Chapter 30
MAGGIE
Ryan had been in his head ever since we’d left the carnival. On the drive back to the cottage, he’d hardly said a word, and once we walked in, he went to sit on the edge of the sofa with his phone in one hand, just turning it over and over instead of actually even unlocking it.
I watched him for a minute from the kitchen, wondering what was going on in his head, but instead of pushing, I decided to make him dinner.
At some point, that had become my solution to emotional distress, one of the few things I could do without anyone telling me what I should’ve been doing instead.
Besides, Ryan had been running himself ragged trying to keep up with work while arranging the most ridiculous wedding in the history of weddings just because I’d asked him to. The least I could do was feed the man.
While he was distracted, I grabbed his keys from the counter and strode to the door. “I’m popping into town for groceries.”
He barely glanced up. “You’ll be okay on your own?”
“Of course. I’ll be back in twenty, but text me if you need anything.”
I waited for a beat, but when he didn’t say anything else, I spun around and left, trying to get that picture of him looking so forlorn out of my head.
With his crisp white shirt stretched between his shoulder blades as he hunched over and his head hanging, that dark hair spilling across his forehead, and the phone spinning in endless circles in his hand, he looked genuinely miserable.
I wonder if this is about the puppy.
It seemed unlikely he would feel that bad about saying no.
Especially because he’d been right. As much as I adored that tiny baby, I wasn’t in a place where dog ownership would be responsible.
While that could change in the blink of an eye, it wasn’t something I could take a gamble on.
I needed to figure out what I was doing first and then, if he was still available, I’d go fetch him myself if Ryan didn’t bring him to me first.
After parking along Main Street to walk the rest of the way, I still couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Ryan’s face when I’d left. It can’t be about the puppy. Can it?
Absently locking his car, I headed up the street, but halfway down the block, I spotted a thrift store from the corner of my eye. My gaze slid toward the display, and instantly, the dress popped into my head. Ryan had mentioned that he’d found it in a thrift store. Maybe it had been this one.
On a whim, I changed direction and headed toward it, smiling at the little jingle of the bell when I pushed the door open.
The scent of dust, lavender, and old books hung in the air.
Racks of vintage clothing filled most of the narrow shop while glass cases of jewelry and porcelain were tucked between them.
I was in love with it before the door had even swung shut behind me. Pausing after I’d stepped inside, I inhaled a deep breath and looked around, but the smile dropped away from my face as soon as I saw the woman behind the counter.
She was sitting on a low stool, sorting through a stack of old postcards so she wasn’t looking at me, but I still knew it was her. The woman from my grandfather’s wedding picture. Her hair was snow white now, her features lined and delicate, but the face was unmistakable.
My heart slammed against my ribs, my head suddenly swimming, and then she looked up. Our gazes met and held for maybe half a second before she pushed herself upright so quickly that I thought she might fall.
“Wait,” she said quietly when I started turning, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Instead, I just started running. I didn’t remember getting back to the car, or driving, and I definitely didn’t stop for groceries. I made a beeline for the cottage, my hands still shaking when I walked back in.
“What happened?” Ryan asked after taking just one look at me. He’d still been on the couch, in exactly the same position he’d been in when I’d left, but the next thing I knew, he was in front of me, his hands on my shoulders and those blue eyes locked on mine. “What happened, Maggie?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” He gently tightened his grip on my shoulders and let his gaze drop to roam across the length of my body. “Are you hurt? I don’t see any blood.”
“There is no blood. I’m not hurt.”
“Did somebody follow you?”
“No.”
He kept looking at me, his gaze slowly growing wilder and wilder. “Then what happened, Mags? What’s wrong?”
I swallowed hard. “I saw her, Ryan. The woman from my grandfather’s pictures. She’s still alive. Viola. I saw her in town.”
He exhaled slowly, his hands dropping away from my shoulders to twine his fingers around mine. “Tell me everything.”
As he said it, he led me to the couch, leaving only for a moment to pour us each a glass of wine. The story spilled out of me easily, but I supposed it wasn’t very long. He sat down beside me, looking a little shell-shocked himself by the time I’d explained my brief encounter with her.
“What if my grandfather had another family?” I whispered. “What if he cheated on my grandmother and had a whole other life here in Deerfield?”
Ryan didn’t answer, but I also didn’t really give him the opportunity to.
Now that they’d started, the questions that had been running through my mind were just falling out of my mouth one after the other in a crazy, unfiltered stream.
“What if she’s related to me? What if I share DNA with that woman?
God, what if my grandfather had children here? ”
Ryan turned to face me, patiently sipping his wine while I pressed my palms against my eyes and kept spiraling. “What if he was happy here, Ryan? What if he actually loved her? He could’ve had the love story I’ve spent my entire life wishing I could have, and maybe he just hid it.”
