"No way. I will not let you miss out on the best part of the meal," Maddox objected, shaking his head. "Plus, it's Paris. I've heard from some guys at work that they have the best desserts here."
"Oh God, I have to pass. There is no way anything more is going to fit in this dress." I giggled.
"Then I guess we will just sit here and wait until it will." He winked and continued to look over the choices. "I think we should have the crème brûlée."
I crinkled my nose. "Really?"
"Yes, why?"
"I don't..."
"Don't you dare tell me you don't like it. You've never tried it here. It is apparently one of the top ten desserts in Paris, and besides, that garbage we get back home isn't crème brûlée."
I couldn't help but laugh. "How do you know what the top ten desserts are here?"
He shrugged. "I might have been bored this afternoon, and hungry, so I did a little research while you were sleeping."
I couldn’t help but smile as he sat there staring back at me. Those eyes, his smile, his persistence, everything about him suddenly made me very happy.
"All right, fine, I guess I will try it," I said, giving up.
"Perfect." He nodded, closing the menu and waving to our server.
With dessert ordered and coffee in front of us, I finally decided to ask him the question that I'd been dying to ask since I had met him. He had just returned from the washroom and had sat down when I cleared my throat. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course?" he said, gazing at me. "I'm an open book."
"Ever since I've known you, I've never heard you ever talk of a girlfriend. I can't even imagine why you are single."
Maddox turned and looked over his shoulder, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. I figured I had perhaps crossed a line with him and abruptly stopped my question.
"Never mind, you don't need to answer. It’s none of my business. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable."
"I'm not uncomfortable, Tess. I just figured Der...I mean that the asshole would have told you," he said, shifting again in his seat.
"Oh. I’d asked him a couple of times, but no, he didn't, but forget I asked. What time did you say you were heading out tomorrow?" I questioned, trying to change the subject, but instead of answering my question, he surprised me by taking a deep breath and looking me directly in the eyes.
"I was engaged to be married eight years ago. Jenn and I dated in high school, but life separated us shortly before college. We reconnected when she moved back to town and began to work at the fire station. It had been years since we had seen one another, but things between us heated up pretty fast once we had reconnected. We were so in love, and I'd asked her to marry me six months later. We had set the date for a year and a half later. She was so excited, and soon we were in crazy planning stages for the wedding. It had been about four months when she came home from a doctor's appointment and told me she was pregnant. Of course, my mind spun, we hadn't talked about having a family yet. Hell, at the time, I didn't even know if I wanted kids. Yet the longer I allowed the idea to grow on me, I became more and more excited. She finally talked me into moving the wedding date up because she didn't want to be showing or carrying a baby in her arms at the wedding, so we stopped all the planning and agreed to elope. We'd booked our trip and had one month left before the big day.”
“Anyway, as time passed, she began having minor complications with her pregnancy because of the job and all the heavy lifting. Her doctor had wanted her to immediately stop actively fighting fires and have her put on desk duty, but she was stubborn, she loved her job. Desk duty would also mean that we wouldn’t have been able to fly away. Instead, she convinced the doctor that she would go off right after our wedding, and so she agreed. One week before our trip, she had picked up a shift. She called me on her dinner break, and that was when the call came in. A bunch of teenagers were out partying at some abandoned barn in the country and a fire had broken out. There were three teenagers trapped inside."
He grew quiet, swallowed hard, then picked up his glass and drank down the last of his wine. I studied his face and was sure I caught a glimpse of a tear, but I said nothing. I just kept my attention focused on Maddox, waiting for him to continue.
"She was part of the search and rescue team, and she went to look for those kids. She went in and spotted the kids on the upper level. The barn, under normal conditions, wasn't safe enough to be in, never mind at this point because the fire had compromised any of the structural integrity of the building that it may have had left. Instead, she did what they trained her to do. She went up after them. Anyway, she climbed the steps and had taken about five steps on the upper floor, and that was when the floor gave way. What no one knew was that the barn had a ten-foot foundation under the main floor, so when she fell, she didn't just fall one floor, but broke right through the main floor and landed on the foundation floor." He finished, wiping at his eyes.
"Oh, Maddox, I had no idea," I whispered, bringing my hand to my heart, my eyes filling with tears.
"She died instantly, broken neck and back. There was nothing anyone could have done.” He was quiet for a moment as he stared down at the table. “You know, I wasn't lying to you when I told you I knew what pain was," he stated, meeting my eyes.
"How did you ever move on from that?"
"Lots of therapy." He chuckled. "However, to be honest with you, what helped the most was time."
"Time?" I repeated.
He nodded. "Time has a way of healing all things. It certainly doesn't feel like it at the moment, and it’s not like it never bothers me anymore or that she doesn't enter my mind, but I can promise you it gets easier the more time passes by. Time heals everything. Of course, it all depends on the depth of the wound that was created and how long you let it affect you. Some things take way longer, obviously, than others, and then there are situations and events that, at the time, you feel like you’ll never get over, but after a couple of weeks, you barely think of them."
I gave thought to what he had said and watched as he dug his spoon into his dessert.