Solving the dilemma was helpful, but it didn’t change the way her skin itched right now. It didn’t make the hours pass. It didn’t fill the echoing, cavernous rooms that trapped her tonight. She squeezed herself tight around the chest as she paced, for the thousandth time, past the couch toward the darkening windows.
She snatched her phone off the coffee table and punched in a familiar number. The speaker rang hollowly in her ear. She counted the rings, praying they would stop. They did after the fourth, but it was Jada’s voice mail that picked up.
“It’s Madison. I was just calling to talk. Kacey’s at work. I guess you are too.”
She checked her watch, pausing to do the mental calculation of time zones, shocked to find it so early. Dinner service had barely started so it would be ages before Kacey came home. The prospect of those blank hours felt like a physical weight.
“Everyone’s working except me. Isn’t that funny? Back in Denver I ran between the coffee shop and my studio so much it felt like I had a dozen jobs. Now I don’t even have one. Maybe I should find something to do part time. Of course the whole point of this was coming here to be a full-time artist. It would sort of be a slap in the face to Kacey if I got a job, wouldn’t it?”
She was losing her grip and it was evident in her voice. She sounded frantic and a little crazy even to herself. She needed to slow down. Take a breath.
“Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Just a little cabin fever probably. I should get out of the house more. Anyway, sorry about the rambling mess—”
The voice mail beeped, cutting off her apology. The automated system asked if she was satisfied with her message, and she nearly deleted it. Jada already knew her—no need to hide anything from her now. Continuing her pacing she tossed the phone onto the couch. It bounced onto the floor and she didn’t bother picking it up. She didn’t have anyone else to call.
Madison swung herself around the column in the center of the room, retracing her steps across the living room. She avoided looking toward the stable. She’d pointedly avoided it all day. Every time CS came to mind, which was far too often this past week, she’d thought of their tour through the winery. The brush of their skin touching, the easy conversation, the shared wine. She thought of Jada’s warning at dinner and the new knowledge that CS lived so close. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking of her this much, but she couldn’t help her mind wandering.
Madison let her body fall back with a dull thud against the thick, cold glass windows, staring at the wide ceiling beam. CS had been attentive during their tour. She had shared her wine and the story of her father’s death. Something had changed between them, hadn’t it? It almost felt like CS had been flirting with her and, if she were honest with herself, she wasn’t upset about it. Madison knew she hadn’t misinterpreted the long looks and the husky musicality of CS’s voice.
Madison pushed off the wall with a frustrated growl. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want CS to flirt with her. Hadn’t wanted it then and didn’t want it now. She wanted Kacey. She wanted Kacey to flirt with her. To be with her. To marry her and maybe start a family one day. She didn’t need CS’s deep blue eyes and honeyed-whiskey voice messing that up. She didn’t need anything but Kacey. But there was a distance between them that was feeling dangerous. There’d been so little affection since they’d come to Oregon. Had it been before that? Kacey had always had her full focus, but now she was never around. Madison couldn’t worry about CS now. She had to worry about what was going on in her relationship, but she couldn’t fix it on her own. Another conversation to have with Kacey.
Maybe it wasn’t CS at all. Maybe it was the barrel room itself that had compelled her, clouded her judgment. It was an incredible space. She’d dreamt of it often since her time down there. The towering ceilings and row upon teetering row of barrels. The musty, woody scents. The crisp air. The light down there was wonderfully cave-like. She normally liked bright, open spaces, like this living room or her studio drenched in natural light. Somehow the hulking shadows of the barrel room weren’t menacing, though. The dark was mysterious. Magical.
Madison had to go back there, find her way down into the dark recesses of the winery right now. She grabbed her wool shawl and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Twenty
Madison had to be right about the magic down here because the minute she slipped into the deserted cavern, she could hear ghosts. Whispers and laughter and just a breath of a voice that almost sounded like Kacey. It was exactly the place she remembered. The ethereal quality of the light. The life humming off the barrels. She slid her fingers down a row, feeling the rough surface as she passed. The soles of her shoes barely whispering in the dark.
Cold air brushed against her skin in that same pleasant way. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders, remembering how CS held her hand out for it. The way she spoke to Madison with only her eyes. Taking another step, she forced CS out of her mind. Reminded herself she was down here for the room, not because of the woman who introduced her to it.
She came to realize how different the magic of this place was today, when she was alone. There was a warning in it. A chill ran through her and she shivered. With each step, the room seemed to be telling her something was wrong. She couldn’t halt her footsteps. The cold wasn’t outside her anymore. It was in her blood. Seeping into her bones.
Her next breath shook in her throat like a death rattle. Her last thought before she stepped out of the darkness into the pool of light over the private corner was that she wished CS was here right now. It would take a strength like hers to overcome these ghosts.
There was a certain inevitability in the scene. As though Madison knew on the day they’d met that this was how things would end with Kacey. That she would turn a corner and see the woman she loved with her mouth on another’s. See her body pressed against a topless stranger. See Kacey’s hand buried under that woman’s skirt and see the stranger’s head tipped back in unmistakable ecstasy. Inevitable as the rising sun.
