Rachel Gibson - Tangled Up In You

He stepped into the shower and let the warm water run over his head. For his father to have been planning to leave his mother for Alice Jones, Loch must have been in love with her. Mick understood that too. He was in love with Maddie Jones. He hated to admit it now. He was ashamed and embarrassed, but when she’d opened her door last night and he’d seen her standing there holding her cat, his heart had felt like the sun was warming him up from the inside. And he’d known. Known what it felt like for a man to love a woman. Known it in every cell in his body. Every beat of his heart. Then he’d carried her to her bed, and he’d known what it felt like to make love to a woman, and he’d been amazed.

Then she’d ripped his heart from his chest.

Mick tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He’d seen and done things in his life that he regretted. Experienced heart-wrenching pain at the deaths of fellow soldiers. But the things he’d done and experienced were not as bad as the regret and pain he felt over loving Maddie.

There was only one thing to do. He’d told her that he hadn’t thought about her mother and that he wasn’t going to think about her, and that was exactly what he planned to do. He was going to forget about Maddie Jones.

Meg opened her front door and looked into Steve Castle’s calm blue eyes. She’d taken a shower and he’d arrived just as she’d finished drying her hair. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“I’m glad you called me.”

He stepped inside and followed her into the kitchen. He wore a pair of jeans and T-shirt with a cornucopia and the words everybody hates vegetarians across his chest. Over a fresh pot of coffee, she told him what she’d learned from Mick.

“The whole town is going to find out, and I don’t know what to do.”

Steve wrapped his big hand around the mug and raised it to his mouth. “Doesn’t sound like there is anything you can do except hold your head up,” he said, then took a drink.

“How can I?” The last time she’d talked with Steve about Maddie Dupree Jones, he’d given good advice and made her feel better. “This is just going to keep everyone talking about what my mother did and all my father’s affairs.”

“Probably, but that isn’t your fault.”

She stood and moved to the coffeepot. “I know, but that won’t keep people from talking about me.” She reached for the coffee, then refilled Steve’s mug and hers.

“No. It won’t, but while they’re talking, you just keep telling yourself that you didn’t do anything wrong.”

She returned the coffeepot and leaned a hip against the counter. “I can tell myself that, but it won’t make me feel better.”

Steve placed a hand on the kitchen table and stood. “It will if you believe it.”

“You don’t understand. It’s so humiliating.”

“Oh, I understand about humiliation. When I returned from Iraq, my wife was pregnant and everyone knew the baby wasn’t mine.” He moved toward her, his limp barely noticeable. “Not only did I have to deal with the loss of my leg and my wife, but I had to deal with her being unfaithful with an army buddy.”

“Oh, my God, I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Don’t be. My life was hell for a while, but it’s good now. Sometimes you have to go taste the shit to appreciate the sugar.”

Meg wondered if that was some sort of army saying.

He reached for her hand. “But you can’t appreciate the sugar until you let go of all the bad shit.” He brushed his thumb across the inside of her wrist and the hair on her arms tingled. “What your parents did didn’t have anything to do with you. You were a kid. Just like my wife screwing my buddy didn’t have anything to do with me. Not really. If she was unhappy because I was gone, there were other, more honorable ways to handle it. If your mama had been unhappy because your daddy was having affairs, there were other ways to handle that too. What my wife did wasn’t my fault. Just like what your mama did wasn’t your fault. I don’t know about you, Meg, but I don’t plan on paying the rest of my life for other people’s dumb-ass mistakes.”

“I don’t want to.”

He squeezed her hand and somehow she felt it in her heart. “Then don’t.” He pulled her toward him and placed his free hand on the side of her neck. “One thing I know for sure is that you can’t control what other people say and do.”

“You sound like Mick. He thinks I can’t get over the past because I dwell on it.” She turned her face into his palm.

“Maybe you need something in your life to take your mind off the past.”

When she’d been married to Travis’s daddy, she hadn’t let it bother her as much as it did these days.

“Maybe you need someone.”

“I have Travis.”

