A Second Chance at Love: A Hometown Hero Series Novel (16 page)

“Jesus,” he dragged his hands roughly through his hair.

“The day you made love to me, then told me you wished you loved anyone but me,” she said quietly.

“Maddie,” he groaned desperately, staring it in complete horror. “Oh, Maddie.” He put a hand on her knee, and she violently pulled away from him.

“Don’t.” Then, when she spun around to face him, and lifted her glasses up, he saw the full force of her wild emotional state. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

He felt numb all over. The problem they faced just got a whole lot bigger. He thought of the baby, and grimaced. “What are you going to do?’

“Do?” She turned back to the ocean, trying desperately to bring her emotions under control. “What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

“You can’t have this baby, Madeline.”

Her head spun, as though she’d just been slapped. “What?”

“No. Absolutely not. You need to get rid of it. Now. Or as soon as it can be humanly arranged.”

She was shocked out of her own emotions to stare at him in complete confusion. Her hands instinctively went to her mid-section. “How can you say that?” Her face was torn apart by hurt. “Is the thought of me having your baby so terrible to you?”

“No!” He got up so that he could kneel before her. When he put his hands on her knees now, she didn’t pull away. “The thought of losing you is, though. It’s the worst thing I can imagine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen it. I held Sal while she died in my arms. I held her while the blood drained from her body. I love Ivy, with all my heart, but I can’t go through this again.”

Madeline hated him. She wanted to, anyway. But she loved him more. She clutched her hands together to stop herself from physically comforting him. “You said it yourself. What happened to Sally was rare. There’s no reason to think it’s going to happen to me.”

“I’m not prepared to take that risk.”

“It’s not your decision,” she said, finally, wriggling away from him and standing. As she moved off the bench, her sweater lifted, and he caught the briefest glimpse of her skin beneath the over-sized top.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “You’re pregnant.”

“Yes.” She glared at him angrily. “And I hate you for thinking I would get rid of this baby.”

He nodded. The certainty that he was making everything even worse clawed at him. “That was wrong of me. It was my first reaction. It’s just… if anything happened to you, I would never recover.”

She hardened her heart. She had to end this cycle they were in. There was no happy ending for them. They weren’t capable of it. “Our child will be well provided for,” she said coldly. “And you have parenting experience. If anything happens to me, you’ll cope.”

“Madeline,” he said thickly, grabbing for her hand and pulling her back to him. “I love you. Please wait.”

“No.” She squeezed her eyes shut. The tears that were never far away anymore were cloying at her throat. “I can’t look at you. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Harrison.”

“Then don’t let it be. Make it easy. Marry me.”

Her laugh was loaded with anger. “No.”

“Not because of the baby.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet pouch. He upended her palm and tipped the contents into it. She looked down, and gasped, at the beautiful ring. It was not the one he’d proposed with eight years earlier. This was a perfect circlet of diamonds, dainty but spectacular. She shook her head and passed it back to him.

“I brought this ring here, looking for you. Before I even knew about the baby. Madeline, I have been so wrong about us. About you. About everything. And I need to start making it right. Right now.”

She swallowed. It was what she had desperately longed to hear, but weeks too late. What had changed his mind? Why now? She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes were accusing. “You know about Diana.”

He looked out to the swirling waters and then focussed his gaze back on her face. “Yes.”

Madeline took a step backwards. “How?”

“Diana told me.”

Madeline groaned softly. “I asked her not to do that.”

“Why? Even now, why did you do that?”

“Because I knew you’d feel compelled to turn her in. That it would put you in an impossible situation.”

He nodded. “Yes. It did, but not for that reason. The impossible situation I find myself in is wanting to shout at you for being so dense, at the same time that I know I can’t bear to fight with you anymore.” He let out an expletive and closed the distance between them. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the time?’

“You know why,” she said quietly.

“It’s fixed, Madeline. Or, at least, it will be. These things take time, but my mother will not be going to prison. She won’t even be charged with a felony. Wyoming PD is looking at her for a misdemeanour. She won’t even have to go to court.”

Madeline reached for something to hold onto, and connected with his arms. Relief, crushing and vital slammed into her. “Oh, Harrison. I’m so pleased. For Diana. She deserves to know that the whole thing is behind her.”

“Yes.”

“How did you do that?”

“I put a little pressure on my father,” he shook his head. “Complete jerk, but at least his self-serving desire to keep out of the tabloids made him extremely obliging, in this instance.”

“I was beginning to lose hope. Diana gave me the contract he’d had her sign, but there was nothing in it that would help her. And I so badly wanted to help her.”

“I know. And if I’d known about this eight years ago, I would have been able to help fix it then. You should have been honest with me.
She
should have been honest with me. When I think of what we lost, because you both wanted to protect a secret like that… A secret that could be fixed….” He risked reaching up and running his hand through her hair. The unspoken regret swarmed between them. Eight years had been lost, and for nothing.

She sucked in a deep breath. It tasted of the salty sea and heartbreak. For eight years had passed, and they were different people now. She had to stay strong. “I’ll let you know when my first appointment is booked. In case you’d like to come.”

“Madeline, stop.” He said firmly, surprised that in the midst of the most important conversation of his life, he managed to sound authoritative.

“Why? We’ve done this so many times. I can’t go through life with you always needing someone else to explain my actions to you. My actions… are… I mean… Nothing should matter except how we feel. That I love you should be all you need to know.”

He shrugged. “Yes. You love me. But you loved me then, and you left me.”

“Yeah. I left you to save your mother. To save your career. Because I didn’t want you to end up hating me for my father’s actions.”

“I know that now. But all I had, at the time, was the certainty that you’d very quickly moved on to greener pastures.”

