Finding Madelyn

by Suzette Vaughn

  The caress was gentle with firm hands. Even cropped, his hair was baby fine. His stomach still quivered when a fingernail ran across his ribs. His mouth still reminded her of grape flavored cola.

  The camisole she wore gave him a path to trace with his tongue. She jolted when he stopped partial way across her chest.

  “This isn’t what I came here for.” His voice was deep, or her ears were, with want.

  She put her arms around his neck and smiled. “I know.”

  The thin undergarment came off with a quick lift and they fell to the bed. The skin on his hands seemed rougher as they ran over the peak of her breast, but the pleasure was greater. She felt like a fumbling kid again when his shirt wouldn’t easily give.

  He threw it to the floor and swayed on tense arms when she unzipped his slacks. The breath over her stomach warmed as it trailed down. A sigh escaped as the remains of her clothing slid off. His hands were now cooler than her skin as they floated up her body, lingering where they affected her most.

  Her name whispered into her ear pulled the moaned, “Yes.”

  His lips curled into a smile, he still had to hear her confirm she wanted him. Her smiled matched his as her back arched with the feel of him.

  Galen lay across her bed, his hand smoothing out her hair, occasionally catching in a tangle. She didn’t even wince with the slight pull, her body was too relaxed in the cradle of his arm to react.

  “Now this is heaven.” His chest didn’t even rumble, it came out so softly.

  “Hmmm.”

  “I was so afraid that you wouldn’t open that door.” His chest rose with the sigh on the small laugh. “Afraid you’d really given up on me.”

  “I never gave up. Moved, yes…but never stopped believing in us.”

  “You weren’t there.” He kissed the top of her head and held tighter.

  A piece of her heart shredded.

  “But we are here.” He continued with a hum.

  A larger piece of her heart dropped. She pulled herself from his body to look at him. With his features relaxed, he looked more like the young man that had left. The one that had shattered her, now pieced together heart. And the glue was eroding.

  “I need you to come downstairs with me.”

  His smirked, “What’s downstairs?”

  She took a deep breath, “Something I have to show you.”

  “It will wait until morning.” The smirk was back as his fingers trailed her hip.

  “It could, but it won’t.”

  His eyes opened to a slit, the purr left his voice, “Why not?”

  “Because it’s important.”

  

  The coffee was hot and as good as the diner’s but she didn’t sit with her cup at the small table. Galen watched as she walked over to a trunk in the parlor and retrieved a small suitcase. She looked nervous as she placed it on the table, much like he’d watched men dealing with explosives.

  Once it set safely on the table she eased into a chair and sipped her coffee not taking her eyes off the case.

  “What’s in it?” he tried to get her to stop staring at the case.

  “You’ll see.” Her eyes stayed put.

  “Is it going to explode or run away?”

  “No.” She didn’t crack a smile but at least she looked at him. “When I told you about the night I left, I didn’t tell you everything.”

  She looked as if she would be ill.

  “Whatever it is it can’t be that bad.” He ran his fingers over her bare knee.

  “When your mama left the study I went to the safe to put back the ring like she told me to do. The entire time I’m thinking she could tell your daddy what she told me. They could come after me just for jilting Harland, let alone anything else. Well she had told me to take whatever I needed from the safe to run. So I did.”

  Her eyes moved back to the case as his heart sank wondering what was in it. What had she taken that had made Fredric so adamant that she be found and brought back to Washington? He sat the coffee on the table and flipped up one of the latches on the case.

  “Galen.” Her hand shot up and clasped his.

  He thought before he moved on but it didn’t stop him. The other latched flipped open and he looked inside to a notebook and papers. He didn’t know what he was expecting perhaps something more ominous with the way she was behaving.

  He opened the notebook to see his father’s handwriting. Number’s and figures, lines in red and black. Financial records. Simple enough.

  He flipped through a few of the loose papers trying to make sense at what he was looking at. Then it all started adding up. Letters from judges, sheriffs, lawyers, each referring to ‘contributions’ for his ‘political career’.

  Even in the last three years he’d been gone, Fredric had yet to get elected into any of the seats he’d run for. He continued through the papers finding out more about the money that came into his family than he had wanted. Mostly the kind of exchanges you didn’t tell your tax accountant about.

  “Why didn’t you take this to the sheriff? This with what Mama had told you should have been enough.”

  “Me against Fredric and Will Langley? They would have eaten me alive. If I didn’t end up next to my mama, wherever she may be.”

  His anger subsided. She was right. “If I’d been there. . .”

  “None of it would have happened, but you weren’t there.”

  “Madelyn.”

  “I’m not blaming you and you know it.”

  “What was your plan in taking all this?”

  “Insurance so he wouldn’t come after me ‘cause I could burn him down with it.”

  “You know it’s not working that way.”

  Her eyes grew larger. “I understand that. Not sure what the man has been thinking, but then again I never did understand him.”

