Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Zander
T he drive back to Scarlett’s car is quiet. She stares out the window at the passing scenery. I glance over at her profile and something in me stirs. I always say no. I’ve been tempted many times before, but something about this woman is different. She flew right past the “no trespassing” and “do not enter” signs and broke through the carefully locked chains.
Not that it matters. After I drop her off at her car, I’ll never see or hear from her again. And it’s for the best. What’s left of my heart would never be enough for anyone, much less someone as wonderful as Scarlett seems to be.
I’ll wish her the best and bid her farewell. Unless she wants copies of her pictures. I focus my attention on the road that leads back to the church where her car is parked. Once there, she turns toward me. “I feel a little awkward now. I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl. But that’s what happened,” she says nervously.
My confident little sunshine has lost her bravado now.
I turn to look at her too. “It’s okay. No need to feel that way. It happened, it was great, but it’s over. No strings, no need to do or say anything else.”
Her shoulders relax before she almost shouts, “Oh no! The table! We need to go back and clean the table!”
I can’t help but burst out laughing for the first time since I don’t know when. “It’s good. I wiped it down with an antibacterial wipe while you were getting dressed. You worry too much, little sunshine.”
Her cheeks are beet red as she closes her eyes and laughs while resting her head on the headrest. “I am a worrier. But I guess I’m lucky you have it all together,” she adds.
I get out and come around to open her door. “I don’t know about having it all together, but I can keep a pretty calm head.”
She gets out, barefoot and still wearing my white shirt now covered in paint. She unlocks her car and puts her things inside before turning back to me. “Can I get copies of the pictures later?”
“Absolutely, if you’re sure you want them,” I tell her.
She nods. “I’ll let you know. Trashing the dress and documenting it was one thing, cathartic even, but it’s not something I’m sure I want to relive yet.”
“You know where to find me if you want them,” I answer.
“I do,” she says.
She laughs.
“What?” I ask.
“I just said ‘I do’ on the day I was supposed to get married, only it wasn’t to the man who was supposed to be my husband…it was to you. A man I barely know, after having a one-night stand. Life doesn’t always go how we plan it, does it?” she asks.
“No, it certainly doesn’t. But even so, somehow it always works out for the best. What’s supposed to happen, always will,” I tell her reassuringly.
“Right. Says the man who decided he could never love again after going through a similar situation. Got it.”
“Scarlett—” I start, but she cuts me off.
She holds up her hand. “I’m sorry. My humor can be a little prickly when I’m wounded.”
I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. It’s not my place to comfort her any more than I already have. She’ll figure out her path, the same way I did.
“By the way, thank you. It really helped to be with you today. I’m sure I’d be passed out with my cupcakes and wine right now if you hadn’t intervened,” she says with the smallest upward tip of her lips.
“I’m not sure how you did it, but you did turn this day into something magical,” she says.
“I guess my creative nature took over. I’m glad I could help turn something bad into something better,” I tell her.
We both stand and stare in silence.
She laughs first. “Do we kiss…hug? Do we shake hands now?”
I chuckle and shrug my shoulders. “We do whatever feels right.”
She stands still for a few seconds before moving close one more time. But this time she puts her hands on either side of my face and pulls. I let her and she kisses my cheek and then releases me.
She doesn’t say another word, she simply gets in her car and drives away, leaving me staring after her taillights and wondering what came over me tonight. Certainly nothing I’ll be repeating.
The night with her was amazing, but the day served as reminder of why I deemed myself heartless. Yet, Scarlett handled herself better than I ever did…or could. In her dark moments, she found a little sunshine.
And I found a little too as I briefly got to bask in her glow. But as the night settles and the crickets chirp, I know it’s back to my cold reality in the morning where I’m alone and far away from the sun.