by EMILIE ROSE
The deputy could bake. Madison had not bothered to learn—what was the point when it was just her? Homemade sweets were a treat. “Who said I’m stressed?”
Piper and June exchanged a hiked-eyebrow look.
“Why, bless your heart, dear,” June drawled in a syrupy fake Southern accent that sounded remarkably like Madison’s nosiest client—one who’d grilled her within an inch of her life an hour ago. “Just eat one of these. You’ll feel better.”
“I’m fine. But I will take one of your better-than-sex double-chocolate walnut brownies.” She reached for a treat and took a big bite. The gooey, fudgy flavor filled her mouth. Heaven.
Piper shook her head. “Nothing is better than sex if you’re doing it right.”
June jabbed Piper with an elbow and stuck out her tongue. “Not all of us are having newlywed sex. Quit rubbing it in.”
Piper blushed and Madison smiled. Piper had recently managed to reunite with her old flame and her son’s father. If Madison weren’t so happy for Piper she’d be envious.
June’s gaze swung to Madison. “I’m surprised you’re not singing the same satisfied song after spending two nights with your sex-on-a-stick brother-in-law.”
The brownie turned to mud in her mouth. Madison gulped. One of the walnuts raked down her throat like a jagged rock.
Piper perked up. “He’s attractive?”
“Hot.” June touched the air and hissed a sizzling sound.
“He’s my brother-in-law.”
“You’re the one who said your husband died a long time ago. That makes Mr. Tight-Buns-and-Broad-Shoulders fair game. The man has swagger down to an art. I would love to frisk him. I might even use my handcuffs. Unless you want to?” She waggled her eyebrows at Madison, her eyes sparking with mischief.
Madison considered hiding behind her desk. “I’ll pass.”
“I see Madison’s point. He is family,” Piper agreed as she doled out paper plates. “But June’s right, too, Madison. Your marriage ended years ago. If this guy trips your trigger—”
“He doesn’t.”
Something was tripping her trigger, but it wasn’t Adam. It was hormones. And memories of a time in her life when she’d thought everything perfect.
June pulled up a chair and piled a sandwich and two brownies on Madison’s plate. “Family is not just genetics. It’s who you make it. You two are my family because I say so. And Hot Stuff has been out of your life for how long?”
“Six years, but—”
“So he’s no longer related. He took himself out of that equation when he didn’t contact you until he needed a favor. And as I might have mentioned, he’s H. O. T. Hot.”
So maybe Adam was attractive. She had to admit that though Andrew had been a devoted runner and in excellent shape, he had never lifted weights. Adam obviously did. His solid, well-defined and well-placed muscle was proof of that. Adam’s pectorals with their tiny hard nipples, his biceps with their cording of thick veins and his washboard abs were a call to every dormant feminine atom in her body—a call she intended to ignore.
“You two are killing my appetite. But before you get too caught up in your fantasy, you need to know Adam and Andrew were identical twins.”
“Ooh,” the women chorused simultaneously.
The deputy shrugged. “That makes it tricky, but not illegal. He’s still far better looking than anything you’ll find around here, and his expensive clothing tells me he’s successful at whatever he does. I wouldn’t discard him too quickly—unless you’re throwing him my way.”
“He’s an out-of-towner, June, and we all know you swore you’d never relocate again for a man.”
“True. Burned once and all that. But you should take a good, long look at him. He’s delicious.”
“You are delusional, Deputy Jones, and strangely repetitive today. My practice and my home are here, and the Drakes are a complication I don’t need. No, thanks.”
They turned their attention to the food, but Piper and June’s inquisitive gazes never strayed far from Madison. When she could stall no longer, Madison took her last bite and pushed her empty plate aside, then leaned back in her chair and waited.
“Are you going to make us drag it out of you? You know I have professional experience with interrogation.” June said it with humor, but Madison saw the seriousness behind the smile.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Bull. Your former in-laws haven’t visited once in all the years I’ve known you, and yet you dropped everything and ran the moment Handsome snapped his fingers. I’ve never known you to do anything that impulsive unless it involved an animal in distress. You don’t have to help them if it’s going to keep you up all night.”
“What makes you think I’m not sleeping?”
“Because I saw your lights on in the house, then in the barn, and I heard you talking to Bojangles around 3:00 a.m.”
Madison winced. June had lost sleep watching out for her. “I’m sorry I kept you up.”
“Make it up to me by starting with, ‘I’m doing them this huge favor because...’” She waggled her fingers in a give-me-more gesture.
Madison poked at the crumbs on her plate, wishing she could ignore June’s request. But June and Piper were picking up Madison’s slack with the practice and the menagerie. They deserved to know at least part of her story.
“My family was killed by a tornado early in my junior year of college. The Drakes took me under their wing.” She ignored their sympathetic awws and plowed on. If she stopped now she’d never get out the sordid story. “Andrew proposed on my twenty-first birthday. We married a year later when I graduated from the university. I practically lived with Andrew’s family during school breaks and vacations, and during vet school I worked with Dr. Drake every chance I had. Danny, my father-in-law, taught me more about treating animals than any of my vet school professors.
