I fell into his side as he curled his arm around me and led me from his room, my lips twitching with the beginnings of a smile. “I should probably warn you . . . the night we got here, she asked if we were here for you.”
A rumble of amusement sounded in his chest. “Why?”
“This is gonna sound crazy, but she’d been having these dreams,” I began, embarrassment creeping up my cheeks. “Said she’d had them ever since we left Seattle. That you were there—always. Looking sad even though you said you were mads. Mads with an s.”
He pulled me to a stop at his front door, his brows pulled low. “You,” he said quietly, head nodding faintly. “She said ‘Mads’ that day at Beau’s.”
Ice formed around my lungs so suddenly that it stole my next breath.
And the next.
My heart faltered in its race as I forced the fear away. As I tried to think of absolutely anything else. Tried to reclaim the comfort and peace I’d just been wrapped in.
“She said you stood in the rain, saying you couldn’t dance anymore,” I went on, clearing my throat. “That she tried to teach you, but you wouldn’t let her. Just kept saying you couldn’t.” One of my shoulders lifted in response to Hunter’s shock and confusion and disbelief. “Trust me, I know. Avalee’s never heard that name—I’ve never told her anything about you or us. She’d never seen so much as a picture of you before our first night here.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does—” He blinked slowly, eyes searching mine when they focused. “That has to mean something. Right?”
“I’ve been telling myself it doesn’t, but how could it not?” I gave him a helpless look. “All of it is us.”
“Sad-mads man,” he murmured, mouth lifting into a small smile. “I get it now.”
Relief blasted through me at the amusement dancing in his eyes. “You don’t think my daughter’s crazy?”
“I think she’s five,” he said as he opened the door and led me outside and down the porch steps. “I don’t really have any experience with kids, but I do remember a five-year-old who poked me in the chest and told me I was marrying her someday. So . . .”
A laugh tumbled past my lips, but my chest wrenched as the reminder brought up the fact that I’d ruined that.
Wrapping a hand around my waist, he pulled me against his chest and brought his mouth to my ear. “We still have our entire lives,” he murmured. “Don’t lose that glow on me now.”
“Never,” I promised, my head slanting to the side when he passed a swift kiss along my neck.
Once we were in the truck and he was turning it around, I said, “Anyway, I thought I should warn you. She’ll probably say something because she’s convinced we’re here for you—that she needs to teach you to dance.”
He flashed me a mischievous smile, deep dimples and all. “Consider me warned.”
I reached for my phone when it began ringing, worrying that Avalee had woken before we’d made it back, and made an irritated noise when I saw Rafael’s name on my screen instead.
“What’s wrong?”
“Raf,” I responded as I ignored the call.
Hunter glanced between me and the clock on his dashboard before focusing on the road. “He’s awake? Isn’t Seattle two hours behind us?”
A confirming hum sounded in my throat as my phone chimed with a text. “He wakes up about as early as you to work out,” I said as I opened up the message.
Rafael: Tomorrow night?
I glanced over at Hunter, studying his profile and wishing more than anything that this wasn’t happening. Even knowing it would be Hunter and me at the end, I would give anything to not have to go through this when I’d already put us through so much.
“You okay?” Hunter asked softly.
“Yeah,” I said just as quietly as I looked down at my phone. “Just thinking.”
Me: Yes.
His response was immediate.
Rafael: 450p flight tomorrow. That okay?
Me: I told you I’d get us there.
Rafael: Madison don’t do this. I’m flying the two of you back here.
Rafael: Just tell me if that works.
I stared at the flight’s time, hating that it started a countdown. Put a ticking clock over us like the cruelest sort of reminder.
“What’s he saying?” Hunter asked, voice gruff, when I’d been staring at the screen for a while.
“Um, he, uh . . .” My head shook faintly. “He’s trying to buy tickets. Just before five tomorrow evening.”
Hunter was silent for a few moments before reaching over to grip my thigh. “We’ll get through it, Mads.”
Affection and gratitude sounded in my throat as I tapped out a response.
Me: We’ll be there.
Rafael: I’ll send you details.
I put my phone in my pocket and gripped Hunter’s hand, trying to soak up his strength as we came closer and closer to my parents’ house. Trying to find that excitement I’d felt just minutes before at what today would hold.
But there was a pit in my stomach, slowly growing wider.
Because I wasn’t sure we could get through it. Not Raf . . . we could survive him.
But the rest? Hunter’s incessant need to know what happened—why I’d left. My overwhelming desire to tell him so there would no longer be any secrets between us.
The truth.
That . . . I wasn’t sure we could survive that.
I stepped inside Brewed a few minutes after dropping Madison off at her parents’. Agreeing I should come back in a little while, after Avalee was awake and ready for the day. That we should ease into this for her.
Being there when she woke up wasn’t doing that.
Emberly’s eyebrows rose when she saw me, surprise clouding her tone when she said, “This makes twice within twenty-four hours. Alert the town networking system.”
“Funny,” I mumbled when I reached the counter. “Madison said Avalee’s obsessed with ‘the thats’ you make.”
Her chest shook with a muted laugh as she reached for a plastic cup. “I adore Madison, and her this and thats.”
So do I.
It had always been one of my favorite things about her.
“Also,” Emberly went on, a wry smirk tugging at her mouth, “it’s early morning, and you’re in here, getting Madison’s daughter a drink. Let’s talk about that, yes? Yes. Spill.”
I leaned forward, resting my arms on the counter, and lowered my voice. “Need drinks for Madison, her parents, and me. Also, no.”
Her lips slowly parted as her eyes danced around to ensure no one was listening. When she spoke, her voice was as soft as mine. “I so approve, Hunter Dixon.”
“Cayson doesn’t.”
She snorted, her eyes rolling. “He’s focused on the fact that there was a ring,” she said as she grabbed four more hot to-go cups. “I’ve seen the way she looks when her baby daddy is mentioned, so I know whatever the story is there, it isn’t a happy one. Just as I know there is a story.”