The Wreck (22 page)

If he were wise, he would hightail it
back to New York while he still could. But he was tired of being wise, and he
was tired of feeling like half of him was missing. So he set off toward town,
toward the only person in the world who could fill his empty places.

The town was pretty much as he remembered
it, except there were more stores and more traffic. The town common was packed
with media, and the police patrolling Main Street were an omnipresent reminder
that a madman was on the loose. As he walked along the street, he saw a few
people he recognized, but they didn’t notice him.

Miss Molly’s was exactly the same. When
he walked in, his eyes immediately sought out and found Carly, who was sharing
a laugh with three guys in a corner booth. As if she’d been waiting for him,
Carly turned, their eyes met, and his heart fluttered.

Brian wondered if everyone in the coffee
shop felt the current that passed between them as he walked over and kissed her
cheek. “Hello.”

Flustered, she murmured, “Hi.”

“Brian Westbury!” one of the guys in the
booth said.

He took his eyes off Carly long enough to
say hello to Tommy, Luke, and Tony, all of whom he had known since elementary
school.

“Want to join us?” Luke asked, pulling
his feet back from the other side of the booth to make room for Brian.

“Sure.”

“Can I get you something?” Carly asked.

Her cheeks flushed with color, which
Brian found adorable. He liked knowing he had thrown her off just by walking in
the door. “What’s good?” he asked the other guys.

“Molly’s burgers are still the best,”
Tony said.

“Sold,” Brian said. “Medium, please.”

Without looking at him, Carly scurried
away to place the order.

Brian chuckled softly to himself as he
watched her go.

“So how long are you home?” Tommy asked.

Carly
hung back as a parade of locals stopped by the booth to say hello to Brian.
Eventually, the other guys left to go back to work.

Molly stepped away from the grill to
bring Carly the burger she had ordered for Brian. “Go sit with your young man
while he eats.”

“He’s not my young man,” Carly protested,
despite the fact that she had floated through her day thinking only of him and
what he had said to her the night before. “And my shift’s not over.”

“It is now.” Molly nudged her. “Grab
yourself a drink and go.”

Carly did as she was told and slid into
the booth across from Brian.

Raising an eyebrow in amusement, he
asked, “Sitting down on the job?”

“Boss’s orders. Are you enjoying your
moment in the sun?”

He gestured her closer to him.

She leaned across the table.

“Is it me, or did everyone get old and
fat?”

Carly laughed.

“Except for your parents and mine, that
is.”

“We come from good genes.”

“You surely do.” He shook ketchup onto
his fries. “I can’t get over how you look exactly the same as you did at
eighteen. That’s really not fair to other women.”

“If you look close, I’ve got crow’s feet
starting.”

“I’ll have to look close,” he said,
lowering his voice. “Later.”

Her cheeks turned bright red.

He laughed at her reaction and pushed his
plate to the middle of the table so she could share his fries. “You still chew
on your straw.”

She looked down, surprised to discover he
was right. “I guess I do.”

“I’m assigned to your security detail
this afternoon.”

The thought of spending the afternoon
with him filled her with excitement and anticipation. She was still afraid she
might be dreaming. Was Brian really sitting here talking to her like he always
had, like nothing had ever come between them? And how long did they have before
he had to leave again?

“What are you thinking right now?”

“That I can’t believe you’re really
here.”

“And?”

“How do you know there’s more?”

“I can still see everything you’re
feeling in your eyes. Just like always.”

“Brian…”

He finished the burger and pushed the
plate aside. Reaching for her hands, he said, “Tell me.”

“I was wondering how long you’re going to
be here.”

“I talked to my boss this morning and
took a one-month leave of absence.”

She gasped. “How can you just do that?”

“How can I go back to work when you’re in
danger and my father’s working himself into an early grave?”

“A whole month.” She settled back against
the booth. “Can you afford that?”

He laughed. “Yes, I can afford it. Since
I just recently took my first vacation in six years, I still have eight weeks
on the books. Even if I didn’t have vacation time, all I do is work, so I have
plenty of money sitting in the bank.”

Still trying to absorb that she had a
whole month to spend with him, she asked, “Why do you work so much?”

“Because I don’t have anything better to
do.” He squeezed her hand. “Or I didn’t, until now. Can we get out of here?”

She looked around and was surprised to
see the shop had cleared out. “Sure.”

He paid the check and slipped a
ten-dollar bill into her apron pocket.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s for the lovely waitress who brought
me the best burger I’ve had in years.”

“That’s more than the check!” she
protested, trying to give it back to him.

“Don’t be silly.”

They left the shop and walked slowly
along Main Street.

“Do you want to get changed?” he asked.

“I’d love to. What do you feel like
doing?”

He shrugged. “What do you normally do on
Thursday afternoons?”

“I go to my niece Zoë’s baseball game,
but it’s cancelled today.”

“Your niece plays baseball?”

“She’s an incredible pitcher,” Carly said
as she led him up the stairs to her apartment over Carson’s.

“This I need to see.”

“Hopefully, she’ll be up for playing by
next week. Alicia Perry was her good friend. She’s taking it really hard.”

Brian shook his head. “Poor kid. You and
I can relate, can’t we?”

“All too well, unfortunately.”

