In the Boss's Castle

by Jessica Gilmore

  Maddison pulled into the ungated driveway of one of the oldest and more modest houses: a two-storey white-shingled house. True, anywhere else the five-bedroomed dwelling with its beautiful wraparound porch, outside pool and beach views from every room would be pretty impressive, but it lacked the helipad and pool houses of some of its more vulgar neighbours. On one side stood a separate double garage, and Maddison looked up at the apartment overhead, that sense of coming home intensifying. This was the first place where she had ever had the luxury of security.

  She rang the bell and waited, wiping her hands on her skirt, trying not to jiggle impatiently. No answer. Maddison looked around, hope draining away. Why hadn’t she called ahead? The house might have changed hands, or the owners be away. This whole impetuous road trip was probably a waste of time, a self-indulgent wallow in memory lane. She took a step back, poised to turn away, but the movement was arrested by the sound of a key turning. Maddison turned, hope hammering in her chest, the relief almost too much when the door opened to reveal a familiar face. Mrs Stanmeyer. A little older, but her blonde hair was still swept back in an elegant coil, she was still as regally straight-backed, exquisitely dressed in linen trousers and a white silk shirt.

  ‘Hello, can I help...?’ The voice trailed off. ‘Maddison? Maddison Carter? Oh, my dear girl.’

  As Mrs Stanmeyer’s face relaxed into a welcoming smile and she stepped forward, arms outstretched to pull Maddison into a hug, the pain in Maddison’s chest, the load she had carried since she was eighteen, the load that had seemed unbearable since she left Scotland, lessened just a little. Enough to make it manageable.

  ‘Maddison, oh, my dear, come on in. I am so very glad to see you.’

  Maddison found herself ushered into the wide, spacious hallway. Little had changed, she was relieved to see, the house still a tasteful blend of creams and blues, beautiful but practical in a home where children ran straight in from the beach and most of the day was spent outside. Mrs Stanmeyer led her through the living/ dining/family room that made up most of the first floor and out onto the deck where a trio of cosy wooden love seats were pulled up invitingly.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ Mrs Stanmeyer said as they settled themselves onto the seats, iced water flavoured with fresh lemons on the table before them. ‘I have often wondered how you were.’

  For the first time in eight years guilt hit Maddison. How could she have cut everyone off so completely when some people had done nothing but offer her help and support?

  ‘This is the first time I’ve come back,’ she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sand dunes and the gleam of blue sea beyond. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry I didn’t call or email you, sorry I didn’t try. I just wanted to wipe it all out. Start again.’

  ‘And how has that gone for you?’

  ‘I thought it was going perfectly. I thought I had reinvented myself, that I was untouchable.’ She grimaced. ‘But I guess I never stopped judging myself. In the end I was the one still looking down on me, never believing I was worthy of anything, deserved anything. Maybe that’s why I spent the last few years chasing after all the wrong things.’ She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat making words almost impossible. ‘And now it’s too late. I’m worried that it’s too late.’ Her mouth quivered and she covered it with one hand.

  ‘Oh, Maddison. It’s never too late. The girl I knew, the girl with three jobs when she was just fourteen? The girl who supported herself at sixteen and still graduated as class valedictorian, she knew that.’

  Maddison looked up at that. Was that how Mrs Stanmeyer saw her? Not as a monumental mess but as a survivor? ‘Supported myself and graduated thanks to you. If you hadn’t given me a job when no one else would, offered me the maid’s room, sorted out the scholarship to Martha George, I don’t know where I would have ended up.’

  The older woman reached out and laid a hand on Maddison’s arm. ‘I didn’t do anything, Maddison. If anything I felt guilty for not doing more—a child of your age here all winter on her own, cleaning for me! But you were so determined and so proud, I knew you wouldn’t take charity. As for the scholarship, all I did was recommend you. You did the rest yourself.’

  For the first time in maybe forever a glow of achievement warmed her. She had worked hard, saved hard, studied hard. Hadn’t allowed her beginnings to define her end. But she knew that without the home, the money, the trust Mrs Stanmeyer had shown her it would have been a far harder journey.

