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Rick jerked his thumb to indicate the passenger seat upfront.“Maddie, you want to ride shotgun?”
“Sure.”
He smelled of sawdust and coffee.It was addictive, the combo of how he looked and how he smelled, especially now that Iknewhow good his arms felt around me.
I slid onto the seat, closed the door, and buckled in, feeling Rick’s gaze on me.When I turned to meet his eyes, his gaze lowered to my lips, and I felt like he was asking me a silent question.Could he kiss me in front of Jenny?
I leaned in, answering him without words, and let my eyes close as his lips brushed mine.I felt safe with Rick.How many times had that happened with men in my life?
Rick was the first.He’d stormed into my heart, and he could have trampled all over it, but instead, he handled it gently.Handledmegently.
All too soon, although perhaps for the best since we had an audience, he broke the kiss and I had to clench my hands on my lap to keep from reaching out for more.I wanted to grab him and never let him go.
“I’d better get us all home,” Rick said at length, but I felt the heat of his eyes on me.
I pressed my thighs together, trying not to think about all the things he could do to me if we were alone here in his truck, closeted around the back of a row of now-empty shop buildings.
Jenny chattered happily about nothing in particular on the drive home, and thank God, because I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the line of Rick’s thighs in his worn, dark-wash jeans, and the way his throat looked when he swallowed.
I hardly heard a word Jenny said.I was a terrible friend.
We pulled up outside Rick’s house, and I had the door open almost before he stopped, because I was worried about what I’d do if I didn’t get out right then.
I wanted him almost more than I wanted my next breath.
“Thanks so much for the lift.And Jenny, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Rick caught my hand as I unbuckled my seatbelt, and squeezed it for a moment.His was calloused, and Ireally fucking wantedto feel his touch on my bare skin.On every inch of my skin.I wanted him to do everything, anything he wanted.
“See you later?”he asked.“Tomorrow, maybe?”
“Yeah.”I slid my hand up to his wrist, and held his gaze for a moment.His eyes had rings of green around them, and he was beautiful in the early evening light, motes of sunshine dancing around the truck’s cab and giving his hair a tawny, sun-soaked cornfield hue.“I’ll text you?”
“Okay.”
Jenny rolled her eyes good-naturedly at me as I scurried off like some sort of wimp.
Scratch that, Iwassome sort of wimp.
And thinking about my cowardly status reminded meagainof the letter.Fuck, I needed to deal with it.
Before any-fucking-thingelseinterrupted me, I locked the door, grabbed Seb’s letter from the kitchen counter, and tore it open before I could change my mind.
He addressed me as Madeline.He only ever used my full name when he thought I was in the wrong, or after we had a fight.His letter began by him saying he was sorry thatIwas upset by his actions.
“Fucker,” I muttered.Classic non-apology apology.
I had to write, as you have declined to answer my calls.
Had he always been like this?Surely not, I reasoned.It was like reading a letter from the King of England, not the man I knew and had been planning to marry.
I believe I did what was best.We wouldn’t have been able to make a real go of our lives together with you struggling to make a shop space work.
I rolled my eyes so hard that I almost caught a glimpse of my own brain.How did he know I’d struggle?
It would have been long hours, and no guaranteed income.You wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on our family, something we’d talked about a lot.You wouldn’t want to have missed seeing our children grow up.
My eyebrows shot into my hairline.We’d briefly talked about children, but I was thirty-two.It wasn’t even as if I was already pregnant!
