Somewhere Only We Know (9 page)

"I'm not going to admit that. I wouldn't have gone that far," she said, frowning at the thought. Had Paul been part of her drive to complete the bucket list?

"You don't sound that convinced, Maddie."

She sighed. "The truth is—I don't really know anymore. I thought I loved Paul. He was one of those relationships that started out fast and hot and you don't stop to think, at least I didn't. I should have been more careful, but I wasn't. It all feels like a bad dream now."

"I'll bet. You know what I think?"

"I'm pretty sure you're going to tell me," she said dryly.

"I think you were starting to panic. The bucket list was running out. The dreams of a fourteen-year-old girl ended at falling in love, getting married. No one thinks beyond that point as a teenager. You didn't know what to do with the rest of your life; you'd reached the end of the book that had been driving your decisions for more than a decade. Maybe you were in love with Paul. Maybe he just wasn't the right one. But putting all that aside, what now? What do you do now that you've finished living out the dream list?"

She'd been asking herself that question for a while. "I get a job and find a place to live, put money in the bank, do what everyone else does."

"Wrong answer."

"Really? You don't think I should focus on getting a job and straightening out my life? You? The most practical person I've ever met. Now I've heard everything."

He leaned forward, determination in his gaze. "You should get a job. But you have to keep dreaming, Maddie. If you're a chef, why are you working as a waitress at the Hanover Club? Why aren't you trying to be a chef?"

"That's a part-time job. I am hoping to get hired in a restaurant. I have an interview on Monday at a restaurant called 311 Post."

"Well, good, because it sounded a little like you'd given up."

"I don't give up. Sometimes I retreat. But I always get back out there."

"Good. I don't want you to settle."

"Why do you even care?"

"You've had an amazing life so far. You've done incredible things. I'd hate to think you couldn't come up with new dreams just because some asshole kicked you in the teeth. That wouldn't be the Maddie I used to know."

Was that admiration in his eyes? A tingle ran down her spine as she sat up a little straighter in her chair. "I'm trying to get back to that Maddie as we speak."

"Good. And by the way, 311 Post is an excellent restaurant."

"I know. If they take me on, I'll be set." She paused. "Even though I traveled for a long time, I was pretty frugal. You'd probably be surprised to know this, but I used to put away ten percent of everything I made. My father had ingrained that in me at a young age. He's a little bit like you when it comes to making long-term plans. While most of what he advised me to do didn't stick, that did. I had quite a bit of money in my accounts when Paul ripped me off. I had hoped to buy a food truck or put the money towards an ownership interest in a restaurant." She paused, feeling once again the sting of that betrayal. "Anyway, that's not going to happen now. I'm going to have to start at the bottom and work my way up again. But I want you to know that I didn't end up on the streets with no money because I didn't do anything to protect myself. I just didn't realize that the danger would come from someone so close to me."

His gaze hardened. "Did you turn Paul in to the police?"

"No. I didn't see how I could. I gave him access to my accounts. It wasn't like he illegally broke into anything."

"I think you could have made a case in some way."

She took a sip of her drink. "It wasn't the loss of the money that hurt the most; it was the breach of trust. I never thought Paul would hurt me like that. I was a fool. I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust anyone again."

"I can understand why you wouldn't, but somehow I think you'll find a way."

"Why would you say that?" she asked curiously.

"Because your instinct is to trust, to think the best of someone. That's who you are, Maddie."

"Who I used to be," she corrected. "I'm hard now. I'm cynical and jaded. I don't believe in forever. In fact, I hate that word. For me, it's about right now. Nothing else matters."

He smiled. "Right now isn't bad. But I don't think you're as cynical as you'd like to believe. I saw your face when you were riding down the beach. No one who is that jaded about life can be that happy."

"Well, I'm not cynical about horses. Anyway, that's enough about me. It's your turn to talk."

