Stirring Up Trouble

by Andrea Laurence

  Logan raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t know. I’m no relationship expert by a long shot. But in my book, you can’t go wrong with telling the truth. Even if you and Maddie don’t get back together, it’ll be one less worry on your mind.”

  He knew Logan was right. He had to figure out the right way to go about this. Over the last few weeks, Maddie had gone through such a transformation. She’d started as a spoiled brat who grated on his nerves and now she was a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  But why would she listen to him after the way he treated her?

  “I don’t think she’ll want to see me,” Emmett said. “I don’t want to go to the bakery and put her on the spot with customers around, but I’m not sure how else to get her to talk to me.”

  “You need a grand gesture,” Logan said. “Like in the movies. Something that shows you’re serious and you’re willing to do something crazy to convince her of the truth, even if it means facing your fears or looking like a fool.”

  Facing his fears? Emmett realized what he had to do in that moment, as conflicted as he was about it. His stomach ached with dread even as the plan started to formulate in his mind. “Perfect,” he said aloud with a smile crossing his face.

  Now, all he needed was a can of spray paint, good weather, and all the nerves he could gather.

  The front door chimed and Maddie had to remind herself to go out front. Usually, Gertie was watching the counter, but today she’d asked for the afternoon off to study for a geometry test tomorrow.

  Maddie wiped off her hands and went out into the shop, stopping short as she saw her father standing at the bakery case.

  “Hey, sugar,” he said with a smile that normally would’ve sent her running into his arms for a big hug.

  “Hey, Daddy.” Maddie moved behind the counter, keeping the glass case between them.

  Norman didn’t bother to push the issue. “The shop looks wonderful. You’ve done an amazing job with it over the summer.”

  Normally, she would’ve basked in his praise, but not today. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “I noticed you haven’t been to Sunday dinner lately.”

  She crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “Granny already yelled at me, so no need for you to do it, too.”

  “I’d never yell at you, sugar. You’re my little girl.” He repeated his pet name for her, weakening her resolve, but she gripped the counter to stay put. “I’ve made a point to talk to all the kids about what happened on Halloween. Since you haven’t been by the house, you’re the last one I need to talk to. I know finding out about Logan like that was probably a shock to all of you.”

  “But not to you, right?” she challenged.

  Norman sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “No, I knew. I’m not proud of it, Maddie. I didn’t handle the situation well at all, and once I realized that, it was too late to do anything about it. Kate had married Vince Anthony and everyone believed Logan was his son. To come out and announce otherwise would’ve been more hurtful than helpful. So I kept my distance.”

  Very noble of him. “And how does Mama feel about all this?”

  Norman’s lips tightened for a moment. “Your mama understands that all this happened before we got married. She’s not pleased about me keeping it from her or the fact that it surfaced as a scandal for the family, of course, but we’ll weather this storm like any other.”

  Maddie didn’t know what to say to that. Her mother obviously had reasons for sticking with her father through this, but she didn’t know what those could be.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” Norman pressed.

  “What do you want me to say, Daddy? That I forgive you? I’m not the one to give you absolution. And even if I were, I don’t know that I could. You’ve been the most important man in my life since I was a baby. Through everything that has happened over the years with Joel and other guys, you were the one man who I trusted completely. But I was doing better. My relationship with Emmett was going really well, and I thought that he might be another man who I could love and trust. But I turned on him. I accused him of terrible things because I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that you’d lied to me, to everyone, about something so important. If I couldn’t trust you, how could Emmett be any different? He had to be lying just like all the other men in my life. I ruined what we had because of you.”

  “Maddie, I—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “Just don’t. What’s important is that I realize I was wrong about Emmett. He deserves my trust and if he’ll have me back, I’m going to give it to him and more. But I’m not sure where I stand with you. Mama might have forgiven you, but it’s going to take some time for me to come to terms with all this. I do know I’m not going to be Daddy’s little girl anymore, though. I want to be Emmett’s girl. Maybe someday even Emmett’s wife. And when I am, I’ll sleep better than Mama ever has.”

  There. She said it. It was like a weight was lifted from her shoulders. Maddie hadn’t been certain she could get the words out, and if she hadn’t had Emmett in her life, she probably would’ve accepted her father’s apology and went on like nothing happened. But she knew better now, and she was thankful for that. Not every man was a cheat or a liar like her father. Not every man wanted to take advantage of her like Joel. That hope made her bolder.

  “I understand,” Norman said at last. “Take your time and know that I’m here if you want to talk about anything. Will I see you at dinner this Sunday?”

  Maddie nodded.

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.” Norman didn’t push for a hug. He raised his hand to wave good-bye and slipped out of the shop.

  She watched him leave the shop, letting the breath out of her lungs as the door clicked shut behind him. Maddie knew she had two painful discussions ahead of her. One was done. That just left Emmett. If only she knew how to even begin.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Do you really think defacing public property is the way to my sister’s heart?” Grant shouted. “I mean, you two seemed to hit it off, but as her brother, this is not the tactic I would’ve recommended.”

