She was here.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the exact spot where they had spent so many afternoons, her face in her hands, her heart clearly breaking. She hadn’t heard him until now, but something must have caught her attention, because she shifted and sat up straighter, glancing over her shoulder into the dark room.
He didn’t want to scare her. So he did what he would’ve done seven years ago if he’d known he wasn’t going to see her again. He didn’t need the book. The lines were in his heart. “‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.’” He hesitated. “What happened to that girl?”
“Ryan!” She allowed a quick gasp and spun around, facing him. “What are you doing here?”
He came closer and sat on the floor opposite her, their knees inches apart. “That was supposed to be my question.”
The shock looked to be wearing off, but she seemed discouraged, resigned in some way he couldn’t quite understand. “You . . . you’re supposed to be at the hospital.”
“And you’re supposed to be at the airport.”
“I missed my flight.” She exhaled, finding control again. But something in her tone was more hurt than defeated. “What did that mean? The Jane Eyre quote?”
“What happened to her?” He shrugged. “You didn’t give me a chance to ask.”
Molly dried her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater and looked at him. She couldn’t maintain the connection now any more than she could earlier that day. She let her eyes find a spot on the wooden floor. “I play violin for a local symphony.” Her tone settled a bit more. She lifted her eyes to his again. “No net ensnares me, Ryan. I’m still that girl.”
She played the violin? He forced himself to remember that they weren’t sophomores in college, and this wasn’t the backyard of her parents’ home. He could barely concentrate outside of the way he was drawn to her. “You didn’t tell me. About the violin.”
Her face didn’t apologize. “You didn’t ask.” She angled her head, allowing him to see a little deeper into her soul. “When we first met, you told me you might have questions. I told you I might have answers, remember that?”
“Yes.” He slid back a little, fighting his emotions. “I remember everything.”
“This time you didn’t ask.” She lifted her chin a little. “You don’t know anything about me, Ryan Kelly.”
She was right. That was the worst part. He sighed, wishing he could explain himself. He hadn’t felt right asking questions, not when she had a man waiting back at home. “Okay.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Your husband . . . does he like music?” His voice was soft, the question merely his attempt at a window to her heart. The one he hadn’t looked for earlier. “And does he know about your obsession with Jane Eyre?”
Her gaze fell. For a long time she said nothing, only stared at the floor again and moved her fingers nervously along the old wooden planks. Finally, a shaky breath slid across her lips, and two fresh tears fell onto her cheeks. When she looked up, her eyes were the same as they’d been back at the hospital. Filled with a raw pain that made no sense. “Ryan.”
It took all his strength to keep from drawing her close and finding a way to comfort her. “Talk to me, Molly.”
Before the words would come, the look in her eyes changed. As if, whatever she was about to say, she was already begging him to understand.
“Look, I never stopped caring about you, Molly. I hate seeing you like this.” He reminded himself to be careful, not to say too much. “You and your husband . . . is there a problem?”
She pressed her fist to her forehead, and when she lowered it, she said the words he never expected. “I’m not married.” She twisted the ring on her left hand. “This is my mother’s wedding band.”
Ryan heard the words; he just couldn’t register them. Couldn’t find a place where they made even a little sense. She wasn’t married? The ring wasn’t hers? He closed his eyes and then blinked them open. He didn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The assault of emotions on his heart was so varied, he had no idea which one to tackle first.
Shock seemed to take the lead. “Why, Molly?”
Her voice fell to a whisper, tears choking her words. “It was safer.”
“But . . .” His own eyes were damp now. “You hate safe. Remember?”
“Except with you.”
Ryan remembered her father’s phone call. None of it made sense, why Molly would have run to the guy if she hadn’t been in love with him. “All this time I thought you married him.” He stood and paced to the window. When he turned around, shock took a backseat to anger. “Why did you call him if you weren’t in love with him?”
“What?” She sounded mystified.
“The night we kissed, you called him, not me.” He didn’t hide his fury. For seven years he’d wanted to have this conversation with her. He found a level of restraint. “Don’t act surprised. Your father told me.” He could feel the disgust in his expression. “He even played me the message.”
With that, her eyes no longer held an apology or a broken heart or righteous indignation. They held sheer and complete horror. In that single moment he knew with absolute certainty that he’d based the last seven years on nothing more than a lie.
A wicked, ruinous, heartless lie.
C HA P T E R T H R I T E E N
Molly tried to get up, tried to scream out over the news, but she could do neither. Instead she rose to her knees and leveled her gaze straight at him, at all he knew about the past that she hadn’t known until now. When she could catch her breath, she said only the necessary words. “Tell me everything.”
Ryan looked like he’d been shot through the heart, as if the life he’d believed in for almost a decade was emptying onto the floor around him. “You didn’t call Preston that night?”
“After we kissed?” She heard the pain in her voice. Even from the grave, her father had manipulated her life. “Really, Ryan? Did you actually believe that?”
He came to her and held out his hands. “This is going to hurt us both.” He helped her to her feet. “I won’t have this conversation without you close to me.”
