“I don’t think we really have to worry about that last one, though,” he whispered. “There aren’t any corners left.”
On that declaration, the previews ended and the movie began. Derek didn’t show any signs of pulling away. He sat casually eating his popcorn with his arm around her, leaning in her direction.
Her box of Junior Mints sat unopened in her hand as her stomach had tied itself in knots. Derek’s cologne, the warmth of him next to her, the sound of his voice and the feel of his breath on her ear. She hadn’t been prepared for this.
Just as the on-screen couple had their mandatory contrived misunderstanding, Derek balanced a popcorn kernel on the top of her Junior Mints box. He set another one next to it. Then another.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Uncle Grant isn’t doing anything. I’m bored.”
He tried to fit another kernel on the box, but it fell to the floor.
“Boring is good. It means he’s behaving.”
Derek leaned in close again, his breath tickling her ear. “Did you notice he whispered to her a few times?”
“He didn’t get as close as you are right now.” She turned her head enough to look at him out of the corner of her eye. Having him so close actually scared her. Not in a fear-for-her-safety kind of way, but she felt... worried. “You should set a better example for him. You’re making me wonder if your entire family—”
Derek popped the kernels from her candy box into her mouth, cutting off her words. “You’re interrupting the movie.”
She chewed at the unexpected mouthful as she tore open the candy box. She pulled out a mint and tried so stick it in Derek’s mouth, but he turned away. The candy almost went up his nose.
Madison laughed—she couldn’t help herself.
Derek put his hands over her mouth, though she could hear him fighting back a chuckle himself. A couple people in the theater looked over their shoulders at them. They slid down in their seats in perfect unison.
“This is not very covert,” Derek said. The flickering light of the movie illuminated his grinning face. “We’re gonna get caught.”
Madison bit her lips together. If she laughed half as hard as she thought she might, the entire theater would march over and throw them out.
The onscreen couple made up and broke up again before Madison had herself under control. She and Derek didn’t even look at each other. The first hint of a glance, and they’d start all over again.
As the movie reached the big final, convenient solution to everyone’s problems, Derek broke the silence between them.
“Do we try to sneak out now, before our relatives see us, or do we wait here until we know they’re gone?”
“We wait,” she whispered back.
“So did Uncle Grant pass this first test?”
She shrugged. “He did okay, I guess. You, on the other hand...”
That smile of his did her in. It always had. “I shared my popcorn with you. Don’t I get credit for that? And”—he pointed as if emphasizing the importance of his next example—“I let you shove a Junior Mint up my nose.”
She didn’t hold back the laugh that time.
The theater cleared out quickly, so they were able to slip away. He tossed his almost-empty popcorn bucket in the trash on the way out. It was a typical cool spring evening. She should have brought a jacket. She’d have to remember that tomorrow.
Tomorrow. She would spend another night with Derek. There were certainly worse things in the world.
She’d thought of him many times over the last two years, but had never let her thoughts linger. That night she spent hours doing just that, and found herself walking a dangerous line. Spending so much time with Derek McGee could only lead to heartache. She’d start to remember all the reasons she loved being with him. If she wasn’t very careful, she’d forget all about the pain men always brought into her life, and she would open herself up to be hurt all over again.
Chapter Six
Derek managed to talk Uncle Grant and Teresa—during the course of their conspiracy, they’d switched to first names—into making their fifth “fake date” a walk around Folsom Lake. The night after the movie, they’d gone for dinner at Romanelli’s. That had been interesting to explain to the person who’d seated them:
“We want a seat in view of those people’s table, but where they can’t see us.”
But the ridiculousness of it had made Maddi laugh, so it was worth every moment of embarrassment.
After Romanelli’s, they’d hit the bowling alley, picking a lane as far from Uncle Grant and Teresa as they could.
Last night he and Maddi had made up a lame excuse about him needing banking advice for his insurance office. They’d sat at Teresa’s kitchen table, in full view of the living room and the horrible made-for-TV movie their relatives were staying at home to watch.
Five dates wasn’t exactly rekindling their relationship, but they were enjoying each other again. Maddi was smiling and laughing with him. It was almost as if that night two years earlier had never happened.
He could still perfectly picture the moment. She had been shoving the last of her things in the trunk of that beat-up Altima.
“I took a job,” she’d said. “Out of state.”
“Permanently?” There’d been no warning, no hints that she was getting ready to leave. “Were you going to tell me about this?”
“An opportunity came along, and I’m taking it.” She didn’t even look at him, just slammed the trunk closed.
“What happens to us, Maddi? You’re packing up and taking off without even telling me? You’re leaving the state.”
She pulled open the driver’s door. “It’s just... it’s time.”
“Time to what? To move on?”
She’d kept her gaze on the inside of her car, not even glancing his way. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve told me you love me, Maddi. Did that change?” He remembered so clearly feeling like she’d punched him right in the gut.
