Her eyes went wide. “I most certainly did write to you! At first, I sent them to your house, but when I heard you went into the Navy, I found an address to send them to and wrote to you there! Why would I lie about that?”
“Why would you lie about me forcing you to marry me?” he shouted and she could feel the frustration vibrating off of him. He looked ready to shake her, but instead he took a step back and threw his hands up. “I don’t know why you would do half the things you did. There was a time when I thought I knew everything about you, but…clearly I was wrong.”
This time Knox was the one to walk away and Maddie stopped him. “You weren’t wrong!” she argued. “I made a mistake! I was young and stupid and if I could go back and change what I said, I would! But you have to know that I did write to you! Some of those letters were a dozen pages, Knox! I was alone and I was scared and I wanted you to come to Washington or to at least call me, but you never wrote back!”
“Because I never got any letters,” he said, carefully enunciating each word.
Maddie was on the verge of stomping her foot and growling because there was no way to prove that she sent anything. He would just have to trust her, and he obviously couldn’t. They were at a standoff and maybe…maybe this was the only closure she was going to get.
At least she could say she tried.
“Then I guess we’re done here,” she said sadly. “I can’t make you believe me, Knox, just like I can’t make you accept my apology.” Taking a step back, she sighed. “This was selfish of me to even come here and dredge all of this up after all these years, so…I’m sorry for that too.” The mirthless laugh was out before she could stop it. “I guess I should have just left the past where it belonged. I’ll see myself out.”
He didn’t say a word and he didn’t try to stop her this time, and it was crazy how disappointed that made her.
She walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the entryway when he spoke.
“You destroyed me, Maddie,” he said gruffly, and when she turned around, he was less than three feet away from her. His expression was no longer fierce, but sad. “We had our whole lives planned out and you just threw it all away. Didn’t I mean anything to you? Did you ever even love me or was it all a lie?”
She couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “It wasn’t a lie. I swear. I did love you! So damn much that it scared me! Why else would I be willing to lie just to marry you? We both knew it was risky to do that before I turned eighteen, but I loved you and wanted to be your wife! It was naïve of us to think changing my birthdate wasn’t going to come back and bite us in the ass.”
He snorted as he briefly looked away. “Yeah, but I didn’t think it would happen less than forty-eight hours later.”
All Maddie could do was nod as she tried to wipe away her tears.
The next thing she knew, she was in his arms and he was holding her close.
And that’s when her tears fell in earnest.
Big mistake. Big, big, BIG mistake…
It seemed completely natural to want to comfort someone who was crying, but as soon as Knox’s arms went around Maddie, he knew he was in trouble. Closing his eyes, it was like he was eighteen again. She still smelled like sweet, sunny days and fit in his arms like she was made just for him.
Like she was the missing piece of his life.
Resting his chin on top of her head, he knew he should let her go—no good could come of this, but…in a minute. He’d let her go in a minute.
In the meantime, he tried to wrap his head around what she told him.
Letters.
Dozens of letters.
He supposed it was possible for the ones she sent to his house not to get to him. His parents—while not as angry as Maddie’s were—were still very upset about him sneaking off and eloping and lying about it. They could have forgiven that part, but when Maddie’s father came around and threatened to have him arrested, they’d stood up for him, but were beyond mortified at how the entire town was going to find out about the situation.
So yeah…there was a chance—a small one—that maybe they simply didn’t give him her letters. It was plausible.
Then there was the military. If she had sent him anything during boot camp, he should have gotten it. But if she sent it to him at that address after he’d graduated, then wouldn’t they have been returned to her?
It was too much—too much to think about and try to figure out. And really, what good would it do? The fact was that he never read her letters and even if he had, it wouldn’t have changed anything. He had enlisted and her parents never would have let her come near him again, so…why was she still even thinking about this?
But the bigger question was…why did it mean so much to him that she was here?
Yeah. For as much as he was trying to act nonchalant and blasé about seeing her, nothing could be further from the truth. Seeing her standing in the locker room had shaken Knox to his core. He’d told himself a long time ago that he was never going to see her again and to just forget about her.
But he couldn’t.
He didn’t.
He’d be lying if he said he never thought about her. Because he did.
A lot.
Far more than he should.
Not so long ago, he had told his buddies that if it were up to him, he’d still be married to Maddie. It was said in the heat of the moment, but once he had gotten home that day and thought about it, he knew it was true. The day he married her, he knew she was it for him—knew they were in it for the long-haul.
Turned out the long-haul was forty-seven hours.
Over the years, the pain of her betrayal had lessened. At least…he thought it had. Finally being able to talk to her about it brought it all to the surface and it seemed like that was another lie he had told himself.
He wasn’t over it.
Over her.
Shit.
So where did that leave him? Her? Them?
Placing a soft kiss on the top of her head, Knox went to let her go, but she held on. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Just…not yet.”
His arms slowly went around her again as he nodded. He understood because…holding her was so much better than not holding her.
I am so screwed…
They stayed like that for several minutes and Knox didn’t loosen his hold until he felt her pull back. She looked up at him with a watery smile. “Sorry.” Then she laughed softly. “That seems to be my word of the day.” Another laugh. “Hell, it’s the word of my life. I can’t seem to get anything right.”
Knox let her go and then listened as she gave a little insight into the woman she’d become.
“I spent years apologizing for that weekend—to my family, my friends, and myself. I had to apologize to countless boyfriends because it wasn’t them, it was me,” she went on. “I’ve apologized for not being happy, for not being the person everyone wanted me to be.” Then she faced him. “I came here today not only because it was the right thing to finally do, but because I feel like maybe now karma will get off my back and my life will finally be better.”
That was a powerful statement, he realized.
“Mads,” he said cautiously. “It can’t all be that bad.”