Miracle Creek Christmas

but Riley pulled away, her feet taking her after Mark as she fought her churning emotions. She’d been a fool. Why? Why had she so readily believed what Dalton had said? What he’d implied? Mark had done nothing but respect her in every way. Was he right? Was she afraid to be linked to him in the public eye as anything more than just friends?

Just friends. Tears spilled down her face. They were more than that. From the beginning, they’d been more than that.

“Mark!” She picked up her pace as he reached his truck. “Mark, please stop.”

He halted, his shoulders rigid, his head held high. Slowly he turned. He didn’t meet her gaze, his jaw working tightly.

She slowed and stopped several feet away, afraid to scare him off. “I shouldn’t have believed him.”

He shifted his weight, stiff.

“When he said you’d told him—”

“You are such a hypocrite,” he said, interrupting her.

She faltered at the accusation in his voice. “What?”

“You’re angry at your parents for moving you around so much you don’t know what to call home, but you won’t commit to stay in one place long enough to plan your summer. You go out with a man who cheated on his wife and left his children, then, after he takes you to Leavenworth and makes you cry, you go out with him again?”

He stepped toward her. “I get it. Dalton’s all shiny—but it’s smoke and mirrors. Like that idiot actor you dated back in California. I thought you could see through that. I’ve done my best to show you what’s real in this valley. I wasn’t near done yet. While I was on that platform, scared out of my mind, it hit me that I didn’t care who saw us or who didn’t. I didn’t care about small-town rumors anymore. I just wanted you by my side anywhere. Everywhere.”

She stepped toward him. “Mark—”

He stepped back. “And at the same instant, you jump on the first excuse you can find to believe the worst of me.”

She shook her head, wiping at a tear.

He didn’t slow down. “You’re making the same mistakes your parents made, and you don’t even see it. You say you can see me, Riley, but you can’t even see yourself. You can’t even see what it might be like if you stayed. It might be amazing.” He shook his head in frustration. “It has been amazing. When are you going to realize that I’m not your father, Riley? I’m not some guy who couldn’t see what he had right in front of him.” He threw his hands out at his sides. “What part of any of me says that I’m going anywhere?” He laughed, half-crazy. “That I won’t be here for-freaking-ever?”

He closed the distance between them in a few steps and took her arms, his dark eyes sparking with a mix of anger and desperation. “You make me feel real, Riley. What do I make you feel?”

She couldn’t breathe.

His grip tightened. “What do I make you feel?”

A car rolled on the gravel behind her and a door opened. “Riley, baby?”

Her head jerked at that voice. “Mom?”

Determined footsteps came around from the driver’s side of a large SUV. “Get your hands off her!”

“Dad?”

Mark dropped his hands, turning their way.

Her mother gasped, and her dad halted in his tracks. Then fury clouded his face. “What are you doing to my daughter?”

Riley wiped quickly at her tears and stepped in front of Mark. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

He pulled his eyes away from Mark. She’d seen the moment his anger had turned into distaste. Her mother still held her hand over her mouth in revulsion.

“Is this man hurting you?” her dad asked.

“No.” She sucked in a breath, which was difficult considering her chest was caving in. “The other way around,” she whispered. She dared a look at Mark.

He was watching her, his expression dark, reminding her of that man in the hood at the backstage doors so long ago. He addressed her parents, keeping his right side away from them. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Excuse me.” He gave Riley one last look, then walked back to his truck, kicked up the engine, and drove away.

Riley drove blindly on roads so familiar now she could draw a map and name them, even with the snow falling hard enough she had to use her wipers.

She’d asked her parents to return to their hotel in Leaven­worth with a promise to call them.

“We decided that since you weren’t coming to us for the holidays,” her mom had explained, “we were coming to you. I hear there’s a big tree-lighting tomorrow.”

Surprise.

The look on Mark’s face haunted her. His anger had shielded his hurt, but she was the girl who could see him. And she’d hurt him. Betrayed his trust. He was right. She’d taken the first chance she was given to push him away and made it spectacular. Congratulations, Madigan. It worked.

You make me feel real. What do I make you feel?

He’d been open and vulnerable, and then her parents had shown up and reminded him that there were those in this world who saw scars walking around as people.

She wiped the insistent tears from her eyes, realizing that she’d been climbing the winding roads to Rivers Orchards on auto­pilot.

She slammed on the brakes.

She’d hurt Mark. Because she didn’t know how to commit. She didn’t know how to put down roots and give them the chance to grow.

She gripped the steering wheel.

It wouldn’t stop there. Now that people knew about her and Gavin, they’d be curious and questioning and watching. He didn’t need someone like her leading him on or using him. Because that’s all she’d been doing. She hadn’t meant to. She’d wanted to believe everything he said about hope and belonging . . .

But how could someone like her know how to trust? How to love?

At the thought, she crumpled forward, fighting more tears as they came anyway.

She’d told him she could see him. But at the first real test,