Chapter Four
Maddox
MEMORY I DON’T MESS WITH
Performed by Lee Brice
Mila fell asleep when I was only halfway through the book. It was too late for her to have been up anyway, but as tomorrow was Saturday, it would be fine. We’d sleep in, make pancakes, and go find her a damn hula hoop.
I eased out of her bed, pulled the blankets up, tucked them tight around her little body, and then just stared.
She was a small miracle. Not only because she’d survived the first year of her life in horrifying conditions, but because she’d changed my life.
Made me a better person. Given me an even bigger purpose.
I placed a kiss on her forehead and left the room with her rainbow of nightlights casting a million shimmers along the walls.
I made my way to the kitchen and blessed Rianne silently one more time when I found a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes in the microwave. I heated it up and then sat down on the sofa with my plate and a beer I rarely drank to watch a hockey game that couldn’t keep my attention.
My phone buzzed with a message from Ryder in a group text that included our two sisters.
DIPSHIT: You should have come back. Mary Beth almost stripped on the dance floor, and Chuck had to toss her over his shoulder to get her to leave.
I chuckled, imagining the scene. Mary Beth and Chuck owned the feed store everyone in the county used to place their orders. She was renowned for her antics when she let loose, and Chuck was renowned for reeling her in and keeping her safe.
ME: Thank God I missed it. I don’t want to see someone as old as Mama getting naked.
Sadie came back the fastest. Our little sister was in her last year at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville getting a pre-law degree I didn’t think she’d ever use. Instead, I was ninety-nine percent sure she’d end up making waves on the professional dart circuit.
SASSY PANTS: There’s our little monk.
Gemma came to my rescue.
GEM MINE: I kind of have to agree with Mads here. I don’t want to see Mama, Daddy, or anyone their age naked.
SASSY PANTS: You just don’t want to see anyone naked. You’re as bad as Mads. Thank God Ryder and I are around to balance you out by rejoicing in the human flesh.
DIPSHIT: Damn it, Sadie. Do not make me drive to UTK and beat the hell out of someone. You are not allowed to have sex, think about having sex, or even look at the other sex.
SASSY PANTS: Too late, big brother.
I groaned.
ME: Can we stop talking about sex and family at all? I just ate Rianne’s magnificent meatloaf, and I don’t want to toss it back up.
SASSY PANTS: Have you even had sex, Maddox? Besides with your hand?
GEM MINE: ***puke GIF*** Please STOP TALKING. I’m changing the subject. How are you doing today, Mads?
I glanced over to the side table Mama and my sisters had loaded with picture frames.
They contained years of childhood memories as well as ones of Mila and me since we’d become a family.
My eyes settled on the photo of sixteen-year-old me with the Bronco when I’d first bought it in worse shape than it was now.
Tucked against my side, grinning like she’d been the one to buy the vehicle, was McKenna Lloyd.
Her skin was golden from the days we’d spent at the lake.
Her honey-blonde hair glowed with natural highlights the sun had been responsible for, and her wheat-colored eyes were sparkling.
The tip of her slim nose turned up just the tiniest bit, and her full lips were spread wide.
Pain, ragged and sharp, drew down the middle of me, taking my breath for a second.
It seemed impossible that, even a decade later, it could still hurt so much—barely having her and then losing her.
I shook my head. I’d had her for ten years.
We’d pretty much become inseparable from the time I’d found her hiding from her mama’s hateful words.
We’d been side by side, playing at school or escaping her mama to run wild in town, and, whenever my family could convince her mama to let her come, exploring the ranch.
All my best memories had McKenna tangled and twined in them, like vines growing through a magnolia tree.
Memories I didn’t mess with. Memories I kept locked up deep inside me and took out to relive and cherish whenever I was feeling strong enough.
That wasn’t today―her birthday and also the day I’d lost her for good.
The day she’d told me she was engaged and to stop calling.
I hadn’t even known she’d been dating anyone.
We’d communicated solely by texts and video chats since my one and only ill-advised trip to California. Even though she’d told me not to come back, not to wait, I’d stupidly gone on doing just that.
But I shouldn’t have waited, because I’d known she’d never come back to Willow Creek, just like she’d known I’d never leave. Our friendship that had flared, briefly, into something more had been forced back into what it had started as―two people who simply wanted the best for each other.
DIPSHIT: Do we need to stage an intervention, Sheriff Hatley?
The text loosened the hold the memories had on me. They might hurt, but I’d never regret my past, because if I hadn’t had McKenna, I never would have had Mila, and she was the best thing in my life.
ME: No, asshole. I’m just exhausted. Arrested a bunch of the West Gears and wrestled with Willy. I’m going to bed.
