Chapter 8
MAGGIE
I’d managed to get myself a new phone, but I was seriously regretting not getting a new number too as I listened to my father shout through the brand new device pressed against my ear. “You need to come home right now, Maggie! I mean it. Right. Now.”
I looked around the quaint coffee shop I’d found in Deerfield and wondered if anyone else had ever had to navigate a family meltdown in this charming little place. There were mismatched chairs, crooked paintings, tiny tables, and a chalkboard advertising drinks containing lavender and oat milk.
As soon as I’d spotted it from across the street, I’d loved it. I sat in the sunshine at a table on the sidewalk, enjoying the warmth on my skin even as I listened to my father rip into me from over a hundred miles away.
Provided he was back in New York by now. Otherwise, he was managing to tear me apart all the way from California.
“I’m sorry, Daddy, but I can’t do that,” I said calmly, closing my eyes and tipping my face toward the sun. “I just need to be alone for a while.”
“Where the hell are you?” he snapped.
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I’m safe. That’s all I’m willing to say.”
“You are not fine. You ran out of your own wedding. Clearly, you’ve suffered some kind of mental break.”
“No, actually. I’m finally thinking clearly. I’m further from the mental break now than I have been for months.”
“Maggie.” He dragged out my name on a grumbled warning. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I looked out at the pretty street I’d wandered down before I’d found the cafe, its sidewalks lined with big old trees, grassy green verges, and historic brick buildings. I inhaled a deep breath. “Yes, I do know what I’ve done. I chose myself, that’s what.”
He scoffed. “You’re coming home. Immediately.”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“Do you not understand what is at stake? This isn’t a joke, Maggie. It’s not a game. It’s our family. Our legacy. Our reputation.”
I sighed. “I know what’s at stake.”
“Then act like it.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You will never be ready if you keep behaving like a child.”
I winced. That was the first thing he’d said that’d actually hurt, but it was mostly because I knew it was true. I was acting like a child who was hiding from her parents because she didn’t want to do her homework.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know that. It was that I also didn’t know what else to do. “I’m still not coming home, Daddy. Not yet.”
“You will come home or I swear to God, I will cut you off completely.”
“I will come when I’m ready, but not a second before. You’ve made your point and I will take it into consideration. Goodbye, Daddy.”
“Maggie—”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and hung up on him, knowing there would be hell to pay for that once I got home, too, but at this point, I was elbow deep in so much shit that I was likely never getting out of it anyway.
After I slipped the phone back into my bag, I reached for my coffee and took a sip, reopening the book I’d found in my grandfather’s study.
The pages were filled with pressed flowers, some carefully labeled in his handwriting while others had dates, locations, or little notes about where he’d found them.
Every page I turned brought another smile to my lips, my fingers running over the indentations in the pages where he’d lovingly recorded information about each flower he’d taken the time to press. He’d always been eclectic, strange but noble.
He’d collected odd things and read obscure books, sometimes disappearing for days without anyone knowing where he’d gone. I knew now, though. He’d been here, in this beautiful, historic town I was starting to learn had been his sanctuary.
Like me, he’d had his passions. He’d simply learned to hide them. Unlike me, however, he’d been the patriarch of our family and he’d had enough money to build secret places for the parts of himself nobody else was allowed to see.
My cash, on the other hand, was running out fast after buying a plane ticket, a bus ticket, the phone, some clothes, food, and now, this coffee. As I sat here, right at this very minute, my dad was undoubtedly putting a hold on my credit cards and flagging my bank account, so this was it.
Any money with my name attached to it would be entirely inaccessible within the next few minutes. If it wasn’t already.
I was officially boxed in, but so be it. My answer was no. To everything.
Money had been controlling me since birth. I refused to let it control my future too. While I didn’t know yet how to manage for the moment, I would get there. Until then, I simply had to be careful with the food, provisions, and cash I had at my disposal.
I picked my coffee back up and drained the last drop, knowing this would be the last cup of coffee I would have for a while that’d been made by someone else, and then I closed the book and stood. Determination surged through me as I walked back to the cottage, keeping my head down just in case.
Perhaps I didn’t know how to survive without my family’s money just yet, but if even monkeys could learn how to play musical instruments, I could learn new tricks too.
