Where the Creek Bends

Chapter 9

9

Madison was rudely awakened the next morning when her phone, set to ring and vibrate, did an annoying, clattery little dance on her nightstand.

With a groan of protest, she grabbed it, squinted at the screen, and pressed Accept.

“Audra,” she muttered, her voice full of dry gravel, “do you know what time it is?”

Audra laughed softly. “Two hours earlier than it is here? So, six a.m.?”

Madison struggled to sit up, punching her pillows a few times to fluff them up before facing forward again, the phone pressed to her left ear. “That doesn’t strike you as early?”

“Sounds like you didn’t wake up singing about brown paper packages tied up with string,” Audra observed. “Did you have a bad night or something?”

Madison huffed out a sigh. “Hold on,” she said. “I need to pee.”

Without waiting for an answer, she set the phone down on the nightstand with a deliberate clunk—damn, she was cranky this morning—and struck out for her bathroom, which was just as girly as the bedroom it adjoined.

Another project for her growing to-do list.

When she returned, having taken longer than necessary to make the short journey, she found Audra in the same irritatingly good mood as before.

“Okay,” Madison said, shoving the splayed fingers of her right hand through her hair and sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, like a teenager chatting with her BFF of the moment. “I’m back. Where were we?”

“I was asking if you had a bad night,” Audra replied coyly.

“As a matter of fact,” Madison answered, heaving out a sigh that left her usually straight shoulders slumping, “yes. I had a terrible night.”

“Jeffrey?” Audra ventured quietly.

“No. My grandmother. I went to visit her last night, and as soon as I stepped into the room, she started screaming and throwing things—her water glass, her glasses, a book, her dinner tray. Audra, I’ve never seen Coralee quite like this—her eyes were wild and she was pale as death, and she was terrified .”

“Of you?” Audra sounded sympathetic, but not surprised.

“Yes. Of me,” Madison said. “It was awful.”

“It must have been. I’m so sorry, Mads.”

Madison was silent for a few moments, fighting back tears at the memory. Then she said, almost inaudibly, “Thanks.” Another pause, during which she managed to pull herself together—somewhat. “I’m sure you didn’t call to hear me complain about my poor grandmother, though, so tell me, is this one of those good news/bad news calls?”

Audra hesitated. “Afraid so.”

“I want the bad news first,” Madison said. “Let’s get it out of the way.”

“I stopped by your condo today, as I do every other morning, to water the plants and bring in the mail and make sure everything is okay in general, and—”

Something landed in the pit of Madison’s stomach like a medicine ball, then rolled around. “And?”

“Jeffrey’s mother was there,” Audra said.

“Holy crap,” Madison said.

“Yeah. She was wearing a chenille bathrobe and furry slippers, and she had curlers in her hair. Big pink ones, the spongy kind.”

Madison squeezed her eyes shut, but the image of Yolanda didn’t fade. “I thought she and Jeffrey were still in Costa Rica, enjoying their honeymoon.”

“Nope,” Audra told her. “They came back early. Some big meeting came up, I guess, and Jeffrey had to return right away.”

Inwardly, Madison seethed. She’d known Jeffrey would return to the condo, if only to pack up his personal belongings—and, perhaps, annoy her a little in the process—but letting his mother stay there went way beyond personal audacity and well into brass balls territory.

“Did Yolanda happen to say what she was doing in my condo?”

“Yes, actually, she did.” Audra sounded way too perky, either for the situation or for the time of day. “She said Jeffrey had sold his house, so they had no place to go. According to Mommy Dearest, it only made sense to live in your place for a while. Especially after you treated them so badly.”

Madison made a bitter sound.

It might have been a laugh, or a dry sob. Or even a thwarted scream.

“Crap,” she reiterated.

“Yeah,” Audra agreed.

“That is the bad news?”

“I’d say so, Mads, wouldn’t you?”

“What’s the good news, then?”

“HammondCo made an offer on CyberDecor. It’s serious money, Mads. Enough to keep us both in designer shoes and handbags well into the twenty-second century.”

“How much?” Madison asked.

Audra told her.

She gasped. Pressed her free hand to her chest.

“Yeah,” Audra agreed. “It’s an s-load of money, Mads. And, frankly, I’m ready to sell. Get out of here, once and for all, and leave the bad memories behind.”

Madison’s heart was thumping so hard, she thought she could see her hand moving.

The offer from HammondCo was huge, but Madison already had money. Plenty of it, it fact.

A hefty trust fund from her father’s estate. Plus, the money she’d earned over the years.

She knew she wouldn’t be thunderstruck by the amount, staggering as it was, for long.

Her attention made the short leap to the sad note in Audra’s voice when she’d said she wanted to leave Boca—maybe even America—and forget about her ex-husband and his two spoiled, nasty daughters.

Surely there were reminders on every corner, and Madison was angry with herself for not realizing just how badly her friend was hurting, even though it had been two full years since the divorce.

There was no set schedule for getting over things like that—some people never did, really. Not completely, anyway.

