by Hanna Hart
“I hate this,” Tracy said, looking around at the taped-up moving boxes in the living room where she and Madelyn had made so many memories together.
“He isn’t legally entitled to anything,” Tracy insisted. “And if he does try to get some of the money.”
Madelyn laughed. “Tracy, I already put in my first month’s rent on a place in Kerhonkson.”
“Yeah, and what’s up with Kerhonkson, anyway? If you want to move, move somewhere cool! Move to the city, head to Boston, or go abroad for a few months! Why move to Buttsville, Nowhere?”
“It isn’t Buttsville! It’s an adorable little town.”
“With nothing to do,” her friend snorted.
“There’s plenty to do. There are waterfalls and great trails for hiking. It’s beautiful there! Plus, they have that big ranch resort and there’s tons to do there. Plus, it isn’t that far from Manhattan and—”
“No!” Tracy called out, sticking her fingers in her ears like a petulant child. “I don’t want to hear about this place anymore. I hate this place! It’s stealing my best friend!”
Madelyn’s heart broke a little as her friend saddled up next to her and pulled her into a long, dramatic hug.
She was going to miss Tracy dearly.
Reality was, Madelyn wasn’t getting away to escape her father.
The real truth of it—the truth she wasn’t yet ready to tell Tracy about—was that Madelyn was chasing something out in Kerhonkson.
For as long as she could remember, Madelyn suffered from sickle cell anemia.
To have the condition, often called SS disease, meant that one had abnormal proteins in their red blood cells.
Her father had been aware of Madelyn’s condition when she was younger, but she didn’t show any symptoms of her disease and so he never made a big deal about it.
As a child, Madelyn seemed healthy. She rarely had bouts of pain and had only ever suffered one painful infection, but when she became pregnant three years ago, everything changed.
Complications of SS disease included such daily joys as infections, episodes of pain, and damage to the lungs, heart, joints, bones, spleen, and basically everything else one needed to function.
The pain became so unbearable, she didn’t know if she would survive her pregnancy.
Madelyn was on “death’s door.” That was the term her doctor used in her seventh month of pregnancy. She likely wouldn’t live through childbirth, Dr. Hampton told her, and if she did, she wouldn’t make much of a mother.
She “wouldn’t make much of a mother.”
That was what her doctor told her.
Madelyn had no complaints about Dr. Hampton’s medical talents. He was an immensely gifted doctor, but his bedside manner left something to be desired.
But then, he was right about that, too.
Madelyn made it through childbirth. She had been elated to be a mother, but by the third month of having her son, she knew she couldn’t keep him. Childbirth had done a number on her body. She was wracked with pain and was exhausted from sleepless nights spent feeding her son. Finally, she ended up in the hospital with another terrible infection.
She decided to put her son up for adoption through a private agency. She didn’t want any money, she insisted. She just wanted Sutton to have a good family.
Madelyn remembered the day her agent came to take Sutton from her. She was so weak and so anemic, so close to death, that she could barely move her lips to kiss her little boy’s forehead goodbye.
She expected to die. She had made her peace with it. She’d prayed, fought against her body’s betrayal of her, then accepted her end.
But her end hadn’t come.
The more days went by, the farther away her death seemed.
After a bone marrow transplant and four months in the hospital, her doctor declared Madelyn healthy enough to go home.
“Healthy enough to go home.”
So, she went home, ready to let her weakness, chronic pain, and illness return. Waiting for it as someone waited for a special event—an anniversary, a holiday, or a present waiting to be opened.
But it never came. She felt healthier than ever.
She was two years healthy with no signs of her disease returning, and as happy as it made her to have a second chance at life, her heart ached at the future she’d foolishly given up.
She’d tried to find her son on her own, but she wasn’t yet talented enough to illegally obtain government records—and she certainly didn’t want to get her uncle involved in her search. She didn’t want to make trouble for anyone.
So, Madelyn turned to one of her favorite finders: Lennard Crowe.
Crowe was a middle-aged retired cop who had a knack for finding people. While he didn’t work for her uncle’s company, the two had worked on projects together before, and she knew exactly how good he was.
When she first requested his help, he countered by telling her, “We can’t use the agency for personal favors. You know that, kid.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I intend on being an anonymous paying customer.”
Crowe nodded, a small smirk forming in the corner of his lips as he said, “Well, alright then.”
She lost her son, and she wanted him back.
And once she got to New York, that was exactly what she intended to do.
3
Jaxon
If Jaxon were to describe a day in the life of a two-year-old boy in three words, it would be the following:
Sleep.
Poop.
Play.
But not necessarily in that order.
Jaxon had raised Sutton since he was five months old. He taught him how to walk, heard him say his first word—"Chaloopa”—and clung to the love of the blue-eyed, curly-haired boy after Skylar left.
Sutton usually woke by seven in the morning. He would come into Jaxon’s room and watch television in bed.
After a morning cartoon, which Jaxon was equally as thrilled to watch, they would head into the kitchen and eat bagels, scrambled eggs, or a giant bowl of fruit.
Afterward, the nanny, a youthful sixty-year-old woman named Ashley Hunter, would arrive for the day.
