Chapter Sixteen MADISON
Chapter Sixteen
MADISON
I looked around the large timber-frame-style building with wide plank hardwood floors and exposed beams. The restaurant was on one end of the hotel with windows looking out over the lake.
The setting sun cast a watercolor of pinks and lavenders over the water’s surface.
The bar ran the length of one wall, and tables and booths occupied the rest of the space.
The place suited Alaska. Living in Alaska, it felt as if I was toeing the edge of the wild.
Allie wanted me to try the caribou burger with fries, so I did.
After we ordered, Allie chattered about school, occasionally catching her ponytail in her fingers and twirling it in circles.
I couldn’t help the tension humming in my body.
It seemed impossible to be near Graham without that electricity crackling to life.
Ever since our last kiss went a little crazy, I kept reminding myself Graham wasn’t good for me.
He wouldn’t want a girl like me, and I didn’t need to be trying to have a fling, much less a relationship.
I was terrible at being casual. That was probably how I ended up getting engaged so young.
I mentally chastised myself. While other girls managed to test the waters of dating in college, I couldn’t seem to pull it off.
I’d wanted so badly to please anyone, to be wanted.
That was the downside to my distant parents, who mostly paid attention to what I could do for them.
I’d been ignoring another message from my mother, pleading with me yet again to talk to our father’s attorney and “update” the paperwork. I swatted those thoughts away and looked around while Allie showed her father her grades on her cell phone.
“Well, hello,” a voice said.
I glanced up to see an older couple approaching the table.
I knew without knowing that these had to be Graham’s parents.
The man looked like an older version of Graham with his brown curls liberally salted with silver and the same intense blue eyes.
The woman had silver hair twisted into an elegant knot.
They stopped by the table, and Allie smiled up at them.
“Hey, Gram and Grandpa.” She spun in her chair to stand and hug them both quickly. She smiled over at me. “This is Maddie. She’s living in Harold’s old place. She’s his granddaughter.”
“Oh, hello,” the woman said. “I’m Rose.” She held her hand out, and I stood to shake it. “This is my husband, Bill.”
Graham’s father smiled and reached out to shake my hand after Rose released it. “Nice to meet you. How are you settling into Willow Brook?”
I followed Allie’s lead and sat down after she did. “I’m settling in, and I like it so far.”
“What brings you here?” Rose asked next.
I wasn’t about to share the truth—that my father was facing fraud charges, the family business was falling apart, and I’d lost my job in the aftermath—so I simply said, “When I inherited my grandfather’s place, I took it as a chance to come see what he loved so much about the area. He meant a lot to me.”
All of that was true, but I still felt as if I misled them. If things hadn’t blown up in my father’s business, I doubted I would ever have come here.
Graham’s mother looked at me curiously and then turned her attention to Graham. “Heard you handled that fire this afternoon.”
Graham dipped his chin. He was leaning back in his chair and had an elbow hooked over the side. He seemed oblivious to my unsettled state. “It’s my job, Mom.”
She smiled before her eyes shifted to me again. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Madison.” She glanced at Allie while Graham’s father said something to him. “I thought you had a sleepover tonight?”
Allie’s chin bobbed up and down. “I do.”
Now, his mother’s look got even more curious when she glanced at me.
I was certain she deduced that meant Graham would be driving me home.
I felt like chiming in to explain we were just having a neighborly dinner, whatever that was.
I held my silence, simply smiled and hoped my expression was calm and entirely unreadable.
I didn’t want Graham’s mother to sense I was lusting desperately after her son, which was completely inappropriate because he had a daughter who did not need him having a fling with some woman he wanted nothing to do with.
I hadn’t forgotten Graham’s initial reaction to me, and I knew he thought I was foolish.
After Graham’s parents left, I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
They were nice, really nice. Unfortunately, being around nice families elicited a prickle of unease.
I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin because I didn’t know how to be around families like that.
My legs were crossed, and one of my feet bounced restlessly.
I willed it to stop. I couldn’t do anything about the family I had.
The past was one thing you couldn’t change.
I had the parents I had, and I didn’t have a warm, friendly family.
I told myself I was reading too much into it, but I hadn’t missed the glint of wondering in Rose’s eyes.
