Chapter 10 Jake
JAKE
Iclench my jaw and try to keep my cool, but the way Maddie keeps catching me with my eyes on her is driving me wild.
It’s nothing she’s doing on purpose. I know it’s not her fault. She’s just making sandwiches with my kid, wearing the biggest fluffiest coat my money could buy.
But even the thought of her wearing the stuff I bought for her has me burning hotter than the kindling in the fire pit, and I have to turn away from all of it and focus my eyes on the starry sky for a minute to pull myself together.
It’s been a bad year, I remind myself. I haven’t let myself even think about women. I just need to let some steam off.
But my life doesn’t have space for letting off steam, or even just taking a breath. If I want to rebuild my empire, there isn’t a second to spare.
And I’ve already been played the fool by a woman once. I can’t seriously be thinking of letting myself fall for the babysitter. I’d be a walking cliché.
I’m going to stay in control, even if Maddie is absolutely, positively…
“Beautiful, right?” she says softly, interrupting my thoughts as she sits down on the bench opposite mine. She lifts her face to the sky and between the starlight and the firelight she’s absolutely glowing.
“Freckles,” I hear myself murmur.
“Hm?” she asks.
“Your, uh, your freckles look cool in this light,” I stutter like a schoolboy.
She looks down, her long lashes kissing her cheeks, and I swear if I had nothing left to lose I would throw myself at her feet. Part of me wants to do it anyway.
But I have Dylan. He’s my universe, and I’m going to have to answer to him one day about all my life choices. I won’t have him feeling like I threw it all away to chase some young pretty thing.
“What are you gonna make for yours, Dad?” Dylan asks. “Mine’s gonna be peanut butter and banana.”
“That’s great,” I tell him. I love it when he’s self-sufficient. “Do we have cheese?”
He looks up at Maddie.
“Yes,” she says, scrambling up. “And I saw you had spaghetti sauce, so I brought that out too, in case you wanted to make a pizza one.”
“Perfect,” I tell her, enjoying her pleased look. “But you sit. I can make my own.”
It will be good to have a reason to occupy myself so I can stop looking at her for a second and get my head back in the game.
Of course she doesn’t sit, though. She comes right over and helps me. The delicate hint of peppermint shampoo wafts unhelpfully to my nose, and my head is reeling again.
“Did you guys do some writing today?” I make myself ask as I spread some sauce on the bread.
“We wrote a lot of our story,” Dylan tells me. “And I drew a picture of Froggy on a sled.”
“It’s a really great picture,” Maddie adds. “You can see how fast he’s going and everything.”
The two of them talk about their story happily for a bit, and before I know it we’re all holding our irons over the fire and trying to wait patiently for the pies to cook.
Dylan looks so happy. I was worried about taking him out of the city and away from the life he knew, but he seems to be thriving out here.
He hasn’t been afraid of anything but the drive on the mountain road, and I can’t really blame him for that.
But he’s been game to try just about anything that comes along.
I spotted the two of them outside earlier through my office window, trooping around the woods, both looking like they were locked in on seeing all they could see.
She’s good for him.
We get our mountain pies onto plates and suddenly just the delicious scent has me so hungry I don’t know how I’ll wait for it to cool.
Maddie keeps Dylan distracted by telling him knock-knock jokes until she decides it’s okay to take a bite.
I’m expecting mine to taste pretty much like a grilled cheese with tomato soup. But there’s something about the crispy, gooey concoction that transcends the simple ingredients.
Or maybe it’s the company.
We all devour our treats while they’re piping hot, moaning over how delicious they are. Dylan insists that I take a bite of his, and when I tell him I like it, Maddie tells me that Elvis Presley used to love peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but when Dylan asks who Elvis Presley is, I pull up the music app on my phone and tap on his Christmas hits before setting the phone on the bench beside me.
“Blue Christmas” comes on first.
“That’s my favorite,” Maddie murmurs, her voice tinged with wonder.
I’ll bet it’s a lot of people’s favorite—that’s why it’s first on the stream. But she lights up like she’s the luckiest woman in the world and something about it makes me feel warm inside.
Before I can make a fool of myself staring at her, she grabs two pie irons and she and Dylan make two more, each with plain white bread and raspberry jam inside.
When they’re ready, she cuts one in half for herself and Dylan and gives me the other.
