“Meeting Caleb at Bill’s?” he offered.
“Yeah...how did you know?” Madison said, slightly taken aback.
“You said it yourself. News travels fast here.”
She hesitated, looking over his gorgeous face. Part of her didn’t want to go with Caleb. She wanted to stay here with Will, looking over at the beautiful sunset, listening to the sound of his deep, musical voice.
He was the kind of man she never met in Pickford: kind, earnest, and drop-dead gorgeous. He was the kind of man you only read about in books or saw on TV, the kind that would do anything for his woman and would never dream of leaving his kids.
And she was going to ditch him to drink beer with a man who tormented her as a child.
As her mother always said, “You sure know how to pick ’em.”
“Yeah, well, I’d better get going since I’m already late,” she hesitated. “But please, let me thank you some time from saving me from a broken limb. I can’t imagine that would be much fun to deal with all the way up here.”
“I broke my leg when I was fifteen,” he said. “Believe me, not a fun car ride. And don’t worry about it, up here we’ve got nothing but time. I’m sure the favor will come back to me at some point.”
She nodded and felt the strange magnetism pull through her core, like it had with Caleb.
That’s insane, she thought. Stop being so boy crazy.
She wondered for a moment if she was just trying to fill the gap that Dustin had left in her, aching and sore like a festering man-needing wound.
“Thanks again,” she said, walking away as quickly as she could back to the road without tripping, trying to escape her own needy desires.
“See you around. Oh, and Madison?” he called. She turned, her heart stuck in her throat as the soft sunlight parted through the trees, falling on his face and giving him a heavenly glow.
“Yes?” she croaked out, her palms getting sweaty like she was in high school all over again, eyeing her crush across the hall.
“Don’t worry about Caleb. He’s always late.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, surprised by the affectionate way he had said it, almost as if he was laughing internally at a good friend’s bad habit. But as she turned back down the road, the image of the celestially gorgeous man burned into her brain, she realized they probably were still good friends.
As different as they were, like a wicked night and a beach picnic day, they were inseparable as children. That was how she had met them. She remembered how they were building a raft to float across the lake, Caleb trying to command the younger Will, and Will, defiant in a silent way, doing whatever he well pleased with a small smile plastered across his face at all times.
Will was the daydreamer. Caleb was the troublemaker.
She wondered how in the world she had nearly forgotten about those two characters in her life.
It’s not like life’s been a bed of roses back home, she reminded herself. Every summer she had spent up until she was twelve was wonderful out here in Titusville. But when her father left, things turned for the worse, and the months she had spent out in this mountain paradise became more and more distant. Her summers became like sunny dreams that she could hardly remember, let alone associate as a reality she had ever experienced.
She pushed the terrible memories out of her mind as the “downtown” area came into view. If she hadn’t been to Titusville before she would have laughed. It was nothing more than a series of small buildings, most of which were tourist shops for people on their way to the state park. Right next to the gas station, as Caleb promised, was a small building with a sign that said, in bold black letters, Bill’s.
A normal girl would have run in the opposite direction. But Madison knew what she was getting into. The Winder back in Pickford looked very similar to Bill’s on the outside. It was attached to a gas station, but instead of being tucked away in a mountain village it was sitting right on the exit ramp of the highway, a choice destination stop for truckers looking for a beer and an exotic dancer.
She didn’t have too many fond memories of her job. But as she smoothed out the front of her blouse a final time, she knew that Bill’s couldn’t be as bad as it looked. For one thing, no semi-truck was bumbling up a mountain road on its way to a marshmallow roast.
And when she opened the door and looked around, she realized that it was exactly what she thought—a place for the few old men in the town to drink beer and shoot the shit.
“Can I help you?” an old man with a leathery face asked. Though he looked as old as time itself, something about the twinkle in his light eyes, strong enough that Madison could see it even in the hazy bar light, let her know that he was jovial and full of life.
“Do you have a bud light?” she asked.
“Sure do. But no one to impress around here so I wouldn’t worry too much about an extra pound or two,” he said, giving her a non-threatening wink.
“Well, just wanted to start off the evening light.”
“You’re Seth’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” he said as he pulled a bottle from the cooler behind him, tucking it under the counter for a moment to pop off the lid.
“Yep,” she replied, taking the cold beer and giving it a good swig, grateful for the refreshing wash of lager that fell back into her throat. She loved a good beer, and whether it was the result of small town living or working in a bar for so many years, she couldn’t ever feel too bad about it. It was one of those small pleasures that made life worth it at the end of a hard day.
“You got his eyes for one thing,” he said, picking up a rag to wipe down the dark counter. “But also, the word around town is Caleb Fowler was supposed to meet Seth’s granddaughter for a beer tonight,” he said with a smile.
Madison shook her head in disbelief. “News does travel fast,” she muttered.
“About the only thing that does around here. I’d be surprised if Caleb gets his ass over here before I’m ready to close.”
“Is he that bad?” Madison frowned, trying to hide her disappointment behind another sip of her beer.
“You know, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve seen many a people sitting right where you’re sitting waiting for that son of a gun to meet him for a drink. Now, there are only so many people in this town and only so many things he’s got to do to protect them.”
