By Starlight

by Dorothy Garlock

  Jack frowned; he knew Virginia was right and that he had no one to blame but himself. Still, that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “It’s too late to change things now,” he said.

  “Well…,” Mrs. Benoit said.

  He looked at her, puzzled. “What could I possibly do to make things right?”

  “I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout this for pert’ near the whole day,” she explained, kneading her hands together. “See, while everyone in town’s busy talkin’, flappin’ their gums ’bout what happened, seems to me that the two people who should be hashin’ it out, bein’ you and Maddy, you ain’t sayin’ a word.”

  “She doesn’t want to see me.” Jack shook his head. “She hates me.”

  “You don’t know that for certain.”

  “She slapped me last night!”

  “Maddy’s spent the last seven years wonderin’ if you was ever gonna come back. Part of her was hopin’ you would, while she was also worryin’ what would happen if you did. Hittin’ you and then runnin’ away couldn’t have been much of a surprise. Truth is, you deserved what happened last night.”

  Jack clenched his jaw and looked away.

  “Hard to hear, ain’t it?” Virginia asked.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “but you’re right…I had it coming to me…”

  “And now that it’s happened, the best thing you could do is clean up the mess you made. Find her and talk to her. She deserves that much.”

  Finished, Mrs. Benoit left him to the rain.

  While they’d talked, the storm had mostly blown over, leaving only a few drops still falling from the last trailing clouds. Off to the near west, brilliant shafts of sunlight streamed down, glaringly bright in the aftermath of the summer squall.

  And maybe Jack’s mood had brightened, too, if only a bit.

  If he was able to admit it to himself, he wanted to talk to Maddy again, to try to apologize for last night, for the last seven years, for everything he’d done to her, even if he had no idea what to say. She was as beautiful as he remembered, even more so; the memory of her behind the bar made his heart beat faster. He didn’t know how she’d react, if she’d hit him again, curse him, or just refuse to listen, but he had to try.

  What Jack could never tell Mrs. Benoit, or anyone else for that matter, was that seeing Maddy again meant that he’d have to make a difficult choice: confront her about working at the illegal speakeasy or hold his tongue. As a Bureau agent, he was obligated to follow the law. By arresting her and everyone else involved in the operation he could use her to advance his career. Then he’d leave town and never give her another thought. Or he could—

  Suddenly Jack saw someone running toward the hotel. Just like the night before, he knew exactly who it was.

  Maddy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MADDY SUDDENLY STOPPED at the bottom of the hotel steps, blinking up in surprise at the man she saw standing there, watching her. It looked as if Jack had been waiting for her. Running through the rain had plastered strands of her long red hair to her forehead and face, making it hard for her to see clearly. She nervously wiped her eyes clear as her heart pounded and her breath came in ragged gasps.

  For a long moment, neither of them said a word, things between them as awkward as they’d been the night before at the speakeasy. She’d run over to the Belvedere ready to talk, eager to confront him and get all of the answers Helen had spoken about, answers Maddy knew she deserved, but now, with Jack right in front of her, she wondered if she hadn’t made a mistake.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be here…

  “Maddy,” Jack said, the sound of his voice sending a shiver racing up her spine. Making his way down the steps toward her, he held out his hand and said, “Come out of the rain.”

  Trying to keep from trembling, she accepted his hand and joined him on the hotel porch. Their touch lingered, she was surprised by the warmth of his fingers, but she was determined to shake herself free of their older, more pleasant memories, so she pulled her hand free. He stared at her, but she found it too difficult to return his gaze, choosing instead to look at her feet, the latticework beneath the railing, back out into the dwindling storm, anywhere but into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry for what happened last night,” he began, his voice deeper than she remembered. “I didn’t mean to startle you the way I did…I’d only just gotten into town yesterday and…well…,” he stumbled, trailing off.

  “You couldn’t have known I’d be there,” she replied.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not sorry for surprising you like I did.”

  “If anyone should apologize, it ought to be me,” Maddy said, stealing a quick glance into his eyes. “I slapped you.”

  “It’s still my fault.” Jack shook his head. “I’ve given you plenty of reasons over the years to hit me.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she replied, gaining the courage to tell him the truth about why she’d come. “There are so many things I want to ask you, no matter how difficult they might be for us to talk about, but that shouldn’t—”

  “Wait,” Jack said, stopping her just as she was getting started. “You’re absolutely right. We need to talk, but I don’t want to do it here,” he explained, looking back over his shoulder into the depths of the Belvedere. “We’ve already given everyone in town plenty to gossip about. There’s no point in throwing more gasoline on the fire. We need to go somewhere private.”

  “But where?” she asked.

  “I think we should go to the bridge.”