If they were lucky, they found ways to cope.

“Tell you what,” Madison said gently. “If you want to sell, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Really?” Audra sounded so hopeful. So surprised.

“Maybe it truly is time for us both to move on. Start a new chapter.”

“I think you already have,” Audra said. It was amazing how fast that woman could cheer herself up. Maybe that was how she’d survived having her heart broken into fragments by a man she’d loved so wildly, truly and deeply.

Damn Brett Sinclair and his twin witches , Madison thought, knowing she’d have to lecture herself on kindness and compassion later.

Some people were so easy to hate, but the fact remained that hatred, however justified, was poisonous.

Nothing right or good could ever come of it, no matter how justified it seemed to be in the moment.

“What do you mean, you think I already have?” Madison wanted to know. It had taken her several moments to find her way back to the topic at hand. “I’ve moved on? How so? It hasn’t even been a full week since my relationship bit the dust.”

“Oh, come on, Mads,” Audra teased. “You know exactly what I’m talking about—that sexy guy who was plying you with alcohol in the saloon after you ditched Jeffrey and his clingy mom. Girl, that man is hot .”

Madison heard herself laugh, and that surprised her a little. “Liam McKettrick,” she said. Like a high school girl, she wanted to blurt out that she’d had lunch with Liam the day before, and she’d be having dinner with him tonight. Go all yippy skippy.

“That’s the one,” Audra said. “I googled him, you know. I figured that was slightly less intrusive than hiring a PI and running a formal background check. He’s one very accomplished bartender, as I’m sure you know. And his family is practically legendary—the McKettricks go way back.”

“For Pete’s sake, Audra,” Madison protested, but not with much conviction. “ Everybody’s family goes way back. All the way to the Fertile Crescent.”

Trouble was, families didn’t always go forward .

Hers, for example. She was literally the last of the Bettencourts, unless some long-lost relative turned up, and that didn’t seem likely.

The thought was an ache, centered in her soul.

Audra went on. “I have this hunch about Liam. And you.”

“Stop it. Less than a week ago, I was ready to marry somebody else.”

“One thing does worry me, though,” Audra mused, going on as if Madison hadn’t spoken. “He’s a widower with two children. And said his children might not take kindly to a stepmother. Believe me, it happens.”

“I know,” Madison said gently. “It happened to you, and that’s rotten.”

Audra gave a sad little laugh. “I didn’t mean to make this about me. I want you to find true love, the real thing. What I don’t want is to see you get hurt again. You’ve been through enough for one lifetime already.”

“So have you,” Madison reminded her friend.

“Suppose we make a pact, you and I? Next time, we’ll both get it right. Deal?”

“Deal,” Madison agreed, though deep down, she wondered if there would be a next time. With her track record, caution was advised. Audra, at least, had only struck out once.

Though that once had very nearly destroyed her.

“Have you heard anything from Olivia?” Madison asked. Her new Wi-Fi router had arrived about five minutes after she’d ordered it, but it was still in the box. Which meant she hadn’t spent much time on the internet.

“Olivia isn’t taking calls at the moment,” Audra replied, with another sigh. “According to her blog, she’s doing just fine.”

“But?”

“But I don’t think she is doing fine.”

“Let’s keep trying to reach her. If she ignores our messages for very long, I for one plan to fly back there and see for myself what’s going on.”

“That might be necessary, Mads.”

“It might.”

Audra drew in and released a long, audible breath. She was very big on the curative qualities of breathing. When she spoke again, she sounded like her old self.

“So, what shall I tell the HammondCo people?”

“My vote is Yes. We’ll sell.”

“Mine, too,” Audra said, and there was a note of relief in her voice. Successful businesswoman that she was, she didn’t need the money any more than Madison did, but money wasn’t the only factor in play here.

Freedom was a major part of the appeal, for both of them.

They’d worked extremely hard, starting and building their company.

It might even have been part of the reason neither of them had been able to make a marriage work.

“They’ll probably want to sign off in person,” Audra said. “Will you be able to fly back to Florida for the closing?”

Madison thought of Coralee, and hesitated. What if her grandmother passed while she was gone?

In some ways, given how much she seemed to be suffering, it would be a blessing when Coralee was finally allowed to rest in peace. In others, it would be heartbreaking, because even though they’d spent a lot of time apart, Madison loved her grandmother deeply.

Coralee was her only living family member, and Madison couldn’t bear the thought of her dying alone.

Once the old woman had gone, Madison would be alone in a very singular way.

She’d be the very last of the Bettencourts, if that mattered.

To her, she realized, it did matter. If she and Jeffrey had argued about anything during their doomed relationship, besides his mother’s constant interference, it was Madison’s steely refusal to take his name when they were married.

And now that son of a bona fide bitch was hanging out in her condo, with his mother .

Still another thing she’d have to see to, and soon.

They chatted for a few more minutes, and Audra promised to follow up with HammondCo, get their take on when and where the final meeting should take place, and run it by Madison ASAP.

