by A. J. Goode
He did his best not to think about Maggie. He told everyone that he wasn’t going to watch the Battle of the Brides “reunion” episode that brought back all of the contestants a few weeks after Maggie returned to Chicago, but the truth was that he really did watch it, just to see how he could have missed spotting that Maggie and Maeve were the same person. There were several clips of her, but Maggie herself was notably absent from the live broadcast; Devon Rock was there to give a tearful reading of a statement from her, thanking everyone for their support while she recovered from her “ordeal.”
“So, Devon,” the host asked, “is the wedding still on, or isn’t it? The world is dying to know!”
Sean didn’t know about the rest of the world, but he was trying very hard not to hold his breath while waiting for Rock’s answer.
“For the time being, the wedding is off,” Devon answered, his voice breaking dramatically. The women all went awwww and Sean had to fight an impulse to punch the television screen. “Maeve is confused and frightened after everything that happened to her, and I love her enough to give her some space right now. We’re still very much a part of each other’s lives moving forward from here.”
There it was. Maggie and Devon were still “very much a part of each other’s lives.” In other words, there was no place in Maggie’s life for the small-town firefighter whose career and reputation she had nearly destroyed.
Sean turned off the TV.
In Chicago, Maggie turned hers off at exactly the same moment.
“Hey, I was watching that!”
Maggie smiled at her new roommate and tossed the remote control in her general direction. Amanda was a nice enough girl, she supposed; she just really liked her reality TV. She was constantly after Maggie to reveal the secrets about Battle of the Brides, despite Maggie’s insistence that she was under a “gag order” not to talk about the show.
Taking in a roommate was part of the new direction Maggie was trying to take with her life. She was going to make the money last as long as possible and work her way up to restaurant ownership with no more shortcuts. No more looking for the easy way out.
She’d started by returning to Chez Martine, the last restaurant she had left before signing up for the reality show. It wasn’t much of a job, but it was as good a place as any to start. Lots of dicing and slicing and cleaning up with no real creating, she thought with a sigh as her roommate turned the TV back on. As her father was fond of telling her, “nobody starts at the top.” She was just going to have to accept that starting at the bottom was her only real choice at this point in her career.
Maggie took a quick glance at her watch. She had taken tonight off because she’d been feeling a bit off for the past few days, but there was just no way she was going to stick around the apartment and watch Devon Rock make an ass of himself on live TV. Well, she may not have much freedom in the kitchen at work, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t experiment here at home. She’d been dying to try out a new idea she’d had for a sausage cacciatore dish with a Caribbean flair, and this seemed like the perfect time to run to the grocery store for the ingredients, even though the thought of actually eating the cacciatore made her feel nauseous all over again.
In all honesty, it seemed like the perfect time to run anywhere that didn’t involve listening to Devon Rock or eating spicy food.
She grabbed her purse and keys and opened the apartment door -- and was surprised to see Alexa Hale standing there with one hand upraised, ready to knock. Alex looked just as surprised as Maggie felt.
“What are you doing here?” Maggie asked.
Alex quickly regained her composure. “I came here to talk to you about Sean,” she stated, crossing her arms across her chest.
Maggie glanced over her shoulder at her roommate, who didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was listening to every word that was said. She gestured at Alex to take a step back, followed her out into the hallway’ and pulled the door shut behind her.
“What about Sean?” she wanted to know. “Is he all right?”
“As ‘all right’ as he can be.”
Maggie looked down, willing her heart to slow back down to normal.
“You really messed him up, Maggie. Or should I call you Maeve?”
“No, it’s Maggie,” she said quietly. “Look, there’s a coffee shop not far from here. Would you like to go get a cup of coffee and talk there?”
Alex nodded, and the two women walked in uncomfortable silence to the little coffee shop. Maggie wasn’t surprised to see that the Assistant Fire Chief ordered a plain black coffee, but that didn’t stop her from ordering her usual raspberry latte for herself. Her quest for simplicity in recipes didn’t extend to her taste in caffeinated drinks, she thought, pointing at a secluded table.
“So, you want to talk to me about Sean?” she finally asked.
Hale nodded. “He’s a hot mess, Maggie. Did you know he had applied for a full-time position as a professional firefighter? No? Well, it doesn’t matter now, thanks to you.”
Maggie said nothing.
“Firefighters are held to a higher standard. People have to know that they can trust us in their homes, with their lives. Some departments even have morals clauses. Did you know that?”
She shook her head.
“The garage lost a lot of business because of you,” Alex continued. “Nobody trusts a man with their car once they think he might be a crook. Even though Sean was cleared, his reputation still took a beating.”
“Is this why you drove all the way to Chicago?” Maggie burst out. “To tell me I’m a horrible person and remind me of just how much damage I did to Sean’s career? If so, then you wasted a trip because I already know all of that. If I could go back and undo any of this, I would.”
“There’s more.” Alex’s voice was so low that Maggie wasn’t sure she had even spoken.
She waited.
