by Mia Madison
I take Peggy back to her seat. Fuck, the woman is an octopus!
“Do you want to get together for a drink sometime, Jack? Or I could cook you supper.” The way she says it, touching my arm, I'm sure she means breakfast too. And probably everything else all laid out on a plate, but I'm not interested. There's only one woman who I want to have dinner and breakfast with here. And I can't believe it's Madilyn Collier who I've known since she was knee high to a grasshopper.
Brian's two daughters have always been just that—his daughters. I've never thought of either of them as anything other than that. Great kids and that's all. Madilyn's sister, Sarah, is a couple of years older than her, and never a glimmer that I might see her as something more. So why is it different with Madilyn?
Looking back was she just a great kid or did I favor her? She always made me smile when I watched her playing, making a tea party for her dolls or telling them off when they were naughty. She loved stories and would sit reading for hours, lost in a world of her own. But she would ask lots of cheeky questions that made me laugh about all kinds of things and made me see how strange the world is when you’re six or seven years old. It nearly broke my heart when she had her accident, to see how upset she was. And then as she got older she became shy with me and it was never the same after that.
But now I love the way she’s flirting without being brazen, reminding me of how charming and engaging she was years ago. I like her blushes. She’s a little bit flustered not like those women who come on too strong. And she’s so beautiful tonight. She grew up while I was gone! I catch her giving me sly little looks when she thinks my attention is elsewhere. But she has it wrong about my attention because she’s constantly on my radar screen tonight.
So, when she slips out into the bar with her friend, I offer the crowd at Peggy's table a drink. Most of them politely decline. Peggy wants a martini. She's welcome to a drink and nothing else.
As I approach the bar and the girls, Madilyn's friend says, “Hi there, sorry, I've just got to say hello to your mum and dad, Madilyn,” and she moves off leaving us alone in a roomful of people.
“Still creating chaos and mayhem with your friend?” I ask.
“Not quite. Carrie's been going it alone for the last few years. She doesn't do too badly by herself though.”
“Beautiful dress,” I whisper in her ear. “It suits you.”
She giggles. The girlish sound is music to my ears. I used to make her laugh all the time when she was growing up. Even when the girls at school teased her about her hand after the accident I could always cheer her up.
“How is...where are you living these days?” I'm not sure I want to know about her life outside this party but it’s better to find out even if I don’t like the answers.
“I was in Inverness. But I've just moved back home.”
“You didn’t like the Highlands? I heard you were getting married. Where is the lucky guy tonight?”
“The Highlands were great. Fiancé not so much. I was engaged. And now I'm not.” She shrugs and smiles.
“You don't seem too sad about that.”
“Narrow escape.”
“Poor guy.”
“Not poor guy. Gobshite as Carrie calls him.”
“I'll take your word for it.” I smile at her. Suddenly, this evening is looking a whole lot more interesting. “I have to get your Mum's friend a martini then I'll be right back. Would you like a drink?”
She hands me her wine glass, her fingers brushing mine and I want to grab her hand and pull her to me. “Thank you,” she says. “I'd like another one of those though I probably shouldn't.”
I pray the service is fast in this hotel and she won't be whisked away by one of her family while I'm getting the drinks. But fate is on my side and I'm back with her in no time with a drink for each of us. I think I just annoyed Peggy handing over her martini and leaving her with it. She sent me some nastygram vibes but I can't think about her just now.
I clink glasses with Madilyn. “Here's to old times and your mum and dad. Twenty-five years, that's something.”
“Is that how long you've known them?”
“Not quite. I met your Dad when I started as a fireman and he had already been there a few years—it was eighteen maybe nineteen years ago. He pulled me from a fire in that first year and probably saved my life. There's no finer way than that to make a friend.”
“He never said that's how you became friends.”
I watch her mouth as she speaks and I have this undeniable urge to kiss her. For fuck's sake, Jack! Get a grip!
“I guess he doesn't make a big thing of it because rescues are just what we do. Great guy, your dad. Anyway—here's to the next twenty-five years.” I lift my drink and we clink glasses again and smile.
“Maybe we'll see each other again at their golden wedding,” Madilyn says.
“I'm sure we'll see a lot more of each other now we're both living back here.”
“I didn't know you were back.”
“I just decided to take the position I've been offered at the station here.”
Does she realize she helped make up my mind? Maybe it wasn’t her. I don't know. But I've been trying to decide for a few days and suddenly I know coming back is exactly what I want to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
Madilyn
“Dance with me,” Jack says, taking my glass from my hand. As his fingers brush mine I feel a tingle right down my spine. It's funny, I usually recoil if a guy I like touches the scar on my hand but it's not like that with Jack. He always made me feel pretty despite that. He used to pretend I was a princess and kiss my hand like a handsome prince to make me laugh. I think that's when I started loving him even though I was only eight.
It's on the tip of my tongue to say, I don't dance, at least not that kind of dancing, but he's looking at me so intensely I don't dare refuse him. I just hope I don't make an idiot of myself. Those Saturday night dancing shows have not rubbed off on me at all.
