9. Maddox
Maddox
The guys are at the base of the ladder, sorting gear, and Oliver stops to study me, gauging my mood.
Kellen points his chin toward the peak with a grin that’s half-challenge, half-mischief. “Hope you stretched, Hartley. This one’s gonna suck.”
“Good.” I haul the extension ladder into place and lock the brackets. “I could use it.” I welcome the distraction from all the thoughts swirling around in my head.
We climb up to the roof, then spread across the pitch. Frost clings to the shingles where the sun hasn’t hit yet, and the air is a sharp mix of pine, damp cedar, and old tar.
Kellen crouches near the ridge and sinks his pry bar under a damaged shingle. “Heard the team played their hearts out last night.”
“They did.” I peel back a layer of felt to check the underlayment.
Oliver anchors a safety rope to the chimney, testing the weight before looping it around his waist. “He handled the bus situation, too. Could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”
My jaw locks. I don’t take credit for things I didn’t do. “Wasn’t me.”
Kellen’s hammer stops mid-swing, and Oliver’s gaze cuts toward me, sharp and expectant.
I snap open a fresh bundle of shingles, a gunshot in the quiet morning. “Buchanan stepped in. She handled what I should’ve had covered.”
Kellen’s brows lift. “Buchanan?”
“The reporter doing a profile piece on Coach here,” Oliver says before I can.
Kellen’s grin sparks with immediate trouble. “That right? She hot?”
“Don’t.” My face flushes at the sudden heat in my chest. “She’s here to do a job.”
Kellen throws up a hand, laughing. “Damn, okay. Didn’t know she was sacred ground.”
“It’s not like that.” The words are too clipped, too defensive to be even remotely believable.
I focus on the shingles, aligning edges with a precision they don’t need; meanwhile, Oliver pretends to be busy with a rope tie, but the smirk on his face is telling.
Never one to back off, Kellen pokes again. “Relax, Coach. Nobody said you were in love.”
I shoot him a look that should peel paint, but no surprise, he grins wider. “But you maybe want to tell me why the mention of her makes you look like you swallowed a wrench?”
My teeth grind. “I don’t like media.”
He whistles low, amused. “Riiight.”
A gust of wind sweeps across the roof, cold enough to cut through my jacket, and I steady myself against it, hammer in hand, pulse drumming harder than my exertion deserves.
Of course, Kellen would zero in on the thing—or more like woman—I’m trying not to think about.
“Eyes up, Coach,” Kellen needles, enjoying this. “Roof’s not the place to daydream about your love life.”
“Fuck off.”
He laughs, loud and unbothered, while Oliver huffs out something close to amusement, gaze still on the rope.
I let the rhythm of the work block out anything that doesn’t talk back or look at me with intense blue eyes that make me feel too vulnerable.
The morning wears on until sweat slicks the back of my neck despite the cold and Kellen’s off-key humming grates against the quiet in my head.
Some time later, Oliver straightens, stretching his back until it pops with a dull grunt. “Break.”
He heads for the ladder, and Kellen doesn’t argue, trailing him down to the ground. I stay for a beat longer on the ridge, staring out over the property. Everything looks small from up here—house, barn, yard. If only life were that simple.
By the time I get down, Oliver is leaning against the porch railing, guzzling a bottle of water.
“Kellen inside?” I motion at the door, and he nods.
The purr of an engine cuts through the quiet, followed by a metallic flash as a car turns into the driveway.
Buchanan.
The car door clicks shut, and she stands by her small SUV, blonde hair falling loose around her face, cheeks flushed pink and lips glossy. The sight of her on my property knocks my breath sideways.
Last night slams into me in jagged pieces—her hurt, my anger, the way I blamed her for stepping up when I had no clue what to do. Shame trips hard over irritation, the two tangling until I can’t tell them apart.
Now is my chance to make things right. Yet one thing keeps floating to the surface of my mind: Why is she here?
My pulse spikes, rough and uneven.
Across the yard, she pauses to take in Oliver and me on the porch before starting toward us. Behind me, Oliver straightens, while I’m rooted to the spot. The truth hits hard—I’m not sure if I want to go to her or turn around and bolt.
Tension wraps around her shoulders with each step closer to the house, and I’m not ready for this. Not her, not now. Oliver glances between us, sensing the shift in the air, and offers her a quick wave.
He excuses himself with a nod toward the house, holding up his phone. “Wren.”
I stiffen despite the relief at no longer having an audience.
She fidgets with the strap of her bag and lifts her chin as if to hide the unease in her gaze. “I don’t understand what went wrong last night, but we need to work together.”
I force my hands onto my hips, searching for anything to ground the sudden spike of nerves. Even though I need to make things right, she shouldn’t be here, showing up at my house on a weekend. We’re not friends.
“You didn’t need to come all the way out here.”
“I did.” She steps closer. “As much as I’d like to stay out of your life, I can’t. We have to be on the same page for this story.”