“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered and climbed in her car.
She’d driven away, leaving him baffled in the street. Every time she’d come home after that, and they’d run into each other, things were awkward. Whenever she was in town, he avoided her street. Last time, he’d simply left.
But she was here again. And he was here. The awkwardness was gone. Things between them were like they had been before she left.
Being with her that week had shown him something about himself that he hadn’t admitted over the past two years: he still loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. And he only had two more days to find out if she felt the same way.
“Your uncle thinks like you,” Maddi said as they walked up toward the path around the lake.
“What do you mean?”
“A walk around the lake.” She said it as if that alone should make her meaning clear. “Where have I seen that date idea before?”
She remembered. Their time together must have meant something if she still thought about it.
“You realize, of course,” he said, using the conspiratorial tone they’d adopted over the last few days, “that if their date ends the way ours did the last time we walked around Folsom Lake, you’ll have to decide if you’re going to interfere.”
That brought color back to her face. Yes, she definitely remembered that walk.
“Do you plan to stand around and watch them?” He laughed at the picture forming in his head: the two of them ducking behind bushes, spying on the older couple lost in a passionate kiss.
Maddi smiled, then grinned, then finally laughed outright. “No. I’m not going to watch.”
“You trust him enough, then?”
She thought about that a moment as they walked along. “I guess I do. Not entirely, but enough for that.”
“Are you still going to try to break them up?”
She shrugged a little. “Your uncle seems like a nice guy.”
“But you’re still not s
ure?”
She looked exasperated, frustrated. “I am glad he didn’t turn out to be a total jerk, but that doesn’t mean this won’t end badly. I worry about my mom, Derek. She’s been through a lot. I just don’t want to see her hurt. Not again.”
Derek put his arm around her waist and pulled her up next to him. She laid her head on his shoulder—exactly what he hoped she’d do.
“Did I ever tell you how great it is that you love your mom so much?” That probably sounded stupid to her, or cheesy. Still, he was glad he said it. He hadn’t always been good about telling her how he felt. Maybe that was partly why she’d left.
“She called me a ‘helicopter mom’ yesterday.” Though Maddi laughed, he could hear that the comment had hurt. “I don’t mean to hover over her, I just... Her life has fallen apart so many times. I want to save her from that. I don’t want to see her hurt again.”
“I know. I think she’s knows too.” He twisted his neck enough to kiss the top of her head. “But it has to be hard as a mom to need your daughter to come save you from your mistakes.”
Maddi put her arm around him as well. Definitely promising. “It’s not her fault. It’s how things work for us.”
For us? “Men abandoning her throughout the Western U.S.? Breaking her heart? That’s ‘how things work’ for the both of you?”
“My dad walked out when I was a kid. No man has stuck around us since then.”
He stopped in his tracks. No man? Us? “I didn’t abandon you. I didn’t walk out on you, not once.”
She looked up at him. He didn’t see a denial in her eyes. He also didn’t see a defense of him. “Well, no, but—” She bit off whatever she was going to say.
“But what?” He pulled away, looking at her closely. She couldn’t accuse him of walking out on her. She was the one who had walked out on him, without any explanation, without any warning. “I stayed by you. I never even thought of leaving.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, gaze turned away. It was the same posture he’d seen that day by her car. How had this happened again so quickly?
“I didn’t leave,” he said again. “You did.”
“Before you could leave me,” she tossed back. “I left first. I had to.”
Before I could leave? What made her think he ever would? “I didn’t say I was leaving.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s what everyone does. Everyone. And I wasn’t going to let that happen, not with you, not when it would have—” She turned away, walking back in the direction they’d come.
He followed after her. “Would have what? Not when it would have what?”
She didn’t answer. If anything, she walked faster.
“Talk to me, Maddi.”
“I don’t want to.” She kept going, not looking at him, not slowing. “I can’t talk about this, not now.”
“Then when? You’re leaving in two days. I know what that means—that I won’t hear from you for months. That when you do come back, I’ll only see you by accident.”
He grabbed hold of her arm to stop her from running off. He turned her around.
“You left with no explanation. You never told me why. I have wondered for two years what went wrong.” He kept his hands on her upper arms and looked her in the eye. He couldn’t help the tense and unhappy tone. That moment from two years earlier was coming back hard and fast. “Don’t you think I deserve an explanation? After everything we were together, I think I at least should have been told why.”
“Because I had to.” The words snapped out of her. “Things were getting too serious. I didn’t want—I didn’t want it. I didn’t want this.”
“What this? Me?”
She didn’t deny it.
“But we were good together.”
She dropped her eyes. “I know.”
Those two words took the fight out of him. “Then why did you leave?”
“I had to,” Maddi little more than whispered. She took a quick step backward. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head then shook it again. “I never should have come home.”