That inevitability did not make it cut any less deep. Didn’t dull the pain of betrayal. It was like a physical blow, catching Madison in the gut and causing her to lurch forward. Even that movement didn’t stop the scene playing out before her. Madison watched for a moment, the picture becoming more and more clear as her heartbeat thundered in her ears, ticking away the moments that she could never get back.
The girl was blond, thin, and barely more than a teenager. A waitress in Kacey’s restaurant. The one with whom Kacey had been joking while she served Jada wine. Not joking—flirting. The one who’d called CS “The Ice Queen.” A private joke with Kacey. How many other private things did they share? How long had they shared them?
Madison entered the ring of light. Moved into the corner holding that enchanted wine. She’d sat on the same barrel the waitress was on now. The waitress’s discarded shirt was their bedsheet. Madison stopped right next to the couple. Close enough that she could reach out and touch them.
The girl’s head rolled and her eyes opened and fell on Madison. They stared at each other, growing comprehension lighting the blonde’s sex-dulled eyes. Madison tried to remember the girl’s name. She’d been told more than once, but it hadn’t stuck. For whatever reason, it seemed essential she remember that name now. She’d become rather more important in Madison’s life in the last few minutes, after all.
Time slowed as the girl began to move. It seemed to take an age of silence before she jerked her body up and away from Kacey, who barked in protest. She skittered backward, nearly tumbling off the wine barrel, her eyes locked in horror on Madison. Kacey turned to see what had disturbed her. The movement was perfunctory. Almost lazy. Their eyes met and held in silence that lasted another lifetime in the magic darkness of the cellar.
“What the fuck?” Kacey’s eyes flashed with an anger Madison had never seen. Never suspected in a million years could exist inside the woman she thought she knew better than she knew herself. “What the fuck
are you doing here, Madison?”
Perhaps it was the fact that Kacey hadn’t bothered to take her hand out from under the girl’s skirt before speaking Madison’s name that set her off. Perhaps it was because rather than shame, anger had been Kacey’s first response. Perhaps it was just a delayed reaction to her heartbreak. Whatever caused it, rage poured out of Madison before she could stop it.
“Don’t you dare say my name!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the distant rafters and causing the girl to jump again, this time in unmistakable fear. “Don’t you say a word to me! How could you? How dare you? I hate you! I hate everything about you.”
The shouting didn’t seem to affect Kacey at all. She very calmly pulled her pants back up, buttoning them with slow, languid movements that showed no hint of remorse.
“It’s not like you didn’t know this was coming. Christ, get a grip on yourself.”
“Get a grip on myself? I knew this was coming? Is that really all you have to say?”
“What else is there to say?”
“How about saying you’re sorry? How about an explanation? I think you owe me something more than this.”
“I don’t owe you shit.” Kacey buttoned her chef’s coat. “I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted and all I ask for is a little head at the breakfast table once in a while. But that’s too much to ask apparently. So, I say again, it’s not like you didn’t know this was coming.”
Kacey’s words cut sharper and deeper than her actions. She was acutely aware of the blonde’s eyes on her. The fathoms-deep anger bled out of her.
“How could you say that?”
“Well, now you know how to prevent this in the future, don’t you?”
Surely Madison had heard her wrong. “What are you talking about?”
Kacey huffed in that exhausted way she did when she had to explain a simple concept. She finished buttoning her coat. “Give it up every now and then and we won’t have this problem again.”
“You think I’m going to stay with you after this?”
“Of course you will.”
“No.”
Smugness turned to cold threat as Kacey said, “What other choice do you have?”
Kacey’s shout echoed hollowly the massive room, the threatening insult bouncing around the room.
“You are not the woman I fell in love with.”
Kacey smiled. It was a villainous smile, dripping with venom. “Same here.”
Madison’s arm shot out of its own accord. Her open palm landed on Kacey’s shoulder and she knew at the moment of impact that the blow stung Kacey far less than it stung her. She thought of the diamond ring she’d been expecting in Denver and slapped Kacey’s shoulder again. She thought of all the late nights and the loneliness and she aimed for Kacey’s face.
Kacey caught her by the wrist in a painfully tight grip. Madison yelped and raised her other hand, not to hit Kacey again but to pry her hand free. Kacey snatched it out of midair and clamped her fingers around it, her knuckles whitening with the force. She shook Madison’s arms, making her whole body jerk.
“If you think you can just walk away, you’ve got another think coming, baby.”
Kacey shook her again, words hissing through her tightly clenched teeth.
“You’re mine and you know it. You’re going to go back home and sit there, waiting for me or I swear I will…”
Madison found her voice. “I will not.”
Kacey shook her again, this time forcefully enough to snap her head back. A popping sound came from her neck and little lights exploded in front of her eyes. Vaguely she knew Kacey was still shaking her, but her body was limp now, riding the waves like a ship in a storm. Kacey’s shouts were distant, but they were no less intimidating.
A new voice cut into the scene. “Let her go right now.”
CS’s calm, rumbling tone brought Madison rushing back into herself. Her eyes cleared, but the pain redoubled. The first thing she saw was the angry red skin of her wrists under Kacey’s grip. Even through her haze, Madison could feel CS’s presence. Feel her warmth and solidity.
