Heart and Sole (11 page)

“Well, everything looks really yummy. I’d love to try the face mask and what else would you recommend?” If she couldn’t save May’s husband’s job, she could at least buy out all her products. Just like Maddie.

“Everything is organic. My favorite is the lemon verbena soap. Here, smell a sample. The strawberry is really good too.”

“I don’t know, Nick. Which do you like?” Maddie picked up the samples and waved them under Nick’s nose.

“Here, Sweetheart. Let’s get both.” Before she could protest, he’d pulled out his wallet and bought both kinds, plus matching shampoo, conditioner, and body lotion. He hugged May good-bye and even patted her little boy on the head.

As if buying body care products would scrub away any guilt he might feel from whatever happened to these people’s jobs once he took charge. He reminded himself the company was in big trouble long before he bought his shares. But wasn’t he responsible in some big way now that he controlled its fate?

“You didn’t have to buy all that,” Maddie said as they steered their way into the food vendor aisle.

“Organic berry products are my weakness,” he said. “All that shopping gave me an appetite. You hungry?”

“I’m always hungry for barbecue.”

They approached a vending truck where meat was being smoked and slow cooked over an open flame.

“Hey, Clay,” Maddie said as they approached the truck. A well-built man in a muscle shirt and with a large tattoo on his arm left the food truck and ran outside, immediately lifting her up and swinging her around.

Whoa
. Talk about an overly exuberant welcome from Muscle Man.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming this weekend. I had to hear it from my grandma talking to your grandma,” he said.

“It was a last-minute decision.”

“Well, I know you’ve got what it takes to get that shoe company up and running.”

The guy was still touching her and making moon eyes, and Nick didn’t like it one bit.

“Nick, you remember Clayton Wilbanks?” Maddie asked. “He attended cooking school in New York, and now he’s head chef at The Lodge.”

Nick shook his old classmate’s hand. The Lodge was the best restaurant in town, set up on a hill with a beautiful view of Lake Watchacatchee. “Heard your place is doing very well. Congratulations.”

“Talk about town is you’re doing pretty well yourself. You’re here to troubleshoot what’s going on at Kingston Shoes?”

“Yes.” That was the story they’d agreed on telling. Funny that now it just happened to be true.

“I wouldn’t want you poking your nose anywhere it doesn’t belong, though.”

Nick stiffened at his sudden change in tone. “Maddie invited me here, Clay.”

“I’m sure she did, because Maddie is a kind and trusting person. But she’s been through enough. Especially with bad men who masquerade as do-gooders.”

“Clay, please,” Maddie said. “I can take care of myself.”

Nick pointed to the grill as he gave Clay the stink-eye. “Maybe you’d better pay attention because I think you’re burning your barbecue.”

Clay, startled, went to check his meat. Then he got back in Nick’s face. “You don’t strike me as a do-gooder, either, from what I’ve been reading about you. Different woman and a different company take-over every week.”

“Clay!” Maddie looked horrified.

Clay telegraphed a look at Maddie that was half loyalty and half desperation. Man, he had it bad. Nick actually felt sorry for him.

“I can’t help it,” Clay said. “I can’t sit by and allow you to think this guy finally has your best interests at heart. He certainly didn’t when he left you high and dry in high school.”

“He does have our best interests at heart. He’s trying to help us find solutions.” Maddie sounded sincere. Guilt hammered at Nick’s conscience. He
wanted
it to be true. If only he could find a way to pull this company out of the trenches and find a way to help his grandfather, too. But the odds of making both families happy were about one in a zillion.

“My father’s worked for Kingston Shoes for twenty-eight years.” Clay gestured with his grill fork into the distance. “And I can point to at least ten other families in shouting distance who can say the same. All I know is, Mr. Holter, you’d better not make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m not going to lie, Clay. The company is in trouble, but I promised Maddie my best assessment.”

Clay finally prepared their barbecue and they took it to a far picnic table, out of sight of Clay’s truck. Nick sat and stole a sip of Maddie’s fresh-squeezed lemonade just as he’d done countless times before. “Sir Gallahad was ready to plant me a facer. Hope that was really hot sauce he put on my sandwich and not arsenic.”

Maddie laughed. “Clay’s just looking out for me.”

Nick didn’t reach for his food, even though he’d recently quipped that the sweet, melt-in-your-mouth barbecue was probably the only thing he missed about this place.

“He married?”

Maddie took a bite of her sandwich. “No.”

“Dating someone?”

Maddie frowned.

“He’s got his sights fixed on you, Maddie.”

“You’re wrong. He’s been a good friend since you and I broke up in high school.”

“Well, I know a look in a man’s eye and let me tell you, he wants to date you. Bad.”

