Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  Tick glanced away, muttering a word Ash knew he used with utmost rarity.

  “You’re going to pull that ‘I gave my word’ bullshit on me, aren’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “The man you gave it to is dead, Tick. What is it going to hurt to tell me?”

  “Because it’s my word, Ash. Hell, you should get that.”

  “Yeah, and Caitlin made her brother give his word that he wouldn’t tell you what happened while you were in Mississippi, too. How bad do you wish he’d have broken that?”

  “That’s dirty, Hardison.”

  “Well?”

  “Hell, yeah, I wish he’d said something. But that’s different, Ash. That affected both of us, me and Cait, directly. This doesn’t…it doesn’t concern you.”

  “Yeah, it does. She needs help.”

  “Which is exactly why you should stay away from her.” Tick’s shoulders slumped. “See? I’m doing it already. You’re making me break the rule.”

  “Tick.”

  “If you want to know so bad, why don’t you ask her?”

  Like she’d tell him anything. Arms still crossed over his chest, Ash regarded Tick with a steady stare.

  “You’re obsessed.” Tick racked the balls. “Good damn thing you don’t have a dog this time.”

  “Tick. She’s not going to run over my dog. I’m pretty sure my dad is safe, and after the last time, my brother won’t look twice at a woman I’m interested in. Now spit it out.”

  “You really don’t want to know this, Ash. It’s ugly.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Tick gazed at him a long moment, mouth set in a tight line. “Fine. Just remember later, you asked for this.”

  “I will.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  “Go where?” Ash frowned and waved at a booth. “What’s wrong with right here?”

  “Home. Because if I tell you, that pretty much means I have to tell Cait, and I’d just as soon relate it one time only. The whole damn thing still makes my skin crawl.”

  Madeline let herself in the back door and eased across the kitchen floor. The television played softly in the living room. Yeah, even this felt familiar—sneaking in after a night with her little girl clique, a hint of wine on her breath, sure of what she’d find in the other room. Except her daddy wasn’t waiting for her, with judgment and swift retribution. She’d never figured out why he didn’t see that grounding her only made the urge to sneak out that much stronger.

  In the big room with the tall windows, a blue glow flickered from the television. Her mother’s favorite nighttime drama. The table lamp cast a muted glow in the room, and Mama dozed in the wing chair before the television.

  Madeline bent to tuck the afghan around her legs and eased the empty bottle from her fingers. It was one of the small ones her mother favored, the ones Madeline knew she’d find empty and full, tucked all over the house. Once, when she was about thirteen, she’d tried to find them all, to get rid of them.

  The bottles were like the heads of the Hydra—cut one off, more grew back in its spot.

  Sure her mother was sleeping and not passed out—that looked different—Madeline trudged upstairs. In her bedroom, still decorated in the girlish pink she’d always hated, she shed her clothes. Too bad she couldn’t slough off the past so easily, but at least she could wash away some of the tension. In the shower, she turned her face up to the lukewarm spray.

  She wasn’t one of those girls anymore. She wasn’t. No matter what Tick Calvert believed about her, no matter how easily she’d fallen into Ash Hardison’s bed. She was not the same Madeline Rachel Holton she’d been at eighteen, the one who’d selfishly stolen Trevor Dailey away from Donna. The one who’d skipped classes and given Bobby Wentworth a blowjob behind the weight gym.

  The one who got drunk on Saturday night and refused to sit in church like a good girl on Sunday morning, who broke her daddy’s heart.

  The one who’d helped Allison Barnett crack Kelly Coker’s dreams wide open.

  The one who’d tried to make everything right by getting back at Allison later, the one who’d ruined everything.

  Madeline bowed her head, letting the warm water rush over her hair. Memories pulsed in her brain, Kelly’s big eyes full of tears and anguish, not over Tick Calvert, not really, but over Madeline and Allison’s betrayal. Because they were supposed to have been her friends. Kelly, a little innocent beneath the bravado, a little lost because of the way it was at home, had never really gotten that girls like that didn’t have friends. They merely kept their enemies close.

  No wonder Kelly had run away.

