Page 49 of All Because of You

Oh, how she missed her aunt. Madison had taken her wisdom, her love, for granted. Chrissy Price had given and given but had never given up—not on Madison and not on anyone else who had hurt or disappointed her. How had she done it?

Love had been a greater motivator than fear, hurt, and anger.

Was it really as simple as that?

And if that were true, was it something that Madison could embrace in her own life? Could she consciously choose to forgive, to believe the best about people—about Evan—and run toward something instead of away from the fear chasing her?

Madison had complained for years about Walker Beach, had blamed the people there for her problems. But what if the real source of her problems was . . . her?

Snippets of moments since she’d returned swept over her—sweet times with Bud and Ms. Josephine and Mrs. Wildman and Ashley and, yes, Evan. These people had simply embraced and accepted Madison for who she was. Not who she’d been, not even who her aunt had been.

Just like Aunt Chrissy had all along, they’d welcomed Madison with open arms into their town, into their lives.

And now she had a choice—to run away, taking a job in Los Angeles that meant nothing to her because it was safe, or to risk the flames for the possibility of warmth.

For the possibility of love.

How had he circled back to this?

Music pulsed life into the building, but Evan was dead inside. The Friday night crush of people—mostly twenty-somethings from Walker Beach with only partying on their minds—had ebbed and flowed in the two hours since Evan had sat here at this bar. Smells of all sorts permeated the air, chicken wings and booze being the strongest. He’d already been approached by at least five women who had flirted and offered to do more than buy him a drink.

The scene at the Canteen was a familiar one, one he’d lived for many years of his life. Back then, he was the life of the party, dancing with a new woman every night as he raised a shot in the air and threw it back, whooping for another.

But being familiar and being comforting were not the same thing.

Still, if this was who Evan truly was, then maybe he just needed to get over himself and accept it.

He stared at the seven-ounce glass in front of him on the counter. The ice had melted, diluting the whiskey on the inside. Evan reached for it for the tenth time in as many minutes, running his fingertips along the streaks of condensation on the outside of the old-fashioned glass. He imagined the slow burn that would trail all the way down to his gut. The self-loathing that would follow.

But could he really loathe himself more than he already did? At least if he drank it away, he’d forget it for a time.

Fingers trembling, he lifted the glass toward his lips.

“I don’t think you want to do that, son.”

He nearly dropped the glass at the sudden intrusion into his world and turned to find Bud Travis on the stool next to him.

In all his time here, he’d never once seen Mr. Travis, who went to church every Sunday and was so obviously in love with his wife that every year he took out an ad in the paper on Valentine’s Day proclaiming it.

“Bud?”

Bud waved down the bartender and ordered a club soda with lime then turned wary eyes on Evan. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. This isn’t exactly my usual hangout.”

“So why are you here?”

The bar’s owner got on the mic and declared the start of karaoke. The crowd met his announcement with enthusiastic applause.

Bud waited to answer, receiving his drink order in the meantime. He took a sip. “Do you remember my grandson, Colin? He must have been about your year in school.”

“Vaguely. He was ahead of me.” He’d been one of the smart kids, so he and Evan hadn’t shared many of the same classes. “Didn’t he go to Harvard or something?”

“Yes, he graduated high school early and flew through his undergraduate program then attended med school at Yale. Brilliant boy.” Bud tapped his temple. “Up here, anyway.”

What did any of this have to do with the reason Bud was at the Canteen tonight? Evan’s brow furrowed, but he stayed quiet.

“You can imagine my surprise when, last year, I heard Colin had been let go from his residency program for being drunk on the job.” The lines of Bud’s face, the narrowing of his eyes, revealed his pain at the revelation.

“Man, I’m sorry.” The words stuck in Evan’s throat, but he couldn’t let the man’s vulnerability go unnoticed. “That’s rough.”

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