He studied Madison’s disappointed face and laughed. “Don’t get yourself too down though, he always shows.”
Bill excused himself and went to go check on the table of half a dozen older men, and Madison sat wondering for a moment how many of those people were women. It was dumb and presumptuous of her, and ultimately, she reminded herself, it didn’t matter.
You’re here because you’re bored. And maybe to stroke your ego a little bit, she thought, even though deep down she knew that she couldn’t have said no to Caleb if she tried.
Then, by the time she had almost finished her beer, she could feel herself getting pissed off and embarrassed. She wondered, and the thought was unbearably strong, if she was being put on in some elaborate joke like when they were children. She was severely teased as a child for being a “porker,” as the other kids called her, and the scars were still there, no matter how many times a friend or boyfriend told her she was beautiful, that she was “full-figured” not fat. A deep dissatisfaction with her body lingered in the back of her mind like a pesky horsefly that finds its way onto a porch and buzzes in your ear every so often.
“Well lookie here,” came a deep, gruff voice.
Madison turned to tell Caleb off when an unfamiliar man sank into the seat beside her, another thinner man with greasy hair standing behind him, his arms folded over his chest and a smarmy grin on his face.
“Who are you?” Madison asked, pulling back a little as the man’s liquor-bated breath assaulted her. He was a mean looking man, with a clean-shaven head and a tattoo on his face—a series of three lines beneath his right eye that looked like a claw mark.
“You
don’t remember me little, Maddie? It’s me, Paul Davis.”
She searched her mind and then suddenly remembered. Paul was one of the other few people that were raised in Titusville. He couldn’t have been much older than she was when she met him, but she remembered he had a nasty attitude and a penchant for bumming rides off strangers who were going down the mountain.
He was always looking for trouble, and Papa Seth had told her to stay away from him. His parents had abandoned him in search of more money and drugs, leaving him to be raised up in the mountain by his elderly grandparents.
He was once a skinny kid, but now looked like he could swipe her unconscious with a slap of his meaty fist.
“Oh, Paul. It’s nice to see you again,” she lied, eyeing the man behind him suspiciously. He wouldn’t even sit. He just stood there with a peculiar look in his eye. “Who’s your friend?”
“That’s Jake,” he said, nodding his head back to the thin man. “Say Maddie, what’re you up to tonight? Jake and I were looking to have a little fun.” He leaned in close to her, catching her wrist and smirking at her nastily.
Madison cringed, filled with a peculiar dread. While she wanted to outright tell him off, there was something about him that made her fearful, made her realize she needed to be careful. Years of living in a small town taught her that it was best not to piss off the wrong people.
But she couldn’t just lie and say she had anything to do. She obviously had nothing to do. No job, no family, no friends.
“Please let go of me,” she said evenly, tugging her wrist back. His grip grew stronger, and he didn’t look like he was about to let go anytime soon.
Then, just as she was contemplating the merits of causing a scene, the devil himself came through the door.
“There she is,” came a familiar voice from behind her. She tensed and turned to give him a smile, even though she would have otherwise been much colder to him. But she wanted to get Paul and his weaselly lackey off her back.
“Caleb,” Paul said in a terse voice, greeting him with a cool gaze. He dropped Madison’s wrist like it was on fire.
“Hello, fellas,” he said, his smile hardly faltering. But there was an edge to his voice, almost as if there was something unspoken between them. “I see you’ve met up with my lovely date.”
The words both thrilled and incensed Madison, as he had not asked her on a date at all. But she held her tongue, knowing that it wouldn’t help her case any if she protested.
“Well, we wouldn’t want to bother you. You two have a good evening,” Paul said, giving Caleb a hard look before surrendering his stool and walking away towards a booth in the corner.
Madison was slightly in awe. She looked over Caleb and shook her head, as in disbelief. Sure, Caleb looked fit. But Paul was huge, and clearly he had some sort of reverence for the small town cop.
“Can I get another, Mr. Bill?” she quickly asked the bemused-looking bartender, turning away from the cool, sexy man beside her.
“Sure thing, Ms. Madison,” he said.
“Giving me the cold shoulder are you? I get it.” Caleb sunk onto the barstool next to hers, the warmth of his body unbearably delicious. It didn’t make sense to her how she could feel him, feel this hot desire that only came when she was near he and Will.
“I deserve it, there’s no doubt. Give me whatever’s on tap, Bill,” Caleb called over the counter.
“We always got the same thing on tap, Caleb,” Bill grunted.
Madison gave Caleb a quick glance.
“No I understand. I’m sure there’s a lot to do in Titusville,” she said coolly, hoping his flippant behavior would make it easier for her to hold a grudge against him.
“Hey now, listen,” Caleb’s grabbed her shoulder and swiveled her body around to face him. She gasped, his touch flooding her with a burst of yearning that exploded on her skin like a spark igniting dry leaves.
“Ms. Dolly’s dog got ripped to shreds by some kind of an animal. I wouldn’t have spent too much time with the paperwork, but given the tracks around the property...well let’s just say it wasn’t a coyote. Thanks, Mr. Bill,” Caleb said, dropping his hand from Madison’s shoulder and flashing the bartender a closed mouth grin. Bill nodded and handed Madison her beer.
