Pretend You'll Stay (Winter Kisses Book 2)

by Kathryn Kelly

  Madison realized she was just standing there, staring at them through the window. She forced herself to move to open the door.

  “Oh my God, Madison,” her mother said, pulling her into a hug. “I thought you were dead.”

  Always dramatic, Madison’s mom, Zoe. “I’m not dead, Mom.”

  “You kind of smell like it,” Zoe said.

  Madison found the energy to sigh.

  “What’s wrong with you?” her mother asked.

  “Let’s go inside,” Dad said, glancing around.

  Madison backed up and allowed them to come into their home. “What are you doing here?’

  “We came to get you.”

  “To get me? How did you know I was here?”

  “Mrs. Crandall from next door called us.”

  “How did she call you? Weren’t you in Europe?”

  “Don’t you keep up? We’ve been home for two weeks.”

  “I’ve been here for over two weeks.”

  “Well, that explains it. We called and left messages for you. We even called your office, but they didn’t know where you were. You even left your cell phone there,” Zoe handed Madison her cell phone. “I charged it for you. You’ve got like a billion messages.”

  “I’m sure I do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming?”

  “I didn’t exactly know.”

  “This place is a mess,” her dad commented, shoving a newspaper aside to sit down. “Where is Timothy? Doesn’t he help you clean up?”

  “Timothy? I don’t know where he is.”

  “You’ve been napping, haven’t you?” her mother asked. “He probably got bored and went somewhere. You always have napped too much. You’re either napping or working. I swear, I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Mom, I get tired,” Madison said, as she always said, and slid down onto the sofa.

  “No, this is different,” her mother said, sounding alarmed. She put her wrist on Madison’s forehead. “Are you sick?’

  “No. I don’t know.”

  Her dad waved his hand toward the newspaper. “Were you helping out with this train wreck? It sounded awful. We saw it on the national news.”

  Madison followed his gaze to the photos of the train wreck plastered across the newspaper. She couldn’t even remember buying the newspaper, much less reading it.

  It was happening. She was forgetting her life here. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Her lips started to tremble and she started to cry.

  Her mother pulled her to her and held her close. “It’s ok, baby. It’ll be ok.”

  But Madison knew that it was not ok.

  The next morning, her dad cleaned up the townhouse while her mom helped her pack what few things she had collected.

  “What made you disappear, Madison?” her mom asked.

  “I just needed to get away.”

  “It’s Timothy, isn’t it? There’s just something about him. Is he being controlling? Because if he is, you can get out now, before you marry him. You don’t want to be married to a control-freak.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “Oh, he’s alright. If you like him, then your father and I like him. Otherwise…” Her mother let the sentence hang, leaving things unsaid. Things that told Madison understood. Her mother didn’t like Timothy.

  “Thanks for telling me. It would have been nice if you’d told me before I agreed to marry him.”

  “You just seemed so happy with him, I didn’t want to mess it up.”

  “And now? Now you don’t mind messing it up?”

  “The fact that you haven’t spoken to him in almost three weeks, tells me there’s something already messed up.”

  Madison nodded. “He called and left three messages. Did he try to call you?”

  “No. Three messages in three weeks, huh?”

  Madison took her overalls from the dryer and carefully folded them.

  “What’s that?” her mother asked. “Did you actually wear that?’

  “I wore it proudly,” Madison said, and holding the garment to her, squeezed her eyes shut. She could still remember. She remembered the train, the whistles, the passengers. She remembered Daniel. His smile. His kisses. Oh, his kisses. She almost wished she would go ahead and forget if she were going to. This was just torture. Remembering him. Knowing she wouldn’t remember him long.

  She wanted to tell her mom what had happened, but she knew that Zoe would not understand. It would make no sense to her. And it sure wouldn’t make any sense to her dad. She almost laughed at the thought.

  She supposed that as far as anyone needed to know, she had pre-wedding jitters and just needed to get away. To consider everything.

  “They told us about the shooting,” Zoe said. So much for that theory. “It was just the last straw, wasn’t it? You needed to get away to think.”

  Her mom was creating her cover story for her as she went. Zoe always had been a great mom, even if she didn’t understand her daughter.

  She had been right, really. Most of what she could remember about her life was working - or studying, which was pretty much the same thing as far as Madison could tell, and sleeping.

  They had been so excited when she announced that she was getting married. They had, she supposed, just about given up on that ever happening. Then after they had gotten to know Timothy, some of their enthusiasm for the project had waned.

  They continued to try to be supportive. Perhaps, she guessed, in anticipation of grandchildren. As far as Madison went, she just sort of went along with the flow. Timothy set most of the pace. Again, Madison was either working or sleeping. The relationship just… happened.

  Funny, how she hadn’t realized that until now. Maybe it was these last couple of weeks on the train - with Daniel. She hadn’t spent all her time working.

  She had enjoyed herself. She had actually fallen in love.

