by Rachel Hanna
Madison felt like she was being transported back in time. The anxiety she felt in her stomach every day before school had returned.
“I’m sorry, Maddie. I never knew.”
“I guess we are all good at keeping secrets around here. What is going to happen to Mom, Sam?” Madison asked looking up.
“Parkinson’s Disease progresses differently in every patient. Right now, she has some tremors. That’s the first symptom we saw. She seems to be responding to the medication right now, but that could change at any time. Also, the doctor said to watch out for signs of dementia,” Samantha said quietly.
“Dementia? Mom? No… She is too sharp to get dementia,” Madison said.
“Parkinson’s and dementia know no bounds, Maddie. All we can do is be here to help her. I guess that’s why I was so angry with you. I thought you knew about her diagnosis, and it still didn’t bring you back. I am sorry, Maddie. I really am. I feel like such a jerk,” Samantha said with a sad smile. Madison reached out and hugged her tightly.
“I’m just glad we talked. I’ve missed having my sister… But, what I don’t get is why you were mad at me even before that?”
Samantha pulled back and looked at Madison. “Because I envy you, Maddie. You left and started living your dream. I was resentful because I felt like I was trapped here. I couldn’t leave Mom all alone. Finally, I realized that I needed to do something with my life. I’m not getting any younger. Losing Jett was hard enough, but as the years started to tick by, it got even more difficult. I applied to college in Atlanta and got in. I was about to tell Mom, and she got diagnosed.”
“Oh, Samantha… I’m so sorry. I guess it could seem like I didn’t care about you guys, but I wasn’t running away from you. I was running away from some bad memories. I should have been honest,” Madison said patting her sister on the shoulder.
“We’d better get back inside and help Mom. She shouldn’t be lifting those heavy pots and pans,” Samantha said.
The women walked back into the kitchen where their mother was busy mashing potatoes. Madison stopped at the doorway to the kitchen for a moment realizing that her mother was different now. She saw her as someone who was human and had her own issues. Her hands trembled as she mashed the potatoes. Why hadn’t Madison noticed that before?
“Mom, let me do that,” Madison said attempting to take the masher away from her mother.
“I’ve got it, Maddie.” Her words were sharp.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Samantha asked.
“I suppose you told her?” Diane asked without looking up.
“Yes, I did. I thought she already knew,” Samantha said.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell me?” Madison asked as she softly touched her mother on the arm.
“Because I didn’t want to disrupt your life, Maddie. You seemed so happy, and I didn’t want you to change your whole life for me. I knew you’d come home if I told you,” Diane said.
“Well, I am home now. And I can help you,” Madison said with a smile.
“I appreciate that, honey, but you are only home for the holiday. After that, when will we see you again?” Diane asked.
“Actually, I am home… for good.” Madison’s words surprised even her. She hadn’t made the decision yet, but her mouth seemed to think she had. Her heart and mind knew that it was her turn to come home and care for her mother.
“What?” Diane and Samantha said at the same time.
“I was going to tell you over dinner, but I bought the old Granger place. I’m going to decorate it for Christmas and then renovate it to open as a bed and breakfast next year,” Madison said with a sly grin.
“You’re kidding! I can’t believe it!” Diane screeched as she threw her arms around Madison. “My baby is coming home!”
Madison was unprepared for her mother’s relieved and excited reaction. Samantha smiled too as she hugged them both.
“The Carter family is back together!” Samantha said with a grin. Madison secretly wondered if she had made the right decision. She had just agreed to come back to a place that had haunted her for years. She would surely see some of her bullies, and she wondered what that would feel like. She figured she would find out soon enough.
Chapter 7
As relatives began to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner, Madison settled back into the routine of being a Carter again. She realized that her life was going to be different for a while. Although she planned to renovate the Granger place and run a bed and breakfast, she didn’t want to give up her design business in Atlanta. She decided that Amber would just have to take up the slack. She was a great little designer herself and could meet with clients before bringing Madison in on the specifics.
“Brooks! So glad to see you!” Diane exclaimed excitedly. Madison heard the front door close and expected to see the world’s nerdiest man walk into the kitchen. Instead, her mouth gaped open as in walked one of the hottest guys she’d ever seen.
He was wearing a button up gray shirt, black belt, and form fitting jeans. His dark, wavy hair was thicker than she remembered, and his hazel eyes jumped out at her from across the room. Smiling at her with perfect white teeth - evidently the head gear worked - he approached her.
“Madison!” he said as he reached out to hug her. His embrace was warm and strong, unlike anything she remembered when she danced with him at the eighth grade dance.
“Brooks?” Madison said, unable to contain her surprise.
