“Panicked?” I offered.
He nodded, gazing into my eyes with that look of complete awe again. It melted me. “You’re so beautiful.”
It was a statement that would’ve had most girls turning into puddles, given how easily I could get lost in those poignant deep green eyes. Instead, I smirked because I knew what I must’ve looked like. “I’m a mud monster, Nicolas. You don’t have to lie.
“Who’s lying?” he asked as he continued to gaze at me like I was a goddess of some kind. And then he added, “You look just like her.”
It didn’t kill the moment for me, but it did give me the courage to ask what I needed to know. What I’d come all the way down here and lied to my mother for.
“Did you and I ever . . .?”
I couldn’t say it, not after everything I already knew about his devotion to Madeline. But there had to be a reason for what I was feeling.
His brows furrowed in uncertainty. “Ever what?”
“Did anything ever happen between you and me?” I blurted before I could chicken out.
“What?” He looked so disgusted I should’ve been insulted. Instead, it warmed me. “Fuck no! I would never do that to her. You wouldn’t either. Why would you even ask that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my eyes well up. “I’ve been so confused for years. It’s why I drove out to Radcliffe to talk to you. I’ve been having flashes for years, things that don’t make sense. Then the day I saw you at the cemetery I had one of the most intense, and after that, every flash or trigger I had seemed to have everything to do with you. And I’ve been having these dreams . . .”
I stopped when he started shaking his head. “Sweetheart, if there were any two people in the world Maddie could trust with her life, they were you and me. Neither of us would ever dream of betraying her that way. She didn’t even trust your mom the way she trusted us. I hate to say it. I know she’s your mom and all, but she can be pretty conniving when she wants something.”
“I know,” I whispered, glancing away. “She never told me about you or your brothers. She told me everything else, showed me all the photos, all the videos from my past, shared a ton of stories. She even brought me back here to tour the town and places I might remember. But not once did she ever mention Madeline’s boyfriend or what a big part of our lives you guys had all been. After seeing you at the cemetery, I asked her about it, and she denied knowing anything about you and Madeline being involved.”
His expression went hard, and he looked down at his watch. “You said you hadn’t had breakfast, right? Hop on. Let’s go get something to eat while we wait. We do need to talk.”
Chapter 18
I went straight to the ladies’ room when we got to the cafe. When I was done using the toilet, I gasped at my reflection in the mirror. “How in the world could he call this beautiful?”
My makeup was an utter mess. I still had mud in my hair among other places where the rag I’d used to clean up had only smeared it. Quickly, I turned on the water and did my best to wash as much of the gunk off and clean my smeared eye makeup. I was in a bit longer than I’d expected, but it was totally worth it, even if my face was completely stripped of any makeup.
Once again, I was face to face with Nicolas’s staggered and pained expression when I sat across from him at the table. Seeing me cleaned up did something to him. I knew my cleaned-up face was a huge improvement from what he’d been staring at since he’d first seen me today, but I hadn’t even stopped to think what it might do to him.
He did his best to recover, but it was too late. I’d seen the torment. As much as my heart was begging me not to do it, I had to. His being around me was clearly brutal for him.
“I know this is hard for you, Nicolas. So, after you take me back to my car today, I understand if you never wanna see me again.”
He stared at me for a moment without saying anything, and we were interrupted by the waitress who took our orders.
“Your mom blames me for Maddie’s death,” Nicolas said after the waitress walked away.
I was floored. I searched those beautiful but troubled eyes, wondering how in the world Mama could blame him, when she knew how much Nicolas loved Madeline.
“I’m not surprised she wouldn’t tell you about me or Nolan, who you’d started to see. And I wasn’t surprised when she just up and moved out of Huntsville without saying good-bye to anyone.”
“Why would she blame you?”
“They found weed in Maddie’s system.”
“It was a trace,” I reminded him.