As Jaxon got ready for work, Sutton would follow him around the house. He would watch Jaxon pick out clothes, watch him apply gel to his dark hair, watch him shave, and make an exaggerated sad face when Jaxon said goodbye for the day.
Sutton hated for his father to go.
Jaxon tried not to read too much into it but often wondered if Sutton remembered Skylar. He wondered if his son knew, or maybe sensed somehow, that Skylar had abandoned him—gave up on the idea of being a parent.
Jaxon took weekends off and exclusively spent time with his son. It wasn’t a chore for him, probably because he was practically still a kid himself.
On days he spent at home, he and Sutton would usually head to the ranch to look at the animals or stay home and play games.
This day Jaxon had decided to work from home but still had Ashley come in to help watch Sutton.
“You happy I’m staying home today, bud?”
Sutton sat on the floor of Jaxon’s office with a bright smile on his face. “Yeah!” he said gleefully.
“What do you want to do today?”
Sutton’s eyes roamed the room. He acted like he had to think about his answer deeply, but Jaxon knew his son’s preference was going to be the same as it was every other day.
“Play cars,” Sutton said.
Bingo.
“Alright, we can do that,” Jaxon said as he opened up the screen of his laptop. “But I have to work for a little bit, okay?”
“And play horses!” his boy said, though it was more of an excited jumble of noise.
“No, we can’t go to the ranch today,” he said. “But we can play cars, but Daddy just has to work for a while. I’ll come to get you when I’m taking a break and we’ll have some lunch and play for a bit, okay?”
Sutton’s sparse brows narrowed
with displeasure. Then he asked, “Can I sit too?”
“You want to sit in the office with me?” Jaxon clarified, and his son nodded. “Alright, bud. But just for a little while.”
Sutton sat on the floor for a good hour, playing quietly, until Ashley came in to put him down for a nap.
Jaxon took video meetings, signed contracts, and worked through some of the paperwork his brothers had sent him regarding the Brookside franchise as a whole.
For Sutton, lunch consisted of apple cubes, half a cup of peas, and slivers of chicken.
For Jaxon, it was turkey on a bun with a cranberry jam Ashley made that tasted like heaven. After lunch and a promised session of playing cars, Jaxon headed back into his office.
He always knew working from home was going to be a challenge.
Jaxon was easily distracted, especially if his son was asking for his attention. He often found himself taking extended breaks just to go hang out with Sutton. Other times, he would wander into the kitchen and open the fridge repeatedly, hoping a food he was craving would suddenly materialize there.
But today, his biggest distraction was the slamming noises coming from the house next door.
He walked out to his wrap-around porch and stood watching his new neighbor move in.
The girl operating the moving van looked to be no more than twenty. She walked back and forth from the truck, carrying box after box into the two-bedroom bungalow.
Jaxon did not live on his ranch, as some of his other brothers did with their Brookside properties. Instead, Jaxon moved into a high-end neighborhood. He didn’t want to flaunt his wealth. All he wanted was a home that was in a good neighborhood, had a pool, and was private.
He found that in a two-thousand square foot home in a woodsy neighborhood. It was a single-family detached three-bedroom home with an in-ground, heated saltwater pool and a two-car garage.
From the outside, the home looked like a modern masterpiece. Half of the house was glass and wood, the rest a dark paneling. It had a black metal roof and black wrap-around cedar porch on both levels of the house.
Inside was all white oak floors, walls, ceilings, and cabinetry. At first, he hated all of the wood but soon grew to appreciate the rustic counterpoint it offered the modern aesthetic of the rest of the home.
What he loved most about the property was the privacy. Situated on acres of forest, it gave the neighborhood a sense of peace and solitude.
His next-door neighbors had moved back to Florida months ago to care for their sick son and had finally found someone to lease their home.
Jaxon heard through the neighborhood grapevine that it was a woman from Rhode Island, though looking at her now, he hadn’t expected her to be so young.
He watched his new neighbor struggle with her boxes but hesitated to offer a helping hand. That is, until he saw her mishandling a beautiful, vintage guitar. She held it improperly as she hopped out of the back of her van, nearly cracking the body against the cement driveway.
“Hey! Be careful with that!” he called out without thinking.
His dark-haired neighbor looked up, her brow cocking curiously at him as she held the guitar by one of the machine-heads, just barely balancing it against her fingers.
Jaxon cringed as he watched the display and ran up to her, gently lifting the instrument from her hands.
“Careful with that,” he said, then looked down at the guitar in amazement. “That’s a vintage Gibson Les Paul you’re manhandling there!”
The young girl laughed. “Built in nineteen-seventy-four with a custom cherry sunburst,” she said with a nod. “It’s special. I know!”
“And you would carry this piece of artwork by its machine-head?”
She shrugged and offered him a bashful smile. “It was slipping! What was I supposed to do?”
“Um…?” he said with humor. “Carry it in a case? Or by the neck?”
She laughed and threw her hands into the air as though she’d just been caught doing something illegal.
“If I knew I was going to be lectured about it by my cute neighbor, then maybe I would have picked up a case for it, but as it stands, the guitar gets carried in on its own,” she flirted.
