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“Apparently, it’s a very long story,” Eleanor said.
A man walked in behind Allie, then shut the door.
“Mike,” Allie said, clearly getting emotional. “It’s Max. He’s alive.”
“Better than dead, I imagine,” Mike said, obviously trying to keep things light.
Max liked him instantly.
“A lot better than dead,” Max agreed.
“Mike Davies.”
“Max Harper.”
Max shook the man’s hand and assessed him. A little taller than Allie. A little stockier. He had a firm handshake and made direct eye contact. And when he looked at Allie it was as if the only thing that mattered right now was how she was dealing with the situation.
Yes. Max approved of Mike. As her pseudo older brother, he knew that would mean something to Allie.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I need a drink.” This came from Daniel. The Date. “Can I get anyone anything?”
“Bourbon,” Max said. “If you have it.”
“Of course we have bourbon,” Eleanor said as if he’d suggested something ridiculous.
She was flustered. She was still processing. She wore a stunning navy dress, and suddenly he realized he wanted everyone to leave so that he could be alone with his wife.
“Okay, okay,” she muttered. As if she was a general coming up with a game plan. “Here is what we’re going to do. Daniel, if you would be so kind to bring the bottle of bourbon back here, that would be great. I’m going to clean champagne off my favorite pair of shoes. Allie and Mike, you have to go out there and mingle. If you stay in here, people will wonder what’s happening. I don’t want anyone to see him.”
“Why not?” her sister asked. “He’s alive. It’s not like he has to be hidden.”
“Allie,” Eleanor snapped again. “Please. I get you’re happy to see him. But I think we all need to remember...how things were between Max and me...before...”
“I died. Except I didn’t.”
Eleanor looked at him then, and he remembered that expression. It was her way of telling him to go shut it. He’d missed that look. He’d missed everything about her.
Daniel. Date. Not boyfriend. Not husband. Date.
He could work with that.
“Eleanor...” Allie said as if this was something she was willing to put up a fight over.
“Allie, do what your sister says,” Max said. “This isn’t going to be easy. For any of us. We’ll catch up later. You can tell me if this guy is worthy of you.”
She beamed again, only this time it clearly wasn’t for him. “He is. He so is.”
Mike took Allie’s hand and led her out of the room. Daniel left behind them. Then it was just Eleanor and Max.
“You could have called,” she accused him.
“I didn’t have your number.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth, either. He’d looked her up online. He knew she was the founder and CEO of a start-up company called Head to Toe. That had been his original plan. To find the address of her company. To see her there.
But when the engagement announcement popped up under his Allie Gaffney alert, this had seemed like a better opportunity. More personal.
They were also the only family he had left.
Max thought he would be coming home to two devastated parents and a ticked-off almost ex-wife. He hadn’t expected his parents’ deaths. How could he?
He’d been by the graveyard. He’d seen the headstones Eleanor had picked out for them. He knew that she’d made sure they were buried with all the respect and dignity they deserved.
She’d done that for them even though she’d left him and wanted a divorce.
“You could have found a way...to make this easier,” she said. “This...it’s too much.”
“Nor—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “No one calls me that anymore.”
“This was never going to be easy.”
She nodded, at least acknowledging that.
“I need to...” She paused as if she had lost her train of thought.
“Change your shoes,” he offered. “They look pretty expensive.”
She lifted her chin. “I have a company.”
“I know you do. I told you, I looked you up. It’s how I found out about tonight.”
Warily, as if he was some kind of predator, she backed away from him. “You need to stay in here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Then she hesitated again. “Are you hungry? We have lots of food.”
“Yes. I’m starving actually. Anything sounds good.”
Again she nodded, then not turning her back on him—he liked to think because she liked seeing him standing in front of her—she left the room.
Max took a seat and blew out a breath. He figured the hardest part was over.
Then, almost instantly, he knew that was wrong.
Getting his wife back. That was going to be the hardest part.
* * *
MAX WAS ALIVE. Max was alive.
Eleanor thought if she said it a thousand times, it might penetrate her reality. But alternately she had to remind herself that, in some corner of her brain, she never really thought he was dead.
He had never felt dead to her.
But that was silly and based on feelings, not on facts. His ship went missing, lost at sea. Max had been declared dead. She’d grieved. Then she’d grieved again when Harry and Sarah died.
She’d stayed close with them despite the situation between Max and her because, at that point, there had been no reason to hold on to grudges. It hadn’t mattered that Max had picked his job over his wife, because Max was dead.
Now he was here. Alive. Saying to her in that very serious way he had that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Because that was so like him.
Showing up two and a half years later at her sister’s engagement party undead wasn’t meant to be dramatic or shocking. It was simply the most expedient way he had of seeing her again. Eleanor knew that.