And then they said goodbye.

A crack of thunder alerted Madison that it was about to rain and, sure enough, the deluge began, pounding on the many levels of the roof, coating the windows in running blurs, drenching the little cemetery she’d planned to start clearing straight after breakfast.

Running was out, too.

That didn’t bother her, either, though she was usually religious about it.

She returned to the bathroom, washed her face, brushed her teeth, applied moisturizer—did all the things she did every morning.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt a pang of impending disappointment.

This afternoon’s horseback ride—an experience she actually craved—might be called off if the storm didn’t pass.

Maybe the dinner Liam had offered wouldn’t happen, either.

Those possibilities took some of the polish off the day ahead.

Then again, it hadn’t been all that shiny in the first place.

Madison dressed, this time in sweats and her favorite pair of sneakers, pulled her hair up into a slightly messy ponytail, and headed down the back stairs, ready for coffee.

She could smell it brewing before she entered the kitchen, and for a moment, that gave her pause.

Then she remembered that Estelle was working today.

That thought cheered her up mightily.

But when she rounded the corner into the kitchen, it wasn’t Estelle she saw.

It was Connie, Estelle’s middle-aged daughter.

“Morning, Ms. Bettencourt,” Connie said with a smile. “Mama’s a little under the weather today—” thunder rolled overhead like a giant bowling ball, a brief but powerful interruption “—and it seems like we’ve got plenty of weather to be under, as of right now.”

“Hello, Connie,” Madison said, smiling. “And if you call me ‘Ms. Bettencourt’ again, I’ll scream. You used to be my babysitter, remember? It’s Madison to you.”

Connie laughed outright then, and Madison was pleased to see that breakfast was about to be served. “All right, then, Madison ,” she capitulated. “Sit yourself down. I made you an omelet, and it’s a dandy if I do say so myself.”

Madison paused at the sink to wash and dry her hands, helped herself to a mug of coffee, and took her time-honored place at the table. “Tell me more about Estelle,” she said, as Connie placed a plate of food in front of her and sat down at the opposite side of the table. “How sick is she? Is it something serious?”

“Just old age,” Connie said, coffee of her own at the ready. “Her arthritis gives her fits when the weather turns like this. Barometric pressure or something. At least, that’s what my grandson says.”

“ You have a grandson?” Madison asked, fork in one hand, knife in the other, eyebrows raised. Middle-aged or not, Connie seemed too young to be a grandmother.

Connie beamed. “Yes, I have a grandson. My daughter, Marion, had him young. His name is Orlando, and he’s nineteen. He’s starting classes at the community college over in Silver Hills this fall—wants to design video games one day—but right now, he works at Bitter Gulch. He’s really a waiter in the hotel dining room, but he’s all excited about that movie they’re about to make over there. Part of one, anyway. He gets to ride shotgun on the stagecoach, and he even has a line. ‘Whoa, there!’ he’s supposed to holler when something spooks the team of horses and they start to stampede.” She paused, laughed again, shaking her graying head. It was a throaty sound, full of gentle pride. “He thinks he’ll be the next John Wayne for sure.”

Madison chewed, swallowed, took a sip of coffee. Like her mother before her, Connie Mendez was a very good cook.

The omelet was perfect. Madison said so, and thanked the other woman.

The subsequent chat with Connie lifted Madison’s drooping spirits.

Rain always got her down, especially when important parts of her life were off the rails. The wet, gray gloom made her feel shut in, even a little claustrophobic, and it often ruined whatever she’d planned for the day.

Today, she decided, she would adapt.

To everything.

The commitment probably wouldn’t last, life being life, but for now, it seemed the most positive course of action.

Once she’d finished her breakfast, Madison washed her plate and utensils at the sink, dried them, and put them away. Then she refilled her coffee mug and left Connie to her cleaning schedule, which began with vacuuming the entire upstairs.

Madison felt a stab of chagrin; she’d forgotten to make her bed, and now Connie would probably do it, and that wasn’t right.

A grown woman should make her own bed, shouldn’t she?

Briefly, Madison considered sneaking back upstairs and tidying up her room, but soon ruled out the idea. Connie might see her and think it was a subtle criticism of the way she did her job.

So she headed for the library and stood before the tall bookshelf facing the ornate marble fireplace on the other side of the huge room.

She ran one hand across the middle row of leather-bound classics with their vivid colors and gold-foil titles.

The hidden latch would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know it was there. It was a simple metal catch, released by the pressure of one finger.

Madison pressed, then slid the entire bookshelf to one side, revealing the dark interior, a slanted ceiling and windowless walls.

There was no light switch; initially, the space had been a place to hide in an emergency, such as a raid by outlaws or renegade soldiers.

Madison pulled her phone from the pocket of her sweatpants and flipped on the flashlight feature.

She was going to need more light to clean the hiding place properly, but she could make out the shapes of several boxes pushed into a corner. She didn’t remember anyone storing things here, but then again, she hadn’t been inside since forever, not even during her visits home for holidays and breaks from school.