The feel of his fingers against hers weakened her defenses, and she knew he was right. Whatever was coming next, she wanted nothing more than to hear it from the safety of his arms. His fingers eased between hers, and she felt her head spin. She wanted details, answers, but not as much as she wanted him. She closed her eyes and tried to assess the damage her father had wreaked on her life.
It was too great to get her mind around.
He drew a slow breath. “The staff must’ve told your dad about our kiss.”
“Nice.”
“However he found out, the next morning he called me.”
“How?” She started to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. “He called on your cell?”
“Yes. He told me not to worry about how he got my number.”
She groaned and hung her head. How could her dad have done this? “He had a friend on the board at Belmont.” She wanted to run, hide her face from Ryan for all her father had put them through. “What did he say?”
“He basically forbade me to have feelings for you.” Ryan’s words were slower, kinder. As if he were well aware of the pain they were causing her. “He told me a boy from Carthage, Mississippi, would never be good enough for you.”
“What?” The word was more of a cry. “That was never true.”
Ryan didn’t stop. “He also told me that you were engaged to Preston Millington. He told me you’d set a date and that you had called Preston the night before—after being with me.”
Molly felt faint, felt herself losing hearing and vision and consciousness. “No . . . he couldn’t have done that.” She tried again to take a step back; this time he eased his arms around her waist.
“I’m sorry . . . I know this is hard.” He whispered the words against her face. “I’m not letting you go this time.”
She pressed her head against his chest and wish
ed with all her being that when she opened her eyes, it would be seven years earlier and they would’ve had this conversation before she left. “You said . . . something about a message.” She eased back enough to see his face.
“Yes. He played me a message.” This part was hard for Ryan; that much was obvious. Clearly, he had based his belief in her father’s words entirely on what had happened at the end of the phone call. “It was your voice.” He sighed, deeply discouraged. “I’d like to say I’ve forgotten what you said, but I haven’t. I heard you say, ‘Yes, Preston . . . you know how I feel about you. I’ve known you all my life. You always knew I wouldn’t stay at Belmont forever.’”
The light-headed feeling was back, and the room began to spin. The words were familiar, and if Ryan said they were her voice, then they must’ve been. When had she said that? Her senior year, maybe? Or the summer before she left for college? As she forced her brain to go back, the picture came into focus.
Preston had called from her father’s office the day before she moved to Nashville. The entire conversation felt like nothing more than a plea on his part, his way of begging her to forget her plans for Belmont. So she had reassured him. After all the years of boarding school, he had to have known how she felt about him. Like he was her friend. Nothing more. That was what she had meant. She explained to Ryan despite the sick feeling trying to consume her.
When she was finished, the next realization almost leveled her. “My father . . . he was in the room.” The admission was sickening. “He records calls on his business line. So he must’ve saved my side of the conversation. He probably planned on using it to convince me how I felt.” She raked her hand through her hair, sick to her stomach. “My dad knew I didn’t love Preston. He tried everything he could to convince me I did.”
The story made sense to Ryan. She could see that much in his face. “Or in case he ever needed to use the recording to keep a boy from Carthage away from his only daughter.” His obvious disbelief dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can’t believe this.”
“Exactly.” Molly wouldn’t blame him if he hated her for the way her father had treated him. “I can’t believe he’d lie to you.” She looked deep into Ryan’s eyes, all the way through him. “Can I tell you something?”
“Please.” He ran his thumbs along her hands, his eyes locked on hers.
“I never would’ve called anyone that night.” Her eyes locked on his. “All I could think about was you. That night . . . it was one of the best in my life.”
He stared at her, defeated once again. She watched a pair of tears slide down his cheeks. “Then why, Molly? Why’d you leave?”
“Because.” She shrugged one shoulder, her lip quivering. “You didn’t want me. You apologized the next day. And an apology after a night like that was as good as telling me you never wanted to kiss me again.”
“Molly.” He released the hold he had on her waist and ran his fingers down the length of her arms. “I missed you every day since then. I thought you were married, but still”—he pulled his copy of Jane Eyre from his pocket—“I kept this. Hoping that maybe someday I’d see you again.” Another bit of understanding filled his expression. “Everything had changed . . . you wrote that at the back of my book. Because of my apology?”
“I did.” She managed a weak smile despite the tears in her eyes. “It’s why I wore the ring.” Her heart felt like it had been in knots for seven years and only now was it finally beginning to unravel. “I didn’t want your pity. Not if you were sorry for kissing me.”
He looked like he had a hundred things he might say. Instead he did the one thing she was desperate for him to do. Slowly, with the buildup of far too long, he pulled her to himself and kissed her, a kiss that erased seven years in as many seconds. His lips against hers, the feel of his strong arms around her shoulders. All of it was like some wonderful dream, as if the Ryan in the video had stepped into her world.
All she wanted was to never wake up.
Molly didn’t look away, wouldn’t dare take her eyes off him, because if she did, he might not be there when she looked back.
“You should know something.” His eyes danced.
