“Nothing …” Maggie shrugged, looking down at her handbag in her lap.
“Can I ask you something?” Evan’s tone was cautionary, tentative, suddenly void of its usual cocky timbre, and that made her head snap up.
“Me?”
He chuckled under his breath. “No. The other person in the truck.”
She deadpanned which only made him laugh out loud.
“Sorry,” he apologized half-heartedly, clearing his throat, and that smile made way for a slight crease to pull between his brows, his jaw fixed tight as he watched the empty road straight ahead. “Yesterday,” he started, but didn’t continue.
She noticed his grip on the steering wheel turn a little tighter and immediately she knew exactly what he wanted to ask. With dread settling low in her belly, she closed her eyes. “Yeah?”
He hesitated before finally saying, “If you ever need to talk, you can trust me. You know?”
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel him watching her. Slowly, she forced her lids open, and looked at him, meeting that weighty blue gaze.
“Thanks,” she said softly, clearing the lump from the back of her throat. “I’ve been going through so many confusing emotions this morning.”
“Like what?”
She turned, looking out the window as the side of the road whizzed past, the pine trees blurring into a dark green haze. “I thought telling someone would make it easier, somehow. Would make me feel like I’m not suffocating anymore. But … it hasn’t.”
“Why?” Evan asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s like I’m trapped by my past. And I want to move on. Hell, I moved my kids across state line to try to get away from it, but it’s like it’s followed me here. I feel like I’ll never get away from it. Tom will always have one up on me. It’s almost like … almost like he planned this. Which I know sounds ridiculous and jaded, but … I don’t know.” With a hard sigh, she glared out at the horizon, knowing her words were ridiculous but standing by every one of them regardless. The truth was she did feel trapped. Trapped by the thoughtless, unspeakable actions of her dead husband.
“I wish I’d never found out,” she admitted so softly she wasn’t sure Evan would hear her. But he did. She could feel his gaze settle on her again. “I’d rather the pain of missing him than this-this hollow, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I could have eventually learned to live without him. To move on from that pain. But this betrayal, it’s just …” She shook her head again as infuriating tears burned her eyes. Tears of anger. And that only frustrated her even more, swiping, almost violently, at the solitary tear that had broken free.
Suddenly they stopped. Confused, Maggie looked up to see they were pulled over on the shoulder of the highway, a big road train sped past them; dust and dirt swirled up into the air as it thundered past causing Evan’s truck to tremble.
Maggie glanced across the cab, finding him sitting there staring straight ahead, hands casually resting on the steering wheel, an impassive, unreadable expression masking his face.
“W-what are we doing?” she asked while furtively looking around. It was dangerous to be parked in such a way; she was worried another big rig might speed past and crash into them.
Evan shifted in his seat, turning to her. But his eyes avoided hers, his stare empty and hollow, looking over her shoulder and focusing out the passenger window as he scrubbed a hand over his face.
“My fiancée left me,” he finally said, and his voice was raw and gruff, like the words hurt to say them out loud.
Maggie started at him, shocked by his confession. Fiancée? Evan was engaged? Wow. She pretended not to notice the brief twinge of what she could only describe as jealousy fluttering in her belly. She was being absurd. Evan had been engaged. So what? His fiancée left him. He wasn’t engaged anymore. Was that it? Was that the secret he’d been hiding that had been driving him crazy?
“She left me … at my worst.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Then he looked at Maggie, and she witnessed that same flash of heart-wrenching sadness in his eyes, a sadness she was familiar with. “Don’t let him win, Maggie.” He shook his head, his eyes hauntingly sincere. “Don’t let him win because if you do, you’ll be the one paying for the rest of your life. Trust me.”
Evan turned away, and with a hard sigh he shifted the truck into gear and pulled back out onto the highway. Maggie watched him, studied how his overwhelming sadness and anger, which so obviously tormented him, radiated from him.
His fiancée left him. At his worst? She wondered what that meant. His worst. Was that the reason he quit his career in baseball and returned to Jewel Harbor? Was that the reason behind his sadness? Perhaps they had a little more in common than she’d first anticipated. She wanted to ask him more. She wanted to know more because she had a feeling he was battling with more than just being left by his fiancée. But she didn’t want to pry. So, she remained quiet. And together they continued along the highway in silence, with nothing but the sound of the Foo Fighters playing through the cab of the truck.
***
Maggie had never been into a Home Depot before. Walking through the automated doors, she stopped in the entry, taking in the ginormous shelves stacked way up high, full of items she didn’t need yet which automatically captured her attention. She continued into the sprawling store in a wistful daze, like a kid in a candy store.
“Anything else you need while we’re here?” Evan asked.
The moment between them in the truck was quickly forgotten by the time they began navigating their way through the busy streets of Manchester. Evan had suddenly broken the overwrought silence by yelling at a driver who had pulled out in front of him without any indication, and Maggie couldn’t stop herself from laughing as his fist waved in the air. It was her laughter that made Evan crack a smile. They’d continued through the small city, Evan pointing out all the main attractions. Maggie stared longingly at the big-name chain stores she hadn’t realized, until now, she’d missed in the little time she’d been away from the city.
