Going Home (Nugget Romance 1)

by Stacy Finz

  Nate wore an ear-to-ear grin.

  “What?”

  “No wonder Prince Silver Spoon didn’t want you working for Wellmont Hotel Enterprises. You’d make him look bad and you’re a pain in the ass.” He got down from the counter. “Okay, run with it. But don’t go nuts.”

  On Monday, Maddy and Rhys’s moving trucks arrived at exactly the same time.

  A Mayflower truck and a United Van Lines rig sat next to each other at the top of Shep’s driveway like antsy racehorses at the starting gate. Maddy motioned to her driver to come down first, simulating an air traffic controller with her arms.

  “Hold on a second, guys,” Rhys called up, and turned to her. “Come on, Maddy. Don’t make me late for my first day of work.”

  Her eyes moved down to the gun holstered on his hip and the blinding silver badge on his belt. “What? Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny.” He smiled, showing these adorable creases, not quite dimples, in his cheeks that she hadn’t noticed at their first meeting. “In case you didn’t know, I’m Nugget’s new police chief.”

  “Well, I’m paying by the hour.” She put her hands on her hips, in a move she hoped would say, I’m no pushover. No, the new and improved Maddy didn’t let good-looking men manipulate her. Not like Dave had. Fool me once, shame on me . . . No way in hell would there be a twice.

  He took off his aviators and began cleaning them on his shirt, and sweet mother of Jesus he had some seriously sculpted abs. Unlike Maddy, it was a good bet he hadn’t taken three turns in the buffet line at the Atlantis Casino Resort in Reno, where she’d stayed overnight for a last bit of luxury. It was the closest big city, about fifty minutes away.

  And now that she could see his eyes, they were hazel, more green than brown. She must’ve been in a coma that first time she’d met him to have missed so many fine details.

  “Thought your husband’s a Hilton?” He propped himself against the porch, his dire need to get to work on time suddenly out the window.

  “He makes money because he doesn’t throw it away,” she said. Actually Dave was born into it, but Rhys Shepard didn’t need to know that. Maddy had always been the thrifty one.

  “Breyer?” He scratched his chin. “Don’t remember seeing any Breyer Hotels.”

  He was fishing for information and she knew it. Nosey parker. “That’s because it’s my maiden name.”

  “Aw, come on, sugar,” Rhys said in that lazy Texas drawl Maddy suspected he only trotted out on special occasions. “Let me go first and I’ll pay for your added expense.”

  “So, we’re back to sugar again, huh?” She shook her head. The man sure thought he was some kind of sweet-talker. “Oh, all right. Go ahead.”

  Maddy started to walk off, but just so he’d know she wasn’t a complete soft touch, called over her shoulder, “I’m subtracting the extra from the rent.”

  “Thank you,” Rhys called back.

  “Whatever.” She was only doing it because his father had Alzheimer’s.

  She decided to get a start on the cleaning while she waited for Rhys and his movers to unload their truck. Balancing a box of supplies in one hand and her purse in the other, she pushed the door of her apartment open with her foot and set out to make the place sparkle. An hour later, she wandered outside for some fresh air to find two burly guys loading one ugly-ass plaid couch into Rhys’s moving truck.

  She looked over at Rhys, who was standing on the porch having an animated conversation with his father. Hmm, it looked like they were going at it, she thought as she tried not to be too obvious about watching them. But he caught her out of the corner of his eye.

  “Okay. Your turn.” He motioned at the moving van that was leaving.

  “Well, it’s about time.”

  He jogged down the steps and chucked her on the chin. “Thanks again for being a sport.”

  Ten minutes later he had reached the top of the driveway, zooming away behind the wheel of a pickup. She looked back at the porch and Mr. Shepard was gone. He must’ve gone inside the house, because Maddy didn’t see him leave.

  For much of the morning she moved around furniture, unpacked boxes, hung up pictures, and set up her small kitchen. Not much of a cook, Maddy brought only the essentials. She walked through the three-room house to admire her handiwork and thought the place didn’t look half bad.

