by Frost, Sosie
But how much longer would I have him?
“Jo-Jo, it’s late.” He opened his eyes. “You should be home.”
“It’s only nine, Granddad.”
“And if you want to live to a healthy age like me…” The joke was lost in a wracking cough that hurt my own lungs. He gave up on the smile too, waving his hand. “Go home. You don’t want to be here with an old man.”
“No old man here.” I reached for his water before he did, pouring him a glass. “Just a big baby. Let me help you.”
“I’m fine.”
“They said you took too many of your pills.”
His eyes closed again. “What do the doctors know?”
“Um. A lot. Like…that you took too much medication. If you want the nurses to help—”
“Stop worrying, Jo-Jo.” His words trailed off. “You need to let an old man rest. Can’t get any sleep around here.”
I leaned back in the chair, exhaling instead of yelling or crying or just rehashing the same conversation again and again. I looked away, but my gaze settled on the framed photograph on his nightstand.
Where did he find that?
“Granddad…” I reached for the picture, touching the faded image. “How did you get this?”
He didn’t answer. I swallowed, but my mouth was dry.
I hadn’t seen this picture since the fire. I didn’t think it survived.
Me. Him. Nana. At the shop. The ice cream cones stacked.
“Granddad.” I squeezed his hand. “I thought this was gone. How…”
He stirred, frowning at the frame. His shoulders shrugged. “Copy. Someone gave it to me.”
“Wow.” The tears returned. “I just…I haven’t seen a picture of Nana in so long. And the shop. Look at the shop.”
“Take it.” He waved me away. “And those papers on the dresser. Those are yours.”
I ducked away from the IV and took the folder. My stomach turned.
Last will and testament. Great.
“Granddad.”
“Yours.” He forced a smile. “Now go. I’m fine. Just an accident. Want to get some sleep.”
No arguing with him. He closed his eyes out of spite.
“Okay.” I held the frame to my chest. “But I’ll be back in the morning.”
I left my number at the nurses’ station, just to make sure they had a sticky note on their computer monitors in case something went wrong. With his will and paperwork in my arms, I felt more than a little paranoid.
Home wasn’t much better than the care facility. I pushed through my locked door and ignored another barrage of calls from Maddox.
The pitter-patter of rain tinked off the windows. It beat down harder as I struggled to find something to do to keep from thinking about Granddad. Dishes didn’t help. I already did most of my laundry. I didn’t need more cookies.
I made peanut brittle instead.
But my eyes returned to the stack of papers Granddad passed to me. His will. I hadn’t read it, didn’t even know what would still be relevant inside of it. Most of everything was lost in the fire, and what wasn’t was already sworn to his debts and medical care. I thumbed through the folder and started to read.
My feet thunked from the coffee table to the floor.
The signature and date had to be wrong. There was a mistake.
Granddad updated his will two days before the fire?
I flipped through the pages, searching for any reason he might have updated the document. I was probably making too much out of it though. The date meant nothing. Granddad was the superstitious one. I didn’t see anything in lotto numbers or dice rolls.
But something roiled in my stomach, and it wasn’t a good instinct.
My phone rang again. I answered it without looking, fearing it was the care facility.
I should have hung up on him.
“Josie.” Maddox’s voice rumbled right into my core. “You gotta hear me out.”
My thumb hovered over the button to disconnect.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I needed the money, Sweets.”
“Nolan hurt us. He burned down my shop. He wants nothing more than to fuck me. Why would you ever take a job from him?”
“I know.”
My fingers trembled, too aggravated and exhausted and emotionally drained to deal with Maddox and his lies now. “Nolan threatened me two weeks ago. Made a pass at me and, when I rejected him, got aggressive.”
“Mother fucker—”
“That is the man you worked for. That is the man you let trap you. He wanted to frame you, Maddox. He might have put you away if he didn’t get everything he wanted then.”
“What was that?”
“Me to admit that I let you back in my life.” I swallowed. Hard. “It was a mistake. I see that now.”
“Josie, I needed work. I needed money.”
“How long have you been his little errand boy? What did you even do for him?”
“Josie—”
“Answer the question.”
“I did whatever he couldn’t do himself.” Maddox grunted. “He paid me to rough up Bob Ragen, to get him to withdraw his offer on the property so you’d sell only to him.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“You weren’t selling anyway, Sweets. I made us some money doing what Nolan wanted.”
“And if Bob burned down the shop?” I couldn’t do this anymore. I slammed the will onto the table, but my eyes caught a familiar name.
One that didn’t belong in Granddad’s will.
“I swear I’m going to find who did this, Josie. I’ll fix it. I needed money a year ago. Bad. I planned to marry you. We wanted a baby. I couldn’t live off of Matt’s scraps for electrical work anymore, not when people didn’t trust me enough to let me into their homes.”
Money.
He’d wanted money.
My stomach pitted. I stared at the new name inserted in the will.
Andrew Maddox.
Granddad put Maddox in the will—gave him the entirety of his electrical business, his tools, his clients, and his blessing to marry me.