“Andrew was three years older than me. He joined his father’s practice when he graduated. I was supposed to do the same when I finished.” Bombarded by memories and what-should-have-beens, Madison’s words vanished.
“But you didn’t?” June prompted.
“No. I...” How much could she tell without risking them hating her? “Andrew and the baby I was carrying were fatally injured in a car accident on the way home from my graduation party. I couldn’t face the Drakes after that. It was better for me to leave.”
“Better for whom? I can’t believe you didn’t need their love and support in your time of grief,” Piper said. “Don’t think I’m judging. I’ve made a few tough choices of my own and cut people I loved out of my life. And I know that unless someone’s walked in your shoes they can’t fully understand your struggle.”
“Andrew’s mother said I was a constant reminder of what she’d lost and that looking at me made her sick.”
“The bitch.” June jumped to Madison’s defense without hesitation. “She turned you away when you needed her most, and you’re helping them now—why?”
Madison’s palms moistened and her pulse drummed in her ears. These women were her friends. She didn’t know what she’d do without them. But she couldn’t live with herself if she lied when asked a direct question. “I was driving the car.”
Like synchronized swimmers their expressions went from curious to understanding then empathetic. Piper circled the desk, perched on the armrest of Madison’s chair and put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Madison. What happened?”
“I hit black ice and we plunged down an embankment. The car rolled. Andrew had been partying and refused to wear his seat belt. His head hit the windshield. My stomach impacted with the steering wheel, snapping my son’s spine. He—Daniel was stillborn fourteen hours later.”
The confession left her throat as raw as if she’d coughed up razor blades. Bein
g told her son had not survived, then enduring an induced labor alone and praying the whole time that the doctors were wrong had been absolute hell. Then they’d placed his tiny, lifeless body on her chest and her hopes had been crushed. She battled to hold back the tears burning her eyes and clogging her throat, because if she started, she didn’t know if she could stop.
“Had you been drinking?” June probed gently.
Leave it to June to get to the facts. “No. I didn’t plan my pregnancy, but I never would have done anything to endanger my baby.”
Tears welled in Piper’s eyes. “I can’t imagine losing Josh. And to lose Roth at the same time... I think it would destroy me.” She pressed fingers to her lips.
Afraid of losing control, Madison turned away from Piper’s emotional response and focused on June’s calm face.
“Madison, do you know how many accident calls I get during winter months? This is eastern North Carolina. Neither our drivers nor our maintenance crews know how to handle slick roads. Georgia is well south of us and usually warmer. I suspect they’re less equipped than our state.”
Madison’s nails bit into her elbows. It was only then she realized she’d been hugging herself while she talked. “Andrew and I were arguing. I took my eyes off the road.”
There. She’d said it. Confessed her sin. Or at least most of it.
June shook her head. “We all take our eyes off the road, and the problem with black ice is that you usually don’t see it even when you’re looking directly at it. And I suspect all couples argue, although that is not my area of expertise.”
“We do,” Piper chimed in. “I love Roth to death, but that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes want to strangle him.”
Another wave of emotion swelled in Madison’s chest until she thought she might burst. She should have known these two would stand by her. But would they if they knew that seconds before hitting the ice she’d screamed at Andrew that she wished she’d never married him, never gotten pregnant, and that she couldn’t stay married to a man she couldn’t trust? After the crash, after she dialed 911, she’d tried and tried to take back the hateful words, but Andrew had never opened his eyes to acknowledge hearing her apologies.
“How’s your mother-in-law treating you now?” June’s question pulled her from the dark memory.
“She barely looks at me, and when she does...” Madison shuddered. “When she does there’s only hatred in her eyes.”
June’s expression turned militant. “I wouldn’t go back.”
“I have to. I owe Danny. He put me years ahead of my peers with his help. Without him I wouldn’t have been prepared to run your grandfather’s practice without first serving an internship somewhere else.”
Piper rose and paced the office. “For what it’s worth, I agree with June. You owe them nothing. But let’s put this into perspective. You’re doing this because you feel you owe your father-in-law. So in a sense, you’re doing this to fulfill a personal debt, to make yourself feel better, and once you do you’ll be free and the satisfaction will be yours. Focus on that, Madison. Focus on getting this burden off your back. Forget the old hag. Do what you need to do for you.”
“And if you happen to find a little fun in your brother-in-law’s arms—”
“No,” Madison interrupted June. “I can’t look at him without remembering Andrew.” And everything that had gone wrong with her marriage. “If I feel anything sexual toward Adam it’s only because he’s a carbon copy of his brother, and Andrew and I had a good sex life.”
And that was the only reason the thought of finding herself in Adam’s arms made her skin burn and gave her the jitters. It had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the man himself.
