Bradley.
Standing right there in the bookstore in Azalea. With two kids. And apparently attached romantically to this very unpleasant woman.
Ariana could barely breathe. Much less say anything.
She couldn’t fully process what was happening here except all of it was very bad.
No wonder he’d said things were too complicated when she’d brought up the idea of keeping in touch last Christmas. He was as unavailable as it was possible for a man to get.
The feelings that surged through her were shock and indignation and anger. And also something worse. Something crushed and broken. Almost like grief. But that feeling was overwhelmed with everything else.
He was finally turning his eyes into the store, and after a moment, they landed on where Ariana was standing. He blinked and froze in almost exactly the way she had.
She felt like she could burst into tears right now, but she was stronger than that. She wasn’t weak or spineless anymore. She wasn’t going to fall apart.
Instead, she put on a smile every bit as fake as the one The Girlfriend had given her earlier. “No big deal about the collision,” she said, focusing the comment at the other woman and not Bradley. “And I’ve still got plenty left in my cup.” She made herself focus her eyes on Bradley with an even wider smile. “Welcome to Azalea. You must be Katherine’s brother. She’s a friend of mine.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was still staring at her like he’d seen a ghost.
That was how Ariana felt too. Like a ghost had materialized in front of her. One who had been haunting her for the entire past year and whom she simply couldn’t exorcise.
It didn’t matter anymore. He was taken. He had never been hers.
The knowledge hurt so much she wasn’t sure how much longer she could make it without crying, so she started walking around them and to the door with a casual wave. “I’ve got to get going, but I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
She didn’t wait for a response, and she didn’t receive one.
Just as well. There was no way she could have a conversation right now.
She’d thought she was doing better. She’d thought she was stronger. Her own person. Not at the mercy of a man’s whims.
But she was about to fall apart right now because Bradley had walked right back into her life.
two
BRADLEY BARNES THOUGHT he’d had his life under control, and he hadn’t needed Ariana to appear out of nowhere and throw his carefully balanced emotional state out of whack.
But it was now.
Out of whack.
Completely.
Ever since he’d seen her standing in the bookstore in that bright red coat with her shiny hair and wide, sunny smile and those blue eyes that made him feel like he was drowning.
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.
He’d done all the suffering he could handle in life. He’d fallen into a depression following the death of his wife two years ago, and he’d only managed to get through it with a lot of therapy and the knowledge that his children were depending on him. Finally he’d started feeling better, but it was a delicate balancing act. He’d given himself one week last year before Christmas to indulge himself and enjoy his newfound emotional stability, but that was all he’d allowed himself. Even that ended up being too risky. He’d caught himself feeling too much and wanting too much, and that wasn’t good for him. So he’d been focusing on his kids and his work this year, and when the relationship with Gayle had fallen in his lap, he’d taken it because it was easy and didn’t disrupt his emotional stability in ways that worried him.
He’d been taking comfort in the fact that things were going smoothly. Jana and Ford were both happy and healthy, and he was exercising a lot and sleeping well at night and wasn’t being troubled by anything too hard or painful or confusing. He’d been preparing for a long break to spend time with his sister and enjoy the small-town Christmas festivities.
He hadn’t expected to see Ariana again.
He hadn’t expected to feel like everything in his heart was suddenly in an uproar.
He didn’t like it.
The only way he’d gotten through the past couple of years was to cultivate a controlled, peaceful existence.
And this wasn’t that. At all.
He managed to fake his normal easy calm after Ariana breezed out of the bookstore. He settled Jana and Ford in the children’s section and bought Gayle a fancy coffee drink. He got a cup of decaf for himself and sat across the table from her, both of them fortunately focused on their phones so he didn’t have to carry on a conversation.
“She got coffee on me,” Gayle said with a sniff after about fifteen minutes.
He blinked and looked up from his phone. “What?”
Gayle was rubbing the sleeve of her sweater. “She got coffee on me. That clumsy girl.”
His first instinct was defensiveness at the way Gayle was talking about Ariana, but he caught himself immediately. That was wrong. Completely wrong. If he was on anyone’s side here, it had to be Gayle’s. She was his girlfriend.
Not Ariana. She wasn’t anything to him anymore.
And he wasn’t going to be an asshole to his girlfriend for any reason. He’d never been that kind of guy.
“Did she? I’m sorry. But I’m sure it’s fine. I don’t see anything on you.”
“Here.” Gayle stretched her arm out to show him her sleeve. “See?”
He didn’t see anything on it except the burgundy-colored yarn. “I can’t even see anything, so it must not be too bad. It was just an unfortunate accident, right?”
She sniffed again and made a face. “I suppose.”
“So it’s all good. You look as gorgeous as ever.” Gayle was usually easy to make happy with compliments. It was one of the things he appreciated about her.
She batted her eyebrows and giggled, and he was about to return to his phone with his job done. But she added, “She wasn’t very nice.”
“Who wasn’t?” Not for a minute did Bradley imagine that she was talking about Ariana. No one in the world could believe that Ariana wasn’t nice.
“That girl who ran into me. She was real snotty.”
“She was? What did she say?”
“She said I was the one who ran into her.”
Bradley tried to remember what he could of the incident, and this sounded like an accurate description to him. But he didn’t feel like getting into a silly argument at the moment, so he made a murmuring sound that didn’t form actual words.
Evidently it wasn’t enough. “I didn’t run into her! She was right there blocking the doorway.”
“Okay. But it’s really not a big deal, is it?”
“She just got on my nerves.” Gayle stuck out her bottom lip in a pout he well recognized. “I didn’t like her.”
The whole thing felt ridiculous and petty to Bradley, and Gayle wasn’t usually like that. With a surge of guilt, he wondered if his feelings had somehow been evident on his face when he looked at Ariana, but a quick, rational assessment told him that wasn’t likely. He hadn’t spoken or moved or anything, and he wasn’t a particularly expressive person anyway.