“I guess I don’t look like the nerdy kid you remember?” he said holding her shoulders and looking down at her.
“Um… no, you look…”
“Hot?” Samantha said from the side with a big grin on her face.
“I guess you could say that,” Madison said with a sly smile. For a moment, she was transported back in time hearing one of her mother’s favorite sayings in her head - “Maddie, don’t write off the ugly ones. They always turn out to be the best looking men.”
“So, how are you Maddie? I hear you’re this big-time designer in Atlanta now,” Brooks said sitting down on a bar stool next to her.
“Well, I wouldn’t say big-time, but I do okay.”
“I saw your spread in Atlanta magazine. That was pretty darn impressive,” Brooks said with a smile that lit up the whole room.
“Thanks. What do you do now?” Madison asked, finally calming back down.
“I run my parents’ dairy farm. I was working in Atlanta myself, as a marketing manager, until my Mom got sick. I ended up just staying here after she passed,” he said.
“I am so sorry to hear about your mother. She was a wonderful woman,” Madison said. She was truly sorry to hear about Lila Callaway. She was one of the sweetest women she had ever known.
“Thanks. I’d love to catch up with you sometime. Maybe we can do lunch on Monday?” he asked.
“Sure. I would love that.” Madison couldn’t believe that she seemed to be making a date with Brooks. It felt weird, but she was willing to go with it even if it meant she was just getting her mind off of Connor for a while.
***
“So how was your Thanksgiving?” Jennifer asked as she met Madison outside of the Granger place.
“Interesting, to say the least. How was yours?” Madison asked trying to divert attention from her mother’s news at Thanksgiving.
“Fabulous. We got to tell both sets of parents that they are going to be grandparents! It was so fun. My Mom was in shock, but she is already planning the baby shower. I hope you’ll come…” Jenny continued spewing excitement over her pregnancy news while Madison formulated design plans for the house in her head.
“Of course I will come. Oh, there’s the contractor pulling up. I’d better get inside and get ready to meet with him.”
“Sure. I will chat with you later!” Jennifer said as she walked down the street toward her car.
Madison walked up the steps and unlocked the front door. She was excited to meet with the other half of her contracting team, especially since he w
ould be the one that she worked with daily throughout the renovation. She really liked Buddy, but this guy looked younger… at least from far away.
As she walked inside, Madison looked around again. She would have never believed that the Granger place would one day be hers. Her trip back to Magnolia Cove had been a whirlwind of emotions from confronting her sister to finding out about her mother’s illness to seeing Brooks again. She was starting to feel hopeful, like nothing could touch her now. Those old high school memories could be wiped clean, right?
Wondering where the contractor was, Madison peeked out of the living room window. He was bent over the side of his truck, messing with something in his toolbox. She noticed his nice physique immediately, which was further accentuated by his rugged cowboy boots and perfectly tight jeans. Wearing an emerald green Henley, she started to imagine those muscular arms around her waist.
What is happening to me? She thought. Her libido seemed to be on overdrive lately. First, she ogled Brooks and now this random contractor. She wondered what was going on in her head.
As he started to turn around, she ducked out of the window so he wouldn’t see her staring at him. Nonchalantly, she walked back into the foyer and opened the door for him. Carrying a heavy, metal toolbox, she could see the muscles bulging in his biceps. When she finally looked up, her heart stopped for a moment. Was he good looking? Yes. Was he completely and totally hot? Yes. Was he one of her biggest bullies from high school? Absolutely.
“Oh, my God…” she whispered with her mouth gaping open.
“Don’t I know you?” he said with a finger up like he was trying to place her.
“Well, I would certainly hope so, since you spent your high school years bullying me!” she snapped without thinking.
“Excuse me?” he said as he put down his toolbox and held out his hands in confusion.
“I’m Madison Carter… you know, the red head that you bullied through school?” she said with her hands on her hips.
“I wasn’t a bully in school. You must have me confused with someone else,” he said shaking his head.
“Wyatt Reed, right?” she said.
“Yes…” he said with a sexy smirk that she wanted to smack right off his annoyingly handsome face.
“Then I’m not confused, but you are apparently. Now, get out! Get out of my house!” she said walking behind him and opening the door.
“Madison, you hired my company to do this job. We gave up another job for this one…”
“Well, go get it back because I refuse to work with you!”
“We have a contract.” He stood still in the foyer, back turned to her, not moving.
Madison slowly shut the door and walked around in front of him.
“Can I just ask you something?” she said as she gathered up the courage to stare him in the eye.
“Certainly.”
“Why were you so mean to me? What did I ever do to you?”
