The tears were there, pushing at her lids again as she thought about Tyler facing that kind of guilt.
“You did everything, Tyler. Everything you could have.”
“Hey,” he crooned, reaching over to brush the wet trail that had formed from the corner of her eye. “Everything I could think of. But this week I’ve realized maybe it was for the best I couldn’t get him back. That I couldn’t take him from Ray the way Gina took him from me.”
He explained about what he’d found on Ray’s fan page and how he’d finally been able to see the events of the last year in a different light. How it was to be with his family.
“I’m sure they were glad to have you home. So they could see you were okay for themselves. They’ve had to have been worried about you.”
Eyes closed, he let out a laugh. “You could say that.”
“They want you to move back?”
“Like yesterday. Except for my brother Mitch. He likes my stuff.”
She had to ask. “What about you? Things are different for you now. Have you figured out what you want to do?”
She’d tried to make the question as casual as possible, but something in her voice must have given her away, because then Tyler was searching her eyes, looking into her so deep she wondered if there was anything he couldn’t see.
“Yeah, I want to be with you.”
Her heart skipped and she was so tempted to just leave it at that. Be cool and casual and accepting. But she loved him. Her heart was on the line and she needed to know. “For how long?”
What they’d just shared was beautiful. Critical. Something she wouldn’t trade no matter what his answer was. But she couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a life waiting for Tyler back in New York he’d never fully let go of. The one he never would have left if it weren’t for Charlie and Gina. The apartment that was there waiting for him. The job he could have back with one phone call.
The family.
The friends who’d known him before his life had become the tragedy he wanted to move past.
All of it was still there waiting. All of it good.
And when weighed against her— She tried to look away, but Tyler caught her jaw in his palm, bringing her back to him.
“Aww, Maggie. I’m not going anywhere.” He shook his head, muttering a quiet curse. “This was why we should have talked first. Tell me what you’re afraid of, and I’ll tell you why you don’t have to be.”
Sitting up, he backed up to the headboard, pulling Maggie with him.
Maggie felt a pressure pushing up in her chest. All the fears she didn’t want to face and words she didn’t want to say, bubbling toward freedom. But this time, there was no holding them back.
“You have so much back in New York. All the people you left behind. The job.”
“I’ve got people here. An apartment, too. And a job—though hell, the job can go anywhere. But none of that matters as much as you.” He shook his head, eyes filling with pain. “Maggie, letting you go nearly killed me. And I won’t do it again.”
Her heart hurt, it was beating so hard. He was staying. Because of her.
“Tyler,” she whispered, terrified to let herself believe in what this man was saying. But knowing it was everything she’d hoped to hear. Still, there was more. She swiped at her eyes with the insides of her wrists, trying to clear her vision because with what she was going to say next, she desperately needed to see how he would react.
Shaking her head, she swallowed past the rest, the parts that were choking her. Afraid that by giving them voice, she might give them power as well. The power to stop Tyler from living. From moving on.
“What? Tell me, so I can show you why you don’t have to worry.”
“But what about Gina?” she asked, hating herself for having to say the words. For the pain that flashed in Tyler’s eyes. For picking at the wound she knew had only barely begun to heal. Her name alone was enough to make him wince. To cause the muscle in his jaw to jump and the tendons in his neck to go taut.
“She married Ray.”
Okay, and this was the part that scared her the most. “I know. And I’m so sorry for it. And I’m sorry for what I’m about to say now, too, because I know you don’t want to hear it. But what if it doesn’t work out with him?”
God, she could see the hurt in his eyes. See the pull of what he’d tried to move on from.
Tyler opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. With a shake of his head, he looked away.
“It’s over. All of it. I wouldn’t be with you like this if I hadn’t already worked through the different scenarios. That’s what I was doing in New York. Why I needed the space, and the time.”
He broke off, rubbed the evening scruff of his jaw. “Maggie, I knew I couldn’t come back and have you again unless it was all the way. Unless I’d accepted that all the maybes with Charlie had to end. You showed me what it was to be alive again. You made me want it, want a life that’s about a future instead of a past.”
Taking Maggie’s face between his hands, he brushed his thumb across the ridge of her cheekbone, wiping at her tears. “I love you, Maggie. Please don’t doubt me.”
Staring into his eyes, she shook her head. “I don’t.”
She didn’t doubt that he believed every word he was saying.
And she’d already accepted that that was good enough for her. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Thirty-three
JUNE
After months of feeling her life was being systematically dismantled, that everything Maggie cared about and depended on was unraveling, finally it was all beginning to pull back together. There were still loose threads, sure, but overall, life was good.
She’d found her rhythm in her new job. Ava was finally coming home, thereby restoring Maggie’s go-to group of friends to their complete set of crazy. Her plans for opening her own gallery were slow in coming, but with every step her vision became sharper and her confidence grew.
And there was Tyler. It had been two weeks since he’d returned from New York, and she’d seen him nearly every night.
Being with him was unbelievable.
He was unbelievable. Amazing. Mind-blowing. And for now, hers.