“I’ll be playing some darts if you need me,” he said, wandering off to leave them to their bickering.
“What do you mean it wasn’t a coyote?” Madison said lowly, dread flooding through her. Big animals scared her above everything. It was something she mulled over as she made the five-hour trek up to Titusville, but she kept telling herself that she was over-reacting, that plenty of folk lived up in the mountain and that they were fine.
“I’m saying I can’t say too much until a ranger comes down to see it, but I’m going to need to walk you to your place tonight. Even if it’s only a quarter mile away, you better make sure you do nothing outside of your house alone at night.”
Madison gulped, throwing back more beer to deal with her nerves. “I guess this wasn’t the mountain retreat I imagined it’d be,” she joked.
“Nothing easy about living in the wilderness,” Caleb teased, his expression relaxing as he drank from his glass. “Which leads me to my next question. What’s a big city girl like you doing out here?”
“You guys consider Pickford a big city?” she laughed, shaking her head. She could feel the booze relaxing her, even the threat of her intense attraction to him loosening its death grip.
“Well, you have paved roads don’t you?”
“Good point,” she shook her head, taking another swig. “Truthfully, things weren’t going too well for me there. When my Papa Seth passed I was pretty torn up about it, and I always wanted to come up with him for one last summer and just relax, get my head on straight. When he passed, well...I figured there was no better time than now to do it.”
“That’s pretty vague,” Caleb teased, his hazel eyes boring into hers, sending a jolt of electricity storming through her body.
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson about being an open book,” she said, averting her eyes for a moment as she tried to keep from falling apart in front of the handsome man on her right.
“There shouldn’t be anything to hide amongst old friends,” Caleb teased, and the playful look on his face sent a thrill of butterflies a flight in her stomach. She couldn’t help but laugh.
“Right. Well, if you really need to know, I was working really hard bar tending at this trucker stop off the inter-state, The Winder. I was trying to save up so my boyfriend and I could move to Billings, maybe even buy our own house. Hell, I don’t know,” she sighed, shaking her head at her own naive dream.
“But then I walked in on him with this other woman, his brother’s girl. I worked with her too, not that we were super close or anything but we were friendly. She was a dancer at The Winder, and a stripper during the day at the joint next door. So I just packed up my stuff and left. Didn’t even look back.”
“So your boyfriend would rather have a daytime stripper than you?” he said, and though she could tell he didn’t mean any harm by his words, they stung deeply, ripping open a cavernous wound that had hardly healed. She fought back the tears forming in her eyes and turned her gaze down to her half-empty bottle, trying to focus through her cloudy tears on the amber liquid that might offer her some sort of condolence.
“Yeah,” she murmured.
Then she felt a gentle touch to her chin as he placed two fingers there, turning her face to meet his. His gaze was gentle, understanding. Something she wouldn’t have expected from a smart aleck like him.
“Well, that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. You’re stunning.”
Filled with conflicting desires, one to pull away from him and the other to give in, she did neither and wiped the embarrassing tears away from her eyes, blotting at them with her fingertips.
“That’s nice of you. But you don’t have to go around telling me lies to keep me from crying.”
�
��You still don’t trust me, huh?” he shook his head, pulling his hand away from her. She was both relieved and filled with remorse that his touch was gone; it filled her with a longing she couldn’t quite describe.
“Not really,” she admitted. “I know I’m just one of the few young girls passing through here and you gotta jump to get your chance,” she downed some more beer after that, surprised by her blatant straightforwardness. She wasn’t typically so direct with people she was distrusting of. Only her friends knew that truly sassy, candid side of her.
“You think I’m just talking to you because I’m desperate?” he said, his dark brows shooting up in surprise, as if the thought had never occurred to him.
“Oh, come on,” Madison laughed, tickled by his false display of emotion. “You were never nice to me growing up. You were downright cruel!”
“I wouldn’t say I was cruel...”
“You put a leech in my hair!”
“Well...I wouldn’t say that was nice, but cruel? I don’t know about that…” he grinned, draining the rest of his beer. “Besides, I just did it because I had a big crush on you and I was jealous of Will.”
Madison choked up on her beer in a very unladylike fashion. But she could hardly be sorry for it. This guy had to be pulling her leg. “What, are you kidding me? You were awful!”
“Like I said,” he chuckled in his charming way. “I wanted you to myself. I sure was spiteful then.”
Madison was filled with a buoyancy that came from a combination of surprise at Caleb’s crush, flattery (even if it was when she was just a kid), and the beer.
Caleb hailed Bill over and got another round of drinks, insisting that everything from the night went on his tab. Then he continued on, telling her about all the evil things he had done out of jealously, leaving Madison in stitches by the end of it.
The time flew by, and Bill had to usher them out at closing, shaking his head as he joked about what troublemakers they both were.
By the time they got back to Madison’s house she was slightly tipsy, working hard to keep at least a semblance of distance between them.
Too Much to Bear (BBW Shifter Ménage) Page 2