“I was hoping to grab some paint for my bedroom.” She looked up at him, her brows raised in hope, like he might possibly tell her no. “But if you don’t have time, I can just—”
Evan cut her off, pointing straight ahead and, following the direction of his forefinger, Maggie’s eyes lit up at the huge wall of paint swatches, her jaw dropping at the display.
“Wow …” She sighed, staring up at the myriad colors and shades, completely spoiled for choice. She’d heard all about this place, but she never knew it was the stuff dreams were made of.
Picking up two swatches of the colors she’d been deliberating for days online, she stared at them closely, studying them with pure determination.
“What do you think?” She turned to Evan who was busy sneakily taking the color samples and swapping the names around while chuckling to himself. “Evan!” she chided, trying not to laugh herself. “You can’t do that!” She looked around to make sure management weren’t coming to kick them out.
Evan flashed her a wicked smirk, then stood back and folded his arms over his chest while he glanced innocently up toward the metal beams hanging high overhead.
Maggie rolled her eyes at him, holding the two samples up. “Pale Mist?” She indicated the card in her left hand. “Or Endless Dusk?” She held the card in her right hand slightly higher.
With a pensive look in his eyes and a deep crease etched between his brows, Evan looked from Maggie to the swatches and back again, meeting her eyes with a wry expression. “Maggie, both these colors are exactly the same.”
Maggie looked down at the cards in her hands, shaking her head. “No. No they’re not.” She moved next to him, holding up the Endless Dusk. “There’s more of a blue undertone to this. See how when the light hits it at just the right angle it’s almost as if it shimmers like a d—” She looked up and paused. A glaze had fallen over his eyes as he stared at her, and she knew immediat
ely she’d lost him.
Shaking her head again, she placed the Endless Dusk back into its holder. “Never mind. I’ll go for the Pale Mist. It’ll look better against the Casper White and the Mocha Latte.”
Evan snorted with laughter but she ignored him. She clutched the card tight as she headed toward the paint counter to get a tin made up. On the way, she noticed rows and rows of wallpaper and made a beeline for the display. Evan chuckled to himself as he followed closely behind.
“Sorry, I’m in my element, here.” Maggie laughed over her shoulder, moving to a black and white striped paper she could envision lining the bottom half of the wall in her front sitting nook. She continued, rifling through the paper samples. “I redecorated our whole house a few years back. It featured in a magazine. But I never actually got to come to a place like this. And, despite having little to no interest in it whatsoever, Tom had the final say over everything I did. I never had full rein.” She felt her shoulders fall at that admission, something she’d never confessed to anyone before.
“He sounds like a bit of dick, if you ask me,” Evan said before quickly adding, “No offense.”
Maggie looked back at him. “You know, I’m only now starting to see him for what he truly was.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved him. But the lanky, slightly awkward boy I fell in love with in college was a far different person from the man he ended up becoming. And now that I know the truth, it’s like the smoke screen is finally lifting.” She turned and continued down the aisle, glancing blankly at the shelves. “Before I discovered he was cheating, I thought our marriage was perfect, but now …” She shrugged again, flashing Evan a sardonic smile. “Well, they say hindsight’s twenty-twenty, right?”
Evan nodded with a noncommittal shrug. “Sometimes.”
Maggie glanced at him, finding something there behind his murmured response, but before she could question him, they were interrupted by a Home Depot worker, asking if she could be of any service.
“Yeah, we need a couple gallons of this gray paint,” Evan said, taking the card from Maggie and handing it to the woman.
“It’s Pale Mist,” Maggie corrected him, pointing to the name on the back of the card the woman was now holding.
“Light gray.” Evan retorted with a smug smile.
Maggie balked, narrowing her eyes at him and laughing once under her breath. “It’s so not light gray.”
The woman looked between the two of them with a knowing smile before turning and heading off toward the paint counter. Maggie and Evan glanced at one another and suddenly started laughing at the same time before following the lady.
***
Bucky, an old school friend of Evan’s and a plumber from a few towns over, had been and gone. And a few hundred dollars down—a quarter of the cost she would have paid anyone else—Maggie had running water again, just in time for the boys’ showers before bed.
After their trip to the Home Depot, Evan and Maggie had stopped for lunch at a small diner about halfway back to Jewel Harbor, in a tiny town of two hundred people. There, they’d talked more over burgers and sneaky lunchtime lagers.
Maggie asked Evan about his baseball career. He was humble, but uncharacteristically curt at the same time. She could tell he didn’t really like talking about himself. Or perhaps it was his past he didn’t like talking about. He told her he’d studied business in college while playing ball, and that he’d always dreamed of playing in the Majors but, in his words, it just hadn’t worked out. When she asked what happened, he swiftly and seamlessly steered the topic of conversation back to Maggie and her love of interior design.
“Have you ever considered going back to school?” he asked. “You know it’s never too late.”
