now, after her childishness, he kept to the high road.
“I’m not saying you are obligated to check in. You don’t have to go to the ranch at all, but you need to at least own up to the reason why you’re currently not making any appearances there.” His expression softened. “You’re avoiding Mom and you know it.”
Madi did know it but she didn’t dare admit it. Thankfully, she didn’t have to find a way to avoid the truth he was pointing out to her a moment longer. Like she knew his moods, she had to concede that he knew hers. Des took his cue to leave with grace. He walked around the table, gave her a kiss on the forehead and smiled. Then on went the Stetson.
“I really am proud of what you’ve done here, Madi. So are Mom and the others. Give them a chance to prove it to you.”
Madi watched him leave without another word.
In the small town of Overlook, Tennessee, there were no hotels or motels. If you wanted a place to lay your head, then you’d have to leave town limits to get it. The Hidden Hills Inn was Overlook’s quick and easy option for tourists who’d rather not bust their budgets by trying to rent one of the few cabins deeper in the forest and near the mountains. Or at the Wild Iris Retreat.
There was that flare of guilt again.
Her family owned the retreat. One Madi had left to open her own version of a hotel.
They’re different, she reminded herself. The retreat was for guests seeking an authentic experience of living on a ranch and staying on the land. Hidden Hills was just a cozy, less expensive place to spend a night or two. I’m not stealing anyone from Mom! They have more business than I do!
Someone cleared their throat behind her. Madi jumped clear out of her seat.
“Whoa there!” Julian had his hands out as if he could steady her despite the distance between them. “Sorry! I thought you heard me.”
Madi put her palm against her chest and gave him an embarrassed smile.
“No worries. I was just stuck in my own head.” She motioned to the road that Des had just driven away on. “My brother has a habit of making me think too hard.”
Julian took the joke with a good laugh and what almost looked like a dose of relief. Though maybe that was a touch of wishful thinking on Madi’s part. There was no denying Julian Mercer was a handsome man. His hair was as black as night and cropped close, neat. His eyes were dark, too, but held a softness to them as they moved to hers. While he was a tall, obviously muscled man, the sharp angles of his nose and jaw were an elegant kind of ruggedness. Madi placed his age around her own and noted on reflex that his ring finger was very much bare.
“Family has a funny way of doing that, don’t they?”
Madi nodded. Heat surprised her by moving up to her cheeks beneath the man’s dark gaze. It inspired an offer she didn’t have time to think about before saying.
“Would you like to join me, Mr. Mercer?” She waved to the table behind her; the lemonade pitcher on its surface had more than enough for two more glasses left in it. “Unless you would prefer to be alone, which is absolutely fine.”
The man’s smile only stretched.
“You can call me Julian,” he said, moving around her to the other chair. Its dainty size made him look even more rugged and muscled. Still, there was a softness to his eyes. One that, despite herself, intrigued Madi.
“And you can call me Madi. Madeline was my grandmother.”
Julian nodded and watched politely as she flipped a cup right side up from the serving tray and filled it. He chuckled before taking a drink.
“What’s so funny?”
“My friend just told me I need to learn how to enjoy myself more. One thing he suggested?” He tipped his glass toward her. “Buy a lady a drink. I was wondering if this counts?”
The heat in her face started to travel south, propelled by the glint in his eye. Madi knew it was probably just her imagination and yet...
“I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t.”
Julian’s eyebrow arched but his smile stayed.
“I can work with that.”
They lapsed into a pleasant conversation. It stretched into a walk along one of the trails. Then that became dinner. A proper drink came after.
Madi was too wrapped up in the unexpected great time to notice that the figure out in the woods that night wasn’t just a shadow between the trees. It was a man.
Watching.
Waiting.
Six months later, Madi was standing on the back porch, trying really hard to convince herself that she wasn’t thinking about Julian Mercer. There wasn’t time, and even if there were, she had already gone down that particular road so much that her tires were absolutely bare. Her metaphorical tires. Her real tires were in fine condition and attached to the van she hadn’t wanted, but needed, to buy.
She replaced the mental image of smiling Julian Mercer with one of her behind the wheel, gunning in the direction of Loraine Wilson. She knew it wasn’t polite, but it made her smile to imagine wiping the smug look off that wealthy woman’s face.
Madi knew a murderous rampage was taking her irritation too far, but she could blame it on her hormones.
Being pregnant, in the Tennessee summer heat no less, had stretched her patience and politeness thin.
“How are you doing it?”
Jenna Diggins—Hidden Hills’ chef, bartender and occasional cleaner—nodded toward the stone pathway that led from the backyard and forked between the rental cabin and a small nature trail. Loraine, one of three guests currently booked at Hidden Hills, was pacing across it, immersed in her phone conversation.
“How am I doing what?” Madi asked, feigning innocence. Jenna wasn’t just the only other employee—she had been Madi’s friend for a decade.
Jenna giggled. She bumped her shoulder against Madi’s.
“How are you destroying Mrs. Pearls and Coiffed Hair?”
Madi swatted at the woman but didn’t deny anything.
“Destroying seems like such a harsh word. What I’m doing is simply giving her a love bump with my new mom van.” She paused, then grinned. “Over and over again.”
Jenna laughed and handed her a bottle of water from her backpack. Madi took it, grateful.
Summer in Tennessee was just about Madi’s favorite time. Every tree and flower was teeming with life; every stream, creek and river was asking for companionship; and the skies stayed a shade of blue that had a way of making Madi appreciate life all the way down in her bones.
Or at least that had been her feeling about the sunny season before she’d been pregnant.
Now the sun made her already-hot body hotter, the trees and flowers stood by as the mosquitoes and bugs dive-bombed her every chance they got, and the blue of the sky was a reminder that she wasn’t the same woman she had been the year before. Just like she wouldn’t be the same woman next year, either.
The water was the only part of summer that Madi remained fond of, which was why she was getting ready to show the guests to the creek in the nearby forest that stretched across the property line. Madi had grown up taking advantage of the creeks and ponds and rivers to cool off. Not even Loraine’s passive-aggressive comments could derail her plans to enjoy herself today.
Someone cleared their throat behind them. Heat instantly flooded Madi’s cheeks. Ray Cutler, the