He walked toward the door.
“Wait!” Think, Evans, think! There had to be a way to stop him, to fix this—but she came up empty.
He turned, and she thought she detected a little hope in his face.
“You don’t have a car.” Lame, but it was all she could think of. Maybe if she had to drive him home, that would buy time, and time could make this go away. “At least let me give you a ride.”
“A ride? Really, Evie?” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m not seventeen and drunk on tequila, needing you to hide me from my mama. I’m a grown ass man, now. Grown-ups figure it out. Give it a try some time.” And he was gone—leaving Evans sitting there in the nightgown that she had washed five times so it wouldn’t look new and a pair of skates that always would because they would never see the ice.
Chapter Twenty-Six
If ever there had been a finger sandwich and petit four hell, Evans was in it.
First of all, she’d been late, through no fault of her own. After a sleepless night and a silent phone, the day had dawned with a storm that matched the one in her heart. She’d left in plenty of time and had no trouble finding the address on the invitation. She figured she’d gotten the great parking spot in the driveway of the big Victorian house because she was a few minutes early. After all, didn’t she deserve a little luck?
Apparently not. She was in the wrong place, also through no fault of her own. There was a sign on the door that had been printed out in a whimsical font:
Hello and sorry! Due to the storm we have had a change of venue! (After all, we don’t want mom-to-be out in this rain, do we?) The shower will be held at Channing’s lovely home! Sorry for the inconvenience, but you will get to see baby Grayson’s new room. We can’t wait to see you there!
Due to the hard-to-read font, Evans had to peruse the sign twice before she realized there was no address. Apparently, everyone else knew where Channing lived. She’d trekked back through the rain with her stack of packages and called her mother. Straight to voice mail. No surprise. She would be at Cassandra’s recital by now.
What to do, what to do? Maybe she’d call Jake. Hi. I know you’re upset with me, but would you mind giving me your previous address so I can go to a party honoring your ex?
Yeah. That would go over well. He’d probably never speak to her again—not that he would anyway. At any rate, calling would be fruitless. He was about as likely to give her the address as he was to quit hockey to dance ballet.
For a moment, she’d considered turning around and driving straight back to Laurel Springs. Wouldn’t that have been the irony of the century?
So she’d put on her big girl panties and scrolled through her phone until she found Aunt Cheryl, who was sure to be at the shower and probably wouldn’t answer. But she did. Evans heard the party noise in the background before Channing’s mother tersely demanded to know where she was and if she knew she was late.
Evans hadn’t been so lucky with the parking at Chez Channing. Consequently, by the time she trudged to the massive doors with the stained-glass windows, the carefully wrapped packages were well and truly wet.
Now here she was at Channing’s lovely home—if you liked chalkboard signs that shouted platitudes about love, Edison bulb chandeliers, and Mason jars full of wine corks. She’d arrived during the gift opening and no one had paid much attention to her. She’d just added her soggy packages to the pile and found a seat in the corner, where she’d watched Channing pronounce every little blanket and outfit darling or precious while her posse pandered to her. Did she need more sparkling water? Did she want to put this burlap pillow behind her back?
How did that woman do it? Attract a band of followers everywhere she went? Evans wouldn’t know. She’d certainly never been part of it, hadn’t wanted to be.
Then what are you doing here?
Good question. Daddy had asked her to go, sure—and she was a yes girl. God and Jake Champagne knew that. What if she had said no? Or canceled yesterday? No one, least of all Channing, would have cared. Her daddy certainly wouldn’t have stopped loving her. No, she’d come because she wanted to get good girl points that she was never going to get. She didn’t even know who she wanted them from.
Jake. She wanted them from Jake, and she had sure fixed that, hadn’t she?
She ought to be in New Orleans with Jake right now. Was it raining there? It wouldn’t have mattered. They would have splashed right through the puddles, or holed up in some French Quarter bar where the music was great and the beer was cold.
But it was too late for that, too late for Jake and her.
Or was it really?
Jake was mad at her, sure. Certainly disappointed. Maybe even a little disgusted. She’d felt all those things toward him on occasion, but she had still loved him through it all. The difference was he wasn’t in love with her. But the potential was there, a voice whispered to her. And he was only angry and disappointed because he wanted to be with her. That had to count for something. If she went to see him and told him she was sorry—sorry in the way that she truly regretted what she’d done and would absolutely do differently given the chance—could they get past this? Or would he think it was easy to say you were sorry after you’d done what you wanted?
She didn’t know, but there was only one way to find out.
“Evie? Dear?” Aunt Cheryl interrupted her thoughts.
Evie stood up to greet her, like she’d been taught, and her aunt kissed her cheek.
“It was so good of you to drive up in this terrible storm.” She was probably trying to make up for being short before. “And those girls should have put the address on the note they left at Carrie’s house.”