And he had signed it…two days before the fire.
Maddox was put into the will, and then we lost the store.
He talked, but I couldn’t hold the phone steady to hear anything he said. My mind clicked pieces of a puzzle in place that I no longer wanted to solve.
I thought when my heart broke the pain would end.
It was just the beginning.
Maddox was in the will. He was doing work secretly for Nolan—not just before the fire, but after, even when he knew it was Nolan’s crime.
Unless it wasn’t Nolan’s doing.
The police. The fire marshal. Granddad. Delta. The entire town thought the electrical fire was set by Maddox. I never wanted to see it, never believed that dark side of him. But there it was—spoken every time we had the same fight. He talked of blood. Of violence.
Of revenge.
Was the fire revenge for me breaking up with him? Did he burn down the shop and then deliberately invent motives for other suspects to lead me away from him and Nolan?
“Oh, God.” I whispered, choking on his betrayal.
“Sweets? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know. I never thought…”
“Josie.”
“It was you.”
“What was me?”
“It was you all the time. You were in the will. You were working with Nolan. It was you.”
“Josie—”
The words made me sick just to speak them. “It’s why you were at the shop in time to save me. You didn’t know I’d be inside. And you got caught tampering with the breaker box.”
“What are you talking about—”
“It was your fault. You caused the fire.”
Chapter Fourteen – Maddox
This was what it felt to die without dying.
My heart ripped out, and my future torn apart.
“You did it.” Josie’s words rattled with shock. “It was you.”
“No!”
“I can’t—”
“Josie!” I nearly broke the phone. “Listen to me!”
“Leave me alone!”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Don’t contact me again.”
The call disconnected.
And my life was ruined.
I spent a year in jail for a crime I didn’t commit, but I would’ve stayed for life if she believed I was innocent. I threw the phone. It cracked, but it wasn’t the skull I wanted to fracture. Mine. Nolan’s. The chief’s. I had no idea where to direct my anger, but I couldn’t let it focus on her.
“God damn it!” The nightstand flipped. Then the ice bucket. The shitty coffee pot that hadn’t brewed a hot cup of coffee since I’d rented the room.
Chelsea hadn’t returned yet, but her bags got in my way. I pitched the duffle from my path. It unzipped, scattering bottles of pills and a used syringe.
Christ. Life turned to shit. I’d destroyed everything I had with Josie.
This wasn’t happening.
I couldn’t let her go. I spent too long separated from Josie already, too many hard days and nights imagining our future, our home, our promised baby. It wasn’t ending this way.
I hadn’t bought a car yet—sold my old one to get a lawyer who wasn’t a public defender. I bundled up in my jacket and sprinted from the motel. I didn’t have the room key. I hadn’t pocketed my phone. The skies opened in sheets of pouring rain.
But nothing would stop me from getting to Josie.
Nothing.
My steps pounded against the puddles in the road, and lightning flashed overhead. The thunder was an unwelcomed crash. It muffled my fists banging on Josie’s door.
She didn’t open it for me. Not because she didn’t hear me, but because she didn’t want me.
I’d be sick. The rain drenched me, but I’d stay all night in the soaking downpour if it meant there was a chance she’d open the door. She had to listen to me.
“Josie!” I didn’t recognize my voice. “Please! Let me explain!”
She wouldn’t answer me. Hell, I probably only had a few minutes before the cops showed and Chief Craig finally had a reason to cuff me. He’d salivate over an arrest for a domestic dispute. If Josie pressed charges, it’d prove no one was left in the world who gave a damn about me.
And then what would happen?
Josie would be trapped with Nolan and his lust. Chelsea would be used and discarded by a man who got off on his own power and the woman he molested. And me? Fuck me; I didn’t care what happened to me. Josie could kick me out of her life. Forbid me from speaking to her. Hell, she could run me out of the damn town.
But first she was going to know why I did what I did, and then she could leave me forever.
“Josie!” I leaned against the door, shouting so she could hear me over the rain and thunder and her own grieving betrayal. “You wanted to know where I was the night your store burned down. Open the door and I’ll tell you!”
I listened. One second. Two. Three.
Ten agonizing seconds before she called through the door.
“It won’t matter.”
Like hell it wouldn’t. “The night of the fire, I was getting evidence to blackmail Chief Craig.”
Josie’s words were short, curt. Absolutely heartbroken. “Have you ever done anything honorable in your life, Maddox?”
I gritted my teeth. The rain kicked up, pelting me with shattering drops. I shivered, not from the cold. From the truth. From the shame.
I failed to protect those who deserved it a year ago. It wasn’t happening again.
“I wasn’t blackmailing him for me.” I hated to yell, but I couldn’t let her miss a single word. “I was paying him off.”
“Bribing the Chief of Police?”
“I had to. And I was doing odd jobs for Nolan to earn enough money to keep the chief satisfied. Nolan was a last resort, Josie, I swear it.”
“Why would you bribe the police chief?”