“Are you
jealous
?” She’d said it to be funny but—wait—had she really? He
was
acting jealous. And this whole weird afternoon was feeling a lot like the thing he’d wanted to avoid the most: a date. The easy camaraderie, the jokes, the strolling along, the reminiscing…

Nick stared into Maddie’s summer blue eyes. Would she still want to hear the word
yes
after all these years? How could he still want to say it?

“Damn right I am.” Nick watched Maddie’s sweet face blush. What was he doing?
Shit
. He’d totally lost sight of his goal of friendship, so he backpedaled. “I mean, who wouldn’t be jealous of someone who makes barbecue as good as this?”

The expectant look fell into a heavy frown.

Even after all these years, he was still an expert at pushing her away.

That stupid answer would have been enough to shut the old Maddie down.

Instead, she set down her barbecue, wiped the napkin carefully over her mouth. “That answer’s not good enough. I want to know the straight truth. Are you jealous of Clay?”

The food churned in Nick’s stomach. Despite the fun they’d been having, it was best to put up the same mask as always to hide his real feelings. He set down his own sandwich, took off his sunglasses, and sighed, preparing to toss out another sarcastic quip. He looked into her eyes, so resolute, so demanding of the simple truth.

The quip melted on his lips. “You’re damn right I’m jealous.” Her expression turned to shock, but she couldn’t have been more surprised than he was. He’d be damned if he’d sit here and allow her to end up with Clayton Wilbanks, the guy who followed her around like a puppy dog in high school. He wasn’t the man she needed any more than the rodeo guy was.
Not at all.

The hell with being friends. That had lasted all of an hour and he was tired of denying the truth. At that moment, he didn’t care about the impossibility of being able to save her company and satisfy his grandfather at the same time. “It’s not over, Maddie. It’s still not over between us. We need to talk.”

Chapter Eleven

Nick stood and walked around to her side of the picnic table. He pulled Maddie up, his strong hands gripping her at the elbows. She had to place her hand against his rock solid chest to prevent herself from bumping into him.

Their gazes caught and held. “I thought we were just going to be friends,” she said, a little out of breath.

He eyed her hungrily. “Not working for me. Let’s go somewhere where we can discuss this.”

She’d barely said okay when a high-pitched woman’s voice sounded behind them.

“Madison Kingston, you aren’t still dressing mannequins at Macy’s, are you?”

Oh, God, no
. Not Ashby Wilkerson, socialite of Buckleberry Bend, former bitch extraordinaire. The girl Nick dated after he’d broken up with Maddie after prom.

Be nice
, an inner voice warned.
Maybe she’s changed
.

Yeah, right. And the rocks at Stonehenge recently moved.

“Well, hello, Ashby. How nice to see you again.” Maddie dragged her gaze away from Nick. Her jaw ached from the wide, stiff smile she forced.

“Hello, Madison. Nicholas.” Ashby’s gaze lingered on Nick, taking a long, slow look from his muscular legs to his narrow waist and his broad chest, up to the chiseled features of his face.

Alarm bells rang inside Maddie’s head. It was just her sense of a predator nearby, one with a long, mean history, but surely all that was in the past?

Nick made polite conversation. Maddie couldn’t read his expression from behind the dark glasses he’d put back on. Ashby still looked as peaches-and-cream beautiful as always, from her sun-streaked blond hair and lovely aqua eyes to her floral-patterned silk dress, high heels, and pearls, probably the same set she’d gotten for her Sweet Sixteen. She looked like she was on the way to afternoon tea with the girls, circa 1962.

Ashby had been chasing after Nick for as long as memories had been recorded on paper. Ever since that dance when Nick had chosen Maddie over her, the woman had tried everything in her power to wreak havoc on their relationship. And she’d finally succeeded after Nick broke up with Maddie. Of course, she’d ended up marrying the high school quarterback, but they’d recently divorced, which probably explained why she was on the prowl.

Mrs. Gorsky beckoned to Nick from the pie tent, and he took his leave. As soon as he was out of earshot, Ashby took the opportunity to show her true personality. “So, Madison, did the dummy dressing job in Philly not work out, dear?”

“I reckon it was just a tad too complex for the likes of little ol’ me.” Maddie fanned herself by flapping her hands near her face, distressed-Southern-belle fashion.

“Or maybe you’re looking to marry another jobless cowboy?”

Maddie gasped. No, she would not succumb to immature, irrational behavior. Just because Ashby made every single hair on her body stand up on end and riled every fight-or-flight instinct she had—in the direction of
fight
.

Maddie strained to think of an insult, but she came up empty. Ashby lived in a two hundred-year-old antebellum mansion stuffed full of antiques and her grandma’s fancy bone china, and sat on the board of every women’s group in town. She had beauty, brains, and popularity, so there wasn’t much to insult except her bone-deep meanness.

Maddie could cut deep and bring up her divorce, but she’d never punch someone where it really hurt. Well, unless her life was threatened. Did stealing Nick, who wasn’t even hers anymore, count as a life threat?

