Ex on the Beach (37 page)

“Yeah, well.” She walked across the living room, with her back to him. “People change.”

“But why did you?” he asked.

She turned to him and answered his question with one of her own. “Do you really think I did? You never thought that job was right for me anyway.” She laughed. A dry, brittle sound. “Come to find out, Aunt Ginny didn’t, either. So yeah … maybe I didn’t change. Maybe I just moved here and figured out that that life wasn’t me.”

“Is that what happened?”

She shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Takes more than that to get through my thick skull. After I was fired, I moped around for a couple weeks, and then I realized I was thrilled not to have to go back. But I didn’t get that it was the job and not the company I was glad to be escaping. I sent out résumés, but nothing stuck.” She shrugged and looked away. “So I talked Aunt Ginny into turning the house into a bed-and-breakfast.”

Mark opened the refrigerator and pulled out two sodas. He handed one to Andie and drank part of the other while he waited, figuring she had more to say.

“I sent out résumés again six months later,” she added. “This time I got a couple interviews. One in Cincinnati. Not far from my mom. I could have proven my worth there, I was certain.”

“What happened?”

She barked out another hollow laugh. “I couldn’t get a job. No one would hire me.”

That had to have stung. Especially since she’d wrapped her self-worth around her career.

“So I came back here and talked Aunt Ginny into doing weddings.”

“Seems every ‘no’ opened another door for you.”

“Who knows?” She shrugged and took a sip of the soda. “I bought the bar after a short stint at an insurance company in Columbus a year later. At the end of my three-month trial period, we all agreed to go our separate ways. So I came back here and I haven’t left again.”

“What happened last year?” he asked.

She met his gaze over the top of her drink. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you tell me you talked Ginny into the bungalows last year? What happened to make you do that?”

She lowered the can, and her teeth came out to gnaw at her lip.

“Andie?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to tell you.”

He had no idea what it possibly could have been, but he tried for a teasing smile. He wanted to hear it. And he wanted to lighten the mood. “It can’t be that bad. Come on, I’m telling you my secrets. You tell me yours,” he cajoled.

She blinked her eyes several times then shifted her gaze away from him. Her chest rose and fell with a sigh. “I saw your wedding announcement in the paper,” she stated flatly.

Oh.

His chest expanded as he realized she’d been thinking about him about the same time he’d been thinking about her.

Fate.

It had to be.

“So what was problem number two?” she asked.

“What?”

“You said, ‘first problem, Beth caught you looking me up.’ What was problem number two?”

He drained the soda, taking his time to do so. Trying to steel himself to admit the rest. He had to show her how bad he could let someone down.

“Beth knew about what had happened with Tiffany,” he finally said. “Because she’d known me back then.”

Confusion clouded Andie’s face. “Tiffany?”

“The girl Rob mentioned on the boat.”

Andie’s eyes went wide. “The girl he said you …” She paused as if not wanting to say the word. He didn’t want her to say it, either. Finally, she stepped closer and looked him straight in the eyes. “Killed?”

Mark’s chest tightened.

“Right.” He nodded. The girl he had killed. His mouth grew dry. “Beth had known me back then, and she had the thought that I was letting what happened in my past impact my life. My relationships.”

He didn’t point out that Beth had said basically the same thing that Andie had. That he had issues with marriage. Neither of them knew what they were talking about. He plunged ahead, not giving Andie time to jump in.

“I’m not,” he declared. “I got over the past long ago. It has nothing to do with now. But with that in Beth’s mind, along with her seeing that there was an issue still lingering with you” — Mark paused — “she walked. Said she could do better. And hell, she could. She did. She’s found someone now, and I couldn’t be happier for her. She and I never should have gotten together in the first place.”

He’d been settling, but he’d never disgrace Beth by admitting that out loud. She remained a good friend, if nothing more.

Andie carefully lowered herself to the couch and rubbed the spot beside her as if beckoning him across the room. “So what happened?” Her voice was soft and gentle, as if she suspected he needed to be handled with kid gloves. “With Tiffany?”

Mark sat next to her and grabbed hold when she reached for his hand.

“I was seventeen,” he started. “Tiffany was sixteen. She was my first ‘real’ girlfriend. She was …” He paused and pictured Tiff as she’d been then. She’d smiled all the time. “She loved life. She was impulsive, and would try or do anything. I loved being around her. And somehow I talked her into going out with me.”

“I’ve seen pictures of you at that age,” Andie said wryly. “I’m sure it wasn’t a hardship to go out with someone like you.”

“But that’s just it. She wasn’t
like
me.” He was embarrassed to say the next words. “Moneywise,” he muttered. “She went to my school on a scholarship, and it embarrassed her that I was interested in her. She always told me she didn’t fit into my life.” He gave Andie a pointed look. “Like another woman I met years later.”

Andie gave him a small, acknowledging smile and then squeezed his hand, silently encouraging him to continue.

“We’d been dating a few months, and I swear, every time I picked her up, her father would get this look on his face.” Mark mimicked the stern look the man had worn. “He’d put a hand on my shoulder, and never take his eyes off mine. And he’d tell me, ‘She’s your responsibility when she’s with you, son. You make sure you always bring my little girl home safe and sound.’”

Mark stopped and sucked in a breath before he continued. He hadn’t thought about Mr. Avery in a while, but he could still see him in his mind — looking Mark straight in the eye as if he believed that Mark was as responsible as any other grown-up in the world. Mark had believed it, too. Tiffany
had
been his responsibility. He was the man. The protector.

