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“Why are you still here?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Why?” she snapped.
“To apologize. I shouldn’t have walked out like that. I was just…surprised. I didn’t know how to handle the situation and needed a beat to collect myself.”
“You could have come back in after you collected yourself.” Sarcasm oozed from her tone like paint spilling over cement. “I was right inside where you left me.”
“What I have to say doesn’t require an audience,” he said bitterly.
Why does he sound like I’m the bad guy in this scenario?
“If you aren’t interested in me, you could have at least said hi and told me that. It would have been less traumatic than you bailing on our date because you were disappointed.”
“That wasn’t how I felt,” he argued, finally pulling his hands out of his pockets and throwing them into the air. “Seeing you waiting for me threw me completely off-kilter. I had no idea you were KnottyGirl25. Not a single fucking clue. I thought you were going to be…well, I had no idea, but not Merry Winters, the darling of Mistletoe, holding court as you waited for some poor sap to walk through the door and fall at your feet.”
“If that’s your apology, it needs some serious work.”
“Maybe so. I know I didn’t deal with tonight well—”
“Or at all really.”
“But at least I took it seriously. I came alone, because I thought this was a real date.”
The mockery in his voice made her fingers tingle and she gripped her coat in her fists so she wouldn’t hit him. “And I thought you were a nice guy who would be fun to be around. Turns out I was wrong. Sucks to be me, huh?”
“Imagine what it was like for me to walk in there and see you and all your friends laughing at me. Loser Clark Griffin actually believed he could meet someone he could connect with. Who actually cared. Who wouldn’t…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Are you listening to yourself? This isn’t high school and I am a single woman!” Merry pushed off the wall, her body vibrating with rage. “Did you think I was going to meet a stranger at a bar, alone? Even in Mistletoe, I would never do that. If you’d suggested we meet for coffee, I would have had a friend with a newspaper and sunglasses watching every move you made from two tables away.”
“One friend, sure, but you had a table full of women!”
“I asked them to come in case the date didn’t work out, I could still have fun with my friends, but you even ruined that!” Merry kicked at a pebble, and cried, “Why in the fuck am I explaining myself to you? I have never been so humiliated in my life and I’ve walked in on a guy I was dating having Zoom sex with his high school sweetheart.”
“Merry.” The way he said her name, as though he was trying not to lose control, grated on her. She wanted him to lose it. Mr. Unreadable. Mr. Cool and Collected, never letting his emotions show. “Did you know it was me?”
“Not for sure. Not until you walked through the door.”
“I saw your face and I thought…I thought you’d played me.”
“How could you think I would do that?” she asked, breathless with emotion. “Or didn’t you mean it all of those times you called me kind?”
“I did, but…I’ve been wrong about people before.”
“If you believed that I could be that cruel, then you don’t know me at all. Actually, you never knew me because even in high school, I wasn’t a mean girl. I wouldn’t hurt you like that.” Damn it, she did not want to cry again, but she could hear her voice breaking with every word. “The funny thing is, I thought you, Clark, might like me. That we were becoming friends and I actually hoped…that the Woodsman was you. I wanted you to be the guy because I had feelings for you. I wanted you.”
“Merry…” He took a step toward her, the blank expression crumbling and underneath she saw the uncertainty, the vulnerability in his eyes, but she moved away.
“No. I don’t want to hear about your parents’ indifference. I don’t want you to use your intimacy issues as an excuse right now. You intentionally hurt me before I could hurt you. You were irrational and cruel. The man I exchanged dozens of emails with wouldn’t do that and neither would my friend Clark. You…I don’t know who you are.”
“Merry, please…I…I’m so sorry.”
She avoided his hand reaching out for hers. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than I’m sorry if you want my forgiveness.” Ryan’s truck pulled around the corner and she wiped at her cheeks. “That’s my ride. Don’t worry about tonight, Clark. We’ll just go back to the way things were and stick to three subjects. The weather, the farm, and your son.”
Merry hurried around the hood of the truck and climbed inside.
“Are you all right, sweetie?”