  A runaway. A runaway who’d slipped through.

  Tick’s voice, whispering through Madeline’s mind. She reached for her shampoo, working the lather into her hair. No, it couldn’t be. Kelly had run away from Chandler County. Madeline had even received a postcard from her, from Panama City Beach. She’d taken it out to Kelly’s mama, who’d looked at it with grief-bleary eyes and never really said a word.

  Kelly’s mama, who never filed a missing-person report on her daughter as far as Madeline knew. Mrs. Coker had always seemed to just assume Kelly would come home, when and if she was ready.

  What if she had come home to Chandler County?

  What if somehow, she’d ended up under that house on Miller Court?

  Rinsing quickly, Madeline grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her wet hair and stepped onto the rug. She slipped into her terry robe, the weird blend of excitement and anticipation that heralded a possible lead pumping through her.

  She padded through to the bedroom and threw open the closet door, scanning the shelves. Where…

  There.

  Reaching up, she pulled down the dusty navy-and-white striped memory box. She settled on the bed with it, her stomach churning as she lifted the lid and set it aside. No corsages or dance photos, no spirit ribbons or girlish notes here.

  A couple of beer bottle caps, which she laid aside with a plastic wristband from the state fair. A Gold Circle condom, still in the wrapper. A lock of dark hair, caught with a brittle rubber band.

  The postcard lay at the bottom of the box with a small set of snapshots. She lifted the card, frowning over the smudged postmark. Yes, mailed from Panama City, a few weeks after Kelly had run away. Before that last night, when Madeline had gone after Allison with a vengeance.

  Setting the postcard aside, she studied the photo below it. The six of them at the lake. Kelly a little shorter than the others, her petite curvy frame clad in a bright blue bikini.

  She was the right height. She’d been missing, presumed a runaway, long enough for that clean set of bones to be hers. It could be her. That body could be Kelly’s.

  Slipping from the bed, Madeline pulled jeans and a sweater from her still-packed suitcase. She wanted to run this by Tick, and she wasn’t waiting for morning to do so.

  Ash settled on the couch in Tick’s living room and tried to quell the hum of impatience. He probably should feel bad for pushing Tick to spill this when he quite obviously didn’t want to, but he couldn’t. Somehow, finding out what drove Madeline, what made her react and attack, was more important.

  That should have scared him. He didn’t understand the need yet, but he acknowledged it. He was no longer the twenty-year-old kid who’d fallen under Suzanne’s spell and married her, and Madeline wasn’t Suzanne.

  “Ash, are you sure you don’t want anything?” Caitlin set Tick’s mug on the pine coffee table before placing her own glass of milk on the low table by the leather chair.

  “I’m fine.” He wanted Tick to stop prevaricating by fussing with Lee, bouncing the grumbling baby against his chest and rubbing the little back, but he couldn’t very well say that to Caitlin. Besides, he knew from experience that attempting to push Tick into anything led to nothing but frustration. He’d simply dig in and refuse to budge.

  “Give him to me.” Caitlin nudged Tick’s shoulder as she sank into the chair.

 
He shifted on the ottoman to give her room to stretch out her legs. “He’s okay.”

  Caitlin pinned him with a look. “He’s hungry and you’re using him as an avoidance tactic. Hand him over.”

  Tick’s lean frame heaved with a sigh, but he passed the agitated infant into her arms, the small legs pumping in protest as he screwed his face up to cry. Caitlin settled the baby at her breast with sure hands, an artfully draped receiving blanket offering a sense of privacy. She poked Tick’s side with her bare toe. “Now talk.”

  He dropped his head, elbows on his thighs, hands between his knees. With thumb and forefinger, he spun his wedding band in a slow circle that made Ash crazy.

  “Madeline and I grew up together. Mama and Miss Miranda were friends, Daddy and Virgil were big buddies. She was only a year behind me in school. So Sunday School, youth group, that kind of stuff—we were always together.” Tick didn’t look up. “We never did get along. Daddy always said it was because she was as stubborn as I was.”

  A winsome smile curved Caitlin’s mouth. “Now that’s a frightening thought.”