I’m sure she thought I was totally wrong for her son, and I was.
He was a good, solid man. It just so happened he was also ridiculously sexy.
Allie got up to go to the bathroom before we left, leaving Graham and me alone at the table.
When I looked over and met his eyes, it literally felt as if a current of electricity snapped in the air between us.
My pulse took off at a fast gallop, pounding through my body, while my belly did a little shimmy when his eyes held mine for too many beats of my heart.
“Your parents are nice,” I blurted out.
He nodded, one corner on his mouth curling up and sending my belly into a swoop. I felt hot all over.
“They are,” he said, his voice all gravelly and sexy.
“Do you like having them nearby?”
“Of course. I couldn’t have raised Allie without them.
Sometimes being in a small town can feel…
” He paused and then shrugged. “Small. Everyone knows everyone. I’m sure you can guess that’s why people are so curious about you.
We get plenty of tourists in the summer, but it’s major news when someone moves here. ”
Allie returned then. “Are we ready to go?” she chirped, bouncing on her toes lightly, her impatience showing.
“She’s ready to go,” Graham observed as he glanced at me with a wry smile. “You ready?”
I knew he didn’t mean anything sexual in that comment, nothing at all. But my hormones were all, Hell to the yes! We are ready.
I simply nodded because I wasn’t so far gone I couldn’t manage to be polite. We stood, and Graham snagged the check the waitress had left on the table. He flipped his wallet out and promptly dropped several bills on the table.
I started to open my purse, and his voice stopped me. “I’m paying.”
“You didn’t expect to take me out to dinner,” I protested.
Allie slipped her hand through my elbow. “Dad gets all manly about things like this. Just let him pay. You can get him dinner another time.”
Feeling even more flustered now, I closed my purse with my free hand as I looked back and forth between them. “Thank you. I’ll get our next meal.”
Graham said something under his breath, but I didn’t catch it.
With Allie avidly watching us, I wasn’t going to press the issue.
We walked out to his truck together. Not much later, we had dropped Allie off for her slumber party, and Graham was driving back toward my place.
The tension was practically killing me. I was tied up in knots inside, and my need was pulsing in electric waves through my body.
I managed to take a shallow breath, and asked, “What did you say when we were leaving?”
He stopped at a stop sign, and his gaze turned toward me. I’d swear lightning crackled in the space between us.
“You’re not going to buy me dinner,” he said flatly, his eyes daring me to argue.
I let out a puff of breath as he turned onto the road. The sound of his blinker clicked loudly until he completed the turn.
“That’s ridiculous,” I replied. “We’re well past the era where only men can pay for dinner.”
“So what?” he scoffed.
“You are ridiculous,” I muttered. I crossed my arms, tapping my foot on the floor.
His chuckle sent a wash of heat through me.
Everything Graham did turned me on. He annoyed the hell out of me, and somehow even that turned me on.
I could give the silent treatment like a pro, though.
I stared out the window at the moon rising above the mountains and casting them with a pearly glow against the inky dark sky.
A few minutes later, the sound of gravel underneath his truck tires was all I could hear over the pounding of my heart.
When he stopped at the end of my driveway, I turned to look at him.
The engine quieted when he pressed the button to turn it off.
With the sharp edge of desire riding me, I practically jumped out of the truck.
By the time I rounded the front, he had climbed out.
We stared at each other, and I swallowed before saying, “Thank you—”
His words crossed over mine. “Thank you—”
I finished, “For dinner.”
“For picking Allie up from school.”
The air felt loaded and heavy. The distance between us felt malleable—massive like a chasm but also small and crowded. I could hardly catch my breath. All I could think was I needed to kiss Graham again.
I had no idea what he was thinking. His eyes were dark as he stared at me. In a flash, he caught my elbow in his hand and tugged me closer before I could even wrap my brain around what was happening.
“Madison,” he murmured roughly. “I need to kiss you.”
I couldn’t even form a word, yet I was in complete agreement. Kissing Graham, right this very second, was a requirement of the universe.
His lips met mine, and it felt like a lightning strike where our lips met. Searing energy flashed through my body and set all of my cells aflame.