Page 83 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

After another long drink, his beer was gone and he stood up, looking over at me as he slid his arms into the sleeves of his jacket. “Are you going to go get her this time?”

I shrugged. That was the only answer I had right now.

Everything inside me was screaming to go after her, to tell her the truth, and to agree to go talk to Cliff with her to see if we could sway him in this decision. She had come right out and asked what if it was us getting married instead, but that was before she’d learned about the money.

As I thought about the look on her face, the betrayal and the hurt, I knew that staying away would give her the best shot at a future with a guy who could give her what she deserved. Neither of them wanted the other right now, but in time, who knew?

They could be happy, but not if I kept getting in the way. Especially not if I kept getting in their way.

CHAPTER 36

MAGGIE

This time, I’d come to the cottage prepared. Determined not to repeat the same mistakes, I lugged a suitcase that contained most of my closet back home into the living room. It was so heavy that the worn floorboards creaked under its weight. After I left it standing next to the unlit fireplace, I doubled back for a couple of duffel bags and a few bags of groceries.

Once it was all inside, I shut the door behind me and checked that I had power and plumbing, and when that was done, I stood in the center of the little space and formulated my plan of attack. As far as I was concerned, this was no longer just a hidey-hole anymore.

For the foreseeable future, it was going to be my home and I refused to live like the arrangement was temporary. Maybe it would be. Maybe it wouldn’t. But either way, I channeled my anger into a furious clean-up session to make the place habitable.

Wherever I went from here, I wouldn’t go until I was ready, and in the meantime, I wasn’t living like a hermit. Immediately after deciding to start in the kitchen, I tied up my hair with an elastic I’d snapped on my wrist before leaving home, hung my jacket on the hook by the door, and jumped in.

Armed with cleaning supplies from one of the duffels, I scrubbed, washed, swept, threw out, and reorganized until the fresh scent of lemon and polish replaced the smell of dust and age in the air. All the while, a relentless drizzle outside pattered against the windows, a soothing sound that lulled me to sleep when I finally collapsed on the couch after a simple dinner of scrambled eggs and toast.

Early the next morning, I moved on from the kitchen and living areas to the study. Soft, mottled sunlight spilled across the space for only about an hour before heavy gray clouds rolled in again and the drizzle started back up. It was oddly comforting, though. At least the weather matched my mood.

Since I was uncertain what to keep and what could be thrown out in here, I simply organized and cleaned. Every pile of paper got filed with others of the same topic, divided into categories like Personal, War History, Bills, and Random.

The only rooms that escaped my wrath were the attic and the bedroom. I was not sleeping or going in there until I’d hired a priest and an exterminator. In that order. There was no way I was giving either a ghost or a raccoon another reason to make my life complicated.

I’d come here to figure things out, not to get possessed or infected by rabies.

Marcus knew I was here, but I’d strictly forbidden him from coming anywhere near the property he technically owned. After everything that had happened, at least my family was finally willing to give me some space, and my oldest brother, in particular, had agreed to keep my location a secret.

I hoped they felt guilty. I hoped they felt extremely guilty, actually.

Paying Ryan to essentially stalk me was abominable, a vile act of control so over-reaching that I was still struggling to process it. The fact that he’d gone along with it was even worse, but as soon as I felt a sob rise at the thought, I scrubbed harder at the floor in the hallway, forcing myself to focus on the work and the gentle sound of rain drumming against the roof.

When that was finished, I washed the walls too, determined to scrub until Ryan disappeared from my mind. Eventually, once even the walls were clean and he was still hovering right at the edges of my consciousness, I went back to my suitcase to don a raincoat so I could go sweep the porch, but it didn’t take long to realize that was the one thing I’d forgotten.

Fuck.

I glanced up at the sky through the windows, seeing nothing but thick gray overhead for miles. The persistent drizzle hadn’t let up for more than an hour at a time since I’d arrived here yesterday, and by the looks of it, things were only going to get worse.

After staring at the darkening sky for another beat, I straightened up and grabbed the only jacket I had with a hood, knowing I’d still get drenched, and headed out. Nothing was going to stop me from completing this mission.

I would make the cottage into a home worthy of the name or so help me. After checking three stores in town and coming up empty, however, I finally started running out of steam at least a little bit. The closest I’d come to a raincoat had been something made of clear plastic that had looked exactly like a shower curtain, and since I didn’t want to clean the porch while looking like Little Red Riding Hood gone wrong, I left the store empty-handed and considered my final option.

The thrift store.

For a moment before heading inside, I stood under the awning and stared through the window, steeling myself for the moment I’d see her again. Viola. The last time I’d been here, she’d caught me unawares during a time that anything new had felt like too much, but that wasn’t true anymore.

I was prepared this time. It was just a little weird not to know what I was trying to prepare myself for with her, specifically, but I took a breath and walked inside anyway, determined to get a raincoat with maybe even a little side of closure.

When the bell over the door chimed, Viola looked up, sitting in the same chair behind the same counter like she’d been waiting for me to return. I nodded at her but wandered through the racks to look for a coat first. Once I’d found one that looked old enough to have a retirement plan it was about to be yanked out of, I carried it to the counter and set it down in front of her. She rang me up with a soft, almost knowing smile on her lips when she accepted my money.

“You look like him, you know. Your grandfather,” she said quietly as I turned to leave. “You’re lucky. He was a very handsome man.”

I blinked hard, a knot immediately forming in both my chest and my throat. It felt like she’d reached between my ribs and squeezed a sore spot right at the very root of my being.