  A deep breath lifted his chest. “Anyway, the older we got, the less I had to do with her. We moved in different circles, at least until I started going with Allison. That was the end of my senior year. We dated for about a year once I went off to UGA.”

  “You dated her for a year?” Now that was a surprise. Although the little blonde had giggled and referred to Tick and herself as “high school sweethearts” during lunch, Ash had taken it for a short-term relationship. She simply didn’t seem like Tick’s type.

  Of course, Suzanne had been exactly Ash’s type when he was that young, so maybe it was true a guy’s tastes changed as he matured.

  Tick shrugged. “Off and on.”

  Behind him, Caitlin adjusted the baby’s position. Tick straightened and moved to place her feet on his thighs. His gaze on the floor, he began a slow massage of one trim foot.

  “Then Daddy died that summer after Madeline and Allison graduated. Allison and I had had this big blowout a couple weeks before, but she made this big point about ‘being there’ for me after Daddy was killed.”

  Caitlin made a small, disparaging noise in her throat. When both Ash and Tick looked at her, she waved in dismissal. “Never mind. Go on.”

  “We buried Daddy on a Tuesday. So Saturday night, she’s wanting to get me out of the house, insists we go to this party. By that time, I was too damn tired to fight, so I went.” He rested the sole of Caitlin’s foot against his thigh and lifted her other. “It was a drunk party and those things were never really my scene. I was pissed with Allison by then for dragging me there, and we were fussing. I’d, um, not been sleeping because I kept seeing that plane burn when I did, and I was irritable as all get-out. I had a couple of beers before I realized I wasn’t in the shape for that. Decided I’d sleep it off a while before I tried to drive home.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Anyway, I went up to Trev’s bedroom—he was the guy throwing the party—to crash. I did too. Must have been out in a couple of minutes.” He rested Caitlin’s other foot against his thigh and rubbed an absent circle on her ankle. “So I wake up Lord knows how long later and I’m…well, I’m not alone in the bed.”

  Shit. Ash got a picture of where this particular story was going, and he didn’t like what was coming into focus. Caitlin was putting it together, too—he could tell from the way her elegant brows dipped together in a slight vee.

  Ash leaned forward, his posture mirroring Tick’s from earlier, elbows digging into his legs, hands clasped loosely, his stitches pulling, but his attention focused on Tick’s uncomfortable expression. “It wasn’t Miss High School Sweetheart, was it?”

  His voice came out like ground glass. Tick’s mouth tightened.

  “No.” Tick met his gaze dead on. “It was Madeline.”

  Oh, fuck. Ash pinched the bridge of his nose. Yeah, he got where this was going. He’d been there before—him and Robbie and Suzanne.

  “I didn’t react real well.”

  “Knowing you, I imagine not.” Caitlin’s wry tone held very little real humor. She moved, handing Lee and a fish-emblazoned burp cloth to Tick, adjusting her shirt, her gaze on Tick’s face.

  Holding the baby in a seated position on his lap, Tick rubbed his back with a gentle hand, coaxing forth a series of small belches. “Allison didn’t either when she walked in about thirty seconds later, and it just went downhill from there. Allison’s screaming and Madeline’s taunting her and my half-drunk ass is still trying to figure out exactly what happened.”

  Caitlin lifted an eyebrow at him. “Which is what?”

  “Not what you’re thinking.” He rested Lee against his abdomen, one hand holding him in place. “You know, I never really got what Madeline’s intent was. I mean, it was pretty obvious what her intent was considering what she was doing when I woke up, but not her purpose, because she sure as hell didn’t have a thing for me personally and she never did anything without a reason. They might be twisted reasons, like making her daddy crazy, but she always had them.”

  “So that’s it?” Ash scowled. Something didn’t add up here. “That’s what all the tension between y’all is about?”

  Caitlin’s dark green gaze flicked in his direction. “Don’t feel bad. I’m not getting it either.”