She’d arrive home from work, and within an hour, he’d be there with a pizza from Lou’s, or his hands hooked over the top frame of her doorway, leaning into her space with those eyes that were all charm and seduction and everything that made her heart go from zero to six thousand within the span of a single telling smile, offering to take her out or promising to keep her in. Either way, the answer was yes.
He talked like they had forever. Like she was his future. And she wanted to believe. God, more than anything she did. But still there was this small part of her that couldn’t stop bracing for impact. For whatever was coming next.
Tyler had breathed life back into the part of her soul she’d thought was beyond saving. And while there was nothing like the way it made her feel, there was suddenly so very much to lose.
It was terrifying.
She tried not to dwell on it, tried to shut down the part of her that was chronically borrowing trouble. But every now and then, when things felt so very right and she started slipping into that place where all she wanted to do was float, go with it, give in completely and let the current take her wherever that unbelievable feeling might lead…she’d hear it.
What if.
What if she was making another mistake? What if she was ignoring the writing on the wall again and—
Ava burst through the front door of her apartment where they’d all been waiting, cutting into Maggie’s thoughts, and yanking her firmly into the now. Into the long overdue return of her best friend.
Ava stomped her feet in excitement as Ford trailed behind, toting two hard-sided suitcases his little sister hadn’t owned when she left for the six-week trip that had turned into twelve.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, I’m home!” she sang, doing her Ava best to squeeze the air out of
Maggie’s lungs as she rocked the two of them back and forth with her stronger-than-it-looked body. Then, giving Maggie a little shove on the release, Ava hopped over to Sam and sprang into his waiting arms to plant a long, squeaky kiss on his cheek. Tyler scored a double kiss and a smaller hug, and Tony had to settle for a friendly back patting after offering up a pucker Ava avoided at just the last second.
Everyone was talking at once, the noise and commotion like wrapping up in her favorite snuggly, warm blanket.
Sam walked over to the bar he’d built into Ava’s living room while she’d been gone and started mixing drinks as Ava rattled off all the high points and offenses racked up during her trip home. The San Diego airport was awesome. Check-in and security a gentle breeze compared to the high intensity of O’Hare. The flight was tainted by the guy next to her repeatedly taking her armrest but otherwise uneventful, and she was convinced when her bag was the first to reach the carousel, it was Baggage Claim imparting some cosmic message about all being right now that she was back in Chicago.
Ford smiled indulgently, but couldn’t help asking Tyler what he thought it meant that her second bag took twenty minutes to come out. And that good-humored grin her guy offered up in return—God, she loved it.
She loved him.
As always, Tyler seemed to have caught the direction of her thoughts based on the invitation there in his eyes, the challenge in the lift of that one brow.
“Martinis, dirty, just like my favorite girls,” Sam announced, handing Ava her glass with no less than five olives and Maggie a glass with the more conservative three. Tyler had bourbon, Ford a gin and tonic, Tony some kind of tequila thing with a cherry, and Sam a Belvedere on the rocks.
With the drinks handed out, everyone raised a glass to Ava, who did a little curtsy. And as Maggie took her first drink, she felt the teasing brush of Tyler’s hand down her spine before his hand slipped around her hip to hold her close.
It was so perfect.
“Geeyikes, you guys with the PDA,” Tony groaned, giving them a disgusted look. “My no-strings hero reduced to cuddles over cocktails. Makes me want to puke.”
Almost perfect.
—
She didn’t know if it was Sam’s bartending skills, the excitement of having her best friend home, or Tyler’s ready touch…but Maggie’s first martini had gone down altogether too easily, followed by the second “baby” one she’d requested that looked suspiciously sized like the first. Whatever the case, after the initial catching up had been done, the drinks refilled and polished off, and plans made to reconvene outside in thirty minutes, Maggie was feeling warm and loose and easy as she and Tyler walked back to her place.
“You look a little drunk, Maggie,” he said, shooting her a wicked sideways glance. “I’m seeing a window of opportunity for taking advantage.”
“A window that is…” She checked her phone. “Precisely twenty-seven minutes? What kind of damage are you thinking you can get done?”
His answering smile was cocky and full of promise. Holding the door for her, he answered, “The better question would be, ‘What can’t I?’ ”
The door closed behind them and she leaned into him until there was barely an inch of hot, charged air between them. She drew a long, slow breath through her nose.
“You smell so good.”
He stopped her at her door, closing his hands around her hips and pulling her back into his chest.
“Every time I catch a glimpse of that sexy stretch of neck, all I want to do is touch it.” Then, rubbing his jaw along that very same stretch of skin, he murmured in her ear, “Kiss it.”
A tremor shot through her body as he demonstrated his intent.
She could feel him getting hard behind her, the change in his breath, the charged tension radiating off his body. And she loved it.
“Your restraint is impressive. Not sure Tony could handle it if you actually kissed me in front of him,” she whispered, her voice breaking as his palms coasted up her waist and ribs, higher, until he’d taken the weight of her breasts in them.
“No talk about Tony.” His voice lowered to that seductive rumble she felt through her entire body.
Another grazing caress across her breasts.
