Now, he was still in love, and it sucked.
Holding out little hope, he dialed Lucy’s number. She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Adam.”
“Oh Adam, how could you?”
His heart leaped. “You talked to her? Is she all right?”
She powered on. “Do you know how long Maddie’s waited to fall in love? I begged her to give you a chance and you totally fucked it up! You broke her heart!”
“Please, Lucy.” He clutched the window frame. “What did she say?”
“That you’re a lying bastard asshole, and a lot more of the same. What the hell did you do?”
“Something stupid. Thoughtless. Arrogant. Idiotic.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“No! I love her. I need to tell her that. And apologize.” He swallowed. “Lucy, where she is?”
“I don’t know. When she called, it sounded like Port Authority.”
Oh God. She could be on a bus to anywhere. Alone. Vulnerable.
“Fuck me!” He slapped the window frame, barely held himself back from punching through the glass.
But his temper fizzled as quickly as it flared, crowded out by other emotions. He rested his overheated forehead against the cool window. “I don’t deserve her anyway.”
“You’re probably right,” said Lucy. “She has the truest heart.”
“And I crushed it.” He thumped his head against the glass.
Silence followed, while he replayed the bedroom scene, the betrayal on her face.
He’d all but forgotten Lucy when she let out a long sigh.
“Listen, Adam. I don’t know where Maddie is right now. But I know where she’ll be a week from today.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VICTORIA WESTIN STACKED her heels on the porch rail. “So, what do you think?”
Maddie eyed Vicky’s newly minted cowboy boots. “I think you’ll rupture a tendon in those things.”
“Oh, these?” Vicky rotated her ankle to show them off, black with pink stitching. “Apparently, ranchers don’t wear ballet flats when they’re mucking stalls. Who knew?” She wiggled the Chardonnay out of the pail of melting ice tucked between their rockers. “But I meant the ranch,” she said, topping off their glasses. “What do you think of it?”
“It’s . . .” Maddie wrestled down her knee-jerk snark, took a long look around at the barns, the paddock, the horses nibbling hay, and answered honestly. “It’s different than I expected. It looks lived-in. Loved.” She glanced at her best and truest friend, who was one day away from being mistress of the place. “It looks like home, Vic. It looks like you’re home.”
Vicky’s smile was tinged with surprise. “I love it here. And the wildlife sanctuary, well, it’s amazing.” Ty was using the seven-figure award from his first wife’s wrongful death case to create the Lissa Brown Memorial Refuge adjacent to the ranch. “We just rescued two elephants from a circus that went under.”
“Cool. Can I see them before I leave?”
“Sure.” Vicky paused. “You’re such a city girl, I was afraid you’d hate Texas.”
“It’s an oven. But the wine’s cold, so I’m good.” Maddie tipped an icy trickle down her throat. Used her toes to rock her rocker.
“Um, you seem really relaxed,” said Vicky, wincing like she’d lobbed a stink bomb.
Maddie knew what response she expected. What do you mean, relaxed? How can I relax with giant smelly animals trying to stomp on me like I’m a cockroach?
“I am relaxed,” she said instead. “I’ve been on the road for a week, incommunicado. No phone, no texts, no e-mails, no Internet. And I realized, who needs them? They’re a time suck.”
Vicky nodded warily. “So, what did you do with all your newfound time?”
“I thought.”
“I see.”
“People don’t think enough nowadays. We’re always inputting data into the system, you know? And not taking time to process.”
Vicky’s heels hit the floor. “Okay, my turn to ask. Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?”
Maddie grinned. “I sound like Oprah, right? Don’t worry, it’s only temporary, until I finish sorting shit out.”
“Good to know. But still. Not the Maddie I’m used to.”
“Yeah, well, I got my heart broken.” She held up a hand. “I know, I know. I said I’d never fall in love. It was a mistake. I’m over it.”
And she was. Adam LeCroix was just a smudge on an otherwise perfect record.
“But to give the devil his due,” she went on before Vicky could grill her, “he rattled some things loose. I was, you know, stuck. In some areas. And I had some breakthroughs.”