She laughed it off, but of course she had considered going back to school. Every day for the past sixteen years. She’d even looked into online courses a couple years back when TJ had started school and she found herself with several hours free each day. But Tom had somehow managed to convince her, over the years, that interior design wasn’t a real career. It was a hobby. And it was more important for her to stay at home and raise their sons than worry about some fickle little hobby.
“You obviously love it,” Evan said, adding with a teasing smile, “I ain’t ever seen anyone look at a wall of paint samples the way you did back at the Home Depot. Serious heart-eyes.”
Maggie could feel her cheeks flush.
“You should do what you love.” Evan nodded, finishing his beer, but then he fixed her with a look she hadn’t been expecting, one that felt as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. In a whispered voice, he said, “He can’t stand in your way anymore.”
***
Hours later, a storm raged outside. Save for the thunder, rain and the incessant cracks of lightning, the house was silent. Both boys were in bed after their successful first days at school, and Maggie moved to the couch and settled with a mug of hot tea. Pulling her laptop onto the pillow on her lap, she began searching courses.
The community college offered a degree in interior design, and she would be able to use the credits she’d earned from her freshman year at Rhode Island as recognized prior learning on her admissions application. That would take the three-year course down to a year and a half. She read the information thoroughly, studying all the photographs. They offered workshops and online courses. They even had a staging studio; it was all very legitimate. She smiled, and, for the first time in a long time, her heart raced with healthy anticipation.
She hesitated as her mouse hovered over the submit button. What was the harm in having an application pack sent out to her in the post? But then, as a loud crack of thunder boomed right over the house, reality reared its ugly head. And that smile faded, as did the racing of her heart.
Who was she kidding? She was a thirty-six-year-old with two kids. She couldn’t go back to college with a bunch of high school graduates. She had to focus on her boys and their college educations. She had to earn money to put food on the table. Going back to school was a dream she gave up years ago, one that was unrealistic and a little selfish, given their current predicament. She appreciated Evan’s enthusiasm and encouragement, but it was time to get real.
Maggie shut the laptop and placed it onto the couch cushion beside her. Taking a sip from her tea, she closed her eyes and exhaled a heavy breath, hoping the sound of the pouring rain might lull her into a false sense of assurance. This was her life now. They had a roof over their head. Her boys were safe. She was taking care of business. That was all that mattered now.
Chapter 21
The following few days went by in a blur. The weather was temperamental, alternating between sunshine and rain; there was no in between. Maggie’s days played out on repeat. One after the other. She woke up, cooked breakfast, took the boys to school. She came home, did as much of the house repairs and works as she could in the hours between nine and three-thirty. She showered, collected the boys from school, came home, cooked dinner, and then she spent her nights either relaxing in front of the television with TJ, or nestled in bed with a good book after the boys had gone off to sleep. Until the house was exactly how she wanted it to be, those were her days. If it took her forever, she didn’t mind.
Evan didn’t stop by on Tuesday. Maggie had assumed it was because of the inclement weather; there wouldn’t be a lot for him to do at the house in the pouring rain. Or perhaps he’d been too busy with work. On Wednesday, when the sun was shining, she wondered if he might stop by to put up the screening she’d bought at Home Depot. But he didn’t. She hadn’t heard from him. By the time Thursday rolled around, and the rain had settled in once again, she found herself wondering if she was ever going to hear from him again. She spent every free moment going over their day together in her head, wondering if she had said or done something that might make him not want to see her again. She hoped not. Not only had he been a huge help to her with all that he’d done around the house, if she was being honest, she kind of l
iked just having him around.
On Friday morning, Maggie decided to stop by Jane’s Café after dropping the boys at school so she could grab a coffee on her way back to the house to continue painting her bedroom.
The bell above the door jingled as she stepped inside. It was a lot busier than she’d seen it in the few times she’d stopped by. Two men, fishermen by their appearance, were perched at the counter drinking coffee and talking between themselves. A man dressed in a suit was sitting in a booth reading a newspaper while talking on his cell phone. Two women were sitting by the far window, gossiping over cake.
Maggie smiled as she continued to the counter, pulling out a stool at the far end. Moments later, Jane came out through the swinging doors from the kitchen, carrying a plate of waffles, a cordless phone perched between her ear and her shoulder. She looked flushed and breathless, and run off her feet. Maggie felt bad for her as she watched her place the waffles in front of one of the men at the counter.
“Excuse me, Miss?” The man in the suit called out with an abrupt tone that caused Maggie to look at him.
“Sorry, just a moment.” Jane held up a finger, going back to her phone call.
The man in the suit huffed, dramatically flicking through the pages of his newspaper.
“Janie?” One of the older fishermen held his hand in the air, waving at Jane as she hurried past. She made an exasperated face, as if something had just dawned on her, and she returned with a knife and fork wrapped in a paper napkin, handing it to him with an apologetic smile.
“What do you mean you forgot to process the order?” Jane released a heavy sigh before disappearing into the kitchen. She returned moments later with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, placing it in front of the other fisherman at the counter.
“Excuse me?” Suit-man called out again, this time his voice was laced with condescension and he stood to his feet. “I drove all the way from Concord for a meeting. I don’t have all morning.”
Maggie’s brows knitted together. How rude.
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