I normally run every day—it keeps me focused and lean. But I’ve been a little lax since we got up here, so I’ve been skipping desserts.
I can’t turn her down though when I see the hopeful pleasure in her eyes. She really wants me to like it.
I’m fully ready to fake it just to please her.
But when I take the first bite it melts in my mouth, and I decide that the raspberry concoction is actually the most unbelievably delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.
Maybe there’s even a little magic in it—after all, I saw her make it.
I know it’s just buttered bread and jam.
“Now do we tell stories?” Dylan asks suddenly.
He’s super sticky from the jam, and I call him over and use my water bottle to help him clean off his hands and face.
“Ghost stories?” I ask him.
His eyes get really big.
“How about a fairytale?” Maddie puts in quickly. “That’s the kind of story my dad used to tell around the fire.”
“Cinderella,” Dylan decides. “You tell it, Dad.”
He wipes his wet hands on me and scampers across to Maddie, crawling right up into her lap to listen like he’s been doing it his whole life.
I’m not exactly a storyteller, but the two of them are gazing at me expectantly, so I don’t have much of a choice. The show must go on.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl named Cinderella,” I begin. “She lived with her father, out in the country, and they were very happy together. But one day, her father told her he had a surprise for her. He was getting married and she would have a new stepmother.”
I settle into the story pretty quickly, after all, everyone knows this one.
But I can’t help noticing how Maddie’s eyes get damp when the father dies. I should have thought about that and picked something different.
Dylan is really into it though, and he even stops me when we get to the fairy godmother’s part.
“You have to do the voice, Dad,” he says earnestly.
I know I should be embarrassed, but it’s just us. I guess Dylan isn’t the only one that’s become instantly comfortable around our new addition. And it’s worth it when Maddie roars at the high-pitched quavery voice I use to tell Cinderella she has to come home at the stroke of midnight.
“The stroke of midnight,” Dylan echoes, taken by this important-sounding turn of phrase.
“That means twelve o’clock at night,” Maddie whispers to him. “The moment the bells on the big clock tower strike, and not a second later.”
“I have to go to bed at the stroke of eight o’clock,” he tells her, nodding wisely. He’s not wrong.
I go on with the story, trying to hide my smile, and the two of them cheer when Cinderella gets her man.
I make a meal out of being the unhappy stepmother trying to be nice to Cinderella so she won’t send her to jail. And of course, sweet Cinderella forgives her and tells her and the stepsisters that they can live in a house on the castle grounds.
“She shouldn’t do that,” Dylan says worriedly.
“Why not?” Maddie asks him.
“The stepmother is bad,” he says firmly.
“Well, people can change,” Maddie tells him. “That’s the nice thing about being a person. And Cinderella doesn’t want to waste her time being mad at someone. She just wants to enjoy her new life. The moment she forgives her stepmother, her heart is light.”
Part of me wants to agree with Dylan. I’ve never really been the forgiving type. But I hold my tongue.
“That’s nice, then,” Dylan says, leaning back against her chest, his eyes on the fire.
It’s a moment so sweet that it makes my heart ache a little, and I hate to ruin it, but it’s getting late.
“Speaking of the stroke of eight o’clock,” I say. “Dylan, you stayed up late tonight. It’s time to go up and get ready for your bath.”
“But I want more stories,” he whines.
It’s funny, but I don’t feel angry at his whiny tone this time. Maybe because I get it. I want this night to go on forever too.
“If your dad says it’s okay, we’ll do this again,” Maddie tells him, giving him a little squeeze. “And next time you’ll have to tell a story. So you’d better start thinking one up the minute you get in your bath.”
It’s immediately clear that he likes that idea when he hops right off her lap and dashes for the house.
Maddie watches after him, then grabs an armload of dishes and heads for the house herself.
I sigh, sorry to see the magic of our evening together come to an end, and then gather up the remaining supplies and follow her in.
She’s standing by the sink, looking like she’s about to start washing up when I catch up to her.
“Wait,” I say, my voice sounding a little deeper than usual.
She freezes, those hazel eyes moving to mine, and I almost forget what I have to talk to her about.
“You spent a lot of time here today,” I say. “You were a real help.”
She smiles like that’s a nice surprise, though surely she can see what a difference she’s making for Dylan and me.