“That’s a shame,” he said slowly, deciding whether or not he wanted to flirt back.
“Yeah, it is,” she smiled, then extended her hand and said, “I’m Madelyn.”
“Jaxon,” he said. “Jax.”
“Nice to meet you, Jax,” she said.
Madelyn was striking, even more so when she smiled. She was short and slim with wide hips and eyes so pale blue they almost looked gray.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he said. “Is it just you moving in?”
Madelyn nodded.
“Nobody’s helping you?” he asked.
“Nope. Just me,” she confirmed.
“Well,” Jaxon began, looking briefly toward his house before turning his attention back to the girl in front of him. “You must be happy that I came around to help.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” she dared.
“‘Course. I can’t let a lady unload a moving truck all alone, especially not when she’s at risk of breaking all of her valuable possessions,” he teased.
Without meaning to, Jaxon spent the rest of the afternoon helping Madelyn move box after box into her home. After the moving van was emptied, he helped her unpack, and before he knew it, hours had passed, and the two of them were sitting on her couch talking over microwaved popcorn and bottled water.
They talked about the neighborhood, the drive from Providence, and her work.
“I’m a lawyer’s assistant,” she said simply, though she didn’t delve too deeply into her work.
As they talked, Madelyn offered Jaxon a wry smile and he felt his heart flutter with nerves.
With Jaxon, meeting someone new was all about that spark. He wasn’t someone who could be friends with someone for years and then suddenly realize she was the girl of his dreams. He either felt something for her right off the bat, or it was never going to happen.
And he could feel a spark with Madelyn—the sharp jolt of excitement that coursed through his body.
The only problem was, he hadn’t been looking for a spark.
He wasn’t looking for anything. Not since Skylar. So whatever mild, fun flirtation he felt between him and his new neighbor, he would have to put it to rest.
“So how do you know so much about guitars, anyway?” Madelyn asked, nodding in the corner toward her Les Paul, which was hanging out on a single guitar stand.
“My brother, he’s a professional musician,” he explained, unsure if he should go into details.
“Awesome,” she said, nodding her head. “Does he do the whole bar scene?”
“More like arenas.”
“What, is he like, famous or something?” she asked with a snort, covering her mouth with her hand.
Jaxon bit his lip, then shrugged. “Something like that,”
“Oh, really? Wow.”
“It’s a lot less impressive when you’re related the famous person, I assure you,” he laughed. “Anyway, he’s a little older than me. Seven years, actually, and he’s pretty much been teaching me how to play since I was a little kid.”
Madelyn raised her thick brows and dared, “You any good?”
He eyed the guitar before flicking his gaze back to her, hoping she wasn’t going to put him on the spot.
“I’m okay,” he laughed. “I can play rhythm and all that, but I never go into solos and too much picking, if that makes sense.”
“Well, that’s perfect, because I love playing solos. Maybe we could play sometime,” she suggested.
“Definitely.”
Madelyn faced him and crossed her legs on the suede sofa as she asked, “So, are you going to leave me in suspense, or are you going to tell me who your super famous brother is?”
Jaxon narrowed his eyes and couldn’t help but smirk. “You don’t believe that my brother is famous, do
you?”
The dark-haired Madelyn snickered and said, “Try me.”
“Phoenix Brooks,” he said, letting the truth hang in the air.
He watched Madelyn’s eyes widen with recognition and knew that this scenario usually only went one of three ways.
One. The individual was a diehard fan.
Two. The individual wasn’t really a fan but knew all of his brother’s tabloid gossip from many years ago.
Three. The individual had heard about Phoenix’s public troubles but didn’t care much for him either way.
“Seriously?” she laughed, then her expression fell, and she said, “Oh, you’re not kidding! Well, yeah, I know him. I’m not a huge country girl, but I bought his Landslide album and I thought it was fantastic.”
Jaxon nodded. That was Phoenix’s most recent album. He’d gone the pop-rock route and it seemed to be attracting a new fanbase.
“So, if you’re related to Phoenix Brooks, that must mean you’re one of the…” she trailed off, then snapped her fingers as she announced, “One of those guys who own those ranches?”
“Brookside Ranch Kerhonkson,” he nodded.
“That’s awesome. When I was considering moving here, I ended up reading a lot about the ranch.”
“Yeah, the town’s pretty proud of it,” he said, knowing that the ranch had brought a lot of tourism to the area.
“So, where are you from originally?” Madelyn asked.
“Texas, as if you couldn’t tell from the accent.”
“I detected something southern in there,” she grinned.
“Feel free to make fun,” he said half-heartedly. He was no stranger to being called a country boy or a redneck since coming to New York state.
“No, I love it!” she said vibrantly.
“So, what brings you to Kerhonkson?” he asked. “People don’t usually move here for the fun of it. At least, not at your age.”
“Hey, I’m twenty-four. Not exactly a baby,” she snorted.
“Not exactly collecting social security, either.”
“I...actually, my grandmother passed away. She was like a mom to me, and I just needed to get away. Find myself. Sorry, that was a huge overshare, and we just met. Now I’ll forever be known as the weird ‘tells her whole life story’ girl next door. You’ll probably be avoiding me from here on out.”