  Emmett clung to the rickety metal ladder he was climbing, looking down at Grant and realizing he was only six feet off the ground. “I brought you with me so you can call an ambulance if I fall,” he said. “Not for your opinion.”

  “Okay,” Grant said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Of course, it’s not dangerous to buy jewelry or flowers. That’s what most guys would’ve done.”

  “What did you do to win Pepper back?” Emmett challenged.

  “I pulled her from a burning building and saved her life. Flowers would’ve been less dangerous, though, and probably just as effective if I’d given them to her before her house burned down. What gave you the idea to do this anyway?”

  Emmett climbed up two more rungs. “When we had to repaint the water tower, she told me that she’d never had a boy declare his love for her up here. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s what I want to do. I want the whole town to know how I feel about Maddie.”

  “But you’re afraid of heights.”

  Emmett climbed another rung with a white-knuckled grip. “I am very aware of that. That’s what makes the gesture extra special.”

  “What am I supposed to tell the cops if they come by?”

  “Tell them they can arrest me when I get back down. Now, hush, so I can get up here and get this done.”

  Focusing on each rung, Emmett climbed higher and higher. Last time, he told himself that if he survived climbing this thing, he’d never come up here ever again. And here he was, four weeks later, with a backpack of spray paint. He was too high to look down or talk to Grant any longer. All he could do was keep going and eventually he’d reach the top.

  He breathed a sigh of relief once he spied the metal platform. Climbing onto it, he stepped away from
the ladder and circled the tower looking for the right spot. He had to focus and not look around, or he’d start panicking and never get this done.

  The water tower was visible from the bakery’s front window. If he planned this right, Maddie would be able to see it at the shop. He’d given Gertie twenty bucks to watch for it and make sure Maddie saw it before she left for the day. Grant had been right, jewelry and flowers were good, and he had flowers at the ready, but he needed the water tower to lure her here so he could give them to her.

  Emmett slipped out of his backpack and pulled out two cans of hot-pink spray paint. The shade was a little darker than the one she used at the bakery, but a pastel wouldn’t show up as well from a distance. He wanted everyone to see this.

  Shaking a can, he pulled off the lid and started. It took him a few sprays to get the right distance so it didn’t drip but had a solid line. It wasn’t as easy as he thought. For what it was worth, Clark had done a decent job. His paintings were vulgar, but they were well done.

  By the time he finished his name, he had it figured out. Below it, he wrote the word “Loves” with a heart for the “o.” Then he finished with Maddie’s name. It was a sizable declaration, the letters tall and bold to stand out against the white background. His handwriting was never the greatest, and this close it was hard to tell, but he thought it looked pretty good. For romantic vandalism, at the least.

  Emmett slipped the paint back into his bag and pulled his phone out. He texted Gertie to let her know he was done, and then waited to see what would happen next.

  “Ugh. I was going to use my coupon to get a cookie, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not eating anything Gertie the Ghost touched.”

  Maddie had been in the midst of washing pans when the snotty voice from the front of the shop caught her attention. She dropped one back into the water and dried her hands off on a towel. She went out to the front of the shop, where she found Gertie standing by the register, looking even more pale than usual. Three other teenage girls were huddling in front of the bakery case, snickering. They all straightened up when they saw Maddie.

  “Can I help you?” she asked them in a sharp tone.

  The brunette ringleader of the group piped up. “I’d like a white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake bar,” she said, thrusting out her coupon.

  That’s when Maddie recognized her. She was Principal Everett’s daughter. No wonder she thought she could get away with anything. Well, not in her bakery. She wasn’t letting anyone mistreat Gertie in her presence. “We’re out of those,” she said.

  The Everett girl looked down at the case and frowned. “I see them right there.”

  “I’m sorry, I misspoke. I’m not selling you one. Actually, I’m not selling you or any of your little cronies a single thing.”

  The girl’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Excuse me?”

  If Maddie had addressed a grown-up with that attitude at her age, her mama would’ve smacked the smirk right off her face. No “please,” no “ma’am.” “You all get out of this shop and I don’t want to see you in here again until you’ve apologized to Gertie and mean it.”

  “Come on, Kasey. Let’s just go,” one of the other girls said.

  “No,” Kasey said, her arms folded across her chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  Maddie smiled sweetly, taking a step forward that caused the other girls to step back. “You’re right. I can’t tell you what to do. But your mama can. I can’t wait to tell her how disrespectful you’ve been today to me and my employee. Do you think you’re going to get to go to the Christmas formal when she finds out what an absolute brat you’ve been in my shop?”

  For the first time, there was a flicker of fear in Kasey’s eyes. Maddie wasn’t a fool. The Christmas formal was a huge deal for the kids in Rosewood, especially for a popular little princess like Kasey.

  “Now apologize, or get out of my shop right now.”

  The other two girls backed toward the door. “Sorry, Gertie. Sorry, Miss Madelyn,” they said in unison and slipped out the door.

