A Second Chance at Love: A Hometown Hero Series Novel

by Connelly, Clare

“Yes, ma’am. Sign them tonight and you’ll no longer be Mrs Dean Howard.”

  Madeline felt like her feet were about ten inches off the ground, met only by clouds and rainbows.

  “You don’t have to look quite so thrilled by that, you know.”

  She laughed quietly, and had to quickly pretend it had been a sob, when a group of well-heeled guests turned to her in surprise. “Sorry,” she whispered to Dean. “I’m pleased for us both though. It’s the beginning of a new chapter, whichever way you look at it. Are you finally ready to make it official?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know the best way to go about it, but yeah. I mean, being in congress with my sexual orientation isn’t as big a deal now as it was to me ten years ago. I’m ashamed that I’ve been hiding out this long.”

  “Hey,” she said, shaking her head. “You have done so much good for your state. For your country. You have nothing to be ashamed of. But you will be able to lead a very good example by being honest about who you are.”

  He smile was grim. “I’m sorry that so much of your life has been spent hiding my secret.”

  “You saved me, Dean, from a time of abject misery. Don’t apologise to me for anything.”

  He looked over her shoulder, to where Harrison was continuing to manage the perimeter. “The more I see you down here, the more I realise I kept you away from the life you should have been leading.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His breath was a frustrated sigh. “Just that you suit it in Maine. Whitegate. And Harrison and you… it’s hard to explain. Even as an outsider, I can see that you share something very rare.”

  “No.” She looked at him, lifting her glasses from her face so that he could see the truth in her blue eyes. “That was years ago. It’s ancient history.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Dean persisted. “I feel like I could have helped you in other ways, that would have been better for you. Not by marrying you to get your dad off your back.”

  “Oh, Dean, come on. We both know Kenneth wouldn’t stop until I was properly under his thumb. He thought he’d passed the responsibility of me from his desk to yours. That’s how he viewed our relationship. He was a misogynistic, sexist, overbearing pig. The saving grace of the whole thing is that he had no idea who you really are. You made me happy. If he’d thought that possible, he would have resisted our marriage.”

  He shook his head. “Cantankerous fool. He’s gone now, Mads. And soon, you’ll be free from my clutches.” His smile was pure Dean, kindly and handsome. He lowered his voice to an earnest whisper. “There’s nothing standing between you and Harrison now. So when David and I come down to Maine, I expect it to be because there’s a wedding we’re expected to attend.”

  Her blood gushed through her body. She couldn’t even imagine it possible. The differences between them seemed to gulf. “Maybe. As long as you do come visit. Both of you. Dean,” she stopped walking again, and almost completely forgot about Harrison. “I’m going to miss you.”

  He grinned. “Right back at you.”

  She was fully aware it made her a dreadful person, but her heart felt lighter – with her father dead and her husband prepared to divorce her, the messy pieces of her puzzling life seemed to be slipping back into place.

  The wake took place in the salon, overlooking the formal rose garden. As they gathered in the room, a flurry of snow began to fall outdoors, making the fire-warmed room seem cosy despite the sombre occasion.

  She drifted to a floor to ceiling window, alone for the first time all day, and stared out towards the road. Harrison was still there, despite the snowfall. He barely seemed to mind. Guiltily, she remembered she still had his jacket. Surely he had others. If he did, though, he wasn’t wearing one.

  “I was very sorry to hear about your father,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted her silent watchfulness.

  Madeline turned, but the polite smile she had put on her face almost slipped off when she saw who was addressing her. “Mr. Harrison?” She asked, her heart jackhammering in her chest.

  “Please. Call me Mitchell.”

  He was around her father’s age, somewhere in his sixties. Which must have meant he had fifteen years on Diana, at least. What kind of sick perve got a fifteen year old pregnant and then left her to suffer? If his house had still been standing, Madeline would have burned it down herself.

  “Mitchell,” she remembered where she was, and how she was supposed to behave, in the nick of time. With effort, she wiped the expression of disgust from her fine features. “How did you know Kenneth?”

