by Christa Wick
"Your sister is a fine woman and a great mom, but you're dancing behind vague words, Maddy."
There's a bit of a growl to his voice. I look down and to my right to study him from the corner of one eye.
He sighs and sits up. He doesn't touch me, but he is right behind me and I can feel the soft feathering of his breath against my skin.
It should feel nice—like a whisper of his affection or the welcomed ghost of the intense intimacy we just shared. But it doesn't and that is one part, however large or small, of why anything between us will not end well. I want to cringe at the soft current of air he produces.
"I don't like anyone the way I like you, Madigan," he continues after a few seconds of silence. "It's your hair I want to run my fingers through, your body I want yielding to mine."
My head wobbles on my shoulders for a second. I suck a breath in, stifle the cry that wants to burst out. Bending down, I scoop up my clothes and hold them against my chest.
Standing, I take one last look at Sutton before I head down the hall.
"It would be better if you preferred Delia."
15
Sutton
The bathroom door shuts, the fan turns on, then water runs in the sink. It would be easy to imagine Maddy going through the motions of cleaning herself after the act we just performed. Maybe she runs cold water to soothe the tender flesh I just pounded into, maybe she runs it hot to scour our juices from her body.
I see it clearly. Across her breasts, between her legs. The washcloth dips beneath the faucet again and again, removing me from her, returning her to the state she was in before she yielded.
Rolling over, I face away from the bedroom door. The sound of the water fades to the back of my mind as I replay her words.
I want to keep liking you...
Is it possible Madigan cannot move past merely liking me, desiring me, using me, but never connecting beyond the physical?
Hell, we haven't had a real conversation beyond her telling me about Caiden and briefly opening up about her own challenges. Only the latter would count as an intimate exchange.
The water cuts off. I push onto one elbow as I consider meeting her in the hall.
I want to keep liking you…
Shaking my head, I lower my body onto the mattress. There is no point chasing a woman who doesn't want caught. She will only gut me over and over until I have the good sense to walk away.
The fan goes silent. The bathroom door opens. This time, as she leaves, she doesn't step on the creaky board. I have no idea of her progress until I hear the front door open and softly close.
I shut my eyes against the sweep of her headlights. I keep them shut, controlling my breathing and relaxing my muscles until, a few minutes later, I fall asleep.
Light bleeds around the edge of my curtains. The glow is soft, the color more blue than yellow. It is the hue of early morning that I am most familiar with.
Body stiff, I roll until I face the alarm clock. Ten minutes to six.
I stretch out, surprised I spent all those hours sleeping in the same position. I point my toes, grab the top of the frame, lift and pull, release. Rotate one shoulder then the other.
Coffee, I think, swinging my legs toward the side of the bed, the momentum bringing me into a sitting position. Coffee will clear my head, let me plan my day until it's packed so full I won't have time or inclination to think about Madigan Armstrong.
First up on my schedule is a nine o'clock meeting with our new doctor, Thorne Nygård.
Sore as I am over Maddy leaving like she did, thoughts of the doctor make me chuckle.
The man arrived Sunday. Adler's return flight overlapped Nygård's scheduled landing, so big brother picked him up and brought him straight to the ranch. The poor doctor had little more than an hour to quietly settle into his temporary room at Mama's before being thrust into the fundraising activities.
Of course, the more money we made on Sunday, the better equipped his office will be and the more staff he can hire. So I didn't feel too bad about him having to glad-hand the locals so soon after his arrival.
The fun part was watching Siobhan. Mama had her hogtied to the goat roping pen. I've never seen my cousin miss so many throws as she tried to teach the youngsters. Heck, the kids did better than her!
Sliding into my jeans, I feel the vibration of my phone in the back pocket.
"Speak of the devil," I snort as Siobhan's number flashes across my screen. I hit ANSWER and then SPEAKERPHONE.
"Why you calling me at the crack of dawn, Monkey Butt? Can't you let a man sleep until a decent hour?"
She smacks her lips at me. "Please, you haven't slept past six since you were a baby. Aunt Lindy was just saying yesterday how she would find you most every morning at eighteen months playing with Adler's Lincoln Logs at the foot of his bed before she could even start breakfast for your daddy."
She has a point but I don't acknowledge it.
"What's so important you had to test your hypothesis that I'm always up by now?"
There's a sigh from my sweetly obnoxious cousin that I can't decipher without seeing her face.
"You need to pick me up on your way to the Urgent Care Clinic and drop me back at work when you're done."
I contemplate the request she is trying to twist into a command. It's a ninety-minute walk or an eight-minute drive from the police station. If she's at the station, then she has a patrol car.
"Why aren't you driving yourself?"
Before she can answer, another question asserts itself in my mind.
"And why are you going?"
While I'm certain I know the real "why" for her being at the clinic before it's open for business, I want to listen to her squirm.
