“See? Probably just closure. Maybe you should just ask her what’s up with this guy.”
Connor had come to the same conclusion over the past exhausting hour and a half. “You’re right. Just put it out there.”
Lamont gave him a long, searching look. “She’s getting to you, huh?”
“Like nobody’s business.” He just hoped he hadn’t already lost her. He gave Lamont a chagrined look and held out his hand. “Thanks for letting me blow off some steam.”
Lamont grasped his hand. “Hey, man. What are friends for?”
Chapter 27
Maddy let loose a soul-deep sigh as Nick pulled from her drive. She had not expected that. Her mind was spinning with all he’d said, the words swarming around her brain like a dozen bees, refusing to settle anywhere.
To further confuse the matter, she wasn’t sure what to believe—if things had happened with Evangeline the way he’d said. If Allison had really sabotaged her promotion.
She decided to put that on the back burner. Did it really matter at this point? And then there was the whole “I miss you” thing. He’d never circled back around to that. But she could see the interest in his eyes, in the way he’d found excuses to touch her as they walked along the shore.
She wanted none of that. It was the only thing she was sure of right now. She couldn’t be with a man she didn’t trust. And she no longer felt toward Nick the way she once had. That had been made crystal clear by his visit. She was glad he’d come, for that reason alone. It had offered such clarity.
She checked her watch. Connor had been off work for over half an hour, but his car wasn’t yet in his drive. She’d been trying to rush Nick along, not wanting an awkward confrontation between the two men.
Movement caught her eye, a car. It wasn’t Connor’s, but the Mercedes. Nora pulled into the drive and came to a stop. Maddy went to help her sisters with the groceries.
“Who was that?” Emma nodded toward Nick’s Mustang, only now just disappearing from view. They must’ve seen him pulling from the drive.
Maddy lifted the trunk and grabbed a handful of bags. “That was Nick.”
Emma did a double take. “NickNick?”
“The very one.”
“Don’t tell me he’s come crawling back,” Nora said.
“I hope you told him to go jump off a bridge.”
Maddy hadn’t yet confessed to losing her job, and this didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. “I’m not interested in picking up where we left off, and I think I got that message across loud and clear.”
Emma nodded in approval. “Good for you.”
“I hope you got to slug him,” Nora said.
“Tempting,” Maddy said. “But he did apologize, and I’ve decided to give forgiveness a try.” She kind of liked the peace that came with it.
“Bear in mind,” Emma said as they walked through the house, “granting forgiveness doesn’t mean granting trust. One is given, and the other is earned.”
Tension sprouted between the sisters as they set their groceries on the counter. The subject of betrayal had once again resurrected unresolved feelings. The tension lingered in the air as they put away groceries. Emma was probably dealing with her residual anger, Nora with guilt that had also morphed into anger over time. What a mess it all was.
Maddy sensed their truce was on shaky ground, and she was afraid to say anything for fear of causing the stress fracture that would make everything collapse.
When the groceries had been put away, Maddy grabbed the burnished bronze cabinet pulls they’d selected from the hardware store. “I like these. They’ll freshen these old cabinets right up.”
“I thought they’d look good with the new faucet,” Nora said in a perky tone, obviously relieved for the tension breaker. “I’ll put them on tonight.”
“Where’s Connor?” Emma asked. “He’s usually here by now.”
“I’m not sure. He never really said he was coming over, so maybe he has other plans tonight.” Maddy checked her phone and saw she’d missed a call from him while Nick was here. “Oh, he tried to call earlier.”
She wandered to the back door as she returned his call. But a moment later his voicemail kicked on.
