Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Eleven Years Earlier
“Hi, Mo.”
Lieutenant Montgomery Quinn closed his eyes and, for a sliver of time, accepted that the emotional breakdown he’d been putting off for six years had picked the worst possible time to manifest.
“Hey there, gorgeous.” The New Jersey accent and flirting tone made it clear that Lieutenant Carpenter had inserted himself into the situation and was talking to the woman who’d walked out of his nightmares and stopped him on a sidewalk.
What was she doing here? Why was she here?
Mo executed a crisp about-face and slapped Carpenter on the back. “I do believe the lady spoke to me. Why don’t you go on and find us a seat?”
“I’d rather stay here and talk to . . .” Carpenter paused and looked over Mo’s shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“Bronwyn Pierce. And I’d rather you left so I can talk to Mo.”
Mo had to fight to stay standing. Why was it hard to breathe? What was this?
“Now you don’t want to do that.” Carpenter leered at Bronwyn. “This fool’s shipping out tomorrow, but I’ll be in town for the next four months.” The idiot waggled his eyebrows in some kind of villainous move that was so over-the-top, Mo half expected Bronwyn to laugh.
Mo still hadn’t faced her, but he could imagine the look on her face when she replied with a heavier-than-usual Southern accent that somehow coated the blade of her words in silk. “I don’t take kindly to men telling me what I do or don’t want to do. Why don’t you run on now?”
Carpenter laughed and mock punched Mo’s arm. “Good luck, brother. Call me if plans change.” He winked at Bronwyn and disappeared from Mo’s line of sight.
A long beat later, Bronwyn cleared her throat. “You have interesting friends.”
Translation: What are you doing hanging around with a moron like that?
Mo turned the final few degrees required to see her, and an emotional tsunami crashed over him.
He had never been a fan of drowning. And the last time he’d felt this way was the day he got home from a two-month summer trip out West to find that the most important person in his world had run away from home with a Hollywood producer who was twenty years, two divorces, and a million light years away from the innocence that was Bronwyn’s sixteen-year-old self.
He’d been so in love with her it hurt.
She’d been in love too. Just not enough.
He’d dreamed of this moment for six long years. Imagined every possible scenario. And never, not in one of them, had it taken place on a busy street. It also hadn’t included her acting like she had the right to speak to him as if they were still friends.
Because they most definitely were not.
“Ms. Pierce.” The spark in her eyes dimmed at his formal response.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t disparage my friends.
Carpenter’s a good man.” A man Mo frequently wanted to strangle, but he had no plans to share that with Bronwyn.
“He’s just trying to take me out before I leave the country, and I can assure you, he didn’t need to be hassled by someone who wouldn’t understand loyalty if it slapped her upside the head with a frying pan. ”
Bronwyn took a step back. She dropped her gaze to the ground, and a pang of guilt zinged through Mo’s gut. He shoved it aside. Because, really? Six years pass and she shows up like this? No phone call. No warning. Just ambushing him on the sidewalk?
“I’m sorry, Mo.” She audibly gulped in a lungful of air. “I should have started with that. I’m so very sorry.”
Mo crossed his arms and waited.
“I should have called. But I found out you were here and that you’re leaving. And . . . I had to see you.”
Bronwyn tightened her hand on her purse strap. “I had hoped we could maybe get coffee and talk, but”—she gestured toward the restaurant Carpenter had entered—“I don’t want to take time away from your friends.”
“I appreciate that.” The edge in his voice could have sliced a redwood to ribbons, but he couldn’t find the strength to be gracious.
She closed her eyes. “You aren’t going to make this easy on me.”
He didn’t respond.
She opened her eyes, caught his, and gave him a grim nod. “I know I don’t deserve easy.” She looked at the restaurant again. “But I had hoped.”
“Yeah. My easy button broke a long time ago. I don’t put up with anything from anyone anymore. And right now, I’m going to need you to hurry this along. We have reservations, but I don’t know how long they’ll hold them if the entire party isn’t present.”
Bronwyn’s spine went straight. “Right. Okay. Look, I screwed up.”
Mo doubted anything could top that for understatement.
“I hurt you and I’m so very sorry.”