Her cell phone rang as she moved to put it back in her pocket, planning to search for a real flashlight.

Coralee had always kept one in the kitchen pantry for those times when the circuit breaker in the basement flipped a switch and turned off the lights throughout the entire first floor.

She glanced at the screen of her phone, saw Jeffrey’s number glaring up at her.

Against her better judgment, she pressed Accept and said, “Hello, Jeffrey.” Then, before he could answer, she added, “FYI, you’re on speaker.”

She was headed for the kitchen, and the pantry beyond.

Jeffrey’s tone was derisive, even before he got to the point. “Mom tells me that Audra stopped by the condo this morning.” The condo, not your condo. “Actually, she just unlocked the door and walked right in, and she scared my mother half to death.”

“Sorry,” Madison said. Not sorry.

“You don’t sound sorry, Madison,” Jeffrey accused her. Like Tom, the man she’d so foolishly married, the man she’d almost married had no intention of engaging in a rational conversation with the woman he’d once claimed to love.

He’d called to complain. Or fight.

Or both.

“Make of that what you will,” Madison replied evenly, reaching the kitchen, passing over the creaky wooden floor toward the pantry.

“Aren’t you even going to apologize for the humiliation you caused Mom and me at the wedding reception?” Jeffrey demanded. “You didn’t even bother to explain what set you off like that.”

“Okay, Jeffrey. I will repeat what I said to you before, at least half a dozen times. Your mother told me she’d been invited on our honeymoon. And she had the first-class ticket to Costa Rica to prove it.”

“That’s all?” Jeffrey sounded incredulous. This was pretense, of course. Probably a form of gaslighting, which, Madison now realized, was one of his specialties.

“Of course it isn’t all,” Madison said, determined to speak kindly and not be a bitch, which was going to be a major challenge, with all the anger churning around inside her. “My conversation with Yolanda was like the last piece of a puzzle falling into place. I realized that our getting married would be the worst mistake we could possibly make, bar none.”

“You might have calmed down and consulted me before you made that dramatic exit, Madison. Mom and I are being crucified on social media. There are videos of the whole thing on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok—you name it!” Jeffrey paused, and Madison imagined him with eyes bulging out of their sockets and nostrils flared and spouting steam, like in a cartoon. “I’m literally a laughingstock, and Mom is devastated.”

Madison spotted the flashlight in its customary place and grabbed it. “I apologize for that part—I didn’t mean to cause a spectacle, I really didn’t. I just wanted to get away. And I apologize for letting things go so far in the first place, because deep down, I knew we weren’t right for each other, and I just plunged ahead, instead of putting a stop to the whole thing a long time ago, like I should have.”

“But why ? Why didn’t you at least talk to me ?”

“Jeffrey, I tried to talk to you. Many times. Think back, and if you’re honest, you’ll remember some of the discussions we had—especially about your mother. I was uncomfortable around her. She was always criticizing me, complaining about something I’d said or done or hadn’t said or done, and she was way too involved in every decision you made.”

Jeffrey was silent, and Madison couldn’t begin to guess if he was finally hearing her or just waiting for her to shut up so he could leap in and defend his mother again.

Turned out, it was the latter. “Mom’s a widow, Madison, and I’m an only child. She just needed some time to get used to sharing me.”

“ Sharing you? I’m not going to touch that remark with a ten-foot pole.”

He gave an angry, bitter sigh. “Madison, you know what I meant!”

“Yes, I do,” Madison agreed quietly. “I’m not sure you understand it, though. You’re a grown man, Jeffrey, with a good career and a solid future, but for whatever reason, you let your mother run your private life—especially when it came to me. I can’t live that way.”

Another sigh, this one less aggrieved. “You don’t understand, Madison. With Dad gone, I’m all she has left . I can’t just turn my back on her.”

“I never asked you to do that. I wouldn’t. How you interact with your mother is none of my business—at least, not now that you and I aren’t a couple anymore.”

“What about the babies we were planning to have?”

That was a low blow, and Madison had to bite back a nasty retort. Jeffrey knew which button to push to wound her, and he’s just pushed it.

“There are other ways to have children,” she finally replied, with very costly self-control. And there are other men to have them with.

Liam McKettrick came into her mind, though she pushed him right back out.

Not that he was likely to stay gone.

“I didn’t call so we could argue,” Jeffrey almost purred. Was he going to try to placate her now?

Fat chance that would work.

Madison allowed herself another sigh. “Why did you call, then?”

As usual, Jeffrey didn’t give a direct answer. “Look, we can give this another shot. I’ll deal with Mom, I promise. I’ll get her into therapy for her attachment issues. Let’s get married for real, and start a family right away.”

Tears scalded the backs of Madison’s eyes, and her throat thickened, because she wanted marriage and children more than anything else—just not with Jeffrey.

“No,” she said, and the word came out all scratchy-sounding and hoarse. “It’s way too late for that.”