I’d read the reports enough times to know they thought drugs had been the real cause of the accident and not someone running us off the road or Madeline somehow losing control of the car. But I’d also read all the heated discussions that a trace of marijuana in your system could very well mean she’d done it sometime in the week or weeks before the accident since it’s known to stay in your system that long.
“It’s bullshit,” Nicolas said with conviction. “Maddie never did weed unless I was with her. It was our rule. I’d been doing it for years, but it was new to her. She never bought it on her own, and she never did it unless I was there to watch her. But we’d done it earlier that week. You and Shelby had too. The day of the accident I was working, and you girls decided to go out to the river. Maddie didn’t even drink, unless I was there to keep an eye on her, much less if she’d be driving. It wasn’t like her at all. But your mom knew if it hadn’t been for my brothers and me neither of you would’ve ever smoked weed to begin with. The media had a field day when it was reported there was some in her system.”
“Mama can’t blame you for that. It even stated on the reports that there was no way to confirm if she’d been doing it that day—only that it was in her system.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said with that same tormented heaviness in his eyes. “It’s why she took you away, and now you’re confirming it by telling me she never told you about my brothers or me. She didn’t want you to have anything to do with us again. She blames me.”
We were interrupted when the young waitress bitch who kept smiling at him and barely acknowledging me brought over a tray with condiments.
“You need a refill, hon?”
“No, he doesn’t, but I do,” I said, shoving my near empty glass at her with an attitude. She nodded, lifting a brow, and walked away. “Fucking annoying,” I said, turning back to Nicolas, who was peering at me in that strange way again.
“I’ve never known you to be as outspoken as Maddie was.” He smiled even as he continued to eye me strangely. “You were always so sweetly soft-spoken. It’s what Nolan loved about you.”
I shook my head. “I’ve just been so frustrated. The frustration has been mounting for years. Then I come down here and find out Mama’s been keeping so much more from me than I’d already thought. Then today happens with my car.” Frowning, I took a sip of my nearly gone soda, annoyed again about the stupid waitress. “Thank God for you being there today.
“I don’t even know why I drove out there,” he said, gazing at me in an odd way like he was searching for something. “I knew it’d be muddy. I just thought maybe it wasn’t too bad. I’ve been down that road before a few days after the rain and I’ve been okay.”
“You still go out there a lot?”
“When I’m in the area, yeah. I hadn’t been in a while.”
“Why are you out here now?” I shook my head, feeling stupid. “Right. Her birthday.”
He nodded. “I’d actually stopped coming as often as I used to over a year ago.”
“After you met Tara.” His brows went up in surprise. “Your brothers told me.”
He nodded as the waitress brought my soda, and I had to wonder if she’d spit in it. “Your food will be right out,” she informed us as she pulled a straw out of her apron pocket and set it on the table.
I smiled this time, trying to make up for my rudeness earlier. “Thank you.”
Nicolas waited a
few moments until she’d walked away before saying anything then took a deep breath. “Yeah, I figured I needed to stop torturing myself, but after seeing you”—he shook his head, glancing around— “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Maddie again and decided to come out for her birthday. My brothers think I’m in Louisville for a bike convention. Told them last minute and said I needed the alone time so none of them would insist on tagging along for the ride.”
“Mama thinks I’m in Nashville,” I admitted with a shrug as our eyes met again. “She worries too.”
“I’ll bet it’s been hard on you too. You and Maddie were so close.”
“Actually, it has,” I said, feeling bad about what I was going to add. “But not for the same reasons as you. Sadly, I don’t remember Madeline much. Well, at all. So, it’s hard for me to miss her the way you do. But I do feel like a huge part of me is missing. Almost from the moment I woke, I felt this . . .”
I paused when the waitress brought us our food. I waited until she was gone again to go on. Picking up a fry, I stopped to ponder how best to put it. “I don’t know. It’s like there’s this void in me I can’t seem to fill.”