DIPSHIT: Wah-wah-wah. I worked all day, gutting the cabins. Do you see me whining?
ME: Did you have a gun pulled on you and fight off a knife attack? Come talk to me when it was your life on the line, and I’ll show you a whine.
GEM MINE: Maddox! You did not almost get shot and stabbed, did you? Mama’s going to shit a brick.
ME: Don’t tell her, Gems. You know she’ll just worry. I shouldn’t have said anything to any of you, but Dipshit pissed me off, as usual.
SASSY PANTS: This is double the proof you need to get laid, Maddox. Life is too short. You could be gone tomorrow. You want to hand your V card over at some point.
I choked on the beer as I read it.
ME: Jesus, Sadie. I’m not a fucking virgin.
SASSY PANTS: Years ago, one time, with one person, doesn’t exactly mean you’ve lost it, monk.
ME: I’m not talking about my sex life with any of you. I’ll just say that I’m completely happy and satisfied, sexually and otherwise.
GEM MINE: This conversation is making me uncomfortable. BTW, I’m leaving Ryder at the bar with a redhead who can’t take her eyes off him. I don’t know her. I think she’s new in town.
My protective instinct jerked back to life.
ME: What’s her name?
DIPSHIT: Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. I don’t need you running my sexual partners through the system.
ME: But you’re okay with me running Gemma’s and Sadie’s?
DIPSHIT: Absolutely.
SASSY PANTS: You’re both male chauvinist pigs. Gems, we need a nefarious and irreversible plan to get even with them.
When there was no response from Gemma in five minutes, I assumed she’d left the bar and was driving herself back to our parents’ house where she still lived after finishing her degree online.
Her life goals were all tied up around a screenplay she never let anyone read while passing the days working at the jewelry store in town.
I put my home phone on vibrate, threw the empty beer bottle away, cleaned the kitchen, and headed to bed.
I placed my work phone on the nightstand, with the volume up to make sure it woke me if the dispatcher called, and stripped down to my briefs before climbing into the king-size bed—a bed I’d never had a woman in, regardless of the texts with my siblings.
I’d had sex beyond McKenna, beyond the fumbling but emotional moments we’d shared before she’d left for good or the heat-seared weekend we’d shared in her dorm room.
But since Mila had come into my life, I hadn’t brought anyone into the house.
Instead, I’d gone to their place. In truth, I’d kept the dates and women down to a minimum, not only because of my daughter but because of my career.
Running for sheriff so young meant I’d needed a squeaky-clean reputation.
What I barely admitted to myself—and would never admit to my nosey siblings—was that the time I’d spent with other women had been forgettable.
Interchangeable events that had given pleasure and release but had never carved a spot on my soul.
Probably because I’d lost the piece of my heart that could love a woman.
It had been cut out the day McKenna had told me to stop calling, fading away just like the five-percent chance I’d ridiculously held on to of her coming back to me.
I closed my eyes, pushed beyond the tortured phone call she’d placed on her birthday five years ago, and gave in to the sweet memories that laid beyond it.
The moonlight on the water shifted, breaking apart and then reassembling itself as the wind kicked up and sent waves across the lake.
The sound of the trees rustled outside the Bronco.
Spring had finally kicked in, sending away the long days of snow we’d had that year and filling the air with the scent of new growth.
McKenna lay below me in a white summer dress with gold strands woven through it.
The taste of her skin was on my tongue. Like RC Cola and MoonPies.
My fingers found their way over her curves and valleys.
The feel of her peaked nipples on the pad of my finger.
My aching hard-on pressed into her cotton underwear.
Her breathy gasps.
Her palm as it skimmed my tip.
The torturous pleasure of slowly sliding into her tight wetness.
I was snatched out of the memory when my work phone clanged softly, breaking the silence of my room. My dick was hard, pushing against the fabric of my boxers just like in my memories. I fought to get it under control before I answered.
“Hatley.”
“Sorry to wake you, Sheriff, but Deputy Adams picked up Sybil Lloyd again, and you know she won’t calm down until you see her.”
I sighed. The last thing I needed tonight was more memories. More pained moments.
Every time Sybil blew back through town, my chest was a bundle of knots until she breezed out again.
“Let me get someone here for Mila, and then I’ll be over.”
I hung up, dragging a hand down my face. Rianne had just left mere hours ago, and I knew she’d come right back if I called, but I didn’t want her to have to. These were the times when being a single dad with a job like mine were the hardest.
I hated not being there when Mila bounced out of her room in the morning.
So many smiles I’d missed.
But I’d go because Sybil held a rock over my head that would crash down and wreck my world if I didn’t. I might have lost McKenna because of Sybil, but I sure as hell was never going to lose my daughter because of her.