It was hard to talk about, even with Vicky. But putting her thoughts into words was the ultimate truth test, so she soldiered on.
“First of all, Lucy’s an adult.”
Vicky nodded along, obviously waiting for the rest.
“That’s it,” Maddie said. “The big reveal. She’s an adult and she’s smart and kind and pure of heart. And she’ll be fine. I’ll always be here for her, but she’s an adult now.” She nodded. It sounded right and true.
“Okay. Good.” Vicky smiled supportively.
“And my father.” This part was harder. “I went to see the fucker.”
“Oh, honey.” Vicky touched her arm.
“I didn’t talk to him or anything.” She wasn’t that brave. “I just spied on him in the diner where he bullshits with his cronies.”
“He didn’t spot you? Nobody spotted you?”
Here she could grin. “I dressed up like a boy. Hockey shirt, backwards baseball cap, roll of quarters in my front pocket.”
Her smile faded. “The funny thing is, Vic, he’s old. Old and gray and not scary.” And hadn’t that been a kick in the ass? “Biggest surprise? He can’t be more than five-ten, one-seventy. I’d have staked my life on six-five, two-ninety.”
“He was still twice your size. You had every reason to be scared of him.”
“I know, I’m not beating myself up. It’s a lesson, though. When something scares you, you exaggerate it in your mind.” She lifted her shoulders, part shrug, part shrugging it off. “Anyway, it was an eye-opener. But don’t worry, I’m not cured of all my neuroses yet.”
“Phew. Baby steps, okay? I need time to adjust to mentally healthy Maddie.”
“Har har. Anyway, the headline is, it was him, not me. I didn’t deserve what he dished out. Neither did Mom. And neither did Lucy.”
That’s what ultimately convinced her. Her father had treated Lucy, who deserved nothing but love, the same way he treated Maddie. Which meant, in nonpsychobabble, legal terms she could relate to, that he was the perp, and they were the victims.
It wasn’t exactly a news flash. The logical part of her brain had always known it was true. But she’d never internalized it, not on an emotional level. How could she, when guilt and shame twisted her guts at the very thought of her father? Easier not to think about it. To bury her feelings under a mountain of hard work and a big pile of bullshit.
Then Adam came along and dredged it all up, dragged the details out of her, made her speak them out loud.
She’d like to hate him for it, to add another offense to his rap sheet. But in fairness, she couldn’t. He’d broken her heart, for sure. But he’d also forced her take a long, hard look at the past—and the present. And she was better off for it.
If anyone could understand parental-induced trauma, it was Vicky. She clinked Maddie’s glass. “Here’s to surviving our fucked-up parents.” They drank. Vicky topped them off again, then turned the dead soldier neck-down in the ice.
Comfortably buzzed and with the worst behind her, Maddie sucked it up and went the last mile. “I’m okay with the wedding too. You and Ty will probably be happy. So I’m good with it.”
Vicky snorted a laugh. “I can hear your wedding toast now. Here’s to Ty and Vicky, they’ll probably be happy.”
“Wait, I have to make a toast?”
“Yep.” Vicky stacked her heels on the railing again. “Now quit stalling and tell me who he is. Or should I say who he was? Did you leave him alive?”
“He’s not dead, just dead to me.” She fanned at a fly like it was more important than Adam. “Your mother stuck me with a shitty assignment and I ended up at his place in Italy. He’s rich and hot, and I was punchy from the wine and pasta.” She dismissed it all with a shrug.
Vicky nodded sagely. Then she touched her fingertips together to make a bridge, preparing to drill down past half truths and facile lies.
Maddie cringed. Adam was the one area—the huge area—she hadn’t finished processing. A thousand Greyhound miles, and she was still stuck on him. Still hurting. And not ready to talk about him.
Casting around for a distraction, she spotted a rooster tail of dust trailing a fast-approaching vehicle. “Looks like Ty’s back.” He’d driven to the airport to collect Vicky’s mother, the she-wolf Adrianna.
Vicky shielded her eyes from the sun. “Nope, not Ty’s truck. It’s a car.” She squinted. “A blue car. Who could it be?”
