41. A Change in Plans
WESLEY
As soon asI stepped out of The Comfy Cushion, a firm hand clamped down on my ear and jerked my head down several inches.
“The nerve of you, Wesley Carter Madden!” Marla howled.
“OW!” I yelled. “Let go!”
Marla scoffed. “Oh yeah, I’m sure that hurts a tough guy like you! C’mon, you big baby!” She wrenched my ear forward, forcing me to follow.
For as little as Marla was, she sure knew how to bring a man to his knees. My coach should hire her.
We charged down the sidewalk together with her fingers squeezing the cartilage out of my ear. A block down, crossing the street, we came to an abrupt halt outside a storefront that had a painted window declaring it Marla’s Sweets. A small black bistro table with two chairs sat on the sidewalk in front and a chalkboard sign listed the day’s pie and cupcake flavors.
Inside, the bakery smelled heavenly, and a large glass display held slices of pie, cupcakes, and cookies. Another large chalkboard on the wall behind the counter listed prices and advertised that custom cakes were available for order. A few other bistro tables lined the opposite wall, with navy shiplap and a light-colored wallpaper decorating the space. Black and white checkered tiles added the final touch. The place was quaint, clean, and a hundred percent Marla.
Good for her.
Thankfully, she let go of my ear when we walked inside. “Since when do you own a bakery?” I asked.
She glared at me. “Since Desiree fired me eight years ago after Celeste graduated high school and took over The Comfy Cushion. Don’t change the subject.”
“What subject? I came out of the diner and you attacked me!”
“Just like you needed!” Marla countered. She went behind the display and pulled out a white plate with a slice of rhubarb pie, shoving it towards me with a fork. “Here, it’s your favorite.”
I sighed as her aggression left me defeated. “No, it isn’t.” But I took the plate from her anyway, setting it down on one of the small bistro tables lining the opposite wall and falling into the chair.
Marla looked just as affronted now as she had every other time she offered me a slice of pie.
“How about we start with what the heck you’re trying to pull?” she asked.
“I needed to see her!”
“Did not!”
“Did, too!”
“Did not!”
I spread my arms wide in invitation. “I can do this all day.”
Marla’s fists rested on her hips. “Me, too. I’ve had a lot longer to practice!”
Well, she had me there.
“This is a waste of my time,” I concluded angrily. “I need to figure out what I’m going to say to Celeste.”
“Like hell, you do!” The scowl on Marla’s face would have stopped me in my tracks when I was younger. After some of the pricks I dealt with in law school, it would take a lot more than a dirty look to make me back down now.
“Let me tell you something, Wesley Madden, it’s not like Celeste is the only one you left behind when you skipped town.” She dared me to contradict her. “You left behind the rest of us who loved you, and I know for a fact that Doug taught you better than that!”
Shame weathered my resolve. What Marla was really getting at was her own pain. She missed me, too, and hadn’t deserved my silence. And while that was true, I spent all of my time concentrating on Celeste. Marla wanted her apology, too.
“I wouldn’t have stayed away if I had any other choice,” I insisted. “The hospital pressed charges on me after I choked that doctor and I was on probation for a while. My dad sent me to boarding school overseas as a way to punish me. I never meant to be gone like that.”
The explanation softened her somewhat as her hands loosened at her sides.
“You have to help me,” I pleaded with her. “Celeste has to forgive me!”
She frowned, then came around to sit across from me. As gentle as a woman like Marla could manage, she clasped her hands in mine on top of the table and stated firmly, “No, she doesn’t, Wes.”
“Oh, fuck all!” I hollered. I bolted out of the chair and started pacing like a baited tiger. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through, Marla?”
“What you’ve been through?!” Fuming, Marla stood up and poked me hard in the chest. “What about what she’s been through? You show up here after ten years without so much as a postcard and you think you can just waltz into her life with an ‘I’m sorry’ that’ll make it all go away?! Good Lord, boy, I thought you were smart!”
Her accusations stung because they were true. “How did you even know I was in there?”
“Because your assistant hired me to bake desserts for Ms. Shirley’s funeral luncheon and I knew if you had a hand in it, that meant you were gonna come down here and stir up trouble!”
That wasn’t an entirely unfair assessment, which pissed me off even more.
“Celeste deserves?—”
Marla cut me off. “Celeste deserves more than all the stars in Christendom after everything she’s been through, you included! Unless you brought them with you, the best thing you can do for her is to leave her alone.”
I slumped back against the register. My worst fears were being hurled at me as a solution.
“Things have changed here, Wes.” Marla finally relented, her tone sad and apologetic. “You can’t barge into her life like a hurricane after all this time.”
“Then what can I do?” I asked. A note of desperation crept in. “I don’t want to keep living without her.”
Marla leaned forward, cutting straight to the chase. “You don’t even know her anymore, Wesley. Start there.”
She was spot on, like always. I wasn’t the same person I used to be, so how could I expect any less from Celeste? But that meant we needed to grow back together because I knew in my heart that she was meant for me. It was the only truth I had ever known. Even the brief few minutes I had spent in her atmosphere earlier reconfirmed that in my soul.
And if that wasn’t enough proof, surely the fact that my only experience with a one night stand just so happened to be with Celeste meant something. The very Universe wanted us to be together! We were magnets, fighting our attraction only to wind up paired anyway.
It didn’t matter what had changed for Celeste or for me. When two souls were forged together, nothing could keep them apart. I waited ten long years for a sign that our days apart were over. Now that I had my first taste of her, there was no going back. I was going to make her forgive me or I was going to die trying.