Awareness prickles at the back of my neck. She’s right. “You could’ve called.”
She hesitates. “Really? And how was I supposed to do that? Go through Ginny to work things out? In case you forgot, I don’t have your number. Besides, even if I did, I didn’t think a phone call would fix this.”
Her words land in the quiet, too honest and too bare. Of course she doesn’t have my number. That was intentional—my line in the sand when this whole profile thing started.
Maybe I should’ve sought her out first thing this morning and apologized. That’s what a better man would’ve done.
“Give me your phone.” I reach out my hand.
“What?”
“I’ll put my number in.”
She pulls the device from her purse and hands it over. I quickly punch in the digits and hold it out to her. “You don’t need to go through Ginny. Contact me whenever.”
“Thank you.”
I look past her, focusing on the empty yard, and she clears her throat, her voice softening. “I just want to understand. The issue wasn’t that I helped… It was that you didn’t have the numbers, right?”
The unpleasant truth sits between us, and I nod.
“Crandall wasn’t wrong about the contacts. It was my responsibility, and I have the numbers in my office. A lot of good they did me there.”
She steps closer, moving carefully as if not to spook me. “That doesn’t mean you failed.”
“It does to me.” The admission slips out before I can cage it.
Her eyes ease—not with pity, thank fuck—with an understanding that feels too deep for comfort.
“You kept a dozen kids calm, warm, and got them home safe.” She takes another step toward me, closing the gap. “That’s the job, Maddox. Not memorizing phone numbers.”
A rough breath scrapes up my ribs. “You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I stare at her and take in how composed she is, simply waiting, no judgment in the lines of her face.
Something raw stirs in my chest. “I can’t afford mistakes. I should be able to handle it on my own.”
“Needing help isn’t a mistake.” Those blue eyes bore into me, almost willing me to see things her way.
“You shouldn’t have had to step in.” I pull my work gloves from my jacket pocket, needing something to hold. “That shouldn’t have fallen on you.”
“It didn’t. We were both there. You did your fair share.”
My gaze drags back to hers, something unsteady rattling my rib cage. Before reason can win and keep my mouth shut, the one word I’ve been dying to ask since last night springs from my lips. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you help?”
“Because you were juggling a broken-down bus; excited, hungry, and tired kids; and a bus driver who had no clue how to help.” The corners of her mouth lift slightly at the mention of Mr. Powell.
He’s a nice guy, but she isn’t wrong. He was useless.
“I did what I did because I could do something. Watching someone try to find a solution when I can help feels… wrong.”
A pinch tightens right where my heart should be, because her admission echoes how my father lived his entire life.
Damn, this is how trouble starts. Quiet, earnest trouble with big eyes, an elegantly defined jawline, and an unbending spine.
Grace Buchanan is dangerous in all the ways I don’t have room for. The kind of dangerous that makes a man forget why he keeps his distance. Why alone is easier.
And still… I fucking like her. Too much. Too fast. More than I should.
That pinch sharpens—a warning I’m not so sure I stand a chance at heeding.
She draws in a breath, studying every inch of my face and my silence. “You’re not alone. You don’t have to act like you are.”
Her words land too close to what my friends said the other night, scratching at armor I’ve worn for years and digging into places I pretend don’t exist.
I take a step back, not trusting the steady ground under my boots. “I’m sorry for being an ass. You didn’t deserve it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She nods, and a smile finally tugs at her lips. “Now, for the fun part. Can I get some time with you on Monday?”
My shoulders sag, weighed down by the reality of why she’s here. “Fine. After school. We don’t have practice, so I’ll meet you at Bloom & Brew.”
“Good.” She glances around the yard, taking in the scattered equipment and the ladder leaning against the eaves. “New roof?”
“Yeah.”
She nods and takes a small step toward the porch, lingering, and I’m half-starved for her to stay and half-terrified she will. I need her gone before I do something stupid, like reach out and see if her skin is as soft as it looks.
“See you Monday, Grace. Enjoy your weekend.”
She stops, her gaze searching mine for something I’m not ready to give. “We’re okay, right?”
I flinch, guilt nibbling at my insides. “Yeah. We’re fine.”
Her eyes suggest she doesn’t believe a word of it, but she nods anyway and turns, heading for her car with that graceful, infuriatingly confident stride. After slipping inside, she shuts the door with a final, heavy thud.
From the porch, I watch her SUV disappear down the drive, the red of her taillights fading into the trees.
I should be relieved she’s gone, but I still have a problem. I want to blame my lingering irritation on the way she showed up unannounced, but that would be a lie. No, it’s my damn craving...for more.
I want to know what it feels like to have that fierce loyalty of hers aimed at me instead of the possibility of it being against me. I want to see if that spine of hers stays that straight when my hands are on her waist.
It’s a dangerous, reckless pull toward a woman who sees too much and gives too much—a light that exposes all my shadows.
The scent of her perfume still hangs in the crisp air, and though I shouldn’t, I’m already counting down the hours until Monday.