Kacey let her go and took a step back. CS caught her with an arm around her waist. Madison tried to look into her eyes, but CS was focused on Kacey. She removed her arm once Madison was able to stand and took a step forward, putting herself between them.
Like any bully met with an equal adversary, Kacey turned her attention back to the weakest party. Her eyes stayed locked on Madison while she stalked back to the barrel, moving behind the waitress and letting her hand dangle suggestively over her shoulder in front of her naked chest.
“What’s the matter, babe? This is awfully close to how you and I got together, after all.” Madison looked away, feeling the eyes of the room on her and hating the way her cheeks blazed hot. “Does your white knight know how easily you give it up to a stranger, you slut? She does, doesn’t she? That’s why you won’t give me a piece?”
The insinuation stung all the stronger for Madison’s recently wandering mind. She may have thought about CS, but she wasn’t a cheater. “I would never do that to you.”
Madison’s voice was small, but the words traveled across the room. Kacey laughed at them. Laughed while tears began to leak out of the waitress’s eyes. She wrapped her arms around her chest, opting for modesty a little late in the game, and tried to shrug out from underneath Kacey’s arm.
“Neither would I.” The anger was gone from CS’s voice. It was back to the cold neutral she used with everyone except Boots and, recently, Madison. “I don’t like your implication, Kacey.”
“Relax. I didn’t mean anything against you.”
“I know. That’s what I don’t like. Ironic that you’re calling Madison a slut when she finds you cheating.”
“She is a…”
“Don’t.” The single word brought Kacey’s teeth together in silence, and CS let the silence linger for a single, threatening moment before going on. “Pack up and get out. Right now.”
“What?”
“I believe you brought your own knives. Collect them on your way out.”
“I’m not leaving. We’re in the middle of dinner service!”
“Obviously your presence in the kitchen isn’t required.” CS made a flippant gesture to the now silently weeping waitress. “I said get out. You’re fired.”
CS had been quiet, calculating as ever. Kacey stormed out from behind the barrel screaming, her eyes wild. “You can’t fire me! I have a contract!”
“You probably should’ve read the sexual harassment and appropriate conduct during working hours sections of that contract.”
“This is my restaurant. I made it. I’m the reason this place is making money!”
“I can hire another chef.”
“We all talk, you know. I’ll blackball this place. I’ll tear it apart. By the time I’m done you’ll be begging for quarters at stoplights!”
She’d grown hysterical, spit flying from her teeth as she ranted. CS slowly crossed her arms, a joyless smile sweeping across her face.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah! That’s so!”
“In that case, you’re fucking fired.” CS dropped her arms and started a slow march forward. “You’re a cocky, pretentious ass. The only people who think you’re wonderful are you and this waitress you are constantly fucking all over my goddamn vineyard.”
Kacey’s back was against a row of barrels now. She looked like she wanted to hide behind them. Madison watched the scene with a detached numbness creeping like frostbite over her limbs.
“Get out. Don’t do anything else. Go to your place, pack a bag and leave right now. If you don’t, it will be a very poor decision.”
Kacey wavered for a moment. There was a ghost of something familiar on her face. She looked the way she did the night Madison had met her. Like a woman wearing a mask of confidence, but with a world of softness beneath. Madison had always loved the woman behind that mask. The one who was vulnerable and brave at
the same time. At some point in the last three years, Madison had stopped seeing the softness. Now it was back and a pulse of sadness shot through her. She should have been the one to show Kacey she didn’t need the mask. That the woman she was had always been enough. It was Madison’s job as her partner to show her that, but Madison had failed. This was the result. She felt responsible for this night.
Then, in a heartbeat, Kacey was gone. She stormed out without once looking at Madison. Without once looking at the blonde, now shivering in the cold air, mascara running in gray rivers down her cheeks. She was there one moment, and then she was gone. Perhaps she had never been there at all. It was easy to believe that after the waitress slid off the barrel and melted into the shadows herself.
Madison felt alone. Standing on the far rim of the light, her wrists throbbing and her neck aching. Silence filled the space again. The magic had dissolved.
CS stood like a statue, staring at the place Kacey had been. Her shoulders and back heaved with each breath like she’d been running. Her T-shirt was tight, the fibers stretched with each breath. She watched CS, standing solidly but not looking at her.
Madison knew, in a distant place in her mind, that she was in shock. Thoughts finally bubbled to the surface. Everyone’s words starting to make sense.
“You knew?” She wasn’t sure she could survive the answer.
“I suspected.” CS didn’t turn. Her back didn’t stop heaving. “If I had known for sure, I’d have gotten rid of her on the spot.”
“Can’t have your employees running off to fuck during work hours.”
“That isn’t why.”
Madison’s tears came now, thick and fast. She was tired of crying. Maybe she was just tired. Bone-deep weariness settled into her.
“Were there others?”
“I don’t like to make it my business what other people…”
“Were there others?”
CS was quiet for a long time. Her back finally stilled. She looked at her boots. “There are always others.”
And Then There Was Her Page 14