Carly unlocked the door and went in ahead
of him.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “What a great place.
It’s so … you.” He wandered into the living room and came to a stop when he saw
the jukebox. When he turned back to her, the surprise showed on his face.

She pulled her hair free of the ponytail
she had worn to work and shook it loose. “Toby’s parents were getting rid of
it, so I asked Mr. Garrett if I could have it.”

Brian ran his hands reverently over the
vintage jukebox. “I can still remember that last day. Every moment of it is
etched permanently in my mind.”

“Mine, too. I’ve had the jukebox for
about three years and was just recently able to bring myself to play ‘Tupelo
Honey’ for the first time. I cried my eyes out.”

“I heard that song once, a few years back
when I was with some of my coworkers having a drink after work. We were in a
pub near the office, and I was actually having a pretty good time.”

The way he said it told her that didn’t
happen very often, which made her sad for him.

“And then the song came on over the sound
system. It was so loud in there I shouldn’t have been able to hear it, but it
was like all the other noise faded away. It was the first time I’d heard it
since that night, and I felt like someone had punched me or something.”

Carly walked over to him and rested her
hands on his chest.

He put his hands over hers but was a
million miles away from her, locked in a memory. “I’d heard of a song
transporting people back to some moment in time, but it’d never happened to me
before. I got up from the table and went outside because I couldn’t bear to
listen to it. I remember sliding down this brick wall in the alley next to the
bar and just bawling my head off.”

Slipping her arms around him, she held
him close to her for a long, quiet moment. “Do you think, maybe, if we listened
to it now, together, we could create a new memory that would make the old one
less painful for both of us?”

He glanced down at her. “That might
work.”

She went to plug in the jukebox and
select the song. When she returned to him, she was suddenly filled with
shyness.

Reaching for her, he brought her into the
shelter of his arms and kept her there as the first notes of the song filled
the room. They didn’t dance so much as sway.

“I wanted so badly to get you out of
there,” he recalled. “All I thought about back then was getting you alone. I
just wish I had known those were the last minutes I’d ever have with my
brother, with all of them.”

“Do you ever wish we’d gone with them?”

He pulled back from her so he could see
her eyes. “There’ve been times when I thought it might’ve been easier. But then
I think about my parents losing both of us, and I know I wasn’t in that car for
a reason, and neither were you.”

“Sometimes I’m not quite sure what that
reason is. My life has been very small. I haven’t left this town in more than
fifteen years. I have my job, my family, my nieces and nephews … but not much
else.”

“That’s about three times as much as I
have. Even your apartment is a real home. Mine has a sofa, a TV, a bed, and
twenty suits hanging in the closet.” He sang along softly to the song, like he
had so long ago.

“I’ve pictured you living a glamorous
life in New York City.”

He snorted with laughter. “If you only
knew how boring and empty it is.”

“You must have friends, people you do
things with.”

“Not really. I never went to the trouble
to make new friends. It didn’t seem worth the risk.”

Her eyes burned with tears. “Our lives
are a lot more alike than I ever would’ve imagined.”

“When I was in Florida, my mother was
going on and on about how courageous I’d been to go off and have my life
despite what happened. She said I didn’t let it ruin my life. But in so many
ways it
did
ruin my life and yours. When I think about what we should
have, compared to what we
do
have…”

Carly looked up at him.

He brushed his lips softly over hers.
“How’s this for a new memory?”

“It’s working for me,” she said,
breathless.

Burying his face in her soft tangle of
curls, he said, “Me, too.” The song ended, and three more came and went before
he lifted his head from her shoulder. “It was kind of funny today. People in
town didn’t seem to recognize me until I was with you at Miss Molly’s.”

“You look a lot different—even more
handsome than before, if that’s possible. In fact, you remind me of your dad
when I first knew him.”

“You think so?”

“Totally.”

“Would you’ve known me if you saw me
somewhere and hadn’t seen me on TV?”

“I would’ve known you anywhere.”

He combed his fingers into her hair and
tilted her face to receive his kiss. “I still love you, Carly. I realized the
instant I saw you last night that I’ve always loved you, and I always will.”

Her eyes grew wide with wonder. “You
never stopped? Even when you were mar—”

He quieted her with his fingers on her
lips. “I never stopped.” Reaching for his back pocket, he said, “I want to show
you something.”

Carly watched as he opened his wallet and
withdrew a piece of paper from one of the leather compartments. When she
realized what it was, she gasped. “You still have that?”

“I’ve carried it with me since I left.
Whenever I thought I couldn’t go another minute without you, I’d take it out
and read it again. The reminder that you love me made it possible to keep
going.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “If you
missed me so much, why didn’t you just come back?”

“Because I said I wouldn’t. My foolish
pride and a whole lot of stubbornness kept me away.”

“That stubbornness got you through college
and law school,” she reminded him. “Don’t forget that.”

“Did I stay away too long?” He put his
wallet back in his pocket and then brushed his thumbs over the tears on her
cheeks.

“No,” she whispered. “I meant what I said
in that note. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, the only one I will ever
love.”

He hugged her tight against him. “That’s
all I need to know. We’ll figure this out, Carly, and this time, nothing will
stop us from having it all. Nothing.” He lifted her to him and kissed her.

Carly clutched his shoulders and moaned
when she felt his hands slide up the back of her legs to hook them around his
waist.