“Because he’s…” I had slammed the door so hard my fists scraped and bled. I let the rain wash it away. “He’s whoring out my sister. He’s got Chelsea, and he’s stuffing her full of drugs and pimping her to his friends. I paid him so he wouldn’t whore her out.”
I heaved a breath, waiting for the door to open. Another ten seconds passed. I gave her a minute.
Nothing.
Either she didn’t believe me or she didn’t care, and I wouldn’t blame her. Not like I was a shining example of a great boyfriend. I could vow my love, promise to be a devoted husband, and pick out baby names, but it wouldn’t make a damn difference. She saw me for who I really was.
Trash. Danger. A mistake rendered from human flesh.
“Please, Josie.” I couldn’t shout anymore. “Please.”
My heart stilled as the door opened. Josie was wrapped in a blanket, staring at me with wide eyes and parted lips. She trembled with either cold or sadness or just disbelief.
“He’s…prostituting her?”
I hadn’t admitted it to anyone and only now realized she was the only one who wouldn’t judge us for it. I should have trusted her from the beginning.
“He’s got her convinced she’s his mistress, but he needs money to leave his wife and kids. Chelsea so goddamned infatuated with him she doesn’t understand that he’s threatening us both. If I can’t get him enough money, he’s going to take her swinging again.” The thought burned me. Like Chelsea hadn’t suffered enough. “I have no idea if she’d even survive it, not with the amount of drugs he pushes on her to make her fuck those men.”
Josie closed her eyes. “And you knew about this?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“Two years. I paid him enough to keep her from whoring, but I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him from touching her.”
“You thought he was responsible for the fire?” It wasn’t a question. Josie put two and two together, only she didn’t have to sit in a jail cell for a year and obsess over it.
“He knew I was close to getting evidence. One of his friends had pictures of her with him from a party. I paid for them. A shit ton. I was about to expose him for what he was, and I think he set fire to your shop to frame me. He couldn’t risk his reputation.”
“And the money was the only way you could protect Chelsea. You needed to take the jobs.”
“I never, ever wanted to hurt you,” I said. “I wanted to keep you away from the chief and Nolan and that part of my life.”
Her grip tightened on the blanket. I hated that the rain blew sideways, misting over her. We both ignored the cold. “You should have told me. I would have understood. I could have helped.”
“No one would believe me without proof. The chief is respected and important and my sister and I…” Weren’t. “We’re not even a family. I’m a wallet to her, a last resort before she whores herself out to someone less reputable than John Craig. I couldn’t let that happen. Our childhood was robbed. No reason her adult life should be miserable too.”
Josie pulled me inside, tugging the wet coat off my body. I dripped onto her floors and shivered from the rain, but anywhere she touched me was as comforting as a damn mug of hot cocoa—her gourmet recipe, the one that was more melted chocolate bar than milk.
She cast the blanket over my shoulders, and she sat me on the couch.
Comforted.
Loved.
Nothing I deserved. Not now.
“I will never keep any secret from you again,” I promised. “Never.”
“Shh.” Josie placed a delicate finger over my lips. I kissed it, instinctually, just a way to show deference to the woman who controlled more of my life than my pride, the law, or any of my bad decisions. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“I gave
you reason to doubt.”
“Not a good one. I knew better. I told everyone else to look harder, to see the man you really were.”
She leaned close, gently shifting over my lap to straddle my legs. Her arms wove behind my neck, and I stared at her beautiful cinnamon lips.
Christ, what did I have to do to get this woman to drop the apologies and just kiss me?
“I doubted you at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “I let myself…think horrible things.”
“It’s my fault, Sweets. I’m not the man you should have fallen in love with.”
“There’s no one else for me.” Her lips pressed mine, gentle and soft. “No one else excites me as much as you. No one that challenges me as much. No one understands me as much as you do.”
“Believe me, Sweets. I haven’t figured you out yet.”
“I think you have. Long ago. When you saw me all innocent and naïve and sheltered.”
“Don’t kid yourself. I wanted to exploit that.”
Her eyebrow rose. “You didn’t.”
“Wow. You’re still naïve.”
“Is that a problem?”
I rested my hands on her hips, grasping her curves just to tease my restraint. “I like that you’re innocent. I need that, or I’d never believe this world wasn’t the first step to hell. You see things differently than me. You’ve had good things happen to you.”
“You’ve been the best.”
“That’s a lie, but it sounds sweet coming from you.”
“It’s no lie. I needed to know the world had that edge.” She brushed my cheek. “You taught me to be cautious. To recognize when men like Nolan wanted something more from me than I was willing to give. We balance each other, Maddox.”
“You balance me. I corrupt you.”
Josie leaned close, her kiss encouraging me to do more than just corrupt her. “Maybe I like it.”
“You’re the type of girl a guy like me preys on.”
“Maybe I like that too.” Josie smiled, timid and playful. “Or maybe I’m the one stalking you?”
Her hands moved low, unbuttoning my jeans and wiggling the zipper down. Her eyes flashed with mischief. A quick shimmy of her hips, and her pajama bottoms kicked away. Her smooth hips, just plump enough for a squeeze in my palm, settled over my lap.
