Awol Bride

Then Conor drew himself up as if coming to grips with some of his demons and said, “I’m gonna heat the water and take a quick shower.”

“Sure. Good idea,” Maicy said.

Conor disappeared downstairs. In the meantime Maicy retrieved her suitcase and purse, feeling as joyful as a kid at Christmas to have them with her again, and took them into the bedroom.

Then she relocated the pink cake box to the kitchen, setting it aside for later.

By the time Conor’s shower was finished the cornbread was cooked, the can of chili she’d opened was simmering on the stovetop, she had plates, bowls and bottles of water waiting, and she’d lit some of the candles she’d found in the mudroom to add a little light.

Not in any romantic way, she made sure to tell herself. Just so they could see what they were eating.

What she wasn’t prepared for was the impact of looking up from her tasks to find the freshly showered and shaved Conor rejoining her in that candlelight.

He was wearing navy blue sweatpants and a matching hoodie with NAVY emblazoned across his expansive chest.

His dark hair was shower-damp. His face was bare of whiskers and even more handsome with all the sculpted lines and planes revealed. And that soapy scent that had tormented her from his clothes wafted out from him and went right to her head.

But only for a minute before she got a hold of herself. She focused on stirring the chili so she didn’t have to look at him, thinking that this was a dirty trick on fate’s part. If Conor had aged into a troll of a man it would have been bad enough to be in this situation with him. But as it was, his appeal had doubled from what it had been when he was eighteen and this was turning into a constant test of her resistance that she didn’t appreciate.

“I’ll shut off the propane on the water heater but we should still have enough warm water in the tank to do the dishes,” he said as he headed for the basement again.

Maicy didn’t respond to that, working to remind herself not to let the way he looked have any effect on her.

She thought she had it under control until he came back. But one glimpse of him rattled her all over again.

It doesn’t matter how hot he is, she lectured herself, think about who he is and what he did.

Holding fast to memories of old injuries, she ladled out the chili and cut the cornbread, then he took his plate and she took hers to the coffee table to eat, sitting side by side on the sofa, facing the kitchen rather than each other.

After a few bites, Conor said, “Now that you’ve talked me off the ledge—thanks for that by the way—tell me about this wedding of yours so I can think about something else and stop obsessing over Declan and things I can’t do.”

Maicy wondered if it had rocked him at all to think of her with someone else—the way it had rocked her earlier when she’d thought he might want cell service to keep up with a pregnant wife. But there were no indications of it.

Before she’d said anything he said, “I know you didn’t stay in Northbridge—my mom said you left a year after I did and never came back—but you were getting married there?”

“I got a scholarship to the University of Colorado in Boulder, I went there for undergrad. Then I got my masters at CU Denver campus and stayed,” she explained.

“What did you get your degrees in?”

“Career counseling and development. I own my own career counseling service in Denver.”

“So you went to Colorado, live in Denver, but went back to Northbridge to get married?” he said, returning to the original subject.

“A little over a year ago I ran into Gary Stern on the street—”

“That little dorky guy from your graduating class?”

“He evolved out of the dorkiness,” she defended even though she didn’t feel particularly inclined to support her cheating former fiancé. Granted, she couldn’t argue that he wasn’t little—only two inches taller than Maicy’s own five feet four inches and slight enough that if she’d been wearing Gary’s sweatsuit now it would have fit her perfectly.

Then she went on. “He’d just moved away from Northbridge after Candace Jackson turned down his proposal.”

Okay, there might have been a touch of snideness to that last part, but if Conor had heard it he didn’t say anything. He only said, “Candace Jackson... She started out my year, got thrown from a horse and had to be held back into your class because she missed so much school.”

“Right. But she’s perfectly healthy now...” Maicy said sardonically.

“And she turned down Stern’s proposal and he moved to Denver, where you met up with him again and...what? Hit it off?”

Commiserated as two people dumped by high school sweethearts, was more like it.

But that wasn’t how Maicy framed it. “At first we were only old friends meeting again after a long time. But then yes, we hit it off, started to date—”

“You and Stern...” he mused, glancing at her in disbelief. “I can’t see it.”

“We were good together,” she said, defensively again. “At least I thought we were. Gary’s transition from small town to big city was a little rough, though. He worked as an account manager at a brokerage house but six months in, the company let him go.”

“That’s not good. How come?”

“They said he just didn’t fit in—it was kind of a high-profile firm and it seemed like Gary just didn’t have the... I don’t know...the panache for their big clients. Anyway, about that time his apartment lease expired and his rent almost doubled from the move-in rate—”

“And being newly unemployed, he couldn’t afford it,” Conor said for her.