He holds me like a gentleman. But even his hands on my back are enough to send a thrill up and down my body, my nipples pebbling up under my dress. As the dance progresses, he whispers in my ear to make himself heard above the band music. I feel the softness of his lips against my ear and the heat of his body through my dress where we're not even touching and I want that dance to last forever.
His words are soothing, reassuring, telling me where we are going in the dance, what he's doing. All about the mechanics but somehow in his arms dancing doesn't seem difficult at all. He guides and I follow like we were made to move together. I don't know how it looks to anyone else—maybe we'd get a score of four or five out of ten from the judges but I don't care what anyone thinks of my dancing. It feels like I'm floating on air.
“How come you know how to dance?” I ask not because I need to know but because I want an excuse to put my lips to his ear, to brush them against his skin, to get more of the intoxicating warm man scent of him—faint spicy cologne mixed with pure Jack.
“You can blame my mother for that. Dancing lessons are pure torture even at nine years old.” His lips are at my ear again. I can feel my heart throbbing in my chest. Can he sense that? If he can, he doesn't mention it. “I'm glad of those lessons tonight, though. I might have trodden on your poor toes.”
And as the band plays on we move closer and closer together. I feel his body against mine, the strength of him. The body I saw naked that night in the hall is now against me. I feel the power in his muscles as we move around the room. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well be the only ones dancing because I'm only aware of the music and him, our limbs moving together, the hardness of him against me.
“Oh, Madilyn,” he murmurs. “What are you doing to me?”
I don't think he means me to hear that, never mind answer, so I don't. His thighs move against my legs. I want to press myself harder against him. I feel him kiss my hair and suddenly I'm aware we're here at my parents' party. This can't get out of hand, not like I want it to. We ha
ve to stop before anyone notices that this is more than an obligatory polite dance with a family friend.
At that moment, he pulls me to one side leaving the other dancers to continue without us. Maybe he's had the same thought and wants to stop this before it gets too awkward. Does he mean to leave me with a drink just like he did with Peggy? That way he can hit on some other woman, one with no complications. I know he's no saint. Not from all the remarks my parents have made about him and women and all the women he brought to dinner parties at our house over the years as I was growing up.
But he doesn't leave me. He says, “Let's take a walk outside,” and the butterflies start doing a waltz inside me about the idea of me and him alone and what might happen when we are. We walk out into the bar area. His hand feels wonderful on my back guiding me out.
“I'll see you out there,” I say, indicating the door out into the hotel garden. “I'll follow you out in a couple of minutes.”
“You don't want to set all those tongues wagging then?”
I laugh. “My aunties would have a field day.”
He slips out and I pop to the bathroom. I need to calm myself down before I go out there to him. What am I doing? Do I want this? I look in the mirror. Hell, yes! My need for him has taken over my brain. As I run cold water over my wrists, Mum comes in.
I give her a hug. “Enjoying your party?” I ask. I know I am, and a whole lot more than I was earlier in the evening.
“Yes,” she says. “I'm glad we decided to splurge a bit. But if you can't celebrate this what can you celebrate?”
As we leave the bathroom, a few of the guests stop to speak to us and it's hard to excuse myself. I'm desperate to get outside to Jack. He'll be waiting for me and wondering where I am. Maybe he's fed up by now and has given up. In the end, I tell the group who has gathered around Mum that I have to find Carrie and I get away.
It's cool outside. I wish I’d brought my wrap and I don't see Jack anywhere but when I go around the side of the building, there he is, his back to me and he's on the phone.
“This party is going on later than I expected so I've booked a room here at the hotel. Just so you don't wait up for me.” He laughs at something, his voice intimate in the night air. “I'll catch you tomorrow,” he says and ends the call.
***
I flee from the garden. What was I thinking? That he was interested in me for myself? He's booked a room here even though he still has another woman around. Was he planning on inviting me to his room? I bet that’s what he had in mind. First a walk around the garden then an invitation. The nerve of him! I should have known. I’ve seen him with so many women in the past but I thought he would be different with me.
I feel like throwing up. I’ve been half in love with Jack for so many years I can’t help feeling devastated. But I make myself go back to the party with a smile on my face. I just have to get through the evening for Mum and Dad’s sake and then I can hide in my room at home. And if I never see Jack again, it will be too soon.
CHAPTER SIX
Jack
Where is Madilyn? She should be out here by now. I shouldn't have agreed to sneak outside like we have something to hide. But then I can't kiss her the way I want with her family looking on. That kiss is not going to be for public consumption.
I give up waiting and go in to look for her.
“Have you seen Madilyn?” I ask Carrie who seems to be heavily into some guy she's with.
“Over there.”
I scan the room in the direction she indicated. Madilyn is sitting down with her grandparents. Has she changed her mind about joining me in the garden? What the fuck is going on? Is she using her family like a human shield to protect herself? From me? Why didn't she just come out and tell me she was having second thoughts?