* * *
“AND YOU’RE SURE the same veterinarian is available for the entire period no matter how long we need him? My husband wouldn’t like it if his patients didn’t have continuity of care,” Helen asked late Friday afternoon. She’d put off the call as long as she could because Danny wasn’t going to like it.
“Yes, Mrs. Drake.”
“And you promise the doctor will listen to Danny and do things his way? My husband is very particular.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay then, I—” The bedroom door opened. Danny stood in the hall. “I’ll have to call you back.” She snapped her cell phone closed and popped to her feet. “You shouldn’t be up. If you needed something you should have called me.”
Temper slashed red streaks across his pale face. “What are you doing?”
“Chatting with one of the girls.”
“Don’t lie to me, Helen. These doors are thin.”
Her insides shook. She and Danny rarely argued—primarily because in nearly thirty-eight years of marriage she’d learned to avoid his temper. “I called the service Madison recommended. They can have a vet here Monday morning, and they’ve promised you’ll have the same substitute for as long as you need him and for as many days as you need—not the miserly two Madison is giving you.”
“I don’t need the service. I have Madison.”
“If she comes back.”
“She will.”
Sometimes she wanted to shake him for his stubbornness. “Why are you so determined to believe the best of her after what she did?”
“Because she came when I asked her.”
She hated to disillusion him, but she had to make him see he’d misplaced his faith in Madison Monroe. “No, Danny, she came when I asked her.”
“What are you talking about, woman?”
“I chased her down the driveway after she refused your request and persuaded her to change her mind.”
Anger flared his nostrils. She braced herself for the explosion. “I forbade you and Adam to speak to her. I told you to let me handle it.”
“We gave you a chance. It didn’t work out. So I...helped. Neither Adam nor I think she’ll return. She hasn’t even answered his text. He expects her to be a no-show Sunday night.”
“He does, does he?”
“Why do you want her back? She barely spoke to you Tuesday night other than to say, ‘We had a good day, Dr. Drake.’ Doctor. As if we hadn’t taken her in and treated her like our own.”
“She’s family.” His pallor worsened and he swayed, then braced himself on the doorjamb.
Alarm kicked through Helen’s system. “You need to sit down before you fall over.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped.
“The doctor warned you not to overdo it on your first day home. Please let me help you to bed, where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’ve been in bed for a week. That’s the last place I want to be.”
Sometimes he acted as childish as her boys once had. “You only had surgery five days ago, Danny.”
“How dare you go against my wishes and speak to Madison?”
The lack of bite in his anger worried her. “You know I love you, and I’ll always do what’s best for you. So just this once I had to bend the rules a little. What if I hadn’t? She wouldn’t have come.”
“She would have. All she needed was time to think it over. She would’ve done the right thing. Madison always did. And you need to be nicer to her. If something happens to me, who’ll take care of you?”
The possibility chilled her to the bone. “Don’t say that. You’re going to get through this. Your oncologist said so.”
“Yes, he did. And I hope he’s right. But this was a wake-up call. If cancer doesn’t get me, something else will. You’ll need someone to look after you.”
He was beginning to sound like Madison had all those years ago. Helen hadn’t liked the gloomy speech then and she liked it even less now. “Don’t go borrowing trouble. Adam will be here if anything happens.”
“Adam’s very good at his job. He didn’t graduat
e cum laude from the best hospital administration program in the country just to come home and stagnate in a small suburban hospital. To be promoted in his field he’ll have to move to a larger facility. And one day he’s going to accept one of those job offers that keep coming his way.”
“He’s been getting job offers?” She pressed a hand over her irregularly beating heart. Adam hadn’t mentioned being courted by other hospitals.
“Yes.”
“He’ll stay close by. Saint Joseph’s was a good school, but he’s a Southern boy. He didn’t like all the snow up north.”
“The South covers a lot of geography. And when he marries, you’ll be lucky if you like his wife half as much as you loved Madison. You need her, Helen. You used to say she was the daughter you wished you’d had—the one I failed to give you.”
They had covered this topic before, but not in years. She’d thought he’d forgotten and moved on. “Getting the mumps was not your fault.”
Danny’s case of adult mumps had resulted in the rare side effect of sterility and had killed her dream of having a large family.
Back then she’d been furious with him for risking his health by volunteering to treat animals in the projects, knowing many of the immigrant owners hadn’t been vaccinated. But Danny had been confident he’d be fine—after all, he’d had his immunizations. They couldn’t have known they’d fail.
“You gave me two wonderful sons, and one day Adam will give us grandchildren. We’ll have them to love.”
Her heart ached at the reminder of the grandson she’d lost, but she tried to placate Danny because she never lost sight of the fact that he had been a good provider. She’d never had to work outside their home. He’d allowed her to be a full-time mother to their boys, and she’d loved every second of it. He and her twins had been the center of her universe.
How would she manage if something happened to him? She wasn’t trained for any job. Madison’s old words came back to haunt her.
