Chapter Three
Four Years Earlier
Madden sat on the back steps of the Page house, hovering on the periphery of the noise, like he always did. A giant white
tent had been erected in the backyard, the interior lit by strings of lights and large brass lanterns. Local friends overflowed
onto the lawn, reminiscing, making plans for the summer.
A celebration in honor of Skylar’s high school graduation.
In the fall, Madden would be starting his third year at Brown, along with Elton. Although Brown wasn’t a far journey from
where he currently sat, he hadn’t been back to Cumberland in over a year. Not since his aunt Fiona passed away and he’d come
back to make her final arrangements.
A memory came meandering in, as this particular one was wont to do.
On a daily basis.
Eve standing beside him at the wake, being pointedly ignored by his aunt’s friends from church. A seventeen-year-old girl
judged for her father’s chosen livelihood. Madden had been in such a state of shock to have his aunt gone without any warning
and overwhelmed by the social pressure of a funeral that the rebuff of his friend hadn’t quite processed right away. Not until
she’d slowly slipped out the back door and disappeared.
To this day, that haunted him.
Still in his suit and fresh from the burial, he’d looked for Eve everywhere. He’d called her with no luck. Knocked on the
back door of Cat Fight, visited her house, enlisted Elton to help him. But . . . nothing. Obviously, she hadn’t wanted to
be found.
He hadn’t seen her since. In over a year.
She’d helped him plan the funeral, along with the Pages. Made the uncomfortable phone calls to his parents to inform them
of his aunt’s death, so he wouldn’t have to resurrect those old ghosts. He could still remember the way Eve had tried to remain
stoic while the phone was pressed to her ear, as though he couldn’t overhear their toneless response to the passing of the
family black sheep. Instead of asking him why he didn’t want to speak to his parents or why they didn’t even consider making
the trip to Rhode Island for the funeral, she’d kept her no-nonsense demeanor and helped him track down a suit and tie, giving
him exactly what he’d needed at the time.
Then she’d cut him off.
It still confused Madden somewhat why he’d allowed that to happen.
Eve was his friend. Eve meant a lot to him.
There were times during high school when he’d worried she meant too much to him. As they both got older and his heart started
to beat faster every time Eve came around, he’d wondered if some distance between them wasn’t wise. He’d aged into adulthood
before her and had no right to look for her around every corner, conjure her in every dream. As wrong as it felt, he’d allowed
that distance to yawn when he left. He’d gone to school, done his best to put sixteen-year-old Eve out of his head, and lived
the lifestyle of a college athlete. Parties and women and blurred recollections.
Here he was now, though, searching for her among the partygoers in the tent.
Heart in his fucking throat.
Madden yanked at the starched collar of his dress shirt. Ironic that he’d be wearing the same damn suit as the last time he’d
seen Eve. Almost like no time had passed at all.
But when he saw her arrive a moment later in a white strapless dress and gold sandals, her hair in a long tumble down to the
middle of her back, it became obvious that time had passed. Eve looked older. Like an adult. A young woman who might walk into one of the parties thrown by his teammates over
the years. Every head in the room would turn.
That image made his eye tick.
Aye. He’d been right to stay away.
Madden watched Eve hesitate at the entrance to the tent. She turned like she might leave, giving herself what looked to be
a silent pep talk. Shifted in her sandals, turning the small purse over in her hands.
He was up and striding in her direction before a conscious decision was made.
“Eve,” he said, as soon as he was close enough to be heard. He wanted that indecision gone from her face. However, nothing
could have prepared him for the knockout blow to his chest when that wide, amber gaze landed on him, her soft mouth parting
on a gasp. Elation. It slipped along her features like a golden ray of sunshine, before she locked that reaction down tight,
leaving her guarded. Like the Eve he remembered.
Only, her beauty was amplified now, perhaps because he was allowing himself to fully notice it for the first time. He couldn’t
stop himself from noticing. It ate him alive, her beauty. The supple glow of her skin, that fluid slope of neck into shoulder, the maturity of her posture, her unique style of clothing, that lifted chin he remembered so well.
Found you.
Finally.
“Madden.” Eve took an audible breath, braced in an almost indetectable way, then went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Back
down onto the flats of her feet, just as quickly. “Hi. You’re in Cumberland. I didn’t know.”
