“No,” Kennedy whispered so quietly, she didn’t think Maverick had heard.
“The night I’d planned to propose to her was the night she told me she was diagnosed with ALS.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, Maverick.” There was no cure for ALS. The disease made famous by Lou Gehrig killed everyone it met. Maverick didn’t need to explain further, not to her. The progressive loss of muscle control that took away a person’s ability to walk, talk, eat, and eventually breathe had a two-to-five-year life expectancy rate after diagnosis.
“We had talked about traveling after we graduated and before settling into marriage and our careers. Nicole had a bucket list two pages long of places she wanted to see. Weird foods she wanted to eat. Languages she wanted to hear firsthand. So instead of finishing school and risking missing out on that, we quit school and traveled.”
“How much longer did you get with her?”
“A little over two years. The last few months we were here, of course. Her parents wanted to be with her, too, and she needed medical attention.” He’d yet to speak to Kennedy, his focus somewhere else in the room.
“Did you marry?”
“No. I proposed, but…”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, taking his incomplete thought as a signal he didn’t want to elaborate.
“Thanks. She was amazing through it all, waking up every morning with a smile, and she never felt sorry for herself, so I didn’t either.”
“She sounds really special.”
He nodded. “She was.”
“I’m sure she was grateful she had you.”
At that, he finally looked at her. Pain and melancholy were etched in his temples, the corners of his eyes slanted downward. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I know.” She leaned the side of her head against the back of the couch. She almost reached out to touch him. “Don’t get used to it or anything.”
“I won’t.”
Did that mean he didn’t want to hear her talk sweetly to him? Or that he planned to keep his distance as much as possible? She didn’t know why, but both bothered her. The latter more so.
They settled more fully, him slouching and putting his feet on the coffee table, her bringing her legs up and snuggling with a couch pillow in her lap.
“Thanks,” she said. For telling me all that. She’d been trusted with something he held close, a gift she wouldn’t take lightly.
“We’re even now,” he told her.
Which should make her happy, but it only fueled her desire to challenge him again and again until she got everything she desired out of him. The question was, what exactly did she desire? And why was her heart once again beating faster than it had in a very long time?
Two years ago…
Dear Nicole,
Today is the day three years ago that I proposed to you and you said no. You looked at the ring in my shaking hand and told me to take my question back. To save it for someone who could say yes.
But you could have said yes. You could have been my wife for however long it lasted. But you said it was better this way. That you loved me and we didn’t need a piece of paper to prove it. I said okay because all I wanted was for you to be happy, but your refusal broke my heart. I hated how logical you were sometimes. “Save the ring for your forever someone,” you said. Well, that’s not going to happen.
I tossed the ring in the lake today. Cole told me I was being ridiculous and should have returned it a long time ago. How could I return something that meant everything to me at the time? You said no, but that didn’t mean I wanted to take back the gift. I wanted it between us, even tucked away in my sock drawer, as a tiny symbol of how deep our love was. The wound was also my lifeline. Until today.
Miss you like crazy,
Maverick
Chapter Ten
Four days until the wedding
Maverick woke with something soft and cozy attached to his side. A female something that filled his chest with warmth. She smelled good, too. He wrapped his arm more tightly around her in case she got any ideas about moving.
This was the most peaceful he’d been in forever.
His eyes flew open. The woman curled against him wasn’t Nicole. Instead, she had wavy blond hair, freckles that made her look sexy, courage to be admired, and she stood only an inch or two above five feet, not just under six. She was healthy. Distracting. And they didn’t typically get along.
You got along last night.
He lifted his arm, guilt warring with contentment at the position he found himself in. He’d let a moment of vulnerability get the best of him last night, but not today. Kennedy had five days left on the ranch. She was temporary. Crashing a wedding because she thought, what? The groom shouldn’t go through with it?
He heard her on happiness, but he didn’t want her causing unnecessary trouble and damaging the inn’s good name. The couple looked in love, but… He’d never known Kennedy to be impulsive. That she came all this way to check on Reed, for whatever reason, did speak to the kind of person she was. She saved people—in and out of the ER, apparently.
She stirred as he tried to maneuver out of their too-close-for-comfort position.
That last part was a lie. He’d been plenty comfortable.
“Morning,” Kennedy said, sitting up and seemingly unconcerned with the way they’d just been huddled together.
“Morning.” He stood, eager to put space between them and to take a closer look at Barley and her puppies. Mom and babies had done well during the night, and he and Kennedy must have fallen asleep around one. The vintage clock on the mantel now read six thirty.
“How does everyone look today?” she asked from the couch.
“Good.” He kept his back to her, pretending to stare inside the whelping box when he was really trying to figure out what this new, feels-good relationship between them meant. He didn’t want to be rude, but he craved time to himself before he started on his tasks for the day.
Slowly, he turned around, the perfect idea hitting him. “I should get you back to the inn. How about I drive you to Baked on Main first?” He’d survive ten extra minutes with her if it meant a Kennedy-free day after that.
Only, when he looked at her gentle eyes and tousled hair and soft, rose-colored lips, the urge to scoop her up and take her somewhere special, where just the two of them could get to know this newer version of themselves better, hit him like a force of nature.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”