“Jealous,” she teased, her giggle evaporating at the press of his erection into her back, and the wide hand splaying low across her abdomen, holding her against it.
Skin tingling, heartbeat erratic, she let out a soft moan.
This man affected her like no other.
“Completely jealous.” Tyler was walking them down the hall to her bedroom. “It’s giving me a complex, and I’m thinking maybe I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh yeah, what?”
How could it be so sexy to feel a man smile behind her?
He turned her around to face him and then, guiding her back onto the bed, followed her down. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her left wrist and pressed it to the soft mattress above her head, then did the same with her right. Eyes locked with hers, he added the barest amount of pressure and answered, “I’ve got twenty-three minutes to show you.”
—
In the kitchen, Tyler pounded a glass of water listening to Maggie sing off key as she did whatever she was doing to get ready to go out again in—he checked the clock—two minutes. She was fun. Sweet and surly, and making him want to thump his chest every time she rounded the corner, met his eyes, and smiled.
He was so damn lucky.
Something he’d never thought to describe himself as again. But when he thought of everything that had happened, how he’d let her go, watched her pick up the pieces of her life and walk away—Christ.
That he’d gotten this second chance?
He might be the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet. But no one got that lucky more than once, which was why he needed to make sure he didn’t blow it. Why he needed to figure out what was wrong.
Because something was.
Ever since he’d come back from New York, there’d be these moments where everything was so fucking perfect, where Maggie would be looking up at him with those eyes that gave him everything. And he could feel himself caught in her look. In the depth of emotion running between them—and then he’d see it. This flash of doubt. And whatever connection had been there the instant before, it would be gone.
Maggie would still be smiling up at him. They’d still feel so right it hurt his heart in the best way.
But there would be the smallest distance.
And that distance scared the shit out of him, because it wasn’t going away.
He’d asked her about it. Asked what happened, where she’d gone when one moment they were there. Together. And the next…
She’d just wrinkle her nose at him and shake her head. Acting like he was completely off base and then changing the subject, or distracting him with her sweet mouth or her hands or her body—but the one thing she never did was flat-out tell him there was nothing wrong.
Because Maggie didn’t lie to him.
“Hey, handsome. You ready?” she asked, looking more gorgeous than he’d ever seen her, beaming up at him with that smile that wouldn’t quit and those eyes dancing with joy. “Ava just texted and they’re downstairs.”
God, she blew him away.
And she deserved so much more than to live with the doubts he hadn’t figured out how to put to rest.
Chapter Thirty-four
Tyler hadn’t meant to sleep so late, but hell, Maggie had worn him out. Completely.
For Ava’s first night back, they’d gone to see a band. Ended up dancing until the bar closed. And when they’d come home after all those hours of watching her move and sway, brush against him, cast secret looks over her shoulder, whisper those naughty promises in his ear—hell, yes. They’d barely made it in the door.
And once they had, it was hot. Maggie attacking-him-like-an-animal hot. Up-until-four A.M. hot. Burning-through-the-bulk-box-of-rubbers-and-making-an-emergency-run-to-the-twenty-four
-hour-place-for-more hot.
What a lucky bastard.
Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he rubbed his head with rough strokes to wake up. And that’s when he smelled it. Warm chocolate. Brown sugar. And toasted nuts.
He was up in a flash, snagging his boxer briefs, and then hopping down the hall on one foot and then the other as he pulled on his jeans. He heard the oven door and after skidding into the kitchen, stopped dead. Whatever smooth cookie-scoring line he’d been about to throw down was burned off his brain by the scorching-hot sight of Maggie, wearing only her white bikini panties and his discarded oxford with the sleeves rolled and a scant two buttons holding it closed beneath her breasts. In one hand, she was holding a half-eaten cookie, and with the other…she was sweeping at the smattering of crumbs across her chest.
And despite his prior conviction that Maggie had used him up completely with the previous night’s myriad bouts of dirty good fun, he was hard as a spike and ready to go. Because, holy freaking hell, this was his cookie-girl fantasy come to life. And he hadn’t even had to ask her to dress up for him or let him crumble cookie bits all over her. She was…authentic. She was…She was everything he wanted. The kind of sexy, smart-mouthed, cookie-baking girl-downstairs he’d thought he wouldn’t be able to have. And she was his.
He was going to marry her.
“Okay, whatever you’re thinking with that incredibly flattering, mouth-hanging-open, tongue-on-the-floor business…I’m intrigued, but you’re going to have to put a pin in it. I’ve got seven minutes on this batch.”
Tyler ran his tongue across his bottom lip and swallowed before she had to add drool to the flattering business list. “I’m thinking I want to eat your cookie, Maggie. And I could totally do it in less than seven minutes.”
And now Maggie was the one looking like she had something she wanted. “My cookies are special, Ty. They ought to be savored. Not just snarfed down. And now there’s only six minutes left. Invite your always eager, kinky friend Rosie over and distract yourself while I watch. Then I’ll make a special plate the three of us can share.”
He groaned, denim cutting off the circulation to his groin. “Not helping, Maggie.”