He’d let her down.

He turned loose of Andie and rose. It felt as if he had a sock lodged in his chest. He’d never told anyone this story before. Many people knew it. They’d been around when it had happened. But he’d never said the words out loud.

“I picked her up one night, intending to take her to a party that one of my friends was having. It was summer, so we could stay out later. She didn’t want to go. Said she would be uncomfortable there. But I pushed her. I wanted to go. I was certain she’d have a good time.”

He paused, his thoughts going back almost fourteen years to that night. He’d been such a fool.

“I drank a few beers and that pissed her off. We argued, and she wanted to leave. So I agreed, but she had to drive. I was in no shape.” He crossed to the kitchen and tossed his empty soda can, then got a bottle of water from the fridge. “But I couldn’t have her drop me off at home and drive away with my car. My parents would have known I’d been drinking. So I had her take me to a friend’s house. He lived in an area she’d never been to before. And it was so dark that night. It had been raining.” He shook his head with regret. “I was too drunk to care the way I normally would have.”

He stood in the middle of the floor and faced Andie, his gaze meeting hers with shame.

“I didn’t find out until the next morning,” he said. “After I sobered up and went looking for my car. She never even got out of the neighborhood. She took a curve wrong. Went too fast — probably because she was still mad at me. Hit water and hydroplaned. And wrapped herself around a tree. She died on impact.”

Andie stared at Mark, unblinking, her heart aching at the agony written across his face. He’d been carrying such guilt all these years.

Guilt that he didn’t deserve.

But guilt she could tell he’d held on to tightly.

No wonder he struggled to take that final step into marriage. How responsible would he feel for a wife? Kids of his own?

Her heart bled for his pain.

“You really believe her death was your fault?” She needed to help him understand that it was an accident. He was not to blame. If she couldn’t, they didn’t stand a chance.

Dark eyes locked on hers. The grief had lessened, and all that was left was acceptance. “Of course it was my fault. I took her out that night. I was supposed to get her home safely.”

“But Mark. You were drunk. You did the
right
thing by not driving her home.”

“I shouldn’t have been drinking,” he stated.

Still, accidents happened all the time. “But—”

“Don’t.” He set down the bottle of water that he was still holding, untouched. “I didn’t tell you so you could try to convince me it wasn’t my fault. It was. But I’ve moved on. It doesn’t affect me. It is a part of who I am, though, and I should have told you about it years ago. Before I ever asked you to marry me. If I wanted you to share things with me, I should have done the same.”

“That was part of our problem,” she whispered. “Neither of us realized we needed to share.”

Mark nodded, the line of his mouth grim. “I’d have to agree.” He gave her a quick wink, clearly trying to ease the tense moment. “But we know better now. We’re going to do it different this time around.”

He really thought there was nothing standing in their way. But they couldn’t go
anywhere
if he didn’t move on from his past.

She took a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. But for his sake, she had to do it. “I’m with Beth on this,” she calmly told him.

Mark’s chin angled down at her and his eyebrows went up. “How so?”

“I think Tiffany factors into your issues with marriage.” She gave him a tight smile, hoping to ease the sting of the words, and stood from the couch. “With your inability to make that final commitment.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I don’t have an issue with commitment, Andie.”

“Yet you walked before for no good reason.”

“I think we’ve both clarified that neither of us was ready then. We both had issues.”

She gave him a nod. “Agreed. But mine came from not being sure of who I was. Yours stemmed from the fact that you’re afraid to get married. You’re afraid to take on the responsibility of a family.”

“Like hell I am.” He stomped across the room, passing close in front of her.

Andie stayed where she was and silently watched him. They weren’t going to be able to get beyond this. She’d known it all along. It was as if she could literally feel her heart rip in two. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a few seconds, but she did not let herself double over in pain.

She was better than what he was offering her, and she was going to prove it. She would prove it to her aunt and to her mother, but more important, she would prove it to herself.

“Why didn’t you show up at the church that day, Mark?” she prodded him, wanting him to admit the truth.

“I told you, the phone. I thought you were using me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not good enough. You knew I loved you. Why didn’t you show up?”

“Because I heard you—”

“I said no. That answer won’t cut it. If that was all there was to it, you would have opened your mouth and asked me what was going on right then. Why didn’t you show up?”

He stared at her, furious. His nostrils flared with his breaths.

“Was I not good enough?” she asked.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Did you not want me to have a job?”

“I already told you—”

“Then
why
?” she stressed.

He gritted his teeth as he fought with his emotions, a muscle working back and forth in his jaw. And then he slowly crossed the room to her. He leaned down and got in her face, his breath hot, his tone harsh. “I couldn’t take care of you, all right? Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t take care of you. You were out all hours of the night. I never knew when you were coming home. When you would be out on the streets. I couldn’t make sure that you were okay. I couldn’t let you die like I let Tiffany.”

Mark went silent, and so did Andie. They stared at each other.

“And that,” she whispered, tears shaking her voice, “is the issue. I don’t need taking care of, Mark. I’m a grown woman. And I am not your responsibility.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You treated me that way.”

“I treated you like I loved you.”

“You hurt me,” she told him.

His gaze flickered, then relocked on hers.

“When you didn’t show up,” she told him. “You hurt me. Bad.”

He remained silent.

“And you took advantage of me. You thought you were more important. You always did. Your job versus my job. Your family versus my family.”

She picked her purse up from the floor, where she’d let it drop when they’d come in. Then she stood straight, her spine stiff, and said the things she should have said to him four years ago.