  She didn’t know whether or not she loved Timothy. She must love him. She had agreed to marry him.

  She had not agreed to marry Daniel. But then, Daniel hadn’t really pushed her, either. Unlike Timothy who had pushed her and pushed her, until she had agreed.

  She’d thought she had been happy. It was probably mostly work that made her happy though, now that she thought about it.

  “Ok,” her dad said, interrupting her thoughts, “I think the place is decent enough to leave. I’ll call the cleaning service and have them come in to make sure it’s all back in order.”

  Madison turned away and placed her overalls in her suitcase. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she said. “I was here long enough to make a mess, but not here enough to clean it up.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “The important thing is that you’re ok.”

  Again, they thought she was ok. They wanted her to be ok. “I have to go take a bath,” she said, going toward the bathroom.

  “Didn’t she already take a shower this morning?” she heard her mother ask as she closed the door.

  She had already taken a shower, but she needed to sit in the hot water so she could calm her mind.

  And she could think about Daniel without her parents interrupted her every thought.

  Later that afternoon, Daniel pulled up at the curb next to what he thought of as Madison’s townhouse. His doctor had reluctantly released him and his mother had fought him every step of the way as he got into his car. He had promised to call her as soon as he got to his condo so his father could drive him out to their house for him to finish recuperating.

  He watched the house for ten minutes before he decided there was no activity. He had missed her. While he was lying around in a hospital bed being tortured by battle ax nurses, she had left without a trace.

  He switched on the motor and turned up the heater. Just as he was about to put the car in drive, the front door opened and a man came out the door.

  They looked at each other, considering. The man came around to the driver’s side and Daniel lowered the wind
ow.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for Madison,” Daniel said.

  The man hesitated. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’ve been in the hospital.”

  “How do you know Madison?”

  “I plan to marry her.” Daniel said. He had no reason to keep his intentions a secret.

  “You’ll have to get in line.”

  “We worked together. How do you know her?” Perhaps he should have asked before he spilled his intentions.

  “I’m her father. Were you on the train?”

  “Yes, with Madison.”

  “She was on the train?”

  “Yes, that’s where she was working.”

  “I don’t really understand -.”

  “Is she ok?”

  “I don’t think so. But I do think she will be with time.”

  “What’s wrong? Is she hurt?” He’d thought it was her memory, but it could be more serious. She could have been injured. His pulse quickened as Madison’s father seemed to debate what to tell him.

  “I don’t really know. Something happened to her that she won’t talk about.”

  “I know,” Daniel said somberly.

  “It had something to do with you?”

  “No sir. It happened before she got here.”

  “The shooting in Houston.”

  “There was a shooting?” Things started to fall into place. Daniel looked away as he was overtaken with a chill.

  “Yes, you didn’t know?”

  “No, but that explains a lot.”

  Daniel was cold. He may have been ready to leave the hospital, but maybe he wasn’t ready to sit out in the cold. “Can I see her?” he asked, glancing toward the townhouse.

  Her dad shook his head. “She isn’t there.”

  The wind whooshed out of him. He’d had the illusion of a reprieve, but he’d been too late after all. “She’s gone,” he said. “I just came back to get her cell phone. She doesn’t seem to able to keep up with it these days.” Madison’s dad leaned against the open window. “You don’t look so good.”

  Daniel reached over and turned up the heat. And tried not to allow his teeth to chatter.

  “I’m meeting her and her mom at the airport,” he said, “to drop off her phone, then I’m coming back here until tomorrow. Want to ride along?”

  He could see Madison. His heart sang with joy. Right now he would have agreed to fly to the moon to see Madison. “Yes,” he said.

  “Come on. I don’t really think you should be driving anyway.”

  “That’s what my mom kept saying.”

  “I’m Martin McKivitz, by the way,” he said, taking Daniel’s arm to steady him.

  “Daniel Beaumont.”

  As Daniel struggled to go the few feet to Martin’s car, Martin commented, “You must really want to see her.”

  “More than anything.”

  Madison sat staring out the window at the planes below. At the plane that in a couple of hours would take her away from the man she loved.

  Every fiber in her being fought against her being there, holding that boarding pass.

  When it started to rain, she nodded in agreement. The sky, too, was crying.

  She knew that once she boarded that plane, she would be nonexistent to Daniel. He would never find her. Other than Houston, he didn’t even know where to start.

  Houston was the fourth largest city in the United States. And…, he wouldn’t know that she had moved to The Woodlands, north of Houston. He could look everywhere for her and never find her. Would he find her on the Internet?

  No. He would let her go.

  Her mom had found her purse with her credit cards hidden on the back of a shelf in the guest bedroom closet. Madison supposed she had put it there, though she didn’t remember it. The story of her life.

  Her mom came and sat down next to her, handed her a coffee cup of something hot. Madison sniffed the hot chocolate, wrapped her hands around it. Remembered sharing a cup of hot chocolate at the inn with Daniel on their first evening together.

