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She laughed without humor, the sound tired and defeated. “Why are you doing this? That woman was beautiful and she seemed nice. But most of all, she’s emotionally available and into you.”
“I’m not interested in her.”
Her brows drew tight, her eyes full of apology. “I’m sorry.” She glanced back at her house. “I think I better take a rain check on the movie.”
Stunned, he watched her walk into her house and shut the door. What the fuck just happened?
He paced her driveway, replaying everything that was just said, trying to make sense of it. She used Willow as an excuse, which was bullshit. He pulled out his phone and sent the vegan a text, thanking her for a nice time but explaining he was still into someone else and it wasn’t fair to mislead her. SEND.
One obstacle out of the way. Now, for the tricky part.
Maggie had herself convinced she couldn’t date. Not just him, but anyone. Yet, she wanted to spend time with him. He wanted that too, but it was pure torture being in her presence and pretending everything was platonic. And he didn’t buy her crap about them being in the friend zone. She felt something—
“She feels something,” he whispered and paused from winding up the hose.
That was it. She felt something and it scared her. She’d said before she feared him erasing Nash. He’d sworn that would never be his intention and he meant it.
He had no interest in intruding on her memories. But he also wasn’t going to let the ghost of her past intrude on their future.
He tucked the hose away and scraped the debris from the gutters into the trash. Once he put the ladder away and washed up, he returned next-door. Standing on her back porch, he drew in a deep breath and turned the knob. The door opened.
Chapter 28
The sound of the back door opening drew Maggie’s attention. She paused from folding laundry and listened. Who would walk into her house uninvited? “Perrin?”
She set the laundry aside and stood from the couch, sucking in a breath when Ryan appeared at the doorway to her living room.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“I need to talk to you.”
His gaze moved over all the instruments, stopping on the upright piano. When they painted, she had most of the personal items tarped and hidden. Relics of Nash surrounded him now, and she wondered if he could feel the ache of betrayal she felt at seeing him so close to her husband’s favorite things.
“Can I sit down?”
She wasn’t sure this was the place for them to talk. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong with here?”
She looked at the Fender guitar hanging from the wall. Too much Nash still lived in this part of the house. It was like he could hear them, and she suspected this was going to be a private conversation.
Ryan drifted to the wall and stared at the framed portrait. It was their wedding photo.
Maggie shifted from foot to foot. “I can make coffee.”
Ryan didn’t respond to her offer, his attention locked on the photo. “You were a beautiful bride.”
Her head lowered. “Thank you.”
“You two look really happy.”
Her chest tightened. Why was he doing this? “We were.”
Turning, he gave her a sympathetic smile. “I love you, Maggie. I lied last night when I said I was falling in love with you. I fell a while ago and I can’t undo it.”
Her chin trembled. She wouldn’t allow herself to respond. This had to be about him, not them or her.
“I know you’ll always love Nash,” he said, coming closer to where she stood in front of the couch. “I’m okay with that. You can keep on loving him because your love for him has nothing to do with my love for you.”
He stood an arm’s reach away from her. She trembled with the urge to stretch the distance but forced herself not to move.
“That day you broke up with me,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. “You didn’t run away because we couldn’t make things work. You bolted because things were coming too easily, and it scared you.”
That wasn’t completely true. She also couldn’t get Nash out of her head once she started thinking about him.
“So, when you tell me you can’t be with me and only want me as a friend, I have to call you out. I know what we have is more than friendship, Maggie. I know I can make you happy, if you’d just let me try.”
Her gaze shifted to the piano. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
A memory flashed in her mind, and she could almost hear Nash singing. She closed her eyes and could see his back straight as he sat at the upright. A lost memory came to her then, of him sitting on his piano bench, facing her, strumming his guitar and murmuring the lyrics to Cat Stevens’s Hardheaded Woman.
