by Lili Valente
It just might take a little longer than I was expecting…
After breaking up with Thomas last year things have been pretty quiet in the romance department. Not that Thomas was particularly romantic. He inherited his dad’s pool supply company and spent his days peddling chlorine and water filters, but as a former high school football star, his true passions were following Bliss River High’s football season, obsessing about his Fantasy Football Roster, and yelling at the television with his buddies down at the sports bar. We had a good time when we got together to grill catfish or see a movie, but there were never any real fireworks.
The earth didn’t move.
The butterflies didn’t take wing.
My knees didn’t go soft and spongy every time we touched.
Not like with He Who Shall Not Be Allowed Back in My Thoughts.
Him. Mason Freaking Stewart, the only guy who’s ever made me boil like chicken stock left in the crockpot a little too long.
There’s never been anyone like Mason. And not just with the physical stuff, either. He’s the only man I’ve ever really loved. Maybe the only one I’ll ever love. So perfect that no other man can compare.
Or, at least, he was perfect for me. We just fit and clicked and complimented each other so well, like dark chocolate cake and raspberry sauce followed by a sip of perfectly balanced port.
Until we didn’t, of course.
Until he left, taking a chunk of my innocent, trusting heart with him.
It’s a thought that plagues me in the night, when I’m lying awake in the dark, wondering when my days of sleeping solo will finally be over. What if I’ll never be able to fall for another man the way I fell for Mason Stewart?
No matter how much I adore weddings, and secretly long to be walking down that aisle as a bride, it’s hard to imagine trusting someone like that again.
“I suppose crazier things have happened, but getting hitched again sure as hell isn’t on my agenda,” Aria mumbles, pulling me from my thoughts. “Shouldn’t you two be cooking something? I hear cars starting to pull up.”
Her words have the desired effect. Soon, Melody and I are scrambling to get the black-forest-ham-stuffed puff pastries and other last minute appetizers into the oven and fetching the trays we prepared last night from the refrigerator. Next, we round up the servers from behind the building where they’ve gone to play a few quick hands of poker—they have a gambling-for-leftovers problem—and set them to work carrying everything out to the buffet.
Aria finishes prepping the white chocolate fountain and begins filling round serving trays with glasses of champagne and red, white, and pink wine (because pink is the bride’s favorite color), while Melody works on the sides and I fire up the grill for the steak and salmon.
Three hours later, I’m covered in a fine sheen of sweat and smell like a campfire, but the appetizers and sit-down dinner were a rousing success. The guests are well fed, well liquored, and enjoying the heck out of themselves.
All that’s left is to bring out the desserts and finish strong.
I start for the groom’s cakes, but Melody stops me with a hand on my arm.
“Go on. Go dance with the others,” she says, tugging at the bow on my apron. “Aria and I can handle it from here on out.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, running a hand over my heat-frizzed hair. “I can stay, I—”
“Go. You deserve to have some fun after how hard you’ve worked this week,” Aria says with a rare smile. “And I don’t want any of you klutzes dropping my cakes. I’ll bring them out myself as soon as Manny and George get the fountain set up.”
“All right. Thanks, guys. I appreciate you.” Deciding to ignore the grease stain on my skirt—it will be too dark on the dance floor to see it, anyway—I head for the kitchen door, ready to boogie with my best girlfriend until I succumb to exhaustion. Lisa and I have been dreaming about dancing at her wedding together since we were in middle school and the closest we’d gotten to dating was fighting over whether we’d marry a vampire or a werewolf, if we were the heroine of our favorite teen romance.
I was, and am, Team Werewolf, of course. The undead have their place, I guess, but I don’t want one in my bed. My toes get cold enough as it is.
I hurry across the ballroom where Manny and George—my two oldest employees, the ones who helped me start Ever After Catering three years ago—are setting up the dessert buffet, and out into the warm Georgia night.
Outside, paper lanterns hang laced between the trees, casting the large, dining tables with their centerpieces of gardenia blossoms in an orange glow. Dinner was cleared a while ago, but several of the older folks still sit in their chairs, nursing coffee and chatting, smiling as they watch the younger generations jump up and down on the dance floor beneath the trees.
If I had planned an outdoor wedding in May, I’m sure it would have rained, forced everyone to cram into the too-small-for-three-hundred-guests historic home, and the celebration would have been ruined. But Lisa has had better luck.
Perfect luck, in fact.
The weather was perfect, the ceremony was perfect, the food was perfect—if I do say so myself—and everyone looks like they’re having an amazing time.
Another blissful wedding in Bliss River almost in the books.
It’s always a good feeling, but tonight is super special.
Dodging two flower girls playing a rough game of tag with what’s left of their bouquets, I head for the dance floor. I can see Lisa and Matt in the center, surrounded by friends and family, and can’t wait to join them. All the exhaustion and stress of the day seep away as Celebrate Good Times cranks through the DJ’s speakers and the people I love let out a whoop of appreciation.
It is possibly the cheesiest of all wedding reception songs, but I love it. Sometimes a girl just wants to celebrate good times, and I’m not too cool to admit that.
Suddenly, I’m ready to dance all night.
If Fate hadn’t had other plans, I have no doubt I would have thrown myself into the fray and gotten my groove thing on for hours.
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 happi
ness, 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, frozen like a deer in the headlights across the lawn.
Chapter Two
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. Please.”
“Go away,” she pants, picking up her pace.
“I just want to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you!”
“Then you can just 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.
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 s
he’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…”