Page 10 of The I Do Over

She couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “It wasn’t a lie. I swear. I did love you! So damn much that it scared me! Why else would I be willing to lie just to marry you? We both knew it was risky to do that before I turned eighteen, but I loved you and wanted to be your wife! It was naïve of us to think changing my birthdate wasn’t going to come back and bite us in the ass.”

He snorted as he briefly looked away. “Yeah, but I didn’t think it would happen less than forty-eight hours later.”

All Maddie could do was nod as she tried to wipe away her tears.

The next thing she knew, she was in his arms and he was holding her close.

And that’s when her tears fell in earnest.

Big mistake. Big, big,BIGmistake…

It seemed completely natural to want to comfort someone who was crying, but as soon as Knox’s arms went around Maddie, he knew he was in trouble. Closing his eyes, it was like he was eighteen again. She still smelled like sweet, sunny days and fit in his arms like she was made just for him.

Like she was the missing piece of his life.

Resting his chin on top of her head, he knew he should let her go—no good could come of this, but…in a minute. He’d let her go in a minute.

In the meantime, he tried to wrap his head around what she told him.

Letters.

Dozens of letters.

He supposed it was possible for the ones she sent to his house not to get to him. His parents—while not as angry as Maddie’s were—were still very upset about him sneaking off and eloping and lying about it. They could have forgiven that part, but when Maddie’s father came around and threatened to have him arrested, they’d stood up for him, but were beyond mortified at how the entire town was going to find out about the situation.

So yeah…there was a chance—a small one—that maybe they simply didn’t give him her letters. It was plausible.

Then there was the military. If she had sent him anything during boot camp, he should have gotten it. But if she sent it to him at that address after he’d graduated, then wouldn’t they have been returned to her?

It was too much—too much to think about and try to figure out. And really, what good would it do? The fact was that he never read her letters and even if he had, it wouldn’t have changed anything. He had enlisted and her parents never would have let her come near him again, so…why was she still even thinking about this?

But the bigger question was…why did it mean so much to him that she was here?

Yeah. For as much as he was trying to act nonchalant and blasé about seeing her, nothing could be further from the truth. Seeing her standing in the locker room had shaken Knox to his core. He’d told himself a long time ago that he was never going to see her again and to just forget about her.

But he couldn’t.

He didn’t.

He’d be lying if he said he never thought about her. Because he did.

A lot.

Far more than he should.

Not so long ago, he had told his buddies that if it were up to him, he’d still be married to Maddie. It was said in the heat of the moment, but once he had gotten home that day and thought about it, he knew it was true. The day he married her, he knew she was it for him—knew they were in it for the long-haul.

Turned out the long-haul was forty-seven hours.

Over the years, the pain of her betrayal had lessened. At least…he thought it had. Finally being able to talk to her about it brought it all to the surface and it seemed like that was another lie he had told himself.

He wasn’t over it.

Over her.

Shit.

So where did that leave him? Her? Them?

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