A broken, strangled laugh came out of me. “What if he had to hide it because he had to go be a Pembroke again? Appearances matter more than anything else in my family. What if…”
I trailed off when I felt a tear slip down my cheek. Ryan reached out and brushed it away with his thumb, and suddenly, that was just one thing too many. It was all just too much. It was like I could feel myself cracking.
Despite what it might look like from the outside, I’d been desperately trying to hold myself together.
I’d been trying to accept what my life had to be despite how much I didn’t want it.
I knew people had been calling me childish and I realized there were ways in which I could’ve handled everything so much better.
But right now, I felt the break inside happening.
Everything—absolutely everything—had just spiraled so far out of control, and honestly, I didn’t even know how or where it had started anymore.
My father had gone out for drinks with Mr. Hawthorne.
I remembered that. They’d gone to the country club, and when Dad had gotten home, he’d given me the ring.
From there, one thing had just constantly tumbled into another until I’d ended up in this place where I felt half-crazed with the need to take back my life.
The only person who’d anchored me in this whole process, who’d made me feel like maybe I wasn’t totally and utterly childish, or mad, or like I somehow deserved all this, was Ryan. As I thought it, I lifted my gaze back to his. Then my fingers were closing around his shirt and I kissed him.
For half a heartbeat, he froze, but then his arms closed around me and he pulled me closer, kissing me back deeply.
My fingers curled into his shirt, the entire world and every problem in it disappearing as he enveloped me in the safety of him, that intoxicating scent making it hard to remember why he wasn’t the guy I was marrying, but then, he stopped.
“Maggie,” he whispered, taking my face in his hands and holding it like I was precious to him. “I need to tell you something.”
“Right now?” I opened my eyes, finding his already intently fixed on me. “Are you sure? Because I don’t know how much more I can take today.”
He swiped his tongue across his lips and inhaled so deeply that his chest expanded against mine, but he nodded. “Yeah, it has to be right now. I can’t…” He dragged in another deep breath. “I can’t keep kissing you unless you know this.”
“Yeah?” I whispered, my heart fluttering with fear, but he was still holding me, so at least he wasn’t about to say that I disgusted him or something. “Okay. I’m ready. Lay it on me.”
“I have feelings for you, Maggie. Deep, real feelings.” His thumbs brushed my cheeks. “I did once before too. When we were kids. Before my dad destroyed everything, I was going to ask if I could be your escort to your debutante ball.”
My mouth dropped open. “You were?”
A crooked, almost embarrassed smile ghosted across his lips. “Yeah, I even had an actual plan about how I was going to ask and—”
I didn’t even let him finish, just grabbing him with both hands and kissing him again. While his revelation didn’t change where we found ourselves, it somehow felt like it had changed everything.
Ryan had wanted to be my escort to the debutante ball.
God, how different our lives might’ve been if that happened.
For the very first time, I realized that he and I might’ve been set on an entirely different path if Court fucking Thayer had just kept his dick in his pants and his hands off other people’s money. Our parents had loved each other.
If Court hadn’t been arrested and Ryan had asked to take me to the ball, my parents would’ve been thrilled.
They would never have set me up with Whatshisface, and even though I could never be sure, I was suddenly one hundred and thirty percent convinced that Court and my father would’ve started their marriage negotiations that very night.
It would’ve been a match made in heaven, too. A Thayer the way they were before the scandal with a Pembroke?
My God, I would’ve had it all. Love. A marriage arranged in keeping with our family traditions to a man I wanted with a fiery passion.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I whispered between fervent kisses. “I would’ve said yes, Ryan. Of course, I would’ve said yes.”
That part was true too. Even with the scandal, I still would’ve said yes. Ryan had been the subject of my very first fantasies back in the day. He’d been the boy I secretly stared at and the one I’d constantly found ways to spend time alone with.
I’d always been cooking up these elaborate plans to pull him away from the others, just so I could have him to myself as much as I could, and I’d been either too young or perhaps just too innocent to understand what it meant, but I did now.
Ryan groaned against my mouth. “You would’ve said yes?”
“Of course, you idiot.” I laughed against his lips and pulled him down on the couch with me, tears still streaming down my face, but they were a different kind now.
Deep down, I’d always known who Ryan was.
Despite the gossip, and the criminal father, and the chip on his shoulder, and the hectic fall from grace, he’d always been the guy I could depend on.
My voice of reason when I needed it most and the only person I could fight with while still knowing he’d have my back if things changed at the drop of a hat.
The only guy I’ve ever come close to actually falling in love with.
And now, he was here, the delicious weight of him pressing me into the couch and his tongue swirling through my mouth like it was trying to bewitch me. And it was working. Maybe it was just the heat of the moment, but there was suddenly another plan taking shape in my head.
A plan that I would happily follow through with and never, ever even consider running from.