"I wouldn't have thought your keen military gaze would miss this fact, but our sweet Sage is twenty months pregnant and ready to pop. Just like you were roped in—"
"Roped in?" I can just imagine who was doing the roping when it comes to Siobhan figuring out a way to interact as often as possible with the new doctor—short of her intentionally contracting the bubonic plague.
"Whatever," she huffs. "Aunt Lindy and Adler personally requested my presence. And Daddy is covering the leases for Doctor Nygård's vehicle and housing—so we are stakeholders in all of this."
Taking a deep breath, I roll my eyes, the gesture lost over the phone. Uncle Boone is going soft on his most willful child. And, after nearly two weeks in Japan on business, Adler wants to cuddle with his wife before there's a new baby for her to dote over. Mama, still quietly trying to find her way as both a widow and the mother of a dead daughter, is being overprotective of Sage.
Siobhan getting all of them to agree she should take some of the work off Sage's hands would be child's play.
"Back to question number one," I rumble. "Your cruiser broken or something?"
"Or something."
By Siobhan's tone, I can just imagine her flipping her ponytail over her shoulder as she so often does when she's irritated and wearing her uniform.
"Cost of the ride is telling me what that something is."
I move through the house with a grin on my face, Madigan momentarily pushed to the back of my mind as I tease my cousin.
Her voice drops to little more than a whisper.
"Gamble won't let me drive the patrol car in my civvies."
My grin gets monstrously large. Siobhan hauled her civilian clothes to work just for the purpose of a half hour or so meeting with Nygård.
My cousin has it bad and she barely knows the man.
Even for Siobhan, this is more than a little irrational.
"Baby girl, you need to ease off the gas on this one. You like the idea of the doctor, but you don't know—"
Interrupting with a hiss, Siobhan blows hot and cold all at once.
"I am so glad you have your own love life taken care of that you feel qualified to butt into mine!"
Before I can explain that I'm only trying to look after her best interests, she d
raws a deep breath and launches into a full-blown tirade.
"Half the town is saying you are sweet on Delia. Going on about all the time and attention you are showering on her and her son. The other half is crowing about Madigan's car parked outside your house last night before you were home and then for at least an hour with you there…and how she left in tears."
Her words, especially the last of them, feel like a face full of birdshot.
Maddy was crying when she left?
"Fine," I growl. "Make your own mistakes, little cousin. But the man you need may not be there waiting for you at the end of this one."
Siobhan may act like she doesn't care what man I'm talking about, but she can't suppress her curiosity.
"Whoever he is, why do you say that?"
"Because," I answer before hanging up. "He's already pushing back."
16
Maddy
"You have your go bag ready?" Emerson asks as he takes the headphones off and casually tosses them onto his desk.
I rub at my eyes then nod. It's a little after two in the afternoon and the only sleep I managed since leaving Sutton's bed is a twenty-minute cat nap—sitting upright on a stall in the ladies bathroom. I was supposed to leave the field office yesterday evening and sleep before starting my surveillance shift.
Either Emerson doesn't notice my zombie-like posture or he's ignoring it.
"Your sister and the kid going to be fine?" he asks. "You want an agent to take your car home so she can use it?"
"Delia and Caiden will be fine." I use their names, perhaps even stubbornly because Emerson has taken to referencing them only by their roles in my life. "She has her own vehicle."
"Suppose Sutton could always race up here if she needs a ride."
"She has her own vehicle," I repeat.
He continues as if I said nothing. "Well, make sure your go bag is ready. We should have a flight out by…"
He pauses to hit enter on his keyboard, then waits for the screen to refresh.
"Two hours."
With a nod, I rise from the chair alongside his desk. "I'll be ready."
My first stop is the bureau car assigned to me when I'm on duty. I open the trunk, my phone to my ear as I call Delia.
"Hey, sweetie," she chirps. "Everything okay?"
As far as Delia is concerned, I've been on the clock over thirty hours. She doesn't know I spent part of the evening in Willow Gap because I haven't been home and am in no rush to tell her what happened.
"I don't have much time," I say. "I have to catch a flight to Seattle in two hours and there are preparations to make in the meantime."
"Your boss is insane! You've been going at it for more than a day. You might as well be in the military. Hell, even SEALs get some downtime."
I don't respond. I don't like lying to Delia and, well, I suck at it.
"Caught some sleep and a shower here. About to grab some food and I'll catch a little sleep at the airport and on the plane." This is a mix of the truth and best intentions. Knowing Emerson, he will work on the plane, which means I will also work on the plane.
"Will I be able to contact you?"
From the trunk, I unzip the go bag and inventory its contents as I assure Delia my phone will be on most of the time and remind her how to reach me in an emergency by contacting the field office.
"Have to go," I say before adding a perfunctory, "I love you."
"You really do, you know…"
Just like that, after I utter three monosyllabic words backed by a lifetime's context between us, Delia goes from being irate at my "toxic" boss to weepy.
I ignore her attempt to convince me I'm not really a robot.
"Give Caiden a hug for me."
"A tight one," she agrees.
Yes, a tight one.
Those are the only kind I can give.
The only kind I can receive.
