Unzipping her gown as she made her way upstairs, Maddie recalled tonight’s events—from the moment she caught a glimpse of a handsome stranger emerging from a sleek, black Porsche until the moment Dylan Bridges drove away in that same car, heading for the police station. She flipped on the overhead light as she entered her bedroom suite, a large, luxurious room that looked like something out of the pages of House Beautiful. A room like this was what an expensive San Antonio interior designer, with an unlimited budget, could create.
Maddie removed her three-inch black heels, then shucked off her one-of-a-kind satin gown. Walking around in her underwear, she went into the dressing room carrying the shoes and the dress. Methodically, she placed the shoes on the rack where they belonged and hung the dress on a padded hanger. Then she punched in a code on the security pad by the huge mirror on the back wall. The mirror was attached to a door, which swung open to reveal a wall safe. Maddie dialed the combination and opened the safe. She removed her earrings and bracelets, placed them in their velvet beds inside the safe, then closed first the safe door and then the mirrored door.
She slumped down on the large beige ottoman in the middle of the dressing room. Rope lighting behind the heavy molding spotlighted the vaulted ceiling. Her vision blurred as she stared upward, and her mind swirled with thoughts of Dylan Bridges.
Get that man out of your mind, she told herself. Maybe your mother is right—he’s trouble with a capital T. Always has been, always will be. There was nothing she could do to help Dylan. She couldn’t bring his father back to life. She couldn’t erase the suspicions people had about him. All she could do was say another prayer for him and hope that he’d be all right.
Maddie removed her underwear, then rooted around in her closet until she found a thin cotton gown with spaghetti straps and lace on the bodice and hem. She walked into her enormous bathroom and busied herself with her nightly routine, ending with flossing and brushing her teeth.
Was Dylan still at the police station? she wondered. How long would they question him? Why couldn’t they leave him alone? The poor man had just lost his father.
Memories of her father’s death from a heart attack several years ago drifted through her mind. Was Dylan feeling now what she’d felt then? Losing a parent was one of the most difficult things a person ever faced in this life. And how much more tragic it was for Dylan because he’d missed so many years with his dad. Years that he could never get back. Thank God, she had reconciled with her father long before his death.
Maddie tossed the array of decorative pillows off her bed and onto the nearby beige damask easy chair, then she turned back the dusty lavender down comforter to reveal the dark gold sheets beneath. The elaborately carved Italian Renaissance four-poster dominated the elegant, austere bedchamber. After lying down, she punched the switch by her bed that turned off the lights, then she lay there quietly while her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Perhaps tomorrow she should call Dylan. Just to offer her condolences. And perhaps she should ask him if he wanted her help in making the funeral arrangements. She’d been totally alone when she’d made arrangements for her father. Oh, there had been half a dozen lawyers and twice that many business associates at her beck and call, all of them offering her assistance. But her mother had been so upset when Jock Delarue died that the doctors had to keep her sedated for days. She’d attended the funeral at First Church in a drug-induced stupor. And Renee had been in such deep mourning over the loss of the man she loved that she’d gladly allowed Maddie to handle everything.
Tossing and turning, Maddie longed for sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. She fought her king-size pillows and rolled from one side of the enormous bed to the other. Count sheep, she told herself. Chant. Try to clear your mind of all thoughts. But that was easier said than done.
Minutes ticked by, slowly turning into several hours. Hugging one of her big pillows, Maddie lay curled in a semicircle, her knees drawn up to her chest. Still awake and unable to stop thinking about Dylan Bridges, she shot straight up in bed. One glance at the lighted digital clock on her nightstand told her it was two-thirty. Dammit, Maddie, just go ahead and do what you want to do, she told herself. She turned on the bedside lamp, got up and hurried into her dressing room. Rushing around as if time was of the essence, she dressed in jeans, a yellow blouse and a pair of yellow leather sandals.
Ten minutes later, Maddie drove through Mission Creek, a historic midsize town with a distinctive southwestern flair. She passed Mission Creek First Federal, the post office, the library and then the courthouse. She slowed her Mercedes as she eased up Royal Avenue, searching for 1010. There it was! A neat Craftsman house with a picket fence and age-old trees. She pulled her convertible up behind Dylan’s Porsche, got out and walked to the front door.
Dylan Bridges, don’t you dare try to send me away, she said to herself, as her index finger punched the doorbell.
Six
Dylan stood at the top of the stairs in his father’s house and wondered who the hell was ringing the doorbell at this hour. He had left the police station less than thirty minutes ago and come straight home. Home? Yeah, it was odd how after all these years, this place still felt like home. Maybe he’d reverted into a kid, needing the safety of these four walls, this one particular house, to help him make sense of a world that suddenly had been turned upside down.
As he descended the stairs, he tried to stuff the tails of his white shirt back into his tuxedo slacks. Whoever was at the door had a really poor sense of timing. He wondered if the police decided they had enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him.
As he neared the front door, he glanced through the sheer curtain that covered the glass panes and saw the outline of a female form. His stomach knotted. It couldn’t be her, could it? Why would Maddie Delarue be standing on the front porch of his father’s home at—Dylan glanced again at his wristwatch—two-forty-eight in the morning?