  He rubbed his sallow chin with fingers that were yellowed from years of nicotine use. “We go back years. I couldn’t believe it when he got sick.” His voice seemed to ring with grief. Genuine sadness.

  Again, Madeline wondered if it made her truly awful that she couldn’t summon a smidgeon of that distress.

  “Cigars,” she said with a shrug.

  As though he couldn’t help himself, the older man’s eyes dropped lower, to the hint of cleavage that was suggested by her black suit. Madeline felt nauseous, being in this man’s company. All the more so, for there was something so familiar in his bearing. He was handsome. Like his son. But he was disgusting, too.

  She nodded over his shoulder, pretending her attention was being caught. “Excuse me, Mr Harrison. Someone’s calling me.”

  “We’ll catch up later,” he said, his dark eyes following her as she walked through the crowded room. She snuck out of the gallery, and moved down the hallway a little bit. She stood there, staring out at the garden, thinking of nothing, and hoping for everything, for almost a full hour. The noise of the wake carried on behind her, but she didn’t want to be a part of it. So much talk about Kenneth, everyone extolling his virtues. What could she contribute?

  The sound of footsteps made her sigh heavily, and she turned, waiting to address whoever had come to seek out the great man’s daughter.

  She froze, as though she’d seen a ghost.

  “God, Diana.” Her ice blue eyes clearly showed her shock. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Diana, dressed in a simple wool dress with a denim jacket, looked more like Madeline’s contemporary than… well, her ex-future-mother-in-law. She blinked, surprised at the genuine affection that flooded through her at the sight of Diana.

  “Harrison told me. About your dad. And the funeral.”

  Madeline nodded. “He did, huh?”

  She pursed her lips then shrugged, dismissively. “I mean, word’s all over town anyway.”

  Madeline swallowed. She felt the palpable awkwardness and it made her sad. At one time, this woman had meant the world to her. “Were you at the service?”

  “No, of course not.” She shook her head. “It was a family affair.”

  “Not so much,” Madeline said with a tilt of her head. Beyond them, the guests seemed to be taking over the house, spilling out now into the hallway and moving into the other rooms in this wing. Kenneth had primarily used this side of the ranch for entertaining, and the rooms reflected this. Antiquities and objects d’arte lined the walls; fabulous paintings in each alcove. It had been designed to inspire awe, and it did.

  “Still, I wouldn’t have intruded, Madeline. That wasn’t my place.”

  Madeline nodded jerkily. She plaited her fingers together behind her back, to hide the fact that she was nervous and fidgety.

  “Why are you here, then, Diana?” She finally asked, her eyes scanning the hallway for Dean. She could have used the support of her husband at that moment.

  Diana seemed to be thinking through her next statement. Finally, simply, she said, “I was worried about you.”

  “Worried about me?”

  She took a step closer, and came to stand beside Madeline, leaning against the wall with her. “Yes. I know there wasn’t a lot of love lost between you and Kenneth, but I needed to make sure you were okay.”

  “Why?” She asked, her lips twisting into a small, confused frown.

&n
bsp; “I don’t know.” Her laugh was weak. “I guess I mustn’t be as angry with you as I thought.”

  Madeline felt a flush of sadness. “I wish you weren’t angry with me at all.”

  Diana’s blue eyes flashed in her face. “You hurt him bad. You know that, right?”

  Madeline flicked her gaze unconsciously towards the window, looking out to the road. Most of the photographers had left when the weather became truly foul, but still, a handful of law enforcement remained, making sure the property wasn’t breached.

  “I know.”

  “He didn’t know himself for a year. He couldn’t understand it. He was too proud to go get you back, but he missed you every day.”

  Madeline swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I know, Diana.” She sighed heavily. “I missed him too. It was a really hard decision to make, but…” She broke off mid-sentence when it became obvious that the older woman was no longer listening. Instead, Diana was staring across the hallway, her face contorted into a mask of sheer panic.