His brain swirled with years of pain, hurt, confusion, and yes, righteous anger. He fought to keep his response measured and to hide the turmoil her appearance had caused. He wasn’t going to tell her he forgave her, because he didn’t, and he wasn’t sure that he ever would.
His mouth formed the only words his brain could come up with. “I appreciate you telling me.”
Bronwyn gaped at him. “You appreciate it? That’s . . . that’s your response? I hunted you down, hopped on a plane, and walked three miles to be able to tell you in person—”
“None of which I asked for.” Mo lost the battle with his temper. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? Let me guess, you’re in a twelve-step program or whatever there is for someone like you?”
Her eyes widened and filled with tears. She dropped her gaze to the pavement.
But he wasn’t done.
“You’re on whichever step it is that has you making amends, and you decided today was the day you’d mark this one off your list. And to make it even more impressive, you jumped through a bunch of unnecessary hoops. I’m sure you could have found my phone number—”
“You would have hung up on me.”
He ignored her interruption and continued, “My parents still live in the same house, so you could have sent me a note. But you had to make a production out of your apology. Were you thinking I’d feel extra sorry for you, or was this some kind of penance for what you did?”
Bronwyn shook her head but didn’t speak.
“Look, you’ve done your part. You apologized.
And I heard the words. I even believe that you think you mean them.
But here’s the thing—I don’t care. You walked out of my life, and you stayed out of it.
That was your choice. I had no way to contact you for months, and when we finally found an address, I sent you so many letters, my mom made me switch to postcards to save on postage. ”
“I never got them.”
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. But you know what I got?
I got smart. I realized one day that even if you weren’t getting my letters, you had no excuse not to write to me.
I’m not the one who left without saying goodbye.
And that’s when I accepted that you cut me out of your life on purpose.
That you didn’t want to hear from me. You didn’t want to see me. You didn’t want to know me.”
Tears streamed down her face, and her entire body shook.
“I have no idea whether you’re really sorry or not,” he went on, “but the truth is that it doesn’t matter one way or the other. We’re no longer part of each other’s lives. That’s what you wanted, and that’s what you got.”
“That isn’t what I wanted, Mo.”
He didn’t know what his face looked like, but when Bronwyn looked up at him, she immediately took a step back.
“Spare me the lies, okay?” He pointed to his chest. “I didn’t go anywhere. You could have found me anytime you wanted to, but now you show up the day before I deploy so you can, what? Ease your conscience? Are you worried that I’ll die and you won’t have a chance to finish all your steps?”
“I wanted to . . . explain.”
“You explained plenty. I have six years of empty mailboxes to prove it. I don’t need an explanation. You’re sorry? Good. You should be. Now go back to wherever you came from, and I’ll go on living my life the way I want to—without you in it.”
He turned on his heel and walked into the restaurant. Once inside, he paused and looked down the sidewalk. Bronwyn wiped her eyes and took a few steps in his direction. Then she dropped her head, turned, and walked away.
He watched her until she was out of sight, then he found his friends.
He needed the chaos of a night out to get his mind off what had just happened.
But what he needed most was to forget the pain in the eyes of the only woman he’d ever loved.
Five days later, Bronwyn grabbed her mail and walked upstairs to her third-floor apartment.
She had an exam tomorrow and another on Friday.
She needed to study. Her flight to see Mo had messed up her schedule and she .
. . oh, who was she kidding? The flight wasn’t the problem.
The emotional atomic bomb that Mo had detonated was the problem.
She’d spent more time than was healthy over the past few days rehashing every second of their encounter. She’d been sure he would respect her for showing up in person rather than writing a letter.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say, but she hadn’t been prepared for the anger.
Which was stupid on her part. She should have been. Her mistake had been thinking he was still the gentle soul she’d left behind.
Mo had been her person. Her playmate, her confidante, her best friend, her crush, and her first and only love. And that’s how she still thought of him. She’d been unprepared for the reality that the boy who’d loved her had grown into a man who hated her—and had some serious anger issues.
She tossed her backpack into a chair and sorted through the mail.
Her hand froze as her mind registered the distinctive handwriting.
Her breathing came fast and hard as she ripped open Mo’s letter. It took several rounds of intentional breath work to avoid hyperventilating before she could read his words.
Dear Bronwyn,
It’s my turn to apologize. I’m sorry for what I said, for the way I said it, and for the anger that I allowed to take over.