Return to Paradise

by Laina Villeneuve

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. “Hey Gabe,” I answered, unable to feign a good mood.

  “You already heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “About Madison’s place. Did Brenna finally get through to Madison?”

  “Why is Brenna trying to get Madison?”

  “To talk about Hot Rocks.”

  “What’s going on, Gabe?”

  “A neighbor called in a disturbance out there. Brenna responded, and they have someone in custody. She’s trying to track down Madison.” I was in motion now, running down the stairs. Madison and Ruth were sorting through papers in Bo’s desk. I thrust the phone in her face. “Gabe says that the police department’s been trying to get you on the line.”

  Madison reached for my phone while she pulled hers from her pocket. “Gabe? This is Madison. I’ve had my ringer off all day.” Her eyes flicked from me to Ruth. Her face reddened, and she nodded even though Gabe couldn’t see her. “I understand…Okay…Yes. Sure.” She called up contacts on her phone and punched in a number. “I’ll call her now. Thank you, by the way, for helping out last weekend. You didn’t have to and…it really helped.” It took another minute for them to wrap up the call. When she was finished, Madison calmly handed my phone back to me.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I blurted.

  “My garden’s torn up,” she said. I didn’t think it was possible for her to drift any further away than she already had, but she managed with the short phone call and that phrase.

  Ruth took Madison’s hand.

  “Did he have any other details?” I pressed.

  “Not really. All he said was Brenna needs to speak with me. I’d better call her.”

  She hit send on the number she’d entered into her phone. It must have been Brenna’s direct line because once Madison identified herself, she mostly listened. Ruth and I sat by, shut out of the conversation. Ruth still held Madison’s hand, and it didn’t feel right to step closer. I stood there wanting Madison to acknowledge my presence. She knew I was upset about her staying in Paradise, and now she sat there communicating nothing. I had almost reached my blowing point when she finally spoke.

  “No. I appreciate your getting in touch with me, but go ahead and file the report. I’m not interested in taking it to court.”

  Ruth and I looked at each other. She looked as concerned as I felt. Shouldn’t Madison be running any of this by us before she answered Brenna?

  “I’m sorry you got roped into any of this. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.” She righted the edges of a stack of papers she’d been sorting. “I really don’t think the extra patrol is necessary. I’m sorry for the bother.”

  She bit her lip as she ended the call. The hesitation in her eyes made me sit down. Whatever it was she had to say, she really didn’t want to. “What is it?” I asked.

  “I forgot to tell you I came out to Shawneen.”

  “What! When? When was this?”

  “The day that Bo died. I…I told her to come out to the ranch, and I gave her the curtains back, and I told her everything. She didn’t take it well. It’s all muddy in my head, but she said that I absolutely could not be gay. I’m sure she told Hagen. Brenna has him at the station because he was doing doughnuts in the lower field. A neighbor drove by and reported it.”

  “What was the stuff about her report and court?”

  “She told me she had the official report for me and could send it to the prosecutor if I was interested.”

  “But you told her to file it?”

  “Yeah. It’s just a field. He’s angry. You were right. I should have said something instead of letting him keep coming around. I’m sure he feels like I led him on.”

  “You have to take him to court. That’s a hate crime!”

  “It’s not a hate crime,” she shot back. “It’s a dumb guy being jealous. Why would I want to prosecute when I don’t know…”

  That’s why she’d hesitated.

  “You don’t know what, Madison,” Ruth prompted.

  “She doesn’t know if she’s keeping Hot Rocks.” I stood. “That’s why you won’t go to court? You’re thinking of selling?”

  Her eyes went to Ruth, not me. I bit my tongue. I needed to feel something other than my surge of disappointment and anger. “Or have you already decided?”

  “I haven’t. I haven’t decided anything. I can’t think right now. All I know is I can’t be up there. I need to be here. I need to be close to Bo’s things, to Ruth. Everything up there—Shawneen…Hagen…I can’t. You understand, don’t you? That I can’t go back up there?”