  Madeline followed her gaze and almost yelped when she saw Mitchell Harrison. He was distracted, studying a Matisse that hung across from them.

  “Diana, come with me,” Madeline whispered urgently, linking her fingers with Diana’s and pulling her through a door, into a separate room. There was a servant’s cubby in the back, concealed by a fire screen. Madeline had played in it as a child. In fact, she used all the secret servant access points to hide from her parents as often as she could.

  “Come with me,” she said again, pulling Diana further away from the wake.

  The servant’s cubby opened into a stairway. The steps were dusty and dark, and creaky from misuse and inattention. They walked down them silently. Madeline held a finger up her lips, then poked her head out of the door at the bottom. They emerged into a small laundry room adjacent to the kitchen.

  “Diana?” Madeline asked, gripping the woman she’d once thought of as a second mother, by her upper arms. “Do you need to sit down?”

  “I… that’s… oh, God.” Her eyes were filled with pain. “He’s…”

  “I know,” Madeline hushed sympathetically, stroking Diana’s arms. “I know.”

  Diana reached behind her, and slid down against the wall. She took several moments, drawing breaths into her pained chest, trying to grab hold of a thread of thought. But nothing made sense. The ground was tiled, and it was cold beneath her bottom. She shifted, and then looked up at Madeline. Her words were a crackling whisper. “You know? What do you mean, you know?”

  Madeline let out a sigh laden with emotion. She was so tired of the secrets. So many secrets. She stared unflinchingly at Harrison’s mother. “I know. I know everything, Diana. That Mitchell Harrison is Harrison’s father. That he was married with children. That he abandoned you when you were pregnant. And…” She bit down on her lip, then crouched down, so that she was at Diana’s eye level.

  “And?” Sally prompted quietly.

  “And that you burned his house to the ground when you found out.”

  Diana closed her eyes, her expression loaded with pain. “I was fifteen.”

  “I know that too,” Madeline said with a small nod.

  “How do you know?”

  Madeline clenched her nails into her palms, searching for the right way to explain.

  “Your father.” Diana’s eyes flew open, searching Madeline’s face. “Your father knew Mitchell. So Kenneth found out. Somehow, your father worked it out.”

  Madeline nodded.

  “That’s why you left Harrison? Because of me? Because your father didn’t approve of me?” She put her head in her hands, and let out a strangled noise of shock. “No. It’s not that simple, is it? You left Harrison because of the fire?”

  “Diana, listen to me,” Madeline said urgently. “In most states, there’s a statute of limitations on crimes like arson. Do you know what that means?”

  Diana’s laugh was loaded with self-reproach. “Yes, Madeline, I know what that means.”

  Madeline continued, her voice surprisingly steady as she sought “But there isn’t in Wyoming. It’s one of the few states that doesn’t routinely place statutory limits on prosecution. Which means that Harrison can never, ever find out about this.”

  Diana gripped Madeline’s arms. She looked as though she were about to suffocate. “No,” she whispered. “Please tell me this isn’t the only reason you left him?”

  Madeline eased herself fully to the ground, crossing her legs like she used to as a child. “What choice did I have?” She asked softly. “You raised an excellent son, Diana. An honourable man, with a black and white code of ethics. He would have helped you turn yourself in, because he would have believed that to be the right thing to do. He would have tried to do everything within his power to minimise your penalty, but you would still have been a felon. The chance of escaping jail time is very slim. And he would have come to hate me for that. For putting him in that position, and for putting you through that.”

  Diana shook her head. “It has nothing to do with you Madeline. My stupid mistake has cost my son, and you, all the happiness in the world.”

  Madeline bit down on her lip. “It was my father, and not you, who I blame. You were a terrified, scorned child. You acted out. It happens. Mitchell Harrison had no business sleeping with you in the first place. He treated you appallingly, and if I’d been in your place, I wouldn’t have stopped at burning his house down.”

  Diana’s eyes filled with tears. “I ruined everything.”

