“You didn’t want to talk to me, remember?” Madison wasn’t going to let Collin blame her for this. “And now you tell me you are planning to leave town. If I wasn’t pregnant, would you have even given our relationship—us—another thought?”
“We slept together one time,” Collin said. “But...”
She didn’t let him finish. “Now, you’re saying you only care about me because of this...this unplanned pregnancy.”
“Why are you acting so hurt? You weren’t even going to tell me about it,” Collin said. “You wanted me out of your life so you could decide what to do all by yourself. If I hadn’t found out by accident, would you ever have told me?”
Madison swallowed. “No.”
“You would never have let me know that you’re carrying my child?”
“Collin, it’s not that simple.”
Collin’s face twisted in disgust. “How would that be fair to the baby? Never knowing his father?” He stood up. “He’d spend the rest of his life thinking his father abandoned him. Never loved him. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“How do you even know it’s a boy?”
“I just... I just know. I just have a feeling. A strong one.”
Madison wondered if him wanting the baby to be a boy was partly him wanting to turn back the clock, maybe relive his own childhood and make it different. Yet, she stood by her decision. Collin had never been interested in anyone but Collin. That’s the real problem, she thought. He’d been self-absorbed, completely focused on himself and no one else. And her pride was stung by the fact that it took an accidental pregnancy for him to even look at her twice.
“You didn’t like me. You weren’t interested.”
“That’s not true,” he argued.
“It sure felt like it was true,” Madison said. “And why would I tell you about a baby I wasn’t even sure I was going to keep?”
“You should’ve told me. I had a right to know. That’s all.” Collin stood then, grabbed his empty beer bottle and left the patio. He banged the glass door shut behind him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COLLIN DECIDED TO take a walk. He needed to clear his head before he said something he’d really regret. He headed out the front door, hardly caring whether it closed behind him. The screen door slapped shut, and he figured that was enough to keep the bugs out.
The fact she’d keep the baby a secret from him still irked, and it might always bother him. How could she imagine that would work? A baby never knowing his father, and a father never having the opportunity to know his son. He still felt strongly that the baby would be a boy.
He went down the sandy path behind the house, the one too narrow for a golf cart, and walked until he hit the beach. Seagrass stood tall in the dunes, and the sun had already dropped below the horizon. The sky had turned from a bright pink and orange to a deep lavender. The warm breeze ruffled his hair and if he’d been less frustrated, he would’ve taken notice of the beautiful scene. He marched down the tapered path to the beach as the nearly full moon rose above the ocean.
He’d always vowed never to be an irresponsible parent, no matter what. After his father went to jail, he’d always felt his absence acutely and blamed him for not being there. He’d had to teach himself how to bat and how to throw a ball, how to ride a bicycle and how to shave. All the things dads were supposed to teach their sons. But he’d been long gone. Collin learned to do everything for himself, and that also meant being the one in control. He didn’t like feeling out of control, as if someone else held the power. He’d spent his childhood feeling helpless, and he damn sure wasn’t going to waste any of his adulthood feeling that way.
Then, of course, he thought of Jimmy Reese out there somewhere. The escaped convict made him feel more than a little helpless. He pulled up his text messages. No new ones from Jenny. No news.
They’ll catch him before he gets anywhere close to North Captiva, he told himself. They had to. He was probably just lying low. But when he surfaced, he’d be caught. He wouldn’t be the first escaped criminal to threaten lawyers but then get arrested in the bedroom of his girlfriend’s house. Besides, Collin felt confident he could take care of himself and Madison—if the stubborn woman would let him. He kicked a bit of sand at his feet.
Collin took pride in his independence. He knew he could handle almost anything life threw at him, because in some sense, he already had. He’d been officially orphaned when his mom died, but since his mom had had to work multiple jobs while he and his sister were growing up, part of him had felt orphaned his whole life.
He sat on the beach as the moon rose in the sky. He could see the white foam of the waves rushing in, nearly hitting his toes. Collin rarely let himself sink into self-pity. He didn’t like the feeling. Yet he also hated feeling things were out of his control. But, with Madison and the baby, none of it felt like anything he could manage or predict. He’d always looked after himself and never complained about it, and his stubborn insistence on making his own way had served him well. How else could a poor kid from the Bronx, whose dad died in jail, put himself through college and law school on a full ride?
He wasn’t dumb, either. He knew Madison still resented him for not calling after their one night together, but he’d been under the impression they’d both agreed on that. How was he supposed to know that she’d secretly wanted him to pursue her? He’d thought it would be easier for both of them if he just let things go.
Not that he ever really had, he figured, as he watched a particularly big wave nearly slide up the beach. He’d been fighting his attraction to her for weeks. Months. He’d decided it was best if they didn’t continue, and yet, he’d had every intention of pursuing her after he got the job offer in Miami. Not that she’d believe him now, and he couldn’t blame her.
Part of him knew that, to her, the Miami announcement was a shock, but he’d also half-hoped Madison would be thrilled about the opportunity to get a new job away from her protective uncle. Collin admitted to himself that because he’d never had the kind of family connections that mattered, other than with his mother and sister, he didn’t understand how Madison felt. He didn’t know what it was like to have a family that could actually help.
