CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Last night after “visiting” with her kids for less than an hour, Avery left with her new boyfriend, Cash, who had a white space on his finger where a wedding ring used to be. To Maggie, he looked like a cheesier Todd—less tall, less handsome and with less hair. Avery didn’t ask to take the kids with her and Maggie didn’t offer.
That was before she’d texted and called Todd about a dozen times but he never answered.
Sitting alone in her living room, she waited for Todd to arrive. He’d have to show up at some point. The kids were asleep in her bedroom. All night she’d tossed and turned on the couch.
Twice, her thumb had hovered over Jake’s number on her smartphone, but she couldn’t go through with it. Chasing Jake wasn’t the answer. It wouldn’t bring him back or change his mind. She just had to accept the fact that he was gone.
A door slammed outside. Maggie rushed to the window and saw Todd nonchalantly climbing the stairs. He needed to hear what a deadbeat he was. He needed to hear a lot of things.
She swung open the door before he could knock. It was her marriage all over again, only without the self-doubt. This time she knew exactly what was going on.
“Have a good time last night?” she asked drily. “Did you spring for a cheap motel or just go for it in the back of your truck?”
Todd gaped at her. “You ain’t got no leave to judge, Maggie. A man gets lonely all by himself.”
“You’re not lonely, Todd. You just can’t help yourself.”
“C’mon now. You’re not really mad at me. Tell me you didn’t have a great time with those kids. Hell, I did you a favor.”
“A favor?”
“You can’t have any kids,” he said, and she realized that he actually pitied her. Not because he was so crazy about children, but because in Todd’s pathetic worldview, kids and cooking were pretty much the only things a woman was good for.
“I don’t want any favors from you, Todd,” Maggie said. “But I do want you to know that Avery was here with her new boyfriend. And I have a funny feeling she’s going to ask for custody soon. You’re going to have a real fight on your hands.”
Todd blanched. She could tell what he was thinking: like hell Avery’s getting her hands on my kids.
“So here’s how this is going to go,” she said. “You’re both going to need a character witness.” Maggie knew that because of the things April had told her, and now she was glad she’d paid attention. “If you don’t act right by those kids, Todd, so help me, I’m going to march into that courtroom and tell them everything I know about you—including the part where you dumped your children here and then took off all night.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Todd said, but he looked worried.
“Try me,” she said. “If you screw up in any way—if I so much as hear that you kid dumped or even yelled at them too loud—I’ll make you wish you had never been born.”
“Jesus,” Todd said. His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat as he gave a hard swallow.
Maggie put her hands on her hips and glared up at him to show she meant business.
Wounded or not, Jake was worth a hundred Todds. At least Jake had made an effort to change. Todd was incapable of it. The only way Todd would change was if you held a gun to his head.
“I’ll be watching you, Todd,” she said. “Everywhere you go, I’ll be watching.”
* * * *
By noon, most of Cuervo heard the news: Jake Sutton had broken it off with Maggie and left town. Maggie didn’t actually have to tell anybody because whoever had heard them yelling at each other on the stairs did it for her. Everyone came through the bakery—her sister, April. Mrs. Honeycutt from across the street. Luann Parker, Pastor Jim’s wife.
Luann actually brought a loaf of her famous banana nut bread, wrapped in tinfoil. “Eye of the needle,” she told her darkly. “You remember what the Bible says about rich men and camels.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “The bread will come in handy. I don’t much feel like cooking dinner for myself right now.”
That one offhand remark was all it took. Between Coralee and Luann, it seemed as though everyone in Cuervo had heard she didn’t want to cook dinner and they came bearing food. They brought so many potato chip casseroles, home-cooked lasagnas, plates of fried chicken and racks of barbecue ribs, Maggie had to put most of them in the freezer. She regretted not owning the truth, which was that she couldn’t eat at all right now. Her stomach, like her heart, was an aching void that nothing could fill.
Later that afternoon, she put a leash on Gus and took him for a walk. Anything not to go back to her apartment. She felt so disconnected from everything and everyone around her. Despite the kindness of her friends and neighbors, people went on with their lives. She was nothing more than a relationship casualty in a world that was full of them.
Then Maggie found herself in front of the Regal.
So far, she’d done a good job of avoiding the place. It was her last link to Jake. They’d spent hours here, happy and in love. She walked inside. The geometric Art Deco floor tile, salvaged from another movie theater, was something she’d helped him find. The wall sconces, too, which a workman on a ladder was attaching to the wall.
A feeling of indefinable sadness came over her. She blinked to stop the tears.
Maybe she wasn’t ready for this. It was too soon. Even Gus gazed up at her with a look of concern on his smushed, wrinkled face. She turned to leave.
“Oh, hey,” Pete said, coming through the front entrance. “Didn’t know we had visitors.” He smiled down at Gus, who wagged his tail.