  “What nonsense are you talking?” Ruth said. “This boy tore up your field, and you’re going to walk away? That’s your place. It’s where you belong, and you have to protect that and yourself. You call back and tell her that you changed your mind. That boy has to repair what he’s damaged. You can’t afford losing all the work you put in.”

  “It’s a field. I can put in more plants, and I could always just wait until next year.”

  “But he’s trying to intimidate you,” I argued.

  “I’m not there right now to tend it anyway.”

  “Well you should be,” Ruth said determinedly. “Get your things together. I’m calling Charlie to tell him to watch the place.”

  Madison remained rooted.

  “I’m serious, Madison. You have to stand up for yourself.” Ruth waited.

  “I was wrong about needing to go up there. Wrong about needing my own place, about fulfilling some dream of Charlie’s. Everything I always thought I wanted is right here, not up in Quincy.”

  Her words felt like a punch to the gut. Part of my brain tried to argue that she meant her parents, but that was a tiny sound compared to the reverberating hurt that shouted she said everything. She never needed you.

  “You don’t mean that,” Ruth said softly but sternly.

  Madison’s head snapped up at that and her eyes moved from Ruth to me. Hi there, I wanted to wave. Remember me, the solid girlfriend who came down to be your emotional support? She might not have meant everything she’d said the way I’d heard it, but she was scared. Whatever Shawneen had said to her had rattled her. She was pulling into herself the way she’d been when I first met her.

  I didn’t know what my part was in all this. I was on Ruth’s side, wanting Madison back in Quincy, but I certainly wasn’t objective in my reasoning. I felt bad too, because I’d been pushing Madison to come out to Shawneen and Hagen. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Madison looked confused, and I realized that she had no way of following my train of thought.

  “About Shawneen. I’m sorry that she reacted the way she did. I wish you’d told me.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “I’m glad she knows. I…” What I wanted to say was difficult with Ruth standing right there. “I want everyone to know about us, but I’m sorry she reacted like that.”

  Ruth punctuated my words with a nod and rubbed my shoulder as she left the room. I waited for Madison to speak, but she stood frozen as if her system was simply overloaded. When the shop computer did that, I rebooted it. Maybe that’s what she needed. I stepped forward and put my hands on her hips. Her eyes were wide as I leaned in to kiss her. They fluttered closed as our mouths met, and I stepped closer, wrapped my arms around her and tried to convey with my kiss how very much I needed her to come back to Quincy. I felt her relax in my arms. When I pulled away, I said, “I love you, Madison.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and found mine. “I know. But I don’t know why you do. You’re so strong and certain about everything, and I’m…not.”

  “Maybe it’s because I never had to search for my family. They were always there. Sometimes too much.”

  Finally, she smiled.

  “So Shawneen was awful. I can’t really say I’m surprised. This means I don’t have to try to be nice to her, right?”

  “Only if you want to keep her business.”

 
; “I want to keep you.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder. “It feels scary to be so far away from Ruth and Charlie.”

  “But you’re not alone. You’ve got me. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Maybe it would be better if you showed me.”

  I kissed her again for all I was worth. I gave her the kiss that only a fool would walk away from, and for the time being it worked. She took my hand in hers, and we went upstairs to pack our things together.

  Chapter Forty

  Madison

  Lacey dropped me at Hot Rocks. We’d had a quiet ride up the canyon, holding hands whenever the windy road allowed. I was glad for the dark masking the damage Hagen had done to my field as we headed up to the house. Ruth was right behind us. Unlike Lacey, she paused at the gate. I couldn’t tell whether she could see the damage to the property or if she was giving me and Lacey a few minutes to ourselves before she drove my truck up to the house.

  “Should I stay?” Lacey asked after helping to carry in our things.

  “I know you’re anxious to get back to your place.”

  “But if you need me,” she whispered.

