“What the fuckdidyou expect?”
“Guys,” I said to keep the hostilities in some kind of check.
Edward lowered his voice, though it remained directed at Kevin. “I expected to be able to talk with my wife without a go-between.”
He was turning to me again when Kevin fired back. “She isn’t your wife, she’s yourex-wife, and why in the hell would I leave her alone with you? I’ve seen her knotted up so hard she’s in pain. She came here all alone and got a good job and made friends, which was pretty obvious tonight, in case you didn’t notice. She’s finally getting her life straight, and now you show up, bringing herbrother,no less, the two of you just messing her up again.”
Edward stared at him, pale eyes lethal, voice grim. “You don’t have a clue.”
“I think I do. Maggie is my friend. I love her.”
Edward opened his mouth, about to speak. At the last minute, though, he turned from Kevin to me and said, “So. Do. I.”
Utter silence followed. The words were just words. But the eyes—those eyes—Edward’seyes held mine, adding more angst than the words alone could bear.
Kevin must have sensed it, because he said nothing at all, which made it worse. In that split second, I realized how alike these two men were. Both were perceptive. Both were guileless. Kevin’s continuing silence was a recognition of the import of the moment, which made Edward’s declaration all the more real.
Suddenly, I was neither entertained nor mesmerized. What I felt was that awful tightness in my chest, and in my mind, pure panic.
Flattening my gloves over my ears, I broke away. “Okay, I’m done here.” I set off for my car as quickly as I dared, ears covered until I was clear of them, or thought I was. But there came the crunch of boots on the freezing pavement, growing nearer, and Edward’s voice calling my name. I broke into a run.
The footsteps gained anyway, and suddenly I saw myself reaching the truck but making a mess of climbing in and locking the door. So, the instant I grasped the door handle, I turned. He was right there.
“No,” I ordered. “No,Edward.”
“That wasn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
“Do not say another word.”
I pulled the door open and had a foot on the running board when he said, “I meant it.”
“Which part?” I cried, because the past was right back with us. “The part where you asked how I couldpossiblymiss aSTOPsign—or the one where you said, forget theSTOPsign, how could I not see theintersection—or the one where you said that everything changed, that nothing would be the same?” I climbed in. “Leave it, Edward. I had to. Let itgo.”
“We need to talk. I’ll come to your place.”
“Can’t. Liam’s there.”
“Then my place.”
“Oh no. No, no, no. No sex.”
“To talk.”
I just shook my head, slammed the door, and started the truck. But then all I could do was grip the wheel with both hands and try to catch my breath. It had never been as bad as this before. From a far recess of my mind came the echo of a CALM order, but it was too distant to do much good. My chest was squeezing so hard it felt like my heart had nowhere to go but up and out my throat.
Wondering if that could actually happen, what it might look like, whether the truck would be spattered with blood the way my SUV had been that awful fall day, I barely heard the door open. My engine was humming but the heat hadn’t begun to blow, so I didn’t even feel the cold it let in. But I felt the hands. They were large, one on my back, one on my shoulder, tentative but purposeful. And I heard the voice.
“Breathe,” it said with a kindness it shouldn’t have had after what I had done, the pain and the loss.“Breathe,”it repeated, frightened now.
I tried. Really, I did.
But it wasn’t until he said it a third time, with rising panic,Breathe, Maggie,that I managed to drag in enough air to begin to recover. I was breathing shallowly, ragged but consistent, when he pried my hands fromthe wheel and turned me into his jacket, where he held me, rubbing my back.
The jacket smelled of a Devon March night way more than of Edward. But the hands that returned to my back had an Edward feel, and the voice was his. It murmured words of encouragement that blurred together, because individual words didn’t matter, only the tone, which was filled with caring and concern.
“I’m okay,” I finally managed, but it was another minute before I managed to ease back, only then realizing that my gloved fingers were folded over the edge of his pockets. Muscle memory? It had to be. Taking them back, I refolded them on the wheel. “I’m fine,” I said and drew in a long, only mildly stuttering breath to prove it to him. I looked at my purse on the seat, the heat panel, the rearview, anywhere but at him. “I’m leaving now.”
He didn’t argue. After a beat, he stepped back and closed the door. Once he had backed off enough so that he could watch me pull out, I put the truck in reverse and moved. I had no idea whether Kevin was still back under the gaslight, and I didn’t look. I simply focused on breathing, driving, getting home.