The mystery car disappeared from view, blocked by the barns. When it appeared again, it was much closer. And clearly visible.
Maddie shot to her feet. “The bastard!” Ignoring a startled Vicky, she charged down the steps and along the path to the circular driveway, planting her fists on her hips as the Bugatti rolled up.
The engine died and ticked. The dust cloud settled.
The door opened and Adam unlimbered his lean frame from the car. For a long moment he stood perfectly still, aviators aimed at her over the roof. Then he tossed them on the seat and shut the door with an ominous click.
Around the car he came, all six-foot-sexy of him, hair windblown, cheeks gaunter than she recalled, eyes as blue as the sky above.
From the porch, she heard Vicky say, “Whoa. Who’s that?”
Trouble, that’s who. Out loud, Maddie said, “You can turn your”—excellent—“ass around, LeCroix. You’re not welcome here.”
He kept walking. Pulled up a scant foot in front of her. At close range, his maleness was overwhelming. His eyes were hot and unyielding.
Holding her ground meant looking up at him, which pissed her off even more. She flattened her lips, tried to wilt him with her glare. “I said I didn’t want to see you again.”
“So you did. But we have things to say to each other.”
His voice was a draft of cool water after a parched week in the desert. She lapped it up. And hated her thirst.
“How did you find me?”
“Your sister.”
“She’ll get an earful.”
“No doubt. But you don’t scare her, Maddie. And you don’t scare me.”
His gaze was locked on to her like a heat-seeking missile, so intense she fell back a step. She covered with a sneer. “Say your piece, tough guy, before I get a crick in my neck.”
He advanced another step. “You ran out on me. Disappeared without a trace.”
“What, your bloodhound couldn’t track me?”
“No, he couldn’t, as I’m sure you intended. So I worried myself sick, not knowing if you were alive or dead.”
That explained the gaunt cheeks.
She refused to feel bad. “You made a fool out of me. You said you loved me, then you packed me off to Dom’s so you could sneak out and steal.”
“I planned to tell you the next day. I needed time to explain.”
“How long does it take to say ‘I’m a lying, sneaking thief’?”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Exactly. You think you’re the Caped Crusader. I think you’re a felon.”
THAT PISSED HIM off, oh yes it did.
After an interminable week of biding his time, Adam was living on the edge. He’d barely slept, couldn’t eat. Only Dom and John had kept him sane. Foolishly optimistic, he’d left them in Austin with a promise to bring Maddie home, then driven agonizing hours through dry country with his heart bleeding on his sleeve, prepared to fall on his knees if she’d only hear him out.
Instead, she’d defaulted to sneers and name calling.
Irrationally disappointed, he fired back. “Still like to see me in prison, wouldn’t you? Even with all that’s passed between us, you’re just as judgmental, uncompromising, and hard-assed as five years ago.”
“All that passed between us, buster, were bodily fluids.”
“If you believed that you wouldn’t have fled at the first bump in the road.”
“In my world, grand theft isn’t a bump in the road. It’s ten years in the big house.”
Ah. Here was that big, bright line of hers. The last time they’d glared across it, he’d scoffed at it and at her, a mistake he’d had an endless week to regret.
“Maddie.” He breathed in, then breathed out. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes narrowed to a gunslinger’s squint. But her tongue, for once, stayed in her head.
Another deep breath. “I hurt you,” he said, “and—”
The blonde from the porch popped up behind Maddie. “Hi. I’m Vicky.” She stuck out a hand, then did a double take. “You’re Adam LeCroix. Wow. I mean, welcome.”
Adam clasped her hand. This was Maddie’s dearest friend. His first instinct was to charm her, to recruit her in his war to win Maddie. But that would be more of the same, wouldn’t it? Crowding Maddie into a corner, bending her to his will. He wanted her to choose him freely.
“I’m not here to crash your wedding,” he said, politely. “I needed to see Maddie. She’s been difficult to reach.”
“So you’re the client.” Vicky raised a brow in Maddie’s direction. “I’m sure you’d like privacy for this, er, discussion. But I’m afraid we’re about to have company. Including my mother.” She nodded toward the silver pickup turning into the driveway.