  She sighed. Her heart ached. She wanted Daniel. She didn’t want to go back to Timothy. She didn’t want to go back to her high stress job at the clinic.

  “Madison?” her mother interrupted her thoughts. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  Madison considered the option. She turned and met her mothers’ eyes. Zoe was the most practical woman Madison knew. She was the one person who helped her put aside her reservations and plunge headlong through medical school. She never wavered in her no-nonsense approach to life. Maybe she should give her a try and see what her mother’s advice was. It couldn’t hurt. And it wouldn’t change anything.

  “You know about the shooting on my thirtieth birthday,” Madison began. Her mother nodded. “You may not know it, but I was sitting next to the woman who was shot. Her unborn baby’s body parts were all over me.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Zoe said quietly.

  “Well, that’s the last thing I remembered until two days ago. I came here to your vacation home not knowing who I was - am.”

  Zoe frowned. “That makes no sense.”

  “I know it doesn’t. When I got here, I took a job on the Durango-Silverton train.”

  “Did they need a doctor?”

  “No, I was a brakeman.”

  Her mother was silent.

  “I met a man. Daniel,” she looked into her mother’s blank face. “I want… wanted… to marry him.”

  ‘Honey, you’re engaged to Timothy.”

  “I know. You asked me what happened. That’s what happened.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Zoe commented.

  Madison shook her head. She’d been hoping for something. Something meaningful from her mother’s unerring sense of wisdom.

  “You’ve only had your memory back for two days?”

  Madison nodded, staring into her cup, willing herself not to cry.

  “I think you know…” Zoe’s cell phone rang. “It’s Dad,” she said.

  “You’d better answer it.”

  Zoe answered the phone and walked off to take the call. A couple of minutes later, she came back and gave Madison an odd questioning look.

  “We have to meet Dad up by the front door.”

  “Outside the gate?”

  She nodded.

  “Why? I don’t want to go through security again.”

  “He can’t leave the car. There’s no parking.”

  “You go. I don’t want to take my boots off again.”

  Zoe shook her head. “You have to go, too.”

  Madison muttered under her breathe, “Whatever.” It was understandable that her mother didn’t want to leave her alone.

  As she made her way back through the rushing crowd, purposefully refusing to mirror their hurried pace, grumbling to herself all the way, she began to feel as though a weight were being lifted off her shoulders. Perhaps it was because she was walking in the direction her heart wanted her to go.

  However, the walk was long enough that she was able to pull herself up by her bootstraps and get a grip on her thoughts. She would take care of whatever it was her father needed, then get herself on that plane and resume the logical, planned out life she had set up for herself.

  That was all there was to do. Case closed. She needed to leave Daniel alone. It had been a fling, nothing more.

  As she walked by the coffee stand, she saw him. She saw Daniel standing there, waiting to pick up a cup of coffee. He had come to find her! She rushed up to the man, tapped him on the shoulder, and with an expectant smile on her face, watching him as though in slow motion turn around. It was an older man she had never seen before.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered, backing away, bumping into a flight attendant rushing past.

  “Watch where you’re going,” the woman said, stepping around her.

  She was officially pathetic. She thought of nothing but Daniel - she was even seeing him
in a crowd when he wasn’t there. She had to get past this.

  Madison turned, saw her mother watching her with a sad expression. Madison went to her, and together they made their way around security to the front of the airport.

  She saw her dad across the open area of the lobby and slowly walked toward him. He, too, wore a sad expression on his face. Madison was beset with worry. Something wasn’t right. Maybe something had happened to her sister. No, they wouldn’t be that calm.

  Maybe something had happened to Timothy. Yes, that could be it. They would be sad for her, but not too terribly upset.

  Madison looked over at her mom. “Mom? Has something happened?”

  Zoe didn’t answer. She stopped and stood staring at Martin. Madison, too, stopped walking, and watched her dad. He had shifted his position slightly so that she could see behind him.

  Madison blinked. There was a man sitting on the bench who looked a lot like Daniel, only he looked kind of sick.

  After the incident with the man at the coffee stand, she didn’t trust her judgement. She cautiously walked forward, glanced at her dad, who nodded.

  She kept walking until she was standing directly in front of the man sitting on the bench. She didn’t even try to stop the tears that were running down her cheeks.

  It was Daniel.

  He tried to stand up, but turned a little more pale, if that were even possible.

  “No,” she said, sitting next to him on the bench. As soon as they touched, they were in each other’s arms, holding each other tightly, not moving, not speaking, just holding each other.

  “What are you doing here? You should still be in the hospital.”

  “So, I’ve heard,” he said.

  “How?” she asked. “How did you find me?”

  “I think I just got lucky,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Madison? Where are you going?”

  “I can’t stay here.”

  “You can’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “You got your memory back.”

  She nodded.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

  “That was before I knew.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you.”

  “You have to tell me,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “You can’t just leave me like this.”