by Sonya Weiss
“Not this time. We can do this.”
Forty-five minutes later, after traipsing through the wooded trails, Cole returned to the fire pit area with Sam. Maddie’s nephew was almost bouncing his steps. Out of the all the treasures, the most coveted one had been a remote-control helicopter, and Cole had found it for Sam. He’d nearly face-planted in a batch of poison ivy after losing his footing, but it was worth it.
As soon as they were back with the rest of the group, Sam took great delight in showing off the win.
Maddie came to stand beside him. “You’ve earned a fan for life.”
“He seems like a good kid.” Cole looked down at Maddie. He’d never seen her look so at ease, so happy. To busy his mind, he took three of the marshmallow roasting sticks from her and began loading them up. With her so close that he could breathe in her sweet floral scent, he kept wasting marshmallows by accidentally dropping them in the dirt.
“Like this.” Maddie closed her hands over his and slowly guided the treat down onto the stick. “If you do it slowly, it’s better.”
Need, hot and insistent, rose up within him. He told himself it was a biological response. Nothing more. He’d believe his own bullshit if he didn’t look forward to being near her as much as he did. His mind warned him he wasn’t the one in control, that he was about to do something stupid like lower his guard.
That wasn’t who he was. What he did. He was ruthless. In control. Always with the winning hand. The only reason Maddie was even in his life at the moment was so he could get to her grandfather. But it had been a hell of a lot easier in the beginning when he’d thought she was out to get him. He didn’t feel that way anymore, and it was playing havoc with his brain. Trying to get back to even ground where he was the one in complete charge, he said, “I’ve seen how you interact with him. You always seem to know what to say or do.”
Maddie pulled her marshmallow from the fire and blew softly on it. He thought about kissing those lips. Thought about them on him. When she started talking, he had to force himself to abandon those thoughts.
“I sort of play it by ear.” As if she could read his mind, she sent him an amused look. “Kind of try to figure out how he’s feeling. If my life would have turned out differently, I probably would have had one or two myself.”
That surprised Cole. “What do you mean differently?”
“Anything other than a rich heiress whose trust fund ran dry.”
Cole winced. “I was a little harsh, wasn’t I?”
She bumped her shoulder against his. “Understatement of the year. You were trying to draw blood.”
He exhaled. “About that…I think that I may have completely misjudged you.” He looked at her. “I thought you were like your family and trying to get to me for some ulterior motive.”
“Is that your way of saying sorry?” Maddie picked off a bite of the marshmallow and tasted it.
“It is. I don’t make it a habit of leaping to conclusions, and I don’t make snap judgments, but when I realized who you were, it was as if I couldn’t think rationally.”
“Tell me about it,” Maddie admitted. “It was the same for me.”
“You couldn’t think rationally?”
“With all the things I used to think about you when I’d see you working in the yard?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Like?”
“Oh no. Your ego is big enough as it is.”
“Being humble is difficult when you’re as great as I am.”
Maddie laughed. “Who knew you had such a good sense of humor? That sure wasn’t what I noticed about you all those years ago.”
Unable to help himself, he reached over and caught a strand of hair blowing in her face. “You know what I’d like? To start over. Erase the junk between us.” Cole couldn’t believe he’d said that. He felt like any second now, he was going to start writing flowery poetry about unicorns and butterflies.
“I’d like that, too.” She hesitated, then asked, “When I prove that my grandfather isn’t the one responsible for what happened to you, will you at least be willing to consider the facts?”
She might as well be asking him to hook the moon up to the back of his car and drive it to his garage. He knew Samuel Russell was guilty. Had heard it with his own ears. The only reason he wasn’t saying a loud hell no right now was for Maddie’s sake. “Show me proof that he’s innocent and I’ll listen to you.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
“You were never spoiled at all, were you, Maddie?”
“I’d like to think not.” She hesitated, as if weighing her words. “When I was little, my father made me help the maids and the cook after he found out I wasn’t his. I think he thought I’d hate it. I guess he was trying to turn me into a modern day Cinderella, but what he meant for punishment turned out to be good for me.”
Cole’s stomach clenched at the thought of a child bearing that kind of hatred. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I guess it was a hard blow for him, learning that Mom cheated on him and I wasn’t his.”
“He’s without excuse. You don’t take the shortcomings of adults out on a child.”
“What would you have done?”
“Had I been him, I would have divorced your mother, and I would have loved you fiercely, never once telling you that you weren’t my daughter.”
“You’ll make a great father someday.”
Uncomfortable with the thought, Cole nodded his head toward the boys where Sam and Shane were playing together like they were best friends. “Apparently, all is now well between them.”
Maddie turned to look, and Sam ran up to them excitedly talking about the ghost stories that Shane’s dad would tell later. When he threw his arms around her waist and gave her an exuberant hug, Cole had to glance away. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He wanted to save both of them from any more hurt in life.
Seeing Maddie with Sam and watching the easy back and forth she had with him gave Cole a strange new longing for laughter, for love, and for a sense of belonging. That scared the hell out of him.
