The Wedding Gift

Seconds passed while she tried to think of something to say, a place to begin. “I’m normally an open book. My fiancé used to say I told everyone I meet my life story.”

“I noticed you aren’t wearing a ring,” he said.

“Who ended it?”

“I guess he did.” “You guess?”

“He died.”

This was when most people voiced one of the stock phrases for which there was no response. I’m so sorry to hear that. He must have been terribly young. Time heals.

But Riley asked, “How long were you engaged?”

Concentrating on the blue dash light and the way it illuminated his hands, she said, “I knew I was going to marry him in the fifth grade.”

“I thought that only happened in third world countries and biblical times.”

In a hundred years Madeline hadn’t planned to laugh. Riley rarely said what she expected. The sensation of being caught unawares was new and mildly exciting and other things she would have been able to identify if she hadn’t taken her little trip to Margarita-Ville tonight.

Riley was smiling, too. When he looked at her, something changed in the very air she breathed. A delicate connection was forming between them. It sent a flutter of nerves to her stomach and the flutter of something else slightly lower.

They rode the remaining three blocks to the Gale Motel in silence. She got out of the car by rote after he parked, rifled through her purse until she found her key card and arrived at her door at the same time he did. Suddenly she froze.

“Something wrong, Madeline?” His voice was a low vibration that drew her gaze. The light over the door cast half his face in shadow. His hair fell across his forehead and his hands rested lightly on his hips as if he was as comfortable here as he was sitting on a bar stool or walking on narrow beams thirty feet off the ground.

He was good at this.

He leaned closer, not close enough to make her think he might kiss her, but close enough for her to smell his air-cooled skin and beer-warmed breath. Beneath those scents was the living breathing smell of risk.

He didn’t touch her—he wasn’t quite a rogue. Instead he stayed within reach should she choose to touch him—he wasn’t quite a saint, either. He was something dangerous in between.

Risk. Danger.

She panicked.

Shoving the key card into the slot, she blurted, “Thanks for the ride. I mean that. Good night, Riley.” A second later the door closed behind her.

It wasn’t long before she heard a car start. She didn’t have to look through the peephole to know he had gone.

Breathing shallowly, she studied her room. Her suitcase was open on the low dresser, her toiletries strewn across the faux marble vanity. She almost didn’t recognize her own reflection in the mirror above it—her hair mussed, her face flushed, her lips parted slightly.

What was happening to her?

This trip was supposed to bring her a sense of peace, of completion, of closure. It felt more like a desperate attempt to make sense of something beyond mere mortals’ comprehension.

If Aaron were here, he would say, “I told you so.”

She missed that about him. She missed everything about him, from the way the sun touched his hair with gold to how his smile lit up his blue eyes. She missed his optimism and the way he always thought the best of everyone. She missed hearing about his students’ escapades. She even missed the way he’d cracked his knuckles in church and dumped sugar straight from the sugar bowl into his coffee.

Moving slowly lest she detonated an explosion in the pit of her stomach, she stepped away from the door. She was turning the dead bolt when she noticed she was still wearing Riley’s jacket. Emotion swelled inside her as she brought the sleeve to her nose. It was unsettling, for the man stepping boldly into her mind wasn’tAaron—this man had dark wavy hair, deep-set eyes and a stance that had attitude written all over it.

The door to Madeline’s room was propped open, a cleaning cart blocking the entrance. Riley stood outside, looking in. The bed was freshly made, ready for the next guest. Madeline was nowhere in sight.

He was too late. She was gone.

Built of cinder block fifty odd years ago, the Gale Motel had a total of eight rooms on one floor. The roof was patched, the windows aluminum factory issue. The place completely lacked architectural appeal. But wild horses couldn’t have kept him away this morning.

“I’m too late,” he said as he untied the dog’s leash from the railing. “The desk clerk said Madeline checked out thirty minutes ago.”

The dog stared up at him as if to say, “What are you going to do about it?”

There wasn’t much Riley could do about it. He didn’t know her phone number, where she lived or where she worked. He supposed he could always ask his mother then dismissed the idea as quickly as it formed. He’d had a few beers with a pretty woman. Hours later he’d had one amazing dream about her.

End of story. Certain aspects of the dream still lingered in his mind and in his bloodstream, making their brief association feel unfinished, but she was gone, and that was that.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d been this preoccupied with a woman he’d just met. She wasn’t even his type. Normally he liked his women chesty; surgically enhanced was fine with him. And they wanted what he wanted. Half the time they were the aggressors. Madeline liked him—a man could always tell—and yet she’d ducked into her room last night without so much as a backward glance.

The dog strained against the leash, dragging Riley from his musings. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s your hurry?” Normally the old stray poked his nose in a hundred different places. Today he wanted to run.

Riley gave him the lead. They hit Elm Street hard, then Third, and finally the last stretch along Shoreline Drive. They were starting up the driveway when Riley caught a glimpse of Madeline’s pale blond hair before she disappeared behind the arborvitae hedge in his backyard.

Well, well, well. She hadn’t left town after all.

The dog gave a short bark then tugged against the leash again. “You want to show off for the lady?”

For a mutt, he had good instincts.

“Just remember,” Riley said as he matched his pace to the dog’s steady run. “I saw her first.”

There was one rainstorm every April that spun the seasonal dial to spring. It lightened the sky, mellowed the breeze, gentled the air and left every living organism quivering with irrepressible enthusiasm.

Yesterday’s downpour hadn’t been that storm.

The pummeling rain had given everything in its path a good cleaning and the temperature was warmer today. Rooftops, streets, sidewalks, even the boardwalk leading to the lakeshore glistened in the morning sun. Under the surface, the earth was restless. Melancholy. Like Madeline.

She’d forgotten to close the blinds in her room last night and had awakened in the sun-drenched bed, shards of sunlight boring holes through her eye sockets. A quick shower and two aspirin had tamed her headache, thank goodness for small favors. She’d wasted no time packing. She’d checked out of her room, picked up her car and said goodbye to Ruby.

It was time to go home.

She’d accomplished what she’d come to Gale to do, and more. Yesterday she’d seen Riley, she’d spoken with him, she’d even spent a little time with him. No matter what he thought his mother thought he needed, he was obviously physically fit, healthy and strong.

She had only one thing left to do.

With the jacket she’d somehow ended up wearing home last night now folded over her left arm, she pressed Riley’s doorbell again.

When she’d picked up her car at Red’s Garage, she’d asked Ruby’s father if he knew where Riley Merrick lived. Five minutes later she’d driven away with his address, driving directions and a description of Riley’s house. Red O’Toole hadn’t been exaggerating. Riley’s house was a sprawling single story that blended into the surrounding hills. It had a low-pitched roof, deep eaves and wide porches. It wasn’t so large that he wouldn’t have had ample time to answer the door by now if he was inside.

What now?