Pete came into the bakery every day for coffee and doughnuts. She liked Pete a lot, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. And if Pete hadn’t heard about the breakup, she didn’t want to be the one to tell him.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said.
“Thought I’d come see how things were progressing.”
“No, it’s just that I figured you’d be at the funeral with Jake. It’s tomorrow, right? I tried booking a flight, but Jake wouldn’t hear of it. He told me to just stay here and keep working.”
Her heart rate picked up speed. “What funeral?”
“His mom,” Pete said. “My mom passed a few years ago. You never get used to it really.”
Maggie bit her lip. Jake’s mother was dead? Did that mean Jake was hurting and alone? A chill swept over her. She knew how awful that woman had been to Jake and his brother, but family was family. Or was it? Maybe she was wrong. Maybe when you had a mother like Jake’s, it didn’t matter anymore.
Maggie remembered Sawyer’s expression when he saw Avery—and look what a pitiful mother Avery had been. What if even a crappy mother was loved and longed for? Jake was a strong adult, a man, but he’d been Sawyer’s age once. Even if Jake was rightly angry with his mother, surely it was painful to lose the only parent you’d ever known.
He could be drowning right now with no one to turn to. No one to hold him and say it was all going to be okay.
Blindly, she stared at Pete. Then she reached down, scooped up Gus and ran home.
* * * *
Funerals were pointless, Jake thought testily.
Second Calvary Pentecostal looked just the way it had when he was growing up. Same polished wooden pews. Same shelves holding the same tattered song books. Same unadorned, no-nonsense lectern with a massive leather-bound Bible on it.
Loretta had never set foot in the place. But Aunt Pearl wanted to hold the funeral here and Jake didn’t mind. Nobody was coming anyway. So far it was just him, Dillon, their aunt and uncle, and a handful of folks from the trailer park. It made him sad to think Loretta mattered so little. She’d spent most of her life pushing people away. Just like he did.
Jake tried to listen to Aunt Pearl’s favorite pastor talk about Jesus, heaven, and all the rest, but none of it was really connecting. The blue-haired organist shuffled toward her instrument, which meant they were going to sing again. Neither he nor Dillon could carry a tune in a bucket.
Before Dillon could start croaking, Jake leaned over and said, “Be right back.”
He made his way past the people sitting in the last pews and then stepped outside, relieved to be away from all that earnestness. He lit a cigarette and sat on the warm steps.
His thoughts returned to Maggie, as they always did when he was alone.
After the things he’d said to her… Jake took a long draw off the cigarette and then flicked the ash, watching the heat devils that shimmered over the parking lot. He’d rebuked her for being the very things he loved about her the most. Her kindness. Her compassion, especially for the little things. Even little people.
Funny how before he’d met Maggie, Jake always figured with his money, women considered him a real catch. What a joke. At the end of the day that asshole Todd was probably a better catch. At least he wasn’t afraid to have kids.
For the rest of his life, Jake knew he would regret losing Maggie. There had to be some way to make her understand that he could be a better man.
The singing behind him stopped. Jake put out his cigarette, threw the stub into the trash can and then turned to go back up the stairs. He heard a car door slam in the parking lot, followed by the beep of a remote. A woman wearing a gleaming black dress and carrying an oversized handbag hurried up the walkway.
His heart beat a little faster.
It wasn’t her. Of course not. His mind was playing tricks on him.
But as she drew closer, his mind kept telling him one thing while his eyes told him another. But no, Maggie would never come all the way to Palestine for him.
The woman saw him and froze. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun with loose cascading tendrils just like the night of Mason’s wedding. She wore strappy heels and a silver bracelet.
His heart stuttered.
Maggie.
There was a roaring in his ears, so he couldn’t be sure whether she called to him or said anything at all. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen as she stood there with her dark eyes wide and her lips slightly apart. He hurried toward her. If he was being given a second chance to love her, he wasn’t going to blow it.
Maggie melted into his arms and he buried his face in her hair. His heart gave a throb of fierce, hot joy.
Mine.
“You’re here,” he murmured between kisses. “Am I dreaming?”
Tears slipped down her cheeks. They made her eyes appear even more radiant. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to come,” she whispered.
“I always want you. Till the day I die I’ll want you.” He felt her fingers in his hair and her soft lips pressed against his face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just don’t stop holding me,” she said. “When you left—”
“You never have to worry about me leaving again.”
She smelled like sugar cookies. Breathing her, touching her—he just couldn’t get enough. And he couldn’t lose her again. She was everything—his friend, his lover, the stars in his universe. With Maggie, he could accomplish anything. Do anything. Become the man he knew he could be.
A man who deserved such a goddess.
Maybe Loretta actually made it into heaven, because he could feel her smiling.