  ‘I wondered...’ Maddison twisted her hands together, trying to find the right words. ‘I wondered why you helped me, if maybe it was...if I was...’ She glanced through the open glass doors to the large sideboard, at the collection of family portraits gathered there. She had dusted each of them time and time again, searching for some kind of resemblance between herself and the two blonde, elegant daughters and the boyish, handsome son. There were more photos now, babies and small, round children playing in the sand. ‘Did you help me because your son... Is he my father?’

  The smile faded from Mrs Stanmeyer’s face, replaced by a weary sadness. ‘Oh, Maddison. If you were my granddaughter I hope I’d have done better than employing you as my maid and housing you in a room over the garage. I don’t think Frank even knew your mother. He was away interning the summer you were conceived.’

  Warring emotions hit her, intense disappointment that she could never be part of this family mingled with relief that she wasn’t the guilty secret hidden away in the maid’s room after all. ‘Do you know who it was? Who my father is?’

  Mrs Stanmeyer shook her head. ‘No, but I knew your mother. You look very much like her, you know, the same hair, the same eyes—and the same ambition. I’d known your grandmother a very long time but I really got to know Tanya the summer before you were born. She was hoping for a scholarship to Martha George too, and I was already on the admissions board.’

  Maddison stared. Her mother had applied to the elite liberal arts college? She didn’t remember her even opening a book, let alone studying. At least she certainly hadn’t after Grandma died.

  ‘My mom?’ Her voice squeaked despite herself and she stopped, silent. She wasn’t supposed to care.

  Mrs Stanmeyer nodded. ‘It was a scandal when she fell pregnant with you. Everyone said it was such a waste of potential. I think some thought it a judgement—she was just so alive, so free, so sure she could do it all. She told me she didn’t care what they said, that she was excited about the future, that she would raise you and study at night. Like you she was very independent. She moved out of your grandmother’s house into the trailer when you were still a baby, determined not to ask for help. I think they clashed a lot.’

  ‘They did, but they loved each other too,’ Maddison admitted. ‘She was devastated when Grandma died.’ She took a sip of the ice-cold water, trying to reconcile this picture of a vibrant, ambitious teen mom with the bitter reality. ‘What happened? Because the woman I knew? She had no ambition beyond the next drink, the next boyfriend.’

  Mrs Stanmeyer shook her head. ‘I wish I knew. I saw a little of her when you were a baby and a toddler and everything seemed fine. I was a friend of your grandmother’s, you see, since we were girls ourselves, and I always took an interest in your mother. I knew she found it hard, making enough money, keeping up her studies and raising you, but she was very optimistic. Your grandmother’s illness hit her hard but at that time my own girls were growing up, had their own teen worries and troubles and I didn’t see your mother—or you—for several years. I heard gossip, of course, but I discounted it as mutterings of scandal-loving old cats. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge them. When I next saw her it was as if something had broken inside her. She seemed to have given up. I tried to help but she pushed me away, many times.’

  Maddison’s eyes burned and the pressure in her chest swelled to almost unbearable degrees. It had been so long since she had thought o
f her mother without scorn and anger but she could all too vividly imagine the struggling young woman, breaking down under the burden of poverty and hardship. And sitting here contemplating a bleak future of her own making, a future without Kit, she understood, a little, the intoxicating appeal of just checking out of life.

  Maybe her bleakness showed on her face because Mrs Stanmeyer’s voice was very gentle, very kind. ‘What’s brought you home, Maddison, after all this time?’

  She blinked, trying in vain to hold back the tears that had been building but not allowed to fall since the moment she had driven away from Kilcanon, each one scalding her as it escaped. ‘I thought I had it all planned out but I’m lost. And I have no idea how to find my way.’

  * * *

  ‘Do you have any plans for today, dear?’ Mrs Stanmeyer—Lydia, as she had instructed Maddison to call her—put a plate of pancakes, bacon and maple syrup in front of Maddison as she spoke. ‘Eat up. You are far too thin.’