Max wasn’t drama. He wasn’t show. He’d always been substance.
It’s why she had always believed in their love, which, while it had been happening, had been so overwhelming. Because Max wasn’t the type of man to have passionate affairs. Which meant their passion was something else. Something different. Something built on a foundation.
Until the foundation wasn’t strong enough to handle another research trip. At least not for her.
Eleanor needed five minutes to escape. She needed to change her shoes, brush her teeth to get the taste of stale champagne out of her mouth, and, mostly, she needed to think.
She made her way through the crowd of guests hoping she was doing an adequate job of not looking like her life had just been upended.
She ran upstairs toward her bedroom with her mother trailing after her.
“How is this possible?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, didn’t you think to ask him?”
“Mom, I’m a little stunned right now, so could you back off?”
“No, I will not back off. Forget the fact that he’s pulled this rising-from-the-dead stunt. Don’t forget how things ended between you two before all that death business. You were devastated when you came back from Norway. I don’t want to see that happen again. Say the word, and I’ll ask him to leave this house right now. Your cousin Robbie can toss him out if he refuses.”
Robbie was the tallest of the cousins and wouldn’t have been able to move Max an inch if Max didn’t want to be moved.
“No.”
That much Eleanor knew. First, he had to tell her what happened. She, at least, deserved that. Then...there was so much more to work out.
His parents’ estate, which she’d held in a trust for the past year because she was not exactly sure what to do with it, was one thing. Not to mention the tiny little detail that he’d never actually signed the divorce papers. So, now that he was legally alive, she was still legally married to him.
“Please tell me you are not actually happy to see him again. That man broke your heart, if you recall.”
No, he hadn’t broken it. He’d shattered it. Stomped on it. Then threw it overboard for chum. Then he went and ruined all of that by dying so that, instead of hating him, she’d missed him with every ounce of her being.
“No. I mean, yes, I have to be happy he’s not dead. But it’s not...I mean, of course I’m over him.”
They reached the top of the stairs, and her mother pulled on her arm. “Eleanor Jane Gaffney, look at me and tell me you will ever be over Max Harper.”
“It’s Eleanor Jane Gaffney Harper, Mom. Remember?”
“Actually sometimes it’s easy to forget because I wasn’t invited to the wedding, now, was I?”
It was almost comical. Here Marilyn was threatening to throw Max out of the house by force if necessary so that he couldn’t emotionally hurt her daughter any further, but she was still making digs about how they’d chosen to get married in the first place. “Really, Mom? We’re going to fight about the elopement tonight of all nights?”
Her mother let out a sigh. “No. We’re not. I just need to make sure you can...handle being around him again. Daniel seems like a very nice man. I would hate to see you throw away any potential you have with him over Max Harper.”
“Are you angry with Max because we chose to elope? Or because he left me? Or because he died, but now is actually alive?”
Marilyn seemed to consider that. “All of the above.”
“Right.”
“I told you it was too soon,” Marilyn hissed. Reminding her daughter for the millionth time that she had advised Eleanor against getting married so quickly.
“Which is why we eloped,” Eleanor said tightly. The argument, for all its repetition, never changed.
“Because you’re impossibly stubborn.”
Eleanor wanted to say she got that from her mother, but thought better of it. It would only lead down the same path this conversation always took them inevitably. Which was that Marilyn had been right and Eleanor had been wrong. Something her mother had reinforced when Eleanor had come back from Norway.
Because there was nothing a person wanted more while crying over a broken heart than to hear her mother’s version of I told you so.
“I need to get down there and talk to him. But I need a few minutes to compose myself first. Please give me a little space, Mom.”
“Just don’t let yourself get sucked in again. The last time it nearly killed you when it ended. Remember who he is. I told you then and I will tell you now, that man doesn’t know how to stay in one place forever. So he may be alive and he may be back for now. But it’s only temporary. Sure enough, there will be another assignment and another ship.”
Eleanor hated to admit it, but her mother had a point. Max had nearly been her downfall. The thing she had almost not recovered from.
Until she did. Until she’d pulled herself out of the ashes of her failed marriage and built herself a company.
“Mom, I’m not going to get sucked in by Max. I remember how it ended better than anyone. Really. I’m fine. But we need to sort out the technicalities. Legally we’re still married.”
“Fine. I need to get back to my guests. You’re sure you can handle this?”
“I’ve got it.”
At least she hoped she had it. She was no longer a lovesick, twenty-six-year-old woman who was desperate to have her husband not leave her again.
Instead, she was a strong, independent woman who owned a successful business. A woman who was dating another man. A woman who had been hurt, but who had moved on with her life.
No. All she needed from Max Harper was a divorce.
