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Sam had left his car at the church. He had to get in it and leave before Brodie and Michelle showed up to get Brodie’s car. Brodie’s vintage red Corvette had belonged to Brodie’s daddy, but Brodie had inherited it and overhauled it to make it look like new. Now it shined like a true Valentine and was covered in balloons, lacy ribbons and a sign on the back that said “Just Married.”
He stalked toward his own car. The dark Camaro looked lonely parked out underneath a huge cottonwood tree. But Sam was all packed and ready to go. An escape plan.
He took one last glance around at the tiny white chapel and the huge live oaks and cottonwoods. Then he looked up the winding street that followed the river, his thoughts too jumbled and confusing to unravel right now. The old camellia bushes and trailing wild roses reminded him that this place had deep roots. The kind of roots he’d never had as a child.
He didn’t belong here.
The long drive home would do him good. He backed the car up and spun out over the gravel driveway. Then he looked both ways up and down the street.
Nothing. No one. It looked like the perfect small town, sleepy and bucolic and postcard ready. But Sam knew all about the undercurrents that ran through here with each shift of that ancient river.
He shifted gears and was about to take off when he looked up and a saw a lone figure moving up the street. Running up the street.
Madeline.
Sam braked, downshifted into park. Waited.
She hurried toward him, her hair falling free from that fancy thing holding it. He rolled down the window and lost his heart. He should get out and grab her and put her in this car with him. But instead he stayed there, safe behind the shield of the car door.
She leaned in, breathless. “You could at least say goodbye.”
“I can’t, Maddie. You know that.”
She nodded, her eyes bright with moisture. “I get it. I really do. You’re not ready to deal with all the baggage I’d bring to a relationship. I don’t blame you.”
He couldn’t deny the truth. He was terrified of messing up again. Of losing her to someone else before he ever had her. “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s about me and what I can’t bring to a relationship.”
She kept on talking. “I’m glad I got to know you, Sam. I’ll always be grateful for your kindness to Michelle. And ... to me.”
Kindness. That’s what she was going with?
He closed his eyes, took a breath. “Why don’t you get in?”
She blinked and pushed at her hair. “What?”
“Get in. Go with me. For a few days.”
She hesitated and then shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“So many things. You know. You saw. Evan has ruined me for other men.”
“So you still love him?”
“No, I don’t love him. I regret him. I want him out of my head. I want to be free of him once and for all.”
“So if you don’t still love him, what’s stopping you from letting go, from being free, Maddie?”
She tossed her hair off her neck, which only made him want her more. “The same things that seem to be holding you back. You don’t really want me to get in this car.”
“You don’t know what I want, Maddie.”
“You’re right. I don’t. And apparently neither do you. And that’s why I can’t go with you.”
She made sense and he hated it. He didn’t know what he wanted or what he should do. But he couldn’t tell her that he did want one good thing in his life. If he could find the courage to make it happen.
Her.
It all came down to him not deserving her, of course. Of not wanting to take on something that might scar him or overwhelm him or destroy him. She wouldn’t do that, but his reactions, his feelings could cause that to happen.
He thought about his own doomed wedding day. He’d never told anyone about that day. Not even Brodie.
He had to leave her behind.
“Okay,” he said, reaching up to touch her face and push at her hair. “Okay, Maddie.” He leaned up and kissed her in a swift branding. Her lips sighed against his, a whisper of a lost promise.
Then she stood back and held her arms against herself in a protective mode, her head down. “Take care of yourself.”
“You know where I live,” he said. “If you ever change your mind. You know the way to Florida.”
“I’ll remember that,” she replied. “If you ever change your mind.”
Then she lifted a hand and waved.
Sam waved back and took off, shifting into overdrive.
He didn’t slow down until he’d reached the interstate. Then he merged with the traffic and headed south toward the Gulf.
Early the next morning, Madeline groaned and pushed at the alarm clock. “I don’t want to get up,” she said into the darkness of dawn. Spike’s little bark indicated he was more than ready for breakfast and his morning potty break.