  “I do need you.” I buried my face in her neck. “And I’m almost home.”

  She stepped away from me, and I worried that she’d ask me to explain what I didn’t quite understand myself. Instead, she squeezed my hand and said, “I like the sound of that.”

  On the porch, Ruth hugged her goodnight. “I hope I’m not scaring you away.”

  “Not at all. I’ve got to get back to my shop. I have an early morning tomorrow, and it’s a lot easier to get up and get going when I don’t have any temptations.”

  It had been a while since I’d made it hard for her to get out of bed. I could see that in her eyes, the question of when I’d be back in that capacity. I winked at her to let her know it was inevitable. Emotionally, I was still sapped, but physically, I still very much wanted her. Being back on my turf made that even clearer. I walked her to her car. In the short time we’d been inside, Houdini had parked himself next to it. He rubbed his head up and down her body.

  “Your horse is more feline than equine,” she said, bracing against the force.

  “He wants you to stay so he can curl up on your lap.” I reached up and ran my fingers through her hair, settling back into place what Houdini had rumpled. Cupping her cheek, I kissed her, thanking her for being so supportive but also for giving me space.

  “Thanks for that.” She lingered a moment longer and then was beetling down the hill. Houdini and I watched until she disappeared around the bend.

  “Hope you managed okay without me. It looks like you got yourself fed.” I rubbed his ears for a moment until his lip stuck out like an old man with too much chew. Back in the house, I found Ruth standing in the doorway of the room she and Bo had shared when they’d visited together. She hadn’t tucked her bags inside any of the rooms. “He was so proud of all you’ve done. You did so much more than we expected all on your own up here. I’m glad he saw it.”

  “Me too.” I gathered her bags and set them in my room. “I figured you’d bunk with me tonight.”

  “I really don’t want to scare Lacey away. She’s lovely for you.”

  “I know. But she gets it. I promise.”

  I steered her to the kitchen and pulled out a package of cookies and put on some water for tea. Though I could have crawled right into bed, I sensed that she was still finding it difficult to stop.

  “Bo’d be really disappointed if you sold. He knew, we both did, that cattle ranching isn’t for you. I don’t want you giving up your dream up here. This is where you belong.”

  “Were you mad at me when I came to Quincy? With Shawneen being here and everything? I wasn’t thinking…”

  She shushed the rest of my thought away. “I had the gift of your childhood. Even if she had been exactly who you need right now, she can’t ever take that away.”

  “I spent twenty years being mad at Charlie for taking me away from her. He never made sense to me.”

  “He didn’t feel like he knew what to do. He got it into his head that all he could be was a good rancher, so that’s what he did. I had no idea he was saving all that money for you, but now it makes sense. That was what he felt he could give you.”

  I got up and made our tea, standing by the steeping pot. “I thought he didn’t like me. I thought I messed up his life, that I’d roped him into a life he didn’t want and then forced him to leave the one place he loved. I guess that’s what brought me back here. I thought I could fix things, not that he’d get back together with Shawneen, but that…”

  “You’d finally be able to understand?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He only ever wanted the best for you,” Ruth said gently. “He asked us over and over whether you had enough, if you were happy enough.”

  “I wish he’d asked me.”

  I poured our tea, and we stayed up talking until midnight. When she saw that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, we tucked into bed, Ruth promising that in the morning she’d pick her own room. I accepted that, knowing we were both figuring out the baby steps back to ourselves.

  We were drool-soaked pillows asleep when we heard a truck rumbling up the drive, not the rattling hum of Lacey’s Beetle but the knocking of a large diesel. I sat up wiping my face. Ruth put her arm around me to keep me in bed, and we listened as the noisy engine passed the house.

  “Hagen,” I identified for Ruth. He knew the layout. He angled the truck to the back of the house so the headlights poured right through my bedroom window.

  We both stood and instinctually moved out of the flood of light. “You need to call the police,” Ruth said.