Molly understood how he could look so happy. With the lies cleared up, there was no distance between them. No lies or doubts or hurt feelings. “What should I know?”
He linked his arms around her waist once more and swayed with her gently, dancing to the sound of creaking boards in their favorite room at The Bridge. “You should know that I’ve always wanted to kiss you.” His grin continued to lighten the mood between them. “Even when I thought you were married.”
“Ryan!” She giggled, and then the reality of what he’d said sank in. “You’ve always wanted to kiss me?”
“Always. From the first day I saw you in the auditorium during orientation.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Her voice fell to a whisper. She put her hand on his cheek, searching his eyes. “We lost so much time.”
“Not anymore.”
“So what do we do?” Her mind spun with the impossibilities of their lives, the logistics they would need to work out. “My office is in Portland.”
“You mean your Portland office is in Portland.” He swayed with her again, his eyes sparkling in the soft light from the window. “Your Nashville office will be here. Isn’t that what you meant?”
He made it sound so easy, but after a few seconds of wrestling with herself, she realized he was right. With her money, she could open branches in ten cities. “So I move to Nashville?”
“Tomorrow.” He kissed her again and one more time. When he drew back, he spoke straight to her soul. “You marry me, and I chase my dream of being a studio musician, and when the babies come . . . you know where we’ll take them, right?”
She laughed, not believing this was real, that he was actually saying these things. Marriage? And babies? The joy in her heart was as foreign as it was wonderful. “Where do we take them?”
“To The Bridge, of course.”
“Right. Because someone has to teach our little girl that no net will ever ensnare her.”
“Mmm.” He kissed her again.
She let herself get lost in the feeling. When she took a breath, she whispered near his face. “Is this happening? Are we really doing this?”
“Dreams don’t feel this good.” His voice was thick with passion. When he kissed her the next time, he seemed to force himself to take a step back. “Don’t leave me, Molly. Ever again.”
She smiled. “I kept your memory alive. Every year on the same day.”
“You did?” They were completely comfortable together. As if no time had passed between them. “When?”
“Black Friday.”
“Nice. A reference to your hatred for me, I assume.”
“No.” She laughed. “Just wound up that way. The one day when I blocked off time after work. That’s when I would play the video.”
“What video?”
“Come on, Ryan.” Her heart hadn’t felt this good since that night in her Brentwood backyard. “The one you made for your cinematography class.”
“Where I interviewed you in the car?” He chuckled at the way he’d made the project seem like a serious work of art. “You still have that?”
Her laughter faded, and her eyes held his. “I do . . . I play it every year, the day after Thanksgiving. Makes me remember how thankful I was to have you.” Her smile felt sad again. “Even for only two years.”
“Molly, I had no idea.” He looked like he might kiss her again. Then he made a funny face. “What was the name of that video?”
“Remember?” She held onto him, wanting the moment never to end. “You called it ‘The Bridge: How a Small-Town Boy from Carthage, Mississippi, and a Highbrow Girl from Pacific Heights, California, Found Common Ground on a Daily Commute Down Franklin Road Outside Music City to The Bridge—the Best Little Bookstore in the World.’”
“Worst title ever.”
“I tr
ied to tell you that.” She laughed again. “You got an A, anyway.”
“Here’s a better title.” He ran his thumb along her cheekbone, lost in her eyes. “‘Two Years and Forever . . . How a Bookstore Changed Everything.’”
“Hmmm.” The longer they stayed like this, the more real it felt. The more she could practically see their life ahead the way Ryan had laid it out a few minutes ago. “I like it.”
“You know something? I might want to get married right here in this room. Where it all began.” Ryan kissed her one last time and then, against the demands of their desires, led her downstairs. “Let’s get you back to your hotel. We both need a good night’s sleep.” He winked at her. “Tomorrow is Christmas.”
In the craziness of the last hour, Molly had almost forgotten. She slipped into Ryan’s arms, and as they reached his truck, she thought of something. “A pastor once told me that God was the giver of second chances.”
“He is.” Ryan’s eyes made her wonder how she could’ve ever doubted his feelings. “I’ve prayed for this moment since we said good-bye. Provided you weren’t married, of course.”
She laughed. “As if I would marry Preston Millington. Please.”
The wind had picked up, and the chill in the air was biting cold. He swept her into his arms and held her for another long moment. Then they climbed in his truck and headed north on Franklin Road. As if her father had never lied to Ryan and his apology had never happened and she’d never gotten on a plane and left for good. Along the way, they talked and laughed and dreamed about possibilities that were suddenly real.
And as they drove, as Molly felt the warmth of her hand in his, she did the only thing left to do. Treasure the miracle.
And thank the God of second chances.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
No book comes together without a great and talented team of people. For that reason, a special thanks to my friends at Howard Books, who combined efforts with a number of people passionate enough about Life-Changing Fiction™ to make The Bridge all it could be. A special thanks to my amazing editor, Becky Nesbitt, and to Jonathan Merkh. Thanks also to the creative staff and the sales force at Howard and Simon & Schuster who worked tirelessly to put this book in your hands.