Heart Breaths (4 page)

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Giving me one last inscrutable look, he turned and made his way back to the street, while I sat there, shaking. It was a coincidence. It had to be.

Chapter · Four

The café was just as busy again that morning as it had been the day before. “You’re early this morning, Maddie, my love!” Grandma Evelyn called as I walked toward the counter. “What can I get you on this fine morning?”

“A coffee would be great,” I said, hoping the caffeine would help restore the balance that I seemed to have lost again.

“Give me a minute,” she said. Nodding absentmindedly, I looked around the café, seeing a few familiar faces. There was a sign on the window, taped up from the inside. Curiosity getting the better of me, I walked back outside to read the sign.

Waitress needed. Inquire within.

Thinking about my dwindling bank account, I walked back into the café, just as Grandma Evelyn was returning with my cup of coffee. Paying her for the cup, I stood there awkwardly, trying to figure out how to best approach the subject.

“I saw the sign in the window,” I began, trying not to sound nervous. Did I really even want to work in a café as a waitress? I did, I realized. It felt right in a way nothing had in a while. The way no job had in years.

“My waitress sign?” she asked, wiping down the counter and waving hello to the man who had just walked in. “It’s going to get busy once all the summer people come, and even though that’s not for a while, I figured that this year would be a good one to add some help.” She looked at me. “You interested, Maddie?”

“I think so.”

“Well, it’s the middle of the breakfast rush, and Lord knows I don’t want anyone starving on my watch. Come back at around nine fifteen and we’ll have ourselves a chat.”

“Thanks,” I said, clutching my cup of coffee. “I’ll be back.”

“Here, let’s sit down for this. I’ve been running around like a chicken without a head all morning,” Grandma Evelyn said as she walked over to the table in the corner. My table, I suppose.

“So, Maddie,” she said, looking at me expectantly. “Have you waitressing experience?”

“A bit,” I said. “But I haven’t in years.”

“Not to sound rude, darling, but how old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” I answered. Physically, that was. Emotionally? Mentally? Eighty-seven.

“Well, I suppose I should show you around the back of the café,” she said, standing up.

Standing up, I followed her toward the back. Did this mean I was hired? That had to have been the shortest job interview I had ever had.

She looked me up and down. “Maddie,” she said slowly. “What’s your full name, Maddie?”

I swallowed. Well, there was no reason for her not to know. “Madeline Darlington-Gray,” I replied.

She nodded her head approvingly, as though my parents had done exactly the right thing by naming me.

“I assume you are looking for accommodations,” Grandma said after the tour of the back of the café.

I thought of the last few nights I spent at the Creepy Motel. “Well, yes, I suppose,” I said, grimacing at the thought of having to return and see Creepy Perv Motel Guy Bob again.

“Excellent,” said Grandma. “Now, there is an apartment on the top floor of this building,” she began. “And since I already had my house with James, God rest his soul, I never used it, unless I was mad at him. I’ve only really rented it out once, seeing as it’s on top of the store and such, but I figure it would be a good place as any for you to live. I’ll charge you rent and all that, but it will definitely make your way to work a lot shorter.”

Why was she just offering me an apartment like that? It was bizarre enough she was just going to hire me straight away, no references or anything, but an apartment? Was this some sort of Southern thing, or was something else going on here?

“Um, the motel is okay, thanks,” I said. Okay, it wasn’t really, but the alternative seemed moving into this apartment on top of the store. Which possibly had dead bodies hiding in the closet or something equally horrible.

People didn’t just go and do nice things like rent an apartment to a random stranger unless they had a good reason. And being nice didn’t really count as a good reason.

Her eyebrows raised. “You sure? My last tenant moved out a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been empty since.”

“What happened to your last tenant?”

“She decided that the painting would be better in Georgia,” she said. “Which is a shame, because she was a damn good waitress. You’ve been staying at the motel the past few nights?”

I nodded, faltering. Maybe saying yes to the apartment wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “So, the apartment kind of comes with the job?” I asked.

“I thought that was clear,” she said. “It makes the commute to work about as short as possible without you livin’ in the kitchen. And you won’t have to deal with that creep, Bob, and whatever STDs he lets just float around that damn motel.”

I nearly choked trying to keep from laughing out loud.

“Are you absolutely sure that it’s okay for me to live up there?” I asked hesitantly.
Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes and mean it.

Grandma swatted me lightly with her towel before tucking it back into her waistband. “Would I have offered it to you if the answer was no, Madeline?” she asked. “Maybe that’s the kind of nonsense y’all pull in wherever you’re from, but honey, I have no damn time for nonsense like that.”

I was getting choked up. Again. Why was I such a cry baby? “Thank you, Grandma.”

Turning, she pulled me into a hug. “My pleasure,” she said, in a voice that said she knew more than I was telling her. “This is a good place to heal, you know.”