  “He’ll go away,” I said with a prayer.

  He slammed the truck door and both Ruth and I jumped when something hit the side of the house. He’d clambered out of the truck with something in his hand. He popped open a can of beer, and I realized it must have been an empty that he’d thrown. “Came to see the show!” He hollered. “I see you girls in there, just like Shawneen said.” He leaned back against the grille of his truck as he chugged down the next beer.

  I flattened myself against the wall.

  “Madison.” I heard the edge in Ruth’s voice “You cannot ignore this.”

  The can he’d been working on hit the window.

  “I’m not talking to a drunk guy.”

  “I wasn’t saying you should. I’m saying it’s the police department’s job to deal with it.”

  “It’s not natural,” Hagen growled. “You think you can give her what she needs, Lacey? You don’t have what it takes. You’ll never have what it takes.”

  “He’s…”

  “I don’t need to know what he’s doing,” I hissed. “Get away from the window, would you? If he knows we’re listening to him, it’ll only encourage him.”

  “This is ridiculous. You cannot let him camp out and insult you.”

  “…not safe for a woman to be all alone…Hey!”

  “What happened? Did he fall off the truck?” I peeked out of the window. Houdini was butting at Hagen with his giant head.

  “Get your damn horse off me, Madison!” he bellowed staggering to his feet.

  “Get off my property!”

  Hagen grabbed another empty can and crushed it on Houdini’s forehead.

  “Leave my horse alone!”

  “Not until Lacey leaves. Someone’s got to put a stop to what you two have been doing.”

  “Lacey’s not even here.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said, grabbing a hefty rock. “I can see the pair of you.” He switched his aim from Houdini and heaved it toward us instead. I jumped back as it shattered the double-paned window.

  “That’s my mom, asshole!” I stuffed my feet into a pair of work boots.

  “Liar! Who do you think sent me out here?”

  Cool mountain air poured in through my broken window. I stood in the glow of his
headlights and shouted, “Shawneen is not my mother!”

  “She said you need a man.”

  “Well I don’t, so go on home.”

  “Come out and make me.”

  I crunched across the broken glass and dialed 911. Hagen continued his drunken monologue about our future as he looked for something else to heave. Bent over, Houdini butted him to his knees. “Get!” Hagen shouted, kicking out at Houdini. As the horse advanced, Hagen scrambled up the hood of his truck and up onto the windshield.

  “This is Madison Carter,” I said when dispatch asked me to state my emergency. “Hagen Weaver’s back on my property and sent a rock through my bedroom window.”

  “I’m sending the officer on duty now, ma’am. Please remain in the house and on the line.”

  “I am.”

  “If possible, do not engage him.”

  “On their way,” I whispered to Ruth when I went back to find her throwing on sweats and some shoes. I grabbed pants and a light sweatshirt. When he saw us dressing, Hagen moved to jump off the truck, but Houdini seemed to be having fun blocking him.

  Ruth and I waited for the blue and red lights to make their way from town. Brenna parked and approached the house, her hand on her belt. The others swept out to either side of the house, and the drivers stayed by their vehicles.

  I stepped out onto the porch. “Hagen’s still spouting off back behind the house. Houdini has him pinned on his truck.”

  She hollered for them to take the patrol car around back and then turned back to us. “What time did all this start?”

  Everything I’d been through, the flashing lights, and the late hour had frozen my brain. I just stared at Ruth.

  “Twenty minutes?” she guessed.

  Brenna’s radio on her shoulder crackled to life. “We’ve got a runner!”

  “Is he armed?” Brenna growled.

  “Not that I saw,” I said. “He was chucking beer cans and rocks, but I couldn’t see in his cab to know if he had anything on the gun rack.”

  “Stay inside.” She ran down the steps pulling her flashlight from her belt. We followed her instructions and made a beeline for the kitchen. Three powerful beams sweep over the forested area behind my house.