The road under my feet became narrower, then dustier, then the houses and asphalt disappeared entirely, signaling that I was getting close to the place I now called home.
When I reached the privacy gate at the end of the driveway, however, there were fresh tire tracks in the dirt. A few sets of them, actually. Like someone had driven in, then out, then in again.
My first thought was that Marcus had found me, but I hadn’t even finished thinking it yet when I realized it probably wasn’t him.
Marcus would’ve at least called first. He wasn’t really one for surprises.
As the heir to the proverbial throne, he tended to err on the side of preparation.
If he tried to call when he was already on his way and hadn’t gotten hold of me for whatever reason, he would’ve followed up the call with a text.
Possibly a lawyer.
Suddenly feeling a little more apprehensive about those tracks, I pushed the gate open quietly and crept up the drive, noticing a car I didn’t recognize in the driveway once the cottage appeared through the trees.
My heart started pounding. The front door was wide open and I sure hadn’t left it that way. Swallowing past the rush of fear that swept through me, I ran through my options, but it didn’t take long. If I called the cops, I would have to give them my name.
If I gave them my name, I would have to explain how I’d gotten access to a house that didn’t belong to the Pembrokes and I couldn’t even claim to have rented it because surely I would have to provide proof, which I didn’t have.
Also, not for nothing, but my name would probably also be logged on a system somewhere and that wouldn’t do, so I went for what was behind door number two. My grandfather’s old musket.
I had no idea if it worked and even less of an idea how to use it, but whoever was in that house didn’t know either of those things.
Creeping up to the side of the house, I slipped in through the open door and grabbed the musket, surprised by its weight, but I held it in both hands and prayed to everything that was holy that intruders who meant a person harm wouldn’t park right in front of the door.
My chest grew tighter with every step I took, my hands trembling even with the heavy musket in them. I wanted nothing more than to run the heck away from whoever was in here, but I couldn’t. This was my home now, and if I left it, I was screwed.
Every room I checked was empty, until I stepped into my grandfather’s study and found a man in there. My heart leaped and a blood-curdling, full-animal scream tore straight out of my lungs. The man looked up at the exact same time, and weirdly, he started screaming too.
It took a solid five seconds for my brain to register through the shock and the fear that I recognized the face I was staring at. It was Ryan Thayer.
The sound streaming out of my mouth suddenly cut off, but I was still breathing hard as I scowled at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He lunged to push the musket away when it accidentally swung toward him, that previously styled dark brown hair falling in a mess across his forehead with the force of the movement. “Holy shit, Maggie. Put the gun down.”
“Don’t come any closer,” I said breathlessly, my heart still racing and my entire body still trembling. “I’m not putting it down until you stop breaking into my house!”
“This is not your house!”
“It is now!”
Ryan finally managed to get his hands around the musket and pulled it away from me, but I let him have it. I’d been about to drop it on the floor anyway, shaking too hard to keep a good grip on it.
“It’s Marcus’s house,” Ryan said once he’d set the gun down on the cluttered old desk behind him.
Sunshine mottled by puffy clouds filtered in through the windows, illuminating the dust motes swirling lazily through the air and the thin layer of it covering almost every surface.
On the verge of passing out if I didn’t remember how to breathe properly, I focused on all that for a moment, the sunshine casting pools of light across the pocked wooden floors and the piles of random documents stacked around the room.
Finally, when my gaze snagged on an old, yellow picture of my grandfather on the wall, I felt my heart rate starting to calm down. Marcus might’ve inherited this place, but he’d never even been here and that man in the photograph had been my grandfather too.
If he’d known how things were going to turn out for me and how much I was going to end up being like him, he probably would’ve left it to me anyway. Slowly, I dragged in a few deep breaths and then turned to face Ryan again.
He looked ridiculous in his tailored suit and shiny shoes in this dusty old study, but before I could demand—again—to know how the hell he’d even found me, he smirked. “Were you actually going to shoot me?”
“I was going to do whatever I needed to do to protect myself from someone breaking into my house.”
“Again, this is Marcus’s house.” He motioned toward the musket before folding his arms and turning back to me, amusement suddenly dancing in his eyes. “More importantly, that thing isn’t functional.”