  She’d taken most of the pool house and sunroom furniture from her and Dave’s place. They were bright and cheery. Most of the pieces in the main house were dark, ornate Wellmont heirlooms Dave’s mother Brooke had insisted on. They’d made Maddy feel like she was living in a museum.

  The restoration of the three-story house had been her full-time job for the last four years. Brooke had loved the idea, more than likely relieved that it kept Maddy home and out of Wellmont Hotel Enterprises.

  Her mother-in-law never let Maddy forget that the Wellmonts owned hotels, while the Breyers just managed them.

  The day after she and Dave had announced their engagement, Brooke had taken her to the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus for lunch to celebrate. At least that’s what Maddy had thought. But before her salad Niçoise ever made it to the table, Brooke whipped a thirty-eight-page prenup out of her Birkin bag and shoved it in Maddy’s face.

  “If it’s my son you love and not his money, you’ll sign this.”

  Stunned, she’d sat there with the pen dangling from her hand. Summoning all her courage, she’d simply said, “No.” Then she got up and walked out of the restaurant, past the St. John Resort collection, down the escalator, around the La Mer counter, and out the glass revolving doors. While falling in love with Dave, she’d never stopped to consider the implications of his wealth. The Breyers might’ve been rich, but compared to the Wellmonts . . .

  With tears blurring her eyes, she’d called Dave from the street on her cell phone.

  “I’ll fix this, Maddy,” he’d told her. “When you’re my wife, everything I own is yours.”

  That night he’d come to her studio apartment above Lupe’s Taqueria on Valencia and they’d sat on the floor, eating dumplings out of Chinese takeout cartons. Like he’d promised, he’d fixed it, in effect telling Brooke to shove the prenup up her liposuctioned ass.

  “I threatened we’d leave San Francisco, work for your parents, or open our own chain of hotels,” he’d told Maddy, and her heart had soared.

  The next morning, after Dave had left for work, Maddy put on her best suit, hailed a cab to the Financial District, took the elevator to the fifth floor of Wellmont Hotel Enterprises, and signed it. She’d signed the prenup as a testament to her love for Dave.

  What a colossal idiot she’d been.

  The only money she had on her own was a $200,000 inheritance from her grandmother, which she’d plunked down on the Lumber Baron. Although the amount paled in comparison to Nate’s stake, it would’ve been enough to live off of for several years until she could rebuild her career. Her brother insisted that she draw a small salary until they got the inn up and running.

  She wandered onto the porch, thinking that a few pots of flowers and a nice Adirondack chair might warm up the entry when she smelled smoke and something like melting rubber, or plastic. It reminded her of Wisconsin and their neighbor who used to burn his garbage in the backyard—it drove her mother nuts.

  She followed the noxious smell to the other side of the duplex where it seemed to be coming from inside the apartment. When no one answered her knock, she let herself in.

  Shep, wearing a pair of bib overalls without a shirt, was flailing his spindly, bare arms in the middle of the room, holding a Bic lighter in one hand and a blanket in the other. Next to him, a stack of moving boxes filled with sports equipment smoldered. He stared at the pile, a little smile playing on his lips, as if hoping for the molten rubber to turn into a blazing beach bonfire.

  So far, the embers were contained to the pile of cartons, but if the boxes went up so would the floors, taking the whole house with it. Visions
of the surrounding forest bursting into an inferno catapulted Maddy into action. She looked over at Shep, who continued to watch the nascent blaze with unconcealed joy.

  Definitely no help in that corner.

  She ripped the quilt from his grasp and used it in an effort to smother the burning boxes. “Stay calm,” she told herself, grabbing the phone off a little mail table near the door and dialing 9-1-1. The operator remained on the line, coolly giving her instructions until backup arrived. She dashed into the kitchen, found a mop bucket, filled it with water, and dumped it on the smoky pile like the operator told her. When that appeared to have doused any residual hot spots, she gingerly lifted the blanket to make sure. No burning embers, at least none she could see.

  Just a big mess.