“It’s her,” he said without a doubt. “It’s what I’ve told my grandma all the times she’s been worried and urged me to talk about it. I tell her I’m empty. There’s a part of me that will forever be empty, no matter what. She took a part of my heart no one will ever be able to replace.”
As bad as I felt for him, and I really did, his pain was as palpable as the panic in his eyes when he’d first seen me today, but I felt worse about something else. “The thing is . . .” His eyes were on mine again, and I couldn’t help but feel the incredible connection. “All this time I’ve felt like there’s something empty in me too, something missing, but I’ve always questioned if it’s all her. I mean I don’t doubt that she and I were close. I’ve seen and heard all the videos. We even finished each other’s sentences.”
That made him smile and he nodded. “Yeah, you did, but I think you’re wrong about that emptiness not being her. You and Maddie had this connection I loved. You knew when and why she was pissed even before I did. You’d warn me.” He stopped and our eyes locked. That gaze owned my heart now. “You knew just what to say to her to calm her or cheer her up when she was down or pissed about something. And she was often pissed at your mom. You were also the arbitrator between her and your mom a lot of times.”
“Sounds like Mama gave you a real hard time,” I said almost apologetically.
He nodded, taking a bite of his cheeseburger then swallowing it down with his soda, and wiped his mouth. I was momentarily distracted when he licked his lips. After what he’d so vehemently denied earlier, I felt bad about the dirty thoughts I was having about those lips.
“Actually, that’s what stumped me most. Your mom had given me a hard time in the beginning, but she’d come around finally.”
“She did?” I asked, completely stunned.
“Yeah, had for almost a year.” He laughed, yet there was little humor in those stunning green eyes. “She had no choice. Once Maddie turned eighteen, she let her know she was in love with me and there was nothing your mom could do to change that. You also helped convince your mom that my brothers and I weren’t as bad as she thought. Not that Maddie wasn’t level-headed, it’s just that, of the two, you were far more reasonable than your feisty sister. So, your opinion weighed heavily on your mom. She was even on board and proud of Maddie and me for putting our heads together and wanting to expand my father’s business. I think she finally realized how serious I really was about Maddie. She and I were actually on the same side when it came to that car Maddie drove. I hated it.” He shook his head bitterly.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a frown, picking up another fry. “Mama said it’s one of the biggest regrets of her life: giving into Madeline and buying it for her our senior year.”
“But I didn’t just hate it because it was flimsy,” he said as he pressed his lips together. “Obviously, with me riding a bike, I couldn’t really argue it was too dangerous. But it wasn’t reliable. I was over there fixing the damn thing all the time. A few weeks before the accident, your mom came out to where I was working on it, and she asked me if I could help convince Maddie to trade it in for something safer.”
He chuckled again, only this time there was a slight twinkle of humor in his eyes. “I told her I had as good a chance of that as she did of getting Maddie to dump me. One thing about Maddie was how unrelenting she was when she wanted something, and we both knew it. Your mom laughed at that and assured me she’d given up on Maddie ever dumping me. Then she thanked me for taking such good care of her—said she was actually grateful now that Maddie had found such a good guy.”
I nearly spit my soda out. That made him laugh, and this time I almost choked. His smile was so beautiful but that laugh . . . My heart fluttered again and again. It took me a minute to get back to my thoughts. “Mama called you a good guy?”
“She did.” He nodded with conviction. “She’d totally come around finally. It’s why I couldn’t understand why she’d just up and leave without saying good-bye until it dawned on me.” He glanced down at his plate. “She blames me for Maddie’s death. Her not telling you about us only confirms that.”