“Besides your son.” He lowered his face and spoke against her lips. “You’re a beautiful woman, Meg. You should have a man in your life.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t remember what to say. It had been a very long time since a man had told her she was beautiful. A long time since she’d kissed anyone but her son. She pressed her mouth against Steve’s and he kissed her. A warm gentle kiss that seemed to go on forever within the sunlight spilling into the kitchen. And when it was over, he cupped her face in his rough hands and said, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

Meg licked her bottom lip and smiled. He made her feel beautiful and wanted. Like more than just a waitress, a mom, and a woman who’d just hit forty. “How old are you, Steve?”

“Thirty-four.”

“I’m six years older than you.”

“Is that a problem?”

She shook her head. “No, but it might be a problem for you.”

“Age is not a problem.” He slid his hands to her back and pulled her against his chest. “I just have to figure out a way to tell Mick that I want his sister.”

Meg smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. She knew there were a lot of things Mick kept to himself. Most recently his relationship with Maddie Jones. “Let him figure it out on his own.”

Maddie lay curled up in bed. She didn’t have the energy to get up. She was drained and empty except for the ball of regret sitting in her stomach. She regretted not telling Mick sooner. If she’d told him who she really was the first night she’d walked into Mort’s, he never would have shown up at her door with mousetraps and catnip. He never would have touched her and kissed her, and she never would have fallen in love with him.

Snowball climbed onto the bed and picked her way across the quilt toward Maddie’s face.

“What are you doing?” she asked her kitten, her voice raw from the emotion she’d expended all night. “You know I don’t like cat hair. This is completely against the rules.”

Snowball crawled beneath the covers, then stuck her head back out just beneath Maddie’s chin. Her soft fur tickled Maddie’s throat. “Meow.”

“You’re right. Who gives a shit about the rules?” She stroked the cat’s fur as her eyes filled with tears. She’d cried so much the night before, she was surprised she had any water left in her body, that she wasn’t all dehydrated and wrinkled like a raisin.

Maddie rolled to her back and looked up at the shadows spread across her ceiling. She could have lived her entire life quite happy if she’d never fallen in love. She’d be happy to never know the high dopamine rush or the heart-wrenching anguish and despair of having loved and lost. Lord Tennyson was wrong. It was not better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Maddie would have much preferred to have never loved at all than to love Mick only to lose him.

I’m not hurt, he’d said. I’m disgusted. She could take his anger and even the hate she’d seen in his eyes. But disgust? That hurt to the core. The man she loved, the man who’d not only touched her heart but her body, was disgusted by her. Knowing how he felt made her want to curl up in a ball and cover her head until it didn’t hurt anymore.

Around noon her back began to ache, so she grabbed her kitten and a quilt off her bed. She and Snowball lay on the couch and watched mindless television all day and into the evening. She even watched Kate & Leopold, a movie she’d always hated because she’d never understood why any sane woman would jump off a bridge for a man.

However, this time her dislike of the movie didn’t keep her from crying into a Kleenex. After Kate & Leopold, she watched Meerkat Manor and Project Runway reruns. When she wasn’t crying over Leopold, the poor Meerkats, or the abomination of Jeffrey’s rocker pants, she was thinking about Mick. What he’d said, his face when he’d said it, and what he’d told her about his father leaving his mother for Alice. Alice had been right about Loch’s feelings. Who would have thought it? Not Maddie, or rather she had thought of it, but given Alice’s history with men, especially married men, and Loch’s history with women, Maddie had dismissed the possibility.

Rose’s reasoning for what she’d done was a classic case of loss of control and the feeling of loss of self. The typical “if I can’t have you, no one can” that had been analyzed and studied and found throughout history.

It had been so simple, and right in front of her the whole time. Knowing the truth made writing the book easier, but on a personal level, it really didn’t change anything. Her mother had still made a bad choice that ended in her death. Three people died and three children were left devastated. Motive didn’t really matter a whole lot.

At around midnight she fell asleep and woke the next morning feeling as bad as ever. Maddie had never been a whiner or a crier. Most likely because she’d learned at an early age that whining and crying and feeling sorry for yourself didn’t get you anywhere. Even though she still felt like emotional roadkill, she took a shower and moved into her office. Lying around and feeling bad wasn’t going to get her work done. That was the thing about writing her books, she was the only one who could do it.