The separation was suddenly intensely painful. Having her in another building, separated by a car park, glass, stone, steel. He wanted her in his arms, immediately.
But he’d waited this long. Months. Months of missing her and refusing to acknowledge that to himself. Months of wanting to cave and call her, and not doing so. He could sit in his damned car until she’d finished her meal. Couldn’t he?
“Thanks for lunch, dad.”
Her dad reached over, straightening her novelty crown into place, then kissing her cheek. “My pleasure. Come on, love. Let’s go see what Liz has to say about the year that was.” He wiggled his thick, grey brows so she smiled and nodded.
“Sounds good.”
The door had bells hanging above it, and they jingled as Graeme and Maddie stepped out. Sometime during lunch it had begun to snow, and the ground had a light covering now. It would be thick in the morning if it kept coming like this.
She turned towards her parents’ home, linking arms with her dad as they took a few steps in that direction.
“Maddie.”
She stopped walking instantly. Everything inside of her responded to that voice. She spun quickly, dropping her dad’s arm, her face as pale as the fresh-fallen snow, her eyes huge.
Because there, on the other side of the door to The Wandering Goose was Nico Montebello.
Nico. His name pulsed through her body, reminding her of everything he was to her all at once so it was like being shaken back to life.
Looking at her as though he had no idea what to say. Looking at her as though…
As though what?
Nothing made sense. “What are you doing here?”
He grimaced and took a step towards her but a family emerged from the pub at that exact moment, so loud, so interrupting, so awful in that moment Maddie felt an uncharacteristic urge to shout at them to hurry up! But she didn’t. She stood there, beside her dad, with snow falling and the distant sound of carollers practicing for the evening’s church service, and she tried to remember to breathe and all the while her eyes devoured Nico at every opportunity they had until finally the family had dispersed and it was just them, once more.
And then he moved, stepping towards her, so she had only a few seconds to brace for the fact that he might touch her. Kiss her. God, how she wanted to touch him. Heck, she wanted to hurtle herself forward and close the distance, to throw herself into his arms and close her eyes and breathe him in and forget that she’d laid her heart out for him and he’d politely, and oh so kindly, handed it right back to her.
“A friend of yours, love?”
Maddie turned to her dad, her tongue thick in her mouth, speech impossible.
“Nico Montebello.” Nico, apparently, didn’t have the same problem. He held a hand out and Graeme shook it. Seeing these two men together was surreal and emotional and Maddie was rapidly losing any possible claim on calm.
“Nico?” Her voice was surprisingly cool despite her flummoxed nerves. “Why are you here?”
He dropped Graeme’s hand, but didn’t reach for her. Instead, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his eyes burning her with the force of their concentration. “I came to see you.”
She frowned. That didn’t make sense. She wracked her brain, trying to understand and then realised the only reason he could possibly be here was because of Michael. Maybe something had gone wrong? Perhaps the charges had been dropped?
“Love, I’ll head home.” Her dad reached out and squeezed her forearm. “See you soon?”
“Ah, yeah. Soon. Okay.” The idea of Michael had skittled her nerves further, so her fingertips were trembling a little. She watched as her dad made his way down the street, pausing near the bottom to talk to a man she vaguely recognised.
“Tell me,” she said quietly, closing her eyes. “Just get it over with.”
Nico was quiet. He didn’t speak. So she braced for even worse news.
“I can handle it, Nico. Just rip the Band-Aid off. I need to know.”
“Know what?”
“Is he out? Is that it?”
“Is who out?”