  He pulled her out of the chair and unto his lap. With her head held firm in his hands he kept her eyes on his. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  Her eyes closed, her breath shuddered out. The tears dropped, she couldn’t hold them back anymore. He took his thumbs across each stream as it ran. Lips pressing where the moisture stopped.

  Her lips trembled as they found his. Her fingers pulling him closer. Slowly she stopped trembling but continued to use her body to keep him close, wrapping her legs around the chair to lessen the air between them even more.

  The muscles in her body relaxed as his fingers walked under the shirt and up her spine. Her body arched but he held her on the chair with him marveling at the way her body moved. The way her body had always moved against his.

  He buried his head in her hair, her heartbeat quickened under his mouth.

  “I missed you so much.” Eked out of her.

  Maddy stretch out over the bed, her body tingling with sensations. Pleasure and happiness above all else, though a few of her muscles were chiming in at a close third. She smelled coffee, felt the heat in the house, but not his body.

  Breakfast in bed? No, not even Galen was that good, he probably didn’t know how to cook. She slid into his shirt that was at the edge of the bed and put on her house shoes. The coffee was hot and he didn’t do too badly on the taste.

  She peeked out the back door expecting him to be laid out on the bench with his chest puffing like a peacock. The back porch was empty. She moved to the window where she could see the dock but he wasn’t out there pondering the major questions of life.

  Shaking her head, she walked into the library wondering if he was out front, almost dropping her coffee cup when she saw the table empty.

  The case was gone. The papers were gone. All of it. Setting the cup on the table, she ran over to the trunk she kept her insurance in, maybe he’d put it all away. The trunk had the quilts but no suitcase. She stomped into the guest room. His suitcase was gone, his shoes, his coat, everything but the shirt she had on.

  The bed bounced when she dropped her bottom on it.

  Galen was gone.

  Fift
een

  Galen tried to write her a note before he left. He tried to wake her but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He watched her sleep, with exactly what he needed to do coming clearer the longer he stood there.

  There was no way for him to explain how much he needed the truth. That need pulled him across the country to find her, even if she hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, he had to know. It was no different going the other way. And now he had the love she still held for him to make it that much easier.

  Instead of Fredric’s voice ringing in his head, it was Madelyn’s tears. The strain in her tone when she told him what had happened. The feel of her body.

  Going back home was going to be a little different too. He wasn’t waiting for Harland to send the plane back for him. A few phone calls with the first rays of sun and he was booked on the first flight west he could manage.

  When he’d spoken to the half sleeping Harland, he confirmed that Fredric knew he’d gone somewhere in the plane, but no one was say where. No one knew, not even Harland. The east coast to visit a friend was all they could say. It’s all Galen had told them.

  He also hoped she’d forgive him for leaving her car at the airport with the small case that no longer had the papers in it. One call to Lucian, after he was safely in Washington, and the car would be returned.

  The picture in his pocket he’d paid for when the guy presented it. This time as he stepped on the commercial flight his suitcase was full of papers and he had a country to cross considering the best way to deal with them.

  When he landed, he went straight for Harland’s little house on the edge of town. His brother answered the door in faded boxers and a white T-shirt.

  “You won’t believe what I found.” Galen half smiled.

  “Madelyn?” Harland blinked, trying to see better and rubbed his hands over his head.

  “How did you…” Galen let his mouth hang trying to figure it out.

  “Where the hell else would you run off to?”

  “All right. I’ll give you that. Now, let me tell you what else.”

  “I’m guessing you haven’t been home, yet.” Harland led the way to the kitchen. “Dad is hopping mad that no one knows where you went.”

  “All the better.” Galen started putting the papers on the table with a prayer that Harland was the right person to come to. He couldn’t see his brother siding with his father after he told him everything. That was the hope, anyway.

  Harland started water to boil for coffee, he didn’t have a machine like Maddy did.

  Rita looked out of the bedroom, crossed the kitchen and kissed his cheek. “Did you find her?”

  “Am I really that predictable?”

  “Your heart is.” Rita’s eyes lit up even at half-mast. She gave Harland a little kiss on the cheek and went back to the bedroom.

  Harland poured two cups of coffee and sat down at the table. “What do you have for me here, kiddo?”

  “I’m bigger than you now, would you stop calling me kiddo.”

  “No.” Harland picked up one of the papers and stared at it. Then another.

  Galen sat across the table and let him look. Harland would understand what he was looking at far better than Galen. So, he sat back and sipped the weak coffee, letting the memory of Madelyn in his shirt play. That memory had left his shirt where she would find it. Anything would have worked to keep his mind from what could play out when Harland finished.

  Harland looked over everything, then went through it all again. When he sat back, the lines around his eyes looked deeper. “What are you going to do with all this?”

  There was no doubt his brother was feeling very suspicious. Galen sat back studying his only sibling. Long ago, he’d changed his mind and enjoyed having a brother. Right now though, he was going to choose his words carefully. No different than finding your way through rubble trying to stay away from a sniper. He sat back in the chair.

  “I was hoping you’d help me with that.”

  Harland nodded, slowly. “You plan to attack Dad—just because you can?”