“First off, I don’t remember being mean to you, Madison. I do remember your fiery red hair and those crystal clear blue eyes that you are currently using to shoot darts through my head. Secondly, I was a kid. Haven’t you changed since high school?” His logic escaped her as her anger spewed forth.
“Seriously? How can you not remember? You and your buddies made my life a living hell. You sang mean songs about me on the school bus and in the halls. Your dick best friend, Cameron, started all kinds of vicious rumors about me…”
“You can’t blame me for Cameron…”
“No, but you certainly did nothing to stand up for me, did you? Coward.” Madison turned away for a moment to keep her tears from spilling out.
“Look, I came here to do a job in good faith as written in our contract. I am not here to be a punching bag for things I may or may not have done many years ago. I suggest you move on, Madison,” he said in a monotone voice.
Madison realized that her reaction to him would only make her look weak. She needed the house renovated, and his company’s timeline and bid had far outweighed the others. With the new revelation of her mother’s health issues, she knew that she had to act like a professional and get over it.
“You are right, Mr. Reed. I need your services, so I will try to refrain from rehashing the past again. It was just a shock to see you,” she said softly as she avoided eye contact.
“Good. I’m not here to make your life miserable, Madison. People change. I’m sure you realize that. Mind if I take a look around the place?” he asked.
“Sure. Go ahead. I will wait down here,” she said as she sat down on a small bench in the foyer.
As he walked up the stairs, he looked back at her. “For what it’s worth, I should never have made fun of your red hair.”
“Oh, really?” she said sarcastically.
“Really. I’ve never seen such a beautiful combination of red hair and blue eyes.” With that, he walked up the stairs and Madison tried to catch her breath.
Chapter 8
Wyatt Reed was used to getting what he wanted. Even in high school, he was a jock with girls following him everywhere. He was a baseball player who hoped to get a scholarship to college, but that never happened. A shoulder injury and subsequent surgery dashed any chance he had at becoming a Major League Baseball player.
Partnering up with his father’s best friend, Buddy, had proven to be a winning plan when it came to business. The two of them were awarded most of the contracting jobs in town, but he was second guessing the latest job Buddy had signed.
“Man, I’m telling you, she was mad. That red hair ain’t for nothing,” Wyatt said as he kicked back and put his feet on Buddy’s scuffed-up coffee table.
“Well, did she have a point? Did you bully her?” Buddy asked.
“That was so long ago. Kids make fun of each other, you know? Is it always called bullying?” Wyatt asked, leaning his head back and rubbing his hand over his eyes.
“Apparently she felt bullied. Think back. Do you remember anything about that time?” Buddy asked.
Wyatt sat for a moment and tried to think back. He had been so popular and busy in school that he didn’t think he even had time to bully anyone. He did remember Madison. She was tall and skinny with that fiery red hair and those crystal clear eyes. She was quiet and kept to herself. He remembered her being kind of artsy too.
“I really don’t remember any specifics, Buddy. How can I apologize for things that I don’t remember doing?”
“Sometimes it’s okay to apologize, even if we only think we might have done something wrong, Wyatt,” he said. Buddy had been Wyatt’s father’s friend since they were in middle school together. Buddy was also known as the down-to-Earth one while Clay Reed had been wild as a buck and always in trouble.
When Wyatt’s dad had passed away two years prior, Buddy had taken over that fatherly role. Whether Wyatt liked it or not, his business partner was like a surrogate father, and he gave a lot of the same advice to the son as he gave to the father.
***
“Good morning,” Wyatt said as he walked into the Granger house. Madison was busy holding up paint samples and looking at cabinet stains in the kitchen. It was a bright, open space but lacked any kind of design appeal. She wanted to hold on to the historical value of the home while also making it livable for the guests who would stay there.
“Good morning, Mr. Reed,” she said without looking at him.
“Please don’t call me that. My Daddy’s name was Mr. Reed.”
“Was?” she asked turning around.
“He died a couple of years ago. He had a heart attack,” Wyatt said. For a moment, she could see the pain in his eyes and connect it with her own. It was a momentary lapse in judgment, she thought, because he had taunted her throughout her grief over her father in high school.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said in a detached voice as she went back to looking at paint samples.
“Where would you like me to start today?” he asked.
“Probably here in the kitch
en. We have a plumbing issue under this cabinet,” she said pointing to the sink.
“Got it. I’ll start at the sink, and then we can take it from there.”
“Buddy had assured me that there would be a crew working here so that things would be done by December tenth. Is that still the case?” she asked, worried that they would be alone in the house together for weeks.
“They’ll be here in a couple of days, once I get these small items done.”