“It’s fine, Aunt Cheryl. I got here. That’s all that matters.” Except it didn’t matter. Not at all.
“I appreciate that you came and I know Channing does, too. Have you had anything to eat?”
“Yes. It was all lovely.” That wasn’t really a lie. She had eaten in her lifetime, though not today, and she was sure the pretty little tidbits were the best money could buy from the hottest caterer in town.
Aunt Cheryl took her arm. “You must come and see the nursery. You won’t believe how darling it is.”
There was no way she was going to look at that baby’s room. Though he would never know one way or the other, that seemed over-the-top disloyal to Jake.
“Actually, Aunt Cheryl, I think I’m going to slip out.” She gestured toward the window. “The rain, you know.” And I am going to try to mend a fence, a very broken fence.
“Oh, must you, darling?”
Evans almost laughed. She knew that tone and expression. It really meant: I had to ask, but I’m not going to talk you out of it. I need to get on to the next person.
“Won’t you come say goodbye to Channing?”
Evans glanced across the room where Channing was surrounded by women holding crystal flutes and laughing as someone demonstrated how to use a breast pump on a teddy bear.
Evans patted her aunt’s arm. “You tell her for me. I know she must be exhausted and ready for this to be over.”
And she left without thanking her hostess—whoever that was. Miss Violet wouldn’t have approved, but then, Miss Violet wouldn’t have approved of any of this.
It was raining harder than before and lightning flashed, but she didn’t care. Now that she’d made up her mind to try to fix things with Jake, nothing else mattered. The rain could soak her to her underwear for all she cared. The lightning could strike her—well, maybe not that.
She was laughing by the time she got in the car and turned on the heater. This was the first time she’d needed it since last winter. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to say to Jake or when she would say it, but she’d figure that out on the drive home.
She was just about to leave when her phone rang.
She grab
bed it. Maybe it was Jake. But no.
“Hey, Ava Grace,” she said.
“Hey. Are you home?”
“No. I’m just about to leave Nashville. I’ve been to my cousin’s baby shower. What’s up?”
“Oh.” Ava Grace sounded disappointed. “Mama wanted to talk to you about the pies for the gala. She just sprung it on me, and she wanted to ask if you could do it today.”
“When? Obviously, I can’t right now.”
“She suggested that the three of us get together at Hammer Time for dinner, but that’s probably not good for you.”
Evans looked at the clock and calculated the time the drive would take. “I could make it by seven, I think.” That settled the when she would talk to Jake. After dinner, she’d track him down—though she should probably go home and clean up first. She didn’t mind seeing Ava Grace and Emma Frances with damp hair and crumpled clothes, but she needed to feel confident when she talked to Jake.
“That would be great,” Ava Grace said. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Evans said. “I’ll call if I get delayed in traffic.”
“Perfect,” Ava Grace said.
And maybe it would be.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jake swallowed four aspirin and chased them with half a bottle of water.
He hadn’t been drunk since six months ago when the Sound lost in the playoffs, and he hadn’t intended to get drunk last night, but his tolerance was down and one beer had led to another. The empty stomach hadn’t helped. He’d ended up sleeping facedown on the couch in the same sweatpants and T-shirt he’d been wearing for twenty-four hours. Or more. Yeah, it was more.
He switched the TV from the Cowboys/Packers game to The Weather Channel. He couldn’t concentrate on the game anyway. All he could think about was this damn storm and that Evie was out in it.
His doorbell rang. He couldn’t even pretend that it was her. She didn’t have the code to the elevator, and besides, about now she’d be doing whatever women did at showers. He was in no mood for company, but he was in no mood to be alone either, so he moved toward the door. Truth be told, he was in no mood for anything.
“You never called me to work out yesterday,” Robbie said when Jake opened the door.
“No.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “I did not. Sorry.”
“You look bad, Sparks.” Robbie followed him in and back to the den. “You don’t smell too great either. Are you sick?”
Jake sat in the big easy chair and Robbie stretched out on the couch with his hands behind his head.
“I’m not sick,” Jake said.
“Why do you have The Weather Channel on?” Robbie said with some alarm. “Is there a tornado coming?” As a rule, they didn’t get tornadoes in Scotland, and Robbie had an irrational fear of them.
“No,” Jake said. “Not that I know of. They haven’t said anything about it.”
“Then why are you watching The Weather Channel?”
Jake tried to think of a feasible answer, but was too tired to come up with anything but the truth.
“Because Evie’s in Nashville. She’ll be driving back in this if she’s not already.” He paused. “I’m worried about her.”
“Nasty weather to be driving in for sure,” Robbie said. “I wouldn’t want my sisters out in this. Maybe it’s not as bad where she is. What does she say?”
“She doesn’t say anything—at least not to me,” Jake said in a low voice. “We’re not speaking.”
Robbie narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”
Jake bristled. “What makes you think it was me?”
Robbie shrugged. “Just a guess.”