Jeffrey was silent for a few moments, and Madison was just beginning to hope he would accept the facts and hang up. Instead, he turned cringey.

“I only wanted my mother to have a nice vacation,” he said at long last. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Madison retorted, swinging the heavy flashlight as she walked through the house, returning to the library. Overhead, the vacuum cleaner hummed loudly, and she was glad Connie didn’t have to be subjected to this end of the conversation. “Nothing is wrong with wanting your mother to enjoy a lovely getaway to a tropical climate. It’s a noble sentiment, in fact. Unless , of course, that getaway happens to be your honeymoon .”

He backpedaled. Sighed. “Okay, I admit it. I made an unfortunate choice.”

“You can say that again,” Madison responded, “but please don’t. We need to let bygones be bygones, Jeffrey, and get on with our lives.”

“Mom would have been such a good grandmother,” Jeffrey lamented.

Amazing. The man still didn’t get it.

Probably because he didn’t want to get it. Jeffrey wasn’t stupid, but he was certainly suffering from some kind of arrested development, which was sad, for sure. Maybe even tragic.

But still not her problem.

Madison closed her eyes, bit her lower lip to stem the flow of verbal fury that had welled up inside her at Jeffrey’s words.

The silence stretched until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Madison? Are you still there?”

“I don’t know how to make this any plainer than I already have, but here’s an attempt. I’m really sorry I didn’t break this off a lot sooner, instead of at our wedding reception, but it’s over , Jeffrey. You and I won’t be getting married and starting a family. If you still want a wife and kids, then you need to find someone else, because it isn’t going to happen with me.”

“Would all this be happening if Mom hadn’t mentioned that silly trip to Costa Rica?”

Madison nearly face-palmed. That silly trip to Costa Rica.

“Probably, yes,” she answered evenly, “because I would have spotted her at the airport, gone home and called my attorney to have her start divorce proceedings, or file for an annulment.”

“You don’t think you’re taking this whole silly situation a little too seriously?”

“I didn’t take it seriously enough , Jeffrey. And certainly not soon enough.”

“So much bitterness,” Jeffrey murmured, playing the victim, as he had been all along, of course.

That tendency of his probably wasn’t going to change short of a sky-written message from God or years of psychoanalysis. Jeffrey would always be Jeffrey, weak, afraid of his mother, emotionally stunted.

“Stop it, Jeffrey. This is going nowhere.”

“We would have had such beautiful babies,” he said sorrowfully.

It was true. Jeffrey might have been a jerk—he was a jerk—but he had good genes. Physically, he was an ideal candidate for fatherhood.

Emotionally? Not so much.

Letting go of Jeffrey was surprisingly easy. Giving up on the family they’d planned to have wasn’t. Not at all.

She thought of the fertility treatments.

Take it easy , she counseled herself. Don’t be desperate.

Jeffrey sounded beleaguered, as though he’d been trying, with the best of intentions, to reason with a raging fool. “I suppose you want Mom and me out of the condo,” he said, almost pitifully, as if they’d be homeless if she kicked them out.

Actually, Yolanda had a house of her own.

“Yes,” she said. “As soon as humanly possible.”

Finally, Jeffrey seemed to get the memo. “All right,” he agreed. “Can you give us thirty days?”

“Sounds fair,” Madison replied. “Thirty days it is.”

Jeffrey agreed glumly, after mumbling something about bad investments and a tight personal budget, but Madison didn’t take the bait. Thirty days was plenty, and if she decided to sell the condo, he could make an offer.

Full market value, not a dime less.

She said a civil goodbye and ended the call.

For good measure, she blocked Jeffrey’s various numbers, of which there were several. Then she jammed the phone back into her pocket, flipped on the flashlight she’d fetched from the pantry—she’d had an underlying awareness of how heavy the thing was, and what a dent it could make in somebody’s skull, while talking to her ex—and focused the bright light on the interior of her favorite childhood refuge.

There were, as she expected, cobwebs galore, and she caught the faint scent of mouse droppings and mildew as well.

This was no job for the fainthearted.

Good thing Madison was anything but fainthearted.

Two hours later, she’d swept the floor, walls and ceiling of that little hideaway.

She’d dragged the boxes out into the library to be dealt with later, borrowed the vacuum cleaner from Connie, and gone over every inch of it again.

And when that was done, she grabbed a mop and some rags, filled a plastic bucket with hot, soapy water—it was the first of several such buckets—and got busy yet again , scrubbing every surface down.

Her phone rang.

If couldn’t be Jeffrey calling, since she’d blocked every possible approach, but maybe Yolanda had her number.

That would really suck.

She checked the screen.

Number unknown.

After a moment’s hesitation, she answered, “Madison Bettencourt.”

The voice that responded was Liam’s. “Hello, there, Madison Bettencourt,” he said in that low, confident drawl of his. “Guess you probably noticed the storm.”

“I noticed,” Madison said, about to sink into one of Coralee’s chintz-covered chairs until she remembered that her clothes were filthy. “No horseback ride today, I guess?” She tried to sound cheerful, but a note of disappointment had crept into her voice, and Liam heard it.