  “No!” Madeline shook her head, her own heart squeezing with remorse. “You were dealt a terrible hand, and you turned your life around. Look at Harrison! He is the most incredible, strong, amazing, wonderful person.” Her voice cracked. “He is a credit to you.”

  Diana nodded. “I know.” She blinked. “Do you love him?”

  Madeline looked downwards. She didn’t feel ready to talk to Diana about that. Not until she had things clear in her own head. Not until she knew what Harrison wanted. “I care about both of you,” she hedged, finally. “And I need you to promise me something.”

  “What?” Diana asked, narrowing her pretty eyes.

  “That you won’t tell him any of this. Especially not for the next few days. The last thing we need is for Harrison to go tracking down some guy who doesn’t even want to know he exists.”

  Diana nodded. “Harrison’d kill him.”

  Harrison wouldn’t kill anyone. He was too in control of himself for that. But he might do something else stupid. “Nothing good will come from you letting this out. Diana, I need you to hear me. You did something stupid, over thirty years ago. Since then, you have lived a life that most people would call laudable. You cannot sacrifice everything you are because you think it will get Harrison and me back together. I’m still married, remember?” Though she wouldn’t be for much longer, that was a detail Diana didn’t need to hear.

  Diana’s eyes flickered in surprise. “I had forgotten,” she said simply. “What a mess.”

  “Think about Harrison, too. He’s still at the beginning of a bright career. Who knows where he’ll end up? But if this gets out, people might think he was complicit in the cover up. It could damage him. You have to sit tight.”

  Diana stared ahead, her face white from shock. “I thought I’d dealt with this,” she whispered finally.

  “You did? How?”

  “I went to Mitchell. To apologise. I knew it was stupid the minute I struck the match. But that damned boat! He had all the fuel for it piled around the back, and it burned like crazy.” She shook her head. “He told me didn’t care about the house, but that he couldn’t afford for anyone to find out about us. He had a contract for me to sign. It said he absolved me of any responsibility for the damage to his home, so long as I never sought recognition of his child from him. That I couldn’t seek child support, or any form of financial or emotional support. Ever. So long as I upheld my end of the agreement, he told me the house wouldn’t be a prob
lem.”

  Madeline felt the first glimmer of hope, at the same time that a sickening sense of disgust rolled through her. “He’s a disgusting, lecherous pig,” she condemned angrily, leaning forward and gripping Diana’s hands. “Do you still have the agreement?”

  Diana nodded. “Yes, somewhere. Why?”

  “Just let me take a look at it, okay?”

  Sally groaned again. “I’m an idiot.”

  “No, Diana. You’re a wonderful mom who just met the wrong guy.”

  “I’m so sorry, Madeline. I’m sorry that you got caught up in this. That this ruined your relationship with Harrison.”

  “It’s okay,” Madeline promised. But it wasn’t. And she didn’t know if it ever would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Madeline held the door open for Diana, walking with her back towards her car.

  “I had to park down here,” she said quietly. “If it hadn’t been for Harrison, I doubt I would have been able to get in, even on foot.”

  Madeline kept her eyes straight ahead. They were moving towards Harrison, and it was taking all her powers of determination not to look at him. “If I’d known you wanted to come, I would have made sure you were included on the guest list.”

  “I know, darling. Like I said inside, I just needed to make sure you were okay. I can’t believe I’ve spent eight years thinking the worst of you, when you sacrificed everything to save me.”

  “And Harrison,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. “Your guilt would have killed him. But listen to me! We can’t talk about this again. Just get me the contract and put it out of your mind. Nothing has changed. Nothing. Mitchell didn’t see you. No one knows anything they didn’t know yesterday.”

  “I know,” Diana demurred guiltily. “I know what you lost for me.”

  Madeline waved a hand in the air, inadvertently drawing attention to her ring. “But if it hadn’t happened like this, Harrison wouldn’t have met Sally. Ivy wouldn’t exist. And I wouldn’t have met Dean.”

  “And you love him.”

  She thought of her husband affectionately. “I do love him.” She was trying to reassure Diana, but instead, Diana’s guilt increased ten fold.