  In some ways the last twenty-four hours had been like stepping into a much-loved and cherished daydream. Mrs Stanmeyer had insisted she cancel her room at the inn and stay with her, putting Maddison in the whitewashed corner room with views out over the ocean on two sides. When Maddison had been the live-in maid she had always pretended that the room was hers. It wasn’t the largest or the fanciest, but the views were superb and the sloping ceiling gave it a quaint, old-fashioned air.

  ‘Thank you.’ Maddison picked up her fork, not needing much more encouragement to get stuck in. Maybe it was the sea air, maybe the best night’s sleep she had had in years, but she had woken with a hearty appetite. ‘This looks amazing but you really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.’ Maybe not, but seeing as she had... Maddison speared a piece of bacon and pancake, dousing them liberally in the amber syrup, before allowing herself to savour the taste. ‘I need to get in touch with the office and take some leave officially. I just kind of left...’

  Did she even have a job anymore? After all, she was technically absent without leave; she doubted she could claim compassionate leave for an imaginary family crisis. How could she, organized, always-planning-ahead Maddison, have just walked out on her job—would there even be a place for her in New York? Maddison shivered, cold despite the sun on her shoulders. She had thrown everything away in her impetuous flight.

  The doorbell rang and Maddison pushed her chair back, automatically readying herself to answer it. ‘Don’t be silly, dear. You eat.’ Lydia gave her a gentle push back into her seat as she walked past her and into the hallway.

  Maddison scooped some more food onto her fork but didn’t move it off her plate, her mind whirring. She would do what she had to here and then what? Sort out her job situation. Contact Kit.

  Should she have left Kit without telling him how she felt?

  How could she have told him when she’d barely admitted it to herself?

  ‘Maddison.’ She looked up as Lydia called her. There was a curious tone in her voice, curiosity mixed with satisfaction. ‘It’s for you.’

  For her? Who on earth could be visiting her? Maybe someone at the inn had mentioned seeing her, maybe an old school friend had heard that she was back—but no, she hadn’t been much of one for friends. Her high-school boyfriend had married in his early twenties, but even if he hadn’t she couldn’t imagine he’d cared enough about her to hotfoot it over the second she sailed back into town.

  Her stomach shifted and she clasped one hand to it. Surely not her mother...

  Maddison got to her feet, reaching out to the table for support, and moved slowly into the hallway and blinked, trying to focus on the tall, dishevelled man standing there. ‘Kit?’ She wasn’t sure if she thought it, breathed it or shouted his name aloud. ‘What are you doing here? You look tired,’ she added as he came into focus. His skin was almost grey, his eyes bloodshot and his chin darker than usual with extra stubble.

  ‘Isn’t that the point of a red eye? I left London yesterday afternoon, spent several hours in Toronto and landed in Boston...’ he checked his watch, swaying a little as he did so ‘...about three hours ago.’

  He sounded so matter-of-fact. As if his turning up here were completely normal. She blinked. ‘But why?’

  ‘If I were you, Maddison, I would take poor Mr Buchanan into the kitchen and feed him coffee and pancakes before you interrogate him any further. I am heading out for the day so please both make yourselves at home. There are spare bathing suits and towels in the drying room if you want to go to the beach. Help yourself to anything you need.’

  Before Maddison could say anything Lydia had whisked out of the door, leaving them quite alone. She stood still, staring at Kit. She wanted to touch him, check she wasn’t imagining things, but she didn’t quite dare.

  ‘Was that coffee I heard mentioned?’ Kit asked hopefully. ‘I drank at least a gallon in Boston before collecting the hire car but I think it wore off somewhere around Plymouth.’

  ‘Coffee? Yes, come on in.’ It must be a dream, Maddison decided as she led him through into the kitchen. In which case she was going with it; she hadn’t had a dream this comforting in, well, in forever.

  There was still a stack of pancakes in the warmer and some bacon in the pan and she ladled a substantial helping of both onto a plate, handing them and a large mug of coffee to Kit.

