Heart's Desire. Catherine Lanigan

her.

      He only stared.

      She was spellbound.

      There was no way Nate was actually standing outside Bride’s Corner. No way.

      Until today, she hadn’t thought about Nate in months. Okay, weeks. After more than a decade, she could now go a full two, sometimes even three, weeks, and never actually think about him, wonder about him, curse him, rail against him and the cruel, heartless fates that had brought them together in the first place. Maddie closed her eyes and opened them again.

      Nate was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

      “DID YOU SEE him?” Maddie asked Sarah and Mrs. Beabots, raising a shaking arm and pointing out the window.

      “See whom, dear?” Mrs. Beabots asked.

      “Nate. He was there.”

      Sarah jumped up from the settee and rushed to the window. “Nate Barzonni was here? In Indian Lake? Right now?” She turned to Maddie.

      Maddie felt the color drain from her face. “I swear I saw him,” she repeated as her eyes flitted from Sarah’s concerned expression to Mrs. Beabot’s clear, blue compassion-filled eyes. She wanted desperately for her friends to believe her, but even more important, she wished to high heaven that they’d seen Nate as well. Clearly, they hadn’t, or they would be confirming her statement. Instead, their gazes were filled with surprise and censure. She wasn’t sure if they just didn’t believe her, or if they disapproved of Nate, as well. Hopefully, they would still side with her against the slimy jerk who had abandoned her with no explanation. Maddie couldn’t help wondering if they, and her other friends, would think if Nate came back and finally gave his side of the story, whatever that side might be.

      Clearly, he was a jerk. A creep to the nth degree. A scum that no one could or should ever trust. What kind of guy tells a girl he’ll love her till the end of time and then disappears? Vanishes without a single goodbye? For eleven years?

      Now that Maddie thought about it, if Nate was truly back, she would have to face the humiliation all over again. She would have to go through the entire abandonment, the dumping, the heartache all over again because everyone would want to talk about it. Again.

      Why couldn’t he just stay away?

      God, but she felt violently ill.

      Maddie placed her shaking hand on her flushed but icy cheek. She felt beads of sweat trickle from her temples. “I don’t feel so good,” she said, her voice warbling.

      Sarah rushed to her side and grabbed her arm. “And you don’t look good. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

      Maddie sat next to Mrs. Beabots on the settee, barely noticing that she was trembling from head to foot. Suddenly, Sarah’s words sunk in.

      “That was it! I saw a ghost. That’s what it was.” She was off the hook. He wasn’t back at all. She was just seeing things. She wouldn’t have to go through the humiliation and embarrassment in front of the whole town again at all.

      Mrs. Beabots harrumphed and pulled her hands together, then pressed them into her lap. “Fine day for ghosts. It’s Valentine’s Day not Halloween. You’d think they’d know the difference.”

      Maddie shook her head to clear it. She was stronger than this. She couldn’t push the truth under the rug anymore, and she wasn’t one to run from a confrontation. The best way to beat a fear was to meet it head-on, vanquish it and be the conqueror. “What’s wrong with me?” she said aloud. “Why would I start hallucinating all of a sudden? I mean, what’s so special about now?”

      “I can think of a few things, dearie,” Mrs. Beabots offered.

      Maddie and Sarah lifted their heads and looked at their octogenarian friend. “Like what?” they asked in unison.

      “This is a very critical time in your life, Maddie. Your best friend is getting married soon and you haven’t a prospect in sight. What’s more, you’ve been pushing to expand your business and get this franchising idea off the ground, but it’s been a longer process than you’d anticipated....”

      “Hey, how do you know that?” Maddie demanded and looked accusingly at Sarah. “Maybe someone has a big mouth.”

      “I—” Sarah began but Mrs. Beabots interrupted her.

      “I have other sources than cross-your-heart Sarah, who would never betray a confidence. I know a lot of things that go on in this town, especially to those whom I love,” Mrs. Beabots replied with a haughty tilt to her chin and a twinkle in her eye. “In addition, you’re not getting any younger, Maddie Strong, and it’s high time you began beating the bushes for a beau instead of sending every prospective groom out your café door with a cynical retort and a very icy shoulder.”

      Maddie graced her octogenarian friend with a smile. Mrs. Beabots’s view of life was charmingly old-fashioned, but Maddie strongly believed she would have plenty of time for love and romance after she had her business secure. Maddie’s life was happy and very full with her work and friends.

      “I’m too busy for men.”

      “So you say, but I wasn’t the one seeing an apparition of my former sweetheart out that window,” Mrs. Beabots concluded with the kind of sharp clip to the end of her comment that warned others that the Oracle had spoken.

      Sarah’s eyes tracked from Mrs. Beabots back to Maddie, who was clearly confused and still a bit shaken by the vision or ghost or whatever it was she saw. “Maybe it was just all the excitement of these gorgeous gowns and dressing up. Maybe...”

      “No, Sarah. My corset is not too tight and the dress is not so elegant that my brain went off track. I saw Nate out there. In the flesh. He’s come back. I’d know him anywhere. What I don’t know is what he’s doing here and why he would choose the very moment I’m standing in the window of Bride’s Corner in a wedding gown to stare at me?”

      Mrs. Beabots nodded. “Stalking. That’s it.”

      Sarah sighed deeply. “Nate is not stalking Maddie.”

      “How do you know?” Mrs. Beabots asked. “I watch CSI Miami and Law and Order and even Elementary and The Mentalist. Every single one of those detective shows has a murder a month committed by a stalker. It’s quite common.” She looked from Sarah to Maddie, but neither woman appeared to be following her line of reasoning.

      “Nate’s been gone for eleven years. Why would he stalk Maddie now?” Sarah asked. “Why not just come into the shop and talk to her?”

      “Good point,” Mrs. Beabots answered.

      Maddie looked at Sarah. “You think I was seeing things?”

      “Uh-huh. I do. But don’t take my word for it. Just call his mother and ask if he’s in town.”

      “What?” Maddie jumped up and put her hands on her hips. “You know she’s never liked me. Always thought I was after the Barzonni millions and that I didn’t really love her son. I wouldn’t call her if I was facing the devil himself!”

      Sarah stood and put her hand on Maddie’s arm. “I know, sweetie. I know.”

      Tears filled Maddie’s eyes in an instant. She crumpled into Sarah’s arms and let her friend hug her. “I don’t understand what’s the matter with me.”

      “You had a shock. That’s all. The only reason you would have had such a hallucination would be if you’d been obsessing about Nate lately, and we all know that’s not true. It was probably just some look-alike.”

      Maddie sniffed and straightened to look Sarah in the eyes. “Right. I haven’t been thinking about Nate. Well, not so much. I always said that if I saw him on the street I’d ignore him like he was nothing. Just like he’s done to me all these years. He told