She notices me and looks away. I may be wrong and misreading the situation through the dim light of the room but she seems furious and not as if she feels guilty about standing me up outside. This is nuts. How can she have switched from hot to stone cold fury in a few minutes? But there's no doubt about it. She has. That's a grade A scowl on her face. A scowl I’m pretty sure is directed at me and not her grandmother.
Peggy comes over and grabs my arm. “Do you want to dance?”
I wrench my arm away and then realize how rude I'm being when I see her face. “Sorry, Peggy. Bad timing, okay?”
“Suit yourself.”
Peggy goes off. I hope I haven't upset her too much. It's not my usual way with women. Wanting Madilyn and having her go hot and cold is freaking me out a little.
I look over to where she was sitting again but she has gone. Where the hell is she now?
I go out to the bar. I need a drink. It’s as if some crazy chick parachuted in and stole the Madilyn I was dancing with. I know I'll see her at the Colliers some time but I'll never find out what's going on in her head with her family all around.
Madilyn is getting a glass of water at the bar. She turns and spots me but refuses to look at me.
“What the hell, Madilyn? Where did you go?” I grab her arm.
“Let go of me or you'll be getting this water right where you don't want it and I'll have to get another glass for my grandmother.”
“What have I done to deserve that?”
“I heard you, on the phone.”
“On the phone?”
“Yes, telling some woman how you'd decided to get a room here. Did you think you were going to get lucky with me then go back to her?”
My phone call! “Oh, Madilyn! That was my friend's wife Michelle. I already decided to stay the night and checked in this afternoon once I knew it wasn't just a few drinks but a longer thing. I just couldn't get hold of my friends earlier. I'd have been staying with your family but you have a full house right now.”
“Oh.” She looks contrite now she realizes her accusation is unfounded. “I'll just take this to Gran and I’ll be back.” She indicates the water then she looks at me. “If you want me to come back, that is.”
“Yes, Madilyn. I want you to come right back and then I'm going to take you outside.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Madilyn
He's not leaving anything to chance this time. He waits for me and we go out together, his hand on my back, turning my insides to jelly. I wonder if anyone notices us going out. Probably not. They are all dancing or chatting or getting drinks at the bar. But just the thought that we might be spotted adds another layer of excitement, almost fear.
“It's cool out here. You'll need my jacket,” he says. He takes it off and slips it around me. The shoulders are huge on me. It's nearly as long as my dress.
“My jacket suits you,” he says. “But not as much as what's underneath.”
I laugh. He likes my dress. Or did he mean my dress? The way he said “what's underneath” makes me think he meant something else entirely and just the thought of that makes me blush and sends my blood racing.
“What are you going to do now you're back?” he asks, taking my hand while we walk farther away from the side door of the hotel.
“I don't know. Wait tables or something.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Is that what you want?”
“I don't know what I want.” I want him at that moment but I guess that's not what he's asking.
“I always thought you would do something with clothes. You used to spend hours dressing your dolls. And there was that time you cut a bit off the bottom of your mother's bedroom curtains to make an outfit for your Barbie. Do you remember that?”
“Oh yes, she flipped out. I thought she wouldn't notice. Those curtains were too long anyway.”
We laugh. He has a point though. I’d enjoy working with clothes. I never even thought about it. It's so competitive in the fashion world and my degree won't help at all.
He squeezes my hand and leads me past the rose bushes and around the corner under a big gnarled oak tree.
“Now,” he says, “where were we before you decided I was up to no good? I
know. I was about to do this.”
He pulls me to him, sliding his hands under his jacket to hold my waist, his lips on mine, hot and urgent, my breasts against his chest. My mouth opens for him, welcoming him in. I don't think I've ever wanted a kiss so much.
I lose myself in the taste of him, a heady mix of wine and subtle peppermint along with pure Jack. He moves his hands to my hair, pulling my face to him, cradling the back of my head as our kiss deepens, the darkness of the night and the sound of the garden shrouding us in our own world.
When we break apart we're both breathing heavily, astonished by the need in that kiss. He smooths my hair down where he ruffled it, running his fingers through the strands. And then he kisses me again as if he can't stop, as if he wants me as much as I want him.
“Wow!” He plants a little kiss on my nose and then he stops short. It's as if some alarm bell has sounded in his brain. “Shit! Your mum and dad are not going to...”
But I don't want him thinking about that. I put my lips to his to silence his words and kiss away his thoughts and he doesn't seem to need much persuasion to refocus. Pressed against him, without the restriction of being in front of everyone on the dance floor, I feel every muscle, the hard length of him against my body. I can't resist reaching down and touching him right there and he groans. I run my fingers up and down.
“Madilyn,” he warns, his eyes wide.
I shocked him! I kinda like that. I can't have him thinking I'm some innocent he's corrupting. That's not what this is about at all. He has to see me as I am now, not the child he once knew.
He starts kissing me again and I reach for the buckle on his belt. I want to feel his bare naked flesh in my hands, the part of him I can see so clearly in my mind's eye from the night in the hall. But he stops me, grabbing my hand.
“Miss Mischief,” he says, teasing. “First you're listening in to my phone call and imagining all kinds of things that aren't true and now your naughty fingers are skipping ahead. What will I do with you?”