He opened the door. Maddie looked at him, a sympathetic expression on her face and a hint of pleading in her big, blue eyes.
“Please, may I come in?” she asked.
He moved aside and with a sweep of his hand invited her into the small foyer. She moved past him, then paused to wait for him to close the door.
“Out kind of late, aren’t you, Red?”
“I thought you might need some company,” she replied. “I know under similar circumstances I wouldn’t want to be alone.”
“I’m used to being alone,” he told her. “I’m a loner by nature. Always was. You should remember that.”
Maddie nodded. “Loner or not, couldn’t you use a friend?”
“Is that what you’re here to offer me—friendship?”
“Condolences, friendship, tea and sympathy. Whatever you need.”
“Right now I need a drink.” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Want to join me? Somewhere the old man has a bottle of whiskey stashed for guests. In the kitchen cupboards, if I remember correctly. Dad wasn’t much of a drinker. The expression ‘sober as a judge’ fit him to a T.” Dylan’s voice cracked with emotion.
When Maddie reached out to him, he moved quickly so that he was beyond her grasp, then he hurried into the kitchen. She followed directly behind him. He rummaged through the cupboards, ignoring her, until he found a three-quarters-full bottle of Crown Royal. Dylan figured this particular bottle was probably several years old. His dad had used liquor mainly for medicinal purposes, like to make hot toddies in the winter when he felt a cold coming on. After retrieving the bottle and two small juice glasses, Dylan turned back to Maddie.
“Have a seat.” He indicated the chairs around the kitchen table.
After she took a seat, he sat across from her, placed the glasses on the table and opened the bottle. He poured himself a third of a glassful.
“Care to join me?” He held the open bottle over the second glass.
She shook her head. “No, thanks.”
He set the bottle down, but left off the lid. As he lift
ed the glass to his mouth, he stared at Maddie. No makeup, face scrubbed, her shoulder-blade length red hair hanging in wild disarray, she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. And despite being thirty-three, she looked like a fresh-faced kid.
“Does your mama know where you are?” he asked, then took a hefty swig of whiskey. The liquor burned a hot trail on its way from his mouth to his stomach. He blew out a deep breath.
“You must have me confused with the sixteen-year-old Maddie,” she said. “I don’t answer to my mother. I haven’t in a long time.”
“Free and independent, huh? But surely you care what people might think if they knew you were aiding and abetting the notorious Dylan Bridges.”
“What happened at the police station?”
Dylan took another sip of whiskey. “Why do you care?”
“Good question. Why do I care?” She shrugged. “For the life of me, I really don’t know.” She shoved back the chair, stood and glanced around the kitchen. “Why don’t I fix a pot of coffee and maybe scramble some eggs and make some toast? We could eat an early breakfast.”
Dylan chuckled. She stared at him questioningly.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “It’s just my mother’s answer to most of life’s problems was food. A cookie went with a skinned knee. A pot roast dinner would always soothe my dad after a rough day. You know, stuff like that. Tell me, do mothers teach their daughters that feeding men and children is the best way to give comfort?”
“I wouldn’t know. My mother never so much as boiled an egg in her entire life.”
“But you know how to cook?” He lifted his eyebrows in a skeptical expression. “The richest gal in the state can actually scramble eggs?”
“It doesn’t take a gourmet chef to scramble eggs.” She rounded the table, laid her hand on Dylan’s shoulder and smiled at him. “I’ll cook, we’ll eat and you’ll clean up the dishes. Deal?” She held out her hand to him.
He rose from the chair, grasped her hand and replied, “Deal.” Who would have thought it? That Maddie would be standing in his dad’s kitchen at three o’clock in the morning, offering to fix him breakfast.
Their gazes met and held. God, how was it possible, after everything that had happened, that all he wanted was to grab this woman and hold on to her for dear life? He didn’t realize how tightly he was gripping her small hand until she tugged on it.
He released her hand immediately and noted the redness. “God, Maddie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay.” She flapped her hand back and forth like a limp dishrag for a few seconds and grinned at him. “The feeling is coming back now.” She marched over to the refrigerator. “Get me a mixing bowl, will you? And why don’t you make the coffee?”
“Bossy, bossy,” he kidded.
She removed an egg carton, milk and butter from the refrigerator. “Talk to me, Dylan. You need to get it all out. Otherwise, you’ll explode. Believe me, I know.” She took a midsize ceramic bowl from him. “When my father died, I tried to be very brave. I had to take care of all the arrangements and deal with not only my mother, but with my stepmother, too. About three weeks after my father’s funeral, I fell apart. If it hadn’t been for Joan—you met her tonight, Joan O’Brien—I don’t know what I’d have done.”
What did she think he needed? A shoulder to cry on? Someone to hold his hand? If she believed that, then Maddie didn’t know a damn thing about him. He didn’t need anybody. He’d survived on his own for the past seventeen years and done just fine. He would do whatever had to be done—take care of the funeral arrangements, handle his father’s affairs, make sure his dad’s murderer was caught and punished—then he’d go back to Dallas and resume his life there.
“Look, Maddie, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need you to fix my breakfast or hold my hand or listen to me pour out my heart and soul.”