“Shit!” Maddie hissed like a cobra. “Go! Now! Quick!” She shoved his chest with both hands.
He didn’t budge. “I’d like to see Adrianna,” he said, poking the snake. “I have things to say to her.”
“You want to tell her I took a week off? Too late, I already texted her.” She tried to turn him around, but he crossed his arms, immovable. In bed, she got off on his strength. Well, she couldn’t have it both ways.
The truck pulled up behind the Bugatti, Adrianna’s sourpuss visible through the windshield. Shoving open the heavy door, she ignored Vicky’s helping hand and slithered awkwardly down from the four-foot-high passenger seat, her pencil skirt riding up her nicely toned thighs.
A dust cloud rose when her feet hit the ground, filming her suede pumps. She didn’t notice. She had bigger fish to fry.
“Tyrell,” she announced, “drives like a maniac.”
Busy unloading two suitcases the size of Smart cars from the truck bed, Ty called out in a long-suffering tone. “I told you, the speed limit’s seventy.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe.” She sniffed. “Honestly, Victoria. Texas.”
Her disapproving gaze tracked over the ranch house, the barns, the horses, and finally around to the people standing beside the dust-covered lump barely recognizable as the Bugatti. Her eyes bulged, then locked on Maddie like lasers.
Adam stepped smoothly into the line of fire. “Adrianna, how nice to see you.” He smiled, charmingly.
“Adam. How unexpected. And delightful, of course.” Her gaze slid to Maddie, and frosted over. “But if you’ve come all this way to complain about Madeline, you needn’t have. She’ll do her explaining to me.”
Maddie pushed past him, simmering. “There’s nothing to explain. We recovered the Monet, I notified Hawthorne, and then I took some vacation, of which I have plenty coming. ”
“If it was that simple”—Adrianna dripped venom—“why did he call the office looking for you? Why did you turn off your phone? Obviously, you made a mess and skipped out on the consequences.”
; Adam cut in again, before Maddie could self-destruct. “On the contrary,” he said, “Maddie uncovered the Monet and saved me a costly court battle that might have gone either way.” He smiled, ruefully. “I even offered her a job, but she turned me down. It seems that if I want her services, I’ll have to go through your firm.”
That pacified the she-wolf. But Maddie went ballistic. “I’m not working for you!”
Adrianna flared up again. “You don’t choose your clients, Madeline. I do. And if Adam wants you, he’ll have you.”
“He will not have me!” Maddie turned on him and did a two-handed chest shove, mad enough to knock him back a step this time.
“Madeline!” Adrianna started for her. Adam tried to get between them but Maddie kicked his shin. Then she spun on Adrianna, curling her fist. He caught her arm; Adrianna grabbed the other.
And Tyrell bravely stepped into the fray. “Whatever you folks think of Texas,” he drawled, “we don’t pull women apart like wishbones, even ornery women with smart mouths and bad attitudes.”
Shaking off her captors, Maddie zapped him with a death stare. He ignored it in favor of neutral ground. “Nice car,” he said, walking a circle around the Bugatti. “Never seen one like it.”
Maddie’s eye-roll as good as called him a bumpkin. “Of course not, it’s a Bugatti Veyron. It goes for two million.”
Three pair of eyes bugged.
Ty found his voice first. “What’s the top end?”
“Just over two-fifty.” She eyed the car longingly. “Zero to sixty in two point five seconds.”
Adrianna said tartly, “And you know this how?”
“None of your beeswax,” Maddie shot back.
It was the opening Adrianna wanted. She leaped through, jaws snapping. “You’ll watch your mouth, Madeline, or—”
Vicky cut in. “Mother, please.”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me. She goes too far. Skipping out on a client. Pushing him around. If she values her job—”
“Adrianna.” Adam’s magnate tone shut her up. “You won’t fire Maddie on my account. She performed admirably as my counsel.” He took a breath, skipped ahead to the part of the plan he’d been saving for last. “So well, in fact, that I’m giving her a bonus.”
The Wedding Vow Page 29