“Nope, too dangerous,” he said, in an upbeat tone. “We’d be human lightning rods, the both of us, riding in weather like this.”

“Okay,” Madison replied, still deflated by the call with Jeffrey, even though her conscience was clear.

It would be just her luck, the way things had been going, to be struck by lightning.

“Hey, cheer up,” Liam said. “Dinner’s still on, if you’re up for driving in a torrential downpour. Or I could pick you up at your place.”

An idea struck Madison then. “ Or ,” she said, “you could come here. I’ll make dinner.”

He laughed, and it was a wraparound sound, like an invisible hug. She felt stronger, and more hopeful. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said. “Got that phrase straight out of The Cowboy’s Book of Timeworn Clichés .”

Madison giggled.

“I’ll have to look that up,” she said.

Again, he laughed. “Good luck with that,” he replied. “I think it’s been out of print for a while now.”

“Darn,” Madison joked in return. “I was all set to read it.”

“No problem. I can quote most of the content.”

A burst of laughter escaped Madison at that, and she chided herself for behaving like a high school girl.

Then, determined to address the practicalities, she went on. “Seven o’clock? My specialty is lasagna. I’ll make that.”

“Sounds better than good,” Liam replied. “Seven it is. Red wine or white?”

“No need for either. There’s a fully stocked wine cellar downstairs. We’ll choose something together.”

She liked the sound of that, choosing something together.

Liked the soft, festive feeling it gave her, too.

“Well, ma’am,” Liam said, ratcheting up his drawl by a notch or two, “I have to bring something . How about flowers?”

“Really, Liam, you don’t have to—”

“I want to bring something. I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”

“You’re not normally a gentleman?” Madison inquired, grinning, with both eyebrows raised.

“I’m always a gentleman. It’s ingrained.”

She recalled Audra’s reference, earlier, to Liam’s evidently notable family and their “legendary” status. “Is that a McKettrick trait? Being a gentleman?”

Once again, he laughed, and once again, the sound moved her.

“From birth,” he said. “But it’s not confined to our rowdy brood, obviously.”

“It’s less common than you think,” Madison remarked, thinking of Jeffrey and wishing she hadn’t given the man space in her head. She needed to let that be over. “Sometimes it seems like good manners are going out of style.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a hard day, and it’s not even noon yet,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said. Now that I’m talking to you instead of my ex, anyway.

“Is Coralee doing okay?” Liam asked, that being the most likely cause of upset, from his viewpoint at least.

“No,” Madison answered. “She’s getting worse. A lot worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry to say it.”

“Madison?”

“What?”

“Hold on. I’m not the cavalry, so don’t expect to hear a bugle blowing, but I am a good listener. And I’ll be there at seven sharp to help you choose the dinner wine.”

“Thanks, Liam,” Madison said, her voice a little hoarse.

“Anytime,” he answered.

“One more thing,” Madison ventured, almost shyly. “Let’s not dress up. I’m up for a jeans-and-T-shirt kind of evening.”

“Me, too,” Liam agreed.

The call ended.

And Madison sat down, dirty clothes be damned, and cried in earnest.

Oddly enough, she wasn’t weeping out of sadness or despair.

She was shedding tears because there was something about Liam McKettrick that fostered the belief that, no matter what happened, in the end, everything would be all right.

And that belief was new to her.

Presently, she slipped into the nearest powder room and splashed her face with cold water.

“Lunch is about ready!” Connie called from the kitchen.

“On my way!” Madison called back. During the call with Jeffrey, her stomach had declared a moratorium on food, but now, suddenly, she was hungry, and there was even a spring in her step.

Talk about The Book of Clichés .

When she reached the kitchen, she found a handsome young man sitting at the table.

He stood when she entered, nodded his head in polite acknowledgment of her presence, and glanced at Connie as if he were looking for affirmation.

“Madison, this is my grandson, Orlando. I hope you don’t mind him stopping by for lunch. It’s sort of our little routine,” Connie said.

“Hello, Orlando,” Madison said, putting out her hand to the boy. “I’m glad you could join us. How are things over at Bitter Gulch?”

Tentatively, he shook her hand. Then, relaxing visibly, he flashed her a bright grin. “The movie people are there, and they’re all in a twist because it’s raining.”

“Is that why you were able to get away for lunch?” Madison asked, gesturing for Connie to take a seat at the table. There were three steaming bowls of tomato soup sitting on the counter, along with three grilled cheese sandwiches on plates, and she meant to serve them, rather than being served herself.

She wasn’t royalty, after all.

Orlando nodded, watched as Madison set the plates and bowls on the table, two at a time, but he didn’t sit down until she’d finished putting out all the food and pouring glasses of fresh lemonade to go with it.

“On days when Mama and I come here to clean,” Connie interjected, answering for her grandson, “Orlando likes to join us, if time allows. I think he packs a lunch the rest of the time.”