“Well...” Jake took a drink of his water.
“Jake,” Robbie said.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on here?”
“What makes you think anything’s going on?”
Robbie shook his head. “Because there is.”
Jake took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
And he told him—told him all of it, his attraction to Evie, that she seemed to return it, the hiding from Able, and the fight yesterday. He left nothing out, edited nothing to make himself look better.
When he was done, Robbie let out a low whistle. “Can’t say I’m surprised. I could tell you were interested. I just wasn’t sure you knew.”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But it’s a moot point.”
Robbie sat up on the couch. “Let me see if I’ve got this right.”
“Okay,” Jake said.
“This woman, who has been your friend since the cradle, talked to you every night while we were on the road, came to see you play, drove you home, made you a chocolate pie, made you a pizza—” That thought seemed to distract him. “A real pizza, with dough and everything?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Pepperoni and sausage. No mushrooms.”
“I didn’t even know you could make pizza.”
“Did you think it grows on a bush?”
“No. But I thought it was like jam. Or mayonnaise. You buy it. You don’t make it.”
Jake shrugged. “My grandmother makes mayonnaise. It’s about the only thing she makes, but she says mayonnaise in a jar is an abomination. Some people make jam.”
“How about that,” Robbie said with some wonder. “But not the point.”
“Is there a point?”
“Yes,” Robbie continued. “This woman did all this for you. She let you stay over—”
“There was no sex,” Jake said.
“None?”
“No. Some fooling around, sure, but no sex.”
“Fair enough. Still not the point. She agreed to take off to New Orleans with you because that’s what you wanted.”
“But she didn’t go,” Jake reminded him.
“Because she had another obligation, one that it sounds like she momentarily forgot because her mind was on you—what with all the pizza making and hockey watching.”
“But her obligation was to go to Channing’s baby shower. She didn’t even want to go. She always does that—says yes when she ought to say no.”
“So what?” Robbie asked. “We all have to do things we don’t want to, and Channing is her cousin.”
“She was my friend first!” Then realizing how ridiculous that sounded, Jake added, “Not first, but more. She was more my friend.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Robbie said. “Lots of people are pleasers. Better than being a displeaser. I bet you like it well enough when she tries to please you.”
That struck a nerve. Hadn’t Evie said something similar?
“She needs to stand up for herself,” Jake said.
“As long as it’s not to you.”
“You’re twisting this.”
“That’s what people say when they’re not hearing what they want. Can’t you be glad she wanted to live up to her obligation?”
Just then, the lights flickered and thunder shook the house.
Jake grabbed his phone and looked at the weather app where he’d been tracking the storm—not that it mattered. He had no idea where Evie was. He could call, but he didn’t want her to answer if she was driving in this. He briefly considered calling Channing, but to what end? She might think she could control the weather, but that didn’t make it true.
“I might add: if you had changed your little trip to Nashville like she asked, she wouldn’t be in the storm alone.”
He sighed. “Yeah.” Which was what he should have done. In spite of what he’d said about the humiliation and showing his ass, there had been no good reason not to. He liked Nashville. They could have had fun there. He’d dug his heels in because he wasn’t getting his way.
“I would like to point out that you’re going to Nashville—and soon—unless
you plan to sit it out when we play the Sound. I get that Channing is a sore spot for you, but she doesn’t own Nashville.”
That got his hackles up. “I do not have any baggage about Channing. I am over the whole thing.”
“Don’t get shirty with me. I didn’t say you had baggage; I said you had a sore spot.”
“And the difference is?” Though it didn’t matter. He didn’t have either.
“Baggage is like a broken ankle. It will keep you from playing. A sore spot is like a little muscle strain. It’s annoying when you move just wrong, but it doesn’t keep you from playing—or moving on. And before you start denying that, there’d be something wrong with you if you didn’t have a sore spot. Hell, I have a sore spot and she didn’t throw me out of the house on game day and get remarried before the ink on the divorce papers was dry.”
Or make you dinner and have sex with you, and then get up early the next morning and pack your bags. But Robbie didn’t know that; nobody did. Maybe Robbie had a point. Maybe his fight with Evie was about more than digging his heels in because he wasn’t getting his way.
“I wanted Evie to pick me over Channing.” And that was the truth of it.
“Are you fourteen, man?” Robbie asked. “Better question: are you going to keep being fourteen? You had a spat—an argument, a disagreement. You’re acting like she murdered your mum. And, Sparks, I’ve got to say—you’re making too much of this. People argue. If arguing was a sign of the end, I—or any of my sisters—would have never been born because I am here to tell you my mum and dad can go at it. Apologize to her. End the argument. Then get on with this relationship.”
Jake rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I guess I’m still a little stung. But apologize for what exactly?”
“The whole thing, but start with the melodrama. Did you really say to her that it had been good while it lasted and you thought it might have been good for a long time?”
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