“I hope so,” I whispered back. Because if anyone needed healing, it was me.

The next few days were a blur of learning my way around the café, and moving to the little apartment that smelled like pastries. I had graduated from pouring coffee to helping with prep in the kitchen, watching Grandma whip together one magical dish after another. By the end of the week, I was settled into my little apartment, and I was able to eat an entire sandwich for lunch and keep it down.

I still had nightmares, but I figured I always would. They were part of me, I supposed.

And thankfully, nobody called. Which would have been hard, considering I had thrown my phone out the window in the middle of a highway in New Jersey and hadn’t bought another one. But my past stayed up north, even though my memories had trickled down and found me, surrounded by sand and cake flour.

I could slowly feel myself calming. But no matter how hard I tried, that early morning beach conversation with Noie kept on replaying itself in my head. She’s a little girl, I told myself, more than once. It didn’t mean anything.

It couldn’t mean anything.

I couldn’t let it.

“Friend!” Noie raced through the café and threw herself at my legs, snapping me out of my useless mental wanderings.

“Hi, Noie,” I said, reaching down to hug her.

“Chocolate milk today?” she asked hopefully.

“Who brought you here today?” I asked, looking around for Sam. “You have to ask them.”

“Daddy!” she said, smiling up at me. “Daddy said I could have chocolate milk.”

Reaching down, I picked her up, savoring the feeling of holding a little girl again. “Well, how about we wait till Daddy comes to ask him?”

“Ask Daddy what?” There was Gabe, with the same look on his face.

What had I done that he kept looking at me like that? There were only two looks I ever got from Gabe. One was so heated, I was afraid it would melt the counter, and the other was this one. The one that looked like he was mad at me. Like I had done something wrong.

I had done something wrong. I had done a lot of somethings wrong. The question was, which one did he know about?

“Daddy, Friend said I can have chocolate milk,” Noie said, snuggling her head into the crook of my neck.

“No, Maddie said that you have to ask your Daddy,” I corrected, tightening my hold on her. It hurt so much to hold her. And it felt so right.

“Well, I did say that she could have some chocolate milk,” he said, smiling. He had a dimple. I swallowed hard.

“See?” Noie said, poking me and giggling. “Daddy even said.”

“Yes, he did,” I said, turning toward her and rubbing my nose against hers. Eskimo kisses. “And I think I might even have a pink straw for you.”

Her eyes widened with happiness as she squeezed me again. “Pink is my best color,” she said, grinning happily. “Also Devi’s.”

There it was again. It had been her favorite color.

“You don’t have to hold her,” Gabe said. “It’s really okay.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Unless you do.”

He shook his head, slightly bemused. “She’s not normally this friendly with strangers,” he said, sounding confused.

“Sam mentioned that,” I shifted her onto my hip expertly and began to prepare the chocolate milk. “I’m pretty surprised.”

“You’re not a stranger,” Noie said, patting my cheeks. “You’re Devi’s friend, and also my friend.”

A phone rang, distracting me from having to think too hard about what Noie just said. It was Gabe’s. I watched him pick up his phone, transforming from a tired-looking dad to a businessman. I couldn’t hear what he was saying with Noie chattering into my ear and the blender going, but something about a rescheduled appointment with the owners, and updated plans.

Pouring the chocolate milk into a cup, I popped in a pink straw and handed it over to Noie, whose eyes practically fell out of her head in excitement.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! It’s a pink straw!” she called excitedly, running over to him and tugging on his pants leg. Ending the phone call, he looked down and smiled at her excitement, dimple flashing, his face going from really good looking to ohmygod gorgeous.

His wife was a lucky woman. But why was he looking at me like that if he was married? Was I just imagining the heated looks, or did he just eye-smolder all the women in this town?

“It is a pink straw,” he agreed, smiling down at her. “Did you say thank you to Maddie?”

The sound of his voice saying my name gave me shivers.

Quit it, Maddie! The last thing you need to do right now is start lusting after a married guy.

You know better than that.

You know
so
much better.

Waving goodbye as they left the store, I sank wearily against the counter. Coming here was supposed to fix me. It was supposed to make me forget about everything I had left behind.

And standing there in the café, I realized something a lot of other people had learned the hard way, too. Changing your location doesn’t necessarily mean losing your problems. They’ll show up wherever you are, changing to fit the situation. But until you break them down and deal with it, there is nowhere far enough for you to run away from them.

Chapter · Five

I gradually started to get into the rhythm of the café, working with Grandma, remembering orders of customers, and keeping track of cooking times while making sure everyone had something to eat. It was a lot different, running around the café, than my years in school. I went through the same inquisition with most of the locals when they came into the café—who was I, where was I from, what was I doing here… I answered as little as I could, but enough that I wasn’t going to be labeled the rude Northern gal. The quiet Northern gal? That didn’t bother me so much. I was okay letting myself melt into the crowd of oblivion, watching the world turn from the outside. I didn’t think I had it in me to be right in the middle of everything else.

