Free The Escape Clause by Bernadette Marie Page B

avoid. It was the conversation they’d have to have. She was hell bent on leaving for France. He was hell bent on staying in Nashville.
    His entire life he’d fought to be everything to Avery. How she could just let that go and fly away was beyond him. Sadly he understood it all too well though.
    Avery needed something more than to just be a well respected Keller. Moving to France was finding herself.
    Perhaps he hadn’t been looking at this right at all. If she loved him, as she said she did, she’d realize she couldn’t stay away. She’d be running back to him in no time. Surely that would be what would happen. They were meant to be together. It was love—true love.
    Pete kicked off his shoes and headed upstairs in the dark and quiet house. He needed to show Avery that he supported her. That would be his secret weapon in getting her back quickly.
    He moved into the room and toward the bed. As his eyes adjusted in the dim light of the moon in the window, he could see that she wasn’t there.
    “Avery?” he called thinking she was in the bathroom, but it too was dark.
    Pete stood in the hallway and chills ran over him.
    He flicked on the lights and ran back downstairs. The kitchen was bare and there were no signs that she was there or had been.
    As he passed back through the living room, he noticed the piece of paper on the coffee table and he clenched his jaw when he saw the ring.
    Did he even need to read the note she’d left? An ache in his chest had him rubbing away the pain with the heel of his hand.
    Avery had chosen the unknown over his love.
    Pete walked around the couch and sat down. He rested his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands.
    Avery Keller had been his best friend from as far back as he could remember. He’d nursed her broken heart. He’d tucked her in after long nights of celebrating. There hadn’t been a family crisis he hadn’t seen her through.
    Perhaps he’d solely chased her for too long.
    Friends helped mold you into the person you became. Avery had certainly helped mold him into the man he’d become.
    The ache from his chest moved through him.
    A ring left on the table with a note meant it was time to accept that friendships came and went. Even harder was accepting the fact that the love of his life gave up on him.
    Pete stood and looked down at the note and the ring.
    The pain in his body and his heart was too thick to even consider making it worse by reading the note.
    Walking away, Pete decided he’d look at it tomorrow when he had to move out of his own house. He guessed he’d better make some phone calls. Not only was his father in the hospital, he was now homeless and jobless. Perhaps it was just a slap to his face to realize the true character of Avery Keller.
    Pete swallowed hard. Even though, that’s what his mind was thinking he was sure his heart was going to take a lot longer to truly feel it.
    Would there ever be a time when he didn’t love Avery?

Chapter Ten
     
    It was an interesting moment in Avery’s life, she decided. There had never been a day when she took a large step in her life and her family hadn’t been there.
    That was her fault. She’d said her goodbyes to everyone and now she sat in the small municipal airport waiting to board the plane her grandfather had sent for her.
    She had never felt so empty and alone.
    From the corner of her eye, she saw a man walking right toward her. She closed her eyes and took a breath. In the letter, she’d asked Pete to see her off and to hold her ring until she got back.
    This was going to be the hardest goodbye of them all.
    When she felt him standing just inches from her, she opened her eyes and looked up.
    “I did not mean to interrupt. You look as though you were in prayer,” the man said, his French accent thick. “Are you Avery Keller?”
    The disappointment, that the man wasn't Pete, dropped into her belly.
    “Yes.”
    He held out his hand. “I am Marcus Bravard. I have come to escort you.”
    Avery