Ashby geared up to take another cheap shot. “You’d much rather come home and muck up your daddy’s company, now, wouldn’t you? God help the good citizens of Buckleberry Bend.”

Maddie breathed deeply. She was in control. She was mature and calm, and she would prove she had better defenses than in high school. “That’s what I’m trying to do, Ashby. Help all those good citizens keep their jobs. Now, why don’t you go taste a pie or something?”

“Actually, I’m in charge of organizing the pie booth for Ophelia, and I came to explain the judging to Nick.”

Ashby walked off to the pie tent, but a Category Five hurricane could not stop Maddie from following. When Nick met with the other judges, Maddie stood behind him looking at the spread of beautiful pies set out and catalogued on cloth-covered rectangular tables. Ashby pointed out her own two pies, strawberry and blueberry, then went to direct the pie ladies, mostly her posse from high school who still followed in her shadow. On the way, she whispered in Maddie’s ear, “I want you to stay away from Nick.”

Really? Did she think they were still in high school? “I think Nick can make his own choices, Ashby.”
And so can I.

“I slept with him on prom night, you know. After he broke up with you.”

Maddie closed her eyes. Funny how Ashby could insult her poor romantic choices, her previous bad jobs, and her choice to come back and run her father’s company without raising her basest impulses. But one mention of Nick, and Maddie wanted to wrestle, cat fight, and yank her perfect hair.

Maddie pictured herself, the smile still pasted on her face. She was nice little Maddie Kingston, everybody’s friend. She didn’t rock the boat, and she did her best to please everybody, regardless of what that meant for her.

Well, she wasn’t going to take it anymore. Starting right now.

“Maybe you did, Ashby, but that was ancient history. Nick won’t warm your bed tonight because he’ll be in mine.” Shock and fury raged through her like a dangerous, swollen river. Nice girl Maddie had left the premises. Real Maddie had finally said something she meant.

For a moment, Maddie watched the significance of the comment dawn in Ashby’s unnaturally blue eyes. In another blink, those eyes lit with angry fire. Ashby charged at Maddie, shoving her backwards and tumbling into Nick, who had been leaning over examining the pies.

Maddie tried in vain to keep her balance, but the shove was vicious. She bounced off Nick’s back and tumbled to the ground. Within seconds, two of the older judges, Mr. Floyd Prescott and Mr. Hollis Jones, had reached down in their immaculate summer suits to help her up.

Maddie immediately wished she’d stayed down. She stared in horror at the pie table. Each of Nick’s hands had landed in a pie. His gray shirt was splattered with crust and whipped cream and berries. Even worse, his face was completely covered. The pie ladies and the other judges rushed to help, trying to right the remaining pies while keeping Nick from dripping berry juice all over the table.

At one time Maddie might have done something as impulsive as push Ashby back. But now she took a step away. When she looked at Ashby, she was holding a pie. Actually, she was a second away from launching it.

“Just put down the pie and walk away, and we’ll let bygones be bygones.” Maddie felt like she should be wearing a police uniform and holding a stun gun instead of contemplating arming herself with pies.

Ashby tossed her a defiant look and cranked up the pie.

“Let’s just talk like civilized—”

Too late. Ashby tossed the pie, a direct hit to Maddie’s face. The pie splattered all over—her hair, her clothes, blinding her and covering her nose so she couldn’t breathe.

This was war.

Maddie scooped enough pie off her face so she could see. “Okay, I guess we’re past talking.”

Something devilish came over her, that feeling of pure kicking-someone’s-butt that she hadn’t felt since she was nine and Derrick ambushed her Barbies with his GI Joes and held them for ransom money. Maddie picked up a certain pie from the table. One of Ashby’s. It hovered in Maddie’s hands like a Frisbee. Clearing both her pie eyes for good aim, she let it rip.

Fluffs of whipped cream spread everywhere, in Ashby’s perfect hair and all over her designer sundress. Ashby froze, open-mouthed, in a state of shock. “How dare you? You little
whore
.”

Nick placed himself in front of Maddie, sheltering her from any further airborne pies. “What exactly is going on here?”

Maddie lost all pretense of dignity as the words burst out. “She said you slept with her right after we broke up. Is that true?”

Nick glanced from one woman to another. “Ashby, give it up. I didn’t sleep with you then, and I sure as hell am not going to now.”

Ashby’s jaw dropped open.
Better shut it so you don’t let the flies in
, Grandmeel would say. The three of them stared at one another. Ashby’s girlfriends who were helping man the pie booth flocked to her side.

“Nick,” Maddie said. At the sound of her voice, he turned slowly, no doubt not wanting to leave his flank unguarded from new attacks.

“What is it?”

“Say that again.” Tears clouded her eyes. She blinked hard and swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“Say what again?” He fully faced her now.