It scared him that he’d been wrong about her, and he wrestled with the urge to hold her, to fly her to exotic destinations and show her the finer things in life. To show her kindness, tenderness, caring.
He wanted to be with her not only because he enjoyed her company but because he believed she was someone he could take a chance with and let his guard down. Other than his friends, he hadn’t ever felt that way toward another person. He wanted to protect her, be her shelter, the one she ran to, and that scared the hell out of him, too. There was risk with emotions. He’d been there, done that, and didn’t want to go that route again. The problem, he realized as he watched Maddie, was he wasn’t sure if he even had a choice in the matter.
Chapter Ten
The morning after Dani and Sam left to return to Texas, Maddie got ready for the day and went downstairs. During the camping trip, Cole had been different. Relaxed and more open. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. When she saw him, it made her thoughts jumble. She liked the way he smiled, the way he leaned in to listen, the way he looked at her that made her get all tingly inside.
In the kitchen, she found the object of her thoughts leaning against a counter, a cup of coffee in his hand. His dark gaze met hers, and she didn’t look away until she reached for a cup to pour her own coffee. Though her hand was steady, she felt shaky from the power of that look.
“I can be ready to leave for the hotel as soon as I’m done with this.” She poured a hazelnut creamer pod into her coffee and stirred, amazed at herself for sounding so calm. “I have some ideas about what we can do to keep boosting profits.”
“I don’t want to.”
Maddie gaped. Cole was all about business. He was one of the most singularly focused men she knew. “You don’t want to?”
“No.” He exhaled. “I want to blow off work and play hooky today.”
Maddie assessed him, thinking about ho
w their relationship had changed during the camping trip. They’d shifted from wary adversaries to almost friends. “I’d like that,” she said. What she really liked, too, was how sexy he looked. She sipped the coffee. “If we’re not going in, then what did you have in mind for today?”
“I was thinking we could start by touring one of Chicago’s haunted houses. It recently reopened to the public.”
“Sounds spooky, but I’m game.” If it meant spending time with him, she was up for pretty much anything.
“Good. Afterward, we can have lunch out.” He indicated the blue dress with white polka dots that she’d chosen to wear. “You look beautiful by the way.”
Other men had told her that, but it was Cole’s words, said in his deep, sexy voice, and the look in his eyes that tied her stomach in knots. “Thank you. So do you. Handsome, I mean.”
“Come on then. I know a good breakfast café.”
“With what’s in your pantry, I hope so,” Maddie said with a laugh as she headed out the door with him.
Cole led the way to a garage behind the house and announced the car was a 1969 blue Camaro with white stripes across the hood as he pulled off a cover.
Maddie trailed her fingers across the side. “Bad boys and their toys.”
“Bad boy?”
“It’s a mindset. Power. Control. The guy who’s confident. Sure of himself. He always gets the girl, and she can’t stop fantasizing about him in and out of the bedroom. A bad boy makes a woman willing to beg.”
“Speaking personally?”
“Not me. I won’t need to beg. You’ll put out eventually. I have a contract.”
Cole laughed. “I have every intention of consummating the contract.”
Maddie hid a frown. Of course. The contract.
He tossed the cover to the side and went to take a set of keys from a steel lock box. “I’ve got a ’70 Plymouth Barracuda that can take you from zero to sixty in less than six seconds if you prefer that one.”
Maddie looked over to where he pointed. “You collect cars.”
He shrugged. “It’s one of my many vices.”
“I don’t care what your vices are as long as I get to eat. I’m starving.” As soon as he unlocked the door, Maddie settled in the Camaro’s passenger seat. She liked being in close confines with him. Liked watching him easily handle the car’s power and wondered if he’d handle her power just as easily. The thought made anticipation spread through her.
After eating at a quiet little café off the beaten path, Cole drove to a house located near the lake where they’d released the Chinese sky lanterns. The tour guide, a woman Maddie thought looked a little like a fortune teller in a filmy skirt and dozens of bracelets on each arm, led the way up the steps of a three-story brownstone.
In the living room, the woman gestured with a dramatic sweep of her hands. “This house was home to Miriam Parnham and was the last place she saw the man she loved. You may remember hearing the story of the star-crossed lovers who kept trying to find their way to one another even in death.”
Maddie looked around as the guide told the story. She could almost see the wealthy young woman’s angry father sending her down-on-his-luck beau away.
Cole moved to stand beside her, and their arms brushed. Maddie shivered, covering her reaction to the contact by saying, “That’s so sad. Imagine loving someone so much that you spend eternity searching for her.” She didn’t imagine the sound of disbelief Cole uttered.
“I can’t imagine.”
“Do you think it’s foolish?” Maddie walked beside him as they were led up the stairs to the bedroom where the young woman spent weeks writing unanswered letters to her lover.
“It’s certainly not the kind of reality I’ve known in my life. In reality, the young woman moved on within a week and married someone her father approved of so that she didn’t lose her inheritance.”