Maddie broke four eggs into the mixing bowl, added a little milk, then glanced over her shoulder while she beat the eggs into a light, fluffy concoction. “Start the coffee, will you? And hand me some bread to pop into the toaster.” She took down a skillet from the rack over the stove, sliced off a large dollop of butter, dumped it into the skillet and placed the skillet on the stove. “So, are you going to tell me what happened at the police station?”
Dylan glared at her. Hadn’t the woman heard a word he’d said? He’d all but told her that he didn’t want her here, that he didn’t need her. But of course that wasn’t really true. He might not need her, but he sure as hell wanted her to stay. But you can’t count on her, he reminded himself. He couldn’t count on anybody except himself. If he’d learned anything in life, he had learned that lesson the hard way.
“Are you surprised they didn’t throw me in jail?” he asked, his voice tinged with sarcasm.
She poured the whipped eggs into the skillet. “The police have no evidence against you, so there’s no reason for them to have arrested you.”
Dylan spooned ground coffee from the can into the filter, then added water and turned on the coffeemaker. “They have absolutely no idea who killed my dad. I’m the only one who seems to have been at odds with the judge, so they’re going to check me out thoroughly. I just hate to see them wasting time that way, when they need to be figuring out who had a reason to murder my father.”
When Dylan removed a loaf of bread from the bread box on the counter, Maddie turned the heat down on the skillet, then took the bread from him and placed four slices in the toaster.
“Do you suspect anyone?” she asked. “I don’t suppose Judge Bridges told you he had an enemy who might want to do him harm, did he?”
Dylan shook his head. “What are you doing, Maddie, trying to play amateur detective?”
“Just thinking out loud.”
“Well, I’ve been back in Mission Creek only four days, so I don’t know everything that was going on in Dad’s life, but I do know that something was bothering him. He ate antacids like they were candy and every time the phone rang, he tensed.”
“Did you ask him why—”
“I asked. He said it was nothing for me to worry about. Now, I’m wondering if he’d really picked up a virus of some sort and didn’t feel up to going to the Mystery Gala last night or if he backed out for a different reason.”
“Like what?” The toast popped up. Maddie buttered the slices and placed them on a plate, then spooned the eggs on to two waiting plates. “Judge Bridges had a reputation for being as honest as the day is long, so he wouldn’t have been involved in anything illegal. What does that leave?”
“It leaves him knowing about something illegal going on and he was about to blow the whistle. Somebody could have killed him to stop him from exposing them.”
Maddie carried the plates to the table, then added silverware. “That scenario makes sense to me. And surely the police will look into all the criminal cases that were on the judge’s docket.”
Dylan poured their coffee and set two steaming mugs beside their plates. “If they do it right, they’ll consider every possibility.” He pulled out a chair, sat and looked at the scrambled eggs. “Smells good.” He tasted them. “So you can cook.”
“Told you I could.” Maddie joined him at the table. “So, what do you think some other possibilities might be?”
“Maybe somebody was blackmailing Dad, or it’s possible he was in possession of information someone wanted. And it could be that a criminal he put away got out and came after him. Considering Dad’s line of work, the possibilities are endless.”
“Were you aware that you father was the defense attorney in a very high profile case some years ago?” Maddie sipped on her coffee.
“Afraid not. Unless it hit the front pages in Dallas, I wouldn’t have known about it. So, who was involved?”
“Haley Mercado drowned in a boating accident.” Maddie played with her eggs, scooting them around on the plate with her fork.
“Mercado? I remember a Ricky Mercado. Came from a suspected mob
family.”
“Haley was the younger sister. She went partying with some local heroes from the 14th Marines and somehow ended up drowning. Her body was found and identified and her family brought charges against Luke Callaghan, Flynt Carson, Spence Harrison and Tyler Murdoch.”
“Hmm. Rich, powerful families involved, huh?”
“Your father defended them and got them off. Rumor was that the Mercado family and Haley’s former fiancé were less than pleased.”
“But that was a few years ago?” Dylan asked.
Maddie nodded as she munched on a slice of buttered toast.
“If it was revenge, why wait that long?” Dylan rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn! I feel like such a bastard. Here my father is dead, killed by some unknown person, and you know more about what’s been going on in his life these past seventeen years than I do—his own son.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over what can’t be changed. Concentrate on the fact that you and your father had reconciled, that you at least had these past few days together.”
“Yeah, four lousy days.” Dylan scooted back his chair, stood and walked toward the door. “If I’d swallowed my pride and come home a few years ago—hell, a few months ago—maybe I could have done something to have prevented this. Maybe my father would have trusted me enough to have confided in me.”
Maddie got up and walked over to where Dylan gazed through the glass panes in the back door, then placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure that eventually he would have told you what was bothering him. He probably didn’t want to ruin your first few days together.”
Dylan shrugged off Maddie’s hand, opened the door and walked out onto the back porch. The quiet hum of early morning, a few hours before dawn, whispered softly in the darkness. Maddie followed him outside, where, her hand linked with his, they stood on the porch and gazed up at the night sky. They were silent and unmoving. Dylan could hear only their steady breathing.
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