“The part about not sleeping with her.”

“Maddie, I never slept with her.”

“But after prom, you broke up with me. You dated
her
.”

“We went out a couple of times. That was it.”

All the hurt and betrayal she’d felt at eighteen came rushing back. “You crushed me.”

No matter what he said, Maddie realized that she’d just stood up for her brokenhearted eighteen-year-old-self in a way she’d never had the courage to before. And that made her feel positively giddy.

The pie ladies were scrambling to the messed-up table, running and exclaiming and gesturing with their arms. Nick pulled Maddie out of the commotion, raked his fingers through the mess in his hair. “I knew I had to leave this town if I was ever going to make something of myself. I thought that if I dated Ashby, you wouldn’t try to get back together. I wanted a fast simple break. So I cut the ties, quick and clean. Only it wasn’t simple. Because here we are ten years later, and I still can’t get you off my mind.”

Maddie stared at him, tried to take in the truth of what he’d said. “You felt I would drag you down, stop you from accomplishing your goals? I was too small town for you?”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I figured I didn’t deserve you, a squeaky clean girl from the rich part of town, with your family telling you I was trailer trash.”

“I never thought of you like that.”

“I’m sorry, Maddie.” He looked deep into her eyes and straight through to her soul. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Shock and surprise mingled like all the tangy flavors of that pie.

He scooped a chunk of pie off her forehead and then licked his finger. A slow, wide smile spread on his face that weakened her knees and made her forget all about spiteful people and their pies.

“Madison Marie Kingston, your mama’s pie is disqualified.” Ashby’s pronouncement echoed from the microphone and jarred Maddie out of her trance.

Insulting her was one thing, but her mother…Maddie stalked forward a few steps until she felt an arm catch at her elbow.

She resisted Nick’s restraint. “This is the twentieth year my mom’s entered this contest. I can’t let it be my fault she’s disqualified.”

“Maddie,” Nick said gently, “if you two get into it again, there’s not going to be any pie tent, let alone contest.”

She allowed him to steer her away, if only because his revelations buzzed relentlessly in her ears.
I didn’t sleep with her. I didn’t deserve you. I’m sorry.

They stood in the back alley between the tents and the vendors where traffic was limited only to the fair workers. Nick held her tightly by both arms. “Maddie, listen to me. Look at me.”

It was so hard with pie in her eyes and dripping off her hair. Nick’s touch was firm but soothing at the same time. In any other circumstance, the contrast between all the deep red and white distraction covering his face and his determined expression would have made her burst out laughing.

“Let it go. Charging back in there will only make you look bad.” His voice was calm, soft, and oh, so comforting, she wanted to wrap herself in it and hold tight.

Maddie shook her head vigorously. “I already look bad. No one in this town thinks I can run the company. Everyone thinks I’m a total screw-up.”

“I don’t.” He shook her hard. “Look, when you’re in the public eye, you get scandalized. People try to slam you. You have to be above it all. You have to have faith in yourself. That’s what will get conveyed to other people. Not the slanderous words of someone out to get you.”

Maddie smacked her head, only to have berry filling drop from her hair. “I ruined my mom’s chances at the blue ribbon.”

He laughed. The sound was as warm as his touch. “Yes, you did. But she’d be the first to tell you it was worth it to see the look on Ashby’s face when you smashed that pie into it.”

Suddenly Maddie laughed, too, not so much at Ashby but at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. So hard she snorted and doubled over, holding her stomach.

With one swift tug, Nick pulled her against him and covered her pie-smeared mouth with his. Lips met past layers of strawberry pie filling. Maddie’s arms wrapped around his neck, his hands gripped her waist and stroked the soft, sensitive skin there. The hot, sweet taste of him mixed with the tart sweetness of the berries and all she could think was that she wanted more of him, all of him, right here and right now.

He drew back and licked a speck of whipped cream off his lip.

“What was that for?” she gasped, struggling to recover from the kiss.

“Just letting you know your pie face is a lot cuter than Ashby’s.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” A goofy grin shone beneath the pie. “Hands down.”

“Madison, what on earth has happened here? Ashby threw a pie?” Mrs. Gorsky was standing next to them in back of the tent. She’d surely seen them kissing. Even the feathers on top of her hat appeared to chide.

Under the encrusted pie, Maddie felt her cheeks go warm. She glanced into the tent. Ashby was waving her arms, clearly upset. “Oh, Mrs. Gorsky. I’m so sorry. She did, but then I threw one of hers right back at her.”

“Did you say it was one of
her
pies you used?”

“Yes, ma’am. It was unkind. I—”

“She shouldn’t be entering the competition anyway since I put her in charge. But that is about to change right now. I think you should leave before this situation gets even more out of hand.” Mrs. Gorsky’s words sounded firm, but she patted Maddie gently on the arm.