The one constant was Sam, Noie’s aunt. Every morning, she dropped in to the café on her way to work at the beauty salon to pick up her cup of coffee and to have a morning chat. She was impossible to not be friends with—Sam was the kind of girl who could become friends with dangerous criminals if she ever stumbled across them. For her sake, I hoped she never did.

“I’ve been thinking, Maddie,” she said one day, leaning against the counter as I poured her cup of coffee.

“Oh, Lord,” I muttered, and watched her laugh. Slipping into friendship with Sam was one of the easiest things I had done in years. “Now I’m scared.”

“Oh, phooey,” she scoffed, waving a hand carelessly. “It’s brilliant.”

“Okay, go for it.” I handed her a cup of coffee.

“You need a makeover,” she declared.

“Uh, no,” I said. “I don’t need any making over. None at all.”

“Maddie,” she drawled, batting her eyelashes at me and turning on the puppy dog look. “It’s almost summer. It practically
is
summer—”

“Sam, February is not almost summer. I don’t care where you live.”

She waved a hand airily. “Whatever. It’s almost spring then, okay? Of
course
you need a makeover—you can’t expect to find any guy here if you’re just going to walk around looking…” She looked me up and down. “Like that.”

I looked down at myself. Old, faded T-shirt. Jeans. Converse sneakers. Dark, wavy hair in a ponytail. Purple eyes, ringed by eyeliner, which was about as far as I was going to go in the makeup department. No jewelry.

Okay, I wasn’t exciting, but I also was not looking for any guys here. No guys. Period.

“I’m not looking for a guy, Sam.”

“What, you have a boyfriend already?” she asked. “And you didn’t tell me yet?”

I laughed bitterly. “No boyfriends,” I said. “None to tell you about.”

We were so not going down that road.

Sam’s face fell. “Oh, I got so excited for a second!” she said. Her face quickly brightened. “See? Now you totally need a makeover!”

I rolled my eyes. “No,” I said. “No makeovers. No haircuts, no highlights, no manicures, no facials, no new blush and lipstick and blah, blah, blah, no.”

“Well, that was quite the list,” a deep voice from behind Sam said, sounding amused. Gabe.

If Sam was the reason I was in a pretty good mood every morning, Gabe was the reason I was in a never-ending battle with my hormones. Which did nothing good for my sanity, because lusting after married men was a dangerous thing.

“Gabe, tell Maddie that she needs a makeover,” Sam said, turning to her brother and pouting.

Gabe’s eyebrow raised. “I am not getting involved in this conversation. There is no right answer for that one without doing something wrong.”

I smothered a smile. He was right. Saying I needed a makeover would be weird, and saying I didn’t could be misconstrued as a line. “Why don’t you just give Gabe’s wife a makeover?” I asked, turning to fill another cup of coffee up for Gabe.

There was silence.

I turned back around, holding the cup of coffee, and looked at the two of them curiously. “I’m not married,” Gabe said stiffly.

This made me way happier than it should have. “Well, then, give Noie a makeover,” I said, trying not to make things any more awkward than I had just made them.

His eyebrow raised again. “She’s not even three yet. And you want her to get a makeover?”

What was the big deal? I glared back. “Sam can curl her hair and paint her nails pink,” I said. “Little girls love things like that.”

He shrugged. “Don’t use my kid as a way of getting out of a makeover.”

It was just a manicure and a blow dry, for God’s sake. What was he getting so worked up about? “I wasn’t,” I snapped, on edge. “I was just suggesting.”

Sam looked back and forth between the two of us, a puzzled expression on her face. “And y’all think I’m a monster before I get to my coffee,” she said. “Neither of you should ever be allowed outside before drinking yours.”

I winced. Customer service. Customer is always right, even when he’s being a jerk for no reason. Maybe the lack of wife thing was a touchy subject for him—that I understood. But I wasn’t going there. I could barely talk to him without being triggered in some way, somehow. He reminded me too much of Ravi, which broke me every time he walked into the café. Grandma Evelyn would be pissed if I started making enemies with the locals. Plastering back on a smile, I handed Gabe the cup of coffee. “You’re right,” I said to Sam. “I haven’t had time to drink my morning cup.”

“See?” she said, laughing. “Well, go pour yourself one, Ms. Sourpuss.”

Dutifully, I poured a cup of coffee, having no intention of drinking it. Caffeine had no effect on me whatsoever. My mood had nothing to do with any lack of coffee, but more with the strangely infuriating man with a daughter who haunted me.