I reached over to touch his hand and felt the same thing I had when I’d wrapped my arms around him on the bike, the same familiar feeling I had when I’d hopped on his bike so effortlessly. Like I’d been touching his hands forever. He glanced up, and our eyes met but only for a few moments before he shut his tightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Looking into your eyes.” His eyes remained closed; then he opened them and stared into mine. “It’s like looking into hers. It’s why I couldn’t talk to you in Radcliffe. I’m sorry about that. My brothers told me you’d driven over two hours. I had to apologize to them the next day because, when they tried to tell me about what you’d come up for, I snapped at them, saying I didn’t wanna hear it, and stormed out of there again.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Nicolas.” I squeezed his hand and tried desperately to ignore what just touching him did to me. “I’m sorry. I should’ve anticipated how hard it might be for you to see me. It’s just that you’d asked me to keep in touch—”
“I know.” He glanced down at my hand in his. Then his eyes were on me again, and he seemed somewhat bewildered. “It’s just that the first time I saw you it didn’t sink in right away. I was in more shock than anything; then, as I drove home, I was assaulted with every memory I have of her. Memories I hadn’t thought of in years.”
His eyes welled, and he blinked, rapidly glancing away. My phone dinged, and I checked the text from Triple-A letting me know my tow truck was twenty minutes away from the location I’d given them. I didn’t think the tow truck driver would find the car on his own, so I’d given him the location of the bread outlet. I could take him there myself. That was less than five minutes away from the diner where we were.
It was only then that I noticed Nicolas had barely touched his food while I’d finished mine. “The tow truck is twenty minutes away, but you have time to finish.”
He pushed his plate away. “Nah, I’m not really hungry.”
After flagging the waitress down and Nicolas insisting on paying for our lunch, we started to the door.
“I know this is hard for you, Nicolas,” I said as we walked to his bike. “I appreciate you talking to me now, despite how painful it is. So, thank you for that and everything else. And I meant it when I said I understand if you prefer that I stay out of your life.”
He didn’t say anything, just kept walking. Even when we reached his bike, he just handed me the helmet, and we got on without another word. As we approached the bread outlet store, I started to say I could wait for the tow truck by myself so he could leave. But when he turned the bike off, he surprised me. “Stay on the bike,” he said. “I’m not too confident that this guy’s gonna be able to get your car out of tha
t mud. As far as your car is in that road, he may not even wanna chance getting stuck there too. You’ll need a ride back into town.”
I could’ve said the driver could drive me back. My policy covered up to a hundred-mile tow or ride if that were the case tonight. I was covered, so I wouldn’t even have to pay for the ride back, but my heart wouldn’t let me. It simply wouldn’t allow me to pass up the chance to spend even a little more time with him, especially since he hadn’t disagreed with my suggestion that I stay out of his life. This could be the last time I’d get to be around him. The tow truck arrived and we told him to follow us.
Nicolas had been right. The tow truck driver didn’t want to risk it. I felt even stupider for having taken the risk myself now. He said there was a chance of light rain tonight but tomorrow it was supposed to clear up. According to the forecast, they were expecting it to warm up quite a bit. He assured me that by tomorrow afternoon the mud would be dry enough for him to be willing to get in there and pull the car out.
The guy wasn’t your typical older frumpy and greasy-looking tow truck driver. He was about my age, good-looking, and kept eyeing me strangely in the midst of all his explaining.
“You look so familiar,” he finally said, peering at me as if trying to figure it out.
“I was born and raised in Huntsville,” I said with a polite smile, “but moved away almost seven years ago.”
“We probably went to school together then.” He glanced down at his clipboard then jerked his head up after reading something on it. “Margaret Hellman. Maggie?” The playful gleam in his eyes was instant. “Holy shit! How’ve you been? I know you remember me.” he said with a flirtatious smirk. “Steve. Steven “Smackdat” McKenzie.”
My face heated from just hearing the nickname he was evidently proud of. I had to wonder, and I was pretty sure Nicolas might now be wondering too, why Steve said he knew I remembered him. I hated to have to give him my spiel, but I had no choice. I glanced at Nicolas, whose expression had gone a bit hard. “I, uh . . . I was in a car accident just before we moved and lost my memory. I don’t remember anything, so I’m sorry. I don’t remember you either.”