  Jack’s words struck Maddy like a blow, stealing the air from her lungs. The bridge over the Lewis River, one of the two main routes into Colton, had always been their special place. Since he’d left, she’d stayed far away from it, only crossing when she had no other choice. It was too painful. The idea of returning there with him was unsettling, but she couldn’t fault his reasoning; what Marjorie Kessler told everyone in the bakery, an outright lie, was only a taste of the gossip to come. If they really wanted to talk, if they wanted to be alone, the bridge would give them some privacy.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  “Then let’s go,” he said, heading down the steps.

  With her heart in her throat, Maddy followed.

  Jack led the way around the side of the Belvedere and away from the center of town. It would take them longer to reach the bridge going this way, but Maddy understood his reasons; nothing would cause more of a ruckus than the two of them walking down the street together. Going this way meant they could avoid being seen.

  “Do you remember how to get there?” she asked.

  “How could I forget?” he replied with a smile.

  Maddy looked away, embarrassed.

  As they walked, the rain finally stopped falling. Brilliant sunlight shone from the nearly cloudless sky that followed the storm. Though Maddy had gotten wet when she’d run to the hotel from the mercantile, the sun quickly warmed her. Water glistened on everything; it clung to the leaves in droplets, cascaded in newly made streams down muddy hillsides, and collected in puddles and pools.

  They walked on in silence, as if they were saving themselves for the bridge. Maddy stole a glance at Jack as they turned down a street on the edge of town. She’d looked at him in the speakeasy, but the gloominess of the cellar, as well as the intensity of her shock, hadn’t let her see him clearly. But now, in the afternoon sun, she saw that he was more handsome than ever. Even the way he moved was attractive; he held his head high, confident, sure of every step. It made her blush; she was suddenly thankful he wasn’t watching her.

  The Lewis River was already swollen from the runoff of the storm. Usually a clear blue, meandering along at a slow, steady pace, it now ran muddy and fast. Occasionally, pieces of debris floated past; a broken tree limb, the lid of a crate, even a boot bobbed along, all swept up by the squall.

  As they crested a small rise at the edge of the Pierce property, the bridge came into view. The sun had begun its slow descent beh
ind it; looking up at the framework, Maddy had to shield her eyes from the glare. Though it had been repainted a couple of times in the seven years since Jack left, had one of the railings replaced, and its boards were worn from having weathered the changing of the seasons, to her eyes it didn’t look to have changed at all.

  Maddy couldn’t help but think about all the times she’d come to the bridge to meet Jack. Whether it was surrounded by a kaleidoscope of changing leaves in the middle of autumn, in the dead of a humid summer night, or with the wind blowing a brutally cold winter snow off the Rockies, she’d rushed along the path she now walked, almost breathless with anticipation to be with him. Now, years later and with Jack again by her side, she was still filled with a nervous excitement.

  Remember why you’re here…

  They reached the bridge and walked out onto its worn, wooden planks, the sound of their footfalls echoing off the trees on the other side. Jack beamed, his smile as bright as the sun. He reminded Maddy of a child as he ran his hand along the railing and then up onto one of the support streets, peering over the edge into the water, before looking back at her to see if she was watching.

  “Do you remember when I jumped in?” he asked.

  “How could I forget?”

  It had been a lazy day in early spring. The river had been higher than usual with the melting of mountain snow, but not as turbulent as today. They’d sat together on the railing, their feet dangling over the edge, when he’d wondered aloud what it would be like to jump in. Maddy had laughed; the Lewis was rarely deep, only in springtime and after a strong storm, and was littered with large rocks between the occasional pool. To dive in would be dangerous. She’d jokingly said that he should find out, never thinking for a moment he was serious, but seeing the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, she’d immediately known that she’d played right into his hands. Without another sound, he’d sprung off the railing and plummeted toward the water, leaving her to scream in shock. He had hit the water with a loud splash, come up laughing, and then swum toward the shoreline. He’d laughed walking back across the bridge, but she’d been so angry that she’d made him promise never to do it again.

  “I thought you were crazy,” she said.

  Jack looked over the railing and down to the river. “Maybe you were right,” he said. “It sure looks a lot farther down than I remember.”

  Both of them laughed at the memory. For Maddy, it was comfortable, easy, a happy recollection of how things had once been. But no sooner had she started than she stopped. This wasn’t a time for laughter. She’d spent seven long, miserable years alone, wondering what had happened.

  She thought about the last time she’d stood on the bridge with Jack, a summer night before he’d left for school. He’d promised to return as soon as he could, had sworn that they’d be together, as husband and wife. He’d held her in his arms and told her he loved her. All of it had proven to be lies. That night, she’d admitted her fears, that he wouldn’t come back, that he might find someone else, but he’d told her she was being silly, that he’d never leave her. Yet more lies.

  “Do you remember that other time when—,” he began.

  “Just stop, Jack,” she demanded. “Stop it!”

  For an instant he looked disappointed, but then he nodded, understanding that things between them wouldn’t be so easily mended.

  “Tell me why!” she asked.

  Jack didn’t answer, looking away.