They had driven to the lake separately, so when she practically ran up the path toward her parked car, he knew she didn’t have to wait for him. She would get in her Altima exactly like she had before. And she would leave.
And, once again, he couldn’t stop her.
Chapter Seven
Mom came in while Madison was packing. “Where are you going?”
“I have to get back to work.” She dropped socks in her suitcase.
“You said you were staying until Sunday.”
In went a pair jeans. “I’m not worried about Grant anymore. And you seem happy, so I’m heading back.”
“What about Derek?” Mom dropped onto the bed. “You two seemed to be enjoying each other the last few nights.”
Had she seen them together? “I don’t know what you mean.”
Mom actually rolled her eyes. “The two of you are great people, but you’re terrible spies.”
Madison sat down next to her mother. “Did Grant see us too?”
“Of course. But don’t worry; he didn’t act any differently than he always does.” Mom patted her hand. “He really is as fabulous as he seems.”
“That’s hard to believe. Our family track record isn’t very promising.”
Madison scooted back, sitting up next to the headboard. Mom did the same. They’d had conversations in that position many times when she was growing up.
“I haven’t made many good decisions where men are concerned,” Mom said. “I’ve gone with the cream of the loser crop.”
Madison could actually laugh a little at that.
“But you have done so much better than I have.”
She shook her head. “You only say that because you haven’t met some of the guys I’ve gone out with since I moved away.”
“You’ve mentioned a few of those dates.” Mom smiled over at her. “Men can be such idiots.”
Madison thought of Derek. He wasn’t that way at all. He was the nicest, most sincere man she’d ever known.
“How many of those idiots did you go on more than a couple dates with?”
“None.” They had fallen so far short of the bar that Derek had set, she’d never wanted to go beyond a date or two. They just didn’t compare.
How pathetic is that? You haven’t had a relationship since you broke it off with him because no one was as great as he was. Pathetic.
“Do you know why I started going with Grant?” Mom asked.
Madison shook her head.
“Because he reminded me of Derek.”
“What?”
Mom turned enough to face her more directly. “I watched you two the whole time you and Derek were together. I saw how he treated you, how he looked at you. And I realized how happy you were together. I wanted that.”
Her mother had never said that before. They’d never really discussed relationships.
“Grant treated me the same way. He was kind and thoughtful. He wasn’t selfish and controlling and...” Mom shrugged. “He was nice. So I gave him a shot.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll hurt you like all the others have?”
“A little. But not because he, personally, worries me.”
Madison knew exactly what she meant. “But because everyone else has.”
“I’m beginning to realize that my mistakes have made you afraid. You’re afraid of being abandoned because your father left, because every guy I’ve dated since then has walked out on me. You’re afraid of being hurt because you’ve seen my heart break so many times.”
She shook her head. “No, Mom, don’t blame—”
“It’s true. I can see that it is.”
Madison pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was afraid. The only emotion that had been stronger than her heartbreak when she’d left Folsom Lake two years earlier was fear. “I love him, Mom. I love him so much that it will kill me when he leaves. It’ll hurt so much,
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it.”
“You would die a little inside.” Mom spoke from obvious experience. “But living without him—how is that working out?”
Madison took a deep breath, surprised by the emotion bubbling inside. “I’m fine. I have friends and things I like doing. And I don’t spend every minute worrying that someone’s going to break my heart.”
“So you’re not really living without him. You’re surviving.”
Madison bent her neck and rested her head on her knees.
“You need to go talk to him, dear. Before you go, talk to him. Before you decide he’s going to walk out on you, find out how likely it is that he’d walk out on you. You might just find out trusting him is worth the risk.”
* * *
Madison had seldom been so nervous in her life. She waited at Derek’s apartment door, trying to decide what she would say.
He opened the door. “Maddi.” Was that a good look of surprise, or a bad one?
“You were right,” she said. “You deserved to know why.”
He looked hesitant, unsure. “Why you left, you mean?”
Madison nodded. He motioned her inside, pulling the door open all the way. She stood in the middle of the living room, trying to gather up her courage. “You’ve redecorated.”
“A little. My parents gave me some furniture when they downsized.” He moved to stand in front of her.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. “I left because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of you.” That hadn’t come out right. “Not you as a person.”
“Then what?”
The confession she’d come to make wasn’t proving easy. Opening herself up more only meant that he could hurt her that much more deeply.
Derek took her hands in his. “I don’t know for sure what you were afraid of—are afraid of. But I have some idea.”
She could feel heat rushing across her face. Making personal confessions was not her favorite thing.
“Do you know how many people I’ve dated since you left?”
Did she know? She didn’t want to know.
“None. I’ve had a date here or there, but not a relationship.”
A Timeless Romance Anthology: Spring Vacation Collection (A Timeless Romance Anthology) Page 16