Page 6 of Spring Forward (Sweet Treat Novellas #3)

D erek managed to talk Uncle Grant and Teresa—during the course of their conspiracy, they’d switched to first names—into making their fifth “fake date” a walk around Folsum Lake.

The night after the movie, they’d gone for dinner at Romanelli’s.

That had been interesting to explain to the person who’d seated them:

“We want a seat in view of those people’s table, but where they can’t see us.”

But the ridiculousness of it had made Maddi laugh, so it was worth every moment of embarrassment.

The night after Romanelli’s, they’d hit the bowling alley, picking a lane as far from Uncle Grant and Teresa as they could.

Last night he and Maddi had made up a pathetic excuse about him needing banking advice for his insurance office. They’d sat at Teresa’s kitchen table, in full view of the living room and the horrible made-for-TV movie their relatives were staying at home to watch.

Five dates wasn’t exactly rekindling their relationship, but they were enjoying each other again. Maddi was smiling and laughing with him. It was almost as if that night two years earlier had never happened.

He could still perfectly picture the moment. She had been shoving the last of her things in the trunk of that beat-up Altima.

“I took a job,” she’d said. “Out of state.”

“Permanently?” There’d been no warning, no hints that she was getting ready to leave. “Were you going to tell me about this?”

“An opportunity came along, and I’m taking it.” She didn’t even look at him, just slammed the trunk closed.

“What happens to us, Maddi? You’re packing up and leaving the state without even telling me?”

She pulled open the driver’s door. “It’s just... it’s time.”

“Time to what? To move on?”

She’d kept her gaze on the inside of her car, not even glancing his way. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve told me you love me, Maddi. Did that change?” He remembered so clearly feeling like she’d punched him right in the gut.

“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered and climbed in her car.

She’d driven away, leaving him baffled in the street.

Every time she’d come home after that, and they’d run into each other, things were awkward.

Whenever she was in town, he avoided her street.

Last time, he’d simply left. But they were together again.

The awkwardness was gone. Things between them were like they had been before she left.

Being with her that week had shown him something about himself that he hadn’t admitted over the past two years: he still loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. And he only had two more days to find out if she felt the same way.

“Your uncle thinks like you,” Maddi said as they walked up toward the path around the lake.

“What do you mean?”

“A walk around the lake.” She said it as if that alone should make her meaning clear. “Where have I seen that date idea before?”

She remembered. Their time together must have meant something if she still thought about it.

“You realize, of course,” he said, using the conspiratorial tone they’d adopted over the last few days, “that if their date ends the way ours did the last time we walked around Folsom Lake, you’ll have to decide if you’re going to interfere.”

That brought color back to her face. Yes, she definitely remembered that walk.

“Do you plan to stand around and watch them?” He laughed at the picture forming in his head: the two of them ducking behind bushes, spying on the older couple lost in a passionate kiss.

Maddi smiled, then grinned, then finally laughed outright. “No. I’m not going to watch.”

“You trust him enough, then?”

She thought about that a moment as they walked along. “I guess I do. Not entirely, but enough for that.”

“Are you still going to try to break them up?”

She shrugged a little. “Your uncle seems like a nice guy.”

“But you’re still not sure?”

She looked exasperated, frustrated. “I am glad he didn’t turn out to be a total jerk, but that doesn’t mean this won’t end badly. I worry about my mom, Derek. She’s been through a lot. I just don’t want to see her hurt. Not again.”

Derek put his arm around her waist and pulled her up next to him. She laid her head on his shoulder—exactly what he hoped she’d do.

“Did I ever tell you how great it is that you love your mom so much?” That probably sounded stupid to her, or cheesy. Still, he was glad he said it. He hadn’t always been good about telling her how he felt. Maybe that was partly why she’d left.

“She called me a ‘helicopter mom’ yesterday.” Though Maddi laughed, he could hear that the comment had hurt. “I don’t mean to hover over her, I just... Her life has fallen apart so many times. I want to save her from that. I don’t want to see her hurt again.”

“I know. I think she’s knows too.” He twisted his neck enough to kiss the top of her head. “But it has to be hard as a mom to need your daughter to come save you from your mistakes.”

Maddi put her arm around him as well. Definitely promising. “It’s not her fault. It’s how things work for us.”

For us? “Men abandoning her throughout the Western U.S.? Breaking her heart? That’s ‘how things work’ for the both of you?”

“My dad walked out when I was a kid. No man has stuck around us since then.”

He stopped in his tracks. No man? Us? “I didn’t abandon you. I didn’t walk out on you, not once.”

She looked up at him. He didn’t see a denial in her eyes. He also didn’t see a defense of him. “Well, no, but—” She bit off whatever she was going to say.

“But what ?” He pulled away, looking at her closely. She couldn’t accuse him of walking out on her. She was the one who had walked out on him , without any explanation, without any warning. “I stayed by you. I never even thought of leaving.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, gaze turned away. It was the same posture he’d seen that day by her car. How had this happened again so quickly?

“I didn’t leave,” he said again. “ You did.”

“Before you could leave me,” she tossed back. “I left first. I had to.”

Before I could leave? What made her think he ever would? “I didn’t say I was leaving.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s what everyone does. Everyone. And I wasn’t going to let that happen, not with you, not when it would have—” She turned away, walking back in the direction they’d come.

He followed after her. “Would have what? Not when it would have what ?”

She didn’t answer. If anything, she walked faster.

“Talk to me, Maddi.”

“I don’t want to.” She kept going, not looking at him, not slowing. “I can’t talk about this, not now.”

“Then when? You’re leaving in two days. I know what that means—that I won’t hear from you for months. And when you do come back, I’ll only see you by accident.”

He took hold of her arm to stop her from running off. He turned her around.

“You left with no explanation. You never told me why. I have wondered for two years what went wrong.” He kept his hands on her upper arms and looked her in the eye.

He couldn’t help the tense and unhappy tone.

That moment from two years earlier was coming back hard and fast. “Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?

After everything we were to each other, I think I at least should have been told why. ”

“Because I had to.” The words snapped out of her. “Things were getting too serious. I didn’t want— I didn’t want it. I didn’t want this .”

“What this? Me?”

She didn’t deny it.

“But we were good together.”

She dropped her eyes. “I know.”

Those two words took the fight out of him. “Then why did you leave?”

“I had to,” Maddi little more than whispered. She took a quick step backward. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head then shook it again. “I never should have come home.”

They had driven to the lake separately, so when she practically ran up the path toward her parked car, he knew she didn’t have to wait for him. She would get in her Altima exactly like she had before. And she would leave.

And, once again, he couldn’t stop her.