I blinked hard. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a replica.”
I shook my head, folding my own arms and taking a step forward. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I know what a functional firearm looks like.”
“Fantastic.” I scoffed. “Congratulations.”
“What the hell were you doing wandering around here alone with a fake gun?” he asked, drifting back toward the open balcony doors for every step I took toward him. Almost like he thought I might smack him if I got too close. “You could’ve been hurt, Maggie. Anyone could’ve been in here.”
“You’re the one who broke in.”
He snorted. “I didn’t break in, actually. The door was open, which makes this a lot worse. You have no idea how dangerous it can be in a remote home all by yourself, do you?”
I shrugged. “I’ll lock up next time.”
“You could walk in to find an actual criminal next time.”
“But I won’t because I’ll lock up.”
“Yeah, because criminals generally respect locks, property laws, and privacy.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Are you seriously one of those people who believes our prisons are filled with innocent people? Come on, Maggie. You’re smarter than that.”
“Are you done?” I folded my arms a little tighter around myself and took another step forward. “I’d really like it if you would leave now.”
“No.” He stepped backward onto the balcony. “You ran away from your wedding, disappeared without telling anyone where you were going, came to a house nobody knows about, and started wandering around with a fake gun.”
“Well, I mean, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound great, but you don’t know everything, Ryan.”
“I’m willing to bet I know more than you.”
I took a final step forward, flashing him a smile before I slammed the balcony door shut. Ryan’s eyes widened on the other side of the glass panes, but as he reached for the handle, I clicked the lock.
“Enjoy the great outdoors, Mr. Thayer, but if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
Exasperation shone like fire from those blues as he reached for the door handle anyway, probably hoping the lock didn’t work. “Maggie.”
“I’m not going back to New York or San Diego, and I’m not going through with the wedding.”
“Tough luck. I’m here to fetch you and I’m not leaving until you’re in the car with me.”
I frowned. “You let me run. In fact, you literally told me to do it.”
“No, I gave you a chance to get out before you made a scene in front of three hundred people. Now I’m here to bring you back so you can clean up your own mess.”
“I’m not going.”
He shook his head at me. “You can’t stay here.”
“Watch me.”
“With what money?” He arched both eyebrows. “I know you’re thinking you can probably just figure it out, but it’s not as easy as you think.”
In that moment, I hated him more than I’d ever hated anyone, but I also knew that he was right. “That’s none of your business.”
Ryan folded his arms. “You have nowhere else to go, no money, no plan, no job, and frankly, no work experience either. You have no connections that will help you right now, no support system, and no one but me to turn to.”
I stared at him through the glass and it suddenly hit me like a truck of bricks that he was right. All that determination I’d felt earlier vanished in a heartbeat and I averted my gaze, then spun around for good measure and buried my face in my hands.
Oh, God. I’m so, so screwed.
As much as I hated him right now, I detested the fact that everything he’d said was deeply, heartbreakingly true. I had nothing and no one.
Except him.
Drawing in a deep breath, I finally lowered my hands and spun back to face him, but as I lifted my gaze to unlock the doors, he was gone. “What the…”
I frowned, pulling open the doors and wondering if he was hiding around the corner, but nope. The balcony was completely empty.
When I stepped out and looked over the railing, I realized he’d climbed down. “Ryan?”
He was standing two floors below, covered in dust and leaves. Looking up at me, he pointed at the unfamiliar car before planting his hands on his hips. “Get in, Maggie. We’re leaving.”
“What? How did you even get down there?”
“Get. In. The. Car.”
“No.”
Thunder cracked overhead and Ryan jumped, immediately looking up at the sky. Clouds had started gathering on my walk back to the cottage, but I hadn’t realized they meant a storm was rolling in.
Rain began falling a moment later, however, an absolute deluge that soaked him in seconds. I saw him sigh and close his eyes for a beat, but then he turned back to me and pointed at the car again.
“Can we please just go now? We’ll talk on the way home.”
I smiled sweetly and took a few steps back, closing and locking the balcony door once more. Ryan stared up at me through the rain, but I waved and walked away, dashing toward the front door to make sure I’d locked that behind me too.