"I can't come close to your story. I've been a firefighter since I was twenty-one years old. I have fourteen years on the job. I haven't been much of anywhere, except New York, Hawaii and a weekend in Cabo."

"Do you ever want to go to Europe?"

"I wouldn't mind taking a trip someday. I have to admit my world has felt a little small the last few years."

"What was Leanne like?"

A shadow immediately crossed Burke's face. "I don’t want to talk about her."

"Come on, tell me something. It doesn't have to be too personal. What did you like most about her?"

He thought for a moment. "She was intelligent, well-read, wanted to work hard and make something of herself."

"What did she do for a living?"

"She worked in advertising. She put together slogans and campaigns for the food and wine industry."

"I probably saw some of her work then. I read the online food magazines every week."

He smiled, but there was a distance in his eyes now, as if he'd gone back to the past.

"You miss her, don't you?" she asked softly.

He drew in a heavy breath and blew it out. "We were fighting before she died. We never fought before we got engaged, but somehow planning our wedding brought out the worst in us. I don't really even know what happened. Little things got blown out of proportion. We were constantly at odds. I felt like we went from being on the same page to not even being in the same book."

"Weddings are stressful. I've catered a few. I've seen people get into some big knock-down, drag-out fights over flower arrangements."

"I think it was more than the wedding. There was something bothering her—or maybe I was just annoying her. But we were out of sync. It was so bad that I suggested we think about whether or not we wanted to get married. She looked at me with so much shock in her eyes, I tried to take it back. I tried to smooth things out with her, but it was still awkward and tense. A day later, she was killed in a car accident."

She caught her breath, seeing the pain and guilt in Burke's eyes. "I'm sorry."

He drank the rest of his water, then set down his empty glass. "It is what it is. I can't change it."

"You can't," she agreed. "When my sister was dying, I was constantly wondering if this conversation was going to be the last, and when I wasn't wondering that, I was just talking, sometimes being a brat. Dani got so much attention, and she deserved all of it, but I was a kid, and sometimes I was selfish. I wanted my parents' attention, too. So I'd say something I didn't mean or get mad about nothing. Afterwards, I'd feel horrible. One time I went running into Dani's room just to make sure that I could tell her I loved her and I was sorry for calling her annoying. She just gave me this tired smile and said she was annoying to herself, too. That's the kind of person she was."

"What was the last thing you ever said to her?"

"I think I'll make oatmeal raisin cookies tomorrow. That was it. That was what our relationship ended on. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either."

"It was actually very—you," he said with a warm smile.

"That's what I told myself. I tried to remember if she smiled when I said it. I think she did. Oatmeal raisin cookies were her favorite." She paused and drew in a breath, focusing her attention on Burke. "But the point is no one ever knows what their last words to someone will be. You can't put everything on a moment. Relationships are built over time, and they're always changing. You were being human. So was Leanne. If the situation had been reversed, she'd probably feel guilty that she'd been fighting with you, too."

He slowly nodded, obviously thinking about her words. "I never thought of it that way."

"So why did that man hit you last night? What was that about?"

"Mitch Warren was in love with Leanne, but she thought of him as a long-time friend. He was devastated by her death, and to make himself feel better, he's been trying to prove that Leanne's death was not an accident."

Her eyebrows drew together as she puzzled over that comment. "How does he get to that conclusion? I thought it was a car accident."

"It was a hit-and-run. They never found the other driver."

She stared back at him, her imagination kicking into overdrive. "Mitch thinks that someone deliberately crashed into Leanne's car?"

"Yes. He thinks I was involved in the accident in some way, but I wasn't. I was working that night, Maddie. I didn't cause the accident that happened five blocks from the firehouse, but when a bystander called 9-1-1, we got the call."

"No," she breathed, shocked by the thought of Burke being the first on the scene.

He nodded, his gaze grim. "I was the one who pulled her body out of the car."

She swallowed a knot in her throat at the terrifying image his words brought forth. She couldn't begin to imagine how Burke could have gotten past that horrific moment.