“But what about your book?” I ask her. “Are days like this going to mess up your writing schedule?”
I was sure that her book was just one more bit of pretend from an idle rich girl. But now that I’ve spent some time with Maddie Foster, I’m having second thoughts about that. She’s not the type to pretend to be something she’s not.
“No,” she says right away. “I mostly write late at night and early in the morning anyway. This is fine.”
Thank God.
I’m honestly not sure what I’d do if she walked away from this job right now.
“Well, this isn’t really part-time,” I go on. “It’s hard to know when my work will run long. So I’ll need to pay you hourly instead of that daily rate we talked about.”
“Oh, no,” she says right away. “You bought me all these clothes.”
I get another burst of possessive pleasure out of the idea of her dressed head to toe in what I provided, and I try to crush it down.
“You need cash on hand while you wait for your luggage,” I tell her firmly, waving away her protest.
I stand and pull a couple of bills out of my wallet.
She stands when I do, and when I move around the fire to press them into her hand she hesitates before accepting.
“Thank you,” she says after a moment, her eyes down, shoving the money in her pocket without even looking at it.
“Maddie,” I say softly.
She looks up at me and I suddenly realize just how close I am to her. The little bit of air between us crackles with electricity.
Stop that. Stop noticing her like that.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing here,” I tell her. My voice is husky, and it’s all I can do to keep it even.
She’s looking down again and all I want is to cup her soft cheek in my hand and tilt her chin up to force her to meet my eyes.
“You’re working very hard,” I tell her, balling my hands into fists just to keep from touching her. “It means the world to us.”
“I love being here,” she tells me, that bell-clear voice of hers lighting me up inside. “I love being with Dylan.”
What about me? Do you love being with me?
But these are stupid questions. She doesn’t know me and she never will.
And why would a sweet, happy young woman like Madeline Foster want to be with a man whose darkness would swallow her whole?
She chooses that moment to meet my eyes again and I feel a pull between us that’s stronger than gravity. Her lips are parted slightly and all I want in the world is to kiss them.
Her breath catches and her eyes slide down to my mouth like she’s reading my mind.
A new reality rips through the one I’ve been living—a version of the world where a nice girl like Maddie could love me, one where I could trust her with my whole heart, with Dylan, with everything I hold dear cradled in the palm of her warm little hand.
“I’m ready for my bath,” Dylan’s voice sings out from upstairs, breaking the spell.
Maddie smiles, her eyes crinkling with mirth, and somehow I want her even more this way than I did when her eyes were on my mouth.
“Hang on,” I tell her. “Once he’s in his pajamas, we’ll drive you back down to the lodge.”
I jog upstairs and help Dylan with his bath, going a little more quickly than usual since Maddie is waiting. He’s quiet, probably worn out from his fun day.
“Maddie loves me,” he tells me matter-of-factly as I help him into his warm pajamas. He can do it himself, but when he’s sleepy it goes faster with help.
My first instinct is to tell him that she doesn’t love him, that she barely knows him.
“Why do you think she loves you?” I ask him instead.
“I know she loves me,” he tells me. “Because she always wants to play with me. And when she looks at me she has a special smile.”
This kid of mine is paying attention.
“She does love spending time with you,” I tell him. “She told me that tonight.”
“See?” Dylan says, before turning his attention to getting his arms through his sleeves.
We head down a moment later, but the house is still and silent, and I know before I even get all the way down that she isn’t here.
Sure enough, the whole place is neat as a pin and all our dinner dishes are drying in the drain rack by the sink, but Maddie is nowhere to be found.
“Where did she go?” Dylan asks sadly.
“Maddie works on her book at night,” I tell him. “Maybe she had a good idea and she was in a rush to get back to the lodge and write.”
“Maddie loves writing,” Dylan says with a fond smile.
“Yeah, she does,” I say, glad he’s not freaking out. I guess he trusts that she’ll be back this time.
“I like writing too,” he says casually. “Can you read me a story now?”
He turns and pads back up the stairs without even waiting for me, and now I’m standing here wondering how in a matter of two days, Maddie Foster has my boy saying he likes to write.
I’m also trying to ignore the knot in my stomach telling me that the real reason she left is me, and the way I was looking at her across the crackling fire all night.
I vow to do better.
If I screw this up for Dylan, I’ll never forgive myself.