“Okay,” she mumbled when Spike laid his wiry head on her stomach and stared up at her. She had to get to the boutique. Now that the wedding and Valentine’s Day were both over, she had to focus on the shipments that would come in for spring. A new season full of linen and cotton, perfumed candles and bangle bracelets.
Girly stuff. No big, brawny bartenders allowed.
Sitting up, she heard the coffee maker automatically clicking on in the kitchen, the sound of water heating up giving her hope that she might be able to move up the short hallway a few steps away and actually get on with her day.
But the silence of being alone on a cold, gray Monday morning made her want to pull the covers up over her head and hide out here for a while. Where had all that weekend sunshine gone?
She had missed Sam all night long.
Each time she’d woken up, which seemed to be every hour on the hour, she’d remembered him. His face, so chiseled and rough-edged. His hair, just a tad too long but just right for her to run her fingers through. His eyes, so green and deep, like a vast forest. Or the deepest part of the ocean.
“You’re not a poet,” she said as she grabbed her robe and shoved on her booties so she could take Spike out back for some privacy. Once that task was finished, she headed into the kitchen and stared out the window to the main street of Spirit.
She wondered what would have happened between her and Sam if she’d never mentioned Evan. If she’d just flirted with Sam a little and helped him with that toast speech out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe they would have become fast friends and maybe she would have gone to visit Michelle down in Driftwood Bay, and she and Sam would have naturally become a couple—double dating with Michelle and Brodie, hanging out at the Surf Shack, walking the beach together.
They might have had a chance that way.
But she’d gone and forced him into doing something that hadn’t even mattered in the end. Evan hadn’t come to the wedding after all. Good thing, since most of the family would have hog-tied him and put him on a spit.
She could still do that.
The thought of Evan skewered on a hot spit did make her smile. So did the rich coffee in her cup.
“I’ll be okay,” she told herself and Spike. “I’m a big girl.”
So she had some toast and got dressed and went on with her day. But as she was leaving the apartment, she remembered Sam standing down there on the street looking up at her. And she remembered how he’d come up these stairs and kissed her in his Sam way. And how he’d treasured that cheap plastic cup because it had her phone number on it.
Would he ever call her again?
Would she ever see him again?
It was too early on a gray Monday morning to ponder those questions. She had no choice. She had to get on with things and do her job. Just as she always had.
Only now, her life was forever changed by the best man she’d ever met.
Sam stood behind the counter at the Surf Shack, thinking it probably had been a bad idea to drive the eight-hour trip home overnight. Two hours of sleep wasn’t cutting it this morning.
Nursing his third cup of coffee, he stared out at the marina and watched the few winter charter boats going out for the day. Brodie was usually in charge of one of those fishing boats, but right now Brodie was probably in New Orleans where he and Michelle had planned to make their first stop before returning here to begin a new life in a new home.
While Sam stood here, stagnant and unyielding, in the same spot he’d probably be in for the next fifty years.
Without Maddie.
He’d tried all night not to miss her.
But that was like trying not to breathe.
He wished now that when they’d first met he’d been a little less intense and a little more fun-loving and carefree. They could have flirted, become friends, and left things in a good place where she’d come to visit him and they’d move on from there. Slow and easy and not so overwhelming or confusing.
Now he’d never know what might have been because he’d gone and ruined things from the get-go with his wounded pride and his need to avoid any messy entanglements. He’d been too uncertain, too wishy-washy, too mixed up to make any sense.
No wonder she didn’t want to see him again.
Maddie wasn’t an entanglement. He could easily get wrapped up in her for the rest of his life. No, she was more like a security blanket. He felt safe in her arms, safe and sure and excited and surprised. It was corny, but she made him feel alive again and when she looked into his eyes, she became his anchor. Not weighing him down, but holding him steady in the current.
Too late now for that. And too late for sweet memories of a whirlwind weekend that had left him alone and wanting.
So he smiled at his regulars, gave directions to tourists and stared at a whiskey bottle with a longing he hadn’t felt in years. But Sam knew drinking wouldn’t cure his blues.
Nothing would.
Because he’d left behind the best woman he’d ever known.