  Kasey stood her ground for a moment, her nose upturned. Stubborn as ever, she finally walked out of the shop without apologizing. She probably thought Maddie was bluffing.

  Maddie joined Gertie at the front window as they watched the girls walk away. She hugged the girl to her side. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. That’s how those girls always are. Are you really going to call her mom?” she asked.

  “You betcha. Unless you don’t want me to. I don’t want to make life harder on you.”

  Gertie shrugged. “Eh, go ahead. I’d like Kasey to squirm for a change. I’m not going to the dance, so there’s no risk of this turning into Carrie or something.”

  “Okay.” Maddie made a point to call the school the next day. She’d let Kasey stew overnight waiting for the hammer to fall.

  “Why don’t you go on home, Maddie?” Gertie asked. “I can handle the shop for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “What if they come back?”

  “They won’t. You deserve a break. You’ve been working hard lately.”

  That’s because working gave her brain something to focus on. Baking, cleaning, planning . . . it was the only thing that distracted her from the mistake she’d made with Emmett. She knew she needed to talk to him, to say something, but she couldn’t work up the nerve. It was easier to apologize to Pepper and stand up to her father than it was to go to Emmett and face the risk that he wouldn’t accept her apology.

  “I have a business to run,” she said instead. “To run it, I have to be here. We’ve been super busy since the Halloween coupons went out.”

  They had been, that wasn’t just an excuse. They’d already cashed in half the coupons she’d distributed. She was thrilled with the results, and it had kept the shop hopping the last week and a half, even if it had also brought in the snotty Miss Kasey.

  “I thought that’s why you hired me. So you could have a life and not spend every waking minute in this shop.”

  “I hired you because I got arrested and had to have someone watch the shop while I paid my debt to society.” A debt she hadn’t finished paying, actually. She needed to go to the courthouse and talk to the clerk about rescheduling her last two service appointments. She just hoped that Emmett had completed his last two sessions without her, so she could do it alone and be done with it.

  Gertie didn’t seem to be buying Maddie’s story. Was she that transparent that a sixteen-year-old could see what she was desperately trying to hide?

  “I’m more than capable of managing the shop and closing up tonight. Get out of here and get some rest.”

  “I don’t need rest,” she said, which was true. The bar had been blissfully quiet lately. She took a nerve pill before bed to stop her brain from spinning, and she’d slept like a rock all week. She’d even gotten nine hours of sleep one night, although most of the time she’d been plagued by dreams of Emmett. She needed anything but rest.

  “Then go do something fun. Look outside,” Gertie said, gesturing toward the display window. “It’s a beautiful fall day. The air is cool and crisp, the last of the leaves are falling. You could drive out to the orchard and pick apples for turnovers. Or you could go by the Tylers’ Pumpkin Patch and pick up some baking pumpkins so we can get a head start on our Thanksgiving pie orders. Anything but staying in here all day. You should get out there and enjoy some of it before winter comes and it’s nothing but cold, dreary days for months.”

  Gertie was certainly feeling self-assured today. Perhaps seeing Kasey knocked down a peg had boosted her spirits. With a sigh, Maddie went over to the window and looked out. It was a nice day out. Maybe a walk around the square would do her some good.

  “Okay, I—” Maddie paused midsentence. “Looks like someone vandalized the water tower again. I thought Clark had given up.”

  Ge
rtie came up beside her, looking up at the tower. “That’s not Clark’s handiwork. Read it.”

  Maddie narrowed her eyes to squint at the letters. It was over three blocks away and hard to read at such a distance, but once it came into focus, her heart stuttered in her chest.

  Emmett

  L♥ves

  Maddie

  She gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “Gertie, does that say what I think it says?”

  Gertie grinned. “It does. And look, the culprit is still up there.”

  To the side, Maddie could see a dark figure against the white background. It was impossible. There was no way Emmett would climb to the top of the water tower to do that. He’d been petrified the day they went up there. He spent the whole afternoon crouching down and clinging to the railing for dear life. She thought she’d never get him back down the ladder.

  “Wait,” Maddie said, running into the back room and finding the binoculars where she’d stashed them. She returned to the window and looked up at the water tower with enhanced eyes. Emmett was standing there, waving in her direction. She didn’t think it could be true, but there he was. He’d climbed that water tower for her. After everything she’d said, and all the horrible accusations she’d made.

  “You’re right, Gertie. I think you can handle things.” Maddie frantically fidgeted with the bow on her apron, anxious to shed it before she ran out of the shop.

  Gertie finally stepped in to help her with the last knot. She snatched away the apron. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  Maddie ran to the door and stopped short. “How do I look?”

  “You look fine. Go!”

  Maddie threw open the door and started running toward the water tower. She waved at Emmett, shouting his name as she dashed across the lawn of the courthouse. She was about to cross Main Street when a car stopped short at the intersection.

  Not just any car. Sheriff Todd’s car. Maddie halted in the crosswalk so he could go on by, but he didn’t budge. Then the door opened and the sheriff got out. Uh-oh.