  He received them rapturously, almost inhaling the first cup of coffee and half the plate of food before leaning back with a satisfied stretch. ‘These are good. I couldn’t get a first-class flight or a direct flight so I have suffered more hours than I care to admit of limited leg room and plastic food. But for these pancakes I would fly all the way to Australia.’

  ‘But you didn’t fly all this way for pancakes.’ Maddison pushed her plate away; even Kit’s hearty enjoyment of his breakfast hadn’t rekindled her appetite.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘It’s a good thing I like treasure hunts. You’ve covered your tracks pretty well. Actually,’ he confessed, pouring a second large cup of coffee, ‘I didn’t. Expect to find you here, that is. This address was my first—and only—clue.’

  Maddison cast around for the words that would somehow make it all right. The words that would make her worthy of a man who had flown across the world to find her with nothing but an old address to spark the hunt. She didn’t have them.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to make sure you’re all right.’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘You wanted to make sure I was all right? So you flew to Toronto and then to Boston and then drove here just to check up on me?’

  ‘That about sums it up,’ he agreed. ‘I was worried about you. I didn’t handle Scotland very well.’ His eyes gleamed with warmth and something deeper, something she hadn’t seen in them before and yet recognized instantly.

  Maddison was suddenly, unaccountably shy. She didn’t know if she could handle whatever he’d come here to say, not yet. Not until she’d done what she’d come here to do. ‘How tired are you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Part of me is so wired on caffeine and sunshine I could run a marathon, the other part exhausted enough to sleep for the proverbial hundred years. Why?’

  ‘I wondered if you wanted to go on a treasure hunt. With me.’

  Kit smiled then, a slow, sweet smile that wiped the weariness off his face, and Maddison’s heart leapt as she watched his eyes spark back to life. ‘A treasure hunt? What’s the prize?’

  She wanted to answer me but how could she presume he wanted her, would think her any kind of prize? Sure, he had flown here but he hadn’t told her why, had made no move towards her, uttered no words of love. It might have been pique or anger that had set him off to hunt her down.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said instead. ‘But we’ll know it when we find it.’

  C
HAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE LOOKED VULNERABLE: too thin, too pale, all the vitality leached out of her, and all Kit wanted to do was hold her close and tell her that it didn’t matter, none of it mattered. But he couldn’t, not yet. Because to her it did. And that meant it mattered to him too. Whatever Maddison had returned home to do, he would support her with, help her with.

  Maddison drove, pointing out that he hadn’t slept in goodness knew how many hours and was liable to find himself on the wrong side of the road even if he didn’t doze off, and Kit didn’t argue, happy to sit relaxed in the passenger seat, enjoying the view. Maddison’s home town was picture-perfect, all blue skies, beaches and quirky, local shops all located in painted, wood-shingled buildings. It was like a film set.

  ‘So, what are we looking for?’ he asked at last as she turned into a small housing development. Cheerful detached houses sat on hilly lots, each garden flowing into the next, trees all around them. He could imagine children biking up the driveways, playing ball by the hoops fastened in many of the garage roofs.

  She didn’t answer for a long moment, pulling up outside a corner house. It was a pretty blue wooden house, a covered porch on one side. Maddison stared at it, her heart in her eyes. ‘Me,’ she said finally. ‘We’re looking for me. I want to see where it all went wrong, where I went wrong.’

  He wanted to contradict her, tell her that she didn’t have a wrong bone in her body, but he sensed this wasn’t what she needed, not today, and instead just nodded. He’d guessed as much. ‘Okay. Is this where we start?’

  ‘This was my grandma’s house.’ She killed the engine and shifted to face him, her eyes very green in her pale face. ‘My mom was very young when she had me and I didn’t know my dad. When I was little she worked a lot so I came here. My grandma told me that she wished I could live there forever and I wished it too, that I could spend every night in my little yellow bedroom with the rocking horse. But my mom wanted to prove she could do it on her own and so most evenings she’d pick me up and take me home. Then, when I was seven, I got my wish. We moved in. Only my grandma was really sick.’ Her mouth quivered.