“You’re not really qualified to discount the story,” Maddie pointed out. “You said yourself you’ve never been in love, so you don’t know how you’d react if you lost the woman who meant the world to you.”
“I know that unlike the guy in the story, I sure as hell wouldn’t stand in the middle of the Rice River ballroom every year waiting for someone I knew would never show up.”
“He stood there for hours with his hand outstretched hoping that she would step forward from the crowd and take it. He did that until the day he died because he had hope that Miriam would be able to escape her overbearing father and meet him,” Maddie argued. “I think his actions were romantic.”
“He sent her a note every year telling her where he’d be, and she never showed up. That proves she moved on.”
Maddie shook her head. “It proves her father somehow kept the notes from her. Or he locked her up or sent her away.” She touched the old-fashioned hand mirror on top of the 1800s dresser and turned back to Cole. “I wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of getting to the man I loved, and I hope down the road someday you’ll be able to feel that way about a woman.”
“Why?” He frowned. “I’ve survived quite happily this long without it.”
“Happily? You say that only because you don’t know the difference that loving someone can make in your life.” He didn’t answer her, but Maddie hadn’t expected him to. She headed down the stairs toward the first floor of the house. The only thing that could turn an anti-Cupid guy into a believer was falling in love. She glanced at Cole’s profile. It would take a strong woman with the patience of a saint to get him to take a chance on that emotion. She sure didn’t envy that woman.
When the guide shared that the center of the living room was where the couple had their last desperate kiss before the man was wrenched away and tossed outside, everyone in the group fell silent. She pulled back the corner of a rug. “After that night, a mark in the shape of a heart appeared on the floor here. No matter how many times the owner replaced the flooring, this heart always comes back.”
Maddie leaned forward to look and shivered as a chill passed over her. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Cole put his hand on her shoulder and told her he had to take a call. Shaking off her skittishness, she talked to the guide for a few minutes, then thanked the woman and walked out in the bright sunlight.
Cole waited on the sidewalk, and Maddie wasn’t oblivious to the interested glances he received from a few women who walked by him. He’d covered his eyes with a pair of dark sunglasses and leaned back against the hood of his car with one foot propped on the bumper. A hard jolt of awareness hit her and took her by surprise because it was accompanied by a strange wave of emotion.
She walked down the steps, and Cole straightened. When she reached the side of the car, he said, “There’s a client flying in unexpectedly, so Mason is hosting a business party at his place. Would you like to accompany me?”
“Of course. It’s part of my contract, after all,” she said and wondered why he frowned at that. She was planning to keep up her end of the deal.
“Right,” he said slowly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not.” She put her hand against her stomach. “If you don’t feed me now, I might wither away.”
“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“I know just the place. You’ll love it. Trust me.”
…
He wasn’t so sure about the trust, given the sight of the building. Stone archway, gargoyles, and daggered hearts, all done in black, made up the exterior.
“Love Bites?” Cole read the sign over the restaurant’s door out loud as they entered.
Maddie nodded. “It’s the only down-with-love restaurant in Chicago. I figured you’d love the irony in that.”
He looked around the place. “It does have a dark appeal.”
“A friend of mine, Delilah Hawkins, owns it.”
A hostess wearing a black dress with a broken red heart design swooped up to them. “Welcome to Love Bites. Right this way.
”
They walked past a shelf near the register where Cole saw a jar labeled Ashes of ex-boyfriends who screwed me over.
“The atmosphere certainly is unique,” Cole said as they were seated at a high-back booth. He picked up a menu, then lowered it. “Hawkins…that couldn’t be—”
“Hawkins Holding. Billionaire family on the Fortune 500 list for their technology, aerospace software, cosmetics, and…well…a lot.”
“We’ve been trying to arrange a meeting with D.L. Hawkins for the past six months. Would that be Delilah?”
“It is,” Maddie admitted. “Only a few of her friends know that she owns this place. Or that she’s the driving force behind the success of her family’s business. If she’s in today, I’ll introduce you.”
“Thank you,” Cole said as a teenage waitress came to take their order. This woman had bright lavender hair and wore a T-shirt with black angel wings across it. When she spotted Maddie, she let out an excited, “Hi!” and leaned in for a hug.
When she straightened, she tapped a pencil against the order pad and explained, “Maddie saved my life. After I aged out of the foster care system, I was living on the streets until she helped me find a job and let me crash with her until I got into college. She’s amazing.”
Cole was fascinated by the blush that spread across Maddie’s beautiful face. “Yes, she is amazing.” He never thought he’d think of the word giving and someone with the Russell last name in the same thought, but that was before he’d started to get to know the real Maddie.
The waitress took their order and left, and when they were alone again, he said, “You do a lot for people without asking anything in return.”
“I like helping.” She picked up a pamphlet from the condiment holder and showed it to him. Across the top in black marker, someone had written Save yourselves the grief. Don’t do relationships. Maddie grinned. “Probably Delilah’s handiwork. It’s a questionnaire from a dating website to see if a couple is compatible.”
Cole took a sip of his water. “Okay, fire away.”
“What’s the smartest thing you’ve ever done?”