  She hung up the phone and turned her gaze on Shep.

  His bushy gray brows shot up as he looked her over. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Maddy Breyer.” When he glared at her puzzled, she said, “your new tenant,” and reached for the lighter. He pulled the Bic away and shoved it in his bib pocket. “Mr. Shepard, you could’ve burned the whole house down.”

  “Would’ve served the boy right,” he muttered.

  “Mr. Shepard, are you okay?” Dumb question. Of course he wasn’t okay, the man had Alzheimer’s.

  “He took my damn car keys.”

  “What do you need the keys for?”

  “You daft, woman? That lughead’s trying to starve me.”

  “I won’t let you go hungry. If you want, I could go to the store right now and get groceries,” she volunteered, but wondered how prudent it would be to leave him alone.

  “Why does everyone think I’m a damned invalid?”

  “Would you like me to take you to the market, Mr. Shepard? Then you could do your own shopping.”

  “What I want is for you to get the hell out of my house.”

  Before he could toss her, a couple of brawny firemen barreled through the door.

  “Uh . . . I think we have everything under control now,” she said, embarrassed that in the heat of the moment she might’ve overreacted.

  One of the firemen pulled what was left of the boxes apart. Looked like Rhys’s tennis shoes were toast. His basketball hadn’t fared too well, either. Shep, outgunned, stomped off into his bedroom and slammed the door.

  “How’d it happen?” one of the firefighters asked as he sifted through the cartons.

  Rhys saved her from having to answer. He came tearing through the house, stopped in front of the carnage and frowned. He and the firefighters huddled together, talking, while Maddy sat on a leather sofa that was wrapped in moving plastic. The same plastic covered the mattress and box spring that leaned against the wall. This was the first opportunity she’d had to look around the room. Except for the charred remains of Rhys’s worldly possessions and the stacks of moving boxes, it was identical to her place.

  A few minutes later, the firemen left and Rhys just stood over the destruction, running his hands through his hair. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry about your stuff. How’d you hear?”

  “The 9-1-1 call.”

  Duh—police chief. “I probably should’ve just handled it on my own, but I panicked. Hope I didn’t scare you to death,” she said. “Your dad was upset about you taking his car keys. I think the fire was an act of protest.”

  Somehow she got the impression that he’d already surmised that.

  “Would you mind waiting here a sec?” Rhys asked.

  Before she could say “sure,” he marched into Shep’s room.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” She heard him say through the wall.

  “Who do you think you are, boy, ruling over me like you’re king? You’re trying to dominate me.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, you could’ve set the whole town on fire . . . hurt that nice woman next door . . . All because you’re pissed at me over those stupid keys? God, you’re a selfish bastard.”

  There was a loud thump and Maddy considered rushing into the room and breaking up whatever was going on in there. Rhys’s next words to his father stopped her.

  “You listen and you listen good. You pull another stunt like this and I’ll put you in a stinking home. It’s your choice, old man, because I really don’t give a shit. Now give me the goddamn lighter and go apologize to Mrs. Breyer.”

  Shep emerged from his room, tufts of his white hair sticking up on his head, and marched up to Maddy like a petulant child. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t bother to look her in the eye when he said it. Just turned on his heels and disappeared behind the door.

  Rhys rubbed his hands down his eyes. “He would’ve put the fire out before it got out of control. He was just trying to teach me a lesson—that’s the kind of shit he pulls. Look, I’ve gotta get back. You sure you’re okay?”

  Maddy nodded.

  “If there are any more problems . . . Hell, just hit him over the head with a frying pan.”

  Maddy followed him out the door. “He’s sick, Rhys.”

  Rhys kept walking, but gave a short laugh. “Nope. That right there’s Stan Shepard in all his coherent glory. He’s a real son of a bitch.”

  By the time Rhys got home that evening, the debris from the fire had been cleared away. His bed had been set up at the far end of the room, away from the front door, and made with fresh linens. His clothes had been folded and stored in his dresser drawers. The leather sofa now sat at an angle that separated the room into two spaces—living and sleeping. And a few of his books had been arranged on the coffee table he’d moved here from Houston.

