Page 56 of Matched By Mistake
She looked at his face, trying to see some sign that he was faking his attraction to her. But she didn’t think he had been. He’d made love to her like a man who wanted her. That hadn’t felt fake. But sexual attraction didn’t mean deeper emotions, did it?
Except as she thumbed forward, she got to a photo his mom had sent her of the two of them at the concert. Her back was to Camille so Jericho’s face was the only one visible. She remembered they were negotiating in that moment if they were going to touch each other. The look on his face... She zoomed in, trying to make herself not see it, but he seemed to be really into her.
She tossed her phone aside. What was she doing? She was supposed to be falling out of love with Jericho, not trying to find proof he loved her.
But here she was surrounded by him in her thoughts, sketchpad and on her phone. The riding wasn’t helping. It was just serving to make her face that getting over Jericho was going to take more than a few nights at her brother’s ranch.
She knew she couldn’t stay here forever. And getting over Jericho... Well, she was going to have to get back to her life to make that happen. She’d talked to Piper when she’d been in Dallas and her friend had mentioned there was an old gallery up for sale near her place.
Maybe... Maybe it was time she left Royal. She’d stayed because, if she were honest with herself, she loved her hometown. She liked seeing familiar faces when she got her coffee each morning and she liked being close to her family.
The feud with the Winterses hadn’t been a big factor in Maggie’s life other than overheard comments or discussions between Preston and her dad at the dinner table. But now she knew that she wanted to leave precisely because of Jericho Winters.
She no longer felt like this place was her home and maybe that was because she’d started to see the two of them everywhere. Which really ticked her off. Why couldn’t she have been as in “love” with Jericho as she’d thought she’d been with Randall? Then she could have just licked her wounds and moved on.
But this hurt. The fact that he didn’t trust her was something she didn’t know how to get around. Her gut had never been reliable when it came to men, but she’d tried really hard this time to keep her eyes open and be realistic.
So how had she screwed up?
“Thought I’d find you here.”
She glanced up to see Preston on his horse. He dismounted and came over, sitting down next to her. She looked into her brother’s hazel eyes. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and had some artful stubble. He picked up her sketchpad and looked at it.
“So...not sure if you want to hear this or not, but Jericho is here. He wants to talk to you.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Preston said. “For what it’s worth, he’s apologized to Dad, Mom and me for thinking we had anything to do with the break-in. I think he might want to apologize to you.”
“So?”
“Really, Mags? I get that you want to be just mad but—” he picked up the sketchbook “—it’s more than that. You’re hurt but it seems to me you’re still hoping for something from him.”
“I am, Pres. How stupid is that?”
Her brother put his arm around her. “Not stupid at all. I think it means something because when Randall broke up with you in front of most of the town, you ripped him a new one and walked out of Sheen like you were a queen.”
“I did,” she said, smiling as she remembered it. Somehow, she’d gotten used to hiding until the app had matched her with Jericho.
“But with Jericho, you crumbled. Even Dad mentioned it and you know he never notices those kinds of things.”
She nodded, pulling her knees up and resting her head on them. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“Go talk to him. Maybe he’ll say something that will help. Or don’t. It’s up to you,” Preston said.
She hugged her brother one more time. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Great. He’s on the patio,” Preston said.
Maggie rode back to the stables with her brother but Preston lingered as she walked toward the house. She wasn’t sure what she was going to find when she confronted Jericho but she knew that she needed to talk to him again for her own peace of mind and maybe, as Preston said, she’d be able to finally figure out how to move on.
It had taken Jericho two days to realize that Maggie wasn’t in town. True, after they’d learned from Sheriff Battle that Del Rio family attorney Cecily Meachum had broken into Winters Industries on her own accord, unhappy that the two families were getting along, Jericho knew he should have called Maggie. But he’d had a meeting and he’d been unsure of his reception so he’d let it go for a day.
One day.
And then he’d gone to her place and she wasn’t home. He’d gone to her studio and was informed she was on leave. He’d gotten desperate and gone to talk to Fernando, who accepted his apology but didn’t offer his daughter’s whereabouts. So he’d gone to Gayle, whom he had to track down at her tennis club. She’d refused to stop practicing with her automatic ball machine to talk to him.
Finally, he’d just sat down on the bench behind her. And told her he’d screwed up and he couldn’t make things right if no one helped him find Maggie. Gayle still kept hitting balls but she had called over her shoulder asking him what his objective was.