"It was weird," he said. "Her face was perfect, not one cut on it. All her injuries were internal." He blew out a breath, his gaze turning toward the sea, as if he were looking for some peace. Finally, he turned back to her. "I've never talked about that night with anyone."

She didn't know how to react to that statement. She was happy that he felt he could trust her, but she didn't have any idea what to say, how to help him or comfort him. In the end, she said, "You're a strong person, Burke."

He shook his head. "I've felt a lot of things in the last three years, but strong isn't one of them."

He was being incredibly hard on himself, she thought, but that was Burke. He'd always tried to control everything and everyone around him. Over the years, he must have run through a million scenarios in his mind: If he'd only gotten to the scene faster, if they'd gotten Leanne out of the car a minute earlier, if they hadn't been fighting that week, would she have been in the car?

That last question gave her pause. "Wait a second. You said that Mitch thinks you're responsible for Leanne's death. But he knows you were at work, so you obviously weren't driving the car that hit her."

"He blamed me for Leanne being on the road that night. He knew she was upset about something. Apparently she left him some cryptic phone message. He keeps asking me what she was upset about, as if that will provide some magic answer or make everything better."

"You've never told him that you and Leanne were fighting?"

"I've never told anyone, not Mitch, not Leanne's parents, not one of her friends—just you." He sighed. "I probably shouldn't have told you."

"You can trust me, Burke. But I am a little curious about your silence. Why not just tell Mitch what happened, that you were fighting about the wedding?"

He sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. "Leanne and I had our problems, but they were ours. She was a private person, and so am I. If she'd wanted her family or Mitch to know that we weren't getting along, then she would have told them."

"It sounds like she might have wanted to tell Mitch something that day—if she left him a message."

"Who knows? He could be making a lot out of a simple call-me-back voicemail."

His words made sense, but she could see that the secret, the guilt, had been festering inside Burke for far too long. "Do you know why Leanne was on the road that night?"

He met her gaze. "She usually went to yoga on Thursday nights, at a gym not far from the firehouse, but she'd told me earlier that she was too upset to go. She'd said she was going to stay home and think about us—about our future." He drew in a breath and let it out. "Obviously, she changed her mind. I think she was coming to see me, to try to talk me into continuing the engagement."

"So you blame yourself for Leanne's death, too." It was more of a statement than a question, because she could already see the truth in Burke's dark blue gaze.

"It's possible that our fight put her on that road at the worst possible time," he conceded.

"Or…Leanne might have decided to go to yoga and try to de-stress. What was she wearing?"

"She had on her yoga pants, but she wore those a lot even when she wasn't going to yoga. She was very active—loved to run, dance, go to the gym—so it wasn't unusual for her to be in workout gear." He paused. "I'm never going to know why Leanne was on the road that night. And neither is Mitch. He's going to have to find a way to live with that, just as I have."

"He doesn't appear to be doing very well in that regard considering it's been three years and he's still very angry."

"It does seem that time is making everything worse for him."

"I feel like there's something you haven't told me, Burke."

"What do you mean?"

"Mitch gets a message from Leanne indicating she's upset about something and later that night she dies in a hit-and-run. He blames you because he's jealous of you or he thinks she was upset about you. But it seems like a big stretch for him to think you actually drove Leanne off the road."

"I never said it made sense, Maddie."

"It's strange that there were no witnesses to the accident. Where is the firehouse?"

"We're in a somewhat industrial area. There's no foot traffic and it was nighttime. No one was out. There weren't any security cameras in the area. The person who called in the accident said she turned the corner and saw the car flipped on its roof. She got out and called 9-1-1. She said she didn't see anyone leave the scene. The only thing that indicated there was another car involved was that the investigators found paint on Leanne's car, but whoever hit her obviously didn't sustain serious damage to their car or any severe injuries. The police checked the hospitals and body shops for days after that."