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The Christmas Fountain (Wishful 9)

Page 27

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He dropped his hands and took a step back, recognizing he was on boggy ground. Clearly something had happened. He put on his clinician’s hat automatically trying to diagnose as he said quietly, “Okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I saw you.” Though she didn’t raise her voice, the accusation hit him like a slap. So did the fresh tears welling in her eyes.

What was she talking about? “Saw me what?”

“Kissing that other woman.”

Sonya. She’d seen him with Sonya. It had been nothing. A greeting between old friends. But he could imagine how it must have looked to Mary Alice. Now the tears made sense. “It’s not what you think. Sonya and I are just friends.”

Mary Alice shot him a withering look. “I have guy friends. I don’t kiss them like that.”

He had to tread very, very carefully here. “There’s a lot of history there. We were together for a long time, but—”

“Together?”

“We used to be engaged. But it’s ancient history.”

“Engaged. You’re still friends with a woman you were going to marry? The woman who broke things off with you only two months before you walked down the aisle,” she corrected, clearly putting two and two together.

“Yeah. It’s complicated.” Probably, he should have told her this story already, but he hadn’t expected them to be meeting any time soon, and who really wanted to talk about their ex early in a new relationship?

Mary Alice shook her head. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I just can’t. Not again.”

She was taking that two and two and getting six. “It’s not what you think,” he repeated. “Just let me explain.”

“I don’t want your explanation, Chad. I don’t care. I just spent two years having explanations shoved down my throat about how I didn’t need to worry, that Judd and Autumn were just friends, nothing more. And now they’re married with a baby on the way.”

So she had found out Autumn was pregnant when she came to the hospital earlier. Chad knew how much Mary Alice wanted a family, how she’d expected that when she’d invested all that time and effort into Judd. He kept his voice gentle. “I can see how that would be upsetting. And if you came to find me after finding that out, I can see how you’d take what you saw with me and Sonya the wrong way, but I’m not Judd.”

“No, you’re not. But you remember that conversation we had about deal breakers? This is one of mine. I can’t be with a guy with close female friends. I’m not foolish enough to put myself in a position to go through all this again.”

Temper and frustration began to simmer. She was hell-bound and determined that he’d put her through the same kind of heartbreak. Didn’t she understand how he felt about her?

Obviously not.

They hadn’t had enough time together for him to overcome the two years of disappointment. He’d had twelve years to get past his shit from his breakup with Sonya. Mary Alice hadn’t even had twelve months. So, he made the effort to bank the temper, to try and find the words she needed.

“Mary Alice, please, just let me explain.”

Arms crossed over her middle, she just shook her head. “I can’t do this. I just can’t. Please go.”

He wanted to fight her. He wanted to hold her and wipe away those tears she was trying so damned hard not to shed. She wasn’t going to listen. Not tonight, anyway.

It went against every instinct, but he acquiesced. “All right. But come find me when you’re ready to talk.”

“I’ve said everything I have to say.”

“I haven’t.” Though he wanted to slam it, he shut the door quietly behind him and went in search of a beer.

Chapter 8

“WHERE’S DR. MCHOTTIE?” PRESLEY teased. “I figured he’d be here for this, since you two have been joined at the hip the last few weeks.”

The stunning pain of betrayal ripped through Mary Alice again, and her hands stilled on the box she’d yet to finish wrapping. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Certainly not here in the community center gym, where more than a dozen volunteers were set up at wrapping stations within earshot.

Her friends instantly sobered and exchanged a look.

Margot stepped closer, lowered her voice. “What happened?”



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