Page 57 of Wedding Season
“Yep. Did you think I was going to make her cry like I’m the big bad wolf or something?”
“I didn’t say that, and it’s not what I thought.”
She continued to walk but her pace slowed slightly. “Heather was fine. Distant. Obviously, Luann and Mary Ellen don’t know about the two of us, so we could act like surface acquaintances and no one is the wiser.”
“Is that what you want?”
“People need to stop asking what I want.” She scrunched up her nose. “At the end of the day, what I want is what’s best for Heather. She hasn’t asked me to leave town and she doesn’t seem to have any inclination to pick up and take off herself.”
“She’s strong. You both are.”
She stopped suddenly and turned to face him. “Do you believe that? Not about her but me? Because I’m not sure I’ve displayed any strength when it comes to my dealings with you. Certainly not at the start, and I’ve mostly been rude to you since you came to Magnolia.”
“Not always rude.”
“Right. Not when we were in bed together or on the couch of my office.”
“Don’t do that.” He shook his head. “Don’t make the two of us being together into something less than it is. I like you, Mariella. I like spending time with you and not just naked time.”
He let out a breath as he looked toward the waves, taking comfort in the rhythmic sound of the surf. “Did you ask me here so you could make sure that I knew my place in your life? We’re all square on that, which doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.”
She rolled her lips together as a myriad of emotions swam in those big blue eyes. Anger, confusion and just the tiniest bit of hope. “How can you know where you fit when I can’t for the life of me figure it out? It’s making me crazy, Alex. You don’t even have a reason to like me.”
“Yet I like you anyway.”
“How is that possible when I’ve infringed on your life at every turn? You hire a business partner and she wants me to take over her part of the deal. You get pushed back into the wedding season limelight because somehow you’re the poster child for jilted grooms and that’s my fault.”
“I don’t blame you.” The wind picked up his words and carried them away as soon as they were out of his mouth. She looked away from him as if she were trying to chase them down the beach like a child with a kite bobbing along in the breeze.
“I blame me. I blame me for Heather coming here, and you have to deal with the mess I’ve made of her life as well.”
“Heather is a great kid. And I don’t mind messes nearly as much as you seem to think I should.”
“Stop being such a stand-up guy,” she demanded, wagging a finger in his face. He wrapped his hand around that finger, and she clenched her hand into a fist.
They stood like that for several long moments.
He knew what she was doing. She was trying to take the easy way out. He’d thought about that a thousand times himself.
It had been easier when they’d been enemies, but he believed the words he told Heather. Nothing worth having was easy.
“I don’t want to like you,” she said finally. He felt her hand goes slack under his as she said the words.
He turned her palm to face upward. “I know.” He linked their fingers together. “But you also like me anyway.”
“Yeah, and not just because you’re easy on the eyes.”
“Good to know.”
“But this can’t be...anything.”
Warning bells went off in his head. “Define anything.”
“I mean we’re not going to go steady or double date with Emma and Cam or hold hands walking down the sidewalk in the middle of town.”
“What about hanging out with friends? It worked pretty well on Cam’s boat.”
“I guess that’s okay.”