He put his hands under her elbows, holding her close enough to him that he could see the flecks of color in her ice blue eyes. “Madeline, I never stopped loving you. I am ashamed of how I’ve treated you, since you came back. My only excuse, and I know it’s not a great one, is that I’ve been driven completely crazy by how you make me feel.” He shook his head. “That’s not right. Let me start again. Whenever I’m with you, I just want to fall to your feet and beg you to never leave me again. I don’t have any pride with you. I just have love. And that scares me. It terrifies me. Especially because you seem to be able to flick a switch and walk away.”

Her expression was forlorn. “I walked away, but I never flicked a switch.”

“I know.” He ran a finger over her cheek, and then slowly, lowered himself to the ground. He kept his hands on hers. “Madeline May, I should have come after you eight years ago. I should have never let you go. I should have welcomed you back without questions or recriminations, when you came home. I have hurt you and I don’t deserve you, but I need you. I love you, and I know you love me. And finally I get it. You’re right. That’s all that matters.”

She stared down at him, her heart and head at war over the best course of action.

“Please,” he smiled his lopsided smile, and her heart burst through her mind with a resounding thud.

She nodded wordlessly, her smile shining with true happiness for the first time in years.

He let out a cry of relief and slipped the ring on to her finger. He spun her around, in a moment just slightly more perfect than when he’d proposed to her eight years earlier.

“This time, I am marrying you as fast as the judge can arrange it.”

She nodded. “Sounds perfect.” She searched and found his mouth, kissing him deeply and desperately, her arms wrapping around his neck. “Let’s not lose any more time.”

He grinned against her lips, and he would have sworn that his feet barely touched the ground. He linked his fingers through hers and pulled her gently down the seaside path.

“Where are we going?” She asked happily, not much caring what their destination was.

“Home.” He turned to face her, his brows lifted. “And then, after I’ve spent all afternoon showing you just how sorry I am, we’re going to go and break the news to Diana and Ivy.”

She grinned. “That sounds… perfect.”

And it was. Their wedding, intended to be a small affair, turned into a who’s who of America’s elite, capped by the attendance of the president himself. Ivy was the flower girl, and Dean walked Madeline down the aisle. And for all that the wedding became an event far grander than either Madeline or Harrison had imagined, it was beautiful, and the truth of their love shone through in every detail of the day.

They were meant to be together, and even the harshest obstacles they’d faced had not kept them apart. Theirs was a love that would be everlasting.

EPILOGUE

“That’s it, Ives. Just hold his neck, huh?”

Ivy slid her hand further under her saggy little brother’s neck. “He’s so floppy,” she giggled, staring down at his perfect face. Pale skin, bright blue eyes, and a crop of fair hair, baby Brodie Samson was the spitting image of his mother.

“He is, yes.” Madeline reclined against the bed, wincing in pain. Harrison stepped up, immediately, his expression concerned.

“Harrison, I had an emergency c-section. You can’t freak out every time I’m uncomfortable. The doctor said it would take weeks for a full recovery.”

He forced himself to relax, but it was so obviously for Madeline’s benefit, that she laughed.

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Jeez, daddy. It’s like you don’t think Maddie’s tough enough to handle it.”

“Sorry, girls. You’re right, of course.” He put a hand on Madeline’s and squeezed it tight.

“He’s just worried because of mom,” Ivy explained unnecessarily.

Madeline nodded thoughtfully. “I know.”

Harrison focussed his attention on their son, and his heart seemed to shift up a gear. Two beautiful children, and the wife of his dreams. Hell, he’d gone through a lot, but his life was just loaded with freaking rainbows and fairy dust now. He felt like the luckiest man on earth.

Madeline stared at Brodie, and Ivy, and felt her heart contract with a kind of vulnerable love that she hadn’t known possible. Entirely different for how her love for Harrison laid her raw, this was an utterly jaw-dropping kind of dependency. Ivy, dear Ivy, was her adoptive daughter in name only, for Madeline had long since thought of her as her own flesh and blood.

But seeing her with Brodie in her slender arms made Madeline’s heart break for all that Sally had missed. And the last little secret she’d held in her heart rattled loose.

“Ivy, did you know that I met your mom once?”

Harrison, beside her, but out of her line of sight, stiffened.

Ivy frowned. “Huh? How? When?”

Madeline flicked her eyes towards Harrison, then looked back at Ivy. “When she was pregnant. I came back to Whitegate to, um, to talk to your dad.” Her cheeks colored, and she skipped over the timeline. “But I stopped off at the diner first for, um, dinner.”
Dutch courage.
“Your mom was a waitress. She would have been about four months pregnant. With you.”

Ivy was very quiet, her face wrapt.

“Ivy, your mom was so excited about you. She loved you so much. You’d just started kicking around inside of her, and she let me touch her stomach, and feel you flip your beautiful legs into her belly.” Madeline put an arm out and Ivy, still carefully holding baby Brodie, came to snuggle her step-mother. “I’m sorry she’s not here with you, honey. She would be so proud of the girl you’ve grown into.” Tears stung Madeline’s eyes and she blinked them away. “Do you know what else?” She whispered, changing her voice to sound light hearted.

“What?”

“When your mom laughed, which seemed to be a lot, her smile spread across her face from ear to ear. Just like yours. You’re so like her, Ivy.”

Harrison squeezed Madeline’s shoulder, barely able to contain his line of thought until they were alone. But finally, after Diana had visited, and then Arielle, Madeline and Harrison were left in the big hospital room.

“Maddie?”

“Mmm?” She murmured, her eyes heavy. The painkillers she’d just taken were already making her long for sleep.