Orlando nodded. “Mr. McKettrick gave us all the day off, because business is really slow when the weather’s bad, and the movie people would be in the way anyhow.”

Madison smiled. Mr. McKettrick. That had a nice ring to it.

Page seventy-three, Book of Clichés .

It also said a lot about Orlando’s respectful attitude, a not so common thing these days, especially among the youth.

“Do you like your job?” she asked, after taking a cautious first sip of her soup.

Orlando’s dark eyes shone. “I love it, Miss Bettencourt. I get to live in the Old West, practically all the time, except we’ve still got all the modern conveniences, like indoor plumbing and stuff.”

“Best of both worlds,” Madison commented, amused. She liked this kid.

The meal was excellent, and so was the light banter that followed, and when it was time for Connie to leave, having completed her usual four hours of chores, Madison insisted on washing up the dishes.

The rain was pounding down by then, punching muddy craters into the dirt.

She watched Connie and Orlando run for an old compact car parked a few yards from the back door, and smiled again as the boy opened the passenger side door for his grandmother and then sprinted around to the driver’s side.

They must have seen her at the window, water-blurred as it was, because Orlando tooted the horn in farewell.

Once the kitchen was put to rights, Madison scouted the refrigerator for the ingredients she needed to make her fabled lasagna.

They were there, since she’d overstocked the grocery supply while her friends were at Bettencourt Hall, preparing for the wedding that wasn’t.

Salad greens? Tomatoes and other add-ins? Check.

This dinner would be easy to make. Even therapeutic.

Madison showered before cooking since she was so grubby from cleaning out the hiding place, washed and dried her hair, pulled on her favorite jeans—black skinny ones with rhinestones running along the seams.

For fun, she added a Bitter Gulch T-shirt, left behind by Kendall, who liked to collect souvenirs wherever she went.

She’d apply makeup closer to Liam’s arrival.

Or not.

Mascara and lip gloss would be plenty, since they weren’t going out on the town or anything.

Tonight, it would be just the two of them, and that was fine with Madison.

The process of cooking made up for the incessant, sky-graying rain; it was a feast for the senses, with all those bright colors, crisp, lovely textures and the singularly wonderful smell of carefully prepared, multi-cheese lasagna slow cooking in the oven.

At seven o’clock, as promised, Liam arrived.

She hurried to the front door, feeling ridiculously pleased at the prospect of spending an evening with him, and her breath caught when she saw him standing on the porch, under the portico, looking rained-on and handsome and holding a huge bouquet of yellow roses.

“These are from the supermarket,” he said with a nod toward the flowers in his hand. “I was busy getting the house ready for Courtney and the kids—they’ll be here tomorrow—and the florist’s shop was closed when I got to town.”

Madison took the offered flowers after stepping back so he could enter the house, and buried her nose in them for a few moments. They were as beautiful as any roses she’d ever seen, and they even smelled good.

When she looked up, she knew her eyes were glistening a little. Maybe it was the scent, maybe it was the vibrant color of the flowers, maybe it was because Liam had chosen them just for her. She couldn’t have said.

“Thank you, Liam. They’re beautiful.”

He shut the door behind him, tilted his head to one side as if to see her face more clearly, and crumpled his brow, just a little. “Tears?” he asked, in a tone of voice that made Madison want to set the roses aside and fling her arms around his neck.

Of course, she didn’t do that.

“It’s been a crazy day,” she said.

“Good crazy or bad crazy?” he asked with a smile.

There had been Jeffrey, but there had been a mega-offer from HammondCo, and there had been Orlando, too.

“A little of both, I suppose.”

She took his hand, and it seemed like a bold gesture to Madison, which was odd, because she wasn’t a shy woman. In fact, she thought, a little reticence would have served her better than confidence at certain points in her life.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll put these in a vase, and then we’ll open some wine.”

He glanced at her T-shirt with amused interest. “You’re a Bitter Gulch fan?”

“Actually,” Madison replied, feeling a little dishonest, “my friend bought this and left it behind, so I appropriated it.”

He followed as she headed toward the back of the house.

Madison had expected to be nervous, being alone with Liam in a house with no less than nine bedrooms; instead, she was at ease in a way she’d never experienced before.

The next part of the evening—dinner at the kitchen table, the wine and the sun-bright roses—was casual. Pleasant. And completely drama-free.

After dinner, they did the dishes together, side by side.

It was a curious thing, how such an ordinary task could warm a person’s heart.

In all the rush and excitement and success of her life, she realized now, she’d forgotten the value of simple things. Like washing dishes with someone you liked.

Once the kitchen was in order again, Madison led the way to her favorite room—the library. She’d forgotten that her secret space was still open, since she hadn’t rolled the moving bookcase back into place.

And the boxes she’d found inside were sitting in plain sight.

Liam spotted the opening to the hidden room right away, of course, and he gave a low, slow whistle of appreciation.

“Is this for real?” he asked rhetorically. “Are there secret passageways in this house, too?”

