Rachel Gibson - Tangled Up In You

He leaned forward and pulled the Xerox box toward him. He took off the top and looked inside at the orange disk and a stack of paper. In big type across the first page was written: Till Death Us Do Part.

Maddie said this was the only copy. Why would she give it to him? Why go to so much trouble and spend so much time doing something, only to give it to him when she was through?

He didn’t want to read it. He didn’t want to get sucked back in time. He didn’t want to read about his unfaithful father and his sick mother and the night she’d gone over the edge. He didn’t want to see the photographs or read the police reports. He’d lived through it once and didn’t feel like revisiting the past, but as he picked up the lid to replace it on the box, the first sentence caught his eye.

“I promise it’s going to be different this time, baby.” Alice Jones glanced at her young daughter, then returned her gaze to the road. “You’re going to like Truly. It’s a little like heaven, and it’s about damn time Jesus drop-kicked us into a better life.”

Baby didn’t say anything. She’d heard it before…

Maddie plugged Snowball’s DVD into the player and sat her on the cat bed in front of the television. It wasn’t even ten a.m., and she’d had enough of Snowball. “If you don’t behave, I’m going to throw you in your carrier and toss you into the trunk of my car.”

“Meow.”

“I mean it.” Snowball was going through some sort of passive-aggressive phase. She meowed to go out. Meowed to come in, but when Maddie opened the door, she’d run the opposite way. You’d think the cat would be more grateful.

She pointed at her kitten’s nose. “I’m warning you. You’ve just gotten on my last nerve.” She rose and tiptoed away. Snowball didn’t follow, for the moment transfixed by the parakeets chirping on the screen.

The doorbell rang and Maddie moved to the front of the house and looked through the peephole. Last night when she’d said good-bye to Mick, she hadn’t expected to see him again. Now here he was, looking a bit rough. The lower half of his face was covered in stubble like all the times they’d stayed up late making love. She opened the door and saw the Xerox box in his hand. Her heart dropped. All that work and he hadn’t read it.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

She opened the door wider and shut it behind him. He wore a black North Face fleece jacket and, beneath the black stubble, his cheeks were pink from the cold morning chill. He followed her into the living room, bringing the scent of October air and of him into her house. She loved the way he smelled and had missed it.

“Is your cat watching television?” His voice was kind of rough too.

“For the moment.”

He set the box on her coffee table. “I read your book.”

She glanced at the clock above the television just to make sure of the time. She’d given it to him to read and destroy because she loved him, and he’d probably skimmed it. “That was fast.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Some people are just fast readers.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his blue eyes or bring out his dimples. “No. I’m sorry for what my mother did to yours. I don’t believe anyone in my family has ever apologized to you. We were all too wrapped up in what it did to us to even stop and think about what it did to you.”

She blinked and managed a stunned, “Oh. You don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He laughed without humor. “Don’t let me off the hook, Maddie. I’ve done a lot of things wrong.” He unzipped his jacket, and he wore the same Mort’s polo shirt he’d had on the night before. The man must have dozens of them. “Believing that just because I don’t think about what had happened in the past meant it doesn’t bother or affect me was not only wrong, it was stupid. If I’d truly gotten over it, who you are wouldn’t have mattered to me. It would have surprised me, maybe even shocked the shit out of me, but it wouldn’t matter.”

But it had mattered to him. So much so that he’d cut her out of his life.

“I’ve been up all night reading your book. At first I didn’t want to read it because I thought it would be a long laundry list of the things my parents had done, complete with grisly photos. But it wasn’t.”

She wanted to reach out and touch him. To run her hands up his chest and bury her face in his neck. “I tried to be fair.”

“You were surprisingly fair. If your mother had shot mine, I don’t know if I would have been as fair. I felt a kind of weird connection to my parents. To my life as a kid, and I understand how everything went so wrong. And I understand that you don’t always get a second chance to do it right.”

She wanted him to reach out and touch her. To put his hands on the sides of her face and lower his mouth to hers. Instead he stuck his fingers in the front pocket of his Levi’s.

“When I saw you in the park, I said I didn’t know you, but that was a lie. I know you. I know that you’re funny and smart and that you’re freezing when it’s seventy degrees outside. I know that you crave cheesecake but settle for cake-scented lotion instead. I know you have a problem with people telling you what to do. And I know that you want everyone to think you’re a hard-ass, but that you take in a bucktoothed cat and give her a home. Everything I know about you makes me want to know more.”

Her chest got that familiar ache, and she looked down at her feet, not trusting the emotion expanding in her chest.

“Since I moved back to Truly,” he said, “I’ve felt as if I were standing in one place, unable to move. But I wasn’t standing still. I was waiting. I think I was waiting for you.”

The backs of her eyes stung and she bit her bottom lip.

“When I’m with you, I feel a kind of calm I’ve never felt in my life. I’m tangled up in you and you’re tangled up in me and it feels right. Like it was meant to be. I love you, Maddie, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say it to you again.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

He laughed, and his dimples finally dented his cheeks. “You haven’t missed me any more than I’ve missed you. I’ve been one miserable shithead.” He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground. “I’ve never believed that death happens for a reason,” he said as he looked up into her face. “But if our lives had been different, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.” Slowly she slid down his body until her pelvis fit his. He was ready for love, and his hands slipped beneath her shirt and caressed her bare back.

He lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth was warm and wet and so welcome. Later she would take his hand and take him to her room. For now, she just wanted to feel his kiss again, and it was like walking into the sun after a long cold winter. An ahh that felt good clear to the marrow of her bones.

He pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers. “Ever since that first night you came into Mort’s, my eyes have been on you,” he said. “You were the only thing I could see, even when I tried like hell to look someplace else.”

“Hmm. Look or touch? I saw you talking to Tanya in the park.”

“Just look. I don’t want anyone else.”

She put her arms around his back and locked her hands together. “What about Meg?”

He raised his head. “What about my sister?”

“What are you going to tell her? She hates me.”

“Actually, she’s been too busy with my friend Steve to think much about you.” He thought a moment, then said, “I don’t think she really hates you. She blames your mother for everything that happened, but she doesn’t know you.”

Maddie laughed. “Getting to know me isn’t a guarantee that she’ll like me.”

He shrugged. “I think she’ll get over it, because ultimately she does want me to be happy. She wants me to marry someone I love. To have a wife and a family. I never thought I wanted kids, but after I’ve seen the way you’ve raised your cat…” He paused to look over at Snowball, who was mesmerized by goldfish. “You’re a natural.” He looked back at her and smiled. “Let me know if any or all parts of that plan appeal to you. If not, we’ll make adjustments.”

“This sounds a lot like a white wedding, picket fence, baby maker plan.”

He chuckled. “Who would have thought?”

Certainly not her. She’d never thought she’d be some man’s wife or that she’d be thinking about having a family. Of course, she never thought she’d fall in love or be a cat owner either. Her life had drastically changed since she’d moved to Truly. She’d changed.

She took Mick’s hand and led him from the room. Maybe he was right. Maybe their lives had always been entwined and they were meant to be together. If that was the case, she’d happily spend the rest of her life tangled up in Mick Hennessy.

With the publication of New York Times bestselling author RACHEL GIBSON’s first book, readers discovered one of contemporary romances freshest voices. Four of her novels were named among the Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year by Romance Writers Of America. She has won numerous awards, including Borders Bestselling Romantic Comedy, National Reader’s Choice, and the RITA^® award for the Best Single Title Contemporary Romance of the Year.