  Galen leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, rubbing one hand over the other clinched in a fist. With a deep breath he relayed the story of Maddy’s last night in Washington.

  Harland didn’t interrupt. He refilled his coffee once, and sat with his eyes growing more intense by the second. He remained silent long after Galen was done.

  “She knows Mama passed.”

  Galen nodded, “Sent her condolences along.”

  “Is she still the same Maddy?” Harland’s voice stayed guarded.

  “Older, wiser, same Maddy.”

  “Are you going to try and find her mother?”

  It was Galen’s turn to rub his hands across his face. “I think it will end up that way.”

  “I can’t see Will killing anyone.”

  “Me either. But I can’t see Mama or Maddy lying.”

  “Daddy on the other hand,” Harland shook his head. “I always knew something…”

  They fell silent for a bit before Harland asked, “What do you need from me?”

  “A course of action.”

  “You don’t want me standing by you?”

  “I’d love for you to stand with me, but you’ve got Rita. Whereas I can’t have this between me and Maddy. There’s enough there.”

  Rita came out of the bedroom looking refreshed, stopping when she saw the downcast faces at her kitchen table.

  “I’m going shopping.” She grabbed her purse and went out the back door without another word from anyone.

  Harland smiled at the empty doorway, grabbed a notepad from the kitchen drawer and sat down.

  “If it was Rita, I’d want your help. Don’t show anyone what I’m giving you. Dad will recognize my handwriting in an instant.

  “The good thing...most of the people listed here are dead or at least no longer in office. You’ll get to talk to their replacements. And most will be very receptive. Start with the sheriff, that’s why he’s on the top of the list. If he’s a dead end go to the next and so on.” Harland rubbed the hand not holding the pen across his stubble. “Don’t go straight to Dad or Will. If it’s true, I’m afraid of what that confrontation would cause.”

  “Thank you, Harland. That’s why I came to you, so I didn’t go straight to Dad and clock him one.”

  “I’ve thought about that a few times too. This will be far better.” Harland grinned.

  With a few of the papers in hand, Galen walked into the sheriff’s office. What wasn’t on him was safe with Harland. Several of the guys in the office watched him walk back to the office and knock, instead of having himself announced. But this was his town, he was a Langley, and not a soul said anything.

  Sheriff Jennings sat behind a desk that reminded Galen of the one in the study at home. Only behind this one sat a tall stocky man that actually intimidated him. The husky baritone didn’t hurt that fact.

  “Galen.” The sheriff stood to shake his hand.

  He dropped the papers and a letter he wrote at Harland’s table on the desk and sat down. Handing his dad over to the authorities wasn’t sitting well with him even if it was the right thing to do. If he didn’t have to speak the truth on the desk again, it was better.

  The memory of Maddy sleeping when he left made him look up to the sheriff when he finished reading what he had.

  “What do you want me to do with this, son?”

  With a drawn out breath, Galen started. He’d talked it over with Harland and had chosen the best course of action they could think of.

  “Does your dad even know you’re in town?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Yet, you want to be the one to confront him?”

  “And Will.” Galen added.

  “You know that’s my job?”

  “But it’s something I have to do.”

  By lunch Galen slipped into the back of Will’s little shack. Will always went home for lunch and a few times since he’d gotten home they’
d eaten at the dingy table. Will even offered him another job. If it hadn’t been for the hope of finding Madelyn, he would have taken it.

  He sat at that table and looked at his clasped hands. They trembled with anger over what his family had caused Maddy. Fredric had always been part of that pain. But Will…how could he possibly be part of that? How could he take Cassie and…

  Air vibrated passed his lips and his head shot up when the door opened and Will smiled across his living room.

  “When’d you get home.” He shut the door.

  “This morning.” Galen glared across the space.

  “You go visit an Army buddy?”

  Galen averted his eyes to the table. “No.”

  “What’s wrong, kid?”

  Galen stood from the chair making sure Will couldn’t run if he tried. “Where’s Cassie?”

  

  Frank pulled into the cottage driveway wondering what in the hell he was doing there. It was his habit to come by after church on Sunday’s.

  He’d always found her staring over the water sitting on her dock. Her own personal communion with God underway. He would stand back at the end of the dock watching the sun light up her hair with the wind blowing it back from her face. She’d always turn and smile, stay for a few moments, and then join him for lunch. The boy from Washington had changed every-thing. Still she was a friend and he would make sure Washington was being gentlemanly.

  With that, he stepped out of the car and put on his hat. The sun wouldn’t be lighting her hair if she was on the dock this morning, but the wind would be blowing. Mother nature had turned out in all her glory to make sure this morning was a cold, blustery mess.

  He knocked on the door and waited. Knowing if Washington answered he was going to have a little talk with him. No one answered though, he kick a pine cone heading around the side of the house, wishing he could get the anger out, crunching leaves with each step.

  He’d barely rounded the house when he spotted her wrapped up in one of her quilts on the dock. Today instead of facing east, she was facing due south with her head resting on the pole.