Collin kept coming back to the fact that they were so good together. The sex proved it, in his mind, and so did the way they sparred on every topic from housetraining a dog to figuring out a fair deal for a defendant. He’d never experienced such electricity, such a connection before. He loved nothing more than a good debate, and Maddie gave that to him, every day.
This past week they could barely keep their hands off each other, and that certainly had nothing to do with the baby. He grabbed the velvet box out of his pocket. He’d been working up the courage to ask her to marry him again, that very evening on the porch, when they’d begun fighting about Miami. He opened the box and studied the ring. It looked decidedly less impressive under the silver light of the moon, but he’d paid three months’ salary for it, just as he was supposed to do. Or so he’d heard... He’d crossed all his t’s and dotted all his i’s, and yet, she was still angry with him.
What would he need to do to win her over? When would she trust him?
And why on earth was she so determined to break them up? He wasn’t a man who believed in religion a whole lot, but it sure seemed like God and the universe were pushing them together. He didn’t know how else to read the fact that a single night of sex ended up with a pregnancy.
As he wondered about this, his phone lit up with an incoming call, bathing the beach near him in artificial cell-phone light. Madison was calling. His heart leapt. Maybe her temper had cooled.
“Collin,” Madison said, her voice sounding strained.
Instantly, he felt all his senses go on high alert. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His thoughts went to Jimmy Reese.
She paused just long enough to make his stomach drop
. Was it Reese? The baby? Had she fallen? Collin shook the paranoid thoughts from his head. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t find Teddy.”
“Oh.” The dog? Collin felt almost instant relief, and then a prickle of annoyance. There were more important things to consider than the dog. He’d nearly had a heart attack worrying that something awful had happened to her, that she’d hurt herself or that somehow Jimmy Reese had found her, and it was just about the dog. Collin felt his concern go from acute to somewhere south of interested. “What do you mean you can’t find him?”
“I. Can’t. Find. Him.” She paused after every word. “He’s not inside. He’s not outside.” Madison sounded more and more worried. Then, she paused for a long second. “Did you leave the front door open?”
Did he? He might have.
Collin felt a stab of guilt. He’d flown through the front door, annoyed. He’d heard the screen slap behind him...but had he closed the front door? No, he didn’t think he had. He hadn’t thought about Teddy, about the big puppy who would have had to nudge the screen door open to get out to freedom. The screen had a manual latch, not an automatic one.
“I closed the screen,” he said, as if that was some kind of defense, even though he knew it wasn’t. “I’m not sure about the door.”
Madison let out a frustrated sigh. “He got out. You let him out.” The hurt and anger in her voice was real.
“The dog will be fine. I’m sure he’ll be back before you know it,” Collin offered, although his words sounded weak even to his own ears.
“Fine? It’s dark! What if he gets hit by a golf cart? Or bitten by a snake?”
“That’s unlikely,” Collin said, though he started to feel uneasy.
“Or he could get eaten by an alligator. You know they’ll be at the bay side of the island. I heard someone lost their cat not too long ago.”
Collin’s blood ran cold. Now, he wasn’t so sure Teddy would be safe on his own.
“I’m going to go look for him,” Madison declared.
“No... Maddie... Wait...” But Madison ended the call. Collin was left staring at the home screen of his phone, his imagination now filled with pictures of Teddy and Madison being devoured by a hungry gator in the dark.
Collin turned and glanced backward, only able to see the roof of Madison’s house through the clump of trees that shrouded it. He ran toward it. He’d need to catch her.
* * *
MADISON COULDN’T BELIEVE how irresponsible Collin had been.
“Who leaves door wide open?” she cried to the open night air as she stomped down the steps leading to the front door. The humid evening air hit her, and she wrapped her hair in a hasty ponytail. Then she grabbed Teddy’s leash off the porch and grabbed a bag of leftovers from the fridge. If she found him, she’d need the food to lure him in. Not to mention there was a convict on the loose. Madison shivered. Who left the door open when Reese could be out there?
Then again, who went out alone when there was a convict out for revenge?
That thought raised the hair on her arms. Suddenly, the dark shadows on the path and across the nearby shrubs didn’t seem so harmless.
He’s not going to find you, she thought. He’s probably sleeping in the basement of a relative’s house, and might be found at any moment.
Then Madison remembered how Reese had told her he used to spend a lot of time camping outdoors. What if he’d gone off the grid? He was one of those people who believed the world was going to come to an end soon. He believed it would, or wished it would—she couldn’t quite tell. Madison pushed memories of the cold-eyed killer out of her mind. Right now, she needed to find that puppy. Teddy was her priority.
“Teddy!” she shouted. She slung the small pack over her shoulder, containing the leash as well as the Ziploc bag of leftovers. So help me, if an alligator eats him, I’ll never talk to Collin again. “And he thinks he can be a decent dad,” she told the empty trail as she headed down the path, away from the beach. She had no idea where Teddy had gone; this was just a blind guess.
