Afterward, Tara cleared her throat and told Chloe everything, every painful detail. It was no easier for Maddie to hear the second time, but there were cleansing tears and a group hug.
“Wow,” Chloe kept saying. “Wow.”
“Okay, we’re going to need a new adjective,” Tara said. “That one’s getting old.”
“Well something finally makes sense to me,” Chloe said. “Mom asking me when I was going to give her more grandkids. I never understood that.”
“You were in regular touch with Mom?” Maddie asked.
“Well, yeah. I was her soft spot, I think. You know, because I’m so sweet and adorable.” Her mouth quirked, but she looked a little shy about it. “I called her. I did it every week or so, just to check in from wherever I was. It seemed to mean something to her.”
“And it meant something to you,” Tara said softly.
“It did.” Chloe nudged Tara. “And from what she told me, you were a lot like me before you grew up and got old and snooty-you were reckless and wild.”
“Hey, I’m only eight years older than you. Not old.” She sighed. “But yeah, I was. Your point?”
“Well, that there’s hope for me, of course.” Chloe shrugged. “It tells me that someday I can get myself together as well as you have.”
“You think I have it together?” Tara asked in disbelief. “I had a baby when I was little more than a baby myself and gave her up. I have a failed marriage and a job I hate, and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs.”
Chloe laughed. “Well, when you put it like that…” She turned to Maddie. “Maybe I should covet your life instead.”
“You might want to wait until I get it together first.”
“Oh, jeez, you still holding back on the sexiest mayor in Whoville?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Let’s see… He only saved the resort when Phoebe needed a loan, then as much as promised us a refinance even though at least one of the three of us is incredibly financially unstable. He did the morally right thing and protected Tara’s secret and proved himself trustworthy over and over again. What a self-serving bastard. Do you think we can drag him to the middle of the town square and stone him?”
Maddie sighed, then went still as a shiver of awareness shot up her spine. When she looked up, Jax was coming toward them in his usual long-legged, easy stride.
“Now’s probably not a good time,” Chloe said to him when he got within hearing distance. “I haven’t quite finished talking you up.”
Maddie shot Chloe a dirty look and, in doing so, realized the entire café had gone silent.
Everyone was listening.
“I was just listing all of your positive attributes,” Chloe told him. “Leaving out the parts where you didn’t tell her shit and kept yourself from her, of course. That was your bad.”
Jax never took his eyes off Maddie. “Okay, first, I never kept myself from you. Maybe I didn’t tell you enough about who I used to be, but Christ, Maddie, I hated that guy. And I guess I was hoping the man I am now would be enough for you.”
“Aw.” Chloe’s head whipped back to Maddie. “Did you hear that?”
Maddie’s heart swelled painfully, pressing against her ribs. “I’m right here, Chloe.”
“Sounds like a reasonable request to me,” a guy from two tables over said. Maddie recognized him because he worked at the gas station. “And I can vouch for Jax being a good person. He gave my sister a loan when the bank wouldn’t. She’d have lost her business and her house otherwise.”
“And he did our house addition,” a woman called out. “And when my husband lost his job, Jax accepted small, irregular payments. He didn’t have to do that.”
“Jesus,” Jax muttered, hands on hips, eyes closed.
“And he donated new flak vests for the entire PD,” Sawyer said, having just come inside.
“That was supposed to be an anonymous donation, you jackass.”
“It looked to me like you were sinking fast. Thought I’d toss that in.”
Shaking his head, Jax grabbed Maddie’s hand and pulled her out of the booth and toward the door, moving so fast she had to run to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
“To talk without the entire fucking town throwing in their two cents.”
He opened the café door, and they ran smack into a man wearing a rain slicker and carrying a clipboard with the name of a national insurance company on the front. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for the owners of the Lucky Harbor Resort.”
“That’s me,” Maddie said, very aware of Jax at her back, protective. Steady. “Give me a minute?” she asked the insurance guy, and at his nod, she pulled Jax aside. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We have to have this meeting before any of us can leave town.”
“Leave?”
“Yeah.” She met his gaze, her chest so tight she could scarcely get the words out. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Tara and Chloe are planning on doing now. We have no place to live, and they’ve been wanting to get back to their lives for weeks now.”
“And you?”
“It’s majority rules.”
“Bullshit.” He shook his head and said it again. “You came here a fighter, Maddie. Maybe you’d lost a round or two, but you were on your feet. You want to stay in Lucky Harbor? Fight for it. You want a relationship with your sisters? Fight for it.”
“What about you? What about a relationship with you?”
He pulled back to look into her face as if memorizing her features. His voice, when he spoke, was low and gravelly with emotion. “I’m already yours. Always have been. All you have to do is step into the ring.”
Chapter 26
“My motto was always: never chase after person,
place, or thing, because something better will
come along. Turns out I was wrong.”
PHOEBE TRAEGER
The insurance adjuster slipped out of his rain slicker and introduced himself as Benny Ramos. He was tall and lanky lean, wearing cowboy boots, a matching hat, and Wranglers that threatened to slide right off his skinny hips. It was impossible to tell if he was barely twenty-one or just really good with a razor.
Jax had led both Maddie and Benny back to their table. Jax gave Maddie a quiet, assessing look that she had no idea how to read and then left.
Her head was spinning. He’d given everything he had, and he wanted the same from her. He wanted her to fight for what she wanted.
Made sense. Made a lot of sense. It’s what any good, strong leading lady would do.
“So,” Benny said. “The cottage is a total loss.”
“No duh,” Chloe said. “Now tell us something we don’t know.”
“The fire department believes the fire originated with a set of old faulty Christmas lights that were strung…” He consulted his clipboard. “On a dead plant of some sort in the living room.”
Tara snorted.
Maddie closed her eyes. Poor Charlie Brown Christmas tree, may you rest in peace…
“Anyway,” the adjuster went on. “The inn isn’t as bad as it looks. The bedrooms upstairs need a complete renovation, new carpeting, walls and bathroom replacement. New roof. But the downstairs is all cosmetic and can be cleaned. You’re in decent shape there.”
They were in decent shape. Good to know.
Step into the ring.
Jax thought she was a fighter. That hadn’t always been anywhere close to true. She’d let life happen to her. She’d gone with the flow.
She hated the flow. The flow was working like a dog at a go-nowhere job, trying to please too many people who didn’t care. She was done with going with the flow. She wanted to be a fighter. “Excuse me,” she said to Benny. “But the downstairs is water damaged, so we’re not in ‘decent’ shape there. We expect proper compensation.”