  It looked nice.

  He checked on his father, who lay in a lump in the middle of the bed. Rhys suspected him of playing possum and gave him a nudge. “Who set up my things?”

  “That buttinsky from next door,” Shep grunted, and rolled onto his stomach.

  Rhys left the room. The last thing he needed was another confrontation. After today’s histrionics, he’d made a few phone calls about getting someone part-time to sit with Shep. His doctor had assured Rhys that even a responsible teenager could do it.

  “What you need right now is someone who is warm, patient, caring, and responsible,” she’d said. “Not someone with a wall full of certificates. When it gets to that point, Shep’ll have to go into a long-term care facility.”

  The problem was finding someone reliable in this small town. He had a couple of leads. Hopefully something would pan out by the end of the week. In the meantime, he’d have to make sure to hide all the matches and lighters.

  He walked to the kitchen and found a takeout box from the Ponderosa in the refrigerator. Someone had set the table with a place mat, napkin, and silverware—more compliments of Maddy, he presumed—and heated the meat loaf and mashed potatoes in the microwave. When the bell dinged, he grabbed a beer and ate.

  He’d spent most of his day—at least until the 9-1-1 call came over the radio—organizing the office, a nondescript building on the square that had been left vacant after Duff retired. He’d posted positions for five officers and a dispatcher on an online law-enforcement job board. A few people he vaguely remembered from the past had popped in to say hello. He suspected they were curious to see how Stan Shepard’s son had turned out.

  After cleaning up the kitchen, Rhys started to take the few steps over to Maddy’s place to thank her. He walked out onto the back porch and stopped to take in the scent of pine mingled with crisp, clean, cold air. Stars filled the inky sky. He couldn’t remember ever having seen so many—at least not in Houston. Even the lights from town, twinkling like Christmas, made him take in a breath.

  It had to be forty or fifty degrees out. In Boy Scouts he’d learned to measure the temperature by counting how many times a cricket chirped in fourteen seconds and adding that to forty. Although the method stopped being accurate at temperatures lower than fifty-five degrees, he tried to calculate anyway. But instead of hearing cricket song, he heard something like crying. And
it was coming from Maddy’s apartment.

  His first impulse was to turn tail, go back inside the house and pretend like he hadn’t heard anything. But he remembered the apathetic Mrs. Brown and let guilt get the better of him. With his fist poised to knock on her door, her trembling voice came through the apartment.

  “You tell me that you’ve been in love with her our entire marriage, yet you don’t want me to leave you? What am I supposed to do, Dave? Wait patiently while you choose which woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

  Ah—so Hotel Boy’s a cheating asshole, Rhys thought as he shamelessly eavesdropped. That answered why she was here and Dave, dickless heir to the Wellmont hotel dynasty, wasn’t. Yeah, he’d Googled them both at work today.

  Someone ought to kick the guy’s ass.

  “Did you want me to find those emails?” Maddy asked Dave, somehow pulling the words from her throat without falling apart.

  Two months ago, when she’d accidentally stumbled upon the emails, Maddy had sat there transfixed, reading them over and over again, trying to convince herself that she had somehow misconstrued their meaning. And then it all started to come together like a gut-churning montage—the inappropriate attention Dave lavished on Gabby during family gatherings, their bizarrely intimate telephone conversations, and the inexplicable gloominess that always came over Dave at the end of a weekend spent with Gabriella and Max.

  “I’m thinking you did it because you’re a coward and couldn’t tell me the truth,” she said, with a challenge. “You know—accidentally on-purpose.”

  The other end of the line went silent.

  Maddy wished they weren’t doing this on the phone. But Dave was in Paris for the foreseeable future, brokering the acquisition of a French chain of luxury inns. So they’d been rehashing the same argument long distance.

  “Of course not, Maddy,” he finally said.

  She could visualize him running his fingers through his sun-streaked hair in that harried way he did when something was bothering him. How could she hate him with every fiber in her body and love him at the same time?