“Teddy!” she yelled into the darkness, fully aware right at that moment just how dark the island was. The only lights came from the homes nearby, small orange squares of illuminated windows, and the occasional street lamp near the path. No golf carts were out, and the path was lit only by dim moonlight.
“Teddy!” she called again, her voice echoing. The shadows grew longer as the moon rose in the sky; it seemed to get smaller the higher it went. Where had that dog gone? She considered venturing off the path, but then she thought about what she’d do if she found an alligator herself. She’d only heard of one person being bit by one on North Captiva—a teen who was lucky to get away with his arm intact. Normally, most of the gators she’d heard about were on Sanibel. But this was Florida. She had to assume the ancient reptiles could be anywhere. The thought of her adorable puppy running into one made her blood run cold. How could Collin be so irresponsible! Ironic, considering he was the one who was supposed to be punishing people for tiny slips, people who made mistakes. Like James Miller.
“Here, boy! Come on, Teddy!” she shouted again into the darkening night, but there was no sign of the dog. Her feet crunched on the sand beneath her feet. She walked by a patio on the second floor of a nearby house and saw a group out for an evening cocktail.
“Excuse me,” she said and a woman in a sundress looked up. “Have you seen a dog run by here? Yellow?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, no,” she called.
“Thanks,” Madison murmured, even as laughter erupted further back on the porch, carried to her on the warm breeze, and she suddenly wished for a worry-free evening. Where she could kick up her heels. Have a glass of wine, even. Not worry about a dog...or Collin...or the baby growing inside her. Everything seemed so impossible right at that moment. She blinked back tears, wishing for a less complicated life. Nothing was working out as she’d planned, and despite the fact that she prided herself on considering all the angles, being prepared for every contingency, life still managed to throw her a few curveballs she didn’t expect.
She knew she was just tired...and hungry—her stomach growled—and she was worried about the dog, worried she might never find him. She called out his name into the night and hoped for the best.
She heard rustling in some nearby bushes. “Teddy?” she called, but the rustling got louder. A creature was off the path, one she imagined was big. She pictured an alligator, slinking through the underbrush. Or something even more dangerous. Like Jimmy Reese.
But he probably wouldn’t make any noise at all.
I’m being silly, she thought. Now, she felt like a child again, anxious over what went bump in the night.
“Teddy?”
Then, suddenly, Collin came tearing through the brush, nearly scaring her to death. “Nope. Hate to disappoint you. Just me.”
Madison felt her heart jump in surprise. It felt like it might hammer right out of her chest.
“God, you scared me.” She felt another twitch in her side, was extra-annoyed at him for causing it. “I told you, I didn’t need help.”
Collin tapped his phone and the flashlight app came on. He shone it brightly on the sandy ground. “Last thing I need is for you to trip and fall and blame that on me, too.”
“I’m only going to blame you for what you’re responsible for. Like leaving the door wide open.”
Collin shook his head. “Fine. I didn’t close the door all the way. I didn’t think he could get out.” Collin fell into step beside her on the narrow path.
“You didn’t even think about him getting out,” Madison corrected.
Reluctantly, Collin nodded, with the phone’s light bouncing in his hand as they walked side by side. “No, I didn’t really think about it.”
“But you have to think about it. Teddy is depending on you, and you’re jus
t being...irresponsible.”
“Me?” Collin blew out a frustrated breath and whipped his hair out of his eyes. “What about you? You’re the one who fed him table scraps until he threw up.” Collin’s green eyes looked much darker in the moonlight, the smartphone flashlight casting a severe shadow across his face. Still, even in the near dark, Madison couldn’t help feeling a pull toward him. He had gravitas, a seriousness, but also a centered confidence. It was what made him such a tough opponent in court.
“He just ate too fast,” Madison hedged, although she knew he was right. He’d had too much table food, and that was her fault, not that she wanted to admit it. “Okay. Well. You messed up. I did, too. Don’t make me out to be the irresponsible one.”
For a second, Madison lost all awareness of how handsome he was, how charismatic, because right now, everything she saw was streaked with red. Was he really putting them on the same level as dog caregivers? There wasn’t even a contest.
“Don’t tell me you think we’re equally good at taking care of Teddy,” she challenged.
“Oh, I know I’m better than you,” Collin declared, confident. “I’m the one who got him to come back after he went off-leash.”
“That was luck.”
“That was skill.”
Madison ground her teeth. Honestly. Was the man this...egotistical? She couldn’t believe she’d spent the last week sleeping with him. Then again, looking at the firm shape of his muscled shoulders, even in the shadowy dark, she knew why. Would she always feel this pull and tug? He was the sexiest and, at the same time, the most annoying man on earth.
“Next, you’ll want me to call you the dog whisperer,” Madison said with a grimace.
“Maybe.” Collin flashed a playful smile. Madison felt the warmth of it spread all the way to her toes. She hated that he had that effect on her. It was hardly fair in negotiating bets. “But the point is you need help with this dog. Just like you’re going to need help with the baby.”
“Not true,” Madison said, feeling absolutely confident that wasn’t the case. She could do anything she had to do alone. She was self-sufficient and resourceful. She could handle a puppy by herself. And a baby, too.
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