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“Hey!” It was a man’s voice, coming from only inches away. Next came the sound of heavy metal clinking against the driver’s side door.
A
“What the hell?”
She dove off Mason’s lap, scrambled onto her side of the front seat, grabbed desperately for the shirt, which seemed to have been swallowed up in the bowels of the Chevelle’s floorboard. The glare was unblinking, unforgiving. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Mason? Mason Bayless? Is that you? How the heck are you?”
The tape was abruptly shut off. The sudden quiet was deafening.
“It’s me, Grady,” Mason drawled. “How ’bout turning off that flashlight, and giving the lady here a little privacy, huh, buddy?”
A
In her mind, the red blinking light had transformed itself into neon foot-high letters flashing out Damn. Damn. Damn. And then the words morphed into something worse. Cheater. Cheater. Cheater.
“Maybe you could put the shotgun away now too, huh?” Mason said.
Shotgun? Why not kill me now? A
She inched as far away from Mason as she could get, keeping her face averted from their clueless interloper.
“Sorry about that, Mason,” Grady Witherspoon said with a chuckle. “Gail heard music coming from down here, so I came out to investigate. Since the weather turned warm, we’ve had kids coming out here, drinking, smoking dope, raising hell. I wouldn’t care that much, but last week somebody went ripping through my patch of spring greens, mashed everything flat. Kale, radicchio, arugula. Total loss. You believe that? The gun ain’t even loaded. I just wa
“Totally understandable,” Mason said easily. “I apologize for the disturbance. My bad. We’ll just be going now.”
But before he could start the Chevelle’s engine, Grady Witherspoon craned his neck, walking all the way around the car until he stood just inches from A
“Don’t I know you?” he asked, studying her face with interest. He snapped his fingers. “I got it! A
She thought her head would explode from shame.
“Hello,” she said weakly, wishing the earth would open and swallow her whole.
Finally, Mason started the car. Grady Witherspoon gave them a friendly wave. “Bye now. Tell your mama I said hey, Mason, will you?”
Mason threw the car in reverse. “I’ll sure do that.”
19
Mason finally glanced over at her once they were back on the paved road. “You okay?”
A
“Hey,” he said softly, reaching for her hand. “It was just a kiss. Kinda embarrassing that Grady walked up and surprised us like that. But it was a long, long time coming. I’m not sorry it happened. Only sorry that we had to stop.”
A
“Allll right,” Mason said slowly. “Take it easy. Don’t get so worked up. You’re getting way ahead of yourself here. Look, A
A
She was suffused with shame and guilt and, yes, desperate happiness. Ten minutes ago, she’d been weak and willful. If Grady Witherspoon hadn’t arrived when he had, she would have willingly climbed into the backseat with Mason. Her hormones had betrayed her, and she’d betrayed Shane. How could she hurt Shane the way Mason hurt her all those years ago?
“There is no us,” A
Mason looked at her incredulously. “You’re telling me you didn’t enjoy what happened back there at the farm? That it means nothing to you?”
“Yes,” A
“You’ve got a fu
“That’s not the point,” A
“What?” he exclaimed, nearly swerving off the road.
“We have no right to be alone together like this,” she continued. “I admit, I still have … feelings for you. I guess I always will. But there was a reason we split up. It was ugly and awful. We patched things up, yes, and figured out how to go on with our lives, separately, but I can’t pretend, Mason. Our divorce nearly killed me.”
Mason’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. “If you’ll recall, I never wanted the divorce. That was your idea. I just gave you what you wanted.”
A
“A
“You cheated,” she exclaimed. “And maybe I could have gotten past that, if you’d just told me the truth.”
“I did tell the truth,” Mason said through gritted teeth. “I never, ever cheated on you. You talk about honesty, but if you were honest with yourself, you’d admit you had some responsibility, too, for our breakup. The first time things didn’t go your way, you just took off and ran home to your mama. Who I’m sure helped you figure out what a crappy husband I was. Marriage is a two-way street, you know. You talk about trust, but you never did trust me.”
The headlights of an oncoming car lit up Mason’s face—his jaw was clenched, his eyes unblinking. She’d seen that look before, and it harkened back to the bad old days when their marriage had come unraveled. What had she been thinking? The answer, of course, was that she’d done just what he’d urged her to do—she hadn’t thought at all.
“You’re right,” she said finally. “It wasn’t all you. There’s a reason we’re not together anymore. We were just too different then. And now the gulf has only widened. It’s idiotic to think we could make it work again. It’s just too late. I’m sorry, Mason. For everything. Then and now.”
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “All this fuss over a damned kiss.”
The silence was overwhelming. He punched the button on the tape deck, forgetting what they’d been listening to earlier in the evening. When their song came on, he silently cursed and punched the stop button.
The ride back to town was interminable.
Finally, Mason pulled the car up to the curb in front of her loft. He left the motor ru
20
Celia dropped her bag and water bottle on the bench outside the te