Madison smiled. She’d brought a second bottle of wine along with her, plus two glasses, and she set them down on the ornate coffee table, which had been imported from the Far East sometime in the Roaring Twenties.

“There might be,” she said. “It’s a big house.”

“Yeah,” Liam agreed, looking around at the paintings, the expensive furniture, the enormous crystal chandelier that had to be cleaned twice a year by a window-washing outfit from Silver Hills, since it was a very precarious job.

Tonight, it gleamed and sparkled.

“You haven’t explored the place?” Liam asked, sounding surprised.

Madison shook her head. “Not all of it,” she replied. “I was away a lot as a kid—boarding school, summer camp—” She shrugged, a slight, measured motion of one shoulder. “Then, of course, I grew up, and I’ve been busy elsewhere.”

Liam didn’t comment.

She kicked off her shoes and curled up in one of the two big armchairs facing the empty hearth, with its white marble face and heavily carved mahogany mantelpiece.

A fire would have been nice, cozy even, except that, rain or no rain, it was still summer, and the air in the room was almost muggy, as though the heat of the day had settled there to stew.

Bettencourt Hall didn’t have air-conditioning.

“You forgot your hat,” Madison observed, out of the blue, when Liam took a seat in the other chair.

“It’s in the truck,” he said with a teasing glint in his eyes. “Shall I get it?”

Madison laughed. “And get soaked in the process? I think not.”

He picked up the wine bottle, looked questioningly at Madison.

“Please,” she said. “Just half, though. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“Me, too,” Liam agreed, filling a glass—halfway—for each of them. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m pretty jittery about tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see my kids, but Keely, the older one, isn’t what you’d call an admirer. She might just try to scalp me in my sleep.”

Madison smiled at that. “I doubt it,” she said.

“You don’t know Keely,” Liam replied dryly, though there was light dancing in his eyes.

That was when Madison remembered that he’d mentioned another name earlier—Courtney. An adult.

She wasn’t jealous—she had no right to be—but she was only human, and she wondered who the woman was, and if she and Liam had a history.

“Courtney is my sister-in-law,” Liam explained. He’d been watching Madison’s expression, and he’d noticed her curiosity.

She needed to develop a poker face.

“Oh,” Madison said. “She’ll help you with the children, right?”

“For a while,” Liam answered, looking solemn for a moment. “A week, maybe.” A pause while he took a sip of his wine. He set the glass down in a way that indicated he didn’t plan to pick it up again. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, but getting these kids used to being with me, in a new place, is going to be a lot like jumping onto a moving freight train—the way they did in all those old movies—and I can’t see Keely adjusting in just a week. Cavan, okay, but not Keely.”

Madison wanted to reach over and squeeze his arm or his hand, reassure him, but something held her back. “I take it Keely and Cavan are close to Courtney?”

“Very. In a lot of ways, she’s been more of a mother to them than Waverly ever was. But she’s got a life—a job, a husband, a social circle, all of it. Besides, the kids are my responsibility, not hers.”

“What about Waverly’s parents—and yours? Wouldn’t they help?”

“Waverly’s folks have done enough,” Liam replied, and Madison couldn’t tell whether that statement had been a compliment or a criticism. “And my parents love Keely and Cavan to distraction, but they’ve raised their children. I can’t—and won’t—expect them to raise mine, too.” He rested his lower arms on his knees and let his hands dangle between, fingers interlaced. “Furthermore, they’re both busy, doing all the things they didn’t have time for while they were raising my brothers and me.”

Madison knew she was on sensitive ground, but she also guessed there was more Liam wanted—or needed—to say. “Yesterday, at lunch, you said the children have been with their grandparents for a little over a year. That’s a long time.”

“I tried,” Liam replied, apparently fine with the question, personal as it was. “Every time I brought them home with me, though, even for a weekend, Keely panicked. She cried and begged to go back to her Gambie—that’s what she calls Waverly’s mother. And it wasn’t just a matter of a little kid throwing tantrums—Keely and I had counseling, trying to resolve the situation, but that didn’t work. The therapist advised me to let Keely stay with her grandmother for a while, since she was grieving hard for Waverly, and of course that meant Cavan would stay, too, because he really clung to his sister.”

This time, Madison did reach out. She laid a hand on Liam’s, closed her fingers around it. “You’re going to get through this, Liam.”

His eyes shone for a moment, and he looked away, though he’d turned his hand in hers so that their palms were touching.

“I know,” he said. “But I’m scared.”

It amazed Madison that Liam was strong enough to admit being afraid. Most of the men she’d known would have been incapable of telling anyone that.

“I’m just a friend,” Madison said, very softly. She was scared, too, scared of the big feelings unfolding within her; she wanted this man, and not just sexually. Scared of being too hasty, as she had been with Jeffrey and with Tom, and making another mistake. “But I’ll help you if I can, Liam.”

He looked at her, his eyes gently taking her measure. “Come here,” he said in a husky voice.

He pulled her onto his lap, and Madison didn’t resist in the slightest.