were so distraught, why didn’t you talk to me?”

It was the million-dollar question. If only she hadn’t been so afraid, so worried about everyone else, she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place. She’d been wrong and she owed him the truth. “I didn’t think you’d listen.”

“I always listen to you.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s the point. You don’t.”

“Give me one example.” His lips formed a thin, hard line before he took a breath and seemed to visibly compose himself.

She could give him a hundred, but settled on the most compelling. “I told you I didn’t want to get married.”

“You needed a push,” Steve said, the first threads of irritation lacing his tone.

She started shredding the napkin. “I specifically told you I wasn’t ready. There were things I wanted to do, but you shrugged me off. You didn’t listen. You pacified my feelings, then proposed to me a month later in front of God and everyone at my aunt and uncle’s anniversary party. You called me up on a stage, got down on one knee, and gave a speech guaranteed to make every woman in the room cry.”

He shook his head, staring at her as though completely dumbfounded. “I gave you a memorable proposal that women live for. How is that wrong?”

She balled up the ripped-to-pieces tissue. “You made it impossible for me to say no.”

His brows furrowed as his jaw hardened into a stubborn line. “You had us stuck in dating hell, what did you expect me to do?”

“You emotionally manipulated me.”

“No. I took control of the situation. What difference does six months or a year make?”

The temper she’d been containing for years rose to the surface. Through gritted teeth, she said, “The difference was I wasn’t ready.”

“We weren’t getting any younger and you were stalling.” He smoothed a hand over his blond hair. “I pushed you. So what?”

She closed her eyes and counted to five before opening them again. “So nothing. It’s over. We’re over.”

His gaze narrowed, the blue glinting. “You’ll have to do better than me nudging you down a path we were already on.”

She blew out a breath and said softly, “I wasn’t happy. Isn’t that a compelling enough argument?”

“You should have come to me when you started having doubts. You know sometimes you get depressed.”

She wanted to scream at him that she’d only been depressed when her father had died, but that wasn’t the point. “And what if I’d come to you? Then what?”

“I could have fixed things.”

With those five little words, everything about their relationship became crystal clear. He didn’t love her any more than she loved him. He’d needed something to fix and she’d been broken. Only she was tired of the pattern and he still wanted to force her into the mold. “I don’t want to be your project anymore.”

“Don’t be silly.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“I don’t think you even like me.” Like most profound revelations, it was painfully obvious, once one was smacked in the face with the truth.

“That’s preposterous. I love you.”

“Name one thing you love about me.”

His knuckles whitened as he clasped his hands tightly together. “You’re acting crazy. I love everything about you.”

“You can’t do it, can you?”

“Of course I can. If I didn’t love you, why did I stick with you all these years?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to answer that for yourself.” That was his job to figure out, but she knew it was true, deep down in the pit of her stomach.

“What are you saying?”

“I can’t marry you. Not now. Not ever.” She spoke the words with so much conviction that they rang with a truth even Steve couldn’t deny. “It’s not your job to fix me anymore.”

“I’m sure we can work this out,” he said, but his voice had lost its strength and its smug certainty.

“No, we can’t.”

“Why?”

She met his gaze. “Because I don’t want to.”

All the background noise dimmed and the diner seemed to still as several long moments passed.

He lowered his eyes and stared down at the table.

“I’m tired of playing it safe,” she said, the words gentle with compassion.

He gave a frown, followed by a twist of his lips. “You know better than anyone the danger in that statement.”

It was the first mean thing he’d said to her, and it was like a stab in the heart. It rocked her to the very core, resonating with everything she had understood about herself since her dad had died.

But it didn’t break her, didn’t change her mind.

“I’m not afraid anymore.” To her shock, she realized it was true.

“So that’s it? No more discussion.”

“I’m sorry.”

He took a deep breath, slowly exhaling. “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know,” she said, picking up another napkin and blotting under her lashes. “But it’s no longer your concern.”

“There’s nothing I can do, is there?”

She looked into the eyes of the man who’d been a part of her life for so long that she couldn’t remember a time without him, and she saw it: resignation. Acceptance.

A weight lifted from her chest and she spoke the words that would set them free. “There’s nothing left to do but say good-bye.”