“I’m going over to work,” Sam said as she turned to leave. “Now, you think about that makeover, you hear?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, waving as she left me alone at the front counter with Gabe.

Shit.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” I asked, trying to maintain my façade of happy customer service when all I really wanted to do was crawl under the covers upstairs and cry until I had no more tears left inside me. And if I happened to drown myself in the process, so be it.

His green eyes perused the display case, and turned back to me. He saw too much, I thought, as he looked at me calmly. He knew too much, and I didn’t know how. “How much for the coffee?” he asked, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“On the house,” I said as I reached into the display case to pull out a little pink frosted cake pop. “Along with the coffee. There was no need for me to be rude.”

He looked down at the cake pop and then back at me. “Don’t worry,” I repeated. “I’ll pay for it—I’m not taking a cut out of Grandma’s profits. The cake pop is for Noie.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s okay. I can pay for my own coffee.”

“I’m not questioning the fact that you probably have a dollar twenty-five in your wallet,” I countered as sweetly as I could. “It’s an apology for being rude, and I do hope you’ll take it.”

He studied me for a few moments, as if trying to figure out what I was hiding. “Just a friendly apologetic gesture,” I said. “Hope you have a good day at work and such.”

Slowly picking up the bag with the cake pop and picking back up his coffee, he looked at me again. “Thank you,” he said. “Noie will be very happy to get this.”

You will not think about how edible he looks in that suit, it doesn’t matter that he’s single. You will not, you will not, you—

“So, you and Gabe?” I whirled around.

“Good God, Grandma, you just took ten years off my life,” I said, clutching my chest as she laughed and wiggled her eyebrows at me.

“I leave you to do the morning shift and suddenly you’re giving away free pastries to any good-looking guy who walks in here?” she teased.

I felt my cheeks turn red. “I’m paying for it out of pocket,” I tripped over myself to explain. “I was a little bitchy to him this morning and I wanted to make that up to him.”

Grandma pursed her lips. “You shouldn’t have tried,” she said. “People have coddled that boy for far too long by now. Next time you bitch at him, don’t apologize.”

I looked at her, completely and utterly confused.

“Coddled?” I asked dubiously. “Him?” Gabe looked like a lot of things, but coddled was definitely not one of them.

She nodded. “There’s pity, and then there’s suffocating pity,” she said.

That I understood. I had been the recipient of both. Pity was almost manageable. Pity I was able to deal with for three years by plowing on and pretending everything was fine. But the suffocating pity after everyone found out about Jen? That was what drove me to run.

I took a deep breath of crisp ocean air and exhaled. Maybe I shouldn’t still be here, my brain screamed frantically as I sat down on the beach, hidden behind a sand dune where nobody could see me. Maybe I should keep running.

But who was I running away from?

Mother. Jen. Crawford. Ravi. Devi. The graves.

Myself.

And there was nowhere far enough for that.

“You’re just being a baby, Maddie,” she snapped, defensive.

“I’m being a baby? I think I’m entitled to be furious at the two of you. You more than him.” My voice caught in a sob. “How could you, Jen? How could you do that to me?”

“Do what? It’s not like you were dating,” she said, a look of disgust on her face.

I could barely control my rage. “It’s not like we were dating?” I repeated, unable to comprehend that she had actually just said those words. “Do you not remember the conversation I had—with you—about how I started dating again? And then the conversation about how Crawford and I were getting serious? What the hell did that sound like to you?”

“He told me that you guys had broken up,” she protested.

I saw red. “Really? Because I was never informed of that decision until I walked in on you having sex on my bed.”

“You’re just jealous,” she scoffed.

“Of what? That you’re sleeping with my boyfriend?” I turned to her, incredulous. “No, I’m not jealous, you idiot. I’m furious.”

“You always get everything you want,” she whined. “Everyone’s always so much nicer to you,”

I couldn’t anymore. “Everyone’s nice to me out of pity!” I yelled. “Because they DIED, Jen. Died, okay?”

Everything was falling apart. It had been hard enough maintaining my mask of ‘Everything’s fine!’ until now. But this, too? I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Taking a shuddering breath, I stomped toward the door. “You know what? Keep him. I hope you get what you want.” With that, I walked out, leaving my sister staring at my back.

I dropped my head to my lap, exhausted. I had to let it all go. I couldn’t keep letting myself get sucked back into all of it. I wouldn’t be able to keep going this way. I barely was.

“Maddie!” came a small voice.

Noie.

She ran over, beaming. Looking at my face, her expression fell. “Are you sad?” she asked, patting my cheek softly.

Gathering her into my arms, I inhaled the smell of little girl and sunshine. “Yeah,” I answered. “I’m sad.”

She cuddled on my lap, and reached up to pat my face again. “Should I give it a kiss?” she asked seriously. The little splintered pieces of my heart ached.