  “I’ve waited seven years to be able to talk to you,” Maddy said, struggling to contain the emotions she’d held back for so long. “Seven years! Whatever your reason, I have a right to hear it! I deserve to know why you never wrote back to me, why you never called to tell me what happened, why you disappeared from my life! Why, Jack? Why did you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t lie to you,” he insisted, his voice calm. “When I stood here and told you that I was coming back, I had every intention of keeping my word. I thought it’d be just like I said…I’d go to school and then I’d come back to you. But then…” He stopped, his voice trailing off.

  Maddy remained silent, waiting for more.

  “When I got to Boston,” Jack continued, leaning on the railing and looking out over the swollen river, “I couldn’t believe what it was like. There were cars and people everywhere, so much going on. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. Whenever I turned around there was something new. Different foods. Baseball. I’d sit in a classroom and listen to a lecture from a professor that made me look at the world differently. Within a matter of weeks, I knew I couldn’t come back to Colton.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?” Maddy shouted. “I’d have listened. I would have understood! We could still have had our life together! All you had to do was be honest and I’d have come to be with you!”

  “I know you would’ve,” he admitted, “and that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “What?” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “If I’d written and told you the truth, that I didn’t want to leave Boston, how I couldn’t return to Montana, and asked you to join me, you would’ve done it in a heartbeat, not knowing that it would make you miserable.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” Maddy asked. “You don’t know that—”

  “Of course, I do,” Jack answered, moving away from the railing to stand before her, his eyes dancing across her face. “I lived here with you for too long not to have understood what this place means to you. It’s your home. It’s where your family lives. This is where you’ve always wanted to be,” he explained, sweeping his arm out toward the forested hillsides and then back at Colton. “You wouldn’t be happy living in a city. Eventually, you would’ve resented me for taking you there; you would’ve hated me for ruining your life.”

  “But you still ended up making me hate you!”

  Jack nodded. “I did it on purpose.”

  Maddy was struck speechless by his admission. She simply couldn’t believe what she’d heard. It seemed impossible to her that Jack would do such a hurtful thing, but his confession said otherwise.

  “Wh-why…why would you…?” she managed.

  “I wanted to protect you,” he answered. “I knew that the only way to keep you from making the mistake of following me was to make it so that you didn’t want to. I had to give you a reason to stay in Colton, so that you’d have a chance to forget about me and get on with your life.” Looking down at her, his eyes were full of such intensity, as if he was pleading with her to understand, that she had trouble returning it, though she refused to turn away. “I couldn’t bring myself to write you a letter filled with lies, so I chose to let you think that I’d abandoned you, that I no longer cared. That way—”

  For the second time in as many days, Maddy slapped Jack’s face. But this time, he was the only one of them startled by it.

  “How dare you!” she shouted, stepping right up to him; unlike the night before in the speakeasy, this time she wouldn’t run away.

  “I did what I thought was best,” he said, his hand on his cheek, the skin beneath it turning a bright red.

  “That wasn’t your decision to make! It should’ve been my choice, not yours!” Maddy chastised him. “And even if I always expected to live my life here in Colton, it was because I believed it would be the two of us. After everything we talked about, after all the promises we made, what else could I have thought? The most important thing to me was that I was going to live my life with you!”

  “But was I the only person that mattered to you?” Jack argued. “What about Helen? What about your father? Would you have left them behind?”

  For the first time, Maddy felt there was a bit of truth to Jack’s reasoning. If she’d left town before her father’s condition had deteriorated, who would’ve cared for him or taken over running the mercantile? Helen was too young to carry the burden alone. As bad as things were now, they surely would have been worse if Maddy weren’t around.

  “Besides,” Jack continued, “your f
ather would never have approved of your leaving. He would’ve come after you no matter where you went, all because you were with me.” He shook his head before adding, “Hell, if he could see us standing here now, he’d run me out of town!”

  “He couldn’t,” Maddy said simply. “He’s too sick for that.”

  Jack frowned. “What?”

  “My father is ill,” she explained, suddenly tired from all the troubles weighing down on her. “His arthritis is so bad that he can’t get out of bed without help.”

  “Wait…,” Jack said. “Silas isn’t working at the mercantile?”

  “How can he? He can’t stand up on his own.”

  Jack looked away, a look of confusion crossing his face. He raised a hand and ran it through his dark hair, then held it against the back of his head.

  “But what about the cellar?” he asked. “Does he know it’s being used as a speakeasy, because—”

  “This isn’t about my father!” Maddy snapped, cutting him off. “This is about us!”

  Just like the first time she’d shouted at him, Jack again nodded. But now, instead of moving away from her, he came closer, gently taking her hand in his own; he surprised Maddy with his tenderness, so much so that, even though she was still upset over the confession he’d made, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

  “I never expected you to accept my reasons,” he began, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand; the sound of his voice and the nearness of him set her heart to thundering.

  “I don’t,” she agreed.

  “I know I’ve hurt you, but I swear it wasn’t my intention. I can see now that I made a terrible mistake. You deserved better than I gave you. I’m sorry for that. Can you ever forgive me?”