Page 2 of Spring Forward (Sweet Treat Novellas #3)

D erek couldn’t manage to say anything but “Hey, Maddi.” He hadn’t been prepared to see her again. Last summer he’d had enough warning of her visit to get out of town. Madison Collins was the one that got away. The problem was that she kept coming back to rub it in.

She didn’t look any happier to see him than he felt to see her. Maddi leaned closer to her mom and whispered something.

Mrs. Collins laughed so hard the neighbors must have heard. “Oh, Derek! She—” Laughter cut off the rest of her sentence.

“It’s not that funny, Mom.” Maddi muttered, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“Not that funny?” Mrs. Collins’s shoulders shook with amusement. “She thinks you and I—” More laughing.

“You and I what ?” Derek couldn’t help smiling. Mrs. Collins and her daughter had the same laugh and the same smile.

“She thinks we’re da-tin-g .” The last word stretched into three separate syllables, divided by bursts of laughter.

Maddi’s entire face turned pink. He liked that she still blushed so easily. Careful. Madison Collins is your personal poison, and you know it.

“What did you expect me to think, Mom? I get epistle-length texts about this new guy you’re seeing, and Derek is here in your living room.” Maddi managed to make the conclusion sound almost logical. “I had to at least ask.”

Derek couldn’t resist. He slid up right next to Mrs. Collins and put an arm around her. “We should tell her the truth, Teresa.” Calling her by her first name felt strange, even though he wasn’t a kid anymore. “It’s time we stopped hiding.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Mrs. Collins put an arm around him as well.

“Maddi,” he said. “Your mother—” He pretended to fight his conscience. “This is difficult for me to confess.”

He could see Maddi push down her amusement. He’d always liked giving her a hard time.

“You should know before you hear it from someone else. Your mother is dating... my Uncle Grant.” He pushed out an immediate breath, pressing a fist to his forehead. “It feels good to get that off my chest.”

“Shut up.” But Maddi didn’t actually look annoyed.

Derek gave her a side-by-side hug, feeling the awkwardness of seeing her again even more than when she first walked in the room. There’d been a time when an embrace between them would have been the least affectionate part of saying hello.

“How are you?” he asked.

She nodded, not quite looking at him. “Fine. A little tired from the drive.” She stepped away, her attention back on her mom. “So, Grant McGee?”

Mrs. Collins flashed that bright, cheerful smile.

Of the two Collins ladies, Mrs. Collins had always been the most optimistic.

Maddi had never been a downer or a pessimist; a realist was probably the right word.

And a worrier. He didn’t know if that made her the worst person to work as a bank loan officer or the perfect one.

“Let’s put your things in your room,” Mrs. Collins said, ushering Maddi off. “Grant went up the street to get some ice cream. He’ll be so happy to see you again. How long has it been?”

“I only think I’ve met him once. Long time ago,” Maddi said as she walked out of the room, her voice trailing off as she disappeared.

Survived that. Barely.

Maddi hadn’t changed much. She was stunning, her brown hair wavy like it always had been, her brown eyes sharp and breathtaking.

She still had that killer smile. She wasn’t as approachable as he remembered her, though.

Maybe that was part of the awkwardness of being in the same room with the only woman he’d ever loved, knowing that she’d moved out of the state rather than settle down with him.

Weren’t guys supposed to be the ones afraid of commitment?

Uncle Grant breezed in through the door the next moment. He set the carton of fudge ripple on the kitchen counter. “Whose clunker is that out there?”

Clunker? He could easily guess. “A green Altima?”

Uncle Grant nodded. “Looks like it got dragged backward through a junk yard.”

A beat up green Altima. Derek shook his head. That was Maddi straight through. She could afford to replace the beater, but wouldn’t spend the money as long as it was still running. “That’s Maddi’s. She’s had it since freshman year of college.”

“Madison’s here?” Uncle Grant lit up like a Christmas tree, smiling beneath his bushy mustache. “Teresa’s happy about that, I bet.”

“Happy and surprised,” Derek said.

The usual twinkle in Uncle Grant’s eyes grew. “Describing Teresa’s feelings about it, or yours?”

Fair enough. Every member of the McGee family knew that Derek and Maddi had dated. A few could even tell he hadn’t gotten over her.

“I’m surprised, definitely.” Derek wandered toward the kitchen side of the large room.

Uncle Grant pulled out some bowls for the ice cream he’d bought. He knew the kitchen well after a few months of dating Mrs. Collins. “You’re surprised, but not happy?”

“Maddi has visited before,” Derek said. “It never works out.”

“Never say never.”

Mrs. Collins and Uncle Grant were a perfect match. They were both optimists, even if it meant believing in the impossible.

Derek peeled back the lid on the ice cream carton. “Are we still going to watch this movie tonight, or what?”

That changed the subject. Even when the Collins ladies returned, things weren’t as awkward as before. Derek could almost ignore the memories that hung around Maddi. He could almost pretend she was just an acquaintance sitting in on a last-minute movie night.

Almost.

Maddi settled in as if she’d never been gone.

It was like the last two years had never happened, like the two of them were still together.

She was the same Maddi he’d fallen hard for, just hanging out at her mom’s place.

She even ate ice cream the same way she used to, flipping the spoon over after each bite to have one more go at whatever she’d missed with the first pass.

He spent most of the movie watching her. Though she glanced his way once in a while, Maddi was definitely not watching him. But she wasn’t paying attention to the movie either. She was watching her mom. More specifically, she was watching her mom and Uncle Grant.

Was that the reason for her drive down? To check out her mom’s new boyfriend?

What, did you think? That she came to say she was wrong to break things off? That she’s changed her mind after two years? Not gonna happen.

He knew better. He’d accepted years ago that she had cut things off totally. But it still hurt.

Derek made a break for it before the closing credits were done rolling. There was a reason he’d skipped town the last time Madison Collins came home.