17
Sutton
I stare at the text message on my phone. I read it again. Same words, same arrangement, same hollow sense of "what the fuck?"
Will be out of state for a few days plus. Hard to contact. Wanted to apologize that last night was awkward.
Awkward, she says? Any more or less awkward than the text she just sent?
My first impulse is to ignore the message. Pursuing Maddy has me torn up and worn out. Everything other than the sex has been stilted, one-sided.
Unless it's true what Siobhan said—that Madigan left my house last night in tears.
Did she want me to chase after her? Was she expecting to open up the bathroom door and find me waiting in the hall?
Is she still staring at her screen hoping I'll reply?
I put the phone away. Grabbing a pitchfork, I enter my stallion's stall. Buzzsaw nickers at me then pushes his nose against my bicep. I open the double doors that let onto a larger pen where the horses can feed while the sun warms their coats.
"Get on outside," I tell the beast.
He ignores the order, keeps nosing at me—back of my shoulder where he threatens to nip, the tuck of my waist where his touch tickles, my back pocket…
“Calling Madigan Armstrong.”
Hearing the phone's announcement, I drop the pitchfork and paw at the pocket Buzzsaw was just pushing at. I can't get the device out quick enough. The call goes through. It rings and then I hear the muffled sound of her voice as she answers.
I jerk the phone up to my ear.
"Maddy…I…uh…"
This is why I didn't text her back. I have no idea how to talk to the woman.
"My horse dialed," I blurt after a few more fumbling seconds.
The way my throat squeezes around the words, it's impossible to believe I ever jumped out of a plane, fought in battle, bandaged a buddy after a gunfight or zipped another up for shipment home to his family.
Madigan absolutely unmans me.
"You're at the ranch?"
"Yeah," I answer. "You?"
"Waiting for my flight to start boarding."
I hear something that sounds like a toilet flushing.
"Where you headed? If you can say."
"Seattle."
I rest my forehead against the hand gripping the pitchfork.
"Sorry about the horse calling."
From where he has moved to the outer pen, Buzzsaw nickers again then pulls his lips back in a horsey grin.
"I texted…"
"Yeah." Guilt crawls over me like a colony of millipedes. "I didn't know what to say."
"A condition I'm familiar with."
I don't know whether Maddy just made a joke. The problem with a deadpan delivery is that it is her default way of communicating.
I put the question to the side and push on.
"We need to talk about last night, about what you said." I don't give her time to say she'll be back in a few days. "Where are you staying in Seattle?"
"Near Pioneer Pa…why?"
"What hotel?"
"Sutton, Emerson and I are working a case. He would toss me off his team if you show up."
I wait in silence. Whatever Maddy is saying, the one thing she hasn't said is that she doesn't want me showing up. As I stand there, hanging by a thread for her to say something more, Buzzsaw ambles toward me. I hold my hand out, my palm pressing lightly against his forehead to stop his advance.
The way things are going with Maddy, the damn stallion will hang up on her much the same way as he dialed her in the first place.
"Silver Cloud," she relents.
"I'll text you my room number when I'm checked in. Find me when you can."
"Your brother—"
"Believe me, if he even finds out I'm there, my brother will be glad it's you I want to see and not Delia," I say. "You have something you want to tell me, Maddy. Good or bad, you're going to tell me in person."
With that, I hang up.
I catch the last flight out of Billings, sleep on the plane and sneak into the hotel as the hour creeps toward three o'clock. In my room, I
take a five-minute shower then text Madigan. The message shows as delivered, but not read.
Expecting nothing better from the current situation, I turn the main light off, put the bedside lamp on low then drop onto the mattress. With my hands folded beneath my head, I fall asleep a few minutes later.
A little after four-thirty, a knock wakes me. I jump up, smack the light on and answer the door to find Madigan nervously scanning the hallway. I stand back, she quickly slides in, a puff of relief escaping her when I shut the door.
I want to wrap her in a tight hug, but I keep my distance and gesture at the bed for her to sit. The room is sparse, no chairs, so I stand with my back against the wall, the position an unintended metaphor mocking for where I'm at with Maddy.
"You shouldn't have come," she whispers.
"If you really think that, you could have told me not to come, could have refused to tell me where you would be."
She nods. "You're right that I should do this in person, not a call or a text."
"You should also look at me when you say it."
The tension that has locked my body tight escapes through my voice, shaking the words loose with a hard vibration. The entire wait from our last conversation to now, I forced myself not to dwell on the likely outcome of this meeting. But her refusal to meet my gaze is the only sign I need right now to know Maddy is calling off whatever it is between us. Calling off the sex, calling off the potential for more despite the ripe promise that sprouts every time she lets her guard down.
"I've been to three Turk weddings," she tells me as she continues to stare at her knees. "I'll probably attend several more. That's what your family does. They get married, have kids, devote themselves to one another. They hug and hold hands and share physical proximity with an unsettling frequency…"
When she finally glances up for one fleeting second, it's to drive a stake in my heart.