  “That’s because that’s not all.” Tick leaned down to snag an orange and blue octopus from the floor and dangle it before Lee a moment. The baby, in a rare good mood, chortled and Tick danced the toy over the pudgy tummy with a tickling motion. “You know, if it had stopped there, when Allison cussed me out and walked out after slapping Madeline and calling her every ugly name in the book, everything would be fine. But Madeline wasn’t satisfied with that.”

  A lurking bitterness tainted his voice. Unease tiptoed down Ash’s spine with hobnailed boots.

  Caitlin leaned forward and lifted Lee into her easy hold. He gummed a vinyl pad attached to one octopus tentacle. “Tick?”

  Jaw tight, he met Ash’s gaze.

  Just remember later, you asked for this.

  The warning hung between them. Tick cleared his throat once more, a raw, grating sound. “I called Del to come get me because Allison had taken my truck. He made me go to the diner for coffee, to sober up a little before we went home, in case Mama was up.” He paused, rubbed a hand over his mouth. “So Madeline, drunk or mad or whatever the hell it is that gets into her, I guess decides it’s all my fault. When Del and I get home, about four in the morning, all the downstairs lights are on, and Virgil Holton’s truck is there.

  “I could hear Madeline screaming and hollering from the driveway. Seems Madeline had shown up on our doorstep, all full of righteous indignation and ruined innocence, because I’d had sex with her, possibly forced myself on her, and hell, now she might be pregnant. When Mama couldn’t calm her down, she called Virgil.”

  “She said this to your mother?” Caitlin’s husky voice held hushed resignation. Ash got that too. Shit, what had that younger Madeline been thinking? Unless Tick was right and she’d been out to get him—and hurting his mother was the way to go to do that.

  “Yeah.” Tick’s jaw was so taut now it might have been carved from the same granite that made up Stone Mountain. “Four days after she put Daddy in the ground.”

  “My God,” Caitlin breathed, sympathy darkening her eyes, “what she must have been going through.”

  “Yeah.” Tick’s chin jerked in a sharp nod. “And like she needed Madeline’s bullshit—”

  “Tick, sweet thing, I meant Madeline, not your mother.”

  His head whipped in her direction. “What the hell? Did you hear anything I just said—”

  “I heard everything. I feel for your mother, I do, but I also know she’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and somehow, I think the event had more of an impact on you than it did on her.”

  “And an even bigger impact on Madeline,” Ash said quietly.
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br />   Caitlin’s gaze flickered to his again. “Yes.”

  Tick lifted his hands and glanced toward the ceiling. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Tick.” As best she could with Lee, gumming the octopus, tucked in one arm, she leaned to touch his thigh. Ash didn’t miss the way he flinched and tightened under that easy contact. “You’re still looking at this like a nineteen-year-old boy who’d just suffered a horrific loss—”

  “Holy hell, now you’re going to do it too.” Incredulity darkened his eyes. “You’re going to make excuses for her.”

  “No, I’m not. What she did was wrong. But I can’t overlook that what you’re describing are the actions of a deeply troubled teenage girl, one with a domineering, demanding father and an alcoholic mother—”

  “What?” Tick’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Shit, Cait, what are you talking about? Yeah, Virgil was heavy-handed with them and he expected a lot, but Miranda Holton is not an alcoholic.”

  “Well, according to your mother, she is,” Caitlin retorted, completely unruffled.

  Tick stared at his wife, and despite the seriousness of the situation and the topic at hand, Ash swallowed a laugh. The little taste of humor was welcome, freeing him for a brief moment from the painful empathy that had gripped him with Caitlin’s words. If Madeline had been troubled as a girl, she was equally more so now, merely on a different level.

  Shit, he knew how to pick ’em, didn’t he?

  “How…” Tick shook his head. “When…?”

  Caitlin laughed. “What do you think I’m doing while you’re playing football with your brothers on Sunday afternoons? The only way to survive living in this place is knowing everything about everyone else, and your mom is a boundless source of discreet information.”

  “I still think you’re making excuses for her.”

  “No, I’m trying to get you to look at it from a different perspective. Try the wickedly brilliant thirty-seven-year-old sheriff’s investigator one. Use your objectivity.”

  “Cait—”