“Sean’s a good kid,” she finally said. “I’ve known him his whole life. I may have gone through the academy a little later in life, but he and I joined the department at about the same time, and I’ve always made a point of looking out for him. He has a tendency to make up his mind about things and never back down. He holds grudges and doesn’t forgive easily. I’m always worried about him. And Maggie, you really hurt him.”
“I know,” Maggie whispered.
“Do you?” Alex stopped for a sip of her hot coffee. “Do you really? Because I don’t think you do know. Sean’s always been a real ladies’ man. Drives his mom crazy. Dated a lot of girls, but never really seemed to care enough about any of them to get his heart broken. Until you came along, anyway.”
Maggie hardly dared to take a breath.
“Since you left, he doesn’t go out. He goes to work, answers fire calls, and goes home. I even tried to fix him up with my niece, which he’s been begging me to do for over a year now, and he still said no. You did a real number on his heart, Maggie.”
“I never meant to hurt him,” she said.
“Whether you meant to or not, you did. Did you even care about him at all?”
“Oh, Alex, you have no idea!” Maggie pressed a hand over her heart. “Of course I cared! I still care! But I can’t--”
“Can’t what?”
“What do you want from me, Alex? What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go back to Michigan and tell the boy you’re sorry. Let him go. Give him closure, or whatever it is your generation calls it. Say your goodbyes so he can get on with his life. Otherwise, he’s going to run. He’s turned in his resignation again and says he’s moving to Detroit to take a job as a full-time firefighter.”
“He’s leaving Beach Haven?”
“You’ve got to talk to him, Maggie. You’re the only one who can stop him.”
Maggie nodded dumbly. A moment later, she shook her head and instantly regretted it. The latte was not sitting well in her stomach, and the headache that had been threatening all day had settled in with a vengeance. “I
can’t see him,” she whispered. “I just can’t. Please, you have to understand.”
The other woman stared at her for a long moment. Understanding came over her face. “You agreed not to see him, didn’t you?” she asked, sounding disgusted. “They wouldn’t pay you unless you agreed to stay away from him.”
Maggie nodded again and mentally scolded herself. She was feeling decidedly nauseous every time she moved her head, so it seemed like the logical response would be to stop moving her head. But still, the movement and resulting nausea were preferable to actually speaking right now.
Alex Hale leaned closer, looking as though she couldn’t decide whether to be angry or sad. “Don’t you get it?” she asked softly, “He’s fallen in love with you.”
That did it. Maggie leaped from her chair and bolted to the rest room, praying that she wouldn’t lose the raspberry latte before she got there.
When she finally emerged from the rest room, she was surprised to see that Alex was still at their table, watching her closely. “I’m going home,” she muttered, reaching for her purse. “I’m sorry you drove all this way for nothing, Alex, but I’m not going back to Michigan. I won’t hurt Sean any more than I already have. Please, just go back and tell him to forget all about me.”
“Been throwing up a lot lately?”
“A few times.”
“How late are you?”
“What are you talking about?”
A smile spread slowly across the Assistant Chief’s face as she reached out to take Maggie’s hands in her own. “I’ve got three kids, Maggie, and I know a pregnant woman when I see one.”
Chapter Nineteen
Under normal circumstances, the drive from Chicago to Beach Haven took about two and a half hours. In Maggie’s case, it took closer to three because her old Honda simply couldn’t handle the kind of speed required for highway driving. She put-putted along at an embarrassingly slow pace, trying to ignore the dirty looks and obscene gestures of the drivers passing her.
I think I just got the finger from a little blue-haired granny, she thought, amused.
She should have taken the time to get an oil change or at the very least check the air in her tires. But it had been hard enough convincing herself to wait until morning.
Sean was in love with her.
She almost felt as though she could fly to Michigan on the strength of that knowledge. He loved her. He had heard her whispered words in the barn that night, and he loved her as much as she loved him. Screw Battle of the Brides, Lindsay Newman and Devon Rock and all of their very lovely money; Sean Jackson loved her.
She’d begged Alex Hale not to say a word to him, and the older woman had agreed. A moment later, Maggie had thought to beg her not to tell Sean’s mother, and Alex had also agreed to that, albeit somewhat reluctantly.
So here she was, jolting along in a seventeen year-old clunker that rattled and shook at any speed over 50 mph, making her slow but determined way back to Beach Haven to tell Sean the truth about her feelings. To tell him how sorry she was for lying. To explain why she hadn’t come back earlier. To ask him for another chance.
To tell him that he was going to be a father.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she took the exit for Beach Haven and bounced across the old drawbridge on the way into town. There was something about this place that made her feel like she was coming home, even though she had only been here for such a short time.
Pedestrians turned to glare at her as she made her very noisy way down the crowded streets. In the month since she had been here, the tourist season had hit in full force, turning the sleepy little beach town into a buzzing hubbub of people in summer clothes and bright sunburns, carrying too many shopping bags and trying frantically to get their money’s worth of fun out of their summer vacation here.
Maggie wondered whether her car would break down or she would find a parking spot first. One way or another, she was done driving.
She recognized Ronda’s Place and spotted Jackson Auto Repair just beyond it. For just a moment, she debated running into the restaurant first for one of Ronda’s famous omelets; no, she decided, she needed to talk to Sean first. She’d hit Ronda’s after, as long as her conversation with Sean didn’t make her lose her appetite.
Her car made a pitiful little sound when she turned off the engine in the parking lot of Jackson’s, almost like a human sigh of relief. She stepped out and stretched for a moment before making her way inside.
A dark-haired, middle-aged woman stood behind the counter. “Looks like you got your car here just in time,” she observed. “I can have one of the guys take into the back right away.”
“Actually, I’m not here because of my car. I’m here to see Sean Jackson.”
The woman looked her up and down, and Maggie saw the light of recognition in her eyes. For a crazy second, she imagined that she heard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries playing somewhere, and she knew without a doubt that this must be Sean’s mother.
“You’re Maggie,” The woman said.
“Yes, Ma’am.” She held out her hand.
Suzanne Jackson looked at her hand and very slowly raised her own for a quick handshake. “I’ve heard about you. Wondered if I’d ever get a chance to meet you.”
“Is he here?”
“Sure, he’s here. He’s in the back, working. I’ll be sure to tell him you stopped by.”
Okay, then. Maggie hadn’t bargained on having to get past a gatekeeper. “Please, Mrs. Jackson, I drove all the way from Chicago to see him.”
“Next time, you might want to call first and save yourself a trip.”
Ouch.
“Hey, Ma!”
She felt her heart speed up at the sound of his voice ringing out from somewhere down the hallway. “I need you to call Jacqueline Davis and tell her the Jaguar isn’t going to be ready by four,” he called.
“Will do!” Suzanne sang out, shooting her a look that spoke volumes about her opinion of Maggie.
Then he appeared around the corner, and Maggie’s heart leaped into her throat. He was better-looking than she remembered, even with smudges of dirt and grease on his face, and even the bulky coverall he wore couldn’t disguise the body that she still ached to touch.
His smile faded when he saw her. “What do you want?”
“Ten minutes of your time. Please. I just want to talk to you, Sean.”
“I’m busy.”
“Sean. Please.”
“I am not interested in hearing anything that you might have to say,” he said firmly.
She crossed her arms and glared right back at him.
“Oh, for God’s sake, just listen to her,” Suzanne burst out. “She won’t leave unless you do. Use my office to hear her out, and send her on her way.”
“Fine.” He seized her upper arm and half-dragged her down the hallway into a tidy little office, where he dropped into a desk chair and scowled up at her. “You have five minutes, so start talking.”
“Sean, I am so sorry--” she began, but he waved her words away.
“You drove a long way if that’s all you’ve got to say, Maggie. Go home and marry your actor. Maybe you’ll get your own reality show this time.”
She swallowed. This wasn’t going well at all. She’d expected him to be angry, but not this angry. “I’m not marrying Devon. I don’t love him. I’m done with him and Lindsay and all that whole mess.”
“How sad for all of you.”
“Sean, you can’t leave Beach Haven,” she said, trying a different angle. “This is your home.”
He jumped to his feet, towering over her. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he demanded. “You have no right to come in here and tell me what I can’t do. Especially since it’s all your fault I have to go. What did you think was going to happen to me after you used me as part of your little publicity scheme? Oh, let me guess -- you didn’t think it through, did you? Just another shortcut to money and fame, right?”
“How many time
s do I have to say I’m sorry?” she cried.
“A million. Two million. Who knows? I will never be able to believe you. You’re nothing but a liar, Maggie.”
She drew a shaky breath.
“I really fell for you,” he said, more quietly. “I thought we might actually have some kind of a future together. But it was all just a game to you.”
It was gradually dawning on her that she really had wasted her time coming here. He may have loved her at one time, but that love had been replaced by so much anger and resentment that she was just going to have to accept the fact that she had lost him. Still --
“I’ll leave,” she told him. “I’ll go back to Chicago, and you’ll never hear from me again. But don’t let me be the reason you run away.”
“I’m not running away.”
“Yes, you are. Sean, this town is your home. Your family. They love you. Okay, so a couple of buttheads believed a bunch of stupid lies, but this --” she waved her arms to include the garage and the small town “-- this is where you belong. This is what you’ll be leaving behind if you go.”
He crossed his arms and continued to glare.
“I’ve spent my whole life running away whenever things got too difficult,” she said quietly, more to herself than to him. “I’ve been looking so hard for the next big break, the next opportunity, that I never took the time to finish anything. I never needed reality shows or lots of money; I just needed to be strong enough to do the right thing, to stick with something, anything, just once.”
She felt hot tears building up in her eyes as she looked up at him again. “Sean, you do the right thing all the time. You’re strong enough to make the right choices, and you’ve got a whole town full of people who will stand behind you, no matter how long it takes you to get back on your feet. If you run away now, you’re just . . . taking the easy way out. A shortcut. You’re acting just like me. And you deserve better than to be like me.”
“Maggie--”
“Don’t. I only came here to say good-bye because I didn’t get a chance before now. I’ll go back to Chicago and I’ll stay out of your life. Just promise me that you’re not going to run away from Beach Haven because of what I did to you.”