The urge to pull her into a hug dominated him, as it always had, but there were other layers to the impulse now. He’d only
caught a hint of her scent. He wanted more. And damn, Madden wanted to hold her tight and apologize for the day of the funeral. He would if he didn’t think it might
hurt her pride. Or cause her to disappear again.
Complicated was this girl’s middle name.
They had that in common.
“Congratulations,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets, before she could see they were unsteady. “You graduated this
week, as well.”
“I did.” She looked up at the tent, then down to the ground. “End of an era. I can’t say I’m sad to see it go.”
Madden swallowed the twinge in his throat. “The worst of the eejits graduated with me, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Most of them did.”
But not all her bullies left the same year as Madden, it seemed. The guarded shadows in her gaze made that obvious. “Eve,
I . . .”
Eve looked up. “Yes?”
I checked in with the younger lads on the baseball team after I graduated to make sure you weren’t being hassled. I tasked
them with shutting down any bullshit.
I didn’t forget about you.
“Never mind,” he said, tipping his head toward the entrance. “Do you want to walk in together?”
“In a minute.” Eve exhaled, her gaze straying to Madden’s lower abdomen. “How are you feeling? Is your new kidney still up
and running?”
“Last time I checked,” he returned dryly. “It’s been over two years since the surgery. If my body was going to reject it,
I’d be toast by now.” He winked at her. “Must have gotten a good one.” His flippancy about his kidney replacement was meant
to keep the mood light, but she didn’t laugh. Not Eve. She’d taken his kidney disease more seriously than anyone, when he’d
been diagnosed during high school. More seriously than he did, he’d often thought. Although perhaps they took it seriously
for different reasons.
Eve worried, while Madden simply wanted to know who’d anonymously saved his life.
“No luck finding out the identity of my donor,” he said, frowning into the tent. “I’ll keep trying, though. They have to come
out of the woodwork eventually.”
She nodded for a handful of seconds. “I’m ready to go in now.”
Slowly, they turned in tandem to face the opening, Madden nodding for her to precede him, then following close behind, rejuvenating
the part of him that had always needed to be her protector. Standing at her back.
Eve and Madden stopped on the quiet side of the tent where everyone had left half-eaten food and empty champagne glasses behind
to converge on the dance floor. They stood quietly, their sides warmed by each other, watching Elton dance and eat a gigantic
slice of cake at the same time Skylar dutifully moved from group to group, accepting well wishes.
“You were thinking about leaving without coming in, weren’t you?” Madden said.
Her lips twitched. “Parties aren’t really my thing. Or yours. I don’t exactly see you out there doing the robot.”
“You just missed my dance battle. The place was going mental.”
“Oh, really?” Eve pursed her lips. “Someone had to be filming. I’ll ask around.”
“See that you do.”
She smiled up at him in a sly, mysterious way that was new. As if, perhaps, she’d finally become aware of her appeal. As if
she’d been told she was beautiful. By who, though? And lord, why did the idea of someone else calling her beautiful make his
throat burn so badly?
Maybe it was that spiky flash of jealousy that brought Madden to a decision. Or maybe his need to stop hiding his interest
in Eve was a desire that had been taking root for a very long time, against his will. Whatever the catalyst, that night, under
the roof of the tent, Madden had a long-awaited reckoning about Eve. He grew determined to do something about her. To finally kick aside the age roadblock and find out why he’d been so dedicated to her from day one, unable to
get her out of his head. To find out why he considered her feelings and well-being above anyone else in his entire life.
It was high time to solve the mystery of Eve.
“I could show you, instead,” Madden said. “Dance with me.”
If he blinked, he would have missed the panic that scrambled across her face. “You’re asking me to dance?”
“Aye, before someone else does.”
She breathed a laugh. “You’ve been gone too long. No one’s going to ask.”
A muscle yanked in his chest. “There are a lot of foolish men in this town, but they can’t all be fools.”
That threw her, a line appearing between her brows, as if she was trying to decide whether or not he’d paid her a compliment. “Maybe not. But I wouldn’t want to dance with any of them, anyway.”
“Good.”
That earned him a startled, measuring look. “Good?”
Cautiously, he threaded their fingers together, his pulse picking up at the contact, premonition rolling up the column of
his spine. “That’s what I said.”
Needing a moment